Halpins of Wicklow, etc. - Part 4

[Shanachai]

Part Two.

"To Robert Jones Garden, Esq. - We the Inhabitants of the town and county of Wicklow beg to present to Robert Jones Garden, Esq., our marked and sincere thanks for his great kindness and liberality in the munificent gift of a New Lifeboat, Lifeboat Carriage, Boathouse, and all the necessary Gear complete, given gratuitously by him to the Wicklow station, under the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, and we trust that this station so amply and efficiently supplied may be active and efficacious whenever opportunity occurs in carrying out the noble, humane, and praiseworthy objects of this valuable Institution of which it is a branch.''

Signed on behalf of the Inhabitants of the Town and County of Wicklow.  [Here follow the Signatures.]

And now I will add that although we have accepted this noble gift here today, I trust, but I fear I may trust in vain, that no shipwrecked sailor may be cast on our shore, and I trust, and I believe that the generous hearts of the people of Wicklow, of her sailor population, will come to the rescue on such occasions, and deliver our drowning fellow creatures from the deep (cheers).  I am sure now, for I will not detain you longer, that you will give three times three most hearty cheers when this beautiful boat is placed in her proper element (loud cheers).  Mr. Rooke will now read the answer which Mr. Garden has sent on this occasion (cheers). 

The Rev. Henry Rooke, Hon. Sec., then read the following reply from Mr. Garden.

London, 4th September, 1866.  Dear Sir, I have to acknowledge the receipt of your very kind letter of 29th ultimo, informing me of the intention to present me personally with an address at the launch of my late father's Lifeboat.  I regret exceedingly being unable to attend upon so, to me, interesting an occasion, but to write the honest truth, it is one on which feelings of intense pain rather than of pleasure would predominate.  This will be readily understood when I state that it was only six days previous to the death of my father, which event was at that time quite unexpected, that I told him of my intention, should I survive him, to establish two Lifeboat stations, the one on the Westtern Coast of England in Memory of my Mother, which was effected at Budehaven, Cornwall, on the 19th June 1863, and the second in his Memory on the Eastern Coast of Ireland, in which Country my father was born, of which he was always proud, and to which he was sincerely attached.  These promises have now, I rejoice to write, by God's grace, been most effectively carried out through the active and liberal Co-operation of the Committee and Officers of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, to whom I beg to express my warmest thanks.  Most sincerely do I pray that the exertions of the Crew of the Wicklow Lifeboat, whenever their generous and voluntary services are called for, may be, by the blessing of the Lord God Almighty, crowned with success, and result in the saving of the lives of countless shipwrecked fellow-creatures.

[Shanachai]

Part Three.

In conclusion, I beg that you will convey to the Noble Earl, and Gentlemen, who have signed the Address, my grateful thanks for the Honor they have done me.  Hoping that the weather may be favourable for the launch, I remain, Dear Sir, yours most truly, Robert Jones Garden. 

Admiral expressed his sorrow that Mr. Garden was unable to be present to thank them for the kind manner in which they received his noble gift.  A sailor himself, he knew well the dangers which sailors incurred in the exercise of their profession.  He knew well also that upon these occasions no man thought of his own life, but did his utmost to save the lives of others, regardless of consequences to himself (hear, hear).  He saw present a good number of blue jackets, and he had no doubt that they as well as the fine fellows who composed the crew of the boat, would do their utmost, whenever the occasion arose to sustain the reputation of Robert Theophilus Garden (applause).

Captain Robertson on behalf of the National Lifeboat Institution returned thanks for the manner in which the Boat had been received by those present.  It was the second time he had the pleasure of being present at the launch of a Lifeboat presented by Mr. Garden.  He also returned thanks on the part of the Lifeboat Institution, for the noble and philanthropic manner in which he had come forward with so valuable a gift.  He was not surprised at the large gathering there today, because he had seen a great deal of Irishmen not only in Ireland but in different parts of the globe, and he ever found that when anything noble was to be done the heart of an Irishman would prompt him to the duty (hear, hear).  On every part of the coast of Ireland noble and brave men were to be found who were ever ready to risk their own lives in the endeavour to preserve the lives of their fellow creatures.

