That is all I can remember, but it may serve to show that Irish Christianity is the real stingo, and no mistake.

A Mullingaringian who wishes to be nameless desires to know particulars of the gorging capacity of the average Gladstonian elector. The particular item that excites his wonder is the letter of Mr. J.W. Logan, M.P., on Irish rents. Briefly stated, Mr. Logan's point is this: That notwithstanding the complaints of Irish landlords they are getting more rent than ever! And he proceeds to adduce testimony thus: Income-tax valuation in Ireland, on land, in three years selected by himself stands as follows:—

Then, after showing the amount of increase, he says:—"Rents continue to rise in Ireland as far as is indicated by the income-tax."

My friend says:—"Mr. Logan is both culpably ignorant and flagrantly dishonest. He seems incapable of understanding the difference between an assessment, a mere valuation, and the actual payment of income-tax. He is dishonest, because he deliberately suppresses the explanation of the difference between the first and second row of figures. When I saw the curiously-selected years, I said, why 1861, 1877, and 1891? I knew there was some thimble-rigging. I looked at the twenty-eighth annual report of her Majesty's Commissioners, that for 1885, the latest I have, and behold, the year 1877 had an asterisk! It was the only starred number on the page. It referred to a foot-note, and that foot-note read as follows:—

"'The large difference as compared with prior years is due to the value of farmhouses having been previously included under the head of messuages.'

"The land up to '77 was called land, and the farm buildings were called messuages. But in '77 they began to reckon the buildings as land, shifting an amount from one column of figures to another. A mere matter of book-keeping. Mr. Logan writes to the papers for an explanation which is given in a footnote. He carries his point, for hundreds of people will follow his figures. Give a lie twenty-four hours' start and you can never overtake it. Thrice is he armed who hath his quarrel just, But four times he who gets his blow in fust. I suppose the Gladstonians claim that the Land Commission reduced rents by 25 to 30 per cent. But here Mr. Logan is proving that the landlords are drawing more money than ever! They wish they could believe it. Valuation is a queer thing. It fluctuates in the most unaccountable way. What an increase shows is the prosperity of the tenant who is putting up buildings and making other improvements. Mr. Logan's third figures show a further increase. Look at the figures in the authorised Report, not for '77 and '91, but between the two. What do you see there?"

I looked, and this is what I saw:—

So that Mr. Logan might have shown from these figures that during the No-Rent Campaign the landlords were enjoying an untold period of prosperity, for his chosen year, 1891, shows a decrease as compared with any one of the seven years above-mentioned. The truth is that the figures prove nothing in support of Mr. Logan's case, which is based on fallacy and suppression of material facts. His comparison of 1861 with 1877, without reference to the explanatory footnote, is of itself sufficient to shoulder him out of court, and stamps him as little more scrupulous than Father Humphreys, of venerated memory. Mr. Logan's belief that assessment and tax-paying are one and the same thing is here regarded as ridiculous, and my friend thinks that if Mr. Gladstone should impose a tax on Brains, the Grand Old Man's followers will escape with an easy assessment.

Mullingar (Co. Westmeath), June 1st.

No. 30.—THE "UNION OF HEARTS."ToC

It was strange to hear the tune of "Rule Britannia" in the streets of Mullingar. The Irish madden at "God Save the Queen," and would make short work of the performer. It was market day, and the singer was selling printed sheets of poesy. The old tune was fairly correct, but the words were strange and sad. "When Britain first at Hell's command Prepared to cross the Irish main, Thus spake a prophet in our land, 'Mid traitors' scoff and fools' disdain, 'If Britannia cross the waves, Irish ever shall be slaves.' In vain the warning patriot spoke, In treach'rous guise Britannia came—Divided, bent us to her yoke, Till Ireland rose, in Freedom's name, and Britannia boldly braves! Irish are no longer slaves." The people were too busily engaged in selling pigs to pay much attention to the minstrel who, however, was plainly depending on disloyalty for custom. Westmeath was once the home of Whiteboyism, Ribbonism, Fenianism, and all the other isms which have successively ruined the country by banishing security; and a spice of the old leaven still flavours the popular sentiment. "They may swear as they often did our wretchedness to cure, But we'll never trust John Bull again nor let his lies allure. No we won't Bull, we won't Bull, for now nor ever more; For we've hopes on the ocean, we've trust on the shore. Oh! remember the days when their reign we did disturb, At Limerick and Thurles, Blackwater and Benburb. And ask this proud Saxon if our blows he did enjoy When we met him on the battlefield of France, at Fontenoy. Then we'll up for the green, boys, and up for the green! Oh! 'tis still in the dust and a shame to be seen! But we've hearts and we've hands, boys, full strong enough, I ween, To rescue and to raise again our own unsullied green." A group of farmers standing hard by paid some attention to this chant, and one of them, in answer to my inquiry as to how the Union of Hearts was getting on, chuckled vociferously and said, "Aye, aye, Union iv Hearts, how are ye? How are ye, Union iv Hearts?" The group joined in the laugh, and I saw that the joke was an old one.

The Invincibles had a few recruits in Mullingar and district, and the Land Leaguers also made their mark. The stationmaster sued somebody for travelling without a ticket. He was shot dead in the street immediately afterwards. Miss Croughan did not meet popular opinion in the matter of farm management. She was shot as she walked to church one fine Sunday morning. Patrick Farrelly took land which somebody else wanted. Shot as he walked home from work. Mr. Dolan, of a flour mill in the neighbourhood, had some misunderstanding with his workmen. Shot, on the chance that his successor would take warning, and accommodate himself to the public sentiment. Miss Ann Murphy, who with her two brothers lives at a small farm a mile or two away, supplied a jug of milk, and said that things were quiet for the moment, but there was no telling what might happen. The house was roofed with corrugated iron. "Ah," said Miss Murphy, "we were nearly burned to death, myself an' my two brothers. An' this was the way iv it. Tramps and ruffians would call here at nightfall, an' would ask for a shelter an' a lie down, an' I would lay a few bags or something on the flure over beyant, an' they would sthretch themselves out till mornin', an' often and often I would wash their cheeks an' heads where they had been fightin', an' would be all cut an' hacked. One fellow was often here, an' my brothers had reason to refuse him free lodgin's, an' so the next mornin' we found the gate lifted off the hinges an' carried away down the lane. My brothers spoke to the police-sergeant about this, an' the very next thing was to try to burn us alive in our beds. Some ruffian came in the night an' put a match in the thatch, an' I woke almost suffocated. I ran out, an' there was the house on fire, and the cow-house, with a beautiful, lovely cow, all a solid piece of blazin' flames, till ye could see nothin' else. We saved the four walls an' some of the furniture, an' we got £50 from the County. That's the sort of people the Land League brought out all over the country."

