"The result was, that we still have settlements in close proximity to each other, whose peoples use different languages in daily conversation, who vary radically in religious belief, have few natural traits in common, and are almost, if not altogether, 'natural enemies' each to each. Thus we have a settlement of Protestant Highland Scotch close by a large estate peopled with Monaghan or Kilkenny Irish Catholics; and perhaps a little farther on is a hamlet of Low-landers, or a village of thrifty English folk.
"But in those days these distinctions were yet more marked, and the feuds of Orange and Ribbon-man, Scotch and Irish, Englishman and French Acadian, had not then given way before the softening and concealing hand of 'Time, the great leveler;' and so some twenty years ago, during a close contest between the then rising liberal party and the conservatives, a riot took place near the polling-booth in the Highland Scotch settlement of Belfast. All the combined strength of both parties was present; the canvassing had been of the most thorough nature, and all the antipathies of race and religion appealed to for electioneering purposes.
"It is said that the Catholics went there expecting a fight, each armed with a well-balanced, tough _shillelagh_, and that they made a general attack on the Scotch. At all events, it is certain that the larger number of the latter had to betake themselves to the nearest available weapon, and that many were cut and bruised by the skilfully-handled weapons of the active Irish cudgel-players. One Scotchman, however (a fellow of unusual stature), seized a fence-rail, and, by his single arm, stayed the tide of flight in his part of the fray. Almost frantic with apprehension, rage, and the desire for revenge, he wielded his ponderous weapon as if it were an ordinary club, striking such tremendous blows that tradition has it that not one of a half-score of the best and bravest of the Irish leaders survived the effects of those terrible and crushing blows. Profiting by his prowess, the Scotch procured the heavy stakes of their sleds, tough poles, pieces of firewood, and similar ponderous weapons, and, headed by the hero of the day, made a charge, returning with terrible severity the comparatively slight damage inflicted by the light cudgels of the Irish.