The Rev. H. Rooke then offered up an appropriate prayer.  At the conclusion of the prayer, and when everything was pronounced ready, Miss Jones to whom was assigned the distinguished honor of naming the boat then took hold of the bottle which was suspended over the stern and dashed it against the cutwater saying"God speed the Robert Theophilus Garden.''  Then amid long and hearty cheers the boat (which contained in addition to her crew of twelve men, Lord FitzWilliam, the Rev. Mr. Rooke, Captain Robertson, Colonel Atkinson and Mr. Hayden) glided beautifully off the Carriage into her native element.  (The Anna Liffey here made her appearance with a large number of excursionists, but being a little late for the proceedings).

After practicing her a while in the bay she was drawn up to her House.  The Coast Guard under the direction of Captain Barkley, then brought forward the Rocket Apparatus and fired it out to sea, showing the manner in which communication is effected with a stranded vessel.  Preparations were then made for the Boat Races.

The first race consisted of the pulling Coast Guard Boats, Wicklow, Arklow, Jack's Hole and Five-mile-point Boats.  After a spirited race the Arklow came in the winner, the second being the Wicklow boat. 

Second Race between five oared gigs.  Mr. Deceis's - Tornado.  Mr. Halpin's - Blue Jacket.  Mr. Barlow's - Rover's Bride.  After a fast and well-contested race the Tornado came in first, Blue Jacket a good second.

Third Race for Pilot skiffs.  Three started viz., the Pilot, came in first, and Daring (Mr. Conway owner), second.

Fourth Race, for Boys, rowing same boats as in third race, and coming in in the same order.  This ended the programme, and one of the most interesting and pleasing days, which has ever passed off in Wicklow, the pleasure of which was much increased by the Band of the Wicklow Rifles, who performed their part most admirably.''

[Shanachai]

In 1866, the authorities in Ireland decided to clamp down on those opposed to British rule.  Habeas corpus was suspended and hundreds of suspected Fenians were arrested.  The launching of the lifeboat ''Robert T Garden'', therefore, took place amid an atmosphere of genuine fear and anxiety.  In the face of a credible threat from Fenian conspirators, Wicklow's Protestant community had to remain united and defiant.  It had a chance to demonstrate those qualities when members of the London Missionary Society, visiting Ireland on a recruitment drive, arrived to give a series of speeches about their experiences as evangelists in the colonies.  The speech I've chosen to reproduce here has been edited, and contains a very clever maritime metaphor that must have greatly appealed to the town's Protestant inhabitants.

At seven o'clock on Monday evening, September 3rd 1866, a deputation, from the London Missionary Society, addressed an audience of Wicklow townspeople (of mixed Protestant denominations) in the Grand Jury room of the Courthouse.  Proceedings were opened by the Rev. J. W. F. Drought, M.A., who introduced the Rev. Mr. Windle of Kingstown to the assembly.

Mr. Windle began by stating that it was the first time in his life that he had ever spoken to an audience that did not belong exclusively to the Church of England.  However, as he grew older, he said, though he did not the less value his own church, he wished increasingly to love all those who loved the Lord Jesus Christ, and to give the right hand of fellowship to all, for the sake of spreading that which alone could make man happy in time, and give him freedom throughout all eternity.  When he considered the value of one soul, nay, when he remembered that there were 100 million human beings who had never heard the name of God, he prayed that he might never be so exclusive as not to say "Lord, give power to every true Missionary!"  We should remember that the nearer the staves of a wheel approached the centre, so much the nearer were they to each other.  As the staves diverged, they left each other.  So as we approach Christ, the centre of Christendom, we must come nearer to each other.  This could not be helped - "For by this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye love one another.''  Love, said Rev. Windle, was more expansive than the world.  It was more powerful than any external machinery, for love was of God and God is love, and he that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God and God in him.  Love would make them a united body against all who knew not Christ.

