November, and the principles of the Home Rule League, of which I am a member. If elected to Parliament I will give my cordial adherence to the resolutions adopted at the recent conference of Irish members, and will act independently alike of all English parties." 'I will earnestly endeavor to obtain for Ireland a system of education in all its branches-university, intermediate, and primary-which will deal impartially with all religious denominations, by affording to every parent the opportunity of obtaining for his child an education combined with that religious teaching of which his conscience approves. "I believe security for his tenure and the fruits of his industry to be equally necessary to do justice to the tenant and to promote the prosperity of the whole community. I will therefore support such an extension of the ancient and historic tenant-right of Ulster, in all its integrity, to the other parts of Ireland, as will secure to the tenant continuous occupation at fair rents.' In addition, he promised to work for complete and unconditional amnesty to the Fenian prisoners"-an assurance which, no doubt, endeared the candidate to the Fenian party. But the expression which Mr. Parnell put in the forefront of this address-" I will by all means seek the restoration to Ireland of our domestic Parliament"-is the most significant. By all means, fair or foul, scrupulous or unscrupulous, constitutional or unconstitutional, he pledged himself to the task of Repeal of the Union. How steadfastly he has kept to his purpose is now clear to all men.

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a

After this election Mr. Parnell retired into private life. His next appearance was in the public press. Early in 1875 a vacancy occurred in Tipperary, and the notorious writer and convicted rebel, John Mitchel, came over from America to stand as a member for the county. On this occasion Mr. Parnell came before the public in a letter to the papers announcing his approbation of the course taken by Mitchel, and subscribed £25 toward the expenses of the contest. The result of that election is a matter of history. Mitchel was elected by an immense majority, but he died almost immediately after his election. His brother-in-law, political colleague, and

fellow-convict, John Martin, the member for Meath, followed him to the grave within a week, and thus, on the 29th of March, 1875, another opportunity was afforded Mr. Parnell to enter into the political life of the country. There were, besides, two more candidates for the constituency of Meath, one a Conservative, the other a Home Ruler. The poll, however, resulted in a victory for Mr.. Parnell, and the new member for Meath took his seat and recorded his first vote on the 22d April, making no delay in commencing his Parliamentary duties.

"It that

Four days after he took his seat Mr. Parnell made his maiden speech, upon the Irish Coercion Bill; and he made use of one expression which is remarkable in the light of recent events. has been said," said Mr. Parnell, some half-dozen Irish landlords have given it as their opinion that without coercion they could not exercise the rights of property. What did they mean by the rights of property?" The question was almost prophetic. The whole of Mr. Parnell's career has been a crusade against the rights of property, and his very first utterance in the House of Commons proved his determination to pursue revolutionary means for revolutionary objects. After this effort the new member from Meath kept silence, and applied himself to the task of mastering the forms and procedure of the House.

His chosen friend was Mr. Biggar, with whom he principally acted, and by whose side he fought persistently the battle of obstruction for the next three years. It was not until 1879 that Mr. Parnell confessed that the idea of revolutionizing the House of Commons from its own centre was not his own. Early in the year, at a meeting of the Home Rule League in Dublin, Mr. Butt was solemnly impeached by the "party of exasperation," as the old man called the new Parnellite junto. Mr. Parnell spoke on that occasion as follows: "I wish to explain in a few words what I wish Mr. Butt and the Irish party to do. The late Mr. Ronayne, M. P., it was who said to me, and to a good many others, that the Irish party would never be heard in the House of Commons until they took an interest in English Imperial questions. He used to say that as long

as you keep bringing forward a Land Bill or the franchise question they will not care anything about you. They will perhaps listen, or perhaps they will not. On any occasion they will come in with a large number of members to vote you down. Depend upon it, it is for some of you young men of the party who have time and health and strength to go into these questions and take up these Bills and discuss them in detail, and show that, if you are not allowed to govern yourselves, you can at least help them in governing England." How Mr. Parnell carried out this plan of operations is matter of history. The rank and file of the Home Rulers partook of Mr. Butt's horror and repugnance to a scheme which they held involved a revolutionary programme, and would have to be finally supplemented by rebellion in the field. Only a few of the Irish party adopted the idea; but the eager enthusiasm with which the new departure was received by the Fenian masses out of doors proved beyond all doubt that it was regarded as an important move in the war against England. Upon the Prisons Bill Mr. Parnell made a beginning; but it was upon the election of members to sit upon Committees on private Bills that the new weapon of obstruction was first tried in earnest. The result was a sitting till five o'clock in the morning. Throughout the Session of 1876 no opportunity was lost in the Estimates of obstructing the business of the House, and Mr. Parnell further

distinguished himself by speaking strongly in favor of the release of the Fenian prisoners. He went further, and took an opportunity of declaring to the House that he never did believe, and never would, that any murder had been committed at Manchester when Kelly and Deasy, the Fenians, were rescued, and Sergeant Brett was shot dead in the police-van. By such sympathetic touches did a thoroughly unsympathetic man win the affections of the disaffected. The result of Mr. Parnell's action in the House was that at the end of the Session he was elected Vice-Chairman of the Home Rule Confederation of Great Britain, a body which represented the views of the most advanced Irish politicians in the English towns where the Irish vote was powerful. During the

