FENIANISM AND IRISH DISAFFECTION. 67 



brotherhood, but very few; a dozen or twenty in 

 most towns was a full allowance, scarcely more than 

 the number of the police stationed in the same place. 

 Every man among them was known to the police, 

 and they were carefully watched. In the cities they 

 were the merest rabble of shop-boys, and such like. 

 In the smaller towns some were rather above this 

 class, the sons of traders, and persons in better 

 circumstances, but still none had any force of charac- 

 ter or influence. Of course the foremost were exalted 

 into A's and B's and the other mysterious ranks of the 

 society, thus tickling the small vanity that is such 

 a misfortune in Ireland. Some of these men used to 

 go out on Sundays and holidays to the out-of-the-way 

 parishes in their neighbourhood, and with their own 

 money, or money supplied from America, give unlimited 

 drink to any young fellows they could collect, which, 

 with such an inducement, it was not hard to do, and 

 then they would go through the farce of measuring 

 with a tape to see if the youths were tall enough for 

 the Fenian army, and similar rubbish. 



The movement, such as it was, drew into itself all 

 the disaffection and half-disaffection that existed in 

 the country, all the remnants of O'Connell's Eepealers, 

 Smith O'Brien's cabbage garden rebels, the personal 

 jealousy towards England and Englishmen, that tem- 

 per and discontent which go to form extreme opinions 

 in other countries, even in England and Scotland. 



The thorouglily understood tactics in Ireland are, 



