Fein movement. Thomas Ashe, a National school teacher, who in 1916 had successfully ambushed a party of constabulary at Ashbourne, in Ashbourne, in which the County inspector and a considerable number of his men were killed, had been sentenced to death, but was reprieved. When the amnesty came he was released, whereupon he began again to take part in seditious movements. He was then re-arrested and sent to Mountjoy prison, where he went on hunger strike. The prison authorities to save his life had him forcibly fed, which in some way affected his heart, and he died a few hours after the food had been administered. An inquest was held, and furious attacks were made on the Government, on Mr Max Greene, John Redmond's son-in-law, and on the prison doctor. Ashe's body lay in state in the City Hall, and the funeral that followed, headed by a Roman Catholic Bishop and a hundred priests, was enormous. The people were told that the Government had murdered Ashe, and the popular indignation became intense. Sir James O'Connor regards the Ashe affair as one of primary importance in the history of the revolution. Prior to that event the Bishops had frowned on Sinn Fein, but from that time he thinks it received its full quota of the grace of Ecclesiastical sanction. Then followed the socalled Anglo-Irish war, which consisted in the systematic murder of the members of the Royal Irish Constabulary. Notwithstanding this terrible form of attack, the discipline of the famous Irish force kept the men steady for a time, but when combined with this, their families and relatives all over the country were terrorised and persecuted, the line began to give way. No time or place was sacred to win sanctuary from the gun-men. The book gives a moving description of the Roman Catholic Benediction service. After this was given in a Tipperary village on St Patrick's Day 1917, two local policemen who attended it, on leaving had barely got beyond the porch when they fell dead riddled with bullets. The shooting of policemen, armed and unarmed, on duty and off duty, by night or day, went on, and no person was ever made amenable. Then the policy advanced to a further stage-the shooting of civilians engaged in Government service—the shooting of persons suspected of giving information, and the intimidation of

the Press and of the people. These acts of violence were followed by attacks on outlying police barracks—destruction of property and general espionage. The attempted murder of Lord French startled the whole world. Flying columns of rebels began to operate all over the country, and as no discipline could stand the strain on the police, the Government decided to reinforce them by bringing over officers and men of the British army-the Black and Tans and the Auxiliaries. The book denounces in unmeasured language the proceedings of these forces, but the unaccustomed method of fighting adopted against them was almost enough to unhinge the minds of any men. It was a strange experiment made in the strangest of times, but that should have led the authorities to insist that the control of the force should have been of the strictest character, and it certainly was not, as the men frequently got out of hand. At length the weary Government, on Dec. 6, 1921, signed the Treaty which has fundamentally altered the relations of these islands. Many were relieved at the news of the Treaty, but there was one great man to whom it was and is loathsome and horrible-Lord Carson. In dealing with him the book exhausts the language of eulogy. Sir James writes that his political success was not so much an intellectual success as a character success. His speeches were the reflexion of his own nature, simple, direct, honest. Finesse was not in his armoury, nor was expediency his polestar. Then follows a fine Tacitean phrase, 'he was a political success because he was not a politician at all.' Lord Carson's so-called treasonable action in the North meets with the writer's strongest condemnation. He asks how far Carson and his colleagues are to be held responsible for the 1916 rebellion. It is simply incredible that any person acquainted with the state of things in Ireland would believe, that if there had been no preparation for resistance in the Norththe German-instigated outbreak in 1916 would never have taken place. Treason felony it may have been according to law, but what was Ulster to do? It was proposed to expel her people out of the British system of freedom in which they had been born and to put them under the control of a hostile power. Was it morally wrong for them to say they would not recognise

an authority demonstrated to be hostile to the King, hostile to the Empire, and bitterly hostile to themselves? They said they would die in their boots before they would submit, and they were ready to do it. This was Ulster's treason which Sir James says begat treason in the South. Had Washington and his men anything like such good reason for resistance as the Ulstermen? And yet the whole world-including the defeated Britishapplauds them, and says they were right. What is the result of their action to-day? The Northerners are still free men and living under British law.