A sturdy farmer living near said:—"An' that's what we'll have to suffer again, once ye let Home Rulers have the upper hand. The only way ye can manage these scamps is to make them feel the lash. No good tomfooling with these murdherin' ruffians. With Home Rule they expect to do as they like. If I go into a whiskey shop on a market day, what do I hear? Ever an' always the same things. There is to be no landlords, no policemen, no means of enforcing the law. There ye have it, now. The respectable people who work and make money will be a mark for every robber in the country. An' in Ireland ye can rob and murther widout fear of consequences. See that hill there? Mrs. Smith had her brains blown out as she drove by the foot of it. They meant the shot for her husband, who was with her. They don't make many mistakes. They bide their time, avoid hurry, and do the work both nately an' complately. They track down their victims like sleuth hounds, an' there's one thing they never go in for,—that's executions. Mrs. Smith, Farrelly, Dolan, Miss Croughan, and the stationmaster, were all comfortably shot without anyone incurring evil consequences. It's devilish hard to catch an Irishman, an' when ye've caught him it's harder still to convict him. They're improvin' in their plannin', but they are not so sure o' their shootin' as they used to be. They fired at Moloney from both sides of the road at once. That was a good idea. But they failed to kill him, and seven of them are arrested. Of course, we'll have no convictions, but it looks better to arrest them, an' it ensures the man that's arrested a brass band an' a collection. So everybody's pleased an' nobody hurt. An' what would ye ask for more?"

On Thursday last, at eleven in the morning, Mr. Weldon C. Moloney, solicitor, of Dublin, was driving near Milltown, on the Bodyke property, when he was wounded from the ankle to the thigh by several simultaneous shots from both sides of the road, and the horse so badly injured that it must probably be destroyed. Mr. Moloney believes that he will be able to identify his assailants, and the police are sure they have the right men. Nothing, therefore, is now wanting to the formalities accompanying the Morley administration of Justice but the march to Court, the cheers of the crowd, the twelve good men and true—who, having sworn to return a verdict in accordance with the evidence, will assuredly say Not Guilty—and the brass band to accompany the marksmen home. If the heroes of this adventure be liberated in the evening a torchlight procession will make the thing complete, and will be handy for burning the haystacks of anyone who may not have joined the promenade.

Athlone is well built and beautifully situated. The Shannon winds round the town, and also cuts it in two, so that one-half is in County Westmeath, province of Leinster, the other in County Roscommon, province of Connaught. The people are fairly well clad, but dirt and squalor such as can hardly be conceived are plentiful enough. The Shannon Saw Mills, which for twenty years have given employment to two hundred men, will shortly be removed to Liverpool, and the Athloners are sad at heart and refuse to be comforted. The concern belongs to Wilson, of Todmorden, Lancashire; and the manager, Mr. Lewis Jones, says that all the timber within reasonable distance is used up, besides which the place is not well fixed for business purposes. The workpeople are manageable enough, but somewhat uncertain in their attendance. They require a half-hour extra at breakfast time every now and then, perhaps twenty times a year or more, that they may attend mass, on the saints' days and such like occasions.

This reminded me of my first entrance to Galway. All the bridges and other lounging places were covered with men who looked as if they ought to be at work. It was Ascension Day, and nobody struck a stroke. My invasion of Athlone afforded a similar experience. There were sixty-five able-bodied men lounging on the Shannon bridge at three in the afternoon—all deeply anxious to know whence I came and whither I was going, all with an intense desire to learn my particular business. Other pauper factories were in full swing, and at the first blush it seemed that the Athloners lived by looking at the river and discussing the affairs of other people. It was Corpus Christi Day, and none but heathen would work. The brutal Saxon with his ding-dong persistency may be making money, but how about his future interests? When the last trump shall sound and the dead shall be raised, where will be the workers on saints' days? Among the goats. But the men who spend these holy seasons in smoking thick twist, with the Shannon for a spittoon, will reap the reward of their self-denial.

Mr. Lewis Jones has always taken a strong interest in politics, and his present opinion is remarkable. "I came to Ireland a Gladstonian, a Home Ruler, and, what is more, a bigoted Home Ruler. How the change to my present opinion was brought about I hardly know. It was not revolution, but rather evolution. No-one can remain a Home Ruler when he understands the subject. The change in myself came about through much travelling all over the country and mixing with the people. I do not blame the English Home Rulers a bit. How can I do so, when I myself was just as ignorant? Had I remained in Liverpool I should have remained a Home Ruler. I am certain of that. Unless you actually live in the country you cannot gauge its feeling, and the Irish people are very difficult to understand. I have always got along with them famously, and I shall take ninety per cent. of our workmen with me to England. No, Home Rule has nothing to do with the removal of the works.

"My cousin and I worked like horses to get in Mr. Neville for the Exchange Division of Liverpool. We actually won, for by a piece of adroit management we polled a number of votes which would certainly have remained unpolled, and we polled them all for our man, who won by a very small majority, eleven, I think. I would willingly go to Liverpool to undo that work, as I now see how completely I was mistaken in my views of the Irish question. I was always a great Radical, and such I shall always remain; but as a Radical I am bound to support what is best for the masses of the people, and I am convinced that Home Rule would reduce the country to beggary. Bankruptcy must and will ensue, and with the flight of the landowners and the destruction of confidence, employment will be unobtainable. Who will embark capital in Ireland under present circumstances?"

