A /^ Wit ar\d ]^umor CLASSIFIED UNDER APPROPRIATE SUBJECT HEADINGS, WITH, IN MANY CASES^ A REFERENCE TO A TABLE OF AUTHORS 'PHILADELPHIA GEORGE W. JACOBS & CO. PUBLISHERS (^ IPrcface Irish ll'ic and Humor is a factor in human experi- ence which the world can ill afford to lose. In some of its qualities it is second to the wit and humor of no nation on earth. Judging it by its average specimens — and it would be manifestly misleading to take a lower standard^t manages to convey an idea fully ; but, in its haste to express ilse//,—\.he metaphors get mixed, and the thoughts transposed or reversed. The thoughts which give rise to Irish fun have been compared to a crowd all trying to get out of a door at the same time, the result being haste, and want of order, and sometimes a spill. This arises, not from poverty of thought, but from a wealth of ideas which the warm nature of the Irishman is unable to control — so eager is he to share his thoughts with another. Forplayfulness, for sarcastic keenness, forgracefulness, and for red-hot scornfulness, nothing is more effective than some of the examples of the wit and humor of Irishmen ; and even where the first idea conveyed by other examples is sheer stupidity, a second glance shows that even that stupidity has been forced to the front by a native shrewdness whose only faults were either that it was untrained, or that it was in toogr-eal a hjirry to speak — faults which often characterize the stu- pidity of other nations, while rarely so excusable. It has been said with truth that " the man who thinks the Irishman deficient in mental quality because of the effervescing of his natural wit, need not look abroad for a fool." And this natural wit is common to the Irish of all classes, and of almost all ages, and nowhere is it more pungent than among those whose poverty was described by one of themselves as " Irish Plinty." 3 1510594 4 preface Many attempts to account for this peculiarity have been made. Sir Richard Steele, who was half Irish, was once asked why his countrymen made so many bulls. He replied — " It is the effect of climate, sir. If an Englishman were born in Ireland, he would make as many." If this were a good reason, an Irishman born in England should show some tendency to sink to the level of the average Englishman, so far as wit and humor are concerned ; but instead of this, what do we find ? We find the Irishman's words come true, who said : '* My lord, suppose I was born in a stable ; that does not make me a horse.''' No, in the words of Colonel Saunderson, M. P., even when born in England, Paddy can say : " I was born Irish, and have been so ever since.'''' There is one element which, to my mind, accounts more than anything else for this perennial stream of spark- ling fun which flows from the Irish nature. It is hope- fulness. The Irish have a hopefulness which nothing can kill— ox it had died long since. This hopefulness is, I say, indestructible, and is the prophecy and earnest of a magnificent future. As an Englishman, I tell them that the selfishness of my country in the past, and the perverseness of the powers that be in the present, is becoming as real a burden on the hearts of Englishmen and Englishwomen as the sufferings of Ireland have been for centuries to those who bore them with so little retaliation. But the hopefulness that has kept them, in the main, from the methods and resources of despair, is perhaps all the stronger as a national characteristic than it might have been in less trying circumstances ; and yet, who can tell ? It may be, that, set free from its earthlj' cage, it would show that its wings were capable of as glorious flights as that of the Israelites liberated from Egyptiar. subjection. I will apologize to Irishmen everywhere for even hinting that they are a conquered race. They will hardly deny, however, that they have endured bond- age ; but a conquered race, in the usual sense of that term they have never yet been. Their position now cannot better be described than by giving the answer preface 5 of a London school-boy, at an examination, to the question: " Write a short account of the Conquest of Ireland." The lad wrote: "The Conquest of Ireland was begun in the year 1170, and is still going on.'''' The wit and humor of the answer could not have been more perfect, had it been less unconscious. Yes, it is still going on ! But it has only just began ! — inaugurated, in a new spirit, by a departure from the methods of the past, and by the recognition of Ireland's right to stand on God's earth on the Creator's own terms, viz., to recognize no man, or nation, as " master," — terms which, by the way, we — not without the help of Irishmen — "coerced" our early conquerors into conceding to us. Meanwhile Erin's hopefulness is Erin's indestructibility ; and her wit and humor will be found to have been not the least potent factors in bringing about her approaching victory. W. H. HOWE. October, i8go. Contente llJjj^^^t^S^T' Irish Definitions Page Definition of an Irish Is- l.nd 58 Matrimony, A Definition of 11 "Pliuty," Irish 11 Page Unclean Spirit, The Irish Name for an 59 Yankee, Irish Definition of 147 Irish Love, Courtship and Marriage Local Habit-ation and a Name, A 215 "Match-making". . . .136 To My First Love ITl Servant, An Insinuatii.g . 169 Truth in Parenthesis . . .118 " Under Government," How Paddy Got 232 " You'd Better Ask Me I " . 67 Paddy on His Travels Bounce, How Paddy Took it out of Him Circumstances, Paddy Al- ways Able to Rise Above His Coach Accident, An Irish . "Dry" Humor Gone— but not " Lost" . . Irishman's Walk to Eng- land, An Irish "Plinty" Jehu, The Humors of the Irish 150 Old Lady (The) and the Railway Porter .... 90 Paddy and the Hotel Lift . 126 Paddy at Niagara 12 Patient, Why O'Connell was 198 Rencontre, An Irish . . . . 218 Tnief 's Opinion (A) of His Own Deeds 145 Turtle (The), Paddy, and the Yankee 129 " Tu Quoque," An Irish . . 223 Waiter. A Witty 127 Contents Irish Bulls Page Certificate, Biddy Malone's 19G Coroner (A) on Irish Mor- tality 188 Excuse for a Blunder, An Editor's 9) Herd of Irish Bulls, A . . . 3") Lawyer, A Facetious . . .186 Pa«e Linguist, An Irish 233 •' Neither of Us," It's Just 55 Resolution, An Irish ... 58 Short sighted Irishman, A 200 Trig-er, Why Mike Didn't Pull the 221 WhyHe Didn't Get Drowned 32 The Irish Method o Another Way of Looking at It 215 Chicken, Why Pat Ate the 197 Forger, Refusing to Be- come a 211 Horse, A Faultless 18 Horse, An Honest 17 Mirth, Consolations of For- mer 158 f Meeting Difficulties Paddy's Explanation ... 217 Praying fur "Rain" . . . 224 Sharp Retort, A 14 Sheridan " Turuing Away" His Creditor's Wrath . .200 Towers of Clonmacuoise, The 143 W'hat Pat did when the Well Fell in 185 The Humors of Irish Politics Bad Luck and Its Cause . . 142 Carleton's Method of Chang- ing His Friend's Views . 15 Duel Between O'Connell and Sir Robert Peel . . . 183 Dying, in Order to Escape Justice 115 Elector, A Free and Inde- pendent Irish 88 Going to " Kill 'Em All " . 193 Goodness, Paddy's Test of 186 Habit, Mr. Biggar and the Force of 106 Hurrah at a Funeral, A Po- litical 198 Incendiarism, Irish ... 20 Modern Reading of an An- cient Story, A 12 Nomination Day 137 No Time, the Result of Having 214 Parnell Commission, The Humors of the 172 Pickle, An Irish— and not the Last " Plan of Campaign " ( A), Never yet Tried in Ire- land, Mr. Balfour ! . . Politician, A Determined . 88 Quotation, O'Connell and a Pointed 198 Rebellion, Sheridan's Cure for Irish 28 Soap and Water 140 Union, How to Repeal the 68 Voting in the "Good Old Days," Irish 82 67 62 Contents Landlord and Tenant in Ireland* Page I Page " Chateing the Public I " . 134 ] Joe McKey and the Land- Harder than He Thought . 54 Ignorance, What it Nearly Made of Paddy 129 lord's Agent 225 Rent Collecting, Irish ... 175 Trying to Help His Tenants 24 Why Should It? 78 The Irishman from a Pecuniary Point of View Bet, How the Priest Lost His 81 Bet, How Mike Nearly Won His 151 Cash Balance, Nora's . . ,231 Expensive Trip, An ... . 13 Guineas, Paddy's Plan for Dividing 59 Irish Long and Short of It 52 Loyalty, Irish versus Scotch 13 Savings, Paddy and His . . 123 Sixpence too much ... 59 Literary Wit and Humor Advertisement, A Vividly Descriptive 211 Difference, One Letter Made All the 19 Dy(e)ing, \Yrongly Re- ported as 19 English Language, De- forming the 29 Epigram, Dean Swift's Last 14 Free Translation, A . . . . 19 "Hostility," Pronounced . 196 Napoleon I, An Irish Epi- gram on 13 O'Connell and His Literary Criticism 204 O'Connell's Societies, An Irishman's Reading of . ,178 Publisher, William Carle- ton and His 107 Read, Advice to Those who Can't 14 Self-styled Wit, Dean Swift's Advice to a ... 15 Amateur Acting and W^hat it Led To 163 Bank, How Mike's Father Guarded the 161 Chance of Retreat, Cutting Off His 215 Doctor, Paddy's Idea of . . 60 Earl Desmond's Answer . .114 Furlough, The 124 Height, An Irish Recruit's 205 The Army and Navy Ingenious Defence, An . . 216 Irish Cordiality 199 L(e)aving Him in the River 52 Look Out, Paddy on the . . 68 Paddy's Prospect 18 Prayer, The Irishman's . . 199 Promotion, Paddy Asks for 56 Saluting His Superior OflS- cer 46 What'UWeTakeNow? . .193 Contcnta Wit and Humor Among Irish Judges, Barristers, Policemen, Prisoners and Witnesses Page Judge (The) which Best Suited Tat rick 188 " No Visible Means of Sup- port" irj2 O'Connell and Lord Shrewsbury 160 Pardon, Begging the Cul- prit's ^\(^ Patience Under Difficult ir I,s9 Pat's Description of tlio Prisoner 223 Personal Reflection, A . . 197 Place Where the Coach Stops 147 Plea, An Irishman's .... 187 Preciseness in Giving Evi- dence 187 Prisoner, A Cautious ... 78 Sarcasm, Currau's 32 Shemus O'Brien 153 Superiority of " Chancery " over Newgate 137 rhieving which Didn't Pay 131 "Tay," Irish 145 Too Late for the Fair ... 160 Witness, A Clever ..... 119 Witness, How O'Connell Entrapped 204 Widow (The) 103 Commercial, Domestic, Religious and Social Anchovies, Irish Dispute f Church, A Dilapidated . . 1^ About 2 4 i Clerical, " Eye-Service " . 2f} Ciirran and the Tobacco- nist 210 Double Meanings 212 English Watch, Telling the Time by an ■?.32 Page Advice to a Client, Cur- ran's Clever 29 Afraid of Justice 222 Agricultural Conundrum, An 32 Baliffs. How Major Bob Mahon Defeated the . . 96 " Call for Ah Song !' " . . 159 Cause and Effect 191 Court, Clearing the .... 95 Curran's Felicity < f Illus- tration 3'> Curran's Playfulness ... 33 Curran's Reproof of Lord Avonmore 30 Dignity of the Bench, ( ur- ran and the 28 " Divarshin," Irish .... 123 Floored, for Once in His Life 30 Gentleman (A) Caned by O'Connell 200 "Guilty!"— Why Pat De- cided to Plead 187 Harmless Blow (A)— for a Soldier 20 Impunity, He Struck Her with 192 " Irish " Sailor, An .... 191 Irishwoman, Prosecution of an 231 Applying " By Mail " . . Tio Bishops, Two in One Dio- cese 141 Cheated Himself, How an Irish Purchaser 225 iO Contents Commercial, Domestic, Religious and Social— Continued. Page "Exit" Paddy 224 "Fall" (A) that Pleased Paddy 145 Foote and the Actress . . 2-3 Gallantry in Church .... 89 How His Hat Looked on Another Head 189 How Paddy Proposes to Wake Himstlf 188 lusaue.Why Biddy Thought Her Husbaud 133 Invalided by His Washer- woman 159 Irish Trade, Dean Swift on 14 Letiers, How Somelimes Addressed 15ii Love of Dress. How Swift Cured a Lady of 219 Liquor (A) He Had Never Tasted 33 Mackiin's Wit and Humor, Examples of 209 Making it Even With the J uUge 192 Nail, Hitting the, on the Head 197 Observant Irishman, An . Ii3l O'Connell Outwitted ... 211 "Only a Lodger I" . . . . 126 Open Question, An .... 67 Paddy " lu the Interim" . 213 Passage, Working His . . 59 Policeman, Biddy and the 184 Popery, Paddy's Method of Getting Rid of ..••.. 72 Prayer, A Long 127 Provisions Cheap— Money Dear 222 Purgatory, A Letter From . 213 Purgatory, Father O'Leary's Reason for Accepting the Doctrine of 12 Page Purgatory, One Fee Deliv- ers Two Persons from . . 78 Purgatory Tax, Paddy's Reason for Not Paying . . 90 Relation of Paddy to His Sister's Child 137 Retort, Courteous 220 Saucepan, Why Pat Sole' the 68 Scandal, How Maggie's Wit Avoided a 217 Servant (A Good) not Nec- essarily a Good Private Secretary 40 Servant, A Willing but Blundering 107 Sign of the Three Crosses . 23 Sleep, Anything for a . . . 127 Sociable to the Last .... 139 Social Differences 138 Strike, An Irish 183 Strike, An Irish Method of Helping the 158 Swift (Dean) and a Small Congregation 19 Swilt's First Appearance at Button's Coffee-house . . 221 Taxman, The 201 Telephone, Paddy and the 193 Thankfulness, Cause for .215 "That Depends!" 12 Tithe Question, An Irish- man on the 14 Trade-mark, An Irish . . 52 Trades and Callings, An Irishman's Thoughts on 189 Trunk, Why Pat Refused to Buy a 204 Will, Why an Irishman Wanted to Alter His . .151 Witty, Even Though Drunk 118 Working His Passage . . 59 Wrath, Killing.by Criticism 170 IFrieb XllHit anb Ibumor A Definition of Matrimony A priest the other day, who was examining a con- firmation class in the south of Ireland, asked the question : " What is the sacrament of matrimony ? " A little girl at the top of the class answered : " Plaze your riverence, 'tis a state into which sowls enter to prepare them for another and a better world." " Put her down," says the curate — " put her down to the fut of the class." "Lave her alone," said the priest, "for anythin' you or I know to the contrary, she may be parfitly right." Irish " Plinty " An Irishman being asked what he came to America for, said : " Is't what I came here for, you mane ? Arrah, by the powers ! You may be sure that it wasn't for want^ for I had plenty of that at home." Lord Plunket's Wit and Lord Campbell's Sickness Lord Plunket is said to have acutely felt his forced resignation of the Irish Chancellorship and his super- sedeas by Lord Campbell. A violent tempest arose on the day of the latter's expected arrival, and a friend remarking to Plunket how sick of his promo- tion the passage must have made the new comer : "Yes," replied the ex-chancellor, ruefully, "but it won't make him 'throw up ' the seals." 11 12 ITdsb mix anO Ibumor Father O'Leary's Reason for Accepting the Doctrine of Purgatory The late Father O'Leary, who was well known as a wit, had once a polemical contest with a Protestant Bishop of Cloyne. The prelate, in a pamphlet, inveighed with great acrimony against the supersti- tions of Popery, and particularly against the doctrine of purgatory. Father O'Leary, in his reply, slily observed, "that much as the bishop disliked purga- tory, he might go farther and fare worse." A Modern Reading of an Ancient Story Sir Robert Peel, having, while Irish Secretary, to inspect a national school, asked the class presented to him : " Why Moses left Egypt ? " None of the class could answer the question, but the silence was broken at last by a little lad at the other end of the room. " I know, yer honor. Plase, yer honor, he shot a peeler ! "—a holy and happy precedent, which a pious Irish youth was not likely to forget. ♦• That Depends ! " There was a worthy old priest who was noted for never giving a direct "Yes," or " No," in reply to a query. It was always " that depends." His bishop tried to pose him one day by asking whether it was lawful to baptize with soup ? " That depends ! If such soup as we are now eating at your table, my lord, it would doubtless be wrong ; but if with such soup as is usually served to us poor priests, and which differs but little from water it might be permissible." Paddy at Niagara We never hear an American boasting of his country's greatness without thinking of the Irishman at the falls of Niagara. "There!" cried Jonathan to a newly- arrived Paddy, as he waved his hand in the direction of the Horse Shoe Falls ; " There ! Now isn't that wonderful ? " flrisb TiClit anD Ibumor 13 " Wontherful ! " replied Pat; "What's won- therful ?" " Why, to see all that water come thundering over them rocks." " Faix, then, to tell ye the honest truth," was the response, " I can't see anything very wontherful in that. Why, what the divil is there to hinther it from coming aver ? ' An Expensive Trip Irish Johnstone, the comedian, was known to be rather parsimonious. On one of his professional visits to Dublin, he billeted himself, as was his wont, upon all his acquaintances in turn. Meeting Curran after- wards in London, and talking of his great expmses, he asked the ex-Master of the Rolls what he supposed he spent in the Irish capital during his last trip. " I don't know," replied Curran; "but probably a fort- nights Irish versus Scotch Loyalty When George IV went to Ireland, one of the " pis- intry," delighted with his affability to the crowd on landing, said to the toll-keeper," as the king passed through, " Och, now ! an' his majesty, God bless him, niver paid the turnpike, an' how's that?" "Oh, kings niver does; we lets 'em go free," was the answer. " Then there's the dirty money for ye," says Pat ; " it shall niver be said that the king came here and found nobody to pay the turnpike for him." Tom Moore, on his visit to Abbotsford, told this to Sir Walter Scott, when they were comparing notes as to the two royal visits. " Now, Moore," replied Scott, " there ye have the advantage of us ; there was no want of enthusiasm here ; the Scotch folk would have done anything in the world for his majesty, except pay the turnpike ! " An Irish Epigfram on Napoleon I When Curran visited France in 1814, he wrote the following lines in pencil on the column, erected by Bonaparte, near Boulogne, to commemorate his attempt to invade England : 14 insb mtt anD Ibumor When ambition achieves its desires, How fortune must laugh at the joke ; He rose in a pillar of fire, To set in a pillar of smoke ! A Sharp Retort A Yankee and an Irishman happening to be riding together, passed a gallows. " Where would you be," said Jonathan, " if the gallows had its due ? " " Riding alone, I guess," said the Irishman. Dean Swift's Last Epigram The last thing Dean Swift wrote was an epigram on the building of a magazine for arms and stores, which was pointed out to him as he was taking exercise during his mental disease. Here it is : Behold a proof of Irish sense ; Here Irish wit is seen ; When nothing's left that's worth defence. They build a magazine ! Irish Advice to Those Who Can't Read An Irish lawyer, of the Temple, having occasion to go to dinner, left this direction in the keyhole : " Gone to the Elephant and Castle, where you shall find me ; and if you can't read this, carry it to the stationer's and he shall read it for you." An Irishman on the Tithe Question An honest Hibernian, in a company who blamed the clergy for taking a tenth part of the people's pros- perity, exclaimed, "Ay ! they would take a twentieth if they could." Dean Swift on Irish Trade The style of his conversation is very much of a piece with that of his writings, concise, and clear, and strong. Being one day at a sheriff's feast, who, amongst other toasts, called out to him, " Mr. Dean, the trade of Ireland!" he answered quickly: "Sir. I dnnk no memories ! " Irt6b Mit anO Ibumor 16 Swift's Advice to a Self-styled Wit Happening to be in company with a petulant young man, who prided himself on saying pert things . . and who cried out — " You must know, Mr. Dean, that I set up for a wit ! " " Do you so ? " says the Dean ; "take my advice and sit down again ! " Carleton's Method of Changing His Friend's Views Carleton, who never made puns, let fall occasion- ally a saying which exploded like a bomb charged with laughing gas. An occasional correspondent of the Nation, who had failed to secure domestic peace in his household, wrote rather a contemptuous letter against theories then (1844) beginning to be debated as the rights of women. "I think," says Carleton, "he is not past conversion ; he would come round, I fancy, if someone offered his wife — a foreign appointment." The Value of an Attorney " There was a barrister of the name of Parsons at the bar in my earlier practice," said O'Connell, " who had a good deal of humor. Parsons hated the whole tribe of attorneys ; perhaps they had not treated him very well — but his prejudice against them was eternally exhibiting itself. One day, in the hall of the Four Courts, an attorney came up to beg his subscription towards burying a brother attorney who had died in distressed circumstances. Parsons took out a pound note. ' O, Mr. Parsons,' said the applicant, ' I only ask a shilling from each contributor.' ' O, take it- take it,' replied Parsons ; ' I would most willingly subscribe money any day to put an attorney under ground.' ' But really, Mr. Parsons, I have limited myself to a shilling from each person.' ' For pity's sake, my good sir, take the pound — and bury twenty of them.' " O'Connell and Mrs. Moriarty O'Connell once made a small shopkeeper very angry by using geometrical terms. She had taken offence at his objection to the price of a stick, and gave him a bit of her mind. " Easy now — easy now," 16 Urisb ma anO Ibumoc cried O'Connell, with imperturbable good humor, "don't choke yourself with fine language, you old whiskey-drinking/)ara//(?