ABSTRACT

On landing at Cobh 1 after my second lecture tour in America in 1897, 2 I turned the tables on the reporters trying to interview me by asking them for news. These eight days without news on the ship were always trying. "Not too good," said the reporter of the Freeman's Journal, "Potato blight in the West," and he handed me a copy of his paper which contained the insolent reply of Balfour 3 to a question in the House of Commons in regard to deaths from starvation in County Mayo and the inadequate relief measures. Balfour had produced doctors' certificates of "death from heart-failure" and then said: "You can't expect us to supply your fanners with Champagne." 4