A financial authority told me that poor Ireland has thirty-six millions of uninvested money lying idle in the banks. The Irish not only lack enterprise, but they will not trust each other. Great opportunities are lying thickly around, but they seem unable to avail themselves of the finest openings. Mr. Smith, of Athlone, makes twelve and a half miles of Irish tweed every week, and sells it rather faster than he can make it. He commenced with two shillings a week wages, and now he owns a factory and employs five hundred people. A Black Protestant, of course. Mr. Samuel Heaton, of Bradford, is about to go and do likewise. I went over his place an hour ago, and this is what he said:—"This was a flour mill which cost £10,000 to build. The machinery would cost £10,000 more, I should think. It did well for many years, and then it was left to three brothers, who disputed about it until the concern was ruined as a paying business, and the place was allowed to lie derelict. The water power alone cost them £100 a year, and goodness knows what these splendid buildings would be worth. The Board of Works had got hold of it, and it was understood that anybody might have it a bargain, but nobody came forward. I offered them £30 a year for the whole of the buildings, the waterpower, and the dwelling house hard by, also that other immense building yonder, which might prove handy for a store-house; and my offer was accepted. I took all at that rent for sixty years, with six months' free tenancy to start with, and I was also to have a free gift of all machinery and fittings in the place. Here we are going nicely, only in a small way, but we shall do. We make blankets, tweeds for men's suits and ladies' dresses. When the Athlone people saw us knocking about they were surprised they had never thought of it before. There are hundreds of derelict flour mills going to ruin all over the country, and the owners would gladly let anyone have them and grand water power for nothing for two or three years, just to get a chance of obtaining rent at some future day. We work from morning till night, and neither I nor my sons have ever tasted a spot of intoxicating liquor. Now there are many small mills going in the country, the proprietors of which go on the spree three days a week. If they can do, we can do. This is going to be a big thing. The only difficulty I have is to turn out the stuff. Irish tweeds have such a reputation that we simply cannot meet the demand. Mills and water power may be had for next to nothing, but the Irish have no enterprise, and the English are afraid to put any money in the country under present circumstances."

The Lock Mills above mentioned are three or four stories high, with perhaps a hundred yards of front elevation, a grandly built series of stone buildings close to the Shannon, which is here about a hundred and twenty yards wide, and carries tolerably large steamers and lighters. Six months' occupancy for nothing, the old machinery a free gift, water power and buildings for sixty years at £30 a year. I have previously mentioned the twelve big mills abandoned on the Boyne. Twelve openings for small capitalists—but Irishmen put their money in stockings, under the flure, in the thatch. They will not trust Irishmen, although they have no objection to John Bull's doing so. A bank manager of this district said:—

"Poor Connaught, as they call the province, is a great hoarder. And when Irishmen invest they invest outside Ireland. Seventy-eight thousand pounds in the Post Office savings bank in Mayo, the most poverty-stricken district—as they will tell you. There is Connaught money in Australia, in America, in England, and in all kinds of foreign bonds. Irishmen want to keep their hoardings secret. They like to walk about barefoot and have money in their stocking. An old woman who puts on and takes off her shoes outside the town has three sons high up in the Civil Service, and could lend you eight hundred pounds. You would take her for a beggar and might offer her a penny, and she'd take it. Have you noticed the appalling mendicancy of Ireland? Have you reflected on the 'high spirit' of the Irish people? Have you remembered their pride, their repugnance to the Saxon? And have you noticed the everlastingly outstretched hands which meet you at every corner? Beggary, lying, dirt, and laziness invariably accompany priestly rule, and are never seen in Ireland in conjunction with Protestantism? I wish somebody would explain this. The Irish masses are the dirtiest and laziest in the world, but there are no dirty, lazy Protestants. Nobody ever heard of such a thing. And yet because there are more dirty, lazy Catholics than clean, industrious Protestants Mr. Gladstone would give the Catholic party the mastery, and England in future would be ruled from Rome.

"Mr. Gladstone is not responsible for his actions. The Civil Service will not employ a man after sixty-five. The British Government forbids a man to work in its service after that time. The consensus of scientific opinion has fixed sixty-five as the limit at which the control of an office or the execution of routine office work should cease. Slips of memory occur, and the brain has lost its keen edge, its firm grip, its rapid grasp of detail. At sixty-five you are not good enough for the Civil Service, but at eighty-four, when you are nineteen years older, you may govern a vast empire. It is an anomaly. Even the Nationalists think Mr. Gladstone past his work."

This statement was fully borne out by a strong anti-Parnellite of Athlone. He said:—"The bill is a hoax, but it is better than nothing. We'll take what we can get, an' we'll get what we can take—afterwards. Ye wouldn't be surprised that the people's bitter about the bill. Sure, 'tis no Home Rule it is at all, even if we got it as it first stood. 'Tis an insult to offer such a bill to the Irish nation. We want complete independence. We have a sort of a yoke on us, an' we'll never rest till we get it off. Ye say 'This'll happen ye, and That'll happen ye,' an' ye care the divil an' all about it. We don't care what happens, once we get rid of that yoke. A friend of mine said yesterday, 'I never see an Englishman but I think I'd like to have him under my feet, an' meself stickin' somethin' into him.' There's murther in their hearts, an' ye can't wonder at it. An' owld Gladstone's a madman, no less. I'm towld he ordhers a dozen top hats at once, an' his wife gets the shop-keeper to take thim back. An' I'm towld he stales the spoons whin he goes out to dine wid his frinds, an' that his wife takes thim back in a little basket nixt mornin'. And I thought that was all nonsinse till I seen the bill. An' thin I felt I could believe it; for, bedad, nobody but a madman could have drawn up sich a measure, to offind everybody, an' plaze nobody. 'Tis what ye'd expect from a lunatic asylum. But, thin, 'tis Home Rule. 'Tis the principle; an' as the mimber for Roscommon says, ''Tis ourselves will apply it, an' 'tis ourselves will explain it. That's where we'll rape the advantage,' says he."

The Athlone market is "now on," and several hundred cows and calves are lowing in front of the Royal, Mrs. Haire's excellent caravanserai. Sheep are bleating, and excited farmers are yelling like pandemonium or an Irish House of Commons. Athlone is a wonderful place for donkeys, which swell the nine-fold harmony with incessant cacophonous braying, so that the town might fairly claim the distinction of being the chosen home, if not the fons et origo, of Nationalist oratory.

Athlone, June 3rd.

No. 31.—THE "UNION OF HEARTS."ToC

Once again the Atlantic stops me. The eighty-three miles of country between here and Athlone have brought about no great change in the appearance of the people, who, on the whole, are better clad than the Galway folks. The difference in customs, dress, language, manners, and looks between one part of Ireland and another close by is sometimes very considerable. There is a lack of homogeneity, a want of fusion, an obvious need of some mixing process. The people do not travel, and in the rural districts many of them live and die without journeying five miles from home. The railways now projected or in process of construction will shortly change all this, and the tourist, with more convenience, will no longer be able to see the Ireland of centuries ago. The language is rapidly dying out. Not a word of Irish did I hear in Athlone, even on market day. The Westporters know nothing about it. The tongue of the brutal Saxon is everywhere heard. The degenerate Irish of these latter days cannot speak their own language. They preach, teach, quarrel, pray, swear, mourn, sing, bargain, bless, curse, make love in English. They are sufficiently familiar with the British vernacular to lie with the easy grace of a person speaking his mother-tongue. They are a gifted people, and a patriotic—at least they tell us so, and the Irish, they say, is the queen of languages, the softest, the sweetest, the most poetical, the most sonorous, the most soul-satisfying. And yet the patriot members speak it not. William O'Brien is said to know a little, but only as you know a foreign language. He could not address the people on the woes of Ireland, could not lash the brutal Saxon, could not express in his native tongue the withering outpourings of his patriotic soul. He always speaks in English, of which he thinks foul scorn. He is the best Gaelic scholar of the rout, and yet he could not give you the Irish for breeches.

Westport is splendidly situated in a lovely valley watered by a nameless stream which empties itself into Clew Bay. A grand range of mountains rises around, the pyramidal form of Croagh Patrick dominating the quay. It was from the summit of this magnificent height that Saint Patrick sent forth the command which banished from the Green Isle the whole of the reptile tribe. "The Wicklow Hills are very high, An' so's the hill of Howth, Sir; But there's a hill much higher still, Aye, higher than them both, Sir! 'Twas from the top of this high hill Saint Patrick preached the sarmint, That drove the frogs out of the bogs An' bothered all the varmint. The toads went hop, the frogs went flop, Slap-dash into the water, An' the snakes committed suicide to save themselves from slaughter." Pity there is no modern successor of Saint Patrick to extirpate the reptilia of the present day, the moonlighters and their Parliamentary supporters, to wit.

The Westport people are very pious. As I have previously shown by quotations from Irish authorities, Ireland has the true Christianity which England so sadly needs. Unhindered by England, Ireland would evangelise the world, and that in double-quick time. Every town I visit is deeply engaged in religious exercises. In Limerick it was a Triduum with some reference to Saint Monica. In Cork it was something else, which required much expenditure in blessed candles. In Galway the Confraternity of the Holy Girdle was making full time, and in Westport three priests are laying on day and night in a mission. A few days ago they carried the Corpus Christi round the place, six hundred children strewing flowers under the sacerdotal feet, and the crowds of worshippers who flocked into the town necessitated the use of a tent, from which the money-box was stolen. On Sunday last the bridge convaynient to the chapel was covered with country folks who could not get into the building, and a big stall with sacred images in plaster of Paris and highly-coloured pictures in cheap frames was doing a roaring trade. Barefooted women were hurrying to chapel to get pictures blessed, or walking leisurely home with the sanctified treasure under their shawls. A brace of scoffers on the bridge explained the surging crowd, and advised instant application, that evening being the last. "Get inside, wid a candle in yer fist, an' ye can pray till yer teeth dhrop out iv yer head." This irreverence is probably one of the accursed fruits of contact with the sacrilegious Saxon. "The people here are cowardly, knavish, and ignorant," said an Irishman twenty years resident in Westport. "They believe anything the priests tell them, and they will do anything the priests may order or even hint at. They would consider it an honour if the priests told them to lie down that they might walk over them. Politically they are entirely in the hands of the Roman Catholic clergy. They are totally unable to understand or to grasp the meaning of the change now proposed, which would place the country entirely at the mercy of the clerical party. We see the result of popular election in the return of Poor Law Guardians, who spend most of their time in calling each other beggars and liars. Patronage under the Home Rule Bill would mean the instalment of the relatives of priests in all the best offices. Once we have an Irish Parliament, a man of capacity may leave the country unless he have a priest for his uncle.

"We want a liberal measure of Local Government, and a final settlement of the land question. The poor people are becoming poorer and poorer through this eternal agitation which drives away wealth and capital, and undermines the value of all Irish securities. Poor as we were, we were much better off before the agitation commenced. The poor themselves are becoming alive to the fact that continuous agitation means continuous poverty. We must now have some sort of Home Rule, but we shall be ruined if we get it from a Liberal Government. If we get it from a Tory Government, the English will run to lend us money, but if from a Morley-Gladstone combination they won't advance us a stiver. The present Irish Parliamentary representatives have the confidence of no single Irish party. They were well enough for their immediate purpose, and no better men would come forward. To entrust them with large powers is the very acme of wild insanity. Admitting their honesty, which is doubtful, they have had no experience in business affairs, and their class is demonstratedly devoid of administrative capacity. The Poor Law Guardians of Cork, Portumna, Ballinasloe, Swinford, Ballyvaughan, and many other towns and cities, have by their mismanagement brought their respective districts to insolvency. That every case was a case of mismanagement is clearly proved by the fact that the Government having superseded these Boards in each case by two paid Guardians, a period of two years has sufficed to wipe off all debts, to reduce expenses, and to leave a balance in hand. They then begin to drift again into insolvency. And where the guardians have not been superseded, where they have not yet become bankrupt, they still have a bank balance against them. You will scarcely hear of a solvent parish, even if you offer a reward. And that is the class of persons Mr. Gladstone would entrust with the administration of Irish finance. The result would be the country's bankruptcy, and England would have to pay the damage. Serve England right for her stupidity."

What my friend said anent the class of men who compose the ranks of the Irish Parliamentary party reminds me of something I heard in Athlone. A great anti-Parnellite said:—"Poor Mat Harris was the splindid spaker, in throth! Parnell it was that sent him to the House of Commons. Many's the time I seen him on the roof of the Royal Hotel, fixin the tiles, an' puttin things sthraight, that the rain wouldn't run in. 'Tis a slater he was, an' an iligant slater, at that. An' when he came down for a big dhrink, the way he'd stand at the bar and discoorse about Ireland would brake yer heart. Many's the time I seen the ould waiter listenin' to him till the wather would pour out iv his two good-lookin' eyes. An, thin, 'twas Mat Harris had the gab, rest his sowl! Ye haven't anybody could come up to him barrin' owld Gladstone, divil a one." Another Athloner, speaking of an Irish Nationalist M.P., who luckily still lives, said:—"Mr. Parnell took him up because he was a wonderful fellow to talk, and so was popular with the mob of these parts. I think he was a blacksmith by trade. Parnell got him made M.P., and set him up with a blue pilot coat, but forgot to give him a handkerchief. So he used the tail of his coat alternately with his coat sleeve. He never had a pocket-handkerchief in his life, but he was a born legislator, and the people believed he could do much to restore the vaunted ancient prestige and prosperity of Ireland. He came to Athlone, and went to the Royal, but the waiter, who did not know he was speaking to a member of Parliament, and moreover one of his own kidney, declined to take him in, and recommended a place where he could get a bed for Thruppence! And the M.P. actually had to take it. This was only inconsistent with his new dignity, and not with his previous experiences. This is the kind of person who is to direct Irish legislation more efficiently than the educated class, who unanimously object to Home Rule as detrimental to the interests of both countries, and as likely to further impoverish poor Ireland. The men who now represent the 'patriotic' party will feather their own nests. They care for nothing more."