/o^ra;;z." ■' What's that you call me, you murderin' villain?" roared Mrs. Moriarty, stung into fury. " I call you," answered O'Connell, " a parallelogram ; and a Dublin judge and jury will say that it's no libel to call you so ! " " Oh, tare-an-ouns ! holy Biddy ! that an honest woman like me should be called a parrybellygrum to her face. I'm none of your parrybellygrums, you rascally gallows-bird ; you cowardly, sneaking, plate-lickin' bliggard ! " Ultimately O'Connell had to beat a hasty retreat to avoid a saucepan which Mrs. Moriarty flung at his head. How the Irish Bishop Overcame His Coachman's Oojewtions Dr. Marley, Bishop of Waterford, once ordering his coachman (in the absence of the footman) to fetch some water from the well, the coachman objected, that Ms business was to drive, not to run errafids. " Well, then," said the bishop, "bring out the coach and four, set the pitcher inside, and drive to the well ! " A service which was several times repeated, to the great amusement of the bishop's neighbors. Paddy's View of Delirium Tremens A Stocktonian was, a few days ago, describing to an Irishman in vivid language the multiform monsters who visited him during an attack of delirium tremens —devils of all shapes and sizes, and of sufficient number to justify the term, " delirium tremen(dou)s." I' But," concluded he, in a consolatory key, " it is all imagination, you know." "By my sowl," replied Paddy, evidently disconcerted, " I'm not so sure of that. It is strange you never imagine you see angels flying at you such times ! " Irish Definition of a Yankee He'd kiss a queen till he'd raise a blister. With his arms round her neck, and his old felt hat on ; Address a king by the title of Mister, And ask him the price of the throne he sat on. Irisb ma anD Ibumoc 17 Getting and For-getting "Solomon, I fear you are forgetting me," said a bright-eyed girl to her lover, the other day. " Yes, Sue," said slow Sol, excusing himself, " I have been for getting you these two years." Curran and Sir Boyle Roche Curran was once defending an attorney's bill of costs before Lord Clare. " Here, now," said Clare, " is a flagitious imposition ; how can you defend ihis item, Mr. Curran ?— ' To writing innumerable letters, ^loo.' " "Why, my lord," said Curran, " nothing can be more reasonable. /I is 7iot a penny a letter.'' Curran by no means liked Sir Boyle Roche. Having said one night that he needed no aid from anyone, and could be "the guardian of his own honor." — "Indeed!" exclaimed Sir Boyle; "why, I always thought the right honorable member was an enemy to sinecures.'''' Sir Boyle was very proud of his alliance with the family of Sir John Cave, and boasted that Sir John had given him his eldest daughter. "If he had an older one, he'd have given her to you. Sir Boyle," said Curran. Sir Boyle seems to have had a rival in one of the judges of the King's Bench, who, in an argument on the construction of a will, sagely declared " it appeared to him that the testator meant to keep a life interest in the estate to himself." Very true, my lord," said Curran, gravely; "testators generally do secure a life interest for themselves, but in this case I rather think your lordship takes the will for the deed.'" A Limerick banker, remarkable for his sagacity, had an iron leg: "His leg," said Curran, " is the softest part about him." An Honest Horse There is a story told of an Irish jockey who, selling a nag to a gentleman, frequently observed, with emphatic earnestness, that he was an honest horse. After the purchase the gentleman asked him what he meant by an honest horse. "Why, sir," replied the seller, "whenever I rode him he always threatened to throw me, and he certainly never desaved me." 18 f risb limit anO Ibumoi: A Faultless Horse Another Irish horse-dealer is said to have sold a mare as sound in wind and limb, and zviihout fault. It afterwards appeared that the poor beast could not see at all out of one eye, and was almost blind of the other. The purchaser, finding this, made heavy complaints to the dealer, and reminded him that he engaged the mare to be without fault. To be sure," returned the other ; " to be sure I did, but then, my dear, the poor crater's blindness is not her fault, but her misfortune.''^ A Dilapidated Church Upon Swift's visiting Carlow, the rector conducted him over the town and neighborhood, showing him all the objects of interest there. On returning to the glebe Swift, pointing to the church, inquired what building it was, and why he had not been shown it ? " Oh," said the conductor, " it is only the parish church ; but it is really so dilapidated and in such bad order that I did not think it worth your inspec- tion." At this Swift expressed his regret ; but said he knew a cheap way of repairing it. " Why don't you give it," said he, "to the Papists? You know they would repair it, and then you could take it from them afterwards." This fine stroke of satire is related by Mr.Wilde as hitherto unpublished. Was it on this occasion (he asks) Swift said : " A high church and a low steeple, A poor town and a proud people " ? Paddy's Prospect When the French landed at Bantry Bay, an Irish peasant, who was posted with a musket upon one of the cliffs and had wandered a little out of his posi- tion, was accosted by an English officer with : " What are you here for ? " " Faith, your honor," said Pat with his accustomed grin of good humor, "they tell me I'm here for a century. ^^ Irisb Wiit anD Ibumot 19 Wrongly Reported as Dy(e)ing One evening Mr. Barry, one of the Young Ireland Party! in passing the Canal at Portobello Bridge, slid accidentally into the water and was drawn out with son e difficulty by Lane. He returned to his resi- dence to change his dress, and Lane reported the catastrophe to his friends. It was thought proper to assume that he was actually drowned, and his epi- taph, his last will and testament, and an account of his premature death were improvised, in various metres by his comrades. Unfortunately, the squibs have perished, and I can only recall a couplet from the mock-heroic ballad on his death, on account of an allusion to a practice jocosely imputed to him, prob- ably without any foundation : '« Pale, pale were his bonny cheeks, and clammy as the clay, . , j Pale, pale were his whiskers twain, the dye was washed away." [lo] One Letter Made All the Difference Vincent Scully was not without ability and informa- tion but his manners were eccentric and his pronun- ciation ridiculous from a sort of puerile lisp Francis Scully was merely feeble and commonplace An English member asked Sergeant Murphy how he con- trived to distinguish between the two wonderfu Scullys " Oh, easily," said the sergeant ; '' we ca Vincent, ' Rum-Scully,' and Francis, ' Num-Scully. A Free Translation Sergeant Murphy was credited with a mol which was hailed with the laughter that ^^^'^'^s sarcasm f it be not grotesquely untrue, almost as certainly as if it be apt and felicitous. "Mr. Lucas,'' said the sergeant, - is Lncus a non lucendo, which I venture to trans- late—' Lucas— not bright.' " Dean Swift and a Small Congregation Swift's duties at Laracon were not excessive. He reckons his congregation at fifteen P^^^°"^;. "^^^^'^.^^ them gentle, and all simple." He gave notice that he 20 frisb 'Cmit anD Ibumoc would read prayers every Wednesday and Friday. The congregation on the first Wednesday consisted of himself and his clerk, and Swift began the service with : " Dearly beloved Roger, the scripture moveth you and me," etc. Irish Incendiarism When the Union with England and Ireland was first in agitation, many citizens in Dublin, who were inimical to the measure, resolved "to burn every article imported from England except coals.''^ A Harmless Blow — for a Soldier An Irish recruit, being rebuked by the sergeant for striking one of his companions : " I thought there was no harm in it," quoth Pat, " as I had nothing in my hand but my fist.'"'' Clerical " Eye-Service " An Irish priest at Ammergau told the following story of his bishop : His lordship and a chaplain came to see the Passion Play, They would fain have had a room each, but that was not possible. They knelt down separately to say their prayers by their little cots, and presently it crossed the mind of the chaplain that it would not be well to make his orisons shorter than the bishop's, and he glanced over his shoulder to see if his lordship was about to make an end. The bishop, presumably anxious not to scan- dalize his chaplain by the shortness of his prayers, also glanced over his shoulder, and waited. The process was repeated several times. Both suppliants were very tired ; and, in time, both fell asleep. They were found in the morning, on their knees still, and sleeping. [23] The Scotch Baronet and the Irish Mendicants The O'Donoghue was standing near the window which looked out upon the ohd court-yard behind the house, and where now a very considerable crowd of beggars had assembled to collect the alms usually distributed each morning from the kitchen. Each was provided with an ample canvas bag, worn over f risb Mit an& Ibumoc 21 the neck by a siring, and capable of containing a sufficiency of meal or potatoes, the habitual offering to support the owner for a couple of days at least. They were all busily engaged in stowing away the provender of various sorts and kinds, as luck or the preference of the cook decided, laughing or grumbling over their portions, as it might be, when Sir Archibald M'Nab hurriedly presented himself in the midst of them — an appearance which seemed to create no peculiar satisfaction, if one were to judge from the increased alacrity of their movements, and the evident desire they exhibited to move off. The O'Donoghue laughed as he witnessed the dis- comfiture of the ragged mob, and let down the window sash to watch the scene. " 'Tis going we are ; God be good to us ! " " Ye needn't be cursing that way," said an old hag, with a sack on her back large enough to contain a child. " Eyah ; the Lord look down upon the poor," said a little fat fellow, with a flannel night-cap and stockings without any feet ; " there's no pity now at all, at all." " The heavens be your bed, any waj'," said a hard- featured little woman, with an accent that gave the blessing a very different signification from the mere words. " Blessed Joseph ! sure it isn't robbers and thieves we are, that ye need hunt us out of the place." Such were the exclamations on every side, inter- mingled with an undergrowl of the " Scotch naygur," "the ould scrape-gut," and other equally polite and flattering epithets. " This is no place for ye, ye auld beldames and blackguards ; awa' wi' ye — awa' wi' ye at once," said Sir Archy. " Them's the words ye'll hear in heaven yet, darlint," said the old fiend of a woman with one eye, . and a mouth garnished by a single tooth. "Them's the very words St. Peter will say to yourself." "Awa' wi' ye, ye ragged devils ; ye'r a disgrace to a Christian country." 22 Urisb Mit anD "Sbumor "Troth, we wear Lieec/ies an us," said an old fellow on crutches ; " and sure I hear that's more nor they do in the parts your honor comes from." Sir Archy's passion boiled over at this new indignity. He stormed and swore, with all the impetuous rage of one beside himself with passion ; but the effect on his hearers was totally lost. The only notice they took was an occasional exclamation of : " There it is now ! Oh, blessed Father ! hear what he says ! Oh, holy mother ! isn't he a terrible man ! " — comments by no means judiciously adapted to calm his irritation. Meanwhile symptoms of evacuating the territory were sufficiently evident. Cripples were taken on the backs and shoulders of their respective friends ; sacks and pouches were slung over the necks. Many a preparatory shake of rags showed that the wearer was getting ready for the road, when Sir Archy, suddenly checking himself in the full torrent of his wrath, cried out : " Bide a wee— stay a minit, ye auld beasties ; I hae a word to say to some amang ye." The altered tone of voice in which he spoke seemed ' to have changed at once the whole current of popular feeling, for now they all chimed Ui with ; " Arrah, he's a good man after all ; sure 'tis only a way he has" — sentiments which increased in fer- vency as Sir Archibald took a tolerably well-filled purse from his pocket, and drew out some silver into his hand — many exclaiming : " 'Tis the kind heart often has the hard word ; and sure you can see in his face he isn't cruel." " Hear 'till me," cried Sir Archy aloud, as he held up a shilling before their wistful eyes ; " there's mony a ane among ye, able to earn siller. Which o' ye now will step down to Killarney, an' tell the doctor he's wanted up here wi'a' despatch ? Ye maun go fast and bring him, or send him here to-night ; and if ye do, I'll gie ye this piece o' siller money when ye come back." A general groan from that class whose age and infirmities placed them out of the reach of competi- torship, met this speech, while from the more able f d0b TIDlit an& l)umor 23 section, a not less unequivocal expression of discon- tent broke forth. "Down to Killarney ! " cried one; " begorra, I wonder ye didn't say Kenmare when ye war about it —the divil a less than ten miles it is." " Eyah ! I'll like to see my own four bones going the same road ; sorra a house the whole way where there's a drop of milk or a pratie." " That's the charity to the poor, I suppose," said the fat fellow of the night-cap. " 'Tis wishing it I am, the same charity." " We wor to bring the doctor on our back, I hope," said a cripple in a bowl. "Did ever man hear or see the like o' this?" exclaimed M'Nab, as with uplifted hands he stared in wonderment around him. " One wad na believe it." " True for you, honey," joined in one of the group. " I'm fifty-three years on the road, and I never heerd of anyone asking us to do a hand's turn afore." "Out of my sight, you worthless ne'er-do-weels; awa' wi' ye at once and forever. I'll send twenty miles round the country, but I'll hae a mastiff here '11 worry the first o' ye that dares to come near the house." " On my conscience, it will push you hard to find a wickeder baste nor yourself ! " " Begorra, he won't be uglier, anyhow ! " And with these comments, and the hearty laughter that followed, the tattered and ragged group defiled out of the yard with all the honors of war, leaving Sir Archy alone overwhelmed with anger and aston- ishment. [26] Sign of the Three Crosses Dean Swift, in his journeys on foot, was accustomed to stop for refreshment or rest at the neat little ale- house on the road's side. One of these, between Dunchurch and Daventry, was formerly distinguished by the sign of the three crosses, in reference to the three intersecting ways which fixed the site of the house. At this the dean called for his breakfast, but the landlady, being 24 -ffrisb Wit anD Ibumor engaged with accommodating her more constant cus- tomers, some waggoners, and staying to settle an altercation which unexpectedly arose, kept him wait- ing, and was inattentive to his repeated exclamation? ; he took from his pocket a diamond, and wrote on every pane of glass in her bettermost room • To THE Landlord : There hang three crosses at thy door : Hang up thy wife, and she'll make four. Trying to Help His Tenants Sir Marmaduke, who was an Englishman, tried to make the tenantry on his Irish estate more comfort- able. How he succeeded will be seen from the fol- lowing account of a levee, which he held every morning with his steward, Mr. Sam Wylie, when all who had complaints to make gathered at his house. " They're here now, sir," said Wylie, as he glanced through the window toward the lawn, where, with rigid punctuality Sir Marmaduke each morning held his levee ; and where, indeed, a very strange and motley crowd appeared. The old baronet threw up the sash, and as he did so a general murmur of blessings and heavenly invo- cations met his ears— sounds, that if one were to judge from his brightening eye and beaming counte- nance, he relished well. No longer, however, as of old, suppliant, and entreating, with tremulous voice and shrinking gaze did they make their advances. These people were now enlisted in his army of " regenerators " ; they were converts to the landlord's manifold theories of improved agriculture, neat cot- tages, pig-styes, dove-cots, bee-hives, and heaven only knows what other suggestive absurdity ease and affluence ever devised to plate over the surface of rude and rugged misery. " The Lord bless your honor every morning you rise! 'Tis an illegant little place ye gave me to live in. Musha, 'tis happy and comfortable I do be every night now, barrin' that the slates does be falling betimes— bad luck to them for slates— one of them cut txisb Timit anD Ibumoc 25 Jittle Joe's head this morning, and I brought him up for a bit of plaster." This was the address of a stout middle-aged woman, with a man's great coat round her in lieu of a cloak. "Slates falling— why doesn't your husband fasten them on again? He said he was a handy fellow, and could do anything about a house." " It was no lie, then ; Thady Morris is a good war- rant for a job any day, and A it was thatch was on it " " Thatch — why, woman, I'll have no thatch ; I don't want the cabins burned down, nor will I have them the filthy hovels they used to be." " Why would your honor ? Sure, there's rayson and sinse agin it," was the chorus of all present, while the woman resumed " Well, he tried that same, too, your honor, and if he did, by my sowl, it was worse for him, for when he saw the slates going off every minit with the wind, he put the Iiarrow on the top " " The harrow — put the harrow on the roof? " •' Just so— wasn't it natural ? But, as sure as the wind riz, down came the harrow and stript every dirty kippeen of a slate away with it." "So the roof is off," said Sir Marmaduke, with stifled rage. " 'Tis as clean as my five fingers, the same rafters," said she, with unmoved gravity. " This is too bad— Wylie, do you hear this?" said the old gentleman, with a face dark with passion. " Ay," chorused in some half-dozen friends of the woman ; " nothing stands the wind like the thatch." Wylie whispered some words to his master and, by a side gesture, motioned to the woman to take her departure. The hint was at once taken, and her place immediately filled by another. This was a short little old fellow in yellow rags, his face concealed by swollen masses of cheek and eye-lid— the nose might have been eight noses — and the round, immense lips and the small aperture between looked like the open- ing in a ballot box. 26 jlr(0b mn anD Ibumor " Who is this?— what's the matter here?" said Sir Marmaduke, as he stared in mingled horror and astonishment at the object before him. " Faix, ye may well ax," said the little man, in a thick guttural voice. " Sorra one of the neighbors knew me this morning. I'm Tim M'Garrey, of the crossroads." "What has happened to you, then!" asked Sir Marmaduke, somewhat ruffled by the sturdy tone of the ragged fellow's address. '• 'Tis your own doing then— divil a less— you may be proud of your work." " My doing ? How do you dare to say so?" " 'Tis no darin' at all— 'tis thrue, as I'm here. Them bee-hives you made me take home wid me, I put them in a corner of the house, and by bad luck it was the pig's corner, and sorra bit, but she rooted them out and upset them, and with that the varmint fell upon us all, and it was two hours before we killed them — divil such a fight ever ye seen ; Peggy had the beetle and I the griddle for flattening them agin the wall, and maybe we didn't work hard, while the chil- dre was roarin' and bawlin' for the bare life." " Gracious mercy, would this be credited ? Could any man conceive barbarism like this?" cried Sir Marmaduke, as with uplifted hands he stood over- whelmed with amazement. Wylie again whispered something and again tele- graphed to the applicant to move off; but the little man stood his ground and continued : " 'Twas a heifer you gave Tom Lenahan, and it's a dhroll day the M'Garreys wasn't as good as the Lenahans, to say that we'd nothing but bees, and them was to get a dacent baste ! " " Stand aside, sir," said Sir Marmaduke ; " Wylie has got my orders about you. Who is this ? " " Faix, me, sir— Andrew Maher. I'm come to give your honor the key ; I couldn't stop there any longer." •' What ! not stay in that comfortable house, with the neat shop I had built and stocked for you ? What does this mean ?" Iriab Mit anO Ibumor 27 " 'Tis just that, then, your honor ; the house is a nate little place, and, barrin' the damp and the little grate that won't burn turf at all, one might do well enough in it, but the shop is the divil entirely." " How so — what's wrong about it ? " " Everything's wrong about it. First and foremost, your honor, the neighbors has no money ; and though they might do mighty well for want of tobacco, and spirits, and bohea, and candles, and soap, and them trifles, as long as they never came near them, throth they couldn't have them there, fornint their noses, without wishing for a taste ; and so one comes in for a pound of sugar, and another for a ha'porth of nails, or a piece of naygur-head, or an ounce of starch ; and divil a word they have, but 'put it in the book, And v.' By my conscience, it's a quare book would houl'd it all." " But they'll pay in time — they'll pay when they sell the crops." *' Bother ! I ax yer honor's pardon — I was manin, they'd see me far enough first. Sure, when they go to market, they'll have the rint, and the tithes, and the taxes ; and when that's done, and they get a stock of seed potatoes for next year, I'd like to know where's the money that's to come to me ! " " Is this true, Wylie? — are they as poor as this?" asked Sir Marmaduke. Wylie's answer was still a whispered one. "Well," said Andy, with a sigh, "there's the key anyway. I'd rather be teachin' the gaffers again, than be keeping the same shop." These complaints were followed by others differing in kind and complexion, but all agreeing in the vio- lence with which they were urged, and all inveighing against "the improvements " Sir Marmaduke was so interested in carrying forward. To hear them, you would suppose that the grievances suggested by poverty and want, were more in unison with comfort and enjoyment, than all the appliances wealth can bestow ; and that the privations to which habit has inured us, are sources of greater happiness than we often feel in the use of unrestricted liberty. 