he changed his plans and got off at Queenstown when
the ship put into that Irish port. He hurried to Dublin,
after stopping a few hours in Cork.

"With an area of only 32,000 square miles and a popu-
lation of little more than five millions," Mr. George said
at one time, "Ireland now required for its government in
a time of profound peace 15,000 military constables and
40,000 picked troops." The regular army and the Royal
Irish Constabulary, the soldier-police, he described in a
few words in his first letter to the "Irish World" ( No-
vember 3) :

"The police are a stalwart body of men, clad in com-
fortable, dark-green uniforms; the soldiers are the pick
of English and Scotch regiments -- strong, active men, in
the very prime of life, wearing smart, clean uniforms.
...Every now and again you meet a detachment
marching down the street with rifles on their shoulders
and blankets on their backs, on their way to the country
to guard somebody's castle, or help evict somebody's
tenants."

Touching the nature of the government, he said:

"It is not merely a despotism; it is a despotism sus-
tained by alien force, and wielded in the interests of a
privileged class, who look upon the great masses of the
people as intended but to be hewers of their wood and
drawers of their water....

"I leave out of consideration for the moment the
present extraordinary condition of things when constitu-
tional guarantees for personal liberty are utterly sus-
pended, and any man in the country may he hauled off
to prison at the nod of an irresponsible dictator. I
speak of the normal times and the ordinary workings
of government."

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