He asked if there were any young men there that night panting to gain laurels under the banner of Christ.  Many of their best Missionaries had sprung up from a country meeting like that in Wicklow.  ''You may say, how can so insignificant a person as I help in this great work?  Let me tell you.  Consider what small items compose the Atlantic cable, and yet being united they bring together the new and the old worlds.  So with you.  True, you are insignificant, but God condescends to use the weakly things of the world to confound the mighty.  Being united by living faith to the world to come, you have wonderful power.  You become a wrestling Jacob, a prevailing Israel.  A Prince in prayer with God.  Thus you can help.''

Now the great question which struck him was, were they personally united to the Son of God?  Were they one with him, and was he one with them?  He was not asking whether they were Presbyterians or Episcopalians, Baptists or Wesleyans.  He was asking no external questions, but an internal question - Were they or were they not at peace with God?  If not there was no connexion between them and the world to come.  They should remember how far that noble ship, the Great Eastern, had carried out the Atlantic Telegraph Cable before it became spliced with the little Cable which was run out from the American coast.  Thus God in Christ has thrown out the crown of Redemption from Heaven to us, and all that we need is to put out our hand and, touching it by faith, have union with the world to come.  Let them put their body, soul, and spirit in subjection to God, and then there would be a bond of union which time could never separate, and eternity never break.

The reverend gentleman was loudly applauded at the conclusion of his address.

[Shanachai]

After the Reverend Mr. Windel resumed his seat, another member of the London Missionary Society rose to speak to the people of Wicklow about his experiences taming the cannibals of the South Sea Islands.  Keep in mind the Fenian context in which the address is delivered, the essentially colonial condition of Ireland - at least as far as most of its Catholic inhabitants were concerned - and the understandably nervous state of many Irish Protestants at that time.  The Society's appeal for contributions was straightforward enough, but the stories the missionaries had to tell were both sympathetic and reassuring.  The subtext of what the missionaries had to say was sympathetic in this sense.  They said: "We understand what it's like to live in mortal fear among a hostile and alien population."  They also offered this reassurance: "We belong to a vast Empire that is currently on a civilizing mission throughout the world.  Despite horrific setbacks, perseverance - and the Divine Truth - have won out in the past and will continue to win out in the future.''  These messages would not have been lost on many in the audience, and while most would have rallied to the missionaries' certainties, some would have been slightly more sanguine in their reactions and sensitive to the hypocrisy at the heart of the missionaries' appeal.  Men like the Town Clerk and bookseller, Robert Wellington Halpin (1814 - 1883), for instance, a Protestant who owed his positions as Town Clerk and Harbour Board Secretary to the support of Wicklow's Catholic nationalists, and his youngest son, Edwin Francis Halpin (1855 - 1924), who would become by the 1880s a committed Socialist and a fiercely anticlerical atheist. 

By 1871, barely five years after the missionaries' visit, and in response to the failed Fenian uprising of 1867, the Church of Ireland had been disestablished and Home Rule, which held out the possibility of the endowment of a Catholic University, religious equality, denominational education and tenant's rights, seemed a distinct possibility under the Prime Ministership of William E. Gladstone.  Disestablishment would have seemed an inconceivable proposition to the audience in the Courthouse Grand Jury room on Monday, September 3 1866.  And Home Rule would have struck most as an unforgivable betrayal by Britain of her 'loyal' Irish subjects.  As it turned out, Gladstone's best efforts ultimately failed to deliver sufficient political independence to Ireland, prompting Robert Wellington Halpin's grandson William to join the Irish Citizen Army in 1913.  As a member of that army, William went on to storm Dublin Castle on Easter Monday 1916.  He would fight again during the War of Independence (1919 - 1921), and finally as a republican in the Civil War (1922 - 1923).  His motives can't be understood without an appreciation of the experiences that formed his father's worldview.

The Reverend Mr. Pritchard's address, Part 1.

