CHAPTER V.

THE “NO-POPERY” MANIA—­THE TENANT LEAGUE—­THE CURRAGH CAMP.

The restoration of the Catholic Hierarchy, September 29th, 1850, brought on what appeared to us one of John Bull’s periodical fits of lunacy.  I witnessed many scenes of mob violence at the time, when, in deference to the prevailing bigotry in opposing what they termed “Papal Aggression” a part of the Penal Laws were revived in Lord John Russell’s Ecclesiastical Titles Act.  In due course John got over his paroxysm, and the Act was repealed.

But for a time the storm of bigotry raged fiercely, and, as the following incident will show, while the mania lasted even the police were not entirely free from it.

The site of the noble Gothic edifice, Holy Cross Church, Great Crosshall Street, Liverpool, was, at this time, occupied by a ramshackle place made into a temporary chapel out of a number of old houses.  It was so constructed that from any part you could see the altar, if you could not always hear Mass.

This was not, however, an unusual thing in Liverpool in the old days, particularly in the Famine years, when our panic-stricken people came into Liverpool like the wreck of a routed army.

The chief feature of the old Holy Cross Chapel was a long narrow flight of stairs, leading from Standish Street, the side street off Great Crosshall Street, up to a higher part of the building which served the purpose of a gallery.

The famous Dr. Cahill came to Holy Cross to preach, and every part of the building was crowded to suffocation.  In the middle of the sermon an alarm was raised of a broken beam or something of the kind, and the people commenced to rush down the narrow stairs in a state of panic.

Such of them as could crush their way out, instead of being assisted, were set upon and assaulted with their batons by several policemen, who were in the street outside.  So great was the indignation in the town, that a public inquiry was held, and it was proved that the police not only brutally struck men, women and children, but even a blind man who was trying to grope his way out.  They also used foul expressions about “Popery” and the “bloody Papists,” and it was afterwards proved that these very men had themselves raised the alarm, apparently to get an excuse for breaking the heads of the unfortunate people.  An honest police official, whose duty it afterwards became to make a report of what had occurred, came upon the scene, and did what he could to stop the brutality.

When Dowling, the head constable, came to the police office next morning, and saw the official report in the book kept for the purpose, he caused the leaf containing it to be torn out, and another report by one Sergeant Tomlinson to be substituted for it.  Mr. Mansfield, the stipendiary magistrate, who conducted the inquiry, denounced Dowling and Tomlinson for what he called “the disgraceful and discreditable suppression of the report which,” he added, “was no doubt true.  He had never heard of more disgraceful proceedings in his life.”