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singular language if our doctor were to say to him: "My good friend, you surely will not be so rash as to attempt to get rid of these pains in your stomach. Have you not grown rich with these pains in your stomach? Have you not risen under them from poverty to prosperity? Has not your situation since you were first attacked been improving every year? You surely will not be so foolish and so indiscreet as to part with the pains in your stomach ?" Why, what would be the answer of the rustic to this nonsensical monition? "Monster of rhubarb," he would say, "I am not rich in consequence of the pains in my stomach, but in spite of the pains in my stomach; and I should have been ten times richer, and fifty times happier, if I had never had any pains in my stomach at all." Gentlemen, these rotten boroughs are your pains in the stomach.

TAXES THE PRICE OF GLORY

[There is another pithy example of Smith's amusing way of presenting serious truths which has been quoted a thousand times, and is likely to be quoted many thousand times more. Here is one of its thousand presentations to the reading public.]

John Bull can inform Jonathan what are the inevitable consequences of being too fond of glory!-Taxes! Taxes upon every article which enters into the mouth, or covers the back, or is placed under the foot; taxes upon everything which it is pleasant to see, hear, feel, smell or taste; taxes upon warmth, light and locomotion; taxes on everything on earth, and the waters under the earth; on everything that comes from abroad, or is grown at home; taxes on the raw material; taxes on every fresh value that is added to it by the industry of men; taxes on the sauce which pampers man's appetite, and the drug which restores him to health; on the ermine which decorates the judge, and the rope which hangs the criminal; on the poor man's salt, and the rich man's spice Von the brass nails of the coffin, and the ribbons of the bride ;-at bed-or board, couchant or levant, we must pay.

The schoolboy whips his taxed top; the beardless youth manages his taxed horse, with a taxed bridle, on a taxed road; and the dying Englishman, pouring his medicine, which has paid seven per cent. into a spoon that has paid fifteen per cent., flings himself back upon his chintz bed, which has paid twenty-two per cent., makes his will on an eight-pound stamp, and expires in the arms of an apothecary, who has paid a license of a hundred pounds for the privilege of putting him to death. His whole property is then immediately taxed from two to ten per cent. Besides the probate, large fees are demanded for burying him in the chancel; his virtues are handed down to posterity on taxed marble; and he is then gathered to his fathers,-to be taxed no more.

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DANIEL O'CONNELL (1775-1847)

THE FIRST ORATOR OF EUROPE

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T is to John Randolph that O'Connell owes the title of "The First Orator of Europe," which we have affixed to his name. It was as "The Liberator" that he was known at home, as a tribute to his strenuous efforts to free Ireland from the supremacy of English rule. The history of the great agitator we must deal with very briefly. A native of County Kerry, he studied law and was called to the Irish bar in 1798, and for twenty-two years enjoyed an enormous practice in the Munster circuit. During this time he was a vehement advocate of the rights of the Catholics. Catholic emancipation came in 1828, and he entered Parliament in 1830, where he agitated for the repeal of the Union of Ireland with Great Britain, and for ten years and more stirred up the members by his wit, irony, vehemence and invective. Yet he kept the Irish from violent outbreaks until 1843, when the Young Ireland party threatened to break loose from his dictation. He now traversed Ireland in an agitation for repeal, monster meetings being held--that on the Hill of Tara, on August 15th, numbering three-quarters of a million. As a result he was arrested on a charge of conspiracy to raise sedition, and sentenced to fine and imprisonment-lying three months in prison before his release by the House of Lords. With this began the breakdown of his health and great strength, he dying in 1847 while on his way to Rome.

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As an orator O'Connell was gifted with remarkable natural powDisraeli, one of his active opponents, says that "his voice was the finest ever heard in Parliament, distinct, deep, sonorous, and flexible." While often slovenly in style, his powers of moving an audience--an Irish audience in particular-was irresistible. In the great

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struggle of his life, that for the rights of Ireland, he was one of the most effective popular leaders of modern times. As examples of his bitterness in epithet may be given his comparison of the smile of Sir Robert Peel to the shine of a silver plate on a coffin, and his designation of Disraeli as "heir-at-law of the blasphemous thief who died upon the cross."

THE CHARMS OF KILDARE

[The following extract is from a speech of O'Connell at Mullaghmast, County Kildare, in September, 1843, during the campaign of agitation for Repeal of the Union.]

I wish to live long enough to have perfect justice administered to Ireland and liberty proclaimed throughout the land. It will take me some time to prepare my plan for the formation of the new Irish House of Commons; that plan which we will yet submit to her Majesty for her approval, when she gets rid of her present paltry Administration and has one which I can support. . . . You may be sure of this, and I say it in the presence of Him who will judge me, that I never will willfully deceive you. I have but one wish under heaven, and that is for the liberty and prosperity of Ireland. I am for leaving England to the English, Scotland to the Scotch, but we must have Ireland for the Irish. I will not be content until I see not a single man in any office, from the lowest constable to the lord chancellor, but Irishmen. This is our land, and we must have it. We will be obedient to the Queen, joined to England by the golden link of the crown, but we must have our own parliament, our own bench, our own magistrates, and we will give some of the shoneens who now occupy the bench leave to retire, such as those lately appointed by Sugden. He is a pretty boy, sent here from England; but I ask, did you ever hear such a name as he has got? I remember, in Wexford, a man told me he had a pig at home which he was so fond of that he would call it Sugden.

No; we will get judicial independence for Ireland. It is for this purpose we are assembled here to-day, as every countenance I see around me testifies. If there is any one here who is not for the Union let him say so. Is there anybody here for the repeal? [Cries of "All, all !"']

Yes, my friends, the Union was begot in iniquity, it was perpetuated in fraud and cruelty. It was no compact, no bargain, but it was an act of the most decided tyranny and corruption that was ever yet perpetrated. Trial by jury was suspended; the right of personal protection was at an end; courts-martial sat throughout the land, and the county of Kildare, among others, flowed with blood. Oh, my friends, listen now to the man of peace, who will never expose you to the power of your enemies. In

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