It will be remembered that, on the 30th of May 1884, London had been startled and shocked by an explosion of dynamite in St.
James's Square, which shattered many houses and inflicted cruel injuries upon several innocent people.

It was not so fatal to life as that explosion at the Salford Barracks, which Mr.Parnell treated as a "practical joke." But it excited lively indignation on both sides of the Atlantic, and Mr.Bayard, who at that time was a Senator of the United States, sternly denounced it and its authors on the floor of the American Senate.

What he had said as a Senator he thought it right to repeat as the Foreign Secretary of the United States in his reply to the invitation of the Hibernian Society in March 1885.

This reply ran as follows:-- "WASHINGTON, D.C., _March_ 9, 1885.
"NICHOLAS J.GRIFFIN, Esq., _Secretary of the Hibernian Society of Philadelphia._ "Dear Sir,--I have your personal note accompanying the card of invitation to dine with your ancient and honourable Society on their one hundred and fourteenth anniversary, St.Patrick's Day, and I sincerely regret that I cannot accept it.

The obvious and many duties of my public office here speak for themselves, and to none with more force than to American citizens of Irish blood or birth who are honestly endeavouring to secure liberty by maintaining a government of laws, and who realise the constant attention that is needful.
"In the midst of anarchical demonstrations which we witness in other lands, and the echoes of which we can detect even here in our own free country, where base and silly individuals seek to stain the name of Ireland by associating the honest struggle for just government with senseless and wicked crimes, there are none of our citizens from whom honest reprobation can be more confidently expected than from such as compose your respected and benevolent Society.