t, but in vain. At last I saw the _Dundalk Democrat_, which in a
two-column comment on its colleague's maledictions of your humble
commissioner cleared me of the charges brought by the original
thunderer, which I have not yet been able to see. One of the said
charges is based on the statement that I asked to be allowed to be
present at the meeting, which permission was readily accorded. The
meeting was public and was placarded from one end of Dundalk to the
other. The public were invited to assemble in their thousands, and to
join in the onward march to freedom. Not more than twenty people
answered to the call, and the meeting was therefore a dead failure.
The idea of asking leave to be present at a public meeting is absurd.
The vituperative print says that I was _not_ asked to deliver an
address, but was told that I could "do so if I liked." The truth is
manifest by the admitted fact that I declined, as being no speaker.
Such is the minute hair-splitting of Irish argumentation. The quips
and cranks of Tipperary Humphreys will be remembered, the paltry
quibbles by which he sought to establish a case, and his final retreat
under cover of the statement that he could not have believed that
"such a state of things was possible." The Dundalk marchers to freedom
(to the number of twenty) were not precisely the pick of the local
respectability, and my escape must be regarded as providential. As to
their outpourings of abuse, my philosophy resembles that of the old
whipper-in of the Meynell-Ingram Hounds:--"I bain't a cruel chap, I
bain't. But when I puts the lash among the hounds I _dew_ like to hear
'em yowl; I _dew_ like to see 'em skip, and writhe, and look mad. For
if ye don't make 'em feel, and if ye can't hear 'em yowl, there's
railly no pleasure in thrashin' of 'em."

Donegal, August 1st.

No. 56.--DO-NOTHING DONEGAL.

Donegal improves on acquaintance. At first dull, dreary, and
disappointing, a more extended examination reveals much that is
interesting. The river Eske runs through the town, rippling over a
rocky bed of limestone like the Dee at Llangollen. Mountains arise on
every hand, some in the foreground, green and pleasant, backed by
sterile ranges having serrated summits, dark and frowning. The harbour
has an old-world look, with its quaint fishing boats and groves of
trees running down to the water's edge. The land is decidedly humpy,
and the sea meanders among the meadows in long fillets like trout