off seems part of their creed. One of them said, "There
never was a more faithful worshipper of the Grand Old Man than
myself,--up to a certain time, I mean. I dropped him before he went
over to Parnell. I gave him up on account of his inconsistency. What
staggered me was a trick he tried to play the Queen's College
arrangements in Ireland. It was a supplemental charter really changing
the whole constitution of the thing, and he tried to carry his point
by a dodge. I did not care much about the matter one way or the other,
but I thought his underhanded trickery unworthy a statesman, or any
other man. I tried not to believe it; that is, I would rather not have
believed it. I had a sort of feeling that it couldn't be. But it was
so. Then his pamphlet about Vaticanism, in which he said no Roman
Catholic could be loyal, after which he appointed the Marquess of
Ripon, a Catholic convert, or pervert, to the Governor-Generalship of
India, the most important office in the gift of the Crown. Again, I
had no objection to the action in itself, but I considered it from Mr.
Gladstone's point of view, and then it dawned on me that he would say
anything. You never know what he'll do next. What he says is no guide
at all nowadays to what he'll do. He was my hero, but a change has
come over him, and now he cannot be trusted. He ought to be looked
after in some public institution where the keepers wouldn't contradict
him. He was a great man before his mind gave way."

A bustling Belfaster of fatiguing vitality told me this little story
which my friends the Catholic clergy may disprove if they can. He
said:--"Mr. McMaster, of the firm of Dunbar, McMaster and Co., of
Gilford, County Down, conceived the idea of aiding his fellow-countrymen
and women who were starving in the congested districts. This was some
time ago, but it is a good illustration of the difficulty you have in
helping people who will not help themselves. He drew up a scheme, well
thought-out and workable, such as a thorough business man might be
expected to concoct, and sent down his agent to the districts of
Gweedore in Donegal and Maam in Galway, with instructions to engage as
many families as possible to work in the mills of the firm, noted all
over the world for thread, yarn, and linen-weaving. An enormous affair,
employing a whole township. The agent was provided with a document
emanating from the priest of the district into which they were invited
to migrate, setting