iries display. Nothing that has taken
place yet in the South of Ireland has done so much harm to the
National cause. If they persist they will ruin us. To-morrow
evening will be most important in Parliamentary history. Our party
expect the defeat of the Government and resumption of power by Mr.
Gladstone. If we succeed in this, which we are confident of, the
future of our country will be great, and, although an appeal to the
constituencies must be made, the Irish party in those few days have
made an impression in future that no Government can withstand. The
Salisbury Government want to appeal to the country on the integrity
of the empire, and, of course, for the last few days have tried all
means to lead to this by raking up the Curtin case and all judicial
cases, which _must be avoided for a short time_, as our stoppage to
the Eviction Act will cover all this.--Yours faithfully, J.D.
SHEEHAN.'"

This letter was read, the leaflet informs us, by the Rev. Mr. O'Connor,
at the National Schools and other places.

NOTE G.

THE PONSONBY PROPERTY.

(Vol. ii. pp. 59-66.)

The account which the Rev. Canon Keller gave me of "The Struggle for
Life on the Ponsonby Estate," in a tract bearing that title, and
authorised by him to be published by the National League, is so
circumstantial and elaborate that, after reading it carefully, I took
unusual pains to obtain some reply to it from the representatives of the
landlord implicated. These finally led to a visit from Mr. Ponsonby
himself, who was so kind as to call upon me in London on the 15th of
May, with papers and documents. I give in the following colloquy the
results of this interview, putting together with the allegations of
Canon Keller the answers of Mr. Ponsonby, and leave the matter in this
form to the judgment of my readers.

_Q_. Canon Keller, I see, describes you, Mr. Ponsonby, as "a retired
navy officer, and an absentee Irish landlord." He says your estate is
now "universally known as the famous Ponsonby Estate," and that it is
occupied "by from 300 to 400 tenants, holding farms varying in extent
from an acre and a half to over two hundred acres." Are these statements
correct?

_A_. I am a retired navy officer certainly, and perhaps I may be called
an "absentee Irish landlord." I lived on my property for some time, and
I have always attended to it. I succeeded to the estate in 1868, and
almost my fi