ame value and area, same number of miles of road and
sea frontage. There is extreme tenant-right in Donegal and none in
Kerry, yet the prosperity of the farmers in Kerry is extremely superior
to those of Donegal.'

'There is too much tenant-right in Donegal,' said Mr. Chichester
Fortescue, who was examining me.

'Not if it is a good thing,' I replied, 'for then you could not have too
much.'

Mr. Shaw Lefevre's Commission on the housing of the working classes in
Ireland was very uninteresting. 'Oxen are stalled, pigs are styed or
take possession of the cabin, but what is done for the Irish labourers?'
asked a passionate mob-orator, and in many cases it might have been
answered that a good deal more has been done for them than the idle
ruffians deserve. I had no difficulty in showing that landlords were
always willing to give assistance in housing labourers, and when an
ex-mayor of Cork on the Commission seemed to doubt my assertions, I
might have retorted that though he was used to factory hands, yet he had
never bothered himself how they lived out of work time.

The Duke of Devonshire was on this board. He has obtained his great and
honourable reputation by conscientiously slumbering through many duties.
His tastes are for racing and shooting, but from sheer patriotism he has
devoted himself to politics with all the energy of his lethargic manner,
which successfully conceals abnormal common-sense. It was he, more than
any other man, who saved Ireland from Home Rule, though as an Irish
landlord he has not come much to the fore, because his vast English
estates are immeasurably more important than those situated round
Lismore. This picturesque town was once called the abode of saints, but
only antiquarians remember that its university was once so important
that Alfred the Great went there to study, and that in the old castle
Henry II held a Parliament. The Cavendishs rebuilt the latter, and both
in appearance and position it much resembles Warwick Castle. It has not
very many bedrooms, and when the King was first expected, among various
extensive alterations, a bathroom was put up. The Duke has generally
visited Lismore twice a year, and has never stood unduly on his dignity,
but been approachable by all, and reasonable about everything, which has
also been characteristic of his political views.

Lord Bessborough presided over a Commission on Irish Land Laws. He was a
very kind, very lean man, who was wont in old age