"Hear this, ye old men, and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land! Hath this been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers? ..

...

"That which the palmer-worm hath left hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left hath the canker-worm eaten; and that which the cankerworm hath left hath the caterpillar eaten.

"Awake, ye drunkards, and weep! and howl, all drinkers of wine, because of the new wine! for it is cut off from your mouth.

ye

"For a nation is come up upon my land, strong, and without number, whose teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he hath the cheek-teeth of a great lion.

"He hath laid my vine waste, and barked my figtree; he hath made it clean bare, and cast it away; the branches thereof are made white.

"Be ye ashamed, O ye husbandmen! howl, O ye vine-dressers !

"The vine is dried up, and the fig-tree languisheth; the pomegranate-tree, the palm-tree also, and the apple-tree, even all the trees of the field, are withered because joy is withered away from the sons of

:

men." 1

1 Joel, chapter i., verses 1–12.

JOHN BOYLE O'REILLY.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.1

JOHN BOYLE O'REILLY was born on June 28, 1844, in Dowth Castle, four miles above the town of Drogheda, Ireland. His parents were cultured and talented. He inherited a good constitution, and was passionately fond of outof-door sports. Among the boys of his neighborhood no one was more daring or skilful than the handsome, rosy-cheeked, curly-haired, dark-eyed John. At the age of eleven he left home to become an apprentice in the printing-office of the Drogheda Argus, at a salary of two shillings and sixpence a week, which did not include board and lodging; his salary was increased sixpence a week every year.

After nearly four years of service the death of his employer released him from the obligations of his apprenticeship. In 1859 he went to Preston, England, the home of his uncle, Captain Watkinson, where he obtained a situation as an apprentice in the office of the Guardian. Three years later he graduated from the printer's case and became a reporter, having learned shorthand and otherwise equipped himself for the work of a journalist. In March, 1863, he obeyed a call from his father to return home to Ireland.

He had become deeply imbued with the revolutionary principles then so freely adopted by patriotic Irishmen. It

1 The information given in this brief sketch has been gleaned from the Life of John Boyle O'Reilly, by James Jeffrey Roche, published by the Cassell Publishing Company, of New York.

was hoped that disaffection would be sowed in the ranks of the British army, of which more than thirty per cent were Irishmen. Accordingly in May, 1863, O'Reilly enlisted as a trooper in the Tenth Hussars, where he became a model soldier, quick to learn and punctual to obey orders. In February, 1866, he was arrested on the charge of "having at Dublin in January, 1866, come to the knowledge of an intended mutiny in Her Majesty's Forces in Ireland, and not giving information of said intended mutiny to his commanding officer." On June 27th, of the same year, the day preceding his twenty-second birthday, his trial by courtmartial began. On July 9, 1866, formal sentence of death was passed upon him. The same day the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, and afterwards to twenty years' penal servitude. For about fifteen months he was confined in the prisons of Mountjoy, Pentonville, Millbank, Chatham, Portsmouth, Dartmoor, and Portland. He suffered intensely from poor food, hard work, foul air, and inhuman jailers. He made two unsuccessful attempts to escape, for which he was severely punished by solitary confinement and a diet of bread and water.

In October, 1867, he and sixty-two other political prisoners were embarked on the Hougoumont for Australia. His popularity among the guards secured for him kindly treatment on the voyage. He arrived at Freemantle on the morning of January 10, 1868, and four weeks later was sent to Bunbury, thirty miles away, where he led the life of a convict among some of the most degraded of humankind murderers, burglars, offenders of every grade and color of vice. But ill fortune instead of blighting had nourished in him the growth of the instincts of pure humanity. He soon won the respect of the officer over him, became of assistance in clerical work, and was appointed a "constable," or aid to an officer in charge of a working party. Not long after the following advertisement appeared in the Police Gazette of Western Australia: