of office are often the whale which only
produces the sprat of legislation when the time of fulfilment arrives.
This is an impartial opinion on most Cabinets of the last fifty years.

One of the few occasions on which a recent British Government has
recently shown some signs of appreciating a really keen and capable man
was when they made Mr. Ellison Macartney, Master of the Mint.

I wrote and congratulated him, observing that I hoped he would never be
short of money, but if that was his plight all he had to do was to coin
it for himself.

I have a bad recollection for faces, and one day in Dublin his father
came up to me, and seeing I did not remember him, recalled a story with
which I had amused him in the lobby of the House of Commons.

It was to this effect, and may prove new to others:--

Coming out of Glasgow one evening two Irishmen waylaid a Scotsman for
the sake of plunder. He was nearly enough for them both, but numbers
prevailed, and when they had mastered him, after searching his pockets,
they only found three halfpence.

Said one Hibernian to the other:--

'Glory be to the Saints, Mick, what a fight he made for three
halfpence.'

'Oh,' replied the other, 'it was the mercy of the Lord he had not
tuppence, or he'd have killed the pair of us.'

Killing suggests the Kerry militia, the corps in which no one dies
except of good fellowship, one which has done a good deal to unite the
divergent interests of north and south Kerry, and which provides fine
physical development for soldiers of all ranks.

Last year the militia received a grant of L120 from Government to be
expended on route marching with the band through the county in order to
promote recruiting. The net haul in the Milltown district was the
village idiot, who promised to enlist after the next sessions if the
jailer did not take him--he being apprehensive of committal to prison.

But even this was not enough, for his mother came to a neighbouring
magistrate, weeping and praying for his remission, because--

'It was a drunken freak on Patrick, for if the lad had kept his senses,
sure, he would never have done it.'

Another Kerry man being asked why his son did not enlist, replied:--

'Ah, Jamsie was not a big enough scamp for the militia, because you have
to be a great blackguard before you can get in there.'

Which shows that the camel and needle's eye trick is easier to perform
than to induce a country-bred man to enlist in the King'