THE GENTLE ART OF LEG-PULLING IN IRELAND. [To Tax EDITOR
OF TED " SPECTLTOR.") SIR,—In your issue of May 21st an anonymous correspondent calling himself "Southern Irishman" refers to a recent article in the Westminster Gazette, written by a lady, containing an interview with the Chairman of the Kerry District Council. The only article which has recently appeared in the West- minster even remotely resembling "Southern Irishman's" description was one which I contributed on April 29th. I am interested in your correspondent's description of that article, because it enables me to judge what sort of travesty of Irish affairs is contained in the rest of the letter. There was not a word in my article of "soft, pathetic eyes "; nor one word of abuse of the British Government; nor did I retail any tall talk uttered by the Chairman of the Kerry County Council. I remember one fact only which he mentioned against the British authorities—namely, that the commandant of the Cadet Corps at Tralee had commandeered thirty bedsteads from Tralee Workhouse, leaving the inmates to sleep on straw mattresses on the floor. This at the time I myself pooh-poohed till I had verified it myself by a visit to the workhouse. I did think it rather odd that after a whole month had elapsed since this particular contingent of ex-officers had arrived the British Government had not been able to afford bedsteads for them, hut had had to rob the paupers. I daresay the beds have since been returned. I hope so. Nor was it tall or short talk, but actual fact, that my second interview with the Chairman of the County Council took place in Tralee gaol, where he had been locked up without charge or trial by the military authorities, just as 2,500 other Irishmen have been locked up. He is still in gaol, neither charged with nor tried for any offence. Your correspondent is mistaken in one point, among others. We do not abuse England; this Government is by no means the whole of England. There is also the England which, luckily for the Empire, gave South Africa self-government in 1906.-1 am,
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