Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 20.pdf/578

 LORD O'HAGAN gave great assistance, though the last two of them did not refer to Ireland. The Lunacy Act has in many instances simplified and cheapened the procedure. In February, 1874, Gladstone's Ministry came to an end, and on the 22nd of that month Lord O'Hagan sat apparently for the last time in the Court of Chancery. After the business of the day was concluded the Solicitor General made a short but eloquent reference to Lord O'Hagan's imminent retirement, to which the Lord Chancellor, who was much affected, made a suitable reply. The entire bar rising from their seats greeted his speech with loud applause, which continued until after he had left the court. After he had quitted the Chancellorship he was nearly always to be found in the House of Lords hearing appeal cases. In 1874 Lord O'Hagan also presided over the economic section of the British Associa tion; and one of his special services about that time was the exercise of his great personal influence in composing a dispute which had caused a strike in the staple trade of his native town of Belfast. In 1875 he was selected to deliver the inaugural address on the occasion of the O'Conncll centenary, but owing to the illness of a relative in the North he was not able to be present, and gave the speech to the Lord Mayor to do what he liked with. At least so we read in all the daily papers of the next day. The Freeman's Journal, however, of the 2nd of February, 1885, in its obituary notice makes these remarks: "As a politician, he (Lord O'Hagan) had passed through an age of insincerity, and it was almost impossible for him. to remain proof against the prizes which beckoned him to Whiggery. The people, seeing that he had climbed on their shoulders to place and power, were not slow to express their sense of his want of staunchness. His selection to deliver the inaugural address on the occasion of the O'Connell centenary was an ill-advised one, and resulted in a

437

scene, and in the address being either delivered in dumb show or not being delivered at all. If Lord O'Hagan had died shortly after his elevation, the melan choly event would have excited different feelings from those which it awakened in a new era of national life and at a time when Whiggery is the most detested name in Ireland, and the Whig section most effete, epicene, and worthless." On referring back to the papers of the day, we find on the gth of August, 1875, tne Freeman's Journal saying: "Lord O'Hagan, who was unavoidably prevented from being present on Friday, owing to the dangerous illness of a member of his family, having been invited to deliver the oration, has kindly forwarded to us the following address, which he prepared for the occa sion." (Then follows the address.) On re ferring back to the Freeman's Journal of the 7th of August, 1875, we find the Lord Mayor (McSwiney) described as addressing the assembly thus: "There is a subject on which I have a few words to say before this magnificent assemblage separates. Your glorious procession to-day was, as you know, to have been concluded by an address from Lord O'Hagan in honor of O'Connell [hear, hear, and counter demonstrations by the Amnesty Association, who violently waved their bannerets]. Unhappily Lord O'Hagan is unable to be here: he is detained in the North of Ireland by the serious illness of a very near relative. The cause of his absence must command our sincere sym pathy. We regret the absence itself. When the selection was entrusted to me of an orator to handle fitly so great a theme, I naturally turned to Thomas O'Hagan [hear, and groans, and clanking of chains by the Amnesty Association]. In early manhood, he was the attached friend of O'Connell. In mature age he completed a brilliant career by being the first Catholic Lord Chancellor since the reign of William the Third. He thus seemed to me to embody the glorious conquest achieved by O'Connell