| OCR Text |
Show ' POPE'S NINETIETH YEAR. Rome. Jan. 20. The entrance of Pope I Leo XIII upon his 90th year will be the occasion of special celebrations, which are now being organized in Rome by the principal Catholic societies. AN IRISH PATRIOT'S WIDOW. R. P. O'Brien Writes Beautifully of the Late Mrs. John Mitchel. (Anaconda Standard, Jan. 21.) TViu nt.- hn lust rpn rltp-rt trishmfin I in Anaconda that Jane Verner Mitchel, I widow of John Mitchel, the famous Irish patriot, having survived her heroic hero-ic and gifted husband twenty-five j years, had, on Sunday last, in her 80th year, gone to rejoin him in the land of shadows. John Mitchel was born in Dungiven, County Deny, Ireland, Nov. 3, 1S15. He was educated in Trinity College, Dublin, where he was highly distinguished distin-guished for his classical learning, and where he graduated with high honors in 1S3C. Of all that gifted band of scholarly j patriots who strove, by fiery prose, im- : passioned eloquence and ecstatic song, j to rouae the minds of their downtrod- i den countrymen to the supreme duty of resisting the exterminating poOicy of England in the dark and cruel days immediately preceding 1S4S, John Mitchel was the most uncompromising . and, because of Ms brilliant literary j attainments, the most formidable. ' Of all Irish prose writers, John 1 Mitchel was, Swift only excepted, the ' strongest and most virile: There are nassciees in his 'Mail .Toiirna.l" which I in picturesqueness of imagery and varied beauty of diction, have never been surpassed and but rarely equaled in the whole range of English literature. litera-ture. His attacks in the United Irishman, of which he was the editor, upon English Eng-lish miisgovernment of Ireland were so scathing and damaging in their effect that the Cabinet was forced to resort i to unconstitutional measures to sweep I so dangerous an enemy from its path, j and Mitchel was arrested and tried un-I un-I der the "treason felony act," convicted j by a packed jury arrd sentenced to fourteen years' transportation. His plant was seized and confiscated and ! hia wife and family deprived of their I only support. I In his magnificent speech, "On the Transportation of Mitchel," Meagher spoke of the sad event as follows: , "There is a black ship upon the'j southern sea this night. Far from his own old land far from the sea and ' soil and sky which, standing here, he used to claim for you with all the pride of a true Irish prince far from that young wife, in whose heart the kind hand of heaven has kindled a gentle heroism, sustained by which she looks with serenity and pride upon her widowed wid-owed house, and in the children that girdle her with beauty beholds but the inheritors of a name which, to their I last breath, will secure to them the love, the honor, the blessing of their I country far from these scenes and j joys, clothed and fettered as a felon, I he is borne to an island whereon the rich and brilliant rapacious power of which he was the foe has doomed him to a dark existence." Mrs. Mitchel was a sister of John Martin, another famous patriot of the '48 period. She joined her husband in his exile in Tasmania, and when he effected his escape came with him to the United States, Stayed with him during his sojourn here and returned ! with him to Ireland when he was elected Member of Parliament for the ! county of Tipperary. A lady of wide and varied culture, ' Mrs. Mitchel was, while she lived, the ! f.'3-lace and comfort of her persecuted husband, and cold and callous mupt be that Irish heart that will not throb , with sorrow at the tidings that the ' faithful and idolized wife of John Mitchel is no more. j R. P. O'BRIEN. I |