28 Urisb TKIllt anD Ibumot Sheridan's Cure for Irish Rebellion ■ Charles I asked Selden, " What is the best way to put down a rebellion ?" to which Selden answered, " Remove the cause." Sheridan begged the govern- ment to apply this answer to Ireland and put an end to the disaffection there by removing the cause. Curran and the Dignity of the Bench Soon after Mr. Curran had been called to the bar, on some statement of Judge Robinson's, the young counsel observed that " he had never met the law as laid down by his lordship, in any book in hia library." " That may be, sir," said the judge ; " but I suspect that your library is very small." Mr. Curran replied : " I find it more instructive, my lord, to study good works than to compose bad ones.* My books may be few ; but the title-pagea give me the writers' names, and my shelf is not dis- graced by any such rank absurdities that their very authors are ashamed to own them." " Sir," said the judge, " you are forgetting the respect which you owe to the dignity of the judicial character." "Dignity!" exclaimed Mr. Curran; "my lord, upon that point I shall cite you a case from a book of some authority, with which you are, perhaps, not unacquainted." He then briefly recited the story of Strap, in " Roderick Random," who, having stripped off his coat to fight, entrusted it to a bystander. When the battle was over, and he was well beaten, he turned to resume his coat, but the man had carried it off. Mr. Curran thus applied the tale: "So, my lord, when the person entrusted with the dignity of the judgment-seat, lays it aside for a moment to enter into a disgraceful personal contest, it is in vain, when he has been worsted in the encounter, that he seeks to resume it— it is in vain that he tries to shelter himself behind an authority which he has abandoned." * Judge Robinson was the author of many stupid, slavish and scurrilous political pamphlets; and. by his demeriis, raised tc the eminence which h« thus disgraced.— Xort/ Brougham. Hrlsb Wiit anD Ibumor 29 " If you say another word, I'll commit you," replied the angry judge. To this Mr. Curran retorted : " If your lordship shall do so, we shall both of us have the consolation of reflecting that I am not the worst thing that your lordship has committed." Curran's Clever Advice to a Client A farmer attending a fair with a hundred pounds in his pocket, took the precaution of depositing it in the hands of the landlord of the public house at which he stopped. Next day he applied for the money, but the host affected to know nothing of the business. In this dilemma, the farmer consulted Curran. " Have patience, my friend," said the counsel ; " speak to the landlord civilly, and tell him you are convinced you must have left your money with some other person. Take a friend with you, and lodge with him another hundred, and then come to me." The dupe doubted the advice ; but moved by the authority of rhetoric of the learned counsel, he at length followed it. " And now, sir," said he to Curran, "I don't see as I am to be better off for this, if I get my second hundred again ; but how is that to be done ? " " Go and ask him for it when he is alone," said the counsel. " Ay, sir, but asking won't do, I'ze afraid, without my wit- ness, at any rate." " Never mind, take my advice," said Curran ; " do as I bid you, and return to me." The farmer did so, and canie beck with his hundred, glad at any rate, to find that safe again in his possession. *' Now, sir, I suppose I must be content ; but I don't see as I am much better off." "Well, then," said the counsel, " now take your friend with you, and ask the landlord for the hundred pounds your friend saw 3'ou leave with him." It need not be added that the wily landlord found that he had been taken off his guard, whilst the farmer returned exultingly to thank his counsel, with both hundreds in his pocket. Deforming the English Language Curran was one day walking with a friend, who, hearing a person say curosity for curz'osity, exclaimed : "How that man murders the English language!" 30 Urtsb limit anD Ibumor " Not so bad as that," replied Curran ; " he has only knocked an i out / ' ' Floored, for Once in His Life Curran once met his match in a pert, jolly, keen- eyed son of Erin, who was up as a witness in a case of dispute in the matter of a horse deal. Curran much desired to break down the credibility of this witness, and thought to do it by making the man contradict himself— by tangling him up in a network of adroitly framed questions— but to no avail. The ostler was a companion to Sam Weller. His good common sense, and his equanimity and good nature, were not to be overturned. By-and-by Cur- ran, in a towering wrath, belched forth, as not another counsel would have dared to do in the presence of the court : " Sirrah, you are incorrigible ! the truth is not to be got from you, for it is not in you. I see the villain in your face ! " " Faith, yer honor," said the witness, with the utmost simplicity of truth and honesty, " my face must be moity clane and shinin', indade, if it can reflect like that." For once in his life the great barrister was floored by a simple witness. He could not recover from that repartee, and the case went against him. How Curran Reproved Lord Avonmore Lord Avonmore as a judge had one great fault : he was apt to take up a first impression of a cause, and it was very difficult afterwards to obliterate it. The advocate, therefore, had not only to struggle against the real obstacles presented to him by the case itself, but also with the imaginary ones, created by the hasty anticipation of the judge. This habit was to Curran a serious source of annoyance, and he took the following whimsical method of correcting it. The reader must remember that the object of the narrator was, by a tedious and malicious procrastination, to irritate his hearer into the vice which he was so anxious to eradicate. They were to dine together at the house of a common friend, and a large party was Idsb mit anD Ibumor 3i assembled, some of whom witnessed the occurrence of the morning. Curran, contrary to his usuual cus- tom was late for dinner, and at length arrived in the most admirably affected agitation. "Why, Mr. Curran, you have kept us a full hour wait- ing dinner for you," grumbled out Lord Avonmore. " Oh, my dear lord, I regret it much ; you must know it seldom happens, but— I've just been witness to a melancholy occurrence." " Good heavens ! you seem terribly moved by it — take a glass of wine. What was it? — what was it?" " I will tell you, my lord, the moment I can collect myself. I had been detained at Court — in the Court of Chancery— your lordship knows the Chancellor sits late." " I do, I do — but go on.'' " Well, my lord, I was hurrying here as fast as ever I could — I did not even change my dress — I hope I shall be excused for coming in my boots ? " " Poh, poll — never mind your boots ; the point — come at once to the point of the story." " Oh — I will, my good lord, in a moment. I walked here — I would not even wait to get the carriage ready — it would have taken time, you know. Now there was a market exactly in the road by which I had to pass — your lordship may perhaps recollect the market —do you? " " To be sure I do— go on, Curran — go on with the story." " I am very glad you lordship remembers the mar- ket, for I totally forget the name of it — the name — the name " "What the devil signifies the name of it, sir?— its the Castle Market." " Your lordship is perfectly right — it is called the Castle Market. Well, I was passing through that very identical Castle -Market, when I observed a butcher preparing to kill a calf. He had a huge knife in his hand — it was as sharp as a razor. The calf was standing beside him — he drew the knife to plunge it into the animal. Just as he was in the act of doing so, a little boy, about four years old, — his only son— 32 Urisb l^it anD Ibumor the loveliest little baby I ever saw, ran suddenly across his path, and he killed — oh, good heavens, he killed " " The child ! the child ! the child ! " vociferated Lord Avonmore. " No, my lord, the calf,'^ continued Curran, very cooly ; "he killed the calf, hnt— your lordship is in the habit of anticipating.'''' Why He Didn't Get Drowned Tom Goold was expatiating one day on the risk he ran from a sudden rise in the tide, when riding on the North Strand, near Dublin ; he assured his hearer (Curran) had he not been the very best horseman in existence, he must inevitably have been drowned ; in short, never was human being in such danger. " My dear Tom," replied Curran, "there was one undoubt- edly in still greater, for a poor man was actually drowned there on that morning." " By heaven ! sir," bellowed Goold, " I might have been drowned, if 1 chose y Curran's Sarcasm Lord Chancellor Clare, in a discussion with Curran in court one day on some law point, exclaimed sharply, in reply to some legal point urged by Cur- ran, " Oh, if that be law, Mr. Curran, I may burn my law-books ! " " You had better read them, my lord," was the rejoinder. On another occasion the Lord Chancellor, while Curran was addressing him in a most important case, occupied himself with giving too much attention to a favorite Newfoundland dog, seated by him in court. Curran having ceased speaking through indignation. Lord Clare raised his head, and asked : " Why don't you proceed, Mr. Curran? " " I thought your lord- ships were in consultation,'''' replied Curran. An Agricultural Conundrum A wealthy but weak-headed barrister once remarked to Curran that " No one should be admitted to the bar who had not an independent landed property." Urieb Wit anD Ibumor 33 "May I ask, sir," replied Curran, "how many acres make a wise-acre ? ' * A Liquor He Had Never Tasted Curran, who was a Protestant, once attended an aggregate meeting of Roman Catholics. His reception was such that he was compelled to say something, but he confined himself to the mere expression of his thanks. He was much gratified, and, in allusion to the scene, said next day in the hall of the Four Courts, " Well, O'Connell, I scarcely wonder at your being so fond of popularity ; it is undoubtedly a delicious draught." A solemn sergeant, who hap- pened to be present, replied, " Well, Curran, I never thought so." "In truth, my dear sergeant," said Curran, " you're but a bad judge of a liquor _}'ou never tasted.'''' Curran's Playfulness One day Curran had a violent argument with a country schoolmaster on some classical subject. The pedagogue, who had the worst of it, said in a tower- ing passion, that he would lose no more time, but must go back to his scholars. " Do, my dear doctor," said Curran, but don'' t indorse my sins upon their backs. ''^ Curran was told that a very stingy and slovenly barrister had started for the Continent with a shirt and a guinea. " He'll not change either till he comes back," said he. Curran was once engaged in a legal argument ; behind him stood his colleague, a gentlemxan whose person was remarkably tall and slender, and who was originally intended to take holy orders. The judge, observing that the case under discussion involved a question of ecclesiastical law : " Then," said Curran, "I can refer your lordship to a high authority behind me who was intended for the church, though in my opinion he was fitter for the steeple." 3 34 trigb Mit anD Ibumor A very stupid foreman once asked a judge how they were to ignore a bill? "Why, sir," said Curran, " when you mean to find a true one, just write Igiio- ramus for self and fellows on the back of it." Mr. Curran was addressing a jury at one of the state trials in 1803 with his usual animation. The judge, whose political bias, if any judge can have one, was certainly supposed not to be favorable to the prisoner, shook his head in doubt or denial of one of the advocate's arguments. " I see, gentlemen," said Mr. Curran, " I see the motion of his lordship's head ; common observers might imagine that implied a difference of opinion, but they would be mistaken ; it is merely accidental. Believe me, gentlemen, if you remain here many days you will yourselves perceive that when his lordship shakes his head there's nothing in it .' " A certain chief justice, on hearing an ass bray, interrupted Curran in his speech to the jury, by say- ing : " One at a time, Mr. Curran, if you please." The speech being finished, the judge began his charge, and during its progress the ass sent forth the full force of its lungs, whereupon the advocate said : " Does not your lordship hear a remarkable echo in court? " Lord Norbury, going as a judge on the Munster Circuit, was, as usual, so strict in the administration of criminal justice, that few, of whose guilt there was any grounds of suspicion, were suffered to escape merely through any slovenly flaws in the wording of their indictments, or doubts upon the testimony. Dining, as usual, with the seniors of the bar at the next inn, a gentleman, who sat near the judge, asked leave to help his lordship to a part of a pickled tongue. Lord Norbury replied that he did not like pickled tongue, but if it had been hung, he would try it. Curran, who sat on the other side, said that " the defect was easily obviated, for if his lordship would only try it, it would certainly be hung.'' Tlcisb ma anD Ibumoc 35 Curran's Felicity of Illustration At the assizes at Cork, Curran had once just entered upon his case, and stated the facts to the jury. He then, with his usual impressiveness and pathos, appealed to their feelings, and was concluding the whole with this sentence : " Thus, gentlemen, I trust I have made the innocence of that j^ersecuted man as clear to you as " — at that instance the sun, which had hitherto been over-clouded, shot its rays into the court-house — " as clear to you," continued he, "as yonder sunbeam, which now bursts in upon us, and supplies me with its splendid illustration." A Herd of Irish Bulls Colonel Saunderson, M. P., in a vigorous anti-Home- Rule speech, in the House of Commons, on March 6, 1890, gave the house the following information: " I was born Irish, and have been so ever since. '" A ver}-- laughable incident once occurred in the House of Commons. An Irish member having risen, was assailed by loud cries of "Spoke! Spoke!" meaning that having spoken once already, he had no right to do so a second time. He had evidently a second speech struggling in his breast for an intro- duction into the world, when seeing, after remaining for some time on his legs, that there was not the slightest chance of being suffered to deliver a sentence of it, he observed, with imperturbable gravity, and in rich Tipperary brogue : " If honorable gintlemin suppose that I was going to spake again, they are quite mistaken. I merely rose for the purpose of say- ing that I had nothing more to say on the subject." The House was convulsed with laughter, for a few seconds afterwards, at the exceeding ready wit of the Hibernian M. P. An Irish member said on one occasion, with similar felicity : " Sir, if I have any partiality for the honor- able gentleman, it is a partiality against him." 36 Hcisb Mit and Ibumor In the Irish Lank Bill, passed in June 1808, there was a clause providing that the profits should be equally divided, and that the residue should be given to tlie governor. The Hon. Dennis O'Connor, who was very tenacious of fabricating bulls, with all his sagacity, was con- tinually erring. Happening one day to go into a linen-draper's shop, he asked the price of a pair of gloves which took his fancy. Thinking the quotation exorbitant, he exclaimed : " Och ! sooner than be imposed upon, my hands shall go barefoot for the rest of my life." An Irish gentleman, noted for his fertility in making bulls, was once walking through a street, and was recognized by two boys who were looking out of an upstair window. One of them cried, " There goes Mr. , who makes so many bulls." Looking up, the gentleman retorted ; " You young rascals ! I know you well enough ; and if I only had you here, I'd kick you downstairs." A quartermaster in a regiment of light horse, who was six feet high and very corpulent, was joking with an Irishman concerning the natural proneness of his countrymen to make bulls in conversation. " By my sowl," said the Irishman, " Ireland never made such a bull in all its lifetime as England did when she made a light horseman of you." During a season of great drought, on one occasion, at Gibraltar, an Irish officer said, he " was very easy about the matter, for he had nothing to do with water ; if he only got his ' tay ' in the morning, and his punch at night, it was all he wanted." Letter from an Irish Baronet (Sir Boyle Roche to a friend in London, during the Irish Rebellion of 1798 : 1lrl0b ma anD Ibumor 37 My dear Sir : Having now a little peace and quietness, I sit down to inform you of the dreadful bustle and confusion we are in from these blood- thirsty rebels, most of whom are, however, thank God, killed and dispersed. We are in a pretty mess : can get nothing to eat, nor any wine to drink, except whiskey, and when we sit down to dinner, we are obliged to keep both hands armed ; whilst I write this letter I hold a sword in o)ie hand, and a pistol in the other. I concluded from the beginning that this would be the end of it ; and I saw I was right, for it is not half over yet. At present there are snch goings on that everything is at a stand. I should have answered your letter a fortnight ago, but I only received it this morning. Indeed, hardly a mail arrives safe, without being robbed. No longer ago than yesterday, the coach with the mails from Dublin was robbed near the town ; the bags had been judici- ously left behind, for fear of accidents ; and by good luck, there was nobody in the coach, but two outside passengers, who had nothi)ig for the thieves to take. Last Thursday, an alarm was given that a gang of rebels were advancing hither, under the French standard : but they had no colors, nor any drums, except bagpipes. Immediately every man in the place, including women and boys, ran out to meet them. We soon found our force much too little, and they were far too near for us to think of retreating ; death was in the face ; but to it we went, and by the time half o\ our party was killed, we begun to be all alive. Fortunately the rebels had no guns but pistols, cutlasses and pikes ; and as we had plenty of muskets and ammunition, we put them all to the sword ; not a soul of them escaped, except 5o;;/ for the likes of us." Another, vainly soliciting charity from a gentleman with red hair, thrust forward her child wnth : "And won't ye give a ha'penny to the little boy ? Shure he's foxy, like yer honor." "You've lost all your teeth," was said to one of them. " Time for me to lose 'em when they'd nothing to do," was the reply. " Some time ago," says a visitor, we were traveling in a stage-coach, and at Naas, where we had been told ' that the native beggars double the population of the town,' a person inside told a troublesome and 44 Urisb TPClit anD Ibumor persevering applicant very coarsely to go to . The woman turned up her eyes and said, with