Page:The Catalpa Expedition (1897).djvu/249

211 said the latter, "so mighty fine that most of it would pass through a sieve."

At the close of Mr. Breslin's address, the chairman announced the meeting adjourned. Before and after the proceedings, Mr. Breslin, who is of commanding presence and courteous demeanor, was surrounded by groups of enthusiastic countrymen, each eager to express admiration and sympathy.—Pilot, September 30, 1876.

Mr. Gladstone is an able man, watchful and jealous of the honor of England. He has written a pamphlet of great power on the Turkish atrocities in Bulgaria, in which he says that Turkey should be excluded from Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Bulgaria, as a power unfit to rule civilized and Christian people. He says that the English government should lead in accomplishing this result,—"to redeem by these measures the honor of the British name, which in the deplorable events of the year has been more generally compromised than I have known it in any former period." That is true; the past two or three years have torn away more of England's prestige than all her previous history. She has fallen into decay so fast that she has not made a single effort to reassert herself as a Great Power. When Russia broke the Black Sea Treaty, England growled, but backed down. She sees the Czar laying railways to Northern Asia, and she hears the tramp of his legions already on the border of Hindostan; but she fears to stir a finger. When her Prime Minister, Disraeli, last year made an assertion that irritated Prussia, and that iron empire frowned, the fearful minister hastened to eat his words before the face of Bismarck. When the Fenian prisoners—men whom she persisted in calling "criminals"—were taken from her