The Westport folks may not deserve the strictures of their friend of twenty years, but two things are plainly visible. They are dirty, and they have no enterprise. The island-dotted Clew Bay and the sublime panorama of mountain scenery, the sylvan demesne of the Earl of Sligo, and the forest-bordered inlets of Westport Bay, form a scene of surpassing loveliness and magnificence such as England and Wales together cannot show. The town is well laid out, the streets are broad and straight, and Lord Sligo's splendid range of lake and woodland, free to all, adjoins the very centre. And yet the shops are small and mean, the houses are dirty and uninviting, and dunghills front the cottages first seen by the visitor. A breezy street leads upward to the heights, and all along it are dustheaps, with cocks and hens galore, scratching for buried treasure. At the top a stone railway bridge, the interstices facing the sea full of parsley fern, wild maidenhair, hart's-tongue, and a beautiful species unknown to me. The bracing air of the Atlantic sweeps the town, which is sheltered withal by miles of well-grown woods. The houses are dazzling white, and like the Rhine villages look well from a distance. Beware the interiors, or at least look before you leap. Then you will probably leap like the stricken hart, and in the opposite direction. You will be surprised at your own agility. Flee from the "Lodgings and Entertainment" announced in the windows. Your "Entertainment" is likely to be livelier than you expected, and you will wish that your Lodgings were on the cold, cold ground. The Westporters are too pious to wash themselves or their houses. "They wash the middle of their faces once a month," said a Black Methodist. For there are Methodists here, likewise Presbyterians and Plymouth Brethren—besides the Church of Ireland folks, who only are called Protestants. All these must be exempted from the charge of dirtiness. Cleanliness, neatness, prosperity, and Protestantism seem to go together. Father Humphreys himself would not deny this dictum.

For the other clause of the indictment—lack of enterprise—the Westporters are no worse and no better than their neighbours. The Corkers make nothing of their harbour, spending most of their time in talking politics and cursing England. Commercial men speak of the difficulty of doing business at Cork, which does not keep its appointments, is slippery, and requires much spirituous lubrication. Cork ruins more young commercial men than any city in Britain, and owing to the unreliability of its citizens, is more difficult to work. Galway has scores of ruined warehouses and factories, and has been discussing the advisability of building a Town Hall for forty years at least. Limerick has a noble river, with an elaborate system of quays, on which no business is done. The estuary of the Shannon, some ten miles wide, lies just below, opening on the Atlantic; and a little enterprise would make the city the Irish head-quarters for grain. The quays are peopled by loafers, barefooted gossiping women, and dirty, ragged children playing at marbles. Great buildings erected to hold the stores that never come, or to manufacture Irish productions which nobody makes, are falling into ruin. I saw the wild birds of the air flying through them, while the people were emigrating or complaining, and nothing seemed to flourish but religious services and fowl-stealing. It was during my sojourn in Limerick that somebody complained to the Town Council of poultry depredations, which complaint drew from that august body a counter-complaint to the effect that the same complainant had complained before, and that he always did it during a Retreat, that is, when the town was full of people engaged in special religious services—so that the heretic observer, and especially the representative of the Gazette, referred to by name, might couple the salvation of souls with the perdition of hens, to the great discredit of the faith. But this is a digression.

Westport should brush itself up, cleanse its streets, tidy up its shops, sanitate its surroundings, and offer decent accommodation to tourists. The latter does exist, but is scarce and hard to find. The people of Cork, Limerick, and Galway blame England and English rule for the poverty which is their own fault alone. They hate the Northerners as idle unsuccessful men hate successful industrious men. Belfast is a standing reproach. The people of Leinster, Munster, and Connaught have had the same government under which Ulster has flourished, with incomparably greater advantages of soil and climate than Ulster, with better harbours and a better trading position. But instead of working they stand with folded hands complaining. Instead of putting their own shoulders to the wheel they wait for somebody to lift them out of the rut. Instead of modern methods of agriculture, fishing, or what not, they cling to the ancient ways, and resent advice. The women will not take service; the men will not dig, chop, hammer. They are essentially bone-idle—laziness is in their blood. They will not exert themselves. As Father McPhilpin says, "They will not move. You cannot stir them if you take them by the shoulders and haul at them." What will Home Rule do for such people? Will it serve them instead of work? Will it content the grumblers? Will it silence the agitators? Will it convert the people to industry? Will it imbue them with enterprise? Will it make them dig, chop, fish, hammer? Will it make the factory hands regular day by day? Will it cause the women to wash themselves and cleanse their houses? Will it change their ingrained sluttishness to tidiness and neatness and decency? Father Mahony, of Cork, said that the Irish fisherman turned his back on the teeming treasures of the deep, because he groaned beneath the cruel English yoke. Since then I have seen him fishing, but I did not hear him groan. He wanted boats, nets, and to be taught their use. Mr. Balfour supplied him with plant and instructions. Father Mahony and his tribe of wind-bags feed the people on empty air. The starving poor ask for bread, and they get a speech. They are told to go on grumbling, and things will come all right. Nobody ever tells them to work. Murder and robbery, outrage and spoliation, landlord-shooting and moonlighting, are easier ways of getting what they want. The Plan of Campaign, the No Rent combination, the Land League brotherhood when rightly considered, were just so many substitutes for honest work. Ireland will be happy when Ireland is industrious, and not a moment before.

No need to say that the Westporters are Home Rulers. The clean and tidy folks, the Protestant minority, are heart and soul against the bill, but the respectable voters are swamped all over Ireland, by devotees of the priests. "We think the franchise much too low," said a Presbyterian. "We think illiterate Ireland, with its abject servility to the Catholic clergy, quite unfit to exercise the privilege of sending men to Parliament. We think the intelligent minority should rule, and that the principles which obtain in other matters might well be applied to Parliamentary elections. These ignorant people are no more fit to elect M.P.'s than to elect the President of the Royal Society or the President of the Royal Academy. And yet if mere numbers must decide, if the counting of heads is to make things right or wrong, why not let the people decide these distinctions? The West of Ireland folks know quite as much of art or science as of Home Rule, or any other political question. They have returned, and will in future return, the nominees of the priests."

