garrison or a gunboat to spend some money in
the district. Will your Excellency use your influence with the powers
that be to get us something for nothing? And let it be something to
enrich us, or at least to keep us alive without work. We can't be
expected to do anything while groaning 'neath the cruel English yoke.
The Newry folks, and all of their breed, abstain from whining and
cadging. The Westport people have endless quarries of hard blue
marble, which they are too lazy, or too ignorant, or both, to cut. The
Ulster breed would have quarried, polished, exported a mountain or two
long since. The universal verdict of employers of labour proves that a
northern Irishman is worth two from any other point of the compass,
will actually perform double the amount of work, and is, besides,
incomparably superior in brains and general reliability. The worthless
hordes who approach the Viceroy with snuffling petitions are
invariably headed by Father Somebody, without whose permission they
would not be there, and without whose leave they dare not raise the
feeble and intermittent cheers which here and there have greeted the
Queen's representative. The lying expressions of loyalty referred to
in a previous letter are severely censured by the Nationalist papers.
One of the leading lights says: "Judging from a sentence in the
address presented by the Mullingar Town Commissioners to the
Lord-Lieutenant on Thursday last, it would appear that these gentlemen
are looking forward eagerly to the day when they can write themselves
down West Britons. This is what they said: 'In your presence as the
representative in this island of her Most Gracious Majesty Queen
Victoria, we wish to give expression to our fealty to the throne,
convinced as we are that the day will soon be at hand when we can with
less restraint, and in a more marked manner, testify our admiration
for the Sovereignty of the British Isles.'" The more sincere newspaper
which falls foul of these expressions goes on to say:--

"It is true that Ireland is described in the map made by Englishmen as
one of the British Isles, but it is not so written in the true
Irishman's heart, _and never will be_, in spite of the toadyism of
gentlemen like the Town Commissioners of Mullingar."

This pronouncement embodies the sentiments of every Nationalist
Irishman. The Union of Hearts is not expected to succeed the Home
Rule, or any other bill, and to do Irishmen justice, they never use
the