ing me on the subject. I called the managing committee together and told them of my difficulties with Mr. Sadleir. Nearly the whole of them were of opinion that a man so capable and experienced as Mr. Sadleir must know best. I was deeply chagrined. I declared that I had created the society for great public ends, and would not consent to make it the milch cow for a firm of attorneys. I handed in my resignation and retired. After a time letters appeared in the newspapers asking when we would begin and what delayed operations, and I stated the facts briefly in the Nation. From that day the society wasted away and never so much as divided one of Mr. Sadleir's derelict estates. But I had wasted a year of my life without result.
Another project largely affected the interest of what was regarded as the people's bank in Ireland. One afternoon I received the card of an unknown visitor—Mr. Joseph Neale M'Kenna. "I took the liberty of calling without an introduction," he said, "because you know my father very well." "I think not," I replied, searching my memory in vain for any one resembling the new-comer. "Oh, yes you do," he replied, naming a silent, placid old gentleman, utterly unlike my visitor, from whose face rayed vigour and purpose as if they were physical not spiritual gifts. He told me he was one of three inspectors of the National Bank of Ireland, whom the directors had just dismissed for the offence of noticing in their report that certain of the directors had overdrawn their accounts, and certain of the local managers had fallen into arrears with their cash. He trusted I would consider this a case in which the Press might justly interpose for the defence of a public interest. I said, smiling, "You may take a conditional order. Satisfy me as to the facts, and I shall certainly intervene. It is a quarrel between the upper and under servants of the bank, and the bank belongs not to the directors but to the shareholders, and they constitute the legitimate and natural court of appeal, and to them I will certainly submit the case." The case revealed the most corrupt and unscrupulous conduct on the part of some of the directors. Many of them were heavily in debt to the bank; one of them, the director of an insurance company which had spent its capital and the premiums of insurers in paying
