THOMAS SEXTON.

Interesting Sketch of one of the Foremost Orators of the Day.-How He Rose to Fame

The following sketch is contributed to United Ireland by Justin Huntly McCarthy, M. P., son of Justin McCarthy, M. P.

Colonel King-Harman has been a deal astonished during the eventful epopee of his career. He must have been a good deal astonished for example, at the result of that merry little shindy years ago in those Arcadian groves which have long since vanished. He must, too, at one period have been astonished by the question which the late Lord Mayor of Dublin put in a peculiarly pungent, delightful ballad, some few years ago as to "What's to become of King-Harman?" He must have been hugely, titanically astonished too, as befits a man of so mighty a bulk, when the government chose him, the huge, the heroic, as the bulwark and buttress of the limp, languid, and lugubrious Balfour against the interrogations of a speculative Parnellite party, thirsting for information. But undoubtedly the greatest astonishment he ever experienced, the "boss," the champion, astonishment of his career was that which flowed over his herculean spirit when he was defeated at the general election of 1880 by the almost unknown young man from the office of the Nation newspaper.

It would require the imagination of a Swift, a Rabelais, or of a Lucian or for the matter of that of a Voltaire, who also dealt fantastically with the humors of giants-to do full, complete, soul-satisfying justice to the feelings of Colonel King-Harman on that memorable occasion dear to the tragic Tory muse. Here was, on one hand, the potent landlord, the mighty man, the father of home rule, the burly idol of certain sections of the opulent and the aristocratic; and on the other hand, an obscure journalist, by no means massive of frame, by no means well-to-do, by no means beloved of the high and mighty; and yet forsooth because this young man had two things which Colonel King-Harman was not happy enough to possess — patriotic principles and golden speech, behold the new Goliath entirely, ludicrously, and thoroughly put to route by the graceful David from Abbey Street. Never since that struggle between the stag of Philistia and the hope of Israel, never since that little affair between the gentleman named Jack on the one part and various enormous individuals on the other, has there been a more terrible conflict between titanism or a more magnificent triumph for genius.

Ireland felt grateful to the gallant young man who upset the champion Tory giant, but it had very little idea in that early spring of 1880 of the heavy debt of gratitude which it was destined to incur towards Thomas Sexton. All Ireland knew then was, that a clever young man, who had been devoting his intelligence to the services of the dear old Nation, had suddenly turned his thoughts to active politics had entered the arena and had inaugurated his career by overthrowing one of the biggest and bulkiest of the enemy's gladiators. It was soon to know, however, that a new Chrysostum, as deserving as he of old of the exquisite epithet of "golden-mouthed," had devoted himself to his country.

A rapid glance will give us the chief facts of a life now familiar to his countrymen. Thomas Sexton was, like so many other members of the Irish National party, born in the year 1848. He was born in Waterford on the 28th of June in that year, and began life at the early age of thirteen by competing for a clerkship in the secretary's office of the Waterford and Limerick Company. Although Sexton was the youngest of the thirty young men who competed for this post, he took the first place. A year after this he joined the Catholic Young Men's Debating Society and also a little later, when he was about fifteen, the Mechanics' Institute. In both of these societies he started debating clubs. In both, also, he naturally took a leading position. He was elected president of the former and secretary of the latter, which positions he held until he left Waterford for Dublin in his twenty-first year. As soon as Mr. Sexton arrived in Dublin he became a journalist, and seems for the time to have given up speaking almost altogether, for there is no record of any speeches of his until the year 1878, when he became a member of the then formed Land League. As a journalist he joined the staff of the Nation newspaper, then edited by Mr. A. M. Sullivan, as leader writer, and later on became editor of the Weekly News and of Young Ireland, both published from the Nation office. In 1879 he was requested by the council of the Land League to attend. as their delegate at a county meeting at Dromore West, in the county Sligo. His appearance here, which was in a manner his first appearance in public life, was a great success, and he was chosen as the Nationalist candidate for Sligo at the general election of 1880, in opposition to colonel King-Harman, and returned by a large majority. Mr. Sexton had, as we have seen, spoken a great deal in his earlier years, for he had given lectures at the societies he belonged to as well as joined their debates; but for the first session he hardly spoke at all in the house beyond asking a great number of questions, and it was not until one of the evenings, when Mr. Forster's Coercion bill was under discussion, that he made his first great speech. He spoke for more than two hours to a not very full house, and only, of course, cheered by his own party, which was then much smaller than it is now. But his speech was nevertheless a great success, and he rose immediately to the position, which he ever since retained, of one of the greatest orators and debaters in the house. One of Mr. Sexton's most remarkable gifts — equal, indeed, to his command of words is his marvellous mastery of figures, which has often amazed the house of commons. He can make calculations rapidly in his mind which most people would find it difficult, or impossible, to work out on paper. He is said to have been the only member of the house, except Sir Charles Dilke, who had mastered all the figures and facts connected with the Redistribution bill. In 1884 Mr. Sexton, accompanied by Mr. William Redmond, went to the United States of America to attend the convention in Boston. He was there only a short time, but long enough to impress the American public with a full recognition of his genius as an orator. He returned to Ireland in September of the same year, and arrived in Dublin one night shortly after. He was met at the station by a very great crowd of people, including most of the members of the

