A comical incident has been reported from Skye, which illustrates,
if it be true, the ease with which a population remote from the centres of civilised life may be made to believe the most improbable absurdities. A Free-Kirk minister announced to his flock, in the course of his Sunday sermon, that the Russians had invaded England, through the treacherous con- nivance of Mr. Gladstone, and he advised his people to go home and set themselves at once to the " defence of their hearths and homes." The alarming intelligence spread rapidly beyond the parish, and created quite a panic. The explanation is that the minister had seen, a few days previously, a copy of an English comic paper, which had found its way into the Highlands, and which had a representation of Mr. Gladstone on his way to the Tower, for inviting the Russians to England. Are the Home- rulers so absurd in declaring that the jokes of the English comic papers have done, and are doing, much mischief among the ignorant population of Ireland ?
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