rious feature of the Nationalist character is the profound
contempt expressed for Nationalist M.P.'s. Englishmen are accustomed
to speak of their own members, representing their own opinions, with
respect. Not so in Dublin. A rabid Nationalist said to me, "I am an
Irishman to the backbone. I am a Home Ruler out-and-out. But do you
think I'd trust my property with either of the two Tims? Do you think
such men as Tim Harrington and Tim Healy are fit to be trusted with
the spending of 2-1/2 millions of money per annum? They have their
job, and they work well at their job, and the Irish people have backed
them up out of pure divilment. 'Tis mighty fine to take a rise out of
John Bull, to harass him, to worry him, to badger him out of his seven
sinses. The half of the voters never were serious, or voted as they
were told by men who expatiated on the wrongs which have been dinned
into them from infancy. But to trust these orators with their money!
Bedad, we're not all out such omadhauns (idiots) as that! Paddy is not
altogether such a fool as he looks."

Although public feeling has suddenly deepened in intensity, the change
has been for some time in progress. I am enabled to state on
irrefragable authority, that Lord Houghton's sudden departure from
Dublin on Sunday week was entirely due to his alarm at the shifting
aspect of affairs, which rendered instant conference with Mr.
Gladstone a matter of urgent necessity. And it should be especially
noted that this change is most apparent not in the Protestant North,
not among the irreconcilable black and heretic Ulsterites, but in
Nationalist Dublin, in the Roman Catholic south--not simply among the
moneyed classes and well-to-do shopkeepers of Dublin, but among the
industrious poor, and the small farmers of the region round about. The
opinions and feelings of the better classes have ever been dead
against the Bill, and the best portion of the poorer people are
assuredly moving in the same direction. That such is the simple fact
is undeniable. It is thrust upon you whether you will or no. You are
compelled to believe it, whatever your political creed. It manifests
itself in a variety of ways. Mr. Love, of Kildare, a landed
proprietor, now in Dublin, says that on Sunday last Dr. Gowing, parish
priest of Kill, denounced Home Rule from the altar, and advised the
people to have none of it.

The Dubliners are beginning to publicly ridicule their Nationalist
members. A bog-oak carving