Mr. Pritchard said he was very happy to have the honour of saying a few words to the assembly on the triumph of the gospel in heathen lands. ... Now, by the blessing of God, through the labours of missionaries generally, sent by the agency of the missionary societies, to Europe, America and elsewhere, one million and a quarter of the formerly degraded heathen had given up their heathen customs, and were with Christ, enjoying the privileges of the gospel as those present did in this town.  355,000 of these had given evidence of a Divine change, and there was every reason to believe, that they had become new creatures in Christ Jesus, and become united in the bonds of holy fellowship.  Was it not a happy thing to think that they could look at those heathen people, converted and changed, studying their Bible, and reading the truth of God's Word.  Such marvelous success ought to fill their hearts with joy and gratitude to that God who had vouchsafed such goodness and mercy to his servants.  They were aware, from the various papers and handbills that had been circulated amongst them in this town, that there were no less than 185 missionaries and others devoted to the cause, together with nearly 1,000 native agents labouring in connection with this one missionary society.  These servants laboured in different parts of the mission field, including Polynesia, Africa, the West Indies, India, China and Madagascar. ...

He (rev. Pritchard) had spent thirty-three years on the South-Seas islands, and the audience would allow him to direct their attention to the triumphs of the gospel in that part of the world.  Perhaps in no part of the world had the gospel triumphed more than in that between the islands of the Pacific.  A great many cannibals were there.  Where before many were blood-thirsty voracious heathen, now they had become meek and humble followers of Jesus.  When the Missionaries first arrived on those Islands the people were ignorant and superstitious.  One of the missionaries who first landed on Tahiti, was killed by the savages, and several others despaired of their lives. 

[Shanachai]

Part 2.

After the missionaries had succeeded at Tahiti, and when all promised well, Brother Williams and Mr. Harris, who had just landed, were both murdered, and shortly after poor Mr. and Mrs. Gordon met a similar fate on the same island.  To his own knowledge, no less than twelve of the missionaries had been slain by the hands of these savages to whom they had gone to introduce the Gospel.  Thus the meeting saw that those people, while in their heathen state, were very cruel. 

The rev. gentleman then entered into a graphic description of the manner, customs, superstitions, and character of the inhabitants of the Fiji Islands, which he illustrated by several amusing, but not less interesting, anecdotes.  He said that when he first knew the King of the Islands, he was a man who zealously prescribed the rites of his heathen persuasion and blood-thirsty country.  Indeed, it might be said by him that his feet were swift to shed blood.  He had feasted upon hundreds of human bodies.  It was his custom, and that of his father, to feast his visitors with human blood, which the people of the islands undertook to provide for him.  No missionaries were allowed to live where he presided.  He (Mr. Pritchard) had stood in his heathen temple, he had waited for his presence, and seen the leaves of the trees covered with human blood to be offered as a sacrifice to their heathen Gods.  The missionaries living on those islands had laboured daily in prayer for years, and at length succeeded in bringing to the heart of that man - heathen king though he was - the glorious sound of the Gospel.  He was happy to be able to tell them now that the king was a very different man to what he was when he first met him.  For a little more than eight years he had been connected with Christianity, and had given up his heathen superstitions and customs.  Thus they saw the power of the Gospel, and its almost miraculous effects in that part of the habitable globe. 

Mr. Pritchard then referred to the work of the Society in New Zealand, and illustrated by anecdotes and diagrams the habits, and peculiarities, of the natives, dwelling especially in their savage propensities and hideous thirst for human blood.  In describing the conversion of their kings (King George) of the Tonga Islands (where the Wesleyan Missionaries had zealously laboured) he observed that no sooner had the King felt the fire of the Gospels burning within his heart, than he destroyed his heathen temple and committed his idols to the flames.  Notwithstanding his high position, that man had, through the agency of missionary labour, been preaching the Gospel to his own friends.  (The rev. gentleman here exhibited one of the idols which had been worshiped by the King and his subjects in that part of the world.  It was a small figure, roughly cut in wood, representing partially the Chinese character.)  The missionaries, he continued, had by their efforts, succeeded in eradicating the heathen notions formerly held by those people, and planted in their stead the seeds of Christianity, which had sprung up under the influence of the Gospel, banishing idolatry and furnishing abundantly the vineyard of our Saviour.On that island at the present time the inhabitants, as well as the missionaries, had large places in which they assembled to worship and pray to the true God.  They had also schools for their children to educate them in the true knowledge of their Saviour, and in the good tidings of the gospel truth.  That was a most interesting island now.  A happy change had come over the people.  They were now worshiping the true God, and receiving the consolation of the Word of Life.

