Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 10.
Reverend J. William Jones, Ed.

[269] sport, but are occasionally dangerous. They can spring wonderfully far, and their fore-paws are armed with long curved claws, that tear terribly. On one of these hunting expeditions, when an unfortunate turned to bay against his pursuers, and stood upon his long hind-legs, with his absurd looking little fore paws hanging down in apparent help-lessness, whilst the great tears rolled from bis piteous brown eyes in his despairing wrath, Mitchel ventured too near, was sprung upon, and would soon have been killed had not one of the English officers dispatched the maddened creature promptly with a bullet.

His father left Australia under peculiar circumstances. He was allowed to go at large on “parole,” and thinking his conviction a most tyrannical and iniquitous proceeding on the part of the English Government, he determined to meet force by “ruse.” One day, when he had obtained a swift horse, he walked into the magistrate's office and said to him, “Mr. * * * * I have come to tell you that I will no longer be a prisoner on parole, I take back my word,” and before the surprised magistrate had time to arrest him he went out, mounted his horse and dashed off. He rode to the sea coast, took shipping in an American vessel and came over to the United States with his son. Of course everything had been prearranged by his friends, but he ventured the risk of being captured before he could get away and having a still harder sentence passed upon him. Would any of us be surprised if Mr. Parnell (who is at present an English prisoner, as Mr. Mitchel was then) did the same, under similar circumstances? Smith O'Bryan, a man of unquestioned honor, refused to receive the Queen's pardon some years later because John Mitchel's name was omitted from the list of “Irish agitators” who were graciously allowed by the English Government to return to Ireland.

Mr. Mitchel's family rejoined him in America, and they resided chiefly in Tennessee. He edited several newspapers with distinguished ability, and when the war between the States occurred he warmly advocated the cause of the South. Not long after the war in America ended he returned to Ireland, and, though ineligible, was elected to Parliament by an overwhelming majority of votes. And the people in their enthusiasm took the horses from his carriage and dragged it themselves through the streets. But the time for his last journey had drawn near, and a few days later, in the midst of his triumph, in the first flush of joy at his return after many long years of exile, comforted by the sympathy of those for whom he had suffered so much, he died, in the land of his nativity, that he had loved with such devoted fervor.

The subject of our sketch became a civil engineer, and after he came