Whisky in Ireland, on the other hand, is an accomplishment, an ornament, a mellowness, a kindness, a simplicity, and a joy forever. The true Irish people drink it wisely as the Gaul takes his wine. When you see a number of drunken persons in Ireland, you may safely assume that they are Orangemen and of Scotch descent. The Irish of Ireland do not get drunk; which means that they neither roister in bars nor soak alcoholically at home. According to Mr. Hussey, Irish whisky is “vilely adulterated,” both by the publican and “in some of the factories.” In support of this statement he tells the following story: “On one occasion a Killorglin publican was in jail, and his father asked for an interview because he wanted the recipe for manufacturing the special whisky for Puck Fair. It has been a constant practise to prepare this blend, but the whisky does not keep many days, as may be gathered from the recipe, which the prisoner without hesitation dictated to his parent: ‘A gallon of fresh, fiery whisky, a pint of rum, a pint of methylated spirit, two ounces of corrosive sublimate, and three gallons of water.’” Which is to suggest that the Irish have no palates, and that like the gentleman who ate fly-papers in mistake for oatcake, they are poison-proof. Frankly, I should be disposed to take Mr. Hussey’s recipe with great reserve. It is amusing, doubtless, but a chemist would shake his head over it. Practically, the only undesirable drinking which goes on in Ireland proper is done at wakes; but even Mr. Hussey admits that wakes are on the decline, and not by any means the occasions for over-indulgence which they once were. It is all very well to visit a country town and single out half a dozen notorious drunkards with the view of proving that the Irish people are a drunken people. I say that the Irish people in the lump are a sober people, though they may not be teetotalers. I will go further and admit that they have a wonderful appreciation for the wine of the country, and that at times some of them even get hearty. But this is not to say that drink rages in Ireland as it rages in Scotland, or, for that matter, as it rages in the poorer quarters of our English cities. And I believe further that, taking the whisky of Ireland all round, it is a much sounder and less sophisticated spirit than the bulk of the whisky consumed in Scotland and England. Mr. Hussey assures us that the increase of lunacy in Ireland has been pronounced by the Committee which sat on the question in Dublin to be mainly due, not only to excessive drinking, but to the assimilation of adulterated spirits. With all respect to the conclusions of this Committee, I do not think that those conclusions are borne out by the facts. Lunacy in Ireland is the direct outcome of the almost unthinkable poverty and squalor of the greater part of the population. When you couple with poverty, want of occupation, a solitary life, and an enervating climate, not to mention the melancholy