One of the highest legal authorities in Ireland, himself a Roman Catholic, said to me:—

"You saw the elections voided by reason of undue priestly influence. That was because, in the cases so examined, money was available to pay the costs of appeal. If there had been money enough to contest every case where a Nationalist was returned, you would have seen every such election proved equally illegal, and every one would have been adjudicated void."

The Westport folks are looking for great things from the great Parliament in College Green. A Sligo man who has lived in Dublin was yesterday holding forth on these prospective benefits, his only auditor being one Michael, an ancient waiter of the finest Irish brand. Michael is both pious and excitable, and must have an abnormal bump of wonder. He is a small man with a big head, and is very demonstrative with his hands. He abounds with pious (and other) ejaculations, and belongs to that popular class which is profuse in expressions of surprise and admiration. The most commonplace observation evokes a "D'ye see that, now?" a "D'ye tell me so, thin?" or a "Whillaloo! but that bates all!" As will be seen, Michael artistically suits his exclamations to the tone and matter of the principal narrator, mixing up Christianity and Paganism in a quaintly composite style, but always keeping in harmony with the subject. The Sligo man said:—

"I seen the mails go on the boat at Kingstown, an' there was hundhreds of bags, no less."

"Heavenly Fa-a-ther!" said Michael, throwing up eyes and hands.

"Divil a lie in it. 'Twas six hundhred, I believe."

"Holy Moses preserve us!"

"An' the rivinue is millions an' millions o' pounds."

"The saints in glory!"

"An' wid Home Rule we'd have all that for Oireland."

"Julius Saysar an' Nibuchadnizzar!"

"Forty millions o' goolden sovereigns, divil a less."

"Thunder an' ouns, but ye startle me!"

"An' we're losin' all that"—

"Save an' deliver us!"

"Becase the English takes it"—

"Holy Virgin undefiled!"

"To pay peelers an' sojers"—

"Bloody end to thim!"

"To murther and evict us"—

"Lord help us!"

"An' collect taxes an' rint."

"Hell's blazes!"

Ten minutes after this conversation under my window Michael adroitly introduced the subject of postal profits in Ireland. I told him there was an ascertained loss of £50,000 a year, which the new Legislature would have to make up somehow. Michael bore the change with fortitude. The loss of forty millions plus fifty thousand would have upset many a man, but Michael only threw up his eyes and said very softly—

"Heavenly Fa-a-ther!"

Westport, June 6th.

No. 32.—HOME RULE AND IRISH IMMIGRATION.ToC

A bright country town with a big green square called The Mall, bordered by rows of great elm trees and brilliantly whitewashed houses. The town is about a mile from the station, and the way is pleasant enough. Plenty of trees and pleasant pastures with thriving cattle, mansions with umbrageous carriage-drives, and the immense mass of Croagh Patrick fifteen miles away towering over all. The famous mountain when seen from Castlebar, is as exactly triangular as an Egyptian pyramid, or the famous mound of Waterloo. Few British heights have the striking outline of Croagh Patrick, which may be called the Matterhorn of Ireland. Castlebar is always dotted with soldiers, The Buffs are now marching through the town, on their way to the exercise ground, but the sight is so familiar that the street urchins hardly turn their heads. The Protestant Church, square-towered, fills a corner of The Mall, and there stands a statue of General O'Malley, with a drawn sword of white marble. Lord Lucan, of the Balaklava Charge, hailed from Castlebar. The town and its precincts belong to the Lucans. There is a convent with a big statue of the Virgin Mary, and the usual high wall. The shops are better than those of Westport, and the streets are far above the Irish average in order and cleanliness. The country around is rich in antiquities. Burrishoole Abbey and Aughnagower Tower, with the splendid Round Tower of Turlough, are within easy distance, the last a brisk hour's walk from Castlebar. There in the graveyard I met a Catholic priest of more than average breadth and culture, who discussed Home Rule with apparent sincerity, and with a keener insight than is possessed by most of his profession. He said:—

"When the last explosion took place at Dublin, the first to apprise me of the affair was the Bishop of my diocese, whose comment was summed up in the two words 'Castle job!' Now that riled me. I am tired of that kind of criticism."

Here I may interpolate the critique of Colonel Nolan, who was the first to apprise me of the occurrence.—"I do not say that the Irish Government officials are responsible for the explosion. That would not be fair, as there is no evidence against them. But I do say that if they did arrange the blow-up they could not have selected a better time, and if some mistaken Irish Nationalist be the guilty person he could not have selected a worse time from a patriotic point of view." Thus spake the Colonel, who has an excellent reputation in his own district. The stoutest Conservatives of Tuam speak well of him. "All the Nolans are good," said a staunch Unionist; and another said, "The Nolans are a good breed. The Colonel is good, and Sebastian Nolan is just as good. Nobody can find fault with the Nolans apart from politics." The Colonel is one of the nine Parnellites accursed of the priests. Perhaps he was present at the Parnellite meeting at Athenry, regarding which Canon Canton, parish priest of Athenry, declared from the altar that every person attending it would be guilty of mortal sin. English readers will note that the Parnellites resent priestly dictation.

Another interpolation anent "the Castle job." I thought to corner a great Athlone politician by questions re the recent moonlighting, incendiarism, and attempted murders in Limerick and Clare. He said—

"All these things are concocted and paid for by the Tories of England. The reason Balfour seemed to be so successful was simple enough when you know the explanation. Balfour and his friends kept the moonlighters and such like people going. They paid regular gangs of marauders to disturb the country while the Liberals were in power. When the Tories get in, these same gangs are paid to be quiet. Then the Tories go about saying, 'Look at the order we can keep.' Every shot fired in County Clare is paid for by the English Tories. Sure, I have it from them that knows. Ye might talk for a month an' ye'd never change my opinion. There's betther heads than mine to undershtand these things, men that has the larnin', an' is the thrue frinds of Ireland. When I hear them spake from the altar 'tis enough for me. I lave it to them. Ye couldn't turn me in politics or religion, an' I wouldn't listen to anybody but my insthructors since I was twelve inches high." Well might Colonel Winter, who knows the speaker above-mentioned, say to me, "He has read a good deal, but his reading seems to have done him no good."

