146 My Little Farm 



prived of the use of their wits by superstition, we 

 must continue to import and to pay for free wit 

 until we learn to tolerate the growth and freedom 

 of our own. 



We had a Royal Commission on Congestion, 

 and a delightfully Irish contrivance it was, charged 

 to tell us why the Congested Districts Board could 

 not cure congestion, and with members of that 

 Board sitting on the Commission as their own 

 judges ! Attracted by the curiously Irish consti- 

 tution of the tribunal, and noting the hospitable 

 breadth of its general invitation, I naturally 

 determined to give evidence. The Commissioners 

 naturally determined that I should not. A 

 pretty play followed, I full of interesting informa- 

 tion to be disclosed, the Commissioners as fully 

 afraid to hear the most valuable evidence they 

 could possibly get. In Paraguay on Shannon, Mr. 

 O'Donnell tells the rest of the story, and how I 

 gave my evidence in spite of the Commissioners, 

 giving them five minutes to decide in the end 

 whether they would have me in their Court to-day 

 or by wire in the London Press to-morrow. 



Some of them I found to be very offensive 

 persons, but their position was provoking. One 

 called me constructively a liar, though he had 

 better opportunities than myself to know that I 

 was speaking the truth. The general effect was a 

 row of distinguished gentlemen arching up their 

 backs in an attitude of official dissent from facts 

 they knew as well as I did, which amused me much, 

 but my amusement did not increase their courtesy. 