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autumn of 1876 Mr. Parnell, accompanied by Mr. O'Connor Power, M. P., was deputed by a mass meeting in Dublin to proceed to America, in order to present the President of the United States with an address from the Irish nation congratulating the Americans on the centenary of their Declaration of Independence. But the affair ended in a fiasco, President Grant refusing to receive the address. During the Sessions of 1877-8, notwithstanding the remonstrances of Mr. Butt, the obstructionists proceeded in their campaign against English business with the greatest energy, and Mr. Biggar added a new terror to Parliamentary life by his practice of indiscriminate "blocking." The South African Confederation Bill, in 1877, produced unparalleled scenes of excitement, and was the cause of Sir Stafford Northcote's first series of Resolutions dealing with the Rules of Procedure. Mr. Parnell wrote to the Times justifying his conduct as a member of Parliament, and predicting that, whatever else' future Parliaments may have to reckon with, they will most certainly have to reckon with the active participation of Irish members in their business, whether they like it or no.'' Mr. Butt took an early opportunity of calling a meeting of his party, and denouncing obstruction as mere revolutionary warfare. But it was evident that his days as a leader were already numbered. After the Session was over, a great demonstration was held in Dublin in honor of Mr. Parnell and Mr. Biggar. Mr. Butt was denounced, and Mr. Parnell extolled. Indeed, the new leader's policy was skilfully laid down. It was capable of being excused, and even defended by argument, before an English audience; while, on the other hand, it could be described before an Irish assembly as courageous, bold, and national Irish policy. Meanwhile Mr. Parnell had come to several distinct conclusions during his two years' experience of the House of Commons. first was, that the atmosphere of the lobbies was most injurious to Irish members who wished to obtain office or social position in England or Ireland. He saw that the only men who could be depended upon to make themselves consistently obnoxious to the English

The

Parliament were men of inferior social position. These might form an entirely foreign body in the English Senate, which would rankle as a foreign substance more and more, as time went on, and which, impervious to English feeling and English etiquette, contradicting all the ancient and honored traditions of the House, would impede and straiten in its action the whole procedure of the House of Commons. Armed with a body of men of this description, Mr. Parnell knew by experience that he could hamper every proceeding of the English Parliament, and that he could offer to the English people the choice between the disintegration and revolution of their own Legislature, and the restoration of an Irish one. He had succeeded in the first; he now attacked the second object. At the end of the Session of 1878 Mr. Parnell's position was assured. He was recognized as a formidable power in the House by the English members; while the Irish members foresaw in him Mr. Butt's successor. The new Parliamentary tactics were approved by the masses of disaffected Irish, who only waited an opportunity to prove their devotion to so successful an enemy of England. In 1879 Mr. Butt was formally impeached as a deserter to the cause of Irish nationality, and he died soon afterward, leaving his young rival in undisputed possession of the field.

It

With the Session of 1879 Mr. Parnell entered upon the most important epoch of his political career. Two months before Michael Davitt had arrived in Ireland, and was busily engaged in organizing the new departure in what he called Irish practical politics, but which was in fact Irish Revolution. At what exact time Mr. Davitt and Mr. Parnell became acquainted is uncertain. has been said, indeed, that for a long time Mr. Parnell was averse to allying himself with the returned Fenian. Facts soon became too strong for him. While Davitt was organizing in the province, the Parliamentary party were engaged in obtaining the final dismissal of Mr. Butt, who had long been a stumbling-block to their new policy of exasperation. That for a long time Mr. Parnell was unwilling to accept the crusade against landlords as the solution of the land question, and the beginning of future revolution, is NEW SERIES.-VOL. XXXIX, No 2

