The entrance to the harbour of Kingstown is extremely picturesque. I only speak from hearsay. I had made the acquaintance of two or three pleasant fellow passengers, and we had agreed to remain on the bridge during the crossing, but at the first movement of the vessel one of them left us; the two others held up for a little time but at last they also disappeared. In ten minutes I was left alone, and preferring to avoid the contemplation of the shapeless forms writhing on deck I went to bed and enjoyed the sleep of innocence until a steward came and warned me that we had reached the quay. I went on dock and found most of the passengers already leaving the steamer. A short, extremely ragged man was threading his way between the groups of passengers, he wore long fair hair falling to his shoulders. I found that he was a well-known character. He is a vendor of nationalist papers. Nothing can be more amusing than the air of triumph with which he pushes the _Freeman’s Journal_ or the _United Ireland_ in an Englishman’s face shouting, “Buy the last speech of the Grand Old Man.” For over here Mr. Gladstone is the “Grand Old Man” only. The _United Ireland_ is to _Freeman’s_ what the _Intransigeant_ is to the _Temps_, or rather since they are both very Catholic, what the _Univers_ is to the _Gazette de France_. But even then the comparison is a little incorrect, for the _Univers_, even in M. Veuillot’s day, never approached the violent style of _United Ireland_. One of its writers indulged in a significant freak the other day. Mr. Parnell advised the Land League not to make itself conspicuous for a short time. For some reason they were anxious to appease England a little. The _United Ireland_ published this advice in the following words:-- “THE CLOSE SEASON.” “ART. 1ST.--It is forbidden to shoot landlords.” This was in the early days of the League, and its agents displayed the zeal of all neophytes. I remember getting an idea of the state of this country by hearing a conversation repeated that had taken place between two Irish children who had come to Paris with their parents. They had been brought to play with some children belonging to one of my friends. As they reached the garden, the little boy--aged six--said to the little girl of seven: “Wait a minute! I’ll show you a capital game. We’ll play at landlord and tenant. You shall be landlord and I’ll kill you with my gun.” These were the ideas which a small Irish boy had imbibed from his surroundings in the year of Grace, 1882, upon the normal relations between landlord and tenant. It only takes half an hour to go from Kingstown to Dublin. When I reached the station I had the pleasure of making acquaintance with the jaunting car, the favourite carriage with the Irish, who often refer to it in their novels.