in the Blue Books of the last fifty years, he may
well break into Carlyle-like diatribes against the waste of the whole
thing--which is paid for out of the taxpayer's pocket.

Alluding to all these Commissions reminds me that there were three Land
Commissioners--Mr. Bewlay, who was very deaf; Mr. FitzGerald, who was
rather hasty; and Mr. Wrench, who consistently absented himself to
attend the Congested Board.

So they were respectively, though not respectfully, called, 'The judge
who could not hear, the judge who would not hear, and the judge who is
not here.' This was one of the witticisms of my clever friend, Mr.
Robert Martin--'Bally-hooley'-one of the very few men who can write a
good Irish song, and sing it well, into the bargain.

I appeared in the witness-box in the case of O'Donnell _v._ the _Times_.
I suppose people buy newspapers to obtain information, or else to get a
pennyworth of lies to induce equanimity in bearing the income-tax, the
weather, and all other ills that an unnatural Government is responsible
for; and I further suppose a halfpenny paper has to condense its
inaccuracies, and serve them up in tabloid form for mental indigestion.
However, that is as it may be; anyhow, I had a hearty laugh at the
_Star_, which wrote:--

'A look round the Court again this morning brought the strange
impression which one now always feels on entering the Court. The space
is so comparatively small, but one feels as though it were all Ireland
in microcosm. You see representatives of every class in the terrible
conflict of war, of rival passions, hatred, and traditions. This man
with the large nose, the large and disfigured face, is Mr. Hussey, and
those scars that you see, and the distortion of the features, are
perchance marks left by some desperate and homicidal tenant avenging his
wrongs.'

That 'perchance' is good, considering my riding misadventure in County
Cork, of which I gave an account earlier.

As for the Parnell Commission, it was the outcome of superb patriotism
on the part of the _Times_. That great organ, in the spirit of purest
devotion to the best interests of England and Ireland, honestly
attempted to expose treachery, and to denounce treason. Hundreds of
columns of the valuable space at their daily disposal, as well as
thousands of pounds earned by the highest journalism of any country,
were freely lavished in this tremendous denunciation, known as
'Parnellism and Crime.' The crime of Pigott e