.

and what I want. As you see I am a priest of the Catholic church; and, 80 years ago, this house in which we now stand was mine. I was a good rider, and was extremely fond of hunting when opportunity offered, and one day I was just about to start for the neighboring meet, when a young lady of very high family called upon me for the purpose of making a confession. What she said, of course, I may not repeat; but it affected very closely the honor of one of the noblest houses of England, and it appeared to me of such supreme importance that (there being certain complications in the case) I committed the grave indiscretion - the sin even, for it is strictly forbidden by our church —of making notes of the confession as I heard it. When I had absolved and dismissed her I found that it was only barely possible for me to reach the rendezvous in time, but even in my haste I did not forget the supreme importance of guarding carefully my notes of the terrible secret just committed to me. For purposes which I need not now detail, I had had a few bricks loosened in the wall of one of the tower passages of this house and a small recess made - just the place, I thought, in which my notes would be perfectly safe from any conceivable accident until my return, when I intended to master the intricacies of the case at my leisure, and then at once destroy the dangerous paper. Meantime, I hurriedly shut it between the leaves of the book I had held in my hand, ran down stairs, thrust the book into the recess, replaced the bricks, sprang upon my horse, and rode off at full speed. That day,

in the hunting field, I was thrown from my horse and killed on the spot; and ever since it has been my dreary fate to haunt this earthly home of mine and try to avert the consequences of my sin― try to guard from any possibility of discovery the fatal notes which I so rashly and wrongly made. Never until now has any human being dared to speak to me boldly as you have done; never until now has there seemed aught of help for me or hope of deliverance from this weary task; but now will you save me? If I show you where my book is hidden, will you swear by all that you hold most sacred to destroy the paper that it contains without reading it without letting any human eye see even one word of its contents? Will you pledge your word to do this?"

"I pledge my word to obey your wish to the letter," said the bishop with solemnity.

The gaze of the priest's eyes was so intense that they seemed to pierce his very soul, but apparently the result of the scrutiny was satisfactory, for the phantom turned away with a deep sigh of relief, saying: "Then follow me."

With a strange sense of unreality the bishop found himself following the apparition down the broad staircase to the ground floor, and then down a narrower one of stone that seemed to lead down to some cellars or vaults. Suddenly the priest stopped and turned toward him.

"This is the place," he said, placing his hand on the wall; "remove this plaster, loosen the bricks, and you will find behind them the recess of which I spoke. Mark the spot well and remember your promise."

Following the pointing hand and apparent wish of the spectre, the bishop closely examined the wall at the spot indicated, and then turned to the priest to ask another question; but to his intense astonishment

there was no one there - he was absolutely alone in the dimly-lighted passage! Perhaps he ought to have been prepared for this sudden disappearance, but it startled him more than he cared to admit, even to himself. He hurried up the stairs, and presented himself, still breathless with surprise, in the dining-room.

His prolonged absence had caused some comment, and now his agitated appearance excited general attention. Unable for the moment to speak coherently, his only answer to the earnest questions of his host was a sign which referred him to the hostess for explanation. With some hesitation she confessed the errand upon which her request had dispatched the bishop, and, as may easily be imagined, the intensest interest and excitement were at once created. As soon as the bishop had recovered his voice, he found himself compelled to relate the story before the entire party, concealment being now out of the question. Celebrated as was his eloquence, it is probable that no speech he ever made was followed with closer attention than this; and at its conclusion there was no voice to oppose the demand that a mason be at once sent for to break down the wall and search for confirmation of this weird yet dramatically circumstantial tale. After a very short delay the man arrived, and the whole company trooped eagerly down stairs, under the bishop's guidance, to watch the result of his labors. The bishop could hardly repress a shudder as he found himself once more in the passage where his ghostly companion had vanished so unceremoniously, but he indicated the exact spot which had been pointed out to him, and the mason began to work upon it forthwith.

"The plaster seems very hard and firm," remarked some one.

"Yes," replied the host, "it is of excellent quality and comparatively new; these vaults had long been disused, I am told, until my predecessor had the old brickwork repaired and plastered over only a few years ago."

By this time the mason had succeeded in breaking away the plaster and loosening a brick or two at the point indicated, and though perhaps no one was actually surprised, yet there was a very perceptible stir of excitement among the guests when he announced the existence of a cupboard or cavity about two feet square and eighteen inches deep in the thickness of the wall. The host pressed forward to look in, but instantly recollecting himself, drew back and made way for the bishop, saying:

"I was forgetting your promise for the moment; to you alone belongs the right of the first investigation here."

Pale, but collected, the bishop stepped up to the cavity, and after one glance put in his hand and drew forth a heavily bound, old-fashioned book, thickly covered with dust or mould. A thrill ran through the

assembled guests at the sight, but no words broke the silence of awestricken expectation, while he reverently opened the volume, and, after turning over a few leaves, drew from between the pages a piece of writing paper, yellow with age, on which were some irregular, hastily written lines. As soon as the bishop was certain that he had found what he sought, he averted his eyes from it, and the others falling back to make way for him, bore it carefully up the stairs and into the nearest room, and cast it reverently into the fire burning on the hearth, almost as though he were placing a sacred offering upon some Gowastrian altar.

