Concurrently with the compulsory withdrawal of the Union Jack displayed by my friend Mrs. Gibson, of Northern Hotel, Londonderry, another occurrence, this time in the South, will serve to attest the progress made by the inventor and patentee of the Union of Hearts. During the progress of a cricket match on the Killarney Athletic Grounds, between the clubs of Limerick and Kerry, on Whit-Monday, a Union Jack was hoisted, not as a political banner, but as an ornament, and the only banner available for the purpose. It was left flying when the cricketers went home, but in the morning it lay prone and dishonoured. The forty-foot spar had been sawn through, and in falling had smashed the palings. Let a chorus of musical Gladstonians march through Ireland bearing the Union Jack and singing "God save the Queen," let them do it, with or without police protection, and I will gladly watch their progress, record their prowess, and will have great pleasure in writing their obituary notice. The people, as a whole, are enemies to England. They are filled with a blind, unreasoning, implacable resentment for injuries they have never received, their dislike engendered and sustained by lying priests and selfish agitators, who are hastening to achieve their ends, alarmed at the prospect of popular enlightenment, which would for ever hurl them from power. The opinions of Cardinal Logue have been quoted by Lord Randolph Churchill. The _Freeman's Journal_ is still more absolute. Does this sound like the Union of Hearts? Does this give earnest of final settlement, of unbroken peace and contentment, of eternal fraternity and friendship? The _Freeman_ says, "We contend that the good government of Ireland by England is _impossible_, not so much by reason of natural obstacles, but because of the radical, essential difference in the public order of the two countries. This, considered in the abstract, makes a gulf profound, impassible--_an obstacle no human ingenuity can remove or overcome_." This promises well for the success of the Home Rule Bill; but why is the thing "impossible"? Why is the gulf not only profound but also "impassible"? Why is the good government of Ireland by England prevented by an obstacle beyond human ability to remove, and which, as Mr. Gladstone would say, "passes the wit of man." The _Freeman_ has no objection to tell us. The writer assumes a high moral standpoint, addressing the eminently respectable and religious Mr. Bull more in sorrow than in anger, but notwithstanding this, in a style to which that highly moral and Twenty-shillings-in-the-pound-paying person is not at all accustomed. The _Freeman_ goes on-- "We find ourselves bound by reason and logic to deny to English civilisation the glorious title of Christian."