Mr. Hazlett presented a still funnier picture of the Irish ‘visitations’ of the members of the society, with their wives and daughters every summer.  Gentlemen in London regard it as a fine lark to get elected to serve in the Irish Society, as that includes a summer trip to Ireland free of expense, with the jolliest entertainment.  One gentleman, being asked by another whether he was ever in Ireland, answered—­’No, but I intend to get on the Irish Society next year and then I’ll have a trip.  What kind of people are they over there?  Do they all speak Irish?’

‘Oh, no; they are a very decent, civilised people.’

’Oh, I’m glad they don’t speak Irish; for none of us do, of course; but my daughter can speak French.’

‘They had a great siege one time over there?’

‘Oh, yes; the Derry people are proud of the siege.’

‘Ah, yes, I see; happened in the reign of King John, I believe.’

But the heaviest charge laid at the door of the Irish Society is its persistent refusal to grant proper tenures for building.  By this, even more than their reckless squandering of the revenues of a fine estate, which is not their own, they have obstructed the improvement of the city.  They might possibly be compelled to refund the wasted property of their ward, but they could never compensate for stunting and crippling her as they have done.  Fortunately, there is a standard by which we are able to measure this iniquity with tolerable accuracy.  Dr. William Brown, of Derry, testified that it was the universal conviction of the people of Derry, of all classes and denominations, that, by the mismanagement of their trust, the Irish Society had converted the crown grant from the blessing it was intended to be, and which it would have been under a just administration, into something more akin to a curse.  For anything that saps the self-reliant and independent spirit of a community must always be a curse.  Within the last hundred years Belfast was not in advance of Derry in population, in trade, in capital, or in any other element constituting or conducing to prosperity.  Its river was not so navigable, and by no means so well adapted to foreign, especially transatlantic trade.  The country surrounding it was not superior in soil, nor the inhabitants in intelligence and enterprise.  It had no estate, as Derry had, granted by the crown to assist in the development of civilisation, education, and commerce.  Its prospects, then, were inferior to those of Derry.  But Belfast had the one thing, most needful of all, that Derry had not.  It had equitable building tenures.  And of this one advantage, look at the result!  ’Belfast is now seven times the size of Derry; and is in possession of a trade and a trade capital which Derry can never hope to emulate, while smothered by the stick-in-the-mud policy of that miserable anachronism the Irish Society.’