is nearly forty years since I first made his
acquaintance, and the years that have passed have only increased my
regard for him.

I had the pleasure of welcoming in the columns of the "Catholic Times,"
which was then under my direction, the first number of the "Irish
World." I could feel at once that the paper and the man who edited it
had for me a congenial ring about them. I am deeply indebted for the
kindly and generous interest which Patrick Ford has so long personally
and in the columns of the "Irish World" shewn in the success of my Irish
publications, and I am delighted to have the opportunity of joining in
the tribute paid to him by Michael Davitt.

CHAPTER XVI.

MICHAEL DAVITT'S RETURN FROM PENAL SERVITUDE--PARNELL AND THE "ADVANCED"
ORGANISATION.

In the year following the Liverpool Home Rule Convention of 1877, I had
the pleasure of welcoming back to freedom my old friend, Michael Davitt,
after he had been in penal servitude close upon eight years. He had been
released, along with other Fenian prisoners, and, with Corporal
Chambers, came on April 28th, 1878, to a gathering we organised and held
in the Adelphi Theatre, Liverpool, for the benefit of the liberated men,
John O'Connor Power being the lecturer for the occasion, and Dr. Commins
our chairman.

Michael Davitt, on rising to speak, was received with a terrific
outburst of cheering, again and again repeated.

I was sitting immediately behind him on the platform, and I noticed,
while he was speaking, a constant nervous twitching of his hand, which
he held behind his back, and he was evidently in a state of
highly-strung excitement. I was not surprised when we had that day a
painful proof of how the prison treatment had undermined his
constitution. After the gathering we brought the released prisoners and
the principal speakers to be entertained at the house of Patrick Byrne,
a warm-hearted, patriotic Irishman, and were much alarmed when Davitt
fell into a deep faint, from which he only recovered through the
ministrations of one of our most respected Liverpool Nationalists, Dr.
Bligh, who fortunately was present. For a few moments it seemed as if he
never would revive.

There is no doubt but that their treatment during their long term of
penal servitude seriously affected the health of several of the Irish
political prisoners. It was only three months previous to his visit to
us in Liverpool that Davitt reached Dublin, with three others o