He had all the racial antipathy of a certain type of Englishmen to
anything IRISH. The word itself was unpleasant to his ears. He never
heard it without a shudder, and his intimates, at his request,
refrained from using it in his presence. The word represented to him
all that was unsavoury, unpatriotic and unprincipled.

One phrase of his, in speaking of Ireland at a banquet, achieved the
dignity of being printed in all the great London daily papers and
was followed by a splenetic attack in the "Irish Nation." Both
incidents pleased the old gentleman beyond measure. It was an
unfailing source of gratification to him that he had coined the
historical utterance. He quoted it with a grim chuckle on the few
occasions when some guest, unfamiliar with his prejudice, would
mention in his presence the hated word "Ireland."

It appears that one particularly hard winter, when, for some
unnecessary and wholly unwarrantable reason, the potato crop had
failed, and the little Irish village was in a condition of desperate
distress, it was found impossible to collect more than a tithe of
Mr. Kingsnorth's just dues. No persuasion could make the obstinate
tenants pay their rents. Threats, law-proceedings, evictions--all
were useless. They simply would not pay. His agent finally admitted
himself beaten. Mr. Kingsnorth must wait for better times.

Furious at his diminished income and hating, with a bitter hatred,
the disloyal and cheating tenantry, he rose at a Guildhall banquet
to reply to the toast of "The Colonies."

He drew vivid pictures of the splendour of the British possessions:
of India--that golden and loyal Empire; Australia with its hidden