The Life Of Charles Stewart Parnell Vol - I

-fie. 36] A NEW OKGANISATION 367
'Used he to talk politics to you?' I asked Mr. Kedmond. 'No/ he answered, 'his conversation was principally about sporting. He was always looking for gold in Wicklow. Gold, sport, and the applied sciences were his subjects out of Parliament.'
In October the new organisation was founded.
' On the Sunday previous to the convention/ says Mr. Healy, ' I went in the evening to Morrison's Hotel with the draft constitution, which Parnell wished to talk over. This was in the month of October 1882. I found him in bed, and apparently poorly enough. Seeing this I suggested postponing the work of revision. " Oh, no," said he; "it is nothing." After a pause he added musingly, " Something happens to me always in October." This remark fell from him as if he were announcing a decree of fate, and struck me intensely. October, in Mr. PamelTs horoscope, was a month of " influence," and he always regarded it with apprehension.
' In October 1879 he became President of the Land League, which was then started for the first time, and he was commissioned to visit America to spread the new movement and collect funds. In October 1880 the agrarian agitation in Ireland culminated, and the Government commenced the State prosecutions of that year. Curiously enough, in the same month of that year, for some occult reason, Mr. Parnell divested himself of his beard and made himself almost unrecognisable by the people. In October 1881 he was arrested, and arrested, strange to say, on October 13. In October 1886 he sickened almost to death in the critical autumn following the rejection of the Home Bule Bill. In October of that year also the Plan of Campaign, as he complained, was published by Mr. Harrington without