quite evident from his speeches. His idea seems to have been to begin an agitation in England. As late as the 17th of April he held back, but soon after that date he must have given in his complete adhesion to Michael Davitt's scheme. On the 20th of April the first fruits of the organization became evident in the meeting held at Irishtown, County Mayo. From that date the anti-rent agitation commenced to spread throughout the country; and on the 8th of June at Westport Mr. Parnell publicly adopted the policy recommended by the new school of Fenians, and raised the question of the rights of property in land as a short cut to the question of separation. It was at this meeting that he advised the people to "keep a firm grip on your homesteads and lands," and gave the weight of his name to the principle of non-payment of rent. It is unnecessary to recapitulate the history of the Land League movement. Its head was Mr. Parnell, its heart was Mr. Davitt, and its impetus was first Fenianism and subsequently Mr. Gladstone's Government. While inside the walls of St. Stephen's the man who took the oath of allegiance to the Sovereign attracted the attention and admiration of Irishmen by endeavoring to bring Parliament to a deadlock, the ticket-ofleave Fenian convict was reorganizing the old Fenian conspiracy under a new name. The land question was seized as a means of bringing the question of separation to the front, and of consolidating and strengthening the forces of Irish revolution. Toward the end of the year 1879 the schemes of Davitt became more and more obvious. The distress in Connaught had first been given as a reason for a demand for the general reduction of rent. The next step was to demand the expropriation of those whose right it was to claim rent. Finally, the obligation of all rent was denied. The land was made by God for the people, and they who tilled should alone be the owners. So violent did the language of the agitators become that Government at last arrested the leaders, and Mr. Parnell explained that the strike against rent and the refusal to take farms were merely a means to an end, and that end was the compulsory sale of all landed property in Ireland to the occupiers.

17

At the close of the year 1879 Mr. Parnell started for America, ostensibly in order to collect money for the relief of Irish distress. His speeches prove that his ulterior object was the conciliation of the American-Irish revolutionists.

His utterances were so calculated as to secure the support of all classes of the Celtic population, but especially the Fenians. He stated at Pittston that, "a power would spring up in Ireland which would sweep away not only the land system, but the infamous Government that maintained it"; while at Cincinnati he made the striking declaration, None of us, whether we be in America or in Ireland, or wherever we may be, will be satisfied until we have destroyed the last link which keeps Ireland bound to England." Mr. Parnell did undoubtedly collect money for charitable purposes, but he also laid the foundation of a Land League organization in America, from which has flowed a perennial stream of sedition-breeding gold during the last two years. The dissolution of Parliament brought back the member for Meath to Ireland in haste. On arriving at Cork he found himself elected for three constituencies, and

leader of a powerful Irish party. What followed every one knows. The events of the past three years are so fresh in the memory of the public, that it is almost unnecessary to go into the details of Mr. Parnell's more recent political career. The Land League agitation, the reign of anarchy in Ireland, the State prosecutions, the passing of the Coercion Act, the suspension of the Irish members, the arrest of Mr. Parnell, the No-rent Manifesto, the Kilmainham Treaty, and the Phoenix Park murders, all followed in quick succession. The more scandalous the conduct of Irish members in Parliament, the greater became their popularity out of doors. The Land Bill of 1881 was spurned by the Nationalist party, and no measure of justice or conciliation has altered by one jot the anti-English attitude of Mr. Parnell's followers. The chief claim to the confidence of the Irish people which Mr. Parnell possesses is the fact that his personal strength has been mainly displayed in an unbending and imperious determination to lead a distinctly foreign party in the House of Commons, which should be completely under his own control.-Saturday Review.

OF all the creatures that exist, whether of land, sea, or air, there is not one which is so generally looked upon

1. "An Account of Indian Serpents, collected on the Coast of Coromandel." Containing Descriptions and drawings of each Species, together with Experiments and Remarks on their several Poisons. By Patrick Russell, M.D., F.R.S. In two vols. folio. London 1796. 2. "North American Herpetology; or, a Description of the Reptiles Inhabiting the United States." By J. E. Holbrook, M.D. Philadelphia: 1842. 3. "The Reptiles of British India." By Albert C. L. G. Gunther, M.D., Ray Society. London: 1864. 4 and Descriptive Catalogue of all the known Species. By Gerard Krefft, F. L.S., C.M.L.S. Sydney 1869. 5. 'Indian Snakes. An Elementary Treatise on Ophiology in India, etc. By Edward Nicholson, Madras: 1870. 6. "The Thanotophidia of India," being a Description of the Venomous Snakes of the Indian Peninsula, with an Account of the Influence of their Poison on Life, and a Series of Experiments. By J. Fayrer, M.D., C.S.I.,

"The Snakes of Australia." An Illustrated

with feelings of aversion and horror as the serpent. Doubtless these natural feelings are mixed up with some amount of prejudice and ignorance, but the fact of the existence in several species of snakes of a deadly poisonous apparatus, which is able, in the course of a few hours, or even of a few minutes, to destroy active and healthy life, is enough to account for, if not altogether to justify, the almost universal abhorrence in which these creatures are held. In vain do we seek to appeal to the elegance of the body, the polished surface of the gleaming scales, so beautifully and symmetrically arranged, the colors, often brilliant and of varied tasteful patterns, and above all, perhaps, to the serpent's graceful motions, which struck the mind