Dublin Notes.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXII, Issue 3, 17 May 1895, Page 21

Dublin Notes.

(From contemporaries.)

The Bmpreaa Frederick, accompanied by the Princess Henry of Battenberg, before leaving London paid a visit to the branch of the Irish Industries Association, 20 Motcomb street, Belgrave Square. Both the royal ladies made Beveral purchasas of lace and embroideries. Her Majesty and Princess Beatrice, expressed themselves greatly pleased with the various kinds of work made by the cottagers in Ireland, for whose benefit the Assiciation has been working for five or six years. The Queen haa also shown a recent interest in the work of the Association.

Lord Duffdrin has now soe-i through the Press the selection of his mother's songa set to music, which Mr John Murray is to publish. Thia will be a companion volume to the edition of her varsa which appeared last sum met. Helen Lady Dufferin was as gifted a musician as she was a poet, and set most of her own aooga to music. Of those in the coming volume only ,wo or three have music by others " Dublin Bay," one of her best-known songs, ehe set to the familiar old English melody of " The Last Rose of Bummer." Among the other Bongs given are "The Irish emigrant," "The charming woman," and " The fine young English gentleman." During Mr Davitfa shore stay m Parliament he was on more than one occasion protected by the Speaker in a manner that evoked his regard lor that gentleman. When delivering his maiden speech, a Colonel Brookfield interrupted him, and asked the Speaker whether he was in order in " reading " his speech. Mr Davitt, with but one hand, had some difficulty in dealing with his notes, and to this was due the intervention of the " gahant " Colonel. Mr Peel said that as he wbb thus invoked he wag bound to express hia opinion, and that was to the effect that the hon. member (Mr Davitt) was merely following a well-known and comrr."n custom of availing himself of notes. Tha tone of the ruling wk < put by all as a snub for Mr BrookHeld, and was loudly cheered. Later on when Lord Cranborne, the heir of the Marquis of Salisbury, referred in an nndertone to Mr Davitt aa a " murderer," the Speaker exacted a prompt withdrawal, and later on counselled that tho incident should be alljwed to close, and the expression of the "noble lord " left to the " contempt it so richly deserved."

A special feature ia the post-prandial programme of the St Patrick's national banquet, held at the Holborn Town Hall, under the presidency of Mr Justin M'Cartry, M.P., was a new patriotic song, intensely emotional and redolent of Hibernian sentiment, composed by Mr William Allan, M.P., the member for Gateahead, and rendered for the first time in public on that occasion by Mr Lloyd Chaados, a new vocal artist wiih a rapidly rimng reputation. Tho music, which iB described aa exceptionally appropriate and distinctively popular in character, is written by Mr Isidore de Lara. Mr Allan has received warm congratulation from his Irish friends on hia felicitous contribution to the storehouse of Irish national song.

Mr Stannard MAdam, asrent of Colonel O'Callaghan's Budyke 88tat«, Bnccumbed on March 12 to an attack of typhoid fever, which it is supposed he contracted in Dublin little over three weeks before. Mr M'Adam'a connection with the Bodjke estate dated from 1891, after the position bad been surrendered by two former agents owing to the impopsibility of collecting rent from the unfortunate tenants who were bordering on starvation. Since then periodical attempta to seiie have been made, and at times some exciting scenea were witnessed during the decpased agent's tenure „f efflce. As a cyclist Mr MAdam was one of the best known men in the South of Ireland, at different timei wincing coveted priaas, such ao the Ten Mile Cham-' pionahip of Ireland, which he placed to hie credit bo far back aa '88, while in the following year he won the Twenty five Miles Championahip at Ballsbridgc, eventual^ eocurirg the Fifty Miles Championship in 1881. He was an enthusiast in the football field up to some years ago, but till the last he took the greatest interest in the successes of the local team.

Dr Douglas Hyde, that most able and capable student of early Gaelic literatnre, is the author of a charming work on the subjsct jost iseued in the new Irish Library aeiiee. He deals with the Mythological, the Bed Branch, and the Fenian cycles, devotes special care to the early romances, the later annalist*, the Christian writers, and the Danish periods. It will ba observed by those who peruse the work that he differß from O'Dooovan and O'Curry regardin- the mythological foundation of the Tuatha de Danams. To Dr Hyde'a mind other conclusion present themselves in accordance with those held by authorities in the past. If the field is a wide one, the arope within which to treat it ia necessarily limited, but the antbor may be congratulated on the skill and scholarship displayed. Groatar results may, we hope, yet be looked for from him.

Speaking at a meeting of tho Cork Nationalist Society, of which be 18 president, Mr William O'Brien said Grattan'a Parliament was of the landlord class, whereaa, in the n.w Irish Parliament the humblest man in the country would have his place open to him aa well as the proudest lord. The hon gentleman also declared that it waa just possible in the designs of Providence that some of the hi tie troubles of to-day might be the best means of fitting tho Irirh for the responsibilities of self-government when tho time will come when it will be, of course, a most legitimate and wholesome thin X that men should take different views, and that they should fight for their own particular programme in a manly acd determined way. Fur the present, he believed the beet all of us can do for Ireland is to keep all our forces together and to remember always the famous aftyme of Grattan, that w« must either tolerate one another or tolerate = the common enemy.

