well say: "Would it not be curious if a judicious clemency to a political convict had been the means of deferring the just punishment due to him whose whole career has shown him to be a lifelong enemy of popular institutions? But an inscrutable Providence willed it otherwise. Hence his judicial murder of the convict-in whose prison cell the premier should justly have stood - recoiled with damaging effect upon his own head. The astute premier, with his accustomed shrewdness (self-esteemed), appointed the Catholic Mr. Thompson, as Minister of Justice, at an opportune moment to share in the odium henceforward to attach to the party of the rope.

Fancy the remorseless premier chuckling over his cunningly devised hanging-made-easy. Unreasonable people might hint at prejudice if the execution was ordered by a Protestant official; but how nicely such murmurs will be allayed by using a Catholic cat's-paw to hang his co-religionist! And why not give the bloodhounds this further gratification?

In connection with Mr. Thompson's majority of forty-three in the great Catholic county of Antigonish, N. S. (with its large Scotch population interspersed with French and Irish), it is sad to discover by analysis of the polls that his largest proportional vote was recorded in the districts where the French and Irish electors had the greatest relative strength. They, of all others, should have been prompt to resent the unholy truckling to the Orangistes.

With all the corrupt influences at the control of the government party, and they were exercised to an extent indescribable and appalling, their ante-election majority has been reduced to twenty or twenty-five. It is true that they claim a majority of forty-seven, but this is only by the most unblushing audacity in counting as ministerialists men who, with a general leaning to conservatism, are anxiously awaiting the opportunity to hurl Sir John A. MacDonald from power. God speed the day!

Another favorite Tory tactic is, wherever the Liberal candidate representing honesty and clean government-was returned by a majority, decisive though small, partisan returning officers, appointed, doubtless, with this ulterior object in view, are able to juggle with the ballots and declare the Tory elected; or when, as in Queen's County, N. B., the election has gone against the Tory, the returning officer has shamelessly declared the Liberal candidate disqualified to contest the election, on technical grounds, which, if valid in equity, should have been proclaimed. at the time of nominations.

Most of the large manufacturers support Tory rule because it benefits them at the expense of the country, and were not slow to show their preference by a very ill-concealed coercion of their employés.

Taking into consideration all these adverse influences against the honest convictions of a large number of electors, it is not too much to say that little short of a miracle was required to extinguish the Tory power at this election; and if the truth must be admitted, the people who condoned the Pacific scandal of 1873, and reinstated its authors in 1878, have not merited a miraculous interposition in their behalf,desirable as such interposition daily becomes by reason of their almost intolerable fiscal burdens.

The demoralization which accrues to the Catholics, whose political proclivities affiliate them to the Tory party, is well exemplified in Quebec City, where some professing Catholics, not contented with their own degradation, as traffickers in their franchises, were not ashamed to make the Redemptorist Fathers of St. Patrick's parish the unwitting accomplices of their infamy, by inducing them, on false pretences, to take into safe keeping a large sum of money appertaining to their bribery fund.

Sir John A. MacDonald, in opposing Mr. Blake's Home Rule resolution, was then, at least, consistent. All his career exhibits him in the light of an enemy to Canadian provincial autonomy. Prior to confederation he strongly advocated a scheme of legislative union with but one parliament that of Ottawa. Since the accomplishment of confederation he has attempted time and again to override the Constitution by meddling with business properly devolving upon the provincial legislatures. His efforts were not always successful; and always failed when directed against Ontario, so ably championed by its redoubtable premier, sturdy Oliver Mowat.

Reference has lately been made by Catholic Tories, desirous of justifying their support of the no-Popery party, to the liberality displayed by Sir John A. MacDonald in appointing to office some of his Catholic camp-followers; and especial stress is laid on the fact of his private secretary being a Catholic! Why not? Who so abject as a slavish Catholic?

Since the opening of Gladstone's Home Rule era, frequent reference has been made to Canada and Ireland in the political order. Let us see if we can trace any analogy in the order of officeholders. Are the Catholics of Ireland benefited or honored, when a few of their number find favor at the Castle? And the unhappy recipients of such favor — are they benefited in present character, or future reputation? Men like Judge Palles, who considers a bad law as binding as a just one; who says in effect that were the penal laws re-enacted to-morrow, that he would sentence a priest to death, for the illegal celebration of the Holy Mysteries.

I am far from saying that our Canadian Government Catholics have fallen to such a depth of abasement; but what profits it to us to have Mr. Costigan in the cabinet if he is to be an obedient servant to an Orange Caucus? No one doubts that Mr. Costigan in opposition, or in private life, is a sincere Home Ruler; but the ministerial stipend of $6,000 per annum seems to make him look at Home Rule through an Orange magnifying-glass, and, like a lackey, submit to the Canadian Commons a resolution which in many words said nothing; thus obtaining the dubious commendation of the Orange members as being harmless from their point of view.

Finally, it is pleasant to believe, as we of the opposition believe — not without good grounds therefor-that Sir John A. MacDonald's nominal majority is too unstable to carry him through the coming session, and that a vote of censure on his mal-administration of the NorthWest will remove him from office, and rid the country of the brood of vampires who have well nigh sucked from it the lifeblood of honesty and prosperity.

