mean the so striking, so oft-renewed, so newly emphasised advances and offers of goodwill the German Emperor is making all the while to France. Nobody ignores the immense, the nearly insuperable difficulty which prevents the prompt acceptance of these flattering attentions. Between France and Germany there is not only the memory of the war, a ditch full of blood: there is the cry, the bitter cry of children brutally taken from their mother; there is the unconquerable protest of Alsace and Lorraine, that flesh of our flesh, that bone of our bone, against the cruel abuse of the law of the stronger. I believe from the bottom of my heart that, for a long time yet, a statesman in France who should deliberately accept the friendship of Germany and make gratuitous love to the Emperor would be buried under public contempt. However time flows; the years go by; the generations come and go. Circumstances may arise where France, where the Franco-Russian couple, would feel obliged to strike a bargain with the German tempter. For England this prospect is worthy of a moment of reflection. It is useless to entertain self-deception. Just now England has or seems to have three ways open to her. She may either remain as she is, an erratic body, wandering through the paths of other constellations; or she may make a fourth in the Triple Alliance and follow suit to Germany, the leading State in this league; or she may contract with France and Russia one of those mariages de raison which are perhaps never perfectly delightful, according to La Rochefoucauld, but to which diplomacy, in allowing the happy consorts to be three, gives a kind of additional zest. Only she must choose quickly. It is already too easy to see that the Sibyl does not intend to leave her offers a long time open or to renew them without some reduction. FRANCIS DE PRESSENSÉ. THE TOURIST IN IRELAND We may roam through this world, like a child at a feast, And, when pleasure begins to grow dull in the east, We may order our wings and be off to the west.-MOORE. WITHIN the last few years the public have had their attention drawn, by articles in the press and advertisements, to the beauties of Ireland as a tourist resort. The press are unanimous as to thinking Ireland and its scenery beautiful; we in Ireland think so too. But the hard-worked individual longing for a holiday wants to know more about a country than to hear from newspaper correspondents that the scenery is charming and the people interesting. He leaves his home and wishes to feel assured he will have a clean and comfortable inn to sleep at and wholesome good food to eat. Irish inns have always had a bad name. I propose in this article not to praise the scenery of my country so much, but rather to show those seeking for a new place where to spend a holiday that we Irishmen have improved our inns, hotels, and means of communication. Let me state that I am not directly interested in any hotel or inn in Ireland. There is a great cry out amongst Irishmen that tourists go to Scotland, Switzerland, the Continent, and here and there, but do not come near Ireland. It must be borne in mind that when a weary, hard-worked man wants change, he naturally prefers a country where his own language is not spoken, where he does not eat the same food or breathe the same air he was brought up on. This is a complete change, and this is what doctors order. To get away from all one's usual surroundings, business worry and domestic worry, is the main reason why the tourist goes far afield. Now to many, Ireland is an unknown land. It is still, in the eyes of a large number of English ladies and gentlemen, far afield. Even still many say 'I hear you are going to Ireland; take care you are not shot!' This kind of remark has now begun to be a sort of chaff, for, as the chaffer may not be able to get away on a holiday, he envies his more fortunate companion. Allow me now to conduct personally some of my readers to Ireland, 'Sweet gem of the ocean, bright Isle of the sea.' We intend going the way the letters go, by the Irish mail from Euston Station, starting at 7.15 A.M. This is too early in the morning for the general public. What results is this: in London at this early hour of the morning it is very hard to get a cab; the night cabs have crept off home, and the day cabs have not come on to the stands. The train is an easy one to miss. It would be a great comfort to tourists bound for Ireland if the North-Western Railway would start the Irish day mail at a later time. The Irish mail travels at the rate of forty-two miles an hour, including stoppages-not an alarming rate of speed. We are promised an acceleration of pace. At last, after much agitation by the Irish members of Parliament and the Irish Tourist Association, the London and North-Western have put on third-class carriages, and they are comfortable. Holiday-seekers like seeing all they can, so we will travel by the day mail, and during August and September, those being the best months for visiting Ireland, except May. After a pleasant run through England and Wales-not forgetting, if in third-class, to order a hot luncheon-basket to be put in at Crewe, or if first-class to patronise the dining-car-we arrive at Holyhead at 1.20 P.M., and step on board one of the brand-new mail steamers. These boats are really an immense improvement to the through service from London to Dublin via Kingstown. I have been shown over one of these screw steamers and have travelled on them. Their greatest advantage is that the saloon, where meals are eaten, is in a different part of the ship from the cabins. The smell of brandy and cooked meats does not now pervade the solitude of one's cabin. The former state of things always assisted in making the most hardened tourist feel very uncomfortable when the breezes blew. The mail-boat glides out of Holyhead Harbour. We hear the ring of the bell in the engine-room; the order 'full speed ahead' is given. We pass the South Stack Lighthouse, and soon are flirting with the waves of the Irish Channel; given fairly fine weather, a pleasanter three hours at sea is rarely experienced. The Kish Lightship soon appears in sight; then we see the Bailey Lighthouse nestling under the Hill of Howth, and the sweet Bay of Dublin opens up to view. Sweet Bay of Dublin, My heart you're troubling; Your beauty haunts me Like a fevered dream.'