s near Lifford, which is in Donegal, but for all that only
ten minutes' walk from Strabane. From the confluence the river is
called the Foyle, so that from the splendid bridge leading into
Lifford may be seen the rare spectacle of three considerable rivers in
one meadow. Lifford is very clean and very pretty. The gaol is the
most striking building, and I wandered through its deserted corridors,
desolate as those of Monaghan. There were some strange marks in the
principal square; a number of parallel lines which puzzled me. I
turned to the gaoler who had just liberated me for some explanation.

"Faith, thin, it's the militia officers that made them."

"Studying fortification?"

"Divil a fortification, thin. 'Tis lawn tennis it is, jist."

And so it was. Two courts of lawn tennis in the square of the county
town of Donegal! That will give some idea of the business traffic.

An experienced electioneerer said:--"We had an awful fight before we
could return Lord Frederick Hamilton for North Tyrone. We had all our
work cut out, for although we have on paper a majority of about one
hundred, many of our people are non-resident landlords, or army and
navy men, and they are not here to vote for us. So that our majority
of forty-nine was a close thing, though not so close as we expected.
The other side do not fight fair. Their tricks in the Registry Court
are most discreditable. Both parties fight the register, the
Nationalists expending any amount of time and money, and showing such
enthusiasm as our people never show. And this is the reason. Our Scots
farmers--for they are as Scottish as their ancestors of two hundred
years ago--_will_ stick to their work, and persist in making their
work the paramount concern of their lives. They cannot believe that
objections will be made to their names on the register, and when such
objections have been raised they must appear in person, and there
comes the difficulty. For if it's harvest time, or if engaged on any
necessary work, you cannot get them to the Court. At Newtonstewart
where the bulk of the voters are Protestant, no less than five
substantial farmers were objected to successively. The inspector, that
is, the Nationalist agent who is supposed to look into the claims of
the Unionist party, said that one had assigned the farm to his son, or
that another was not the real tenant, or that something else was
wrong, and as this statement established a _prima-facie_ case, it
became ne