fighting the
landlords with money raised from the landlords by means of poor rates.
Evicted tenants generally received a pound or twenty-five shillings a
week out-door relief. This punishes the landlords, and saves the funds
of the Land League, now called the National League. Ingenious, isn't
it? These are the men who form the class furnishing the Irish
Parliamentary party. These bankrupt, incompetent, and fraudulent
Guardians are the men with whom English Gladstonians are closely
allied. The Board meetings are usually blackguardly beyond
description. You have no idea to what extremes they go. No Irishman
who loves his country would trust her to the tender mercies of these
fellows."

I have not yet been present at any meeting of an Irish Poor Law Board,
and probably, as my friend remarked, I "do not know to what extremes
they go." The _Mayo News_ of a week or two ago reported an ordinary
meeting of the Westport Board, and I noticed that one Guardian accused
his colleagues of stealing the potatoes provided out of the rates for
the paupers. This was reported in a Nationalist print edited by a
gentleman who has had the honour of being imprisoned for Land League
business. The report was evidently verbatim, and has not been
contradicted. The Westport folks took no notice of the affair, which
may therefore be assumed as representing the dead level of an Irish
Poor Law debate. To what sublime altitudes they may occasionally rise,
to "what extremes" they sometimes go, I know not. The College Green
Parliament, manned by such members, would have a peculiar interest.
The Speaker might be expected to complain that his umbrella (recently
re-covered) had mysteriously disappeared. The Chancellor of the
Exchequer might accuse the President of the Board of Trade of having
appropriated the National stationery, and the Master of the Rolls
might rise to declare that a sanguinary ruffian from Ulster had
"pinched his wipe." The sane inhabitants of the Emerald Isle affirm
that Home Rule would be ruinous to trade, but the vendors of
shillelaghs and sticking-plaster would certainly have a high old time.

An Englishman who has had exceptional opportunities of examining the
matter said:--"I don't care so much for Irish interests as for English
interests, and I am of opinion that no Englishman in a position to
form a correct judgment would for one moment support the bill. The
tension is off us now, because we feel that the danger to a great
ext