No need to say that the Westporters are Home Rulers. The clean and tidy folks, the Protestant minority, are heart and soul against the bill, but the respectable voters are swamped all over Ireland, by devotees of the priests. "We think the franchise much too low," said a Presbyterian. "We think illiterate Ireland, with its abject servility to the Catholic clergy, quite unfit to exercise the privilege of sending men to Parliament. We think the intelligent minority should rule, and that the principles which obtain in other matters might well be applied to Parliamentary elections. These ignorant people are no more fit to elect M.P.'s than to elect the President of the Royal Society or the President of the Royal Academy. And yet if mere numbers must decide, if the counting of heads is to make things right or wrong, why not let the people decide these distinctions? The West of Ireland folks know quite as much of art or science as of Home Rule, or any other political question. They have returned, and will in future return, the nominees of the priests." One of the highest legal authorities in Ireland, himself a Roman Catholic, said to me:-- "You saw the elections voided by reason of undue priestly influence. That was because, in the cases so examined, money was available to pay the costs of appeal. If there had been money enough to contest every case where a Nationalist was returned, you would have seen every such election proved equally illegal, and every one would have been adjudicated void." The Westport folks are looking for great things from the great Parliament in College Green. A Sligo man who has lived in Dublin was yesterday holding forth on these prospective benefits, his only auditor being one Michael, an ancient waiter of the finest Irish brand. Michael is both pious and excitable, and must have an abnormal bump of wonder. He is a small man with a big head, and is very demonstrative with his hands. He abounds with pious (and other) ejaculations, and belongs to that popular class which is profuse in expressions of surprise and admiration. The most commonplace observation evokes a "D'ye see that, now?" a "D'ye tell me so, thin?" or a "Whillaloo! but that bates all!" As will be seen, Michael artistically suits his exclamations to the tone and matter of the principal narrator, mixing up Christianity and Paganism in a quaintly composite style, but always keeping in harmony with the subject. The Sligo man said:-- "I seen the mails go on the boat at Kingstown, an' there was hundhreds of bags, no less." "Heavenly Fa-a-ther!" said Michael, throwing up eyes and hands. "Divil a lie in it. 'Twas six hundhred, I believe." "Holy Moses preserve us!" "An' the rivinue is millions an' millions o' pounds." "The saints in glory!" "An' wid Home Rule we'd have all that for Oireland." "Julius Saysar an' Nibuchadnizzar!" "Forty millions o' goolden sovereigns, divil a less." "Thunder an' ouns, but ye startle me!" "An' we're losin' all that"--