d his accomplices upset everything." Speaking of the
difference between the Ulster men and the Irish Kelts, Mr. Patterson
said, "Prosperity or the reverse is indicative of the breed. The
Southern Irish had more advantages than the Ulstermen. They had better
land, better harbours, a far more productive country, and yet they
always seethe in discontent. Put 20,000 Northerners in Cork, and in
twenty years the Southern port could knock Liverpool out of time."
Addressing himself to the Home Rule Bill, he declared that the
practical, keen-witted merchants of Belfast dismissed the whole
concoction as unworthy of sober consideration, and declared that an
awful responsibility rested on Mr. Gladstone. Said this experienced
J.P.:

"The Belfast riots of 1886 were terrible. Forty people were killed in
the streets, and what I saw in my capacity of magistrate was dreadful
in the extreme. The injuries from gun-shot wounds were almost
innumerable, and many a local doctor gained experience in this line
which is unknown to many an army surgeon. The riots began with the
ruffian class, from which this great city is not entirely free, and
gradually rose upwards to the shipbuilding yards. All this disturbance
and awful loss of life were entirely due to the production of Mr.
Gladstone's first bill. And now they tell us that a worse bill--for it
is a worse bill--might become law without any inconvenience. I submit
to any reasonable man that if the mere menace of a bill cost forty
lives in Belfast alone, the loss of life all over Ireland, once the
bill were passed, would be enormous. And all this will be attributable
to the action of Mr. Gladstone, who has never been in Ulster."

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. While he so spake, up came the mighty Dr.
Kane, idol of the Ulsterites, towering over the gallant Colonel's
paltry six feet one, and looking down smilingly from his altitude in
infinite space on my own discreditable five feet ten. He agreed with
the Colonel as to the merits of Birmingham, and added that every
Unionist in Belfast cherished a deep sentiment of gratitude to the
hardware city, requesting me to