FENIAN OUTRAGES. 
161 
on police-barracks, and the insurgents fled into hiding when 
the troops came abroad. Some strange incidents in England 
attracted as much attention as the futile rising across the water, 
A large number of Liverpool Irish were implicated in a hair- 
brained scheme for seizing the stores and armoury at Chester. 
What they could have done if they had been successful does 
not sufficiently appear ; but when 1500 of them had collected 
in the quiet old town, they found the police on the alert, and 
heard that a battalion of the Guards was expected from 
London, whereupon they mildly dispersed, save some dozens 
who were unfortunate enough to be arrested, "The only 
exploits in which the Fenians showed any enterprise were two 
murderous attempts to release imprisoned members of their 
society. On the first occasion (September 18, 1867) twenty 
men with revolvers waylaid a prison van escorted by seven 
police, in the streets of Manchester, and took out their com- 
tades within, after killing one and wounding four of the 
unarmed escort, "The second attempt at rescue was still more 
reckless, and cost more lives. Some Fenian prisoners being 
confined in Clerkenwell jail, a gang of desperados placed a 
barrel of gunpowder against its outer wall and exploded it, 
Ihinking that their friends might escape in the confusion. "The 
prisoners were not released, but in the neighbouring strect four 
persons were killed, and more than a hundred-—-mainly women 
and children—injured (December 13, 1867). For these 
murders several Fenians were hung, Those who suffered for the 
Manchester crime are still honoured by anniversary services in 
Ireland, under the name of the “ Manchester Martyrs.” Deeds 
of this kind were calculated to irritate rather than to cow the 
British Government. "The Conservative cabinet hurried troops 
into Ireland and raised special constables in England, but 
these precautions were hardly necessary. It was only at a 
Somewhat later date that an English statesman Was found to 
declare that murderous outrages brought the Irish question 
“ within the sphere of practical politics.”