Page:My Life in Two Hemispheres, volume 2.djvu/170

 home. Every man here, I observed, had a horse to ride; every farm a team of bullocks, but men and women, content and thankful as they are for the prosperity of the new country, "won't forget old Ireland were it fifty times as fair."

A meeting was announced at Tower Hill, the centre of Mr. Rutledge's estate. His tenants promised to support him, but declared that they would vote for me also. Two of the local newspapers supported me and two were adverse. I was accused of various offences, especially religious bigotry. The first effectual check to this slander came from two Presbyterian ministers, who had been in Ireland during the Tenant League, and declared their intention to support me. But a more picturesque incident and one more calculated to fascinate popular opinion occurred at the Tower Hill meeting. When I had concluded my speech, a vigorous, intelligent-looking young man, with a long whip in his hand, whose team one might safely assume was at the door, entered the meeting, and when I sat down immediately came forward to speak. "You all know me, I believe," he said, "but if any one don't know me I am George Johnson, the road contractor. I never saw Mr. Duffy before, but I daresay I know a good deal more of him than any of you. My father was one of the old Protestant Corporation of Dublin, and my family high Tories; and I would probably be full of prejudice and bigotry but that I read the Nation from the time I was a schoolboy. You know whether I do not live on friendly terms with my neighbours, Protestant and Catholic, and keep alive the memory of old Ireland on all fitting occasions." (A peal of cheers greeted this inquiry.) "Well," he said, "what I am the Nation has made me." As this was the first occasion on which the principle of religious equality was plainly fought out in the colony, the result was of more than temporary or local interest.

When the poll was announced it disclosed some curious facts. I received more votes on Mr. Rutledge's estate than the proprietor. I received more votes in the Warnambool [sic] district than the Warnambool candidate, and more votes in the Belfast district than the Belfast candidate. I recall with interest that I was able to say when the election was over that I had not personally canvassed a single elector; that I