inimitable humor, 'Ah, then, it's a long journey your honor's sending us ; maybe yer honor '11 give us somethuig to pay our expenses.' We saw, in Waterford, a gentle- man angrily repulse a beggar, with a call to his ser- vant to shut the door ; and an odd soliloquy followed. The woman half murmured and half hissed ; ' Shut the door ! and that's it, is it ? Oh, then, that's what I'll be saying to you when ye want to pass through the gate of heaven. It's then I'll be saying to St. Peter : Shut the door, St. Peter, says I, to a dhurty nagur, that 'ud disgrace the place intirely, says I — and ye'll be axing me to let ye in ; the never a fut, says I ; slvut the door, says I ; shut the door ! Ould-go-by-the-ground (the person who had excited her wrath was of dimin- utive stature), what' 11 ye say then ? ' " " May the spotted fever split you in halves ! " was a curse uttered by a beggar who had been refused somewhat roughly. " Foxy-head, foxy-head," was called out by one as a reproach to another. " That ye may never see the Dyer ! " was the instant answer. A traveler's purse had been exhausted, and he was deaf to the prayer of one who was covered so meagrely as that she could scarcely be said to be clad. She turned away at last, with a shrug of the shoulders, murmuring : " Well, God be praised ! it's fine summer clothing we have, any way." The beggars in Cork seldom appear in public until nearly mid-day. " Sitting at the window of our hotel," writes one, " our attention had been frequently called from the book we were reading by the queru- lous whine of a beggar, who uttered at intervals, not far between, the customary salutation of ' Good luck to ye,' and the usual accompaniment of * Lave us a ha'penny for God's sake, for the lone widdv and her five fatherless childre.' As we heard but few bless- -ngs follow the appeal, we concluded her efforts were Urisb TDClit anD Ibumor 45 unsuccessful ; the more especially that at times her prayer ended with an undefined growl, that sounded very like its opposite. Still she kept her position directly beneath our window. We had seen her there in the morning ; her tattered grey cloak falling back from her long lean neck ; her dirty cap so torn as to be insufficient to conceal her tresses ; her right hand supported by her left, so as to stand out in the most imploring posture ; while she lolled first on one side, then on the other, sometimes balanced on her right, then on her left foot— the sad picture of confirmed and hardened beggary. As the evening was closing in, we were calculating how much longer she would remain in the same spot, when a very loud double knock echoed from the opposite side of the street, fol- lowed almost immediately by the woman's strenu- ously repeated petition with the addition of ' Do, dear honorable, handsome young gentleman, bestow a half penny on a poor lone widdy, with sive7i small starvin' childre that haven't broke their fast this blessed day.' We looked out of the window and saw she was urging her request most emphatically, while the young man thundered again at the knocker. ' Why, thin, more power to your elbow, and it's yer- self that's strong enough in the wrist, anyhow. God, keep it to ye, sir, and lave the little token of a half- penny with the lone widdy and her siven fatherless childre.' ' I really have not any silver about me,' drawled the young man. ' Bedad,' replied the beggar, ' I did not ask ye for silver, nor goold, but for one little halfpenny for the broken-hearted widdy and her poor naked fatherless childre.' ' I tell you I've no half- pence,' replied he, losing what people should never lose anywhere, least of all in Ireland, where the loss is immediately turned against the loser, viz., his tem- per. ' Why, thin, bad luck to ye ! ' she exclaimed, setting both her arms akimbo and looking a fury, while the impatient youth knocked more loudly. ' What, thin, did ye bring me from my comfortable sate across the street wid such a knock as that for, if ye hadn't money in yer pocket— ye poor, half-starved, whey- faced gossoon.' " 46 lri0b TlClit anO Dumor One beggar had followed a gentleman, to his great annoyance, for upwards of a mile, and on bidding him good-bye, had the modesty to ask for a little six- pence. "For what?" inquired the gentleman: " what have you done for me ? " " Ah, then, shure, haven't I been keeping your honor in discoorse ? " [2] How Pat Learned to Salute His Superior Officer When Charles O'Malley started on his military career he went to Cork, accompanied by his servant Mike. On the road Mike's voice had been heard at the back part of the coach, and he was surrounded by a few raw recruits who were proceeding to Cork to be enrolled in their regiment. He detailed — and in no unimpressive way, either — the hardships of a soldier's life — its dangers, its vicis- situdes its chances, its possible penalties, its inevi- tably small rewards — and, in fact, so completely did he work on the feelings of his hearers, that more than one glance was exchanged between the victims, that certainly betokened anything but the resolve to fight for King George. It was at the close of a long and most powerful appeal upon the superiority of any other line of life — petty larceny and small felony inclusive— that he concluded with the following quotation : " ' Thrue for ye, bhoys ! With your red scarlet coat, You're as proud as a goat, And your long cap and feather.' " But, it's more whipping nor gingerbread is going on arnongst them, av ye knew but all, and heard the misfortune that happened to my father." " And was he a sodger ? " inquired one. " Troth he was, more sorrow to him ; and wasn't he almost whipped one day, for doing what he was bid?" " Musha, but that was hard." " To be sure it was hard ; but, faix, when mv father see that they didn't know their own minds, he thought. Irleb ma anD Tbumoi: 47 anyhow, he knew his, so he ran away ; and divil a bit of him did they ever cotch afther. Maybe ye might like to hear the story, and there's instruction in it for yez, too." A general request to this end being preferred by the company, Mike settled his coat comfortably across his knees, and began : " Well, it's a good many years ago my father listed in the North Cork, just to oblige Mr. Barry, the land- lord there ; ' for,' says he, ' Phil,' says he, ' it's not a soldier ye'll be at all, but my own man, to brush my clothes and go errands, and the like of that, and the king— long life to him !— will help to pay ye for your throuble— ye understand me.' Well, my father agreed, and Mr. Barry was as good as his word. Never a guard did my father mount, nor so much as a drill had he, nor a roll-call, nor anything at all, save and except wait on the captain, his master, just as pleasant as need be, and no inconvenience in life. " Well, for three years, this went on as I'm telling, and the regiment was ordered down to Banthry, because of a report that the ' boys ' was rising down there ; and the second evening there was a night party patrolling, with Captain Barry, for six hours in the rain, and the captain— God be marciful to him— tuk cowld and died ; more betoken, they said it was drink, but my father says it wasn't; 'for,' says he, * after he tuk eight tumblers comfortable,' my father mixed the ninth, and the captain waved his hand this way, as much as to say he'd have no more. ' Is it that ye mean,' says my father, and the captain nodded. ' Musha, but it's sorry I am,' says my father, 'to see ye this way, for ye must be bad entirely to leave off in the beginning of the evening.' And thrue for him, the captain was dead in the morning.' " A sorrowful day it was for my father, when he died ; it was the finest place in the world ; little to do ; plenty of divarsion ; and a kind man he was— when he was drunk. Well, then, when the captain was buried, and all was over my father hoped they'd be for letting him away, as he said: 'Sure I'm no use 48 Urieb 'Mit anD Dumor in life to anybody, save the man that's gone, for his ways are all I know, and I never was a sodger,' But, upon my conscience, they had other thoughts in their heads ; for they ordered him into the ranks to be drilled just like the recruits they took the day before. " ' Musha, isn't this hard,' said my father; ' here I am, an ould vitrin that ought to be discharged on a pension, with two-and-sixpence a day, obliged to go capering about the barrack-yard practising the goose step, or some other nonsense, not becoming my age or habits ' ; but so it was. Well, this went on for some time, and, sure, if they were hard on my father, hadn't he his revenge, for he nigh broke their hearts with his stupidity ; oh ! nothing in life would equal him ; divil a thing, no matter how easy, he could learn at all, and, so far from caring for being in con- finement it was that he liked best. Every sergeant in the regiment had a trial of him, but all to no good, and he seemed striving so hard to learn all the while, that they were loth to punish him, the ould rogue ! " This was going on for some time, when one day news came in that a body of rebels, as they called them, was coming down from the Gap of Mulnavick, to storm the town, and burn all before them. The whole regiment was of course under arms, and great prep- arations were made for a battle ; meanwhile, patrols were ordered to scour the roads, and sentries posted at every turn of the way and every rising ground, to give warning when the boys came in sight, and my father was placed on the bridge of Drumsnag, in the wildest and bleakest part of the whole country, with nothing but furze mountains on every side, and a straight road going over the top of them. " ' This is pleasant,' says my father as soon as they left him there alone by himself, with no human cray- ture to speak to, nor a whisky shop within ten mile of him ; ' cowld comfort,' says he, ' on a winter's day, and faix, but I've a mind to give ye the slip.' " Well, he put his gun down on the bridge, and he lit his pipe, and he sat down under a tree and began to ruminate upon his affairs. ' Oh, then, its wishing it well I am,' says he, 'for sodgering ; and bad luck Hrlsb mit anD Ibumor 49 to the hammer that struck the shilling that listed me, that's all,' for he was mighty low in his heart. "Just then a noise came rattling down near him ; he listened ; and before he could get on his legs, down came the general, ould Cohoon, with an orderly after him. " ' Who goes that ? ' says my father. "'The round,' says the general, looking about all the time to see where was the sentry, for my father was snug under the tree. " ' What round ? ' says my father. " ' The grand round,' says the general, more puz- zled than afore. " ' Pass on, grand round, and God save you kindly,' says my father, putting his pipe in his mouth again, for he thought all was over. "*D n your soul, where are you?' says the general ; for sorrow a bit of my father could he see yet. " ' It's here I am,' says he, ' and a cowld place I have of it; and av it wasn't for the pipe I'd be lost entirely.' " The words wasn't well out of his mouth, when the general began laughing till ye'd think he'd fall off his horse ; and the dragoon behind him — more by token, they say it wasn't right of him— laughed as loud as himself. " ' Ye'r a droll sentry,' says the general as soon as he could speak. " * Begorra, it's little fun there's left in me,' says my father, ' with this drilling, and parading, and blagard- ing about the roads all night.' "'And is this the way you salute your officer?' says the general. "'Just so,' says my father ; 'devil a more polite- ness ever they taught me.' "'What regiment do you belong to?' says the general. " * The North Cork, bad luck to them,' says my father, with a sigh. " ' They ought to be proud of ye,' says the gen- eral. 50 Urisb Mit atiD Ibumor "'I'm sorry for it/ says my father, sorrowfully, ' for maybe they'll keep me the longer.' "'Well, my good fellow,' says the general, 'I haven't more time to waste here; but let me teach you something before I go. Whenever your officer passes, it's your duty to present arms to him.' " ' Arrah, it's jokin' ye are,' says my father. " ' No, I'm in earnest.' says he, ' as ye might learn to your cost, if I brought you to a court-martial.' " ' Well, there's no knowing,' says my father, ' what they'd be up to ; but, sure, if that's all, I'll do it with all "the veins" whenever ye'r coming this way again.' " The general began to laugh again here, but said : ' I am coming back in the evening,' says he, ' and mind you don't forget your respects to your officer.' " ' Never fear, sir,' says my father, ' and many thanks to you for your kindness for telling me.' " Away went the general, and the orderly after him, and in ten minutes they were out of sight. " The night was falling fast, and one-half of the mountain was quite dark already, when my father began to think that they were forgetting him entirely. He looked one way, and he looked another, but sorra bit of a sergeant's guard was coming to relieve him. There he was, fresh and fasting, and daren't go for the bare life. ' I'll give you a quarter of an hour more,' says my father, ' till the light leaves that rock up there ; afther that,' says he,' by the mass ! I'll be off, av it cost me what it may.' "Well, sure enough, his courage was not needed this time; for what did he see at the same moment but a shadow of something coming down the road, opposite the bridge; and then he made out the general himself, that was walking his horse down the steep part of the mountain, followed by the orderly. My father immediately took up his musket off the wall, settled his belts, shook the ashes out of his pipe, and put it into his pocket, making himself as smart and neat looking as could be, determining, when old Cohoon came up to ask him for leave to go home, at least for the night. Well, by this time the general Icisb wax anD Ibumoc 61 was turning a sharp part of the cliff that looks down upon the bridge, from where you might look five miles round on every side. ' He sees me,' says my father; 'but I'll be jus' as quick as himself.' No sooner said than done; for, coming forward to the parapet of the bridge, he up with his musket to his shoulder, and presented it straight at the general. It wasn't well there, when the officer pulled up his horse quite short, and shouted out, ' Sentry ! sentry ! ' " ' Anan ! ' says my father, still covering him. " ' Down with your musket, you rascal ; don't you see it's the grand round ? ' " ' To be sure I do,' says my father, never changing for a minute. " ' The ruffian will shoot me,' says the general. " ' Divil a fear,' says my father, ' av it doesn't go off of itself.' " ' What do you mean by that, you villain ?' says the general, scarce able to speak for fright, for every turn he gave on his horse my father followed with his gun. ' What do you mean ? ' "'Sure, ain't I presenting?' says my father; * blood and ages, do you want me to fire next?' "With that the general drew a pistol from his hol- ster, and took deliberate aim at my father ; and there they both stood for five minutes, looking at each other, the orderly all the while breaking his heart with laughing behind a rock ; for, ye see, the general knew if he retreated that my father might fire on purpose, and av he came on that he might fire by chance ; and sorra bit he knew what was best to be done. " 'Are ye going to pass the evening up there, grand round ? ' says my father, ' for its tired I'm gettin' houldin' this so long?' " ' Port arms,' shouted the general, as if on parade. "'Sure, I can't, till ye'r passed,' says my father, angrily, 'and my hand's trembling already.' " ' By heavens ! I shall be shot,' says the general. " ' Begorra, it's what I'm afraid of,' says my father ; and the words wasn't out of his mouth before off went the musket, bang ! and down fell the general smack 52 Urisb ma anD Ibumor on the ground, senseless. Well, the orderly ran out at this, and took him up and examined his wound ; but it wasn't a wound at all, only the wadding of the gun ; for my father— God be kind to him— ye see could do nothing right, and so he bit oflf the wrong end of the cartridge when he put it in the gun, and by reason there was no bullet in it. Well, from that day after they never got sight of him, for the instant the general dropped, he sprung over the bridge wall and got away ; and what between living in a lime- kiln for two months— eating nothing but blackberries and sloes — and other disguises, he never returned to the army, but ever after took a civil situation, and driv a hearse for many years." The Irish Long and Short of it An Irishman wished to have a note discounted about Christmas. The bank officers objected to the /on^ time it had run. The Irishman said : " But then you don't consider how short the days are at this time of the year." A Courageous Horse An Irishman was asked if his horse was timid. " Not at all," said he ; " he frequently spends the night by himself in a dark stable." An Irish Trade-mark Two Irishmen were walking along one of the main thoroughfares in Glasgow when they noticed a large placard in the window of a shop with the words " Butter ! Butter ! ! Butter ! ! ! " in giant type, printed .>n it. "Pat," said Mike, "what is the meaning of them I'ig strokes after the words? " " Och ! ye ignoramus," says Pat, "sure they are meant for shillalahs, to show its Irish butter ! " L(e)aving Him in the River At a dinner-party Major O'Shaughnessy called to remembrance the peculiarities of some of his friends : "Poor M'Manus," said he, "rest his soul, he'd Irisb mix anD Ibumor 53 have puzzled the bench of bishops for hard words ; upon my conscience, I believe he spent his morning looking for them in the Old Testament ; sure ye might have heard what happened to him at Banagher, when he commanded the Kilkennys— ye never heard the story ?— well then, ye shall ; push the sherry along first, though — old Monsoon, there, always keeps it lingering beside his left arm ! "Well, when Peter was lieutenant-colonel of the Kilkennys— who, I may remark, e?i passant as the French say, were the seediest-looking devils in the whole service— he never let them alone from morning till night, drilling, and pipe-claying, and polishing them up ! ' Nothing will make soldiers of you,' said Peter; 'but by the rock of Cashel, I'll keep you as clean as a new musket ! ' Now, poor Peter, himself, was not a very warlike figure ; he measured five feet one in his tallest boots ; but certainly, if nature denied him length of stature, she compensated for it in another way, by giving him a taste for the longest words in the language ! An extra syllable or so in a word was also a strong recommendation ; and, when- ever he could not find one to his mind, he'd take some outlandish one, that more than once led to very awk- ward results. Well, the regiment was one day drawn up for parade in the town of Banagher, and, as M'Manus came down the lines, he stopped opposite one of the men, whose face, hands and accoutrements exhibited a most woeful contempt of his orders. The fellow looked more like a turf-stack than a light-com- pany man ! 'Stand out, sir!' cried M'Manus, in a boiling passion. 'Sergeant O'Toole, inspect this individual.' Now the sergeant was rather a favorite with Mac ; for he always pretended to understand his phraseology, and, inconsequence, was pronounced by the colonel a very superior man for his station in life. •Sergeant,' said he, 'we shall make an exemplary illustration of our system here ! " ' Yes, sir ! ' said the sergeant, sorely puzzled at the meaning of what he spoke. " ' Bear him to the Shannon, and lave him there ! ' this he said in a kind of Coriolanus tone, with a toss 54 Irieb IKIlit anD fbumor up of the head, and a wave of his right arm — signs, whenever he made them, incontestably showing that further parley was out of the question, and that he had summed up and charged the jury for good and all. " ' Lave him in the river?' said O'Toole, his eyes starting from the sockets, and his whole face working in strong anxiety ; ' it is lave him in the river, yer honor means ? ' " ' I have spoken,' said the little man, bending an ominous frown upon the sergeant ; which whatever construction he might have put upon his words, there was no mistaking. " ' Well, well, av it's God's will he's drowned, it will not be on my head,' says O' Toole, as he marched the fellow away between two rank and file. " The parade was nearly over when Mac happened to see the sergeant coming up, all splashed with water, and looking quiet tired. " ' Have you obeyed my orders? ' said he. " ' Yes, your honor ; and tough work we had of it, for he struggled hard. ' " ' And where is he now ? ' '"Oh, troth he's there safe! divil a fear he'll get out ! ' " ' Where ? ' said Mac. " ' In the river, yer honor.' " ' What have you done, you scoundrel ? ' " ' Didn't I do as you bid me ? ' says he ; ' didn't I throw him into the Shannon, as ye towld me, and lave (leave) him there ? ' " And faith so they did; and if he wasn't a good swimmer, and got over to Moyston, there's no doubt he'd have been drowned, and all because Peter M'Manus could not express himself like a Christ- ian." [i] Harder Than He Thought Ochone !