Irish party, and he and Mr. Redmond spoke from the windows of the League rooms in O'Connell street. Mr. Sexton continued to represent Sligo until the general election in July, 1886. At the general election before that, in November, 1885, he contested West Belfast against J. N. Haslett, conservative. But contrary to the expectations of his supporters there, he was defeated by a majority of thirty-five by the conservative candidate. The National disappointment, however, did not last long, for less than eight months later—on the 7th of July, 1886he was returned by the same constituency by a majority of one hundred and three over the same opponent. The news of his victory was received with rejoicing over the whole of Ireland, and was the greatest triumph for the National cause in that election. Since then Mr. Sexton has been called upon to fill the distinguished office of high sheriff of Dublin.

The various national movements in Irish history have always been distinguished for the eloquence which accompanied them. Grattan and Flood led the way for the other orators of '98. The orators of '98 heralded O'Connell. O'Connell was succeeded by the rich and varied literary eloquence of Young Ireland, and Young Ireland has found its rival in the orators of the Home Rule movement. Such eloquence as Mr. Sexton's would confer a lustre upon any party and any cause; when given to the national party and the national cause it is destined to become an enduring ornament of Irish literature. Irish orators have often enough been blamed by their enemies, and even censured by their friends, for allowing the charm of mere words and the magic of sonorous sounds to carry them beyond and away from the mere business in hand, whatever it might happen to be. Such a charge could never be levelled against Mr. Sexton. His speeches are as artistic as any of those which have enriched the store of Celtic eloquence; but their beauty of form and phrase is never for a single moment allowed to interfere with their cogency, their direct application to the subject under discussion, with their close, keen, debating purpose. Mr. Sexton can bring to bear upon some technical and apparently arid topic all the exquisite choice of words, all the felicitous wealth of illustration, all the richness of language and of imagination which a weaker man would think only of employing, if he had the power to employ it, upon some specially attractive theme. But Mr. Sexton never makes the mistake which a weaker man would be sure to make, of allowing the manner of his speech to dominate or overshadow its matter. He speaks brilliantly, beautifully, because it is a law of his nature to speak brilliantly and beautifully; but the adornment of his utterances is always subordinate to the logical clearness, closeness, and acuteness of the argument. It is a physical delight to listen to Mr. Sexton making some great speech upon some topic presenting many difficulties, taxing the memory, taxing the logical powers, taxing, in a word, all the various resources of the parliamentary orator. He rises superior to every difficuity, defends every point of his case with masterly skill, attacks every patch in his opponent's armour with fatal quickness and decision, discussing every point as it arises in its due sequence with comprehensive accuracy; and all this in language of the finest choice and of the greatest beauty.

Nor is there either any air of labored preparation hanging heavily over Mr. Sexton's speech. Some of his triumphant successes in the house of commons have been scored when he has been suddenly called upon by his party to speak upon some grave and weighty question which has unexpectedly arisen. All that can adorn and strengthen the utterances of the most carefully prepared rhetorician Mr. Sexton holds in easy command and can employ at any moment. His grasp of mind, his grace of diction are as completely displayed in some speech which he had not thought of making five minutes before, as in some speech upon a topic known beforehand. Small wonder, indeed, that his party and his country are proud of such a man and of such an orator.

A Constitutional Coward.

