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AN GAOḊAL.
Gael has been paid. I paid yourself for the 3rd
vol. on my first introduction to you at the "Bowery
School" last summer, but I have no clear recollect¬
ion of sending my subscription for the current vol¬
ume. I sent it, if I sent at all, by Mr. Burns,
but he is no more certain of it than I am myself.
He thinks I spoke about sending it, but more than
this has no recollection and, like myself, he is in¬
clined to the doubt that I did not. If I sent it you
will have it marked in your book, and this will end
my doubt about it.
Now, as I got my pen in hand, let me have your ear
for a whisper, as it were, and to respectfully suggest
to you the exclusion from the pages of the Gael all
partizan referances to American politics. I am
myself a "dyed-in-the-wool" republican, being one
since 1854 when Stephen A. Douglas introduced
to the Senate the bill organizing Kansas and Neb¬
raska into Territories, and which contained a "ri¬
der" that virtually repealed what was called the
"Missouri Compromise" that prohibited the ex¬
tension of slavery north of a certain parallel of
latitude, and a repudiation of the much vaunted
principle of democracy — "States' Rights." Of
course very few of our countrymen bothered them¬
selves about the principles that underlay the
Douglas' bill, on the principles involved in the
"personal liberties" laws passed in all, or nearly
all, the New England States, and which culminat¬
ed in the formation of the "Republican party." It
seams a national characteristic in us to prefer to
follow leaders rather than to study and act out
principles. It has always been the chieftain, aboo!
seldom is it, Ireland aboo! Each ward settlement
of our people had its "chief" among them, a "good
fellow" who found it to be his special profit to be a
good democrat, and whatever was to his immediate
interest and profit constituted his political creed,
He is always a good follow among the "boys", ever
ready to set them up again, and his friends became
their friends, his enamies their enemies, his politics
their politics and for him and his they shouted and
voted though he had been previously saturated with
all the dark, four bigotry of Know-Nothingism.
But times are changing, and the influence of such
leaders on our people is becoming less potent. I
take it you are animated by a desire to break up
such an unholy influence.
I appreciate your aim, but I fear the Gael
is not in a position to effect that end, and the
attempt may, perhaps, but frustrate its other
primary hope of promoting the cultivation of our
language. If the Gael held a commanding place
of equal influence among our people as does the
"Irish World", "Boston Pilot", or Irish Ameri¬
can". I would gladly encourage you to "pitch in"
and split this so called Irish "vote", if possible, so
that no political party could boast having an ir¬
redeemable mortgage on it. But it does not:
though if a prayer that the day may not be far dis¬
tant when it will could speed it on, the same leaps
fervently from my heart daily! And hence I think
it is not quite politic that it now engage in party
issues.
The last number I got of the Gael was dated for
April. Is this a "typo" mistake? If not, then I
did not get the number for March.
Does not your friend M. J. Collins go a little too
far in the antiquity line of what is known to day as
the "Irish Alphabet“? What Bishop O'Connell
said about "four languages being formulated at
the University of Shenaar" I think is not pertin¬
ent to the question at issue. Can he quote the
Bishop to show that the alphabet, or the form of
the letters in which the language is to-day printed
and written is the same as that in which it was
printed and written when it was formulated at the
ancient University. The antiquity of the language
no one denies. That it had always a written char¬
acter or sign is also admitted. The antiquity de¬
nied is the present form of what is called the Irish
letter or alphabet. The weight of modern research
is against it. Even Canon Bourke who, when he
compiled his "College Irish Grammar", held that
the Irish character in its present written form was
special to and ancient as the language itself, in
later years, accepted the opposite view. For
in a letter which he wrote in 1877, and which is
republished at the end of his edition of Dr. Gall¬
agher's Sermons, he says: “A wider range of read¬
ing and a greater experience proved beyond all
doubt that the old Irish character, as such was the
old Roman, the parent of the Anglo-Saxon and the
German, and, like them, borrowed from the Ro¬
mans. The Irish and Latin manuscripts still
extant," he adds, "point out this truth clearly".
Mr. C’s. reading and experience may be equal and
beyond that of the worthy Canon, "Perhaps"
his conclusion is right, — "may be" the right one,
but, for all he need not be in such hurry to "sit
down" on those who by another road of reading
than his have reached a different conclusion : The
fact, says Mr. C., that the Roman Alphabet has
eight letters more than the Irish is a strong proof
that it is of a more recent formation. It is not a
proof, for it is not a fact. By an arbitrary system
the Irish Alphabet is made to appear to have fewer
letter than the Roman, but naturally it has as
many. This will appear evident if we keep in
mind the definition of a letter, which is a printed
or written character used to represent an articulate
sound. Are there not certain letters in the Irish
Alphabet called "aspirates" which convey full
and distinct sounds to what they do when unaspir¬
ated? "B and M" aspirated have the sounds of
both the Roman V and W. D aspirated and pre¬
ceding a slender has the distinct sound of Roman
Y. The H is now admitted to a place in the Al¬
phabet. It is its sound that is heard when S and T
beginning words are aspirated and it is frequently
used before words commencing with a vowel in or-
r to mark their gender. In short thesounds of
