amusement, were not the entire question all too serious, in the sudden and contemptuous withdrawal of the troops to-day, after having shown the Palladians that, however they felt about the hut, it should be built, and law and order maintained "maugre their teeth." XI. GOMBEEN. CORK, _December 2nd._ Among the many spectres which haunt the sadly-vexed West and South of Ireland, there is one far more grim and real than the _spectre vert_ who is either buried for ever and aye, or has undergone gradual transformation since '98 into Repeal of the Union, Young Ireland, Fenianism, Nationalism, and finally perhaps into Anti-Landlordism; albeit this latter avatar of an ancient and familiar spirit is by no means imbued with the poetic attributes of the original spectre. During my stay in Ennis and Limerick I succeeded in holding somewhat protracted conversations with three landed proprietors, three of the largest land-agents in Ireland, two bank managers, an influential lawyer, three leaders of the people, and one probable assassin. Through the discourse of all of these--varied and contradictory as much of it necessarily was--I could see distinctly one ugly shadow, as of an old man filthy of aspect, hungry of eye, and greedy of claw, sitting in the rear of a gloomy store looking over papers by the light of a miserable tallow dip. From the papers the figure turned to a heap as of bank-notes, and there was in the air the chink of money. For the name of this grisly and terribly real spectre is _gombeen_; which, in the Irish tongue, signifies usury.