ng trade it is. Are they disloyal
to England? I believe them Fenians at heart--that is, Fenians in the
matter of loyalty. They would use any power they might get to damage
England, and if England gives them power she'll bitterly rue the day.
Paddy may be lazy, but put your finger in his mouth and he'll bite.
The English Separatists don't see this, but when I see the fox in the
hen-roost I can guess what brought him there. If I put the cat in the
dairy I should expect her to taste the cream. Trust the Irish
Nationalist members! I'd as soon trust a pack of wolves with my
lambs."

My friend is a scientific gardener, and descanted on the wonderful
climate of Ireland, where plants that will not grow in England nourish
luxuriously. I told him I had seen bamboo growing in the open air at
Dundalk, and asked him if the Bonds of Brotherhood (_Humbugis
Morleyensis_) or the Union of Hearts (_Gladstonia gammonica
gigantica_) would come to perfection in Hibernia. He thought the soil
and climate unsuitable, and was sure they would never take root. The
_gammonica_ had been tried, but it withered and died. It could not be
"budded" for want of an Irish "stock."

A scrap-book, fifty years old, revealed a condition of things so
strangely like that of the present day that I obtained permission to
copy the following skit, which, but for the mention of the old convict
colony, might have been written last week. It is headed "Extract from
the forthcoming history of the Irish Parliament." The Home Rule
project is therefore ancient enough:--

One blow and Ireland sprang from the head of her Saxon
enslaver like a new Minerva!

Proudly and solemnly she then sat down to frame a Republic
worthy of Plato and Pat. Her first

President had been a workhouse porter, who was also a night
watchman. He was, therefore, eminently fitted for both civil
and military administration. The speech of President Pat on
opening Congress developes his policy and his well-digested
plans of legislative reform. Here are a few quotations:--

The Key-stone of Government is the Blarney-stone.

Political progress may always be accelerated by a bludgeon.

Our institutions must be consolidated by soft-soap and whacks.

The People's will is made known by manifesto, and by many
fists too.

Every man shall be qualified to sit in Congress that is a
ten-pound pig-holder, provided that the pig and the member