ears
back meeting an Irish situation; the men who faced the Indian risings,
and, worse, the subduing of the wilderness. For them it would have been
equal rights and privileges and chances, or the bottom of the sea for
one of the countries. But we are poetic and religious, and murderous
only when a Cromwell or a Castlereagh opens hell for us. However, the
past is nothing; it is the present which galls us. The gilding of the
gold and the painting of the lily are symbols of our present sufferings.
After stripping and roasting us at home, this England, this hell-witch
sends abroad into all countries her lies and slanders about us. Her
spies, her professors, her gospellers, her agents, her sympathizers
everywhere, can tell you by the yard of our natural inferiority to the
Chinese. Was it not an American bishop who protested in behalf of the
Chinese of San Francisco that they were more desirable immigrants than
the sodden Irish? God! this clean, patient, laborious race, whose
chastity is notorious, whose Christianity has withstood the desertion of
Christ----"

Honora gave a half scream at the blasphemy, but at once controlled
herself.

"I take that back, child--it was only madness," Ledwith said. "You see,
Dillon, how scarred my soul is with this sorrow. But the bishop and the
Chinese! Not a word against that unfortunate people, whose miseries are
greater even than ours, and spring from the same sources. At least
_they_ are not lied about, and a bishop, forsooth! can compare them,
pagans in thought and act and habit though they be, with the most moral
and religious people in the world, to his own shame. It is the English
lie working. The Irish are inferior, and of a low, groveling, filthy
nature; they are buried both in ignorance and superstition; their
ignorance can be seen in their hatred of British rule, and their refusal
to accept the British religion; wherever they go in the wide world, they
reduce the average of decency and intelligence and virtue; for twenty
years these lies have been sung in the ears of the nations, until only
the enemies of England have a welcome for us. Behold our position in
this country. Just tolerated. No place open to us except that of
cleaning the sewers. Every soul of us compelled to fight, as Birmingham
did the other day, for a career, and to fight against men like
Livingstone, who should be our friends. And in the hearts of the common
people a hatred for us, a disgust, even a horror, not i