rs to-day for priests who will he glad to
tell me what they know only too well of the pressure put upon the better
sort of the people by the organised idlers and mischief-makers in Clare
and Kerry.

To-day at the City Club, I made the acquaintance of the Town-Clerk of
Cork, Mr. Alexander M'Carthy, a staunch Nationalist and Home Ruler, who
holds his office almost by a sort of hereditary tenure, having been
appointed to it in 1859 in succession to his father. He gave me many
interesting particulars as to the municipal history and administration
of Cork, and showed me some of the responses he is receiving to a kind
of circular letter sent by the municipality to the town governments of
England, touching the recent proceedings against the Mayor. So far these
responses have not been very sympathetic. He invited me to lunch here
with him to-morrow, and visit some of the most interesting points in and
around the city. Here, too, I met Colonel Spaight, Inspector of the
Local Government Board, who gives me a startling account of the increase
of the public burdens. Twenty years ago there were no persons whatever
seeking outdoor relief in Cork. This year, out of a total population of
145,216, there are 3775 persons here receiving indoor relief, and 4337
receiving outdoor relief, making in all 8112, or nearly 6 per cent. of
the inhabitants. This proportion is swelled by the influx of people from
other regions seeking occupation here, which they do not find, or simply
coming here because they are sure of relief. This state of things
illustrates not so much the decay of industry in Cork as the development
of a spirit of mendicancy throughout Ireland. In the opinion of many
thoughtful people, this began with the Duchess of Marlborough's Fund,
and with the Mansion House Fund. Colonel Spaight remembers that in
Strokestown Union, Roscommon, when the guardians there received a supply
of one hundred tons of seed potatoes, they distributed eighty tons, and
were then completely at a loss what to do with the remaining twenty
tons. Mr. Parnell and Mr. O'Kelly, however, came to Roscommon, and the
latter made a speech out of the hotel window to the people, advising
them to apply for more, and take all they could get. "With a stroke of a
pen," he said, "we'll wipe out the seed rate!" Whereupon the
applications for seed rose to six hundred tons!

The Labourers Act, passed by the British Parliament for the benefit of
the Irish labourers, who get bu