Castleisland. A small town of little interest, after the pattern of most Irish boroughs. We stop for lunch at a tavern of rather good appearance, and clearly very popular with the natives. The innkeeper smokes a cigar with us. Is he satisfied with the state of affairs? Yes and no. Certainly he cannot complain—trade in liquor is rather brisk. But there are too many places where one can buy drink in the town—no less than fifty-one. “And do they all prosper?” “Nearly all.” “What may their average receipts be?” “I should say about £400 a year.” £400 multiplied by fifty-one gives £20,400, more than 510,000 francs. And there is not in this place any other industry than agriculture, while statistics I have this moment in my pocket inform me that the aggregate rental of Castleisland is not above £14,000. It is then evident that, times good, times bad, they drink every year here £6,000 worth more in beer and spirits than they would pay in rent to the landlords, if they chose to pay. This seems to be conclusive, as far as Castleisland is concerned. But is there really any reason why the tenants of this district should turn total abstainers for the special purpose of paying the claret and champagne bills of half-a-dozen absentees? Here is the whole problem in a nutshell. Tralee. The big town of the county, what we should call in France the _chef-lieu_, the seat of the assizes. They are opened precisely at this moment. There are on the rolls three men charged with agrarian murder. I proposed to go and be present at the trials, when I heard that the three cases were to be remanded to the next session, the representative of the Crown having come to the conclusion that the jury would systematically acquit the prisoners, as is so often the case in Ireland. The Chairman of the Assizes, Mr. Justice O’Brien, seized this occasion to declare, that in the course of an already long career he had never met with a jury having so little regard for their duty. “It must be known widely,” he added, “the law becomes powerless when the course of justice is systematically impeded by the very jurymen, as we see it in this country; in which case there is no longer any security for persons or property.” To which the people in Kerry answer that they do not care a bit for English law; what they want is good Irish laws, made in Dublin by an Irish Parliament.