It is said that, of all accents, Englishmen catch the
American and the Irish most quickly. Men come back from a month's visit to the States talking through their noses, and from an Irish trip with their voices permanently softened. We do not know whether the statement is true, but certainly Englishmen catch Irish style very fast, as witness this letter from Mr. Conybeare, published in the Western Daily Mercury : —" The brutality of Balfour is only equalled by his stupidity. While he thinks to ingratiate himself with the Catholic hierarchy by a bogus promise to give them a Catholic University, he is making his despicable misrule still more loathsome to every honest Catholic by the insults he almost daily heaps upon the devoted priests of the people. The other day it was the priests of Clare against whom he levelled his lying and unmanly insults." Mr. Conybeare has still a few days to stay in Derry Gaol, and by the time he emerges he will be fully competent to act as a popular Irish editor. That should be some compensation for his detention.
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