ers
were unable to deduct anything like twenty-three per cent. from the
Clanricarde rent-roll. The Councillors of Dublin were never upbraided,
nor put in danger of their lives. The Loughrea people shot Lord
Clanricarde's agent, his driver, his wife, and several other people,
in protest against the Clanricarde rents and to encourage the landlord
to live on the estate. About a dozen were murdered altogether. Surely
these parallel cases should demonstrate the utter hollowness of the
Home Rule agitation.

The Protestants of Warrenpoint, like those of Newry and Belfast, are
confident of their ability to hold their own. Their attitude is very
different from that of the trembling heretics of Tuam or Tipperary.
They are strong in numbers, discipline, and resolution, and in
addition to upholding their own personal cause they declare that their
isolated co-religionists in Leinster, Munster, and Connaught shall not
be forsaken nor left to their own shifts. A rough and ready farmer
thus spoke forth his mind:--"England may give the Papists a Parliament
to manage Papists, but not to manage Protestants. We should never
begin to consider the advisability of submitting to it. The thing's
clean impossible. What! Let Papists tax us! Pay for the spread of
Popery! Did you ever hear anything so absurd? Not one farthing would
_I_ ever pay. I'd leave the country first. So would all the decent,
industrious folks. We know what happens in every country where Popery
gets the mastery. Look at Spain, Italy, and the Catholic parts of
Ireland. If England sends an army of redcoats to punish us for our
loyalty, we shall give way at once. We've sense enough to know that we
could do nothing against the Queen's troops, even if we wished to
fight them. But to take arms against the soldiers of England would be
quite against our principles. What we should ultimately do, under
military compulsion, we have not yet decided, but we should never
under any circumstances show fight against the Queen. We don't think
the day will ever come when England would send the military to shoot
us for sticking to England. As for the police of the Irish Parliament,
that's another thing. They would have no assistance in Ulster. The
sheriff's officers, when engaged in the compulsory raising of taxes,
would have a lively time, and I am sure they would never get any
money. We don't take it seriously yet. If the bill were actually on
the statute book and an Irish House of Commons do