put in the journal which made it: "We have
absolute reason to know that when the last Coercion Act was in full
swing this pure-souled and disinterested patriot (Mr. John F. Taylor)
begged for, received, and accepted a very petty Crown Prosecutorship
under a Coercion Government. As was wittily said at the time, He sold
his principles, not for a mess of pottage, but for the stick that
stirred the mess." This is no assertion "upon hearsay"--no publication of
a rumour or report. It is an assertion made, not upon belief even, but
upon a claim of "absolute knowledge."

Yet to-day, in the same journal, I find Mr. Taylor declaring this
statement, made upon a claim of "absolute knowledge," to be "absolutely
untrue," and appealing in support of this declaration to Mr. Walker, the
host of Lord Riand Mr. Morley, and to The M'Dermot, Q.C., a conspicuous
Home Ruler; to which Mr. Davitt adds: "Mr. Taylor, on my advice,
declined the Crown Prosecutorship for King's County, a post afterwards
applied for by, and granted to, a near relative of one of the most
prominent members of the Irish Party,"--meaning Mr. Luke Dillon, a
cousin of Mr. John Dillon, M.P.!

We had much interesting conversation last night about the relations of
the Irish leaders here with public and party questions in America, as to
which I find Mr. O'Leary unusually well and accurately informed.

I am sorry that I must get off to-morrow into Mayo to see Lord Lucan's
country there, for I should have been particularly pleased to look more
closely with Mr. Rolleston into the intellectual revolt against
"Parnellism" and its methods, of which his attitude and that of his
friends here is an unmistakable symptom. As he tersely puts it, he sees
"no hope in Irish politics, except a reformation of the League, a return
to the principles of Thomas Davis."

The lines for a reformation or transformation of the League, as it now
exists, appear to have been laid down in the original constitution of
the body. Under that constitution, it seems, the League was meant to be
controlled by a representative committee chosen annually, open to public
criticism, and liable to removal by a new election. As things now are,
the officers of this alleged democratic organisation are absolutely
self-elected, and wield the wide and indefinite power they possess over
the people of Ireland in a perfectly unauthorised, irresponsible way. It
is a curious illustration of the autocratic or bureaucratic syste