Mr. Parnell has commenced his Sunday services, speaking this time
three times. His principal utterance was at Roscommon, and its drift was to repudiate all English in- terference with the Irish Parliament. He disbelieved in an English settlement of the Land question, and more than hinted that, as the first fifteen-year term for fixed rents was running out, the Westminster Parliament meant to raise -them, and levy the higher rates through the armed police, whom it would take fifteen years to disband. He had insisted, he said, that, on Home-rule being granted, the Police should he " civilianised" at once, and handed over to the Irish Par- liament. He was rapturously received, and it is noted that, though he was denounced from every altar in the county, twenty thousand persons were collected to hear him speak. 'The point is, whether those twenty thousand, with all priests urging the other way, will also vote for him, or whether we shall see fifty repetitions of the Kilkenny scene. A great meeting called by Mr. Healy at Carrick on Saturday last, was broken up by Parnellites with blackthorns; and it is said, perhaps in joke, that Mr. Healy loudly complains that suffi- cient policemen were not present ! Why is fate in Ireland always so pointedly ironical?
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