The

Until the last scrap of the mysteriously found document was reduced to tinder, no one spoke; and even then, though a few disjointed exclamations as "Marvellous! wonderful, indeed! who could have believed it!" broke forth, the majority were far too deeply impressed for words. bishop felt that none who were present on that occasion could ever forget its lessons he himself least of all, and, indeed, he could never tell the story, even after years had passed, without the profoundest emotion. The figure of the priest, he added, was never seen again in the house where he had so long guarded his guilty secret.

Land League President, John Fitzgerald.

JOHN FITZGERALD, the newly elected president of the National Irish Land League, was born in Ireland in 1831, thus making him fifty-five years old. He is a small thick-set man, full of determination and energy. He will make a creditable representative of Irish affairs and interests, being fully aware that the work to be done is not of mean or ordinary pretensions. Mr. Fitzgerald came to the United States when very young, not having fully completed his eighteenth year; he found employment on a farm, not only sustaining himself, but supporting an aged father. He is one of the prominent Irish-Americans who seem to be born to be leaders. Competence and wealth have showered their favors on him, and he holds positions of trust as president of three national banks, located in Lincoln, Plattsmouth and Greenwood, all in the State of Nebraska. He also counts among the largest railroad contractors in the West, being engaged at the present time in building a thousand miles of road for the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Road. He was elected to the Presidency of the National Land League on the 19th day of August, 1886. Mr. Fitzgerald succeeds Mr. Patrick Egan as president of the league, and should he make himself as popular as his predecessor, he will be doing well indeed. John F. Finerty was looked upon as Mr. Egan's successor, and probably would have been elected had he not opposed the policy of Mr. Michael Davitt, in the convention. Although the course which Mr. Finerty pursued was received with approbation by many of the delegates, it was seen that to follow him meant the formation of factions, and to avoid this the election of John Fitzgerald was agreed upon.

JOHN FITZGERALD.

Он, bad luck to Coercion,
And every new version

Of old Acts of Parliament written in French!
Sure, if Edward the Third

Could rise up, on my word,

He'd laugh in his sleeve at those apes on the Bench.
For it isn't the thief

That will now come to grief,

Nor the "Captain" that meets you "by moonlight alone,"
But the decentest men

That e'er lifted pen

To explain to the world that our own is our own.

Did

you hear of the way

They got on in Loughrea,

When, without any warrant, they pounced on the pelf:-
When each "limb of the law"

Put his "orderly" paw

On the money that didn't belong to himself?
Sure it isn't Repealers

That's pickers and stealers:

'Tis Peelers that's teaching us how to be rogues. But if I was John Dillon

I'd collar each villain,

And plant him in gaol, or I'd eat my old brogues.

Oh, we read of the sly ways,
On highways and byways,

That men like Dick Turpin could plunder and rob ;
But for impident blusther

A paid "filibusther"

Beats Richard all hollow at doing the job.

Now to wind up my tale

(Ere I'm hauled off to gaol,

To be hanged, dhrawn, and quartered for speaking so plain), -
May we never say "Stop,"

But we'll make them all hop

For the blunder they made in their "Plan of Campaign."

Pall Mall Gazette.

A BIG gopher snake was killed recently at Dayton, Fla., in whose stomach was found a three-foot rattlesnake, still alive. The gopher was over six feet in length.

The Dominion Elections.

In a previous number of DONAHOE'S MAGAZINE, February, 1887, the prediction was hazarded that the statutory general election of 1887 would result in the extinction of the Tory government, who have too long cursed the administration of this country. This prediction, like many other political forecasts, has not been verified in its entirety. Yet an impartial consideration of the question in its various aspects will, I think, establish the fact that the power of the Tory party is effectually destroyed, and its total demolition is but a question of sooner or later.

All things work well for the best. Well will it be for the cause of free government and popular liberty when Sir John MacDonald has been finally displaced from the commanding position which he has so long occupied to our national detriment. And to do this nothing short of a revolution in Quebec was required. And to fan this revolution, what such a healthy pabulum—which would foster the indignation whereto it ministered as the execution of the hapless champion of the ill-used Metis?

-

Sir John MacDonald, with his usual disregard of honorable warfare, has of late been strongly anti-Catholic, in the useless endeavor to prop up his failing fortunes; but it is well known that he would have spared the unfortunate Riel, were it possible to assuage the Orangistes, who -like slave-owners' bloodhounds-were howling for the blood of this opponent of Anglo-Saxon civilization.

His final surrender to the bloodhounds did not enhance his already nebulous reputation with thoughtful people, who will long shudder at the remembrance of how Riel was reprieved, and reprieved yet again, whilst the wily premier took counsel with himself in some such sense as the following: "Whether is it safest for me to spare Riel, and so enrage my bloodhounds, or doing him to death, risk the turning of the patient worm in Quebec?" Contempt, begotten of submission, turned the scale and his doom was sealed. Fiery Frenchmen in Montreal might hold indignation meetings and vent anathemas upon the head of the vacillating premier; but it mattered not. They, whose forefathers had assisted the Jesuit martyrs and their saintly female associates to bring civilization into Canadian wilds, when the Anglo-Saxon was stirring up with brandy and scalping knives the ever wakeful demon in the heart of the redskin-they were to be trampled upon at the behest of the fanatical Orangiste.

And, greatest outrage of all, there were the French Cabinet ministers, Caron and Langevin, too fond of the sweets of office to throw their seals in the face of the hangman premier, and take their stand with their people. And thus it came to pass that the life of Riel - horrible to relate was gambled with solely as a make-weight to maintain the balance of power for the Tory party.

Looking back now upon the events of the past two years, we may