From the Cabinet, from Congress, from every office, high or low, not controlled by the Fenian vote, the Irish are systematically excluded; but it cannot be American public opinion which has prevented the Catholic Irish from rising as merchants and traders, even in New York. Yet, while there are Belfast names high up on the Atlantic side and in San Francisco, there are none from Cork, none from the southern counties. It would seem as though the true Irishman wants the perseverance to become a successful merchant, and thrives best at pure brain-work, or upon land. Three-fourths of the Irish in America remain in towns, losing the attachment to the soil which is the strongest characteristic of the Irish in Ireland, and finding no new home: disgusted at their exclusion in America from political life and power, it is these men who turn to Fenianism as a relief. Through drink, through gambling, and the other vices of homeless, thriftless men, they are soon reduced to beggary; and, moral as they are by nature, the Irish are nevertheless supplying America with that which she never before possessed--a criminal and pauper class. Of ten thousand people sent to jail each year in Massachusetts, six thousand are Irish born; in Chicago, out of the 3598 convicts of last year, only eighty-four were native born Americans. To the Americans, Fenianism has many aspects. The greater number hate the Irish, but sympathize profoundly with Ireland. Many are so desirous of seeing republicanism prevail throughout the world that they support the Irish republic in any way, except, indeed, by taking its paper money, and look upon its establishment as a first step toward the erection of a free government that shall include England and Scotland as well. Some think the Fenians will burn the Capitol and rob the banks; some regard them with satisfaction, or the reverse, from the religious point of view. One of the latter kind of lookers-on said to me: “I was glad to see the Fenian movement, not that I wish success to the Brotherhood as against you English, but because I rejoice to see among Irishmen a powerful center of resistance to the Catholic Church. We, in this country, were being delivered over, bound hand and foot, to the Roman Church, and these Fenians, by their power and their violence against the priests, have divided the Irish camp and rescued us.” The unfortunate Canadians, for their part, ask why they should be shot and robbed because Britain maltreats the Irish; but we must not forget that the Fenian raid on Canada was an exact repetition, almost on the same ground, of the St. Alban‘s raid into the American territory during the rebellion.