there was no crime to
punish on a recent occasion; but what does this prove? Merely that Mr.
Balfour's action in changing the venue of three counties to the city
of Cork, where moonlighters are tried by a jury of independent traders
of Patrick Street was wise and sagacious. The white gloves of Cork
were a tribute to Tory administration. The Cork juries convicted their
men, and stood by the consequences. They have escaped so far, as all
bold men escape. If the Limerick moonlighters must have been tried in
Cork there would have been no moonlighting. The police can always
catch them, when there is any use in catching them. In country
districts the movements of people are pretty well known, and these
fellows are always ready to betray each other. Mr. Morley may talk
fine, and may mean well, but the people who have been riddled with
shot have Mr. Morley to thank. Of course he is under compulsion. He
has to please the Irish Separatists. Old women and children are
outraged and shot in the legs because of Mr. Morley's political
necessities."

I think my friend was right as to the effect of boldness in action.
There is too much truckling to the ruffian element, not only by Mr.
Morley, but by most Unionists resident in Ireland. Opinions on this
point vary with varying circumstances. Several shopkeepers in a Mayo
town were utterly ruined for expressing their political opinions, or
for being suspected of harbouring opinions contrary to the feeling of
the majority. They were boycotted, and had to shut up shop. Others,
older-established, or in possession of a monopoly, weathered the
storm, but their opinions cost them something. These are the milder
cases. Yet shooting or bludgeoning are likely enough to follow overt
political action, such as refusing to join a procession or to
illuminate.

It was hard to find a Protestant farmer in this district, but I
succeeded at last. His notions were strange, very strange indeed. He
thought his rent fair enough, and was of opinion that the tenant must
be prepared to take the good years with the bad years. "These
countrymen of mine, like somebody I've read of, never learn anything
and never forget anything. They do not half farm the land. They don't
understand any but the most elementary methods. They do not put the
land to its best use. When they had prosperous years, and many a one
they had, they put nothing by for a rainy day. They are very
improvident. I have been in both England and Scot