The strange spectacle now remains of the selfish parasite clasping in its arms the lifeless and decaying body of its victim, which had been a help to its own growth.

Its ends have been served--it has flowered and fruited, reproduced and disseminated its kind; and _now when the dead trunk moulders away its own end approaches; its support is gone and itself also falls_." The analogy is almost the most perfect in literature, and if we would not see it made perfect in history we must get rid of the parasite grip before we are quite strangled.

If we would not share the coming darkness we must shake off the murderer's hold, before murderer and victim fall together.

That fall is close at hand.

A brave hand may yet cut the "Sipo Matador," and the slayer be slain before he has quite stifled his victim.
If that hand be not a European one, then may it come, bronzed, keen, and supple from the tropic calm! The birds of the forest are on the wing.
Regions Caesar never knew, including Hibernia, have come under the eagles, nay the vultures, of imperial Britain.