ombination known as the National
League.

To make our readers understand what this power means, we should like to
be able to bring them within the closed doors of the room where the
League Committee sits in the remote country village. We should then hear
the report of the member, respecting the funds obtained, their review of
the wealth and independence around them, within their reach, but not yet
brought under tribute, the gleeful narrative of resistance subdued, the
dark hints of resources for future conquest. The details of the action
of the League, as avowed by their press, have been published by the
Loyal and Patriotic Union, and would fill many pages of this Review.

The rapid growth of the new organization is easily understood. They had
the past success of Mr. Parnell to work on, and this success was both
appreciable in their balance of unpaid rent at the Bank, and stimulating
to the imagination. The whole island was busy observing the execution of
Mr. Parnell's behests in the re-adjustment of contracts for land. The
Ministry, which had rebelled against his criticism and sprung at his
throat, had been compelled to bring him out of jail supplicating for his
alliance. The object of creating the new body was not so much to move
forward as to keep Mr. Parnell's friends well together, to take
advantage of the effect on the popular mind, which Mr. Parnell's
achievements were producing in every hamlet. The practical advantages
already won were an earnest of the future, secured new support, and
would give greater momentum and unity to the Parnellite movement; when
the time came for another attack upon property. The suspects who had
been imprisoned by Mr. Forster, constituted local centres for the
establishment of branches of the League. Every country public-house was
a place of meeting for the branches or their agents. Once the League was
organized in a particular district, the next point was to secure
subscriptions. Land-grabbing, that is, becoming tenant of land from
which some one else had been evicted, was the offence against which the
League in the first place directed its energies, and this disregard of
popular opinion was punished by social excommunication; but the system
of boycotting once called into requisition involved new duties and
responsibilities. If a man had not taken land himself, he might have
worked for some one who had, or bought cattle from a land-grabber. The
League in Kerry enjoined the following