aign, and the mightiest of all, is that the Irish vote in
England has been proved to demonstration to be able to trim and balance
English parties to its liking, and consequently to make the Irish vote
in Ireland the supreme power in the English legislature. It is
impossible to over-estimate the magnitude of these results. The causes
of joy are absolutely bewildering in number. A few years ago, the
National voice in Ireland was heard only as a faint, distant murmur at
Westminster. It could only rumble under ground in Ireland, and every
outward symptom of Irish disaffection could be suppressed with the iron
hand without causing one quiver of uneasiness at Westminster, much less
shaking Ministries and revolutionizing parties. Even at home Nationalism
was a shunned creed. It was not respectable. The few exponents it
occasionally sent to Parliament were regarded as oddities. The mass of
the Irish representation were as thoroughly English party-men as if they
were returned from Yorkshire. To-day what an enchanted transformation
scene!

A month since Mr. Parnell's party was but a fraction of the Irish
representation. The Irish Whigs and Nominal Home Rulers combined
outnumbered them, without counting the solid phalanx of Ulster Tories.
Where are the three opposing factions to-day? The Nominal Home Rulers
have died off without a groan. The Northern Whigs have committed suicide
by one of the most infatuated strokes of folly ever recorded in
political annals. The Tories have shrunk within the borders of one out
of thirty-two counties in Ireland, with precarious outposts in three
others; and they are beside themselves with exultation because they have
managed to save Derry and Belfast themselves by a neck from the jaws of
all-devouring Nationalism. Nor is the seizing possession of
seven-eighths of the Irish representation the only or even the greatest
fact of the day. The Nationalists have not only won, but over
four-fifths of the country they have reduced their opponents to a
laughing-stock in the tiny minorities in which the Loyal and Patriotic
Union have obligingly exhibited them. The overwhelming character of the
Nationalist victory would not have been a tithe so impressive had not
our malignant enemies insisted upon coming out in the daylight in review
order, and displaying their pigmy insignificance to a wondering world. A
string of uncontested elections would have passed off monotonously
unimaginatively. It would have been s