ot do anything to disturb the peace of the town, but
business is totally at a stand-still, and all in and about the town are
resting on their arms, waiting for the battle hour. In Waterford the
clubs are described as being well organised, and armed, and ready to
act when called upon. The people seemed reckless from poverty; groups
of workingmen might be seen in the streets by day and night, discussing
politics and retailing the news of the hour. The queen's forces
in Waterford were about one thousand strong. The _Rhadamanthus_
steam-vessel was in the river, and it was proposed to form two camps
on the hills which command the town. In the country the peasants were
arming; at Coolnamuck so much timber had been cut down for pike-handles,
that the clubs would not allow any more to be taken thence, in
compassion to the proprietor. At Mount Bolton the owner had it cut and
left outside the wood for the people, to prevent further waste; at Lord
Waterford's demesne more ash-trees had been cut down, and the useless
parts left behind. All the anvils in the country ring with pike-forging,
and every weapon is put in order for the fray."

The effect upon the government, the legislature, and the country, of
the electric telegraph and other communications, false and true, may be
judged of by the readers of these pages from the following speech by
Sir George Grey, the home-secretary in the House of Commons, on Thursday
evening, the 27th. Sir George had been questioned on this subject, and
thus replied:--

"I have great satisfaction in stating that I have every reason to
believe that the alarming accounts which have appeared in the later
editions of the morning papers, and which were transmitted this
morning from Liverpool by the electric telegraph, to the effect that
insurrection had actually broken out in the south of Ireland, are
totally destitute of truth. Sir, on receiving the copy of the paper
containing the intelligence said to have been sent from Liverpool
this morning, I dispatched a letter to the honourable member for
Stoke-upon-Trent, to induce him to forward a communication by the
electric telegraph to the mayor of Liverpool, requesting to know from
him what information had been received in Liverpool from Ireland, and
I received a despatch from that functionary, by the electric telegraph,
stating that the information published this morning was accompanied from
Ireland by a letter, dated Dublin, Wednesday evening, which repre