— In the course of the evictions on the Irish Ponsonby estate the other day, some National- ists present questioned one of the evicted tenants, an elderly man named Patrick Fitzgerald, but the only Irleb TRUit anD Ibumor 55 material fact elicited from him was that his rent had never been raised. He made up for his disappoint- ment, however, by proclaiming loudly that it was a hard thing to see a man turned out of a house which his " father had built and his grandfather was born in." Measuring Another's Corn by His Own Bushel Near Sighted Old Gentleman : " Can you tell me what inscription is on that board over there?" Irish Rustic : " Sure oi'm in the same boat, sorr ! It was moighty little schoolin' oi had whin oi wus a bhoy, mesilf, sorr ! " *«Arrah Then, We're Just Neither of Us!" Sir Harry Boyle was said to be the only man who could render by a bull what it was impossible to con- vey more correctly. A capital illustration of this peculiarity is given in his duel with Harry Toler. It was a bull from beginning to end. Boyle took it into his head that Harry was a person with whom he had a serious row in Cork. Harry on the other hand, mistook Boyle for Old Caples, whom he had been pur- suing with horse-whipping intentions for some months ; they met in Kildare Street Club, and very little col- loquy satisfied them they were right in their conjec- tures ; each party being so eagerly ready to meet the views of the other. It never was a difficult matter to find a friend in Dublin ; and to do them justice, Irish seconds, generally speaking, are perfectly free from any imputations upon the score of good-breeding. No men have less impertinent curiosity as to the cause of the quarrel ; wisely supposing that the prin- cipals know their own affairs best, they cautiously abstain from indulging any prying spirit, but proceed to discharge their functions as best they may. Accord- ingly, Sir Harry and Dick were set, as the phrase is, at twelve paces, and to use Boyle's own words, for I have heard him relate the story : " We blazed away, sir, for three rounds. I put two in his hat, and one in his neckcloth ; his shots went all through the skirt of my coat. •"We'll spend the day here,' says Considine 56 Hrls^ limit anD Ibumor (Boyle's second), ' at this rate ; couldn't we put them closer ? ' " ' And give us a little more time in the word,' says I. " ' Exactly,' said Dick. " Well, they moved us forward two paces, and set to loading the pistols again. " By this time we were so near that we had full opportunity to scan each other's faces ; well, sir, I stared at him, and he at me. What ? ' said I. Eh ? ' said he. How's this? ' said I. You're not Billy Caples? ' said he. Devil a bit,' said I, ' nor I don't think you're Archy Devine ' ; and, faith, sir, so it appeared we were fighting away all the morning for nothing ; for somehow it turned out it was neither of us / ^* Paddy Secures a Prisoner and at once Asks for Promotion After Charles O'Malley had been promoted to the lieutenancy of his regiment, he heard an officer say to his ( O'Malley 's) colonel : " Ere I forget it, pray let me beg of you to look into this honest fellow's claim ; he has given me no peace the entire morning.'' As he spoke O'Malley turned his eyes in the direc- tion indicated, and, to his utter consternation, beheld his own man, Mickey Free, standing among the staff ; the position he occupied, and the presence he stood in, having no more perceptible effect upon his nerves than if he were assisting at an Irish wake. On seeing his master, Mickey exclaimed, in a somewhat implor- ing tone : " Arrah, spake for me, Master Charles, alanah, sure they might do something for me now, av it was only to make me a ganger." Mickey's ideas of promotion thus insinuatingly put forward threw the whole party around into one burst of laughter. " I have him down there," said he, pointing as he spoke to a thick grove of cork trees at a little distance. Urisb mix anD Ibumor 57 " Who have you got there, Mike ? ' inquired an officer. " Devil a one o' me knows his name," replied he ; " maybe it's Bony himself." " And how do you know he is there still?" " How do I know, is it ? Didn't I tie him last night?" Curiosity to find out what Mickey could possibly allude to, induced his master and a brother officer to fol- low him down the slope to the clump of trees mentioned. As they came near, the very distinct denunciations that issued from the thicket proved pretty plainly the nature of the affair. It was nothing less than a French officer of cavalry that Mike had unhorsed in the melee, and wishing probably to preserve some testimony of his prowess, had made prisoner and tied fast to a cork tree the preceding evening. " Sacredleu /'' said the poor Frenchman as we approached, " que ce sont des saiivages ! " " Av it's making your sowl ye are," said Mike, " you're right ; for maybe they won't let me keep you alive." Mike's idea of a tame prisoner threw his master into a fit of laughing, while his companion asked : " And what do you want to do with him, Mickey?" " The sorra one o' me knows, for he spakes no dacent tongue. The-gium thoo," said he, addressing the prisoner with a poke in the ribs at the same moment ; " but sure, Master Charles, he might tache me French." There was something so irresistibly ludicrous in his tone and look as he said these words, that both the officers absolutely roared with laughter. They began, however, to feel not a little ashamed of their position in the business, and explained to the Frenchman that their worthy countryman had but little experience of the usages of war, and proceeded to unbind him and liberate him from his miserable bondage. " It's letting him loose you are, captain ! Master Charles, take care ; begorra, av you had as much trouble in catching him as I had, you'd think twice about letting; him out. Listen to me now,"— here he 58 Irisb mit anD Ibumoc placed his closed fist within an inch of the poor pris- oner's nose — " listen to me ; av you say peas, by the morteal, I'll not lave a whole bone in your skin." With some difficulty the officers persuaded Mike that his conduct, so far from leading to his promotion, might, if known in another quarter, procure him an acquaintance with the provost-marshal, a fact which it was plain to perceive, gave him but a very poor impression of military gratitude. " Oh, then, if they were in swarms foment me, devil receave the prisoner I'll take again." An Irish Resolution The following is a resolution of an Irish corpora- tion : " That a new jail should be built ; that this be done out of the materials of the old one, and the old jail to be used until the new one be completed." Definition of an Irish Island A school-teacher asked an Irish boy to describe an island. "Sure, ma'am," said Pat, "it's a place ye can't lave widout a boat." Why Pat Sold the Saucepan A poor Irishman offered an old saucepan for sale. His children gathered around him and inquired why he parted with it. " Ah, my honeys," answered he, " I would not be after parting with it, but for a little money to buy something to put in it." How to Repeal the Union Pat says that " nothing can be aisier that to repale the Union of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. " It is only necessary," says he, "to trans- pose two letters, and they would become untied kingdom at once." Paddy's Kindness To Animals An Irishman with a heavy bundle on his shoulder was riding on a street car platform. He refused to put it down, saying: "The horses have enough to do to drag me ; I'll carry the bundle." tdsb TIClit ati5 fbumor 59 The Irish Name for an Unclean Spirit Tlioui^h they do not go in much for school boards ill Ireland, they can nevertheless rejoice in some fairly smart scholars. Asked by his teacher the other day what he understood by an "unclean spirit," a young Paddy promptly replied : " Plase you're honor, a dhurty divil ! " Paddy's Plan for Dividing the Guineas Three Irishmen had four guineas to be equally divi- ded among them. After several unsuccessful efforts by twoof them, the third settled the business thus: "There are two for you two, and here are two for me, too." Two Narrow Irish Escapes An Irishman, seeing a vessel very heavily laden atid scarcely above the water's edge, exclaimed : " Upon my sowl, if the river was but a little higher, the ship would go to the bottom." " See there ! " exclaimed the returned Irish soldier to the gai)ing crowd, as he exhibited with some pride his tall hat witli a bullet hole in it. " Look at that hole, will you ? Ye see, if it had been a low-crowned hat, I should have been killed outright." Working His Passage Some years ago, when the boats were running on the canal between Glasgow and Paisley, an Irishman asked the boatman at the latter place if he would let him work his passage to Glasgow. The boatman (a bit of a wag) says : " All right ; take and lead the horse." Pat started, and led the horse the whole way. When they arrived at Glasgow, Pat said to the boatman, ** Do you call that working my passage? Bedad, and I might as well have walked it." Sixpence Too Much An Irishman, who had jumped into the water to save a man from drowning, on receiving a sixpence from the rescued man, looked first at the sixpence and then at the man, saying : •' Be jabbers, I am overpaid for that job." 60 Uri^i) IKHit aiiD Ibumor Paddy's Idea of a Doctor Charles O'AIalley, on entering the army, was tliink- ing of discharging his servant. Asked what he would like to do, he said he would rather 'list. When asked if he would like to be in his master's regiment he answered : " By course, your honor. I'd like to be near your- self ; bekase, too, if anything happens to you— the Lord be betune us and harm (here he crosses himself piously)— sure I'd be able to tell the master (O'Mal- ley's uncle) how you died ; and sure, there's Mister Considine (his uncle's companion)— God pardon him —he'll be beating my brains out av I couldn't explain it all." "Well, Mike, I'll speak to some of my friends here about you, and we'll settle it all properly; here's the doctor." "Arrah, Master Charles, don't mind him, he's a poor crayture entirely ; divil a thing he knows." " Why, what do you mean, man ? he's physician to the forces." " Oh, by gorra, and so he may be," said Mike, with a toss of the head ; " those army docthers isn't worth their salt. It's truth I'm telling you; sure, didn't he come to see me when I was sick below in the hould? " ' How do you feel ? ' says he. '* 'Terribly dhry in the mouth,' says I. " ' But your bones,' says he, ' how's them ? "'As if cripples was kicking me,' says I. •' Well, with that he went away, and brought back two powders. " ' Take them,' says he, ' and you'll be cured in no time.' " ' What's them ? ' says I. " ' They're ematics,' says he. " ' Blood-an'-ages,' says I, ' are they ? ' " 'Divil a lie,' says he; 'take them immediately.' "And I tuk them — and would you believe me. Mas- ter Charles ? — it's thruth I'm telling you — divil a one o' them would stay on my stomach. So you see what a docther he is." [i] Urisb XCllt atiD Ibwmot 6i One Image as Good as Another in Paddy's Eyes On the morning of their sailing, Rory, before embarking, went to one of the churches to offer up his prayers for a safe voyage. The church was prepared for one of those fetes common at the time when the conscripts were pre- sented with their arms by their sweethearts, in pres- ence of the assembled people, who chanted the Mar- seillaise all the time at the foot of the Statue of Liberty ; but Rory, never having seen any such piece of business, did not know what the garlands and banners meant when he entered the aisle early in the morning, long before the celebration of the fete was to take place and when he was the only person present. He looked about in wonder some time, and seeing the Statue of Lii)erty very magnificently decorated, he thougiit it could represent no other than the Virgin Mary ; and so Rory popped down on his knees before the Goddess of Liberty and began to pray devoutly to the holy mother. While in the act of devotion, a couple of soldiers strolled into the church to see if all was in proper cue for the approaching military fete, and seeing Rory on his knees before the Goddess of Liberty, they thought him some fond enthusiast of the revolution, and exclaimed with delight : " Ah ! que c" est drole / Ma/oi, c' est tm brave gar- qon qui anne taut liberie qu' il se met a genoux ti la dcesse ! ' ' They approached Rory as they spoke; but their admiration was somewhat dashed when they saw him bless himself very devoutly, making sundry crucial flourishes with his hand upon his breast and forehead as he bobbed and ducked before the statue. They then advanced in front of Rory, and, looking upon him with great contempt, exclaimed, ''Sacre sot,'" and turned from him with disgust. Rory, having finished his prayers, returned to De Lacy, who immediately proceeded on board the ves- sel. On asking Rorv if he dreaded encountering the 62 liti5b Mit ano Ibumor sea aj;ain, Kory answered, " Not in the laste, bii, for I seen the Virgin Mary this niornin', " "Saw who?" said De Lacy, in wonder. " The X'ir^in Mary, sir." De Lacy could not help laughing at the serious way in which the absurdity was uttered by Rory, who, not relishing his mirth, said : " Sure, sir, is it laughing at me you'd be for sayin' my i)rayers? " " Certainly not ; but you tell me you saw the Virgin Mary." " And so I did, and said my prayers foreninst her in the big church ; and why wouldn't I, and we goin' on the wide say ? " De Lacy now laughed more heartily than before, while he told Rory that it was the Goddess of Liberty he had been praying to instead of the Virgin. " You don't tell me so," said Rory, with horror in his looks. " Indeed it is true." " Oh, God forgive me ! if it's a sin ; but, sure, I thought it was the Queen of Heaven herself, and I ax her pardon for mistakin' their haythinish goddess for her ; but, sure, I hope it's no harm, since it was done undhcr a mistake." " Don't be uneasy, Rory," said De Lacy, who saw he had distressed him by his laughter ; " I hope the prayer that is offered to heaven in the purity of heart will find its way there before whatever altar it is breathed." With such tolerant sentiment did De Lacy go on board, committing himself to the care of that Provi- dence in whose unlimited mercies and protection he reposed his faith. [4] A •• Plan of Campaign " Never Yet Tried in Ireland, Mr. Balfour! An Englishman who had been made prisoner by the Irish, desired some outdoor e.xcrcise, and, during a conversation in which his gaoler was telling him about the Druid's altar, he asked : " But could I not see this Druid's altar?" %x\eb Ulit auD Ibumor 63 " Bedacl, you conkl, sir, if yo\i wnr there ; it's so big every blind man in ihe country can sec it — almost. But. honor bright, sir, you wouldn't ^ei a poor boy like me into trouble, and until I'm tould, I dare not send vour honor out that far. But so little did my grandfather's father thinV about them Druid althars that once having wandered half the day till almost nightfall, about the hillside, after an unruly young heller, one of the rale Kerry breed that's first cousin to the goats and that would win a stee|)lechase if anyone would ride her. After spending his day that way, when he got under the shelter of a stone and the sun setting, h^ lay his grey head on his hand and fell to rest in two minutes, just as innocent and sleepful as a new-born baby. Well, he never could tell how long he slept, but at last he woke and wondered to see the beautiful color of the setting sun all gone, faded like a rose in hot July, and nothing above him but the moon and dawshy stars sporting and sparkling through the heavens, and he wondered where the heifer could be, when he turned his eyes a little to the left, and there she stood, as meek as a lamb, not astir in her, and her wicked eyes fi.xed on a bunch of green blackberries, and her tail that used to be as stiff as a blast of the north wind, lianging down like a bunch of silk, and her ears quiet, and a sugaun of fruit and fresh-made hay round her neck, and one end of it in the hand of the most beautiful little creature the sight of his eyes ever looked upon, and she twisting and spinning on top of the heifer's little stumpy horn. "'Oh! murder, my lady,' said my grandfather's father, in Irisli, ' is it there you are, and is it my beautiful little loueen ye'r going to whisk off to your own country ? ' " ' Oh, tie ! ' she says ; and, saving yer presence, sir, she says, * is it a Saxon you take me for, to be taking the good out of the country ! I'm no such thing. I found yer little beast on the wild hill side, and I brought her to you ; and there she is, as tame and as gentle as a new-born lamb. She'll never give you any more trouble as long as she lives. I've got all the wildnu war to try the other way, try kindness — and justice — above all, kindness ; it did well with a cow,' she went on, stroking the haste's ears, who moved like a wood- quest in answer; ' it did well with a cow, and I don't see why it should not do with a woman ; you hunted her, I coaked her.' " "You're a capital maker of fairy tales," said the prisoner, laughing, " and I must be more stupid even than an Englishman not to read it." [3] The Humerous Side of Irish Hotel Life Settling accounts and separating from an English and an Irish inn are two very different things. At the former all matters are well ordered and in time; the jjacking-cases and carjiet bags are moved with so little noise that they appear to have moved them- selves ; nobody helps anybody, for they all seem to know their own work — and do il, not from any interest they take in the voyager, but simply because it is their business. At the latter, nothing is ever ])recisely arranged, and certainly never in time. The sundries are stirred by an immense degree of noise and Ijustle ; for here everybody will help everybody, and nobody has a rightly-defined idea as to his own particular line of duty. Then the waiters are, each and all, so anxious that the traveler should be comfortable and " sit asy," and on the right side to see " the beautiful counthry, God bless it ! " and hope that the weather will " hould up," and that " the teems o'rain won't be bothering iiis honor" ; with a direct question as to " When his honor will be traveling the road again? " and " Maybe he'll be back soon,"— all this proceeds from a natural and perfectly unaffected desire for the good of a stranger. They do not, to be sure, cherish the feeling for any great length of time, but it is strong enough while it lasts ; and it is something to know that you excite even a momentary interest in the liv- ing beating hearts of those you meet in your every-day journeyings through a rugged world. John Bull cheats in sober earnest ; Paddy does it for 5 66 1lrl6b TlCiit anD Ibiimor fun. It comes, as far as the strans;er's pocket is con- cerned, to pretty much tlie same thin^? in tlie end. Paddy coaxes out tlie smallest of silver coins, with his most winning smiles, his most brilliant wit. or most insinuating humor; John aims at half-crowns and half-sovereigns, not with smiles, !nit frowns— not with wit, but grumblings— and if honestly and per- fectfy satisfied, never says so with a cheerful coun- tenance ; while Paddy, if not sufficiently remunerated, still blesses " yer Iionor," hints that he " knows it's yer honor's intention to remember that he has a wife and a house full of little children at liome praying this very minute that yer heart may soften, and that the prayers of the jjoor may make you an asy bed in lieaven " ; and if an evident difference of opinion exists between you — he thinking he has not been sufficiently recompensed, wliile you consider lie has been paid "twice too much" — Paddy smiles com- placently on his small exchequer, and then, as the sigh rises from his heart, adds to the last Ijlessing he bestows, the earnest prayer "that times may mend, and not be hard on the poor ever and always." The number of servants at Irish is usually double the* number of those at English inns; but then half the amount satisfies the one that would satisfy the other, and you get all the blessings for nothing, with an influx of ideas in tropes and figures — combined with such racy humor as can be found in no other country under the sun. By a single figure of speech they elucidate a fact or produce a fiction ; and by a word or two judiciously spoken, place a subject in so ridiculous a light, that you laugh frequenth' against your own will ; always against your judgment. If the stranger's sojourn at the inn has been but a few days, it is most likely that his departure will be wailed as a misfortune ; he hears murmurs on all sides of "Ah, then, it's not often we've the blessing of such fine company, good luck to your honor, and God send ye safe back." " Success to ye, wherever ye go, and may yer heart grow lighter and yer purse heavier the longer ye live." " God bless you, sir, and mark you to grace, and bring you here safe and soon." Even Irisb mit anD Ibumor 67 the scuneen,\.