icitor assures me
that during the last four-and-twenty hours a striking change of
opinion has taken place. Red-hot Home Rulers when confronted with the
looming actuality are on all sides abandoning their loudly proclaimed
political opinions. My friend's business--he is, or has been, an
ardent Home Ruler--is chiefly connected with land conveyancing, and he
declares that his office is besieged by people anxious to "withdraw
their charges" on land and house property, that is, to recall their
money advanced on mortgage, however profitable the investment, however
apparently solid the security. He instanced the case of an estate in
Cavan, bearing three mortgages of respectively L1,000, L3,000, and
L4,000, and leaving to the borrower a clear income of L1,700 a year
after all claims were paid. The three lenders are strenuously
endeavouring to realise, the thousand-pounder being prostrate with
affright, but although the investments under normal conditions would
fetch a good premium, not a penny can be raised in any direction. The
lenders are Home Rulers, and eighty per cent. of the population of
Cavan are Roman Catholic.

The same story is heard everywhere, with "damnable iteration." The
cause of charity is suffering severely. The building of additions to
the Rotunda Hospital and the Hospital for Consumptives, at a cost of
twenty thousand pounds, has been definitely abandoned, although
three-quarters of the money has been raised. The building trade is at
a complete standstill. On every hand contracts are thrown up, great
works are put aside. Mr. Kane, High Sheriff of Kildare, declines to
proceed with the building of his new mansion, which was to cost many
thousand pounds. Mr. John Jameson, the eminent distiller, who also
contemplated the construction of a palatial residence, which would
take years to build, has dropped the idea. The project for the
formation of a great Donegal Oyster-bed Company, which long bade fair
to prosper, and to confer a boon on the starving peasantry of the
coast, has been cast to the winds. Among the shoals of similar
occurrences which confront you at every turn, some contain an element
almost of humour. A Dublin architect tells a quaint story of this
kind. It may not be generally known in England that the Roman
Catholics of Ireland can borrow money from John Bull for the erection
of "glebe-houses," at 4 per cent., repayable in 49 years. In a certain
recent case the priest thought the builder's estimat