It is time I went back to Turlough's Tower and my phœnix priest who was riled to hear his Bishop speak of the Dublin explosion as a "Castle job." He claimed that "the clergy are unwilling instruments in the hands of the Irish people, who are unconquerable even after seven hundred years of English rule. The Irish priesthood is so powerful an element of Irish life, not because it leads, but because it follows. Powerful popular movements coerce the clergy, who are bound to join the stream, or be for ever left behind. No doubt at all that, being once in, they endeavour to direct the current of opinion in the course most favourable to the Catholic religion. To do otherwise would be to deny their profession, to be traitors to the Church. They did not commence the agitation. The Church instinctively sticks to what is established, and opposes violent revolutionary action. History will bear me out. The clergy stamped out the Smith-O'Brien insurrection. The Catholic clergy of the present day, mostly the sons of farmers, are perhaps more ardently political than the clergy of a former day, a little less broad in view, a little more hot-headed; yet in the main are subject to the invariable law I laid down at first—that is, they only follow and direct, they do not lead, or at any rate they only place themselves in the front when the safety of the Church demands it. The bulk of the clergy believe that the time to lead has now come. My own opinion, in which I am supported by a very few,—but I am happy to say a very distinguished few,—is this: The Roman Catholic Church is making immense progress in England; a closer and closer connection with England will ultimately do far more for the Church than can be hoped from revolutionary and republican Ireland. We should by a Home Rule Bill gain much ground at first, but we should as rapidly lose it, while our hold on England would be altogether gone. Many of the so-called Catholic Nationalists are atheists at heart, and the tendency of modern education is decidedly materialistic. So that instead of progressive conquest the Church would experience progressive decline, which would be all the more striking after the great but momentary accession of prestige conferred by the Home Rule Bill. My theory is—Let well alone. The popular idea is to achieve commanding and lasting success at a blow."

The Castlebar folks have diverse opinions, the decent minority, the intelligence of the place, being Unionist, as in every other Irish town. A steady, well-clad yeoman said:—"I've looked at the thing in a hundred ways, and although I confess that I voted for Home Rule, yet when we have time to consider it, and to watch the debate on every point, we may be excused if we become doubtful as to the good it will do. The people round here are so ignorant, that talking sense to them is waste of time. They will put their trust in coal mines and the like of that. Now, I have gone into the subject of Irish mines. I have read the subject up from beginning to end. Wicklow gold would cost us a pound for ten shillings' worth. The silver mines wouldn't pay, and the lead mines are a fraud; while the copper mines would ruin anybody who put their money into them. I know something about Irish coal. Lord Ranfurly did his best for Irish coal at Dungannon. Mines were sunk and coal was found, but it was worthless. Well, it fetched half a crown a ton, and people on the spot went on paying a guinea a ton for Newcastle coal because it was cheaper in the end. We may have iron, but what's the good when we have no coal to smelt it? The Irish forests which formerly were used for this purpose are all gone. Then the people put their trust in wool and cotton manufactures. They may do something with the wool, because England is waking up to the superior quality of Irish woollen productions; but in the cotton England is here, there and everywhere before us. 'Oh,' say some who should know better, 'put a duty on English goods, and make the Irish buy their own productions.' What rubbish! when England buys almost every yard of Irish woollen stuff, and could choke us off in a moment by counter-tariffs. Without English custom the Irish tweed mills would not run a single day.

"As an Irishman, I should like to have a Parliament of my own. I suppose that is a respectable ambition. At the same time, I cannot see where it would do us any substantial good. No, I do not think the present Nationalist members loyal to the English Crown. Nor are they traitors. A priest explained that very well. There's a distinction. 'A man may not be loyal and yet not be a traitor, for how can a man be a traitor to a foreign government?' said he. That sounded like the truth. I thought that a reasonable statement. For, after all, we are under foreign rule, and we have a perfect right to revolt against it and throw off the English yoke if we could do it, and if it suited us to do it. How to do it has been the talk since my childhood, and many a year before. It is the leading idea of all secret societies, and hardly any young man in Kerry and Clare but belongs to one or other of them. The idea is to get rid of the landlords who hold the country for England. There it is, now. We'll never be a contented conquered province like Scotland. We'd be all right if we could only make ourselves content. But the Divil is in us. That's what ye'll say. The Divil himself is in Irishmen."

The Mayo folks are great temporary migrants. From the County Mayo and its neighbour Roscommon come the bands of Irish harvesters which annually invade England. Latterly they are going more than ever, and the women also are joining in large numbers. The unsettled state of the country and the threat of a College Green Parliament have made work scarcer and scarcer, and the prevailing belief among the better classes that the bill is too absurd to become law, is not sufficient to counteract the chronic want of confidence inspired by the presence of Mr. Gladstone at the helm of state. Five hundred workers went from Westport Quay to Glasgow the other evening. More than two-thirds were women from Achil Island, sturdy and sun-burnt, quaintly dressed in short red kirtle, brilliant striped shawl, and enormous lace-up boots, of fearful crushing power. Though not forbidding, the women were very plain, ethnologically of low type, with small turn-up noses, small eyes, large jaws, and large flat cheekbones. The men were ugly as sin and coarse as young bulls, of which their movements were remindful. A piper struck up a jig and couples of men danced wildly about, the women looking on. Five shillings only for forty hours' sea-sickness, with permission to stand about the deck all the time. Berths were, of course, out of the question, and the boat moved slowly into the Atlantic with hundreds of bareheaded women leaning over the sides. Another boat-load will land at Liverpool, to return in September and October. The best-informed people of these parts think that under the proposed change the young female population of Mayo would be compelled to stay in England altogether, and that their competition in the English labour market would materially lower the rate of factory wage. "They live hard and work like slaves when away from Ireland," said an experienced sergeant of the Royal Irish Constabulary. "And yet they are lazy, for on their return they will live somehow on the money they bring back until the time comes to go again, and during the interval they will hardly wash themselves. They will not work in their own districts, nor for their friends, the small farmers. Partly pride, partly laziness; you cannot understand them. The man who attempts to explain the inconsistencies of the Irish character will have all his work before him. Make the country a peasant-proprietary to suit the small farmers, and the labouring class will go to England and Scotland to live. The abolition of the big farmers will cut the ground from under their feet. You will have Ireland bossing your elections, as in America, and cutting the legs from under your artisans. For let me tell you that once Paddy learns mechanical work he is a heap smarter than any Englishman."

