There are signs that the virulence of boycotting is declining.
The Nationalists, of course, do everything they can to keep up the notion that the people are not tiring; still, even their own newspapers are beginning to show signs of the change. The Cork Herald recently published a letter from Macroom declaring that the police were not being boycotted there. At this, a member of the League at Yonghal makes a similar complaint. Yonghal, he declares, is " a very paradise for police, emergency-men, and land-grabbers." Members of the League " frequently sit down and treat policemen to a social glass, and also indulge in a game of cards in the company of policemen." Emergency-men and land-grabbers are also welcomed into their shops by members of the League, and in- dulged with a chat over the counter. The truth of the remarks thus made by the scandalised correspondent of the Cork Herald is well illustrated by a fact stated in the Times of Tuesday,—namely, that it recently came out in evidence that prominent Nationalists in Fermoy "who denounced policemen from public platforms, and called for their boycotting, were a'terwards discovered sending their wares to the police- barrack after dark, and were found to have entertained members of the force in their back-parlours." In truth, the feeling of the Irishmen is not bitter enough to support boy- cotting except under a heavy bribe such as withholding the rent. The shopkeepers soon tire of losing their only ready- money customers,—the police.
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