-LADY DUFFERIN. The afternoon sun shines on the dancing waters of the Bay. The Wicklow Mountains, rising and fading in the blue distance, form a background which is unlike anything ever seen. As we approach, villas and houses are seen dotting the slopes and shore. We enter the port of Kingstown, filled with yachts and a few fishing-boats. A long stream of porters lands the mail bags, another strings the luggage. A very fussy railway official shouts, "Take your sates,' and then, with a loud whistle and banging of doors, and a feeling that one has left something or other on the boat, we puff away to Dublin, which we reach at 5.5 P.M. I shall expect some of my party to stop and see 'Dear Dirty Dublin,' but if they are in a hurry and bound for the North or South of Ireland, they can go by the loop line round it, either to the Great Southern and Western Railway, or, if they are for the North, to the Great Northern Railway, Amiens Street. There is an Arab proverb which says 'Haste is devilish.' We will stay in Dublin a day at least, and see the lions of the town. Dublin inns and Dublin hotels have improved within the last very few years. The Gresham, the Shelbourn, and the Métropole are large hotels. Among small hotels there is Miss Power's Royal Hotel, Kildare Street. Fish and meat are good in Dublin, but we are still rather old-fashioned in the manner of serving them. The Dolphin is a good restaurant, and the Red Bank, D'Olier Street, a capital place for oysters. A dozen oysters and a golden plover cooked on the grill before one, and some Guinness's draught porter, is a luncheon only found in Dublin: I recommend it to all who come to Ireland in the autumn and especially in the late autumn. My party have had their first 'joulting' on an outside Irish jaunting-car over the cobble-stones or setts of the Dublin streets on their way to the hotel. They have climbed with some exertion on to that high conveyance, clutched the rail, and held on as best they could, whilst the handbag, rugs, and luggage are held on more or less by the jarvey, while he drives at a great pace, regardless of danger, talking all the time, and just missing running over some foot passenger or bicyclist. For all this the fare is sixpence, and twopence for every parcel or package carried. Cabs can be had at the same price. One must not forget to ask for a cab, and not a four-wheeler.' There was a day when some enterprising person tried to introduce hansoms into Dublin. The car-drivers, assisted by the coal-porters, which latter in Daniel O'Connell's time called themselves, and indeed were, his body-guard, pitched the hansoms over the quays into the River Liffey. We have never seen a hansom in Dublin since. Dublin is a great town for bicycles. Dunlop, the inventor of the tyre, is an Irishman, and a great deal of money has been made by Dubliners out of cycle shares. The wheel is everywhere. What strikes the stranger on seeing Dublin for the first time are the fine houses and fine buildings; but there is a certain air of decay and melancholy, as if the past had been brighter and money more abundant. All through Ireland this sign of decay appears on the outside of buildings. It is owing to the extreme dampness of the climate, especially in winter. Dublin is not decaying: Dublin is flourishing; and, in comparison with other provincial towns, trade now is good and the commerce of the port of Dublin is increasing. The city might be cleaner; but what it must have been on a wet winter's day at the end of the last century, at the period when these fine buildings were erected, is hard to imagine. Dublin has got a bad name, and that bad name sticks to a town that during the spring months-that is to say February, March and April-is gayer than any in the world. Hunting, dancing, and racing then go on. While the Castle season lasts the fun is fast and furious. Hotels are full, and all residents entertain to the best of their means. There is one thing that is especially good in Dublin, and that is the wine. A man who gives his guest bad wine is avoided. The tourist may say he has little to do with all this, but my party, I am sure, like a little gossip, and some of the ladies, I am certain, would enjoy a Dublin season. Our Viceroy entertains right royally. In the morning we walk out to look at the shops, and then, calling a car, we drive to see all that we can in Dublin-College Green, with the old Parliament Houses; the fine statue of Grattan, and the statues of Oliver Goldsmith and Edmund Burke. In the old Parliament Houses the Chamber of the Irish House of Lords still remains as it was, and one or two of the committee rooms are exactly the same as in the days before the Bank of Ireland bought these premises. We must see the library of Trinity College, the Book of Kells,' and the Book of Durrow'; the Custom House with its handsome façade bordering the River Liffey; our National Picture Gallery, which forms one of the sides of the Leinster Lawn; the Science and Art Museum, and the City Hall, formerly the Exchange— these are things all really worth seeing, and would be worth seeing in any capital in the world. We must drive down Sackville Street, a magnificent broad stretch with the Nelson Column in the centre. It is now getting near luncheon-time, and we shall go to Corless, a great oyster purveyor. After luncheon we will take another car, and, driving down the quays by the side of the Liffey, enter the Phoenix Park, telling the driver to go on up the road while we take a stroll through the people's Garden, now gay with flowers and shrubs, and perhaps visit the Zoological Gardens and see the lion cubs. There are always lion cubs at the Dublin Zoo, bred in the gardens. The income derived from the sale of these animals is substantial. We get on the car again and drive up the centre road. The Dublin mountains rise out of the plain on our left, and a verdant landscape forms the foreground. A large herd of fallow-deer are seen feeding and grouped under the trees of the Park, celebrated for its |