ally untrue. The example of a decently-housed community
has produced no perceptible effect on the habits of the Achilese. The
villages of Cabawn, Avon (also known by its Anglicised name of River),
Ballyknock, Slievemore, and Ducanella are dirty beyond description.
Some of the houses I saw in a drive which included the coastguard
station of Bull's Mouth were mere heaps of stones, with turf sods for
tiles, whereon was growing long grass which looked like a small
instalment of the three acres and a cow. Some had no windows and no
chimney, the turf reek filling the hovel, but partly escaping by a
hole in the roof. The people who live in this look as it painted in
umber by old Dutch masters. These huts are small, but there is always
room for a pig or two, which stalk about or stretch themselves before
the fire like privileged members of the family. This was very well for
the Gintleman that paid the Rint. But he merits the title no longer.
His occupation's gone.

A sturdy Protestant said:--"Suppose Home Rule became law, then we must
go away. We are only here on sufferance, and every person in the
Colony knows it and feels it only too well. Our lives would not be
endangered: those times are over, but we could not possibly stay in
the island. Remove the direct support of England, and we should be
subject to insult and wrong, for which we should have no earthly
remedy. What could they do? Why, to begin with, they could pasture
their cattle on our fields. If we turned them out they could be turned
in again; if we sue them we have a day's journey to take to get the
cause heard, and if we get the verdict we can recover nothing. Shoot a
cow or two! Then we should ourselves be shot, or our children. No,
there has been no landlord-shooting on the island. This kind of large
game has always been very scarce on Achil. Just over the Sound we had
a little sport--a really merry little turn it was--but the wrong man
was shot.

"A Mr. Smith came down to collect rents. The Land League was ruling
the country, and its desperadoes were everywhere. It was decided to
shoot Mr. Smith, after duly warning him to keep away. Smith was not to
be deterred from what he thought his duty (he was a Black Protestant),
and away he went, with his son, a neat strip of a lad about seventeen
or so. When they got half-way to the house which Smith had appointed
as a meeting-place a man in the bog which bordered the road called
out, and waved a paper, which he then