These prices, we say, constitute proof that a fair degree of commercial success has been attained in these trading operations, and that is all we desire to prove. We have heard boastings from the typical Irishman, uttered when his Caroline hat, with the chalked lace edging, was in its place on the side of his cranium, that nothing in the known world is like Ballinasloe fair that it "bangs Banagher, and Banagher bangs the world." This is mere nonsense, and, as extremes meet, such gasconading inflicts pretty nearly the same kind of injury upon Ireland as is inflicted by the lowly abasement of the same individual, when, in another mood, he prostrates himself before the spectre of English capital, and confesses to his own utter helplessness and his entire willingness to lie down and die in the next ditch, if some Saxon, of his pity, will not make him a railway, or set on a line of steamships to bring him gold from California; or, at the least, buy his lands, the outgoings of which have reduced him to a state of starvation. The fact is, that upon looking at the returns bearing upon the matter which are nearest to our hand, we find that at the Tryste of Falkirk, in Oct., 1838,

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there were present 60,000 head of sheep, 50,000 do. black cattle, and 2,700 horses; and at Weyhill, in Hampshire, the great fair of England, in Oct. 1840, it was estimated that above 150,000 sheep were exhibited for sale. Compared with these statements our Ballinasloe facts and figures show respectably enough; and although they do not absolutely establish the fact that "Ireland is the first flower of the earth, and first gem of the sea," they do very intelligibly declare that no Irishman can justly plead prescription in excuse for future indolence, or reasonably base fears that he will not be able to develop his resources for himself, and in his own way, upon the ground that he has hitherto failed in developing them. The fair of Ballinasloe is essentially a creation of Irish commercial and agricultural enterprise. There is no record, not even a tradition of its origin. It grew out of the struggles of progress, and was fashioned by the people themselves, unassisted by English capital, or by acts of legislation. The lord of the soil collects his tolls under the authority of immemorial usage, and the Baron of the Fair holds his Court of Pie powder, and is absolute therein, by virtue of a like

lex non scripta. Yet the proceedings are, and we are assured, have been for the last half century, conducted with the utmost decorum and regularity. Power has not been abused; justice has not been defied. A constitution has been established, under the shade of which liberty may dwell with order, in the only mode in which such a constitution can be brought to maturity. It has grown. Let no rash hand disturb it, in a hasty desire to develop industrial resources. The system of which Ballinasloe fair is a culminating point, is of more worth to the Irish commonweal than a whole Lancashire of spinning-jennies. That it may be developed and extended, so as to be brought into harmonious relation with all Irish and English commercial and manufacturing resources, must be the earnest prayer of every sincere and thoughtful patriot.

We have not much more space at command, but a word or two may be spared to note a few of the incidents and effects of the institution, which, though commonplace enough, are not unworthy of being pointed out, as bearing upon views we have already traced out. Until the present century, there were but two slated houses in Ballinasloe, and the cost of lodging, such as it was, during the fair, was, fifty years ago, at the rate of two guineas a night. There is now a sufficiency of good shops and dwellinghouses, flour-mills, breweries, a coachfactory, and banks; and no lack of accommodation for visitors, at reasonable charges. The town has become, in fact, a sort of provincial metropolis, and the time of the October fair is its season of business and pleasure. For a week or two, then, a brisk traffic is carried on in the exotic wares of Dublin tradesmen, whose habit it has long been to attend with supplies of jewellery, perfumery, haberdashery, saddlery, and even books. Nor are other less pleasing proofs of the progress of civilisation wanting. A regular attendance of gamblers and pickpockets may be cited, to cap the climax of our evidence, that the industrial resources of Ireland were in course of development long, long ago.

