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Walking down Royal Avenue I met Colonel Saunderson, radiant after the great demonstration of two days ago, wearing a big bunch of violets in place of Tuesday's bouquet of primroses. He stopped to express good wishes to the Gazette, and said that the Belfasters were proud of Birmingham, which city he regarded as being the most advanced and enlightened in the world.
Did not the truth of one incident render the other an absolute impossibility? If Bloomsbury was right, was not Belfast an ass? Hurrah! The new revelation did not improve poor Barbican's fate a bit no matter for that! Did not the party gain by it? What would the Belfasters say now? Would not they hold down their heads in confusion and disgrace?
This was followed by another burst of cheering so hearty, vigorous and long continued that the scientific party, or Belfasters as they were now called, seeing that further prolongation of the meet was perfectly useless, moved to adjourn. It was carried unanimously.
And whatever Belfasters want they pay for themselves. Belfast receives no Government grants for any municipal purpose, while disloyal Dublin, screaming for equality of treatment, is largely subsidised from Imperial sources. The Belfast people entirely support their hospitals. The Dublin hospitals are largely supported out of the public revenues.
That very night, in fact, whilst the streets of Baltimore were still resounding with the yells of contending Belfasters and Barbicanites, a committee of four, Morgan, Hunter, Murphy, and Elphinstone, were speeding over the Alleghanies in a special train, placed at their disposal by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company, and fast enough to land them in Chicago pretty early on the following evening.
The Belfasters, with a versatility highly creditable to human nature, did nothing of the kind. Rapidly adopting the very line of tactics they had just been so severely censuring, they simply denied the whole thing. What! the truth of the Bloomsbury dispatch? Yes, every word of it! Had not Bloomsbury seen the Projectile? No! Were not his eyes good for anything? Yes, but not for everything!
The Belfasters can rejoice, and whatever they do, is thoroughly done, but work is their vocation, as befits their grave and sober mood. They are great at figures, and by them they try to show that they, and not the Dubliners, should be first considered. They are practical, and although not without sentiment, avoid all useless manifestation of mere feeling.
In spite of the determined opposition of the Belfasters who would not allow the Bloomsbury dispatch to be read at the special meeting called that evening, a few succeeded in adjourning to a committee-room, where Joseph Wilcox, Esq., presiding, our old friends Colonel Bloomsbury, Major Elphinstone, Tom Hunter, Billsby the brave, General Morgan, Chief Engineer John Murphy, and about as many more as were sufficient to form a quorum, declared themselves to be in regular session, and proceeded quietly to debate on the nature of Captain Bloomsbury's dispatch.
Monday's display of bunting was sufficiently lavish to suggest the impossibility of exhibiting any more, but the Belfasters accomplished the feat, and the bright sunshine on the brilliant colours of the myriad banners was strongly reminiscent of Paris en fête under the Empire. The Belfast streets are long, straight, and wide, and mostly intersect at right angles.
Even in the public schools so little work was done by the children that S.T. Wallace, Esq., President of the Education Board, advised an anticipation of the usual Christmas recess by a week. Every one talked of the Projectile; nothing was heard at the corners but discussions regarding its probable fate. All Baltimore was immediately rent into two parties, the Belfasters and the Barbicanites.
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