ough,
has come from Ireland. The Duke of Wellington was born in County Meath,
Lord Gough in Tipperary, Lord Wolseley in County Carlow, Lord Roberts in
Waterford, Sir George White in Antrim, General French in Roscommon, and
Lord Kitchener in Kerry.

The attempts of the English Government to manufacture an English general
in the South African war were a miserable fiasco. They only produced
one, Sir Charles Tucker, and he did his best to atone for the accident
of his English birth by marrying a Kerry lady.

I had the pleasure of meeting Sir Redvers Buller in Killarney, and after
he had been there a couple of days he proceeded to describe Kerry to me,
who had been managing one fifth of it for several years. His
agricultural reforms would have been as drastic as they were ludicrous
had any one attempted to carry them out, but when expatiating on them to
me, he was not even aware that there was any difference between an
English and an Irish acre. When I heard that he was taking charge of the
whole army in South Africa, I mentioned that as he had been unable to
command three hundred constabulary in Kerry, I was sceptical of his
ability to manage the British army. He was without exception the most
self-sufficient soldier I ever met, and his subsequent career has not
made me change my view.

Here is a soldier story which is mighty illustrative of Irish traits.

A peasant's son in Limerick enlisted in the militia for a month's
training, for which he received a bounty of three pounds. With part of
this money he bought a pig and gave it to his father to feed up. When
the pig was fattened, the father sold it and declined to give him the
price. So the son was seen by the police to take his father by the
throat, saying:--

'Bad luck to you, old reprobate, do you want to deprive me of my pig
that I risked my life for in the British Army?'

Everywhere I like to slip into this book instances of the injuries
suffered by Irish landlords, so here is another case _a propos des
bottes_, if you will forgive it.

The Knight of Kerry let nine acres of land to a tenant for a rent of
forty-five pounds. Having expended a large sum of money in roadmaking
and fences, at the tenant's request, he also borrowed thirty-five pounds
to build a small house for which he has to pay thirty-five shillings per
annum. The commissioners cut down the rent so heavily, that it has
resulted in the landlord having to pay five shillings a year for the
pleasure