If Home Rule should become law, and if England should be over-run by the charming people of Connaught, the brutal Saxon will be interested to observe some of the ancient customs to which they cling with a touching tenacity. Marriage with the Connaught folks is entirely a matter of pecuniary bargain. The young folks have no act or part in the arrangements. The seniors meet and form a committee of ways and means. How much money has your son? How much has your daughter? The details once understood, the parties agree or disagree, or leave the matter pending while they respectively look about for a better bargain. And even if the bargain be ostensibly agreed to, either party is at liberty to at once break the match, on hearing of something better. The prospective bride and bridegroom have nothing to say in the negotiations, and may never have seen each other in their lives. Previous acquaintance is not considered necessary, and the high contracting parties are frequently married without having met before they meet at the altar. This was hard to believe, but careful inquiry established the fact. Never was a case of rebellion recorded. The lady takes the goods the gods provide her, and the gentleman believes that the custom yields all prizes and no blanks. Marriage is indeed a lottery in Connaught. The system works well, for unfaithfulness is said to be unknown. The Connaught funerals are impressive. One of these I have seen, and one contents me well. The coffin arrived on a country cart, the wife and family of the deceased sitting on the body, after the fashion attributed to English juries. To sit elsewhere than on the coffin would in Connaught be considered a mark of disrespect. The children sit on the head and feet, the wife jumps on the chest of the dear departed, and away goes the donkey. The party dismount at the churchyard gates, and as the coffin enters they raise the Irish cry, a blood-curdling wail that makes your muscles creep, while a cold chill runs down your spine, and you sternly make for home. You may as well see it out, for you can hear the "Keen" two miles away against the wind. The mourners clasp their hands and move them quickly up and down, recounting the deceased's good deeds, and exclaiming, in Irish and English, "Why did ye die? Ah, thin, why did ye die?" To which very reasonable query no satisfactory answer is obtainable. The widow is expected to tear her hair, if any, and to be perfectly inconsolable until the churchyard wall is cleared on leaving. Then, and not before, she may address herself to mundane things. Good "Keeners" are in much request, and a really efficient howler is sure of regular employment. The Connaught folks are somewhat rough-and-ready with their dead. Colonel Winter, of the Buffs, told me that he came across a donkey-cart in charge of two men, who were waiting at a cross-road. A coffin had been removed from the cart, and stood on its end hard by. "I thought it was an empty coffin," said the Colonel, "but it wasn't. The men were waiting, by appointment, for the mourners, and meanwhile the old lady in the coffin was standing on her head. Wonderful country is Ireland.

"An old woman died in the workhouse of typhus fever, or some other contagious disorder. The corpse was placed in a parish coffin, and was about to be buried, when a relative came forward and offered to take charge of the funeral, declining to accept the workhouse coffin. The authorities consented, on condition that the proposed coffin should be large enough to enclose the first one, explaining that the body was dangerously contagious. The relative, a stout farmer, duly arrived at the workhouse with the new coffin, which was found to be too small to include the first one, and the authorities thereupon refused to have the coffins changed. So the mourner knocked down two men, and, making his way into the dead-room, burst open the receptacle containing his revered grandmother, whipped her out of the parochial box, planked her into the family coffin, and triumphantly walked her off on his shoulder. There was filial piety for you! They arrested that man, locked him up, and, for aught I know, left the old lady to bury herself, which must have been a great hardship. What Englishman would have done as much for his grandmother? And yet they say that Connaught men have no enterprise!"

A Protestant of Castlebar said:—"If the English people fail to correctly estimate the supreme importance of the present crisis it is all over with us, and, I think, with England. If the Unionist party persevere they must ultimately win. The facts are all with them. Enlightenment is spreading, and if time to spread the truth can be gained Home Rule will be as dead as a door-nail. If, on the other hand, the English people fail to see the true meaning of Home Rule, which is revolution and disintegration, England, from the moment an Irish Parliament is established, must be classed with those countries from which power has dwindled away; her glory will have commenced to wane, her enemies will rejoice, and she will present to the world the aspect of a nation in its decadence. The Irish leaders and the Irish people alike, who support Home Rule, are ninety-nine hundredths disloyal. Already the leaders are cursing England more deeply than before, this time for deceiving them about the Home Rule Bill. Their most respectable paper is already preparing the ground for further agitation. The Irish Independent says that the Irish people are being marched from one prison to another, and told that is their liberty. Such is the latest criticism of the Home Rule Bill, as pronounced by the Nationalist party. The same paper ordered the Lord Mayor of Dublin and the City Council to refuse an address of congratulation on the marriage of the Duke of York and Princess May, and they refused by more than four to one. They refused when it was the Duke of Clarence. We could understand that, but why refuse now, when Home Rule is adopted as the principal measure of the Government whose only aim is the Union of Hearts? The English people must indeed be fools if they cannot gauge the feeling that dictated a vote so mean as this. Surely the English will at the eleventh hour draw back and save us and our country, and themselves and their country from unknown disaster. If they allow this ruinous measure to become law I shall almost doubt the Bible where it says, 'Surely the net is set in vain in the sight of any bird.'"

I met a very savage Separatist in Castlebar. They are numerous in Mayo and Galway. The more uncivilised the district, the more ignorant the people, the more decided the leaning to Home Rule. My friend was not of the peasant class, but rather of the small commercial traveller breed, such as, with the clerks and counterskippers of the country stores, make up the membership of the Gaelic clubs by which the expulsion of the Saxon is confidently expected. He said, "I am for complete Independence, and I do not believe in what is called constitutional agitation. Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow. Every country that has its freedom has fought for it. I would not waste a word with England, which has always deceived us and is about to deceive us once again. England has always wronged us, always robbed us. England has used her vast resources to ruin our trade that her own might flourish. The weakest must go to the wall—that is the doctrine of England—which thrives by our beggary and lives by our death. You have heaps of speakers in England who admit this. Gladstone knows it is true. The Irish people have let the English eat their bread for generations. The Irish people have seen the English spending their money for centuries. This must be stopped as soon as possible, and Ireland grows stronger every day. Every concession we have obtained has been the result of compulsion, and I am for armed combination. Every Irishman should be armed, and know the use of arms. The day will come when we shall dictate to England, and when we may, if we choose, retaliate on her. We shall have an army and navy of our own; all that will come with time. We must creep before we walk, and walk before we run. The clubs already know their comrades; each man knows his right and left shoulder man, and the man whose orders he is to obey. Merely a question of athletic sports, at present. But when we get Home Rule the enthusiasm of the people will be whetted to such an extent that we shall soon enroll the whole of the able-bodied population, and after then, when we get the Word, you will see what will happen. Where would be your isolated handfuls of soldiery and police, with roads torn up, bridges destroyed, and an entire population rising against them? Yes, you might put us down, but we'd first have some fun. In a week we'd not leave a red coat in the island."

The gratitude, the warm generosity of the Irish people is very beautiful. The Union of Hearts, however, as a paying investment seems to have fallen considerably below par.

Castlebar, June 8th.