the swarming populations of
Manchester and Birmingham. They must have a cheap loaf. Dear me! and
so flour comes here untaxed, having given employment to people in
America, while our folks are walking about idle. Go down the river
Boyne, from Trim to Drogheda. What do you see? Twelve mills, with
machinery worth L100,000 or more, lying idle. One of those mills once
employed fifty or sixty men. Now it employs none. Tax flour, I say,
and so says everybody. We must have Protection, and very stringent
Protection. Irish manufacturers must be sustained against English
competition. Twenty years ago Dublin was a great place for cabinet
work. Now nothing is done there, or next to nothing. Everything must
come from London. At the same period we did a great trade in leather.
The leather trade is gone to the devil. We did a big turnover in boots
and shoes. Now every pair worn in the city comes from Northampton.
Ireland and Irish goods for the Irish, and burn everything English but
English coals. Give us Home Rule, and all these trades will be
restored to us."

Thus spoke the great Home Ruler, who declined to permit his name to
appear, as he said it might affect his business. His sentiments are
universal, and, as I have said, his opinions are shared by the great
majority of Irishmen, even though professedly Unionist.

A word of comment on the patriotic sentiments of my friend. I went to
Delany, of George Street, Limerick, for a suit of Blarney tweed. He
had not a yard in the place. He was indicated as the leading clothier
and outfitter of the city, but the Mahony Mills were not represented
amongst his patterns. He had Scotch tweeds, Yorkshire tweeds, West of
England tweeds, but although the Blarney tweeds are said to be the
best in the world as well as the handsomest, I had to seek them
elsewhere. An English friend says, "The Irish politicians are rather
inconsistent. They came into this hotel one evening, six of them,
red-hot from a Nationalist meeting, cursing England up hill and down
dale, till I really felt quite nervous. I hadn't got a Winchester like
that. (I hope it won't go off.) They agreed that to boycott English
goods was the correct thing, and of course they were for burning all
but English coals, when the leader of the gang said, 'Now, boys, what
will you drink,' and hang me! if they didn't every one take a bottle
of Bass's bitter beer! Did you ever know such inconsistency?"

The quirks and quips of the Irish character