We have already spoken of the marked urbanity of the humbler attendants upon the business of the fair, and of the gentleness of their demeanour, especially toward the sheep. The facts might,

perhaps, be of service in support of the theory of the pacificating and humanising influence of commerce-somewhat more serviceable, perhaps, in that line, than the demonstrations that have been made of the habits of certain distinguished members of the Peace Society. We would gladly put them to that use, for we are sincere believers in the theory; but we must admit that courtesy and politeness are the natural characteristics of the Connaught peasantry, to a degree which we have never seen equalled among the lower classes in any other country. Still, though commercial intercourse had, perhaps, little share in rendering their manners affable and kind to the human stranger, it has, in all probability, been the chief means of forming the quiet, steady habits of doing their business with one another, and of dealing with the animals under their charge, which now certainly constitute a marked and peculiar feature in the external appearance of Ballinasloe fair. The Irishman, there, is in neither stage of intoxication -he is not drunk either in the rantingroaring, or in the whining, grievancemongering mood; but is clothed in the unostentatious sobriety of a plodding tradesman" as painstaking a cordwainer as any in Cordova." On the very last 4th of October, we two or three large printed placards, inviting to religious controversy, carried about the show-ground, mounted upon poles; and we verily believe no three men in the park read a word of them beyond the first line.

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It can scarcely be necessary to point the moral of Ballinasloe fair in a formal post-scriptum. No intelligent reader will misinterpret what we have said so widely as to suppose that we are opposed to, or inclined to make light of, rational and temperate endeavours to turn the talent with which Ireland has been entrusted to the best account. We have no sympathy with the fears that would bury it in the earth, nor with the inactivity that would avoid blame for neglect by putting it out at simple usance. We would trade in it, and multiply it, as the best mode in man's power of honouring the bountiful Giver, and of benefiting those for whose use every talent is given in trust to man. But neither do we confide in every Dousterswivel, whose diviningrod tells of springs in dry places. We are heart-sick of manufacturing move

ments, and mining movements, and flax movements. Our spirit is poured out as water when the people shout, hailing a new Irish Avatar in some scheming projector, who illuminates our destiny with a bog-wax candle. Every such convulsive paroxysm, excited by stimulation from without, has invariably ended in collapse. The resources of a nation, or of an individual, can be developed only by action originating from within. Industrial movement, to be anything more than galvanic motion in a corpse, must grow out of the natural reaction of the constituent elements of society. All that can be done, ab extra, to encourage it, is to set or to leave those elements, moral and physical, at perfect liberty to act and react upon each other. Upon a people of excitable temperament and quick fancy, the Dousterswivel operators work peculiar mischief; infinitely more, in our opinion, though it is not the fashion to say so, than the mere political agitator. They precipitate hope into an abyss deep in proportion to the height to which they raised it on some unsubstantial scheme. In their own ardour, and in the eagerness of their victims, their schemes assume a bulk and splendour which obscure all the monuments of previous progress. It is the old story of Alnaschar and his Basketmen who dream that they have discovered the grand catholicon, and who awaken to a bitter knowledge that

what remains in their hand is but a streak of common flax, are apt, in their disgust, to turn again to sleep, and for a long time to lose recollection of the fact, that the shirt they wear-and a stout, wholesome vesture it is — was made years ago out of a material no better than that which they now think worthless, only because they find they have been grossly deceived into an over-estimation of its value. When men are told that they are poor, naked, helpless, living brutishly in the midst of resources they have never tried to develop; and when, in their carnest desire for regeneration, they suffer themselves to be persuaded into an admission that such is the truth, and into a belief in the powers of the specific remedy offered to them; should that remedy fail to realise all that is told of it, the disappointed believers will not easily recover the faith they have lost in themselves. Our design is to maintain and strengthen that faith, as the substance of all that can be safely hoped for in the future. The best evidence of the possibility of unseen development are existing marks of progress. Hope in the development of the resources of Ireland, is, to some degree, substantiated, and an unseen future of industry evidenced to the sceptical, in the landmark of agricul tural and commercial progress, which has been raised, and still stands, uninjured by time, in the great Fair of Ballinasloe.