Yet to-day, in the same journal, I find Mr. Taylor declaring this statement, made upon a claim of “absolute knowledge,” to be “absolutely untrue,” and appealing in support of this declaration to Mr. Walker, the host of Lord Riand Mr. Morley, and to The M’Dermot, Q.C., a conspicuous Home Ruler; to which Mr. Davitt adds:  “Mr. Taylor, on my advice, declined the Crown Prosecutorship for King’s County, a post afterwards applied for by, and granted to, a near relative of one of the most prominent members of the Irish Party,”—­meaning Mr. Luke Dillon, a cousin of Mr. John Dillon, M.P.!

We had much interesting conversation last night about the relations of the Irish leaders here with public and party questions in America, as to which I find Mr. O’Leary unusually well and accurately informed.

I am sorry that I must get off to-morrow into Mayo to see Lord Lucan’s country there, for I should have been particularly pleased to look more closely with Mr. Rolleston into the intellectual revolt against “Parnellism” and its methods, of which his attitude and that of his friends here is an unmistakable symptom.  As he tersely puts it, he sees “no hope in Irish politics, except a reformation of the League, a return to the principles of Thomas Davis.”

The lines for a reformation or transformation of the League, as it now exists, appear to have been laid down in the original constitution of the body.  Under that constitution, it seems, the League was meant to be controlled by a representative committee chosen annually, open to public criticism, and liable to removal by a new election.  As things now are, the officers of this alleged democratic organisation are absolutely self-elected, and wield the wide and indefinite power they possess over the people of Ireland in a perfectly unauthorised, irresponsible way.  It is a curious illustration of the autocratic or bureaucratic system under which the Irish movement is now conducted, that Mr. Davitt, who does not pretend to be a Parliamentarian, and owes indeed much of his authority to his refusal to enter Parliament and take oaths of allegiance, does not hesitate for a moment to discipline any Irish member of Parliament who incurs his disapprobation.  Sir Thomas Esmonde, for example, was severely taken to task by him the other day in the public prints for venturing to put a question, in his place at Westminster, to the Government about a man-of-war stationed in Kingstown harbour.  Mr. Davitt very peremptorily ordered Sir Thomas to remember that he is not sent to Westminster to recognise the British Government, or concern himself about British regiments or ships, and Sir Thomas accepts the rebuke in silence.  Whom does such a member of Parliament represent—­the constituents who nominally elect him, or the leader who cracks the whip over him so sharply?

I have to-day been looking through a small and beautifully-printed volume of poems just issued here by Gill and Son, Nationalist publishers, I take it, who have the courage of their convictions, since their books bear the imprint of “O’Connell,” and not of Sackville Street.  This little book of the Poems and Ballads of Young Ireland is a symptom too.  It is dedicated in a few brief but vigorous stanzas to John O’Leary, as one who