\\e little boy "about the place" who does everybody's business, and is scolded for every- body's neglect — even he, the barefooted urchin, whose curly head was never covered by a hat, and whose feet are swift and sure by day or night to do the bid- diirg of all who choose to command — even he lingers without, in the hope of receiving a stray sixpence, and gives his prayer whether he receives anything for it, or not ! [3] An Irish Pickle — and Not the Last! There was a Sir Judkin Fitzgerald, who, being the sheriff of Tipperary, had, it was said, during the rebellion of 1798, practiced great cruelties. Among other things he was reported to have dipped the cat- o'-nine-tails in brine before a flogging. By way of excuse to Keller, he boasted that by his firnmess he had "preserved" the country. "No," said Jerry, " but you have pickled it." An Open Question Irate County Squire {to new groom): '^\^ooV here, con- found you! I won't have this! Do you think I'm a fool?" New Groom: " Shure, sorr, Oi can't say, sorr. I only came here yestherday I " '■You'd Better Ask Me!" " Oh, 'tis time I should talk to your mother, Sweet Mary," says I ; " Oh, don't talk to my mother," says Mary, Beginning to cry ; " For my mother says ' men are deceivers,' And never, I know, will consent • She says, ' in a hurry who marry At leisure repent.' " Then, suppose I would talk to your father, Sweet Mary," says I ; "Oh, don't talk to my father," says Mary, Beginning to cry ; " For my father, he loves me so dearly, He'll never consent I should go- lf you talk to my father," says Mary, "He'll surely say 'No! '" 88 Hrlsb Mit anD l)umor " Then how shall I get you, my jewel, Sweet Mary," says I ; " If your father and mother's so cruel, Most surely I'll die ! " " Oh, never say die, dear," says Mary, " A method to save you I see ; Since my parents are both so contrary — You'd better ask me ! " [5] Paddy on the Lookout An Irish sailor was sent forward to keep a good lookout ahead ; but feeling sleepy the cunning fellow lay down with his face to the hawse-hole. On the mate detecting him, and challenging him for not standing up and looking out, says Paddy : '* Shure, an' that would be looking over, an' wasn't it "jooking out I was? " An Irish Coach Accident The day wore on comfortably enough, and the evening began to close, when a premature stop was put to their journey by the breaking down of the coach. Fortunately for the passengers, the accident was not one that placed them in any kind of danger. Some of them were neai-ly thrown off, and a lady passenger who was inside screamed, of course ; and the more she was assured that there was no danger, the louder she screamed. In the meantime the pas- sengers jumped off ; and the extreme amount of dan- ger to them was, that they could proceed no further on their journey by the coach, as one of the wheels was broken. Now, whenever an accident of this kind occurs, which is manifestly so bad as to be beyond retrieving, it may be remarked that everyone looks at it in all possible ways — under it, and over it, and round it, just as if looking at it would do any good. So were the passengers congregating around the wheel of the coach, all making their remarks : " It was the nave," said one. " No — the spokes," said another. Idsb Wiit anO t>umor 69 "Oh dear, no— the tire," said a third. *' Most provoking ! " " Scandalous ! " said Scrubbs (a landlord's agent) ; " like everything else in this country ! The proprietors ought to be prosecuted for having a coach in such a condition." " Murther, murther ! " said the coachman, who lost his temper at last when the honor of his coach was concerned ; "do you hear this ! just as if an accident never happened to a coach before." "When people pay their money," said Scrubbs, "they have aright to complain." " Sairtinly," said the Scotchman. " In fac' I think the money should be refunded." " Arrah ! listen to him ! " said Rory aside to the stranger. " How far is the coach from the end of its jour- ney?" said the lady. " If you'd be quiet the laste taste, ma'am, if you plaze," said the coachman; "we'll conthrive some conthrivance by and by." " Why, the night is falling," said the lady. " It's time for it," said Rory. " My God ! " said the lady, " what odd answers these people give one ! " The horses now became restless, for the wheelers, pulling, and finding so much resistance, began to kick, and their example set the leaders going. The coachman and Rory ran to their heads. " Bad luck to ye, ye fools ! " said Rory to the horses ; " sure it's glad, and not sorry ye ought to be, that the dhrags is ofT o' ye ! " and he forced them at last into some obedience. " I'll tell you what you'll do now," said he to the coachman ; " jist take off the horses — they'll be quiet enough here, grazing by the side of the gripe ; and you get on one o' them, and pelt away into the town, and come out wid a fresh coach." "Troth, and it's the best plan, I b'lieve," said the coachman, "afther all." " And must we stay here ? " said the lady. " Barrin' you walk, ma'am." 70 IrlBb •QClit anD Ibumor " And how far might it be to walk ? " " Faith, I don't righth' know," said the coachman. " You're a feyne dreyver," said the Scotchman, " not to know the distance on your ain road ! " " I know it well enough whin I'm dhrivin," said the coachman ; " but how should I know how far it is to walk?" "Why you stupid rascal!" said the Scotchman, about to make an elaborate argument to show the coachman the bull he had made — but he was inter- rupted by Rory. " Arrah ! never mind his prate, Hoolaghan ; do what I bid you — away wid 3'ou into town ! " " Indeed, I think it is the best thing you can do," said the young traveler. "And must we stay here? Why, 'tis growing dark already, and we may be murdered while you are away." " Devil a one '11 take the throuble to murther you — don't be in the laste afeard," said Rory. " Up wid 3^ou now on the grey, Hoolaghan, your sowl, and powdher away like shot ! " " What's that he's saying about powder and shot ? " said the lady in alarm. " He's only giving directions to the coachman, madam," said the young traveler. " But he said powder and shot, sir ; is there any danger? " " None in the least, I assure you, madam." " The horses will stay quiet enough while you are gone," said Rory ; " here, gi' me yourfut — I'll lift you on the baste." And so saying, Hoolaghan placed his left foot in Rory's right hand ; and thus aided, he sprang astride of one of the coach horses, to proceed. "There now," said Rory, "you're up! and away wid you ! Jist be into town in no time and back in less. ' That's the cut ! ' said Cutty, when he cut his mother's throat." " What's that he's saying, sir, about cutting throats !" said the lady. " Nothing, madam, I assure you, you need be alarmed at," said the traveler. Urisb TlClit anD Ibumot 71 "Indeed, you need not make yourself onaisy, ma'am, in the laste," said Rory, after he had placed Hoolaghan on horseback. " It will be all over with you soon now." The lady shuddered at the phrase, but spoke not. "And now, sir," said Rory to his fellow-traveler, " it's time we should be thinkin' of ourselves ; there's no use you should be loitherin' here until the other coach comes back ; for though it's some miles from the town, where, I suppose, you were goin' to, it's not far from this where I must turn off to my own place, which lies across the counthry, about two miles or there away ; and if you, sir, wouldn't think it beneath you to come to a poor man's house, sure its proud I'd be to give your honor a bed ; and though it may not be so good as you're used to, still maybe 'twill be betther than stopping here by the roadside." The traveler expressed his thanks to Rory for the kindness of his offer, but said that perhaps he could as well walk to the town. To this Rory objected, suggesting the probability of the traveler losing his way, as he could only be his guide as far as the point where he had to turn towards his own home ; besides many other arguments urged on Rory's part with so much heart and cordiality, that he prevailed on his fellow-traveler to accept his proffered hospitality. Selecting a small portmanteau from the luggage the traveler was about to throw it over his shoulder, when Rory laid hold of it, and insisted on carrying it for him. "You've your own luggage to carry!" said the traveler. " Sure, mine is nothin' more than a small bundle — no weight in life." "And your gridirons, Rory?" " By the powers ! I was near forgettin' ////;;/," said Rory ; " but sure, thim itself is no weight and I can carry thim all." " Stay a moment." said the traveler, whose gal- lantry forbade that he should leave the lady of the party, alarmed as she was, in such a situation, and apparently not very well protected, without the offer 72 Irisb TIDlit anD 1)umor of his services. He approached the coach, into which the lady had retired to avoid the dew that was now falling heavily, and made his of?er with courtesy." "I'm much obliged to you, sir," said she, but I have my husband here." " Thank you, sir," said a miserable-looking little man, who had not uttered a word before ; "I am this lady's husband." He did not dare say, " This lady's my wife." The traveler made his bow, and he and his guide, leaving the forlorn coach passengers on the road, proceeded at a sharp pace towards the cottage of Rory O'More. [4] Paddy's Method of Getting Rid of Popery It so happened that the tombstone of old Sweeny, the apothecary, bearing the Popish phrase, " Pray for the soul of Denis Sweeny," stood most provokingly close to the pathway leading to the church door ; so that every Sunday, when his son, the attorney, w^as going to attend divine service as by law established, his Church-of-Englandism was much scandalized by having this damning (and damnable) proof of his apostasy staring him in the face. Not that he cared for it himself; he was one of those callous-hearted people who could " have botanized on his mother's grave," therefore, this proof of his former creed on the grave of his father could have given him no trouble ; but he did not like the evidence to 'remain there in the sight of other people, and he had asked Rory O'More how the nuisance could be abated. So Rory, after hearing the attorney's complaint, said he thought he could rectify the objectionable passage on the tombstone. After breakfast he asked De Lacy would he go over to see " the churches," as the old burial-place in the neighborhood was called, where the ruins of some monastic buildings stood, one of which had been repaired and roofed in for the parish church. De Lacy assented to the proposal, and Rory suggested that they should endeavor to get Phelim O'Flanaghan to accompany them. Irisb Timit anD Ibumor 73 " His school lies in our way," said Rory, "and we may as well ax him to come; for there is a power of owld anshint tombstones in it, in ovvld Irish, and he can explain them to you, sir." De Lacy accompanied Rory to the burial-place, who came to a stand where, on one side of the path, stood a rather conspicuous tombstone with this inscription : " Pray for the sowl of Denis Sweeny, who departed," etc. " Do you see that ? " said Rory to De Lacy. "Yes." " Well, that's what brings me here to-day." " How?" said De Lacy. " Why, that's owld Denny Sweeny's tombstone ; and you see the poor owld fellow axes everyone to pray for his sowl — and why not ? — and, indeed, I hope he's in glory. Well, you see by that he was a good Catholic, and a dacent man he was ; and when he died he ordhered the same tombstone to be put over him, and paid my own father for cuttin' the same." " Is it after he died?" said De Lacy. " Oh, no — you know what I mane ; but sure a slip o' the tongue doesn't matther. Well, as I was sayin', my father cut the same tombstone — and a nate bit o' work it is ; see the illigant crass an it, and cut so deep that the divil wouldn't get it out of it — God forgi' me for sayin' ' divil ' to the crass." " It's deep enough, indeed,'' said De Lacy. "Ay, and so I towld that dirty brat. Sweeny— llie 'turney I mane — when he axed me about it. What do you think he wants me to do? " said Rory. " To take it back for half-price, perhaps," said De Lacy. " Faith, he hasn't that much fun in him to think of such a thing." " What was it then? " "Why, he wants me to alther it," said Rory. " For himself, I hope?" said De Lacy. "No," said Rory, "though in throth I'd do that with pleasure, for he'd be no loss to king or counthry. 74 Uriab TKIlit atiD t)umor But, as I was tellin' you, he comes to me the other day and towld me it was disgraceful to see sitch a thing as 'pray for the soul ' on his father's tombstone in sitch enlightened times as these, when people knew better than to pray for people's sowls." " ' They might do worse,' says J. " ' It might do for the dark ages,' says he, ' but it won't do now,' laying it all on the dark ages, by the way, jist as if people didn't know that it was bekase when he goes to church every Sunday his poor honest father's tombstone stares him in the face, the same as if the voice out of the grave called to him and said, ' Oh, thin, Dinny, my boy, is it goin' to church you are ? ' Not that he'd mind that, for the cowld-hearted thief hasn't the feelin' to think of it ; but it's the dirty pride of the little animal ; he doesn't like the rale Prodestants to see the thing stan'in' in evidence agin him. So I thought I'd divart myself a bit with him, and, says I, ' Sure the tombstone doesn't do you nor anyone else any harm.' ' Yes, it does,' says he, ' it stands in evidence agin my father's common sinse, and I'm ashamed of it.' "Oh!" said Rory feelingly, 'what luck can the man have that says he's ashamed of his father's grave? " The feeling and touching appeal reached De Lacy's heart. Rory continued : " Ashamed, indeed ! Throth. an' well he may say he's ashamed ! not for his father, though — no — but well may he be ashamed to change his creed ! " " You shouldn't blame any man for his religious belief. Rory," said De Lacy. " No more I would, sir, if it was the belief that he was reared in ; but " " Oh ! " said De Lacy, interrupting liim, " if a man feels that he has been instructed in a belief which his conscience will not permit him to follow " " Sure, sir," said Rory, interrupting in his turn, "I would blame him for that neitiier ; but is it Sweeny you think does it for that? Not he, In throth ; it's iust for the lucre, and nothin' else. And, sure, if Urisb "Uait anD tbumor 75 he had the feelin' in him to love his father, sure, it's not altherin' his tombstone he'd be tliat was made by his father's own directions ; and suppose he thinks that he ought to be a Prodestant ever so much, sure, isn't it bad of him to intherfare with his poor father's dyin' request that they would pray for his sovvl ? " " That I grant you," said Ue Lacy. '' And so he comes to me to ask me to alther it. 'For what?' says I. ' Bekase I'm ashamed of it,' says he. ' Why ? ' says I. ' Bekase it's only Popery,' says he. ' Well,' says I, ' if it's Popery ever so much, sure, it's your father's doin', and any shame there is in it is to him, and not to you, and so you needn't care about it ; and if your father did wish people to pray for his sowl, I think it's very bad of you to wish to prevent it.' ' It can do him no good,' says he. ' It can do him no harm, anyhow,' says I. " So he couldn't get over that very well, and made no answer about the good or the harm of it, and said he didn't want to argue the point with me, but that he wanted it althered, and as my father done the job he thought I was the person to alther it. ' And how do you want it changed? ' says I. ' Take out " pray for the sowl."' says he; 'that's nothing but Popery.' ' My father always cut the sowl very deep,' says I, ' and to take it out is impossible ; but if it's only the Popery you object to, I can alther it, if you like, so that you can have nothin' to say agin it.' ' How ? ' says he. ' Oh, let me alone,' says I. ' You're no sndphcre; says I, ' and don't know how I'll do it ; but you'll see your- self when it's done.' ' You won't charge me much? ' says he. ' I'll charge you nothing,' says I : ' I'm not a mason by thrade, and I'll do the job for love.' ' But how do you mane to do it?' says he agin. 'Oh, never mind,' says I, ' go your ways, I'll do the job corn- plate, and next Sunday, when you go to church, you'll see the divil a bit o' Popery will be in the same tomb- stone.' ' That's all I want,' says he. ' Thin we'll be both plazed,' says I. And now I'm come here to-day to do the very thing." "And how do you mean to effect the alteration, Rory?" said De Lacy. 76 Unsb TKIlit anD Ibumor "As aisy as kiss hand/ said Rory. "Jist do you amuse yourself with looking into the churches ; there's some quare carvings round the windows and doors, and a mighty curious owld stone crass up there beyant. Or, if you like, sir, sit down beside me here with your book, and you can read while I work." De Lacy had not been long engaged in reading, when old Phelim made his appearance ; and with so amusing a cicerone, De Lacy passed a couple of hours pleasantly enough in looking over the antiquities of the place. After the lapse of that period Rory had completed his task, and sought his friends to show them how thoroughly he had neutralized the Popery that had so much distressed Sweeny. "How could you have done it so soon?" said De Lacy. "Oh, I won't tell you — you must see it yourself," said Rory. " It is the simplest thing in life— four letters did it all." Rory had carved over the objectionable request the phrase ' don't,' so that the inscription ran thus : " don't Pray for the sowl of Denis Sweeny." " Isn't that the thing ? " said Rory. " Capital ! " said De Lacy, " Isn't that sarving the little viper right? you see he daren't say at wanst, out honest, that he was ashamed /or his own sake, bekase he was a turncoat ; but he lays the blame 07i the Popery. Oh, in throth, there's many a dirty turn and many a cruel thing done on us ; and thim that does the thing is ashamed to own to the right cause, and so they lay the blame on the Popery. By my sowl ! they ought to be obliged to Popery for giving them sitch convanient excuse for not havin' things called by their right names." " But won't Sweeny be very angry about this?" said De Lacy, " Faith, to be sure, he will," said Phelim, shaking his head. " Rory ma bouchal, though I can't deny Urisb Wit anD fbumor 77 your wit, I cannot compliment you with an epithalium upon your prudence ; you have made that Jittle bit- ther attorney your inimy to the ind o' time." "I know that," said Rory, "but what do I " Rory my boy, Prudence, Prudentia, as the Latins had it,— Prudence, my boy, is one of the cardi- nal virtues." ^ " Well, to expose humbuggin' is as cardinal as ever "So you won't listen to me 1—Magister docet, sed vos verb neglitisy ,, t ^ a "Well, who's sayin' it's prudent? But all I stand up for is the altheration ; and isn't that complate ? " " That there's no denyin," said Phelim. " And all with four letthers." "You have demonstherated it as complate wid four," said Phelim, " as I do my mattamatics wid " By dad ! I have a great mind to put Q. E. D. at the end of it all," said Rory. " Faith, I'm glad to see you remember you matta- matics still," said Phelim. " Wouldn't it be grate fun ! " said Rory. "It's bad enough as it is," said De Lacy, ''with- out making matters worse. I am afraid Rory this was . very unwise." " Yet you can't help laughin' at it," said Rory " Indeed I can't," said De Lacy. " Well, and so will the Prodestants laugh at that contemptible little upstart when they see it, and that's all I want. There's nothing an upstart feels half so much as a laugh against him," said Rory, making a sagacious comment upon his own impudent act. "Quite true," said De Lacy, "and therefore the attorney will never forgive you." " The beauty of it is," said Rory, still enjoying his joke " that he can't complain openly about it ; for all he said was, that he was ashamed about the Popery of it. Now, I've taken the Popery out of it, at all events." , ^-^^ " Certainly," said De Lacy, " but at the same time, 78 Urieb Wit anD •fcumor you have inct eased Sweeny's cause of inquietude by making the offensive phrase more obnoxious." " That's what I meant to do," said Rory, boldly. " I've caught him in his own thrap. The little schem- ing 'turney complained only about the Popery ; now, with four letthers I've destroyed more Popery than the parson could do with twice as many." "Upon my word, Rory," said