Charleville, I did not think it worth while to go to a posting-house
for a carriage and horses to reach Maryfort; but being fortunate
enough to obtain the loan of a friend's victoria and servant I got a
horse "sharpened" as to his shoes at Ennis; and drove over the
frost-bound road to Colonel O'Callaghan's house yesterday afternoon.
It was a long drive to the most severely "Boycotted" house in Clare.
It was also a drive of surpassing dreariness. The sun, which had made
the hoar frost to sparkle on Christmas Day, barely pierced through the
clouds on the afternoon of St. Stephen's. Leaving trim lawns, a forest
of box-trees, budding roses and peonies, well-grown early brocoli and
York cabbages behind, we drove through a country of eternal little
fields and grey stone walls.

It is needless to say that Maryfort is a long way from Ennis. Every
place is a long way from everywhere in this western part of Ireland--a
fact, by the way, not unfrequently forgotten by critics of the
much-criticised constabulary. Where gentlemen's houses and
considerable villages are as much as fifteen miles apart, the area of
country to be watched becomes quite unmanageable. Only those who have
incurred the fearful loss of time in getting from place to place in
Connaught can form an adequate idea of it. Despite the discouraging
remarks of its critics, this well-drilled, well-grown corps of Royal
Irish Constabulary remains as staunch and loyal as of old, but it is
absurd to expect impossibilities. Galway to a person sitting
comfortably in his own library appears to be overwhelmed with
constables. I believe that there is, in fact, one constable to every
fifty adult males in that county--an enormous proportion judged
statistically, but yet slight enough when the vast area of the county
and the miles of actual desert which separate one partially civilised
spot from another are considered.

A large percentage of the constabulary is also deflected from general
to special service in affording downright personal protection, and
that modified protection known as "looking after" individuals. A
hundred and twenty persons in Ireland are now receiving "personal
protection," amounting to the constant attendance of never less than
two constables, frequently to the residence of four or more on the
premises or the property. At least eight hundred persons are being
"looked after;" so that it is no exaggeration to state that twelve or
thirteen hundred men are detac