Is it the absence of the unique fragrancy of his native turf smoke, which at home he so freely inhaled, or is it the substitution of beef and pudding for his former scanty meals of the never-failing root of plenty? Let us leave these _vexatae questiones_ to those whom they may concern, but on one point let us give our decided opinion. Our readers may say, "O, now you all are changed! since your Father Mathew has made five millions of you _teetotallers_, your country is not worth the living in! No more doth the invigorating, all-inspiring, thrice concentrated juice of the 'barley grain' push you forward to glorious deeds of heroic daring--of skull-breaking, dancing, or of story-telling; so that for all intents and purposes you have nothing left worth chronicling--_you are getting like the rest of the world_!" "Aisy a bit," say I, "the fiddle and the bagpipes have just the same charms to 'put the capers in our heels' as in whisky's balmiest days; and as for story-telling, _that_ we can do equally well over a good cup of fine hot coffee. No, no; while the same fresh and _free_ breezes shall continue to be wafted across the Atlantic to us; while we have our own green fields and wild, lofty mountains to behold, Irishmen we shall be in all our better qualities; and though Father Mathew may have been influential enough in cooling our heads, (we admit,) yet our _hearts_ are as warm as ever! Irish cabins, which you all have heard of, would not be such bad concerns after all, and we should get on very well indeed, if we were only a _leetle_ better treated. On all hands it is admitted that we are pretty nearly able (and take my word for it we are willing enough) to eat and to drink all that a bounteous Providence causes to be brought forth from the most fruitful of soils; in truth, a superficial observer might even be tempted to utter an exclamation of surprise on being told that with a territory one thousand square miles less than that of the state of Maine, and six thousand less than that of Pennsylvania, ten millions of human beings should be supported; but then consider, kind reader, when our beef, and our butter, and our eggs, and even the little cabbages from our gardens, must fly on the wings of steam to pay the rent, and that rent flies away again, you know, to pay _whom_; (a slight glance at a certain map will tell you that;) consider, I say, that we cannot always be light-hearted, that a little sadness will sometimes creep over us. Think how our poor countrymen must sometimes suffer, and let ever our warmest sympathies be exerted when we hear of their distresses.