yearly from his "middleman," who is left to fight it out with the people, and get 230l., the price at which the land is let, out of them, if he can. Just now he is getting nothing, and the situation is becoming strained. The people pay no rent, the sub-sheriff, is not only losing his margin of profit but cannot get 150l. a year out of them. They said they liked him well enough but would not pay a "middleman's" profit, whereupon he offered to take the exact amount he contracts to pay to Lord Lucan, and forego his profit altogether; but this proposition, after being received with some amusement, was not declined exactly, but, in American language, "let slide." And nothing has been or can be done. For if it were attempted to evict the Innisturk people the evictors would be accused of hurling an entire population into the sea. The more that is seen of the people of far Western Connaught the more distinct becomes the conviction that the present difficulty is rather social and economic than political. It is far more a question, apparently, of stomach than of brain. The complaints which are poured out on every side refer not in the least to politics. Very few in Mayo, and hardly anybody at all in Connemara, seem to take any account of Home Rule, or of any other rule except that of the Land League. The possibility of a Parliament on College-green affects the people of the West far less than the remotest chance of securing some share of the land. If ever popular disaffection were purely agrarian, it is now, so far as this part of Ireland is concerned. Orators and politicians from O'Connell until now have spoken of Repeal and Reform; but it is more than probable that the Connaught peasant always understood that he was to be emancipated from some of his burdens. All his ideas are dominated by the single one of land. He knows and cares for very little else. He is superstitious to an astounding degree, and his ignorance passes all understanding--that is, on every subject but the single one of land. And the land he knows of is that in his own county, or home section of a county. But his knowledge of this is singularly and curiously exact. Either by his own experience or by tradition he is perfectly acquainted with the topography of his own locality and with the history of its present and former proprietors and occupants. With perfect precision he will point out a certain tract of country and tell how, in the old, old time, it was, "reigned over" by the O'Flahertys, and then was owned by the Blakes, who disposed of part of their country to the present possessors. He knows perfectly well how the great Martin country came first into the hands of the Law Life Insurance Company, and then into those of Mr. Berridge, and how the latter gentleman came down to Ballynahinch, of the traditional avenue, extending for forty miles to Galway. More than this, he knows how an island was bought by its present owner with so much on it due to the above-named society.