, a man
called Stephens being the person who came most prominently before the
world in the capacity of Head centre. In 1865 Stephens was arrested in
Dublin, but managed to escape not long afterwards from Richmond prison
by the aid of two confederates within its walls. The following May,
1866, a small body of Fenians crossed the Niagara river, but the United
States authorities rigidly enforced the neutrality of the American
frontier, and so the attempt perished. The same spring a rising broke
out in Ireland, but it also was stamped with failure from its onset, and
the famous snowstorm of that year finished the discomfiture of its
adherents.

Two other Fenian demonstrations, not to mention an abortive project to
seize Chester Castle, were shortly afterwards made in England. In 1867,
some Fenian prisoners were rescued in Manchester, while on their way to
gaol, and in the attempt to burst the lock of the van in which they were
being conveyed a police officer named Brett, who was in charge of it,
was accidentally shot. Five men were found guilty for this offence. One
Macquire was proved to have been arrested by mistake, another Conder had
the sentence commuted, but three--Allen, Larkin, and O'Brien--were hung.

Another Fenian exploit of a somewhat different character followed in
December, 1867, when an attempt was made by some desperados belonging to
the party to blow up the Clerkenwell House of Detention, in which two
Fenian prisoners were then confined. Luckily for them, as it turned out,
they were not in that part of the prison at the time, or the result of
their would-be liberators' efforts would have simply been to kill them.
As it was, twelve other people were either killed on the spot or died
from its effects, and over a hundred were more or less badly wounded.
For this crime six persons were put upon their trial, but only one was
convicted and actually executed.

The next Irish event of any moment stands upon a curiously different
platform, though there were not wanting suggestions that the two had an
indirect connection as cause and effect. In 1868 the Liberal party came
into power after the General Election with Mr. Gladstone as Prime
Minister, and the session of 1869 saw the introduction of a Bill for the
Disestablishment of the Irish Church. The controversies to which that
measure gave rise are already quite out of date, and there is no need
therefore to revive them. Few measures so vehemently opposed have
pro