intemperance, the improvidence, the reckless jollity, the duelling, the fighting at the dinner-table, or at funerals, in short, the savagery of Ireland, in the upper classes quite as much as in the lower, is becoming a tradition. Yet Charles Lever was a true artist of days not long gone by. I have met with men who have fought duels, and assisted in abductions, and hunted bailiffs, and taken part in scenes which would now seem strange in the wildest book of fiction.

Carleton's sketches of Irish peasant life are equally out of date: The hedge schoolmaster, the bare-headed and bare-footed scholars, the swarms of troublesome beggars, and the lunatics at large, are all becoming dissolving views. We want an Irish Dean Ramsay to gather up the traditions and stories of the past generation. We can scarcely imagine the Munster bar, or as many of them as remained above the table, singing the lewd ballad of "The Rakes of Mallow," or an Irish judge singing his own song of "A bumper, Squire Jones," or a parish priest chanting "An Cruiscin Lán, the love of my heart is my little jug, An Cruiscin Lán" (Cruiskeen Lawn).

The "Monks of the Screw" were not so indecent and discreditable a set as our English "Monks of Medmenham Abbey," but even that noted Irish club could scarcely now be joined by the statesmen and judges and gentlemen of Dublin, any more than the

chiefs of the Parliament House at Edinburgh could now take part in the high jinks and drunken revelries described by Sir Walter Scott.

All these things and many more are passing away. The Fairy Mounts are being fast levelled, and the mysterious sounds of the Banshee are seldom heard. The tithe-proctor is gone, and the bailiff or process-server can no longer with impunity be made to swallow his parchment writ, and be shut up in the Keep, as was done by "Dick Martin" of Galway at Ballinahinch. If these functionaries are ever now interfered with, or if violence is done to constables, or to land agents, or others of higher grade, it is by hired assassins that the deeds of crime are perpetrated. There may not yet be the general respect for law which marks a highly civilized people, but there is at least a wholesome fear of its penalties. The presence of the constabulary force throughout the country has had a good moral effect, as representing everywhere public order and law, an effect far beyond the actual service rendered in the detection or the repression of crime.

The growing respect for law among all classes of Irishmen is one of the most sure tests and hopeful signs of progress. It may surprise some to hear this affirmed in the face of the frequent reports of violence and lawlessness, especially agrarian outrages. But it must be remembered that every such case is now

made public, and attracts universal notice when circulated through the press. They are rare in comparison with times not very remote. In this as in many other matters the example of the richer classes is now not against but on the side of law. Few proprietors would venture to interfere with legal proceedings, or to disregard legal decisions, even in questions touched by the Land Act, which some landlords seem to regard as a statute of confiscation. They read the law reports, and know the consequences of resisting authority. But among the lower classes a lawless spirit is more frequently shown, not so often in defiance as in ignorance of the consequences. We must not be impatient, nor expect too sudden a transition from the long period of comparative anarchy, of which Ribbonism and other crimes were the fruit. When the power of law is made to be felt in many separate localities, the peasantry will gradually learn what the upper classes have learned more promptly. A curious case in point occurred at an early period of the Land Act operation. An Englishman had purchased property in county Galway, where landlords such as Mr. Martin used to keep all law at bay. Some tenants, refusing to pay rent, were to be served with notices. But the bailiffs were so mauled that they positively refused to venture their lives again in the district. Application was made to Mr. Justice Keogh, and that

firm and upright judge gave an order that it should be deemed sufficient service to put the notices in a public place in Ballygar, the nearest town, and to send a letter by post to each of the defendants. If all administrators of the law had the decision and firmness of Judge Keogh, the people would learn respect for legal authority with more promptness. The same Judge Keogh has since read a lesson of respect for law to the priests of the same county, in his judgment on the Galway election case, with results to be presently noticed.

Sir Robert Kane tells how "in Ovoca, on pay-days, where two thousand men were employed when he wrote, five hundred gallons of whisky used to be bought by the miners, and drunk upon the works. The men spent the night in fighting, whilst their wives and children begged in vain that some of their wages should go for provisions and for clothing. There is now upon pay-days no whisky whatsoever sold. The wives of the workmen receive their wages for them, and quarrelling is unknown." Of another village he says, "On pay-day it presented a scene of strife and drunkenness, which always required the intervention of the police, and often rendered the position of the superintendents dangerous. At present nothing of the sort is known. There is a temperance hall for quiet social meetings, and extensive

schoolrooms for the education of the children, and the same workmen are able to earn £300 per month more than they formerly received, by the greater steadiness and attention to their work which accompany their improved domestic habits." It was in referring to these and similar cases which had come under his notice that Sir Robert Kane used words which have often been quoted, and which cannot be too widely known: "I do not hesitate to assert that the existing generation in this country is half a century in advance of that which is dying off, and that the generation now at school will be a century in advance of us. We were reckless, ignorant, improvident, drunken, and idle. We were idle, for we had nothing to do; we were reckless, for we had no hope; we were ignorant, for learning was denied us; we were improvident, for we had no future; we were drunken, for we sought to forget our misery. That time has passed away for ever."

It is difficult to realise the condition of the greatest part of Ireland only a few years back, when the houses of country gentlemen required to be barricaded like fortresses in an enemy's country, when agrarian outrages were so common as to excite little surprise or attention, and when landlords and their agents went in daily peril of their lives. Twenty years ago this was still the normal state of too many districts,