The number of our Irish professors is comparatively small. Some who deserve special mention are Maurice F. Egan, of the Catholic University in Washington; James McMahon, of Cornell; Robert Ellis Thompson, of the Central High School in Philadelphia; and Thomas C. Hall, of the Union Theological Seminary in New York. A Gaelic chair was established in 1896 at the Catholic University by the Ancient Order of Hibernians, and is filled at the present time by Prof. Joseph P. Dunn, who is of American birth. To John Tyndall, the notable Irish scientist, the United States owes a double debt, inasmuch as he not only delivered a course of lectures here in 1872, but devoted the proceeds to the cause of scientific research in America. It is very seldom that an Irishman lacks the gift of speech. Take away our Irish orators and journalists, and this would be a dumb and cheerless country indeed. Here, for instance, is an offhand list of Irish writers of the past and present: Capt. Mayne Reid, the idol of American boys, and a soldier in our War with Mexico; John Boyle O’Reilly, the editor and poet; FitzJames O’Brien, who wrote the famous short story, “The Diamond Lens”; Ignatius Donnelly, the most versatile and picturesque public man of his generation in Minnesota; Edwin Lawrence Godkin, of the New York _Evening Post_, a fighter in the high realm of national morality; Henry W. Grady, editor of the Atlanta _Constitution_; Patrick Walsh, who was editor of the Augusta _Chronicle_ and represented Georgia in the United States Senate; and Joseph Medill, founder of the Chicago _Tribune_. Among those still living are James Jeffrey Roche, now in the consular service; Joseph Fitzgerald, author and translator; William M. Laffan, proprietor of the New York _Sun_; George T. Oliver, of the Pittsburg _Gazette_; Eugene M. O’Neill, of the Pittsburg _Dispatch_; John McLeod Keating, who won fame by his fight against yellow fever in the South; and John F. Finerty, the eloquent founder of the Chicago _Citizen_. Three great publishers of Irish birth have been Mathew Carey, of Philadelphia, the friend of Lafayette; Robert Bonner, founder of the New York _Ledger_; and Patrick Donahoe, founder of the Boston _Pilot_ and _Donahoe’s Magazine_. The name of William Desmond O’Brien, too, deserves to be included in this paragraph. Mr. O’Brien was a wealthy contractor of New York who devoted eighteen years of his life to the preparation of an _Encyclopedia Hibernica_, and who died, broken-hearted, in 1893, with his great project unfinished. Among Irish-American publishers now living, the most notable is P. F. Collier, founder of _Collier’s Weekly_.