PUNCH,
OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI
Volume 93
December 3, 1887.
edited by Sir Francis Burnand
THE LETTER-BAG OF TOBY, M.P.
From the Lord Mayor of Dublin.
Dear Toby,
The news from Ireland, not all of which finds its way into your dailypapers, grows in excitement. The exploit of Mr. Douglas P-ne, M.P., of Lisfinny Castle, has takenroot, and all the landed gentry among the Irish Members are fortifyingthemselves in their castles, and hanging themselves outside thefront-door by ropes to deliver addresses to their constituents. Theregular thing now is to hang out our M.P.'s on the outer wall. I do notsee accounts of these proceedings in your London papers. I was, as youknow, a Journalist before I was Lord Mayor; so, if you don't mind, I'llsend you a few jottings. If there is anything due for lineage, pleaseremit it anonymously to the Land League Fund "From A Sympathiser."
Foremost in this band of heroic patriots is the châtelain ofButlerstown, Joseph G-ll-s B-gg-r, M.P.,Butlerstown Castle, as everyone acquainted with Ireland knows, stands onthe summit of a Danish rath, and was once the seat of an O'Toole. Now it is the den of Joseph G-ll-s. For some time he has been practisinga flying leap from the eastern to the western turret, a distance offifty feet over a yawning abyss, amid the cavernous depths of which thepetulant plummet has played in vain. It is thrilling, whether at earlydawn, or what time the darkening wing of Night begins to flap, to hear ashrill cry of "Hear, hear!" to see a well-known figure cleaving theastonished air, and to behold Joseph G-ll-s,erewhile upright on the eastern turret, prone on that which lifts itshead nearer the setting sun. To be present on one of the occasions whenJoey B. reads a Blue Book for three hours toa deputation shivering in the moat, is enough to convince the dullestSaxon of the hopelessness of enthralling a nation which has given birthto such as he. As Joseph himself says,quoting, with slight variation, my own immortal verse,—
"Whether on the turret high,
Or in the moat not dry,
What matter if for Ireland dear we talk!"
But the affairs at Butlerstown should not withdraw our gaze from a notless momentous event which recently happened in the neighbourhood ofCork city. Mr. P-rn-ll, as he has recentlyexplained to you, has not found it expedient or even necessary to takepart in our recent public proceedings in Ireland. But this abstention isto a certain extent illusory. It is no secret in our inner circles thatour glorious Chief was but the other day in close communication with hisconstituents in the city of Cork. He arrived shortly after breakfast ina balloon which was skilfully brought to pause over the rising ground bySunday's Well. At the approach of the balloon the trained intelligenceof the Police fathomed the plot. The Privy Council was immediatelycommunicated with. Sworn information was laid, and the meeting wassolemnly proclaimed by telegraph. In the meanwhile, Mr. P-rn-ll had addres