ANOTHER IRISH PARTY!--The snakes are coming back to Ireland!
In a Cork paper we read the following:--
Mr. CORNELIUS DONOVAN, while crossing a grass field near
Blarney, encountered a snake, which at first he believed to be an eel,
and struck it with his walking stick. Having killed the reptile, he
discovered it was a snake, measuring 3 feet 9 inches.
Evidently a political omen of some kind, this return of the emigrants
to Erin. What does it portend? Mr. M-RL-Y, on being consulted,
is "inclined to fancy that the Cork snake is a herald of Coercion,
and shows that the venom of Dublin Castle will soon be at work." Mr.
G. B-LF-R, on the other hand, says that "the return of general
confidence at the advent of a Unionist Government, and a really capable
Irish Secretary, has never been better exemplified. Even the reptiles
are not afraid now to try Ireland as a place of residence!" And Mr.
J-ST-N M'C-RTHY has no doubt at all that "the incident is
another sign of the growing Irish spirit of disunion. Did not St.
Patrick banish snakes from Ireland? And ought not snakes, if they are
worthy of the name of patriots, to obey St. P., and stay away? Well,
they are returning, and defying St. P.--just as R-DM-ND defies
_me!_ And," added the eminent leader, meditatively, "I've often thought
there was a good deal of the eel about him, too."
* * * * *
"PEERS ARE CHEAP TO-DAY."--From the _North British Daily
Mail_:--
Bailie WRIGHT, in supporting the motion, said that if he had
the power he would make every man in that meeting a peer, so that they
should go to the Lords and resolve upon their abolition.
Prodigious! But how is the Bailie going to proceed? Bring in a "Bill
of Wright's" when he has got his new nobility ensconced in the Gilded
Chamber? And suppose the Bailie's peers decline to commit suicide?