In looking up our people to have them put upon the Register, or in connection with an election, our canvassers are often able to form a good judgment of the creed, or nationality, or politics of the people of the house they are calling at by the pictures on the walls.  If they see a picture of St. Patrick, or the Pope, or Robert Emmet, they assume they are in an Irish house of the right sort.  One of my own apprentices, when I was in business, came across a bewildering complication on one occasion, for on one side of the room was the Pope, which seemed all right, but facing him was a gorgeous picture of King William crossing the Boyne.  It was the woman of the house he saw, a good, decent Irishwoman and a Catholic, who explained the apparent inconsistency.  Her husband was an Orangeman, “as good a man as ever broke bread” all the year round, till it came near the twelfth of July, when the Orange fever began to come on. (Our people at home in the County Down, as my father used to tell us, often found it so with otherwise decent Protestant neighbours.) He would come home from a lodge meeting some night, a little the worse for drink, and smash the Pope to smithereens.  The wife was a sensible body, and knew it was no use interfering while the fit was on him.  When she knew it had safely passed away, she would take King William to the pawnshop round the corner and get as much on him as would buy a new Pope.  He was too fond of his wife, “Papish” and all as she was, to make any fuss about it, and would just go and redeem his idol, and set him up again, facing the Pope, for another twelve months at all events.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE “TIMES” FORGERIES COMMISSION.

When the “Times” on the 18th of April, 1887 published what purported to be the fac simile of a letter from Mr. Parnell, and suggested that it was written to Mr. Patrick Egan in justification of the Phoenix Park assassinations, I at once, like many others, guessed who the forger must be.  I had from time to time come into contact with Pigott, and I was satisfied that he was the one man capable of such a production.

When the company was formed in 1875 for the starting of a newspaper in connection with the Home Rule Confederation of Great Britain, there was an idea of buying Pigott’s papers, “The Irishman,” “Flag of Ireland,” and “Shamrock,” which always seemed to be in the market, whether to the Government or the Nationalists after events showed to be a matter of perfect indifference to him.  Mr. John Barry and I were sent over to Dublin to treat with him.  Mr. Barry went over the books and I went over the plant.  What he wanted seemed reasonable enough, we thought.

The Directors of our Company did not, however, close with Pigott, but concluded to start a paper of their own, “The United Irishman,” the production and direction of which, as I have stated, they placed in my hands.