Ar a club dinner in New York, recently, an examining surgeon related the following incident, showing how the Arrears act developed pensioners out of sound and undeserving men. During the war he was surgeon of an infantry regiment. When the regiment first went into battle he observed, sitting behind a big tree at a safe distance from the fighting line, the captain of one of the companies.

"What are you doing here, captain?" asked the doctor.

"I'm not feeling well," replied the officer, in a doleful voice.

The surgeon was too busy looking after the wounded to stop and inquire as to his complaint. A few weeks later the regiment again got under fire, and the surgeon found the same captain skulking behind a barn.

"Hello! sick again?" he exclaimed.

"Well, the fact is, doctor, I'm not exactly sick.

I may as well own up that I'm a coward. There's no help for it. It must be constitutional. Now, doctor, what's the use of my staying in the army? Won't you help me to get a discharge?"

The surgeon thought he was doing the country a service when, a few days afterward, he recommended that the man be discharged on the ground of general disability. He heard nothing of the captain until sixteen years later, when he received a letter from the Pension Office informing him that Captain Blank had applied for a pension from the date of his muster-out, and that as he, as surgeon of the regiment, had certified to the disability, would he kindly inform the Government as to the nature of the disease from which the officer suffered. surgeon replied that the captain's complaint was chronic and incurable cowardice, not contracted in the line of his duty, but constitutional. The captain's name did not go upon the roll, and his plan for getting some four thousand dollars for arrears and twenty dollars a month for the rest of his life came to grief.

The

"So that's a lover's alarm clock, eh?" queried old Enos Haskinson, inspecting a timepiece. I've read about it in the newspapers, but I s'posed it was a joke, How does it work?"

"I'll explain," cheerfully responded the dealer in musical instruments with a patronizing air. "If you have a daughter, and she is keeping company with a young man who is rather dilatory about bidding her good-night, this alarm-clock steps in and fills a long-felt want. You are probably aware that when a couple of lovers are sitting alone, discussing deep scientific problems they take no note of time. golden hours flit, away on velvet pinions, and when midnight confronts them they give each other a surprised look and exclaim in unison, 'Goodness! I had no idea it was so late!'. As a rule lovers are sensitive, and a gentle reminder about ten p. m. would be pretty sure to start the young man homeward, and the girl next morning would look as fresh as a new-blown rose. This clock plays several tunes, and can be set to ring out an air at any hour desired. For instance, if you want the young man to start at ten p. m. set the clock to play 'Good-by, Sweetheart!' at that hour, and place it on the parlor mantel. The youth may be so deeply absorbed in the pleasing occupation of holding the girl, so that she will not fall off her chair, that he will miss the true inwardness of the ten o'clock tune. Hence you will arrange the timepiece to play 'It's Bed-time Darling,' an hour later. D'ye see?"

"Er-yes," said old Haskinson dubiously. "But say," he added earnestly; "haven't you got a clock that will reach out a heavy boot about 10. p. m. and impel a young man towards the door to the lively tune of 'you git?' My gal's young man is an able-bodied stayer, he is, and I'm afraid no good-night-love sort o'clock will budge him. I rather think it will take something with a little more 'go' in it."

"Ah," said the dealer. "I see you don't understand lovers. A father interposes no objections when a young man keeps his daughter out of bed until midnight, or later, and the youth feels encouraged to continue his late hours; but if he is once made cognizant of the fact that her parents desire his departure at an earlier hour, any delicate hint to that effect will be speedily acted upon.'

"Maybe so," assented Haskinson. "You may give me one of your new-fangled clocks anyhow. If it goes right on the spot I'll recommend it to some of my neighbors."

Enos Haskinson took his "lovers' alarm" home, and set it to play "Goodbye Sweetheart" at ten o'clock, and" See, the Dawn is breaking, at eleven.

"I guess that'll move him," he chuckled, as he stood the contrivance on the parlor mantel.

Now it happened that Mr. Haskinson's daughter Polly's education, in regard to lovers' alarm clocks, had not been neglected. When she saw the instrument on the parlor mantel she immediately divined her father's praiseworthy ruse, and prepared to turn the tables on him. She returned the clock, and persuaded the dealer to exchange it for one that played different airs.

"There," she said in a tone of triumph, placing clock No. 2 on the