I do not only find newspaper cuttings in the bundle. It also contains a file of letters; they are all signed “Captain Moonlight.” But this is a generic name, for the letters evidently come from different people. The Irish revolutionists are not revolutionists like ours. With us every generation insists on working in its own way. In Ireland, on the contrary, they are careful to conform exactly to the old customs. The stock-in-trade of accessories of every conspiracy that respects itself still includes the mask, the dagger, and the blunderbuss which are completely out of fashion amongst us since the time of the _Carbonari_ of the Restoration. Anonymous letters are one of their dearest traditions. Landowners are continually receiving them. They invariably enumerate the different measures which will be adopted to hasten the unfortunate recipient’s departure from this life. It is imperative that a little explanatory drawing should accompany the text, because they must guard against the possibility of the victim being illiterate. This necessity, imposed by custom, is evidently embarrassing even to the conspirators. It is a stumbling-block to those Captains “Moonlight” who have no talent for drawing. One of Mr. Thompson’s correspondents had, however, found an ingenious method of evading the difficulty. Here is a description of one of these documents. I am looking at it while I write: At the head of the sheet of paper there is a drawing belonging to that _naïve_ school which amongst us is especially reserved for illustrating Latin dictionaries with _pierrot pendu_ (hanging clowns). However, we can easily distinguish that the first drawing represents a gun, with its bayonet. But below there is a combination of strokes and blots which it is absolutely impossible to make anything of. Happily the artist, obeying a sentiment of praiseworthy modesty, and understanding the deficiency of his talent, has put an explanatory note at the side of each vignette. By the side of the first there is in parentheses “gun;” at the right of the second, “bombshell.” The text at least, in default of other merit, had that of conciseness. It only consisted of two lines-- “Beware of the above, lads! Ireland for the Irish!” The author was probably proud of his work. However, we must own that the general effect would be better if the drawings were more intelligible. If I had the honour of being admitted into the councils of the Land League I should suggest that instead of relying upon the artistic sense of inferior agents, they should distribute amongst them papers already engraved with pictures of coffins, cross-bones, guns, gibbets, and bombshells, since they appear to be the necessary accessories of a style of literature from which the League evidently expects great results, since it encourages it so much. CHAPTER VIII. CONCLUSION.