Another Irish Party!—The snakes are coming back to Ireland! In a Cork paper we read the following:—
Mr. Cornelius Donovan, while crossing a grass field near Blarney, encountered a snake, which at first he believed to be an eel, and struck it with his walking stick. Having killed the reptile, he discovered it was a snake, measuring 3 feet 9 inches.
Evidently a political omen of some kind, this return of the emigrants to Erin. What does it portend? Mr. M-rl-y, on being consulted, is "inclined to fancy that the Cork snake is a herald of Coercion, and shows that the venom of Dublin Castle will soon be at work." Mr. G. B-lf-r, on the other hand, says that "the return of general confidence at the advent of a Unionist Government, and a really capable Irish Secretary, has never been better exemplified. Even the reptiles are not afraid now to try Ireland as a place of residence!" And Mr. J-st-n M'C-rthy has no doubt at all that "the incident is another sign of the growing Irish spirit of disunion. Did not St. Patrick banish snakes from Ireland? And ought not snakes, if they are worthy of the name of patriots, to obey St. P., and stay away? Well, they are returning, and defying St. P.—just as R-dm-nd defies me! And," added the eminent leader, meditatively, "I've often thought there was a good deal of the eel about him, too."
"Peers are Cheap To-day."—From the North British Daily Mail:—
Bailie Wright, in supporting the motion, said that if he had the power he would make every man in that meeting a peer, so that they should go to the Lords and resolve upon their abolition.
Prodigious! But how is the Bailie going to proceed? Bring in a "Bill of Wright's" when he has got his new nobility ensconced in the Gilded Chamber? And suppose the Bailie's peers decline to commit suicide?
Air—"Waly, Waly."
O, Bailie, Bailie, your peers be bonnie
A little time while they are new!
But when they're auld, they'll wax most cauld,
And vote in a way to astonish you!