The speaker then referred to the successful efforts of the mission in the Sandwich Islands, especially at O-wy-hee (where the celebrated Captain Cook met his melancholy fate), and proceeded to detail the progress of Christianity in India where, he said, there were two hundred millions of mortal beings, the greater part being under British rule.  While there were two hundred millions of natives in India, it was said that there were no less than 230 million gods.  Mr. Pritchard then related the dissemination of the Gospel in India, adverted to the large numbers that had been converted, and gave an interesting imitation of the hymns and prayers of the poor Indian after his conversion, his zeal in search of - and attachment to - the Divine Word.  He also referred to the large number of schools that had been established in India, and stated that in one district alone there were no less than 800 native boys and girls attending their missionary schools. 

The rev. gentleman concluded an able, lucid and fascinating address by urging on the meeting the importance of the London Missionary Society, and exhorting them to aid it by every means in their power - by their contributions and by their prayers - to carry the Word of God to their fellow-creatures in heathen lands.

The doxology was then sung, and the benediction having been pronounced, the proceedings terminated.

- from The Wicklow Newsletter, Saturday, September 8, 1866.

[Shanachai]

Continuing with the events leading up to and including the presentation of the Lifeboat Robert T. Garden to the town of Wicklow, here are the minutes of a meeting of the Wicklow Branch of the Lifeboat Institution, held a week or so before the presentation was made:

LIFE-BOAT INSTITUTION.

A special meeting of the Committee of the Wicklow Branch of this Institution was held on Wednesday, the 29th August, at 12 o'clock in the Coastguard Watch-house.

Mr. John Hayden took the Chair.

Other Members present - Colonel Atkinson, Rev. Henry Rooke, Captain Truell, Captain Barkley, W. J. Smith, Esq., Dr. Halpin, Mr. Ralph, Mr. Watty, Mr. Wm. Gregg, Mr. E. Doolittle.

Several matters connected with the opening of the new Lifeboat House, on the 7th September, were discussed and agreed on, and the Hon. Secretary was directed to forward the final report of the building to the committee of the parent Institution in London.  Dr. Halpin proposed that the best thanks of the meeting be given to the Rev. Mr. Rooke, for his able and most interesting lecture delivered in connexion with the Lifeboat Institution on the 16th of August, in the Courthouse, Wicklow.  The resolution was seconded by Mr. Ralph and adopted by acclamation.

The Rev. Mr. Rooke briefly acknowledged the vote of thanks, expressing the pleasure it gave him at having satisfied the Committee by his efforts.  The rev. gentleman then announced that he had received the sum of £5 12s. towards the fund for defraying the expenses of the proceedings to take place at the launch of the Boat.
Mr. Ralph thought it a great pity that the parties in business in the town (who would gain considerably by the event) had not done more.
Captain Truell - What means will you adopt to collect funds?  We have only a few days before the advertisement goes forward.
Rev. Mr. Rooke - The townspeople will not refuse.
Mr. Hayden, Dr. G. Halpin, Mr. Ralph, Captain Doolittle, agreed to act as a Sub-committee to collect.
The Chairman - There is a class of people in the town who can well afford to subscribe.
At this stage of the proceedings Lt.-Colonel Atkinson, President of the Lifeboat Institution, entered the room.
Rev. Mr. Rooke - I may state that Colonel Atkinson has been using his influence for us at Kingstown.  He has succeeded in getting one of the Revenue Cutters from Kingstown, and the service of the men who are accustomed to be present at the regattas at Kingstown and elsewhere.

