om he calls "the slobbering Saxon." Then if they would
return and still vote for Home Rule they are no less than traitors to
their country and enemies to their fellow-country men.

The weather is very fine, and the fashionable resorts are fairly well
frequented, but trade daily grows worse. Wholesale houses, says a high
authority, are "not dull, but stone dead." The pious Irish fast and
pray during the week, and the great Roman Catholic Retreat at Milltown
is crowded to the limits of its accommodation. The ladies wear a kind
of half-mourning, a stylish sort of reminder of original sin.
Sackcloth and ashes in Catholic Dublin consist of fetching brown,
grey, or tan costumes, set off with huge bunches of fragrant violets,
tied with a bow the exact shade of the flower, or a dull shade of
purple, a sort of Lenten lugubriousness particularly becoming to
blonde penitents. The ladies are indefatigable in their efforts
against Home Rule, and one distinguished canvasser for signatures to
the Roman Catholic petition has been warned by the police, as she
values her life, to leave Dublin for a time. The ruffian class,
needless to say, has undergone no change, but still demands the bill,
and this delicate lady, for years foremost in every good and
charitable work, is driven from her home by threatening letters--that
accursed resort to anonymous intimidation which so discredits the
Irish claim to superior courage and chivalry. The Catholics of Dublin
are signing numerously, but the number of signatories by no means
represents the opponents of the Bill.

Englishmen cannot be brought to realise for one moment the system of
terrorism and intimidation which prevails even in the very heart of
the capital. Parnellite spies are everywhere and know everything, and
woe to the helpless man who dares to have a mind of his own. And not
only are the poor coerced and deprived of the liberty of the subject,
but the wealthiest manufacturers--men whose firms are of the greatest
magnitude--will caution you against using their names in connection
with anything that could give a clue to their real sentiments. This
difficulty arises everywhere and information can only be extracted
after a promise that its source shall never be disclosed. The priests
are credited with unheard-of influence among the poor. "At the present
moment the ruffians are held in leash. The order has gone forth that
pending the Home Rule debate they are to 'be good.' But if I sign th