The book contains a graphic account of the Irish-Irish war, where the author shows that the Free State had no scruple in applying to rebellion remedies far more severe than those of the hated Saxon, against which they had never ceased to excite the world's pity and horror. They executed scores of rebels-seventy-seven in all. When the irregulars murdered Mr Hales they took out four Republicans and shot them. Their views on the morality of hunger strikes have undergone a great change. Sir James believes these severe measures to have been absolutely necessary. He dwells on the high courage displayed by the ministers of the Free State, and attributes the comparative peace that is now enjoyed as the result of their vigorous action. The author, to make sure of his facts, has consulted every possible authority and gives chapter and verse for all his statements. The book will offend many in the North and still more in the South, but no one will fail to admire it as a fearless history written by an intrepid man. In all honesty he writes the truth as it appears to him, careless whom it enrages or gratifies. He is no flatterer-Ireland has had enough and more than enough of their baleful breed. False words, as Socrates has said, are not merely evil in themselves, but infect the soul with evil. While he believes that Ireland has been debauched by lies and demoralised by crime, he is confident that there is virtue and courage enough in the people to enable them to learn the truth and to act upon it. He believes that she will make real progress when she repudiates mendacity and organised crime as political weapons. It may well be said in her case, 'Non tali auxilio, nec defensoribus istis Tempus eget.'

Southern Ireland has a great opportunity for turning her face to the light and entering on a noble future, as she is now governed by men of her own choosing, who have displayed remarkable courage and statesmanship. These men are entitled to the goodwill and support of all rightthinking people whatever their views may have been in the past. She must make her momentous choice for good or evil. She is no longer in any kind of bondage or tutelage, the responsibility rests on herself alone. If she wallows in the slough of race animosity and religious hatred-if she prefers the lie to the truth-she has no future whatever. If, on the other hand, she chooses the nobler part-to look realities in the face-to give up brooding on the unhappiness of the dead past-to act with scrupulous justice as between all her children of every kind and of every creed-to associate herself closely with her friendly neighbours in the North and across the St George's Channel-there is no limit to what she may achieve.

JOHN ROSs.

Art. 7.-THE ENGLISH JEST-BOOK.

1. A C. Mery Talys. London: Johannes Rastell, 1526. 2. Wit and Mirth, Chargeably Collected out of Taverns, Ordinaries, Innes, Bowling-Greenes and Allyes, Alehouses, Tobacco-shops, Highwayes and Water-passages. Made up, and fashioned into Clinches, Bulls, Quirkes, Yerkes, Quips and Jerkes. Apothegmatically bundled up and garbled at the request of old John Garrett's Ghost. By John Taylor. London, 1630.

3. Joe Miller's Jests: or, the Wits Vade-Mecum. Being a Collection of the most brilliant Jests; the politest Repartees; the most elegant Bons Mots, and most pleasant short stories in the English Language. First carefully collected in the Company, and many of them transcribed from the mouth of the facetious Gentleman whose name they bear; and now set forth and published by his lamentable friend and former companion, Elijah Jenkins Esq. London, 1739.

4. The Jest-Book: The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings. Selected by Mark Lemon. Macmillan, 1864.

5. Bubble and Squeak. London: 'Sphere and Tatler,' 1925.

THE growth of the printing-press, the widening of horizons consequent upon the rediscovery of the Western Continent, the stir and movement of life that attended the rapid development of international trade in the early decades of the 16th century, marked a change which meant the passing of the last aspects of mediavalism, the beginning of modernity in European civilisation. In England especially was the change marked: by the quickening of that national consciousness which found its boldest expression in the King's establishment of a Church denying the authority of the Pope; by the acquisition of the habit of peace, by the growth of trade both at home and with foreign parts; by the development of the secular stage, and other things of seemingly minor moment which were yet of real significance.

Among those seemingly minor manifestations of that change is the one with which we are here concernedthe first appearance in the national life of the jest-book. It was a manifestation that has received but scant