Dr. Halpin asked the Hon. Secretary if he had received notice when the Boat would arrive here.
The Rev. Mr. Rooke replied that he had not.  The vessel would leave London for Liverpool, and would come from Liverpool to Dublin.  They would be advised as soon as she left London, and care would be taken to have her arrive in time.  The rev. gentleman then read letters from Earl Fitzwilliam and W. W. F. Dick, Esq., M.P., and other gentlemen, stating that they would be happy to allow their names to be appended to the address to be presented to Robert Jones Gerden, Esq., for his munificent gift of the House and Boat.

Colonel Atkinson proposed that Earl Fitzwilliam and the members for the County should be written to for subscriptions for the forthcoming regatta.  The resolution passed nem con.

The proceedings then terminated, and the Committee adjourned to Friday (yesterday) morning.

[Shanachai]

Wicklow Newsletter, September 1st 1866.

Editorial

.

At the end of February 1865, the number of paupers in Irish workhouses was 63,009, and at the end of February 1866, 57,037.  Of these about 20,000 were registered as sick in each year; 17,000 more as children; and about 9,000 as disabled adults.  The ablebodied adults reckon about eleven thousand.  In the present state of the labour market no great hardship would be done in unhousing these last, and the children would be better and more cheaply provided for if put out to nurse or apprenticed in the country, while for the sick there ought to be free hospitals alongside the dispensaries.

It seems odd to force people unable to work because of sickness into a workhouse, and there can be no question that workhouse life is the very worst for children.  We would relieve the workhouses of all these people and there would only then remain to be cared for the nine thousand disabled but healthy adults.  One can hardly suppose that if for these the proverbial charity of the Irish people were properly directed, asylums where relief would be given without imprisonment would be long wanting.

As it is we put away the poor out of sight, and no matter how well they may be cared for they are degraded, dispirited, lost.  Disguise it as we may, we punish poverty as a crime.  We do not care for the poor in the true spirit of charity although we pay more than if we did.  In this regard the Jews and the Quakers put us to shame.  Although there are many Jews in London, and some of them very poor, yet none are allowed by their richer brethren to feel such want as would drive them into a workhouse, and even a poor or distressed Quaker is never heard of. 

We know that the workhouse system was not a choice of the Irish people.  It was forced upon them and they quietly bear with it.  But that is not right.  It cannot be justified upon any ground of religion or charity, and we might safely add of economy.  The fanfaronade [fanfare] of a feast at Easter, and another at Christmas, may perhaps put to rest the conscience of a Guardian or a Commissioner, but it cannot satisfy that of any reflecting man who rightly considers the question.  The hundred and forty workhouses in Ireland are so many witnesses of the national sin, and we hope before long to see them used in some better way.  The figures we have given above show how little real use there is for them.  It would therefore, we maintain, be a wise and statesmanlike act of the new Government to change the whole tenor of the Poor Law, and make it in accordance with the dictates of religion and charity, no portion of the Poor-rate would be applied to the maintenance of prisons.

[Shanachai]

Wicklow Newsletter, September 1st 1866.

Letter From USA.  Chicago, Illinois, 14th August 1866.

To The Editor Of The Wicklow Newsletter.

Sir, Permit me, through the medium of your highly-esteemed paper, to make a few plain observations relative to the land of my adoption, which may be of some practical use to those turning their attention to emigration.  There may be some whose minds are fired with an ignus fatuus* prospect in the future, fondly cherishing that spectral gleam, hoping to heap up treasures in America in an incredibly short time.  Some even, fancying 'Whittington' like, to find our streets paved with gold.  Let me tell such, they will be sadly disappointed. 

