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Irishmen who do me the honour of tasting this light omelette of scientific literature will have noticed, I am sure, that I have not included the sister isle in my olfactory paradise. And indeed, I hesitated long before passing it over, because I am a man of peace—at any price where the Land of Ire is concerned. But alas! I am by nature truthful and only by art mendacious. And there sticks horrible to my memory the fumous and steamy stench of parboiled cabbage that filled the restaurant-car of the train for Belfast—yes! Belfast, not Dublin—one evening as I landed at Kingstown. The sea had been—well! it was the Irish Sea, and I stepped on to the train straight from the mail-boat, so that... in a word, I remember that luscious but washy odour too vividly to bestow upon Ireland the white flower of a stenchless life.

In these remarks I have been careful to observe that the train was not the Dublin train, but if any one feels moved to defend the capital city, let him first of all take a stroll down by the Liffey as it flows fermenting and bubbling under its bridges, and then... if he can....