trial duties and obligations. I have
heard nothing but good of him, and of his management of his estates,
from men of the most diverse political views. But I think it more
important to get a look at the Clanricarde property, about which I have
heard little but evil from anybody. The strongest point I have heard
made in favour of the owner is, that he is habitually described by that
dumb organ of a down-trodden people, _United Ireland_, as "the most vile
Clanricarde."

I found a good car at the railway station, and set off at once for
Portumna. Parsonstown was called by Sir William Petty, in his _Survey of
Ireland_, the _umbilicus Hiberniae_. It is the centre of Ireland, as a
point near Newnham Paddox is of England, and the famous or infamous "Bog
of Allan" stretches hence to Athlone. Our way fortunately took us
westward. A light railway was laid down some years ago from Parsonstown
to Portumna, but it did not pay, and it has now been abandoned.

"What has become of the road?" I asked my jarvey.

"Oh! they just take up the rails when they like, the people do."

"And what do they do with them?"

"Is it what they do with them? Oh; they make fences of them for the
beasts."

He was a dry, shrewd old fellow, not very amiably disposed, I was sorry
to find, towards my own country.

"Ah! it's America, sorr, that's been the ruin of us entirely."

"Pray, how is that?"

"It's the storms they send; and then the grain; and now they tell me
it's the American beasts that's spoiling the market altogether for
Ireland."

"Is that what your member tells you?"

"The member, sorr? which member?"

"The member of Parliament for your district, I mean. What is his name?"

"His name? Well, I'm not sure; and I don't know that I know the man at
all. But I believe his name is Mulloy."

"Does he live in Portumna?"

"Oh no, not at all. I don't know at all where he lives, but I believe
it's in Tullamore. But what would he know about America? Sure, any one
can see it's the storms and the grain that is the death of us in
Ireland."

"But I thought it was the landlords and the rents?"

"Oh, that's in Woodford and Loughrea; not here at all. There'll be no
good till we get a war."

"Get a war? with whom? What do you want a war for?"

"Ah! it was the good time when we had the Crimean war--with the wheat
all about Portumna. I'll show you the great store there was built. It's
no use now. But we'll have a war. My son, he's a soldier now.