On landing in New York, the emigrant feels almost ready to despond, and his depression of spirits continues a good while.  I do not at all wonder at those persons who have bent their steps homeward in a month or two.  Every one for himself here, making money the ever-existing hobby.  Like every other country under the sun, a man's success in life, very much, if not altogether, depends on himself.  I have met with many a man here who has not a cent more than he daily requires, after spending over ten years in this country, while others have realized a fortune in the same period.  And why does this difference exist?  Simply because one spends his dollars foolishly on drink, having no desire to better his condition on the grounds of self-denial - while the other, urged on by the secret promptings of final success, lends his bravest energy to its accomplishment, by adhering faithfully to the ever memorable words, "Where there's a will there's a way.'' 

Men who have a floating capital at home, can live there comfortably, and would do well to remain; but young men who have to commence the world penniless, would do far better here than in Ireland - I mean, they would make money in a shorter time.  It is impossible for a strong, healthy young man of strictly temperate habits to spend a few years in this country without saving a considerable sum; but, of all others, any man who is delicate, or even having such a tendency, has no business across the Atlantic.  This climate would soon use him up.  There are many facilities here for getting him into business.  A person can commence on a very small capital, and receive public patronage at once - though, as far as I know, there is no Traders' Alliance formed in the United States; yet people have common sense enough to keep the floodgates of a monstrous evil closed, by every man strictly confining himself to one branch of trade, giving everyone the chance of making a living.  Our public here would gladly shun such a monster house as the far-famed establishment of Messrs. Pim, Brothers and Co., as a temperate man would ''Old Malt Liquor.''

Bye-the-bye, I wish to say to every emigrant the sooner they get right away from New York the better.  Any one of the Western cities affords wider channels for success to every adventurer.  As for the Canadas, they are very little, if any better than Ireland. 

Well, I must not forget to tell you something about the Fenians.  Whatever you may think of the madness of the undertaking, there seems to my mind to be an increasing earnestness and dogged determination stamped upon every Irish Republican brow, as their processions enliven our busy streets with the lovely, but unfortunate flag of Ireland floating proudly in freedom's breeze, hoping e'er long to wave it over every mountain, hill and dale of Erin, where now it solely floats in the regions of the mind.  They expect to make a desperate attack upon Canada in a very short time.  Vigorous efforts are being daily made.  Their many fast friends, who represent them in Congress, have given a strong impulse to the general movement.  Every leader has stamped upon his brow and countenance ''Invincible.''  I fear Andrew Johnston and his Cabinet will not get a very flattering reception next month to our prosperous city, on the occasion of his laying the foundation stone of the Douglas Monument.

Though located in the far West, yet I have had the pleasure, a few days ago, of hailing the flag of ''Old England'' waving in the Prairie breeze over two British ships harboured in our river, being a thousand miles inland.  Nor had I less pleasure in recognizing the merits of one whose name shall ever be honourably associated with the history of that wonderful achievement - the Excelsior of all modern science, and summit of the cultivated imagination's wildest flight - the laying of the Atlantic Cable.  I refer to the well known Captain Robert Halpin.  Nor can I less admire that aspiring adventurer, whose tender years render him a stripling of admiration, who took his manly part in that almost fabulous enterprise, with no little pleasure.  I allude to Mr. John Gregg.  Wicklow may well boast of her sons and representatives upon the stage of intellectual advancement, as well as in white-glove presentations, as her emblem of purity in the absence of criminal offences. 

Having already trespassed too much upon your valuable space, I conclude by promising, at a future date (if acceptable), a brief outline of Yankee life, customs and society, together with some striking similarities existing between.

Wicklow-wooing Strand,
And Our Lake-shore of Chicago,
Yours respectfully,
Anonymous.

* An illusion or will-o-the-wisp.

[hallmark]

HALPIN, tbe Misses, of Tinnakilly House, CO. Wicklow. Ethel; Belle Louise ; and Edith, daus. of Robert Charles Halpin, Esq., J.P. and D.L., of Tinnakilly House, who d. 1894, by Jessie, who d. 1912, youngest dau. of the late John Munn, Esq., of Harbour Grace, Newfoundland. — Tinnakilly House, Rathnew, co. Wicklow.