turn
over Ireland to a Parliament made up of the Westminster members, of whom
he gave me such an amusing but by no means complimentary account, he
looked at me with astonishment:--

"Do you suppose for a moment we would send these fellows to a Parliament
in Dublin?"

He told me some very entertaining tales of the methods used by certain
well-meaning occupants of the Castle in former days to capture Irish
popularity, as, for example, one of a Vice-Queen who gave a fancy dress
ball for the children of the local Dublin people of importance, and had
a beautiful supper of tea and comfits, and cakes served to them, after
which she made her appearance, followed by servants bearing huge bowls
of steaming hot Irish potatoes, which she pressed upon the horrified and
overstuffed infants as "the true food of the country," setting them
herself the example of eating one with much apparent gusto, and a pinch
of salt!

"Now, fancy that!" he exclaimed; "for the Dublin aristocracy who think
the praties only fit for the peasants!"

Of a well-known and popular personage in politics, he told me that he
once went with him on a canvassing tour. It was in a county the
candidate had never before visited. "When we came to a place, and the
people were all out crying and cheering, he would whisper to me, 'Now
what is the name of this confounded hole?' And I would whisper back,
'Ballylahnich,' or whatever it was. Then he would draw himself up to the
height of a round tower, and begin, 'Men of Ballylahnich, I rejoice to
meet you! Often has the great Liberator said to me, with tears in his
voice, 'Oh would I might find myself face to face with the noble men of
Ballylahnich!"

"A great man he is, a great man!

"Did you ever hear how he courted the heiress? He walked up and down in
front of her house, and threatened to fight every man that came to call,
till he drove them all away!"

A good story of more recent date, I must also note, of a well-known
priest in Dublin, who being asked by Mr. Balfour one day whether the
people under his charge took for gospel all the rawhead and bloody-bones
tales about himself, replied, "Indeed, I wish they only feared and hated
the devil half as much as they do you!"

In a more serious vein my Nationalist friend explained to me that for
him "Home Rule" really meant an opportunity of developing the resources
of Ireland under "the American system of Protection." About this he was
quite in earnest, and recalle