De Lacy, smiling, "many men of letters have failed with the whole alphabet to alter a text so completely as you have done with ybz/r." [4] Why Should It ? An Irish landlord is said to have sent the following message to his steward : " Tell the tenants that no threat to s\\oo\. you will terrify nie^ A Cautious Prisoner An Irishman charged with assault was asked whether he was guilty. " How can I tell, your honor, till I have heard the evidence?" was his reply. An Irish Discovery "I meant to have told you of that hole," said an Irishman to a friend, who had fallen into a pit in the Irishman's garden. "No matter," said Pat, I've found ity Two Persons Delivered from Purgatory by One Small Fee Mr. Darby M'Keown once had a most ardent attachment to a certain Biddy Finn, and at last, through the intervention of Father Curtain, agreed to marry. Darby's consent to the arrangement was not altogether the result of his reverence's eloquence, nor indeed the justice of the case ; nor was it quite owing to Biddy's black eyes and pretty lips; but rather to the soul-persuading powers of some fourteen tumblers of strong punch, which he swallowed at a seance in Biddy's father's house, one cold evening in November ; after which he betook himself to the road homewards, where— but we must give his story in his own words : Urisb wax anO Ibumor 79 "Whether it was the prospect of happiness before me, or thepotteen," quoth Darby, "but so it was; I never felt a step of the road home that night, though it was every foot of five miles. When I came to a stile, I used to give a whoop, and over it ; then I'd run a hundred yards or two, flourish my stick, cry out, ' Who'll say a word against Biddy Finn ? ' and then over another fence, flying. Well, I reached home at last, and wet enough I was ; but I didn't care for that. I opened the door and struck a light ; there was the least taste of kindling on the hearth, and I put some dry sticks into it, and some turf, and knelt down and began blowing it up. " ' Troth," says I to myself, ' if I wor married, it isn't this way I'd be, on my knees like a nagur ; but when I'd come home, there ud be a fine fire ablazin' fornint me, and a clean table out before it, and a beautiful cup of tay waiting for me — and somebody I won't mention, sitting there looking at me, smilin'.' " ' Don't be making a fool of yourself, Darby M'Keown,' said a gruff voice near the chimney. " I jumped at him and cried out, ' Who's that ? ' but there was no answer ; and at last, after going round the kitchen, I began to think that it was only my own voice I heard, so I knelt down again, and set to blowing away at the fire. "'And it's yerself, Biddy,' says I, 'that would be an ornament to a dacent cabin ; and a purtier leg and foot ' " ' Be the light that shines, you're making me sick. Darby M'Keown,' said the voice again. " ' The heavens be about us,' says I, * what's that, and who are you at all ? ' for someways I thought I knew the voice. " ' I'm your father,' says the voice. " ' My father ! ' says I. ' Holy Joseph, is it truth you're telling me ? ' " ' The devil a word o' lie in it,' says the voice. ' Take me down and give me an air o' the fire, for the night's cowld.' "'And where are you, father?' says I, ' av it's plasing to ye? ' 80 Irisb wax anD Dumor " ' I'm on the dhresser,' says he. ' Don't you see me?' " < Sorra bit o' me. Where now ? ' " ' Arrah, on the second shelf, next the rowling-pin. Don't you see the green jug? — that's me.' " ' Oh, the saints in heaven be above us ! ' says I ; * and you a green jug ? ' "'I am,' says he; 'and sure I might be worse. Tim Healey's mother is only a cullender, and she died two years before me.' " ' Oh, father darlin',' says I, ' I hoped you wor in glory, and you only a jug all this time ! ' "' Never fret about it,' says my father; 'it's the transmogrification of sowls, and we'll all be right, by and by. Take me down, I say, and put me near the fire.' "So I up and took him down, and wiped him wich a clean cloth, and put him on the hearth before the blaze. " ' Darby,' said he, ' I'm famished with the druth. Since you took to coortin' there's nothing ever goes into my mouth. Haven't you a taste of something in the house?' " It warn't long till I heated some wather, and took down the bottle of whiskey and some sugar, and made a rousing jug full, as strong as need be. " ' Are you satisfied, father? ' says I. " ' I am,' says he ; ' you're a dutiful child ; and here's your health, and don't be thinking of Biddy Finn.' " With that my father began to explain how there was never any rest nor quietness for a man after he married— more by token, if his wife was fond of talk- ing; and that he never could take his dhrop of drink in comfort afterwards. " ' May I never,' says he, ' but I'd rather be a green jug, as I am now, than alive again wid your mother. Sure it's not here you'd be sitting to-night,' says he, ' discoorsing with me av you wor married, devil a bit. Fill me,' says my father, ' and I'll tell you more.' "And sure enough I did, and we talked away till near daylight ; and then the first thing I did was to ITrlsb Timit anD Ibumor 8i take the ould mare out of the stable, and set off to Father Curtain, and towld him all about it, and how my father wouldn't give his consent by no means. " ' We'll not mind the marriage,' says his rivirence ; ' but go back and bring me your father — the jug, I mean — and we'll try and get him out of trouble — for it's trouble he's in, or he wouldn't be that way. Give me the two-pound-ten,' says the priest, 'you had it for the wedding, and it will be better spent getting your father out of purgatory, than sending you into it.' " How the Priest Lost His Bet Major Mahon arranged a duel between Jack Hinton and Ulick Burke, in which he was Hinton's second. His cousin. Father Loftus, was very angry when he heard of the affair, and although they endeavored to pacify the good priest, it was not until he had swal- lowed his second tumbler of punch that he would " listen to rayson." "Well, well, if it is so, God's will be done," said he with a sigh. " Un bon coup (V epee, as we used to say formerly, is beautiful treatment for bad blood ; but maybe your going to fight with pistols— oh, mur- ther, them's dreadful things ! " " I begin to suspect," said the major, slily, "that Father Tom's afraid if you shoot Ulick, he'll never get that fifty pounds he won — hinc illcz lacrynicz—Qh, Tom?" "Ah, the spalpeen," said the priest with a deep groan, " didn't he do me out of that money already ? " " How so, father ! " said Jack, scarce able to repress his laughter at the expression of the priest's face. " I was coming down the main street yesterday evening, with Dr. Plunket, the bishop, beside me, discoursing a little theology, and looking as pious and respectable as may be, when that villain Burke came running out of a shop, and pulling out his pocket-book, cried : " ' Wait a bit. Father Tom ; you know I am a little in your debt about the race, and as you're a sporting character, it's only fair to book up at once.' 82 Urish limit anD fbumor "'VV'liat's this I hear, Father Loftus ? ' said the bishop. " ' Oh my lord,' saj^s I, • he's a jocosus puer — a humbuggin' blaguard ; ?i farceur, you reverence, and that's the way he is always cutting his jokes upon the people.' " * And does he not owe you this money ? ' said the bishop, looking mighty hard at us both. " ' Not a farthing of it, my lord.' " ' That's comfortable, anyhow,' says Burke, put- ting up his pocket-book ; ' and faith, my lord,' cried he with a wink, ' I wished I had the loan of you for an hour or two every settling day, for troth, you are a trump,' and with that he went off laughing till ye'd have thought he'd split his sides, and I'm sure I wish he had." [7] Irish Voting in the " Good Old Days " In the "good old days," at a county contest the voters were some thousands in number, and the adverse parties took the field, far less dependent for success upon previous pledge or promise made them, than upon the actual strategem of the day. Each went forth like a general to battle, surrounded by a numerous and well-chosen staff, one party of friends acting as commissariat, attending to the victualling of the voters, that they obtained a due, or rather undue, allowance of liquor, and came properly drunk to the poll ; others again broke into skirmishing parties, and scattered over the country, cut off the enemy's supplies, breaking down their post chaises, upsetting their jaunting cars, stealing their poll-books, and kid- napping their agents. Then there were service peo- ple, bribing the enemy, and enticing them to desert ; and, lastl}--, there was a species of sapper-and-miner force, who invented false documents, denied the identity of the opposite party's people, and when hard pushed, provided persons who took bribes from the enemy, and gave evidence afterwards on a peti- tion. Amid all these encounters of wit and ingenuity, the personal friends of the candidate formed a species of rifle brigade, picking out the enemy's officers, and irrisb limit anD Ibumor 83 doing sore damage to their tactics by shooting a pro- poser or wounding a seconder — a considerable por- tion of every leading agent's fee being intended as compensation for the duels he might, could, would, should or ought to fight during the election. Such, in brief, was a contest in the olden time, and when it is taken into consideration that it usually lasted a fortnight or three weeks, that a considerable military force was always engaged (for our Irish law permits this) and w'hich, when nothing pressing was doing, was regularly assailed by both parties — that far more dependence was place in a bludgeon than a pistol — and that the man who registered a vote with a cracked pate was regarded as a kind of natural phe- nomenon — some faint idea may be formed how much such a scene nmst have contributed to the peace of the county, and the happiness and welfare of all concerned in it. [i] The Humors of the Irish Jehu An Irish car-driver will ascertain, during your prog- ress, where you come from, where you are going, and, very often, what you are about. He has a hundred ways of wiling himself into your confidence, and is sure to put in a word or two upon every available opportunity ; yet in such a manner as to render it impossible for you to subject him to a charge of imper- tinence. Indeed it is a striking peculiarity of the lower classes of the Irish that they can be familiar without presuming ; tender advice without appearing intrusive ; and even command your movements with- out seeming to interfere, in the least, with your own free-will. This quality the car-driver enjoys to per- fection. We engaged one at Clogheen. "Ah, then is it to Cahir ye're going sir? — and it's from Lismore ye're coming, I'll go bail." "You've made a good guess." " Maybe it's to my lord's I'll be driving ye?" " Not so lucky this time." " To Mr. Grubb's did ye say, sir?" " No." "Well, then, it's to Mr. Fennell's yer honor'll be telling me to drive ye." "Yes." "Is it to Mr. Joe Fennell's, or Mr. Jona? Fennell's, or Mr. Fennell's of the cottage?" And 84 irieS limft anD Ibumor then came a long history of all who dwell in or near one of the prettiest and cleanest towns of Ireland ; — "Quakers, your honor, all owing to the Quakers," quoth our driver, as he gave our steed the whip to " go in style " up the long avenue. A few characteristic anecdotes of the genus may amuse our readers. Some one tells a story of a fellow who, on grumbling at the shilling gratuity at his journey's end, said in a sly undertone, " Faith, it's not putting me off with this ye'd be,' if ye knew but all." The traveler's curiosity was excited, " What do you mean?" "Oh faix ! that 'ud be tellin'." Another shilling was tendered. "And now," asked the gentleman, " what do you mean by saying ' if you knew but all' ? " " That I driiv your honor the last three miles without a linch-pin /^^ We had once a touching appeal for the string of our cloak "to tie up a small bit of the harness that was broke into smith- ereens from the weight of the hill." " Will I pay the pike or drive at it, plase yer honor? " was the excla- mation of a driver to his passenger, as he suddenly drew up within a few yards of the turnpike-gate. One of the richest characters of the class, we encountered on the road from Ross to Wexford ; he told us how he got his first situation,—" The master had two beauti- ful English horses, and he wanted a careful man to drive them ; he was a mighty pleasant gintleman, and loved a joke. Well, there was as many as fifteen afther the place, and the first that went up to him, ' Now, my man,' says he, < tell me, saj's he, ' how near to the edge of a precipice would you undertake to drive my carriage?' So the boy considered, and he says, says he, ' Within a foot, plaze your honor, and no harm.' ' Very well,' says he, 'go down, and I'll give ye yer answer by and by.' So the next came up, and said he'd be bound to carry 'em within half a foot ; and the next said five inches ; and another — a dandyfied chap intirely — was so mighty nice, that he would drive it within ' three inches and a half, he'd go bail,' Well, at last my turn came, and when his honor axed me how nigh I would drive his carriage to a precipice, I said, says I, ' Plaze yer honor, I'd keep %xi6b wax anD Dumor 85 as far off it as I could. ^ ' Very well, Misther Byrne,' says he, 'you're my coachman,' says he. Och, the roar there was in the kitchen whin I wint down and told the joke ! " When Mr. V , the assistant Poor Law Commis- sioner, first visited Cork, the coach by which he arrived set him down next door to the Imperial Hotel —his place of destination. Not being aware of this fact, he ordered a car, and gave his direction to the driver. The fellow conducted him round the town, and through various streets and lanes, and after an hour's driving placed him at the hotel entrance, demanding and receiving a sum of five shillings, which his victim considered a reasonable charge. A few minutes afterwards he discovered the trick that had been played upon him. The car-drivers who ply in the street look as if they duly regarded their own ease, and that business was, with them, a secondary consideration. You some- times find them standing on the pavement, their hand- kerchiefs floating negligently round their necks and their long loose coats flapping about their legs— or lounging on the bar or box of their car or jingle, touching their hats with a leering civility— or elevating what serves for a whip if they think a fare is approach- ing ; to see them thus you would imagine them heed- less of their interests ; but ask a question of one touching time or distance, and the whole body start into life and activity. Ah, thin, it isn't he that can /> "Did I not see it a moment since in your hand ;■ 108 Irieb Mit anO Ibumoc " Yes, sir, but that's not nigh the full o' the stable bucket." " Go along, you stupid thief! and get me some hot water directly." " Will the can do, sir ? " "Ay, anything, so you make haste." Off posted Andy, and back he came with the can. " Where' 11 I put it, sir ? " " Throw this out," said the squire, handing Andy a jug containing cold water, meaning the jug to be replenished with the hot. Andy took the jug and, the window being open, he very deliberately threw the jug out. The squire stared with wonder, and at last said : " What did you do that for ? " " Sure, you towld me to throw it out, sir." " Get out of this, you thick-headed villain ! " said the squire, throwing his boots at Andy's head, along with some very neat curses. Andy retreated and thought himself a very ill-used person. [5] 2 . — Soda- Water When soda-water was first introduced into Ireland as a dinner beverage, as the buttler was very busy, Andy had the luck to be the person to whom a gentle- man applied for it. " Sir? " said Andy. " Soda-water," said the guest, in the subdued tone in which people are apt to name their wants at a dinner-table. Andy went to the butler — " Mr. Morgan, there's a gentleman " " Let me alone, will you ? " said Mr. Morgan. Andy manoeuvred round him a little longer, and again essayed to be heard. "Don't you see I'm as busy as I can be? Can't you do it yourself? " " I dinna what he wants." " Well, go and ax him," said Mr. Morgan. Andy went ofif as he was bidden, and came behind the thirsty gentleman's chair, with, " I beg your pardon, sir." Urisb Wit anD Ibumoc 109 "Well ! " said the gentleman. " I beg your pardon, sir ; but what's this you axed me for?" " Soda-water." "What, sir?" "Soda-water; but, perhaps you have not any." " Oh, there's plenty in the house, sir ! Would you like it hot?" The gentleman laughed, and supposing the new fashion was not understood in the present company said, " Never mind." But Andy was too anxious to please to be satisfied, and again applied to Mr. Morgan. " Sir," said he. " Bad luck to you !— can't you let me alone?" " There's a gentleman wants some soap and wather." " Some what? " " Soap and wather, sir." " Devil sweep you !— soda-water you mane; you'll get it under the sideboard." " Is it in the can, sir?" " The curse o' Crum'll on you ! in the bottles." " Is this it, sir?" said Andy, producing a bottle of ale. " No, bad cess to you ! the little bottles." " Is it the little bottles with no bottoms, sir ? " " I wish you wor in the bottom o' the say ! " said Mr. Morgan, who was fuming and puffing, and rubbing down his face with a napkin, as he was hurrying to all quarters of the room, or, as Andy said, in praismg his activity, that he was " like bad luck— everywhere." " There they are," said Mr. ISIorgan, at last. "Oh, them bottles that won't stand," said Andy; " sure, them's what I said, with no bottoms to them. How'll I open it?— it's tied down." " Cut the cords, you fool ! " Andy did as he was desired ; and he happened at that time to hold the bottle of soda-water on the level with the candles that shed light over the festive board from a large silver branch, and the moment he made the incision, bang went the bottle of soda knocking no Urisb mit anD Ibumot out two of the lights with the projected cork, which performing its parabola the length of the room, struck the squire himself in the eye at the foot of the table, while the hostess at the head had a cold bath down her back. Andy, when he saw the soda-water jump- ing out of the bottle, held it from him at arm's length ; every fiz it made, exclaiming, " Ow ! — ow ! — ow i " and at last when the bottle was empty, he roared out, " Oh, Lord ! it's all gone ! " [5] 3 . — Champagne Andy's master having given him the necessary directions for icing the champagne for dinner left him. Andy then commenced operations according to orders. " Well, this is the quarest thing I ever heerd of," sai(f he. " Musha ! what outlandish inventions the quolity has among them ! They are not contint with wine, but they must have ice along with it — and in a tub, too !— just like the pigs !