J. W. O'R.

"THE great trouble with you, John, is," said a lady to her husband, who was suffering from the effects of the night before, "you cannot say 'No.' Learn to say 'No,' John, and you will have fewer headaches. Can you let me have a little money this morning?"-"No," said John, with apparent ease.

Emigration Statistics.

THE annual Emigration Statistics are never cheerful reading for those who hold that Ireland is the proper place for Irishmen, and the returns for last year, which have just been published, are no exception to the rule. Although the number of emigrants shows no perceptible increase as compared with 1885, it is still terribly large. During the twelve months 63,416 persons, of whom nearly half were females, quitted the land of their birth to settle in other countries. Most of them were in the prime of life, the very heart-blood of the country. The number between the ages of 15 and 25 was 36,682, and 12,871 were between 25 and 35. Again, the working classes, the creators of wealth, contributed the great majority of the refugees. Of the 32,141 males who went abroad, 24,561 were returned as "laborers;" and there were besides 2,302 skilled artisans. How much better could the idlers of society be spared! Of the 31,275 females, 22,073 were entered as servants, and 2,851 as housekeepers. The balance is chiefly made up of the wives and children of male emigrants. Regarding their destination, the United States absorbed 80.4 per cent of the whole, as against an average of 75.1 in the four preceding years. New Zealand steadily loses in popularity as a new home, whilst Canada and Australia vary but a trifling extent in the number of their Irish immigrants. In all, 50,723 natives of Ireland chose the United States as their future country-Munster contributing 15,663; Ulster, 15,282; Connaught, 11,143, and Leinster, 8,645. Ulster furnished the largest contingent to Canada - 1,715 out of a total 2,588. On the other hand, 2,899 out of the 5,318 who left the country with the intention of settling permanently in Great Britain, or more than half, were Munster people. As might be expected, the majority of those who went to Scotland 1,046 out of 1,245 — were from Ulster, 381 of these being natives of county Antrim.

To emigration in itself, in so far as it might be necessary for the country and advantageous to the emigrants, there can be no objection. But this exodus is not necessary by any law of nature or any principle of population. It is the result directly of the fatal system of misgovernment that has made Ireland a place of desolation from which men flee as from an accursed spot. Prosperity is impossible so long as it continues; its effects are now what they were thirty years ago; the blight of alien rule is in the land, and it withers to decay whatever it touches. Since May, 1851, when the counting of the "Irish enemy" who fled the country commenced, 3,114,496 natives of Ireland have" gone with a vengeance.' What became of them? An Irish-American priest whose duties bring him into close relations with his fellow-exiles has asserted that at least ten per cent go to the bad and sink into degradation and crime. We fear that the calculation is only too favorable. Yet, looking at that one fact straight, and realizing what it means — this ruin of soul and body of 164,970 Irishmen and of 146,479 Irishwomen. - who can wonder if our people at home and abroad are filled with a

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holy rage against the system which has wrought such havoc ? Put the hunger-huts, and the fever-pits, and the coffin ships of '47 out of the reckoning they can never be put from the mind- and there remains, as these figures show, a sum total of evil deeds for which the history of no other race can find a parallel. In little more than a generation the province of Munster has lost more than seventy per cent of its population. Mountjoy and Carewe, when they wasted the South with fire and sword, were not so destructive. Historians tell with horror of the storming and massacre of Magdeburg. But these were deeds wrought in the hot fury of conquest and in a half savage age, not the work of philanthropic and ameliorative statesmanship in the nineteenth century. And that work still continues. Ireland is being "bled white" like veal, to borrow the grim simile of Prince Bismarck. The exultant shout of the Times over the disappearance of the Celt is heard no longer, for the world has, indeed, grown squeamish in these latter days, and joy from such causes must be expressed in a discreet chuckle at loudest. But our people are still going "with a vengeance."

Dublin Freeman's Journal.

Snakes Cannot Live in Ireland.

Two correspondents recently addressing an Irish journal in reply to the question "Can snakes live in Ireland?" wrote two interesting letters:

One says that a Mr. Osborn, a gentleman of high respectability, who resides on Whitehall Road, Albany, N. Y., is authority. Mr. Osborn recites, that "Three or four friends of mine went on a pleasure trip to Ireland, carrying some snakes, to see if they would live on Irish soil. The snakes did very well for about eight days, but when within about twenty-four hours' sail of the Irish coast, they seemed to get drowsy and heavy and continued so until the harbor was reached, when they were found to be dead."

The other correspondent relates how about thirty years ago a company started for Ireland with a menagerie containing two boa-constrictors. Though they were told the reptiles would not live in Ireland, they laughed at the idea and said they would risk it; but when they got into the Irish channel St. Patrick turned the laugh on them the reptiles all died. Again, about twenty five years ago, an Australian Irishman was very much troubled with snakes on his premises and he arranged with a sea captain to bring him some Irish earth as ballast. When finally the captain arrived with the long-looked for earth, the man dug a trench around his place and filled it with this earth and to his great joy it had the desired effect. Thenceforth the snakes, instead of sometimes making headquarters in his bedroom, stopped at the trench they never got any farther.