Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VII.djvu/138

 130 FENIANS exercise by the executive of exceptional powers. I rejoice to learn that no person is now detained under the provisions of the act for the sus- pension of the habeas corpus, and that no prisoner awaits trial in Ireland for an offence connected with the Fenian conspiracy." The seventh Fenian congress assembled in New York, Aug. 24, 1868, and on the next day a " union convention of independent circles and clubs" met in the same city to devise means of ending the division in the Fenian ranks. Both bodies agreed in creating a commission to proceed to Europe, and endeavor to har- monize the conflicting claims for the control of the " home organization," and to secure a governing body on the American elective prin- ciple, which would represent officially all the "nationalists" in Great Britain and Ireland. Mr. Savage was chosen for this mission, and proceeded at once to Paris, where in a con- ference held in January, 1869, the project was successfully carried out. It now became the purpose of the Fenian leaders in America and Ireland to obtain the release of their im- prisoned friends, and to induce the United States government to interfere in favor of sev- eral of them who were naturalized citizens. The corporation of Dublin proceeded to Lon- don in a body, and appeared, with the lord mayor at its head, at the bar of the house of commons, with a petition of amnesty for the prisoners. The English government, yielding to these solicitations, granted a free pardon to several. The combined and persistent efforts made in favor of amnesty for the prisoners were coupled everywhere with a demand for tenant right. This double agitation assumed such proportions that in the autumn the gov- ernment sent additional regiments to Ireland. In the United States the Fenian brotherhood was legally chartered in August, under the act incorporating benevolent societies. The eighth congress assembled in New York, Aug. 25, 1869. Mr. Savage reported the union effected be- tween the branches of the brotherhood in Great Britain and Ireland, and the progress both in numbers and character made by it in the United States. He also denied officially a report that Fenianism had entered into a league with European socialism. This year 1869 was rendered memorable by the disestab- lishment of the Irish church, and this measure was followed up by the passage in 1870 of an Irish land bill. The Fenians claim both these measures as the legitimate offspring of their efforts; and some English statesmen avowed that they were the necessary consequences of the Fenian agitation. The rigors to which the Fenian prisoners were subjected furnished a fertile topic for continued agitation. The sub- ject had been brought before congress in De- cember, 1869 ; and on Feb. 10, 1870, the house of representatives by resolution condemned such cruelty, and urged the president to interfere in behalf of the victims. In Ireland J. O'Dono- van-Rossa, while a prisoner, had been elect- FENNEC ed to parliament for the county of Tipperary ; the election was declared void, and Mr. C. J. Kickham, a recently released Fenian convict, was proposed for the vacancy, but failed of election. Thus was the popular sentiment kept in continual effervescence among the Irish in Great Britain, while in the United States the senate party on May 24 assembled another expedition on the Canadian frontier. President Grant lost no time in issuing a proclamation against the raiders, and Gen. Meade hastened to the border to enforce it. Col. O'Neill and several of his officers were imprisoned, and the men and arms were seized by the United States authorities. The ninth congress of the Fenian brotherhood assembled in New York on Aug. ' 30. O'Neill, in his prison in Windsor, Vt,, signed an agreement on Sept. 7, in the name of his adherents, by which they were reunited to the parent society. The British govern- ment, after witnessing this last impotent effort at invasion, and passing the Irish land bill, granted in December a partial amnesty to the political prisoners, on condition that they should quit British soil for ever. In February, 1871, Mr. Savage insisted on laying down his charge in the brotherhood ; his resignation was accepted by the tenth congress on March 21, and the office was abolished, and the direction vested in an executive council. A committee appointed to investigate the past financial affairs of the brotherhood reported that the total amount received in a little more than 12 years was $626,043, of which $425,254 were " expended for Irish revolutionary purposes di- rect," and $197,669 were " expended in Amer- ica." The report states that of the amount expended in America, at least two thirds were not for organizing purposes and office salaries, but "for objects indirectly connected with the cause of the revolution in the British islands, such as the purchase of arms and vessels, the pay of armorers, the rent of armories, the sup- port of men sent here on duty from Ireland, the relief of refugees (a vast sum), and the sup- port of the families of some of the officers and men sent on duty to Ireland and England." The llth Fenian congress, which met Aug. 20, 1872, reduced the number of the executive council to 10, to be elected by congress, inclu- ding a chief secretary who is the executive officer of the organization, a position at pres- ent (November, 1873) held by John O'Mahony. FEMEC, an African canine animal, resem- bling a diminutive fox, belonging to the genus megalotis (Illiger). So vulpine is its look, that Mr. Gray, in his catalogue of the British mu- seum, calls it vulpes Zaarensis (Skiold.). When first described by Bruce the traveller, its zo- ological position was so ill determined that Buffon, who gives a good figure of the animal, called it Vanonyme; it was referred to rodents and quadrumana by others ; Zimmermann, from the examination of the teeth, seems first to have detected its dog-like affinities, and placed it in the genus canis ; but whoever dis-