— truth it's a dirty thrick, I think. Well, here goes ! " said he, as he opened a bottle of champagne, and poured it into the tub with the ice. " How it fizzes ! Faix, it's almost as lively as the soda-wather that bothered me long ago. Well, I know more about things now ; sure, it's wonderful how a man improves with practice ! " — and another bottle of champagne was emptied into the tub as he spoke. Thus with several other complacent remarks about his own proficiency, Andy poured half a dozen of champagne into the tub of ice, and remarked when he had finished his work, that he thought it would be " mighty cowld on their stomachs." Soon after dinner was announced his master called for the champagne. Andy began to drag the tub towards the table, and Dick, impatient of delay, again called "champagne." " I'm bringin' it to you, sir," said Andy, tugging at the tub. " Hand it round the table," said Dick. Andy tried to lift the tub, to hand it round the table ; but finding he could not manage it, he whis- pered to Dick, " I can't get it up, sir." Dick, fancying Andy meant he had got a flask not tdeb Mit anD Tbumor ill in a sufficient state of effervescence to expel its own cork, whispered in return, " Draw it, then." " I was dhrawin' it to you, sir, when you stopped me." "Well, make haste with it," said Dick. "Mister Dawson, I'll trouble you for a small slice of the turkey," said the colonel. " With pleasure, colonel, but first do me the honor to take champagne. Andy — champagne ! " " Here it is, sir! " said Andy, who had drawn the tub close to Dick's chair. "Where's the wine, sir?" said Dick, looking first at the tub and then at Andy. "There, sir, ".said Andy, pointing down to the ice, " I put the wine into it, as you towld me." Dick looked again at the tub, and said " There's not a single bottle there — what do you mean, you stupid rascal ? " " To be sure, there's no bottle there, sir. The bot- tles is all on the sideboard, but every dhrop o' the wine is in the ice, as you told me, sir ; if you put your hand down into it, you'll feel it, sir." [5] 4. — Law and Physic Squires Egan and O' Grady had always been friendly until the former heard that the latter had insulted him. Squire Egan only awaited the arrival of his attorney, Murtough Murphy, of Dublin, to exe- cute his vengeance. On his arrival, Squire Egan opened to him his intention of commencing hostile law proceedings against O' Grady, who was heavily in his debt. The attorney, although willing to obey his client, was not enthusiastic, and pointed out that O' Grady was too clever at evading the process-server to make that worthy's task either easy or congenial. The irate squire answered : " Let me alone for that ! I'll be bound I'll find fellows to get the inside of him." " Why, his house is barricaded like a jail, and he I'.as dogs enough to bait all the bulls in the country." " No matter, just send me the ?5lister for him, and I'll engage I'll stick it on him." 112 Urisb Wit anD tbumot " Very welf, squire, you shall have the blister as soon as it can be got ready. I'll tell you when you may send over to me for it, and your messenger shall have it hot and warm for him. Good-bye, squire." Andy was sent over to Murtough Murphy's for the law-process at the appointed time ; and as he had to pass through the village, Mrs. Egan desired him to call at the apothecary's for some medicine that was prescribed for one of the children. " What' 11 I ax for, ma'am ? " " I'd be sorry to trust you, Andy, for remembering. Here's the prescription — take care of it, and Mr. M'Garry will give you something to bring back ; and mind, if it's a powder " " Is is gunpowder, ma'am ? " "No — you stupid — will you listen? I say, if it's a powder, don't let it get wet as you did the sugar the other day. ' ' " No, ma'am." "And if it's a bottle don't break it, as you did the last." " No, ma'am." "And make haste." " Yis, ma'am " , and off went Andy In going through the village, he forgot to leave the prescription at the apothecary's and pushed on for the attorney's; there he saw Murtough Murphy, who handed him the law-process, inclosed in a cover, with a note to the squire. " Have you been doing anything clever lately, Andy ?" said Murtough. " I don't know, sir," said Andy. " Did you shoot anyone with soda-water smce I saw you last? " Andy grinned. " Did you kill any more dogs lately, Andy ? " " Faix, you're too hard on me, sir , sure I never killed but one dog, and that was an accident " "An accident! — curse your mijiudence, you thief! Do you think, if you killed one o' the pack on p'lr- pose, we wouldn't cut the very heart out of you with our hunting whips ? " Hrfsb limit anD Ibumor 113 " Faith, I wouldn't doubt you, sir ; but, sure, how could I help that divil of a mare runnin' away wid me, and thramplin' the dog ? " "Why didn't you hold her, you thief?" " Hould her, indeed ! — you just might as well expect to stop fire among flax as that one." "Well, be off with a'ou now, Andy, and take care of what I give you for the squire." " Oh, never fear, sir," said Andy, as he turned his horse's head homewards. He stopped at the apothe- cary's in the village, to execute his commission for the " misthis." On telling the son of Galen that he wanted some physic " for one o' the childre up at the big house" the dispenser of the healing art asked what physic is wanted. " Faith, I dunna what physic." " What's the matter with the child ? • " He's sick, sir." " I suppose so, indeeed, or )'ou wouldn't be sent for medicine; you're always making some blunder. You come here, and don't know what description of medicine is wanted " ** Don't I ? " said Andy with a great air. " No, you don't, you omadhaun ! "' said the apothe- cary. Andy fumbled in his pockets, and could not lay hold of the paper his mistress entrusted him with, until he had emptied them thoroughly of their contents upon the counter of the shop ; and then, taking the prescription from the collection, he said, " So you tell me I don't know the description of the physic I'm to get. Now, you see, you're out ; for thaf s the descrip- tion .-"' and he slapped the counter mipressively with his hand as he threw down the recipe before the apothecary. While the medicine was in course of preparation for Andy, he commenced restoring to his pockets the various parcels he had taken from them in hunting for the recipe. Now, it happened that he had laid them down close beside some articles that were com- pounded, and sealed up for going out, on the apothe- cary's counter; and as the law-process which Andy 8 114 "ffrisd Mit anO Ibumor had received from Murtough Murphy chanced to resemble another enclosure that lay beside it, con- taining a blister, Andy, under the influence of his peculiar genius, popped the blister into his pocket, instead of the package which had been confided to him by the attorney, and having obtained the neces- sary medicine from M'Garry, rode home with great self complacency that he had not forgot to do a single thing that had been entrusted to him. " I'm all right this time," said Andy to himself. Scarcely had he left the apothecary's when another messenger alighted at his door, and asked " If Squire O' Grady's things was ready ? ^ ' " There they are," said the innocent M'Garry, point- ing to the bottles, boxes, and blister, he had made up and set aside, little dreaming that the blister had been exchanged for a law process ; and Squire O' Grady's own messenger popped into his pocket the legal instrument that it was as much as any seven men's lives were worth to bring within gunshot of O' Grady's residence. The result of this curious mistake was that O' Grady was served with the process most easily, by his own nurse, whom he threatened to kill, as an accomplice of Egan's; and Egan fought a duel with his attorney, whom he suspected of trifling with him, because he had sent him, separate from the process, a note in which he had said : " Dear Squire — I send you the * blister,^ as you insist upon it," etc. — little dreaming that Andy's genius would supply a literal accompani< ment and explanation to his note. [5] Earl Desmond's Answer There is a story in mediaeval history (of which Maclise has made a striking picture) that when an Earl of Desmond fell wounded into the hands of his hereditary enemies (the Butlers of Ormond), his cap- tors, as they carried him on their shoulders from the battlefield, demanded triumphantly, "Where's Des- mond now?" and the stout old earl replied that he was where a Desmond ought to be— on the neck of the Butler. [10] ITrisb "Mit an& Ibumor lis Dying, in Order to Escape Justice Early in the nineteenth century, on the announce- ment of a dissolution of Parliament, its interest in certain Dublin circles was manifestly increased by the fact that a certain M. P. was at last open to arrest. It was with pretty much the same feeling as a storming party experiences on the day that a breach is reported as practicable, that the honest attorneys retained in the various suits against him rallied round each other that morning in the Four Courts. Bonds, mortgages, post-obits, promissory notes — in fact, every imaginable species of invention for raising his exchequer for the past thirty years were handed about on all sides. But as the whole family estate was not equal to paying a quarter of his debts, the only question was — who was to be lucky enough to carve the joint, when so many were hungry and likely to remain so. It was, therefore, a matter of the first importance among the attorneys who should be the first to pounce on the victim, and every feasible expedient for securing him was resorted to. Writs were struck against him in Dublin, emissaries were dis- patched to the various surrounding counties, to pro- cure other writs, in the event of his escape. A^e exeats were sworn, and water bailiffs engaged to fol- low him on the high seas, and so impossible did escape seem that bets were freely made that the late M. P. would be in Newgate within twenty-four hours. Meanwhile the M. P. and his friends were planning to outwit the men of law, and to re-contest and re-occupy the seat. After much cogitation it was arranged that the man who was so much wanted was io die, but that he was to rise again on the polling day. The following letter was written to his nephew and heir, and discloses the plan, which proved suc- cessful : " Dear Charlie : Your uncle Godfrey, whose debts (God pardon him) are more numerous than the hairs of his wig, was obliged to die here last night. We did the thing for him completely ; and all doubts of the reality of the event are silenced by the circum- 116 Urisb "Oatt and Ibumoc stantiql details of the newspaper ' that he was confined six weeks to his bed, from a cold he caught ten days ago while on guard.' Repeat this, for it is better that we had all the same story till he come to life again, which, maybe, will not take place till Tuesday or Wednesday. At the same time canvass the county for him, and say he'll be with his friends next week, and up in Woodford and the Scariff barony ; say he died a true Catholic ; it will serve him on the hustings. Meet us in Athlone on Saturday, and bring your uncle's mare with you — he would rather ride home ; and tell Father IMacShane to have a bit of dinner ready about 4 o'clock, for the corpse will have nothing after he leaves Mountmellick. No more now, from yours, ever, Harry Boyle." The success of the exploit was two-fold ; the news spread far and wide, and the very story canvassed the county better than the best election agent could have done, and secured more votes than the most elo- quent speeches, [i] Saying Rather More than He Meant At a meeting of the Irish Zoological Society some years ago, when a subscription among the members was on foot. Dr. suggested that Archbishop Whately's name ought to be put down for at least ^50. " He has not got it," interposed Sir Philip Crampton ; " no one knows him better than I do ; he gives away every farthing of his income ; and so privately is it bestowed that the i-ecipients themselves are the only witnesses of his bounty." The " Christian" Pipe An Irish peasant passing the hut of a widow and her niece calls in to get a light for his pipe, which he said went out with fright. " W'ell, I've heerd of quare things, Larry Hogan," said Oonah, laughing and showing her white teeth ; " but I never heerd so quare a thing as a pipe goin' out with fright." "Oh, how sharp you are! takin' one up afore they're down." " Not afore they're down, Larry ; for you said it." Ici6b limit anD Ibumoc 117 " Well, if I was down, you were down on me ; so you are down, too, you see. Ha, ha ! and afther all now, Oonah, a pipe is like a Christian in many ways ; sure, it's made o' clay like a Christian, and has the spark o' life in it, and while the breath is in it the spark is alive ; but when the breath is out of it the spark dies, and then it grows cowld like a Christian ; and isn't it a pleasant companion like a Christian? " " Faix, some Christians isn't pleasant companions at all," chimed in Mrs. Rooney sententiously. " Well, but they ought to be," said Larry; "and isn't a pipe sometimes cracked like a Christian, and isn't it sometimes choked like a Christian ? " " Oh, choke you and your pipe, together, Larry ! will you never have done ! " said the widow. " The most improvinist thing in the world is smokin'," said Larry, who had now relit his pipe and squatted himself on a three-legged stool beside the widow's fire. " The most improvinist thing in the world" — (paugh!) — and a parenthetical whiff of tobacco smoke curled out of the corner of Larry's mouth — " is smokin' ; for the smoke shows you as it were the lifeof a manpassingawaylikea puff — (paugh !) — just like that ; and the tibakky turns to ashes like his poor perishable body ; for, as the song says : " ' Tibakky is an Indian weed. Alive at morn and dead at eve ; It lives but an hour. Is cut down like a flower, — Think o' this when you're smokin' tiba-akky. " ' A pipe it larns us all this thing — 'Tis fair without and foul within. Just like a sowl begrim'd with sin — Think o' this when you're smokin' tiba-akky.' The Influence of Beauty A lawyer and his client were talking together one evening when the door was opened by a great hulk- ing fellow, with bristling hair, staring eyes, high cheek-bones, snub nose, and a great mouth with a voice to match, who enacted the part of waiter ; and the aforesaid, protruding his head, and nothing more il8 irisb Mit anD Ibumor into the room, said as loudly and as rapidly, and with as great brogue as it could be said, " If you plaze, sir '^ " What do you want, sir." " If you plaze. sir, there's wan a wantin' you." "Who is it?" " Three women, sir." " And are three women one ? " said the lawyer, smiling. " Only wan a.v'd for you, sir," answered the waiter, grinning, ready with his answer. " And couldn't you say so ? " " By dad, sir, it was the owld one o' the three ax'd for you ; and th' other two is mighty pretty, and so I thought they would be a great help ; and that's the rayson." Witty Even Though Drunk ! Bushe, the Irish Solicitor-General, although attached to the Tory party, was supposed to entertain too lib- eral opinions on the Roman Catholic question. Dining one day with the Duke of Richmond, he did not seem ready to respond to the charter toast. "Come, come," vociferated his grace, "do justice, Mr. Solicitor, to the immortal memory." He did it such ample and such repeated justice, that at last he tumbled from his chair. The duke immediately raised him. " Well " hiccupped Bushe, " that is indeed retribution. Attached to the Catholics, you may think me to be ; but at all events, I nevei assisted at the elevation of the Host:' Truth in Parenthesis I love — oh ! more than words can tell ; (Your ninety thousand golden shiners) ; You draw me by a nameless spell ; (As California draws the miners) ; You are so rich in beauty's dower (And rich in several ways beside it), Had I your hand within my power (Across a banker's draft to guide it), No cares my future life could dim. (My tailor, too— what joy to him !) Hrlsb Tidft anO Ibumor 119 Oh ! should 3'ou change your name for mine (I've given my name — on bills — to twenty), Existence were a dream divine ; (At least so long as cash was plenty) ; Our home should be a sylvan grot (Bath, billiard, smoking-room, and larder), And there, forgetting and forgot, (My present need, I'd live the harder), Our days should pass in fresh delights. (Lethargic days, but roaring nights). Oh, sa)^ my young, m}^ fawn-like girl (She's old enough to be my mother). Let " Yes " o'erleap those gates of pearl ; (My laughter it is hard to smother); Let lips that Love had formed for joy (For joy if they her purse resign me) Long hesitate ere they destroy • (And to a debtor's jail consign me.) The heart that beats but to adore. (Yourself the less, your fortune more.) Consent — consent, my priceless love, (Her price precise is ninety thousand), I swear by all around, above, (Her purse-strings now, I feel are loosened), I have not loved you for your wealth. (Nor loved at all, as I'm a sinner) ; Oh, bliss ! you yield ! one kiss by stealth ! (I'm sick — that kiss has spoiled my dinner). Now early name the blissful day. (My duns grow clamorous for their pay). [12] A Clever Witness Larry Finnegan, a witness in the trial of Rory O'More on a false charge of murder, who had been examined and cross-examined, and then attempted to descend from the table, was interrupted by the counsel for the prosecution ; and the look of despair on the countenance of mine host of the " Black Bull " (Larry) was ludicrous. " Is is moi-e you want o' me ! " said he. Counsel: " A few questions. Sit down." 120 irisb TDGlit anD fbumor Larry scratched his head, and squeezed his hat a little harder than he did before, and resumed his seat in bitterness of spirit ; but his answers having all gone smooth, he felt more self-possessed than he had done under his previous examination by the prosecu- ting counsel, and his native shrewdness was less under the control of the novel situation in which he was placed. The bullying barrister, as soon as the witness was seated, began in a thundering tone thus : Counsel : " Now, my fine fellow, you say that it was for the particular purpose of asking for his crow- bar that the prisoner went to your house ? " Witness / " I do." Counsel: " By virtue of your oath ! " Witness : " By the varth o' my oath." Counsel {slapping- the table fiercely with his hand) : " Now, sir, how do you know he came for that purpose? Answer me that, sir." Witness: "Faith, thin, I'll tell you. When he came into the place that morning, it was the first thing he ax'd for ; and by the same token, the way I remember it is, that when he ax'd for the crow-bar he lint me, some one stan'in' by ax'd what I could want with a crow-bar; and Rory O'More with that said, it wasn't me at all, but the misthress wanted it (Mrs. Finnegan, I mane). 'And what would Mrs. Finnegan want wad it?' says the man. ' Why,' says Rory, ' she makes the punch so sthrong that she bent the spoons sthrivin' to stir it, and so she borrowed the crow-bar to mix the punch.' " A laugh followed this answer, and even Rory could not help smiling at his own joke thus retailed ; but his mother, and Mary (his sister), and Kathleen (his sweetheart), looked round the court, and turned their pale faces in wonder on those who could laugh while the life of him they adored was at stake, and the sound of mirth at such a moment fell more gratingly on their ears than the fierce manner of the bullying prosecutor. But the witness was encouraged, for he saw his examiner annoyed, and he took a hint from the Urisb mn anD Ibumor 121 result, and lay in wait for another opportunity of turning the laugh against his tormentor. He was not long in getting such an opening ; and the more he was examined in hope of shaking his testimony, the less the prosecutor gained by it. At length the counsel received a whisper from Sweeny (the prosecuting attorney), that the fellow was drunk. " He has his wits most d — nably about him for all that," said the lawyer. " He has been drinking all the morning — I can prove it," said Sweeny; "and you may upset his testimony, if you like, on that score." " I'll have a touch at him, then," said the lawyer. When the jury perceived the same witness still kept on the table, and a re-examination for the prose- cution entered upon, they became wearied, and indeed no wonder ; for the silk-gowned gentleman became excessively dull ; and, had he possessed any tact, must have perceived from the demeanor of the jury that his present course of proceeding was ill- timed ; yet he continued, and in violation of all custom sought to invalidate the testimony of the man he himself had called as a witness ; but Larry's cross- examination having favored the prisoner, the crown counsel became incensed, and abandoned all ceremony and discretion, which at length was noticed by the Bench. " I beg your pardon, my lord, but I am anxious to sifi this witness." " By gor ! " said Finnegan, " if you were to sift me from this till tomorrow, the devil a grain more you'll get out o' me ! — and, indeed, you've been gettin nothin' but chaff for the last half-hour." The answer had so much truth in it, that the counsel became doubly annoyed at the suppressed laugh he heard around him ; and then he determined to bring up his heavy artillery and knock Larry to atoms. Counsel: "Now, sir, I've just a question or two that you'll answer by virtue of your oath." The Bench: " Really, Mr. " Counsel: " I beg your lordship's pardon— but it is 122 Hdab limit atiD Ibumor absolutely important. Now, by virtue of your oath, haven't you been drinking this morning? " Wilness : " To be sure I have." Counsel : " How much did you drink ? " Witness: "Faith, I don't know; I never troubled myself keepin' 'count, barrin' I'm sarvin' the cus- tomers at home.'' Counsel: "You took a glass of whiskey before breakfast, of course? " Witness : " And glad to get it." Counsel: " And another after ? " Witness : " Av coorse — when it was to be had." Counsel: "When you came into the town, you went to a public house, I hear, and were drinking there, too, before you came into court?" Witness : "Oh, just a trifle among some friends." Counsel : What do you call a trifle?" Witfiess : "Four pots o' porther and a quart o' sper'ts." Counsel : " Good heavens ! Gentlemen of the jury, listen to this — a gallon of porter and a quart of whiskey ! " Witness : " Oh, but that was betune six iv uz ! " Counsel: "Then, sir, by your own account you're drunk at this moment?" Witness : " Not a bit." Counsel: "On your oath— remember your oath, sir — do you think, after drinking all you yourself have owned to, you are in a state to give evidence in a court of justice? " Witness : " Faith, I think a few glasses only helps to brighten a man ; and betune ourselves, counsellor, I think you'd be a great dale the better