Writing in the New Ireland Bsvu-t* for March, the Xi v T. A. Finlay, S.J., says something " On behalf of our woollen Indue idea." The article contains much plain ppaakinjr add-ased to thueo Irish ladies and gentlemen who, whether from carel«sinesß or r*he-wi<jp persist in attiring themselves in inferior materials of English a;>' foreigo manufacture. A strong appeal 19 also m-»de to our Irish ni ■: \ and piieste to support Irish indus'rics, and some of the words of -\e rev writer on this point well deserve quotation. He fl ay<? :— '< If <ha clergy of Ireland entered into aa underaraniing that they wou'c use exclusively, or evea chiefly, the satins, Hilks, poplins, and liners of Ireland in the sacred vestments of thpir cburchea, a remarkable change would soon be effected in the condition of many industries. And if this understanding were extended co as to insure that they would adopt the serges and cloths of Irish looms for their persona use, the change would attain the dimensions of an economic ravol v tion."

The statistics of Irish crima are not the only figures of gloo-ny portent that fell to the lowest on record in 1891. The same >s true the Irish pablic will rejoic* to learn, of the emigration atatialict'. Last year the number of emigrants was absolutely lower than m ~ny year sinoa 1851, and relatively lower than in any year except those three prospsroua years, 1876-7-8, the rate of which wss only slightly exceeded. The total was 35,959, all bat 64 of whom were Irish born. It was large enough, but it was 12,287 lower thon in 1393, nearly 15,000 lower than in 1892, nearly 21,000 iower than 1801, ]e.aa thau half the total for 1888, and lees than one -third the total for 1883. The tide is lessening none too soon. Even the moat blu jd-thirary o! economic Sangrades should h<ive his thirst slaked sufficiently by the blood-letting of Ireland. From May 1, 1351, to Daoomber 31, 1894 3,602,425 natives of Ireland loft the comtry to settle permanently in other lands. Munster lost 1,249,721]— a number cquai to 83-9 per cent, of the average population for the period ; Ulster, 1,038,689, or 56-9 per cent ; Leinater, 660,495 or 475 per cent ; and Connaught, 442,847, or 62-9 per cent. Tixc figures from Munster predomimte still. L»Bt year the emigration rate from the province was 13 9po thousand, as compared with 4 1 for Leinater and 3 9 for Ulster. As usual the mass of the emigraat* were in the prime of life. 831 per cent of them were between tho ages of fifteen and thirty-five years. 6» 2 per cent of the men wero described as "labourers." No one familiar with rural Ireland now will assert that there is an exoesa of good labour in the market. The 15,363 workmen who carried their

labour eisewbero should hava b-en able to flud mora piortinble employment at home than in the overcrowded markets to which they have gone. Ireland can spare very few more thousand of her young men and women.

Mr Murroogh O'Brien's avidenco before the Financial relations Oomnuttce merits passing notice. It is a direct impeachment of tho system under which Ireland is governed, and is the more worthy of finger-posting from tho fact that Mr O'Brien is no mere novice in the matter of investigating cause and effect. For example, quoting a report supplied to the Labour Commission. Mr O'Brien declared that the average weekly wage of an agricultural labourer-the only point upon which, a comparison could be constituted— to be 10s in Ireland as against Us lOd in Wales, and 15s lid in England. Indeed 10s he considered rather above the average. It w*s dearer to live in Dublin than in London ; clothing in Ireland is very much dearer— for the poorer class-and altogether it was a source of wonderment how the labouring classes in Ireland live! at all. Mark this :-" If it were possible to get two farms, one in Ireland and one in England, identical in quality of land and equipments, he considered that for every 20a at which the English turner could be fairly rente 1, the Irish farmer ought to be rented at 8s 6d. The gross produce' of a farm in Ireland was generally lesa than in t be case of an English farm, and he thought that a larger proportion of the grogs produce went to the Irish landlord than to the English landlord." Mr O'Brien gives it aa his opinion that the "agricultural statistics" for Ireland are " perfectly absurd," aid he attributes their absurdity or inaccuracy to the method of collection— the old policeman method, with its counting of hons md chickens, and stoous of grain, ond its consoling token of goodwill on the part of the fermer and h: S family in the shape of a " taste of churniog." The day is lon- gone from us when the "agricultural s'atistica " did duty at vi3e-regal banquets in order to prove to a gullible English majority that Ireland never was more prosperous. With the destruction of that fallacy, which even a travelling Royal Agricultural Show could not preserve, we began to understand our position, and tho result issten in the advance which is apparent in the British view of Ireland and all that concerns her.