ty of Ireland is due to the aggrandisement
of England, that the bulk of Irish taxation flows into English
coffers, and is used for English purposes to the exclusion of Ireland,
and this they have swallowed and insist upon, in defiance of common
reason and the evidence of their senses. The instinct of patriotism is
not _en evidence_. The dominant passion is cupidity, and nothing
higher; sheer greed of gain, lust of possession, and nothing nobler.
Selfishness and the hope of plunder are the actuating impulses at the
poll; crass ignorance and bitter prejudice the mental disposition of
the lower class of voters. Four hours' slumming convinced me of this,
and must convince anyone. "We'll bate the English into the say," said
a resident in the sweet region yclept Summer Hill. "Whin we get the
police in our hands an' an army of our own, we'd sweep them out o' the
counthry av we only held cabbage-shtalks. Ireland for the Irish, an'
to hell wid John Bull! Thim's my sintiments." And those are the
"sintiments" of his class. I have spent days among the Irish Home
Rulers without having once heard of the Union of Hearts. The phrase
serves well enough to tickle the simple souls of the long-eared but
short-headed fraternity of pseudo-philosophical-philanthropists across
the water, but it has no currency in Ireland.

Like the country folks the city slummers believe that unheard-of
advantages would follow the great Bill, and, unconsciously parodying
Sancho Panza, say in effect, "Now blessings light on him who first
invented Home Rule! it covers a man all over, thoughts and all, like a
cloak; it is meat for the hungry, drink for the thirsty, heat for the
cold, and cold for the hot." The bare thought of the coming Paradise
illuminates their dirty visages. Like the lunatic, the lover, and the
poet, they are of imagination all compact, and, unlike the character
mentioned by the Bard, they "can hold a fire in their hands, By
thinking on the frosty Caucasus, And cloy the hungry edge of appetite
By bare imagination of a feast; And wallow naked in December snow By
thinking on fantastic summer's heat."

Meanwhile, they lounge about in idleness, hugging their misery,
discussing the "bating" of the Unionist party, or, as I saw them
yesterday evening, listening to the crooning of an ancient female
gutter-snipe, a dun-coloured heap of decrepit wretchedness, chanting
the great future of the Irish Parliament in a picturesque and
extraordinary doggerel