chool days. Mr.
Parnell has evidently forgotten his.

I will give a commentary on these brave words which is better put than
I could put it.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE "STANDARD."

"Sir,--People in England, whatever political party they belong to,
should glance at what is now going on in the town of Tipperary before
finally making up their minds to hand over Ireland body and soul to
the National League. No country town in Ireland--I think I may add or
in England either--was more prosperous three months ago than
Tipperary. The centre of a rich and prosperous part of the country,
surrounded by splendid land, it had an enormous trade in butter and
all agricultural produce, and a large monthly pig and cattle fair was
held there. It possessed (I use the past tense advisedly) a number of
excellent shops, doing a splendid business, and to the eyes of those
who could look back a few years it was making rapid progress in
prosperity every year.

"All is changed now. Many of the shops are closed and deserted, others
will follow their example shortly; the butter market has been removed
from the town, the cattle fairs have fallen to half their former size.
One sees shopkeepers, but a short time back doing capital business,
walking about idle in the streets, with their shops closed; armed
policemen at every corner are necessary to prevent a savage rabble
from committing outrages, and many people avoid going near the town at
all. All this is the result of William O'Brien's speech in Tipperary
and the subsequent action of the National League. The town and whole
neighbourhood were perfectly quiet till one day Mr. O'Brien descends
on it like an evil spirit, and tells the shopkeepers and surrounding
farmers that they are to dictate to their landlords how to act in a
case not affecting them at all. For fear, however, of not sufficiently
arousing them for the cause of others, he suggests that, in addition
to dictating to the landlord what his conduct shall be elsewhere, all
his tenants, farmers and shopkeepers alike, shall demand a reduction
of 25 per cent, on their own rents. As to the farmers' reduction I
will say nothing; if they wished it, they could go into the Land
Court, and if rented too high could get a reduction, retrospectively
from the day their application was lodged. The reduction, however,
that the shopkeepers were advised--nay, ordered--to ask for must have
surprised them more than their landlord. Many of them, at their
e