Where Does The Responsibility Belong?

The New York Tribune in speaking of the responsibility for the crimes committed in Ireland and more particularly of the recent alleged assanlt upon Lady Dixie, says: Lady Florence Dixie's account of the mysterious assault made upon her at Windsor by two men masquerading in women's clothes must now be regarded as probably fictitious. The statement of the eye-witness who saw her standing on the spot where she says she was murderously attacked, and watched her walk away toward her house unmole.sted, seems to be conelusive testimony. The recital would appear, therefore, either a distorted iiction of a disordered moment, like one of Ophelia's dreams, or else a maliciousinvêntion inspired by a morbid passion for notoriety . Lady Florence' s f riends have a melancholy choico of alternatives. They will prefer to believe that she was the victim of an hallucination, and her hysterical condition when she met her ïusband and lus servants tends to conirm this tlieory. She had also recoived hreatening letters and may naturally be upposed to have been in an excited itate of mind. There is evidence of a ïegative character pointing in the same lirection. If she had deliberately resolved to invent so wicked a libel on thé" [rish people, it is reasonable to assume that she would have taken some presautions to avoid deteetion. For exarnple, she would have planned a night scène at a distance from the public road, left some traces of a struggle on the mould, torn and slashed her dress and wounded herself and her dog. Lady Florence's friends may point to the clumsiness and speciousness of the plot as fair evidence that so sensible and experienced a woman could not have contrived it herself, and consequently that her imagination has duped her sober senses. On the other hand, if they cannot convince themselves that it was an hallucination, they must face the alternativo and admit that her story is a malicious fabrication, invented for tlio sole purpose of making herself a public heroine in England, in utter disregard of the cruel stigma whieh would be fastened upon Irish character. One of the lessons which this startling incident enforces is the glaring njustice of saddling the responsibility foi individual crimes upon a whole race. Ii Lady Florence's imagination had been tricked under circumstances whicli would have lett no aiscrepancies in tne evidence, or if ske had shown inore skill in arranging the time and place of this fictitious encounter, and by giving hersclf several flesh wounds had sncceeded in duping the English people, her assailants would have been generally recOgnized as Irishmen, and their cowardly deed would have blackened tho reputaüon of the island. The reproach and infamy caused by what would have seemed the basest act of ingratitude toward a benefactor and almost cowardly assault upon a helpl 'SS wornan would have been shared by eveiy Irishnian. Public feoling in England would have been embittered, the sympathies of all civilized countries would have been estranged, and every Irishnian having witliïn hini the faintest sense of manliness would have hung his head. The tajustice of holding the Irish people responsible for a detestable crime, when it was only a case of woman's hysterics or craving for notoriety, is now apparent. We do not know, however, but that it would have been equally real and glarinc if Lady Florence's recital had been the simple truth. Let us suppose that she had been attacked by a pair of niiscreants. Thosc miscreants would have vepresented at most a small group of malevolent and heartless conspirators in Dublin or London. They would not have been commissioned by any considerable portion of the Irish population to comniit so dastardly an outrage. Yet the responsibility for the crime would have been shifted upon the whole islaid. The reputation of the Irish people would have suffered intolerable disgrace. It mav be natural, but it is not just, to hold the island accountable for every crime which is committed either there or in England. On the other hand, it is both just and natural to hold the [CílUerS ÜI Ulli Ullliu ïmjvumcui icöjivir íible for that campaign of lawiessness and outrage bv which niurderous inBtincts have been excited and tbe voice of eonscienco has been silenced. Lady Florence was not assaulted; but Mrs. Smythe was murdered on the highway while driving home f rom church; the Jovce women were butchered in their cabin; and many other helpless women have been stabbed and club bed in the course of that social reyolution for which Mr. Pai-nell and his associates gave the signal, These are not to be looked upon as individual crimes. They belong to a collective series of outrages and murders of which Parnell was niaking a political use. Neither he nor hisfollowers evinced any adequate sense of the disastrous eonsequences of systematic law-breaking; they promoted the ends of violence and crime by their speeches in Westminster and by their silenco in Ireland; and they cannot efface their personal accountability for those doeds of darkness by which public moráis have been debauched and Irish honor foully polluted. What a different country Ireland would be today if in advocating the Land movement Mr. Parnell had adopted Mr. O'Connell's maxim: "Crime gives strength to the enemies ot tl. o cause!" The Queen's Gillie.- John Brown, Victoria' s favorito personal attendant, whose death is announced, was the servant of Princo Albert. On the death of the latter he entered the service of the queen. and for twenty years he was her faithful attendant and protector. He attended her on all public occasions, and was her watchful guardián and devoted servant in private. He accompanicd her when she rode out; he was close at hand during her walks. About the grounds of the palaco he was at the head of her pony when out horseback riding. At all times he was on the lookout for her comfort, and the queen under his protcction was certain to escape intrusions and annoyances. In soveral runaway aceidents, which might have had a serious termination, he has been the man whose coolness and promptness have saved the queen f rom in jury. In 1872, when O'Connor attempted to fire on the queen at Buckingham palace, John Brown seized the would-be assas sin, clisarmed and held him uutu slie was beyoncl the reach of danger. He was a man of stalwart proportions, tall and well-buiit, and was known as the queen's strong man, "as big as a 'ouso and as strong as a lion." He was a Scotchman, and nearly aiways wore the style of cap characteristic of his countrymen. The nötion that dogs and cats contract hydrophobia because tliey are confined, chained, or muzzled does not appear to be well sustained by faet. At any rato, rabies, according to Professor Xavier Landerer, is very common among the wild dogs, cats, and jackals of the east.