The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE Published every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday Morning.
Tuesday, December 16, 1890. THE PARNELL SCANDAL.
Be just and fear not; Let ail the ends thou aim’st at be thy country’s, Thy God’s, and truth’s.
Under other circumstances the subsequent proceedings in connection with Parnell scandal would be of a very humorous nature —to all but the participants. The high old sport of throwing chairs and such missiles at one another’s heads, of making il pie ” of the printers’ formes, and generally wrecking the interior of opposition newspaper offices, is a merry, if not quite an original, way of doing things. The old bolster fights in the boarding schools have no comparison with this exciting fun, and the inclination of those who know their own skins to be safe would naturally be to rise in their seats and vigorously applaud the combatants. Ah, the pity is that so it cannot be treated, and week after week we must put up with some further humiliation — learn of some new disgrace that has been cast on the cause of Ireland. Parnell should have at once retired, and all this trouble would have been .avoided : the sin of one man would not have produced chaos in the country. From the course which things have now taken it is not hard to foresee that the national cause must be greatly damaged; but the ferocity which characterises the disputants may the sooner settle matters. Mr Davitt’s taunt of “ Whose mistress is Kitty O’kShea ?” should never have been made, but it served to bring a ridiculous rejoinder which puts Parnell in quite a new light. For an adulterer to call himself a gentleman and the ; adulteress a lady is indeed pitiable • and this addressed to Irish people, whose country is the most rigid adherent in the world to the sanctity of marital relations. To them Parnell’s sin is among the very worst of sins, and the clergy have already spoken on the matter in a way that leaves no chance of their being mistaken. Parnell has now made a further mistake which will for ever alienate the English Liberals from any party of which he may be a controHing spirit. Hot-headed Conservatives have said some rough things about. Mr Gladstone, but not one of them that we can remember has ever made so bad an accusation as that made by Mr Parnell, when he described Mr Gladstone as M a grand old spider catching
Irish flies.” Other telegrams say that Mr Parnell eulogised Mr Gladstone, and the most charitable construction that can be placed on the violent denunciation, is that Mr Parnell must have been intoxiated at the time. The newspaper u United Ireland,” over which there has been so much trouble, is usually edited by Mr O’Brien,, who has always been regarded as a much more violent agitator than Mr Parnell, and the paper has ever been very uncompromising .in its tone. Air O’Brien is now with Mr Dillon, both of whom failed to answer a charge of incitement, after bail had been allowed them. Mr Dillon and he have stated they cannot consent to follow the lead of a man proved guilty of the sin for which Mr Parnell has been condemned.
Instances might be given of other leaders who have given way to temptation the same as Mr Parnell and yet have been allowed to retain control for the sake of the cause itself. In the future Parnell might have been forgiven by the virtuous people of Ireland, but up to the present every step he has taken has helped to wreck the Irish cause, whereas if he had at once resigned only the individuals would have suffered—and they deservedly. Ireland can produce any amount of good leaders, in politics as in warfare, and might easily make its choice in the present painful trouble, to.sacrifice the individual who has not considered his country’s good, or to uphold the individual at the great cost of the country.
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Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume IV, Issue 545, 16 December 1890, Page 2
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668The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE Published every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday Morning. Tuesday, December 16, 1890. THE PARNELL SCANDAL. Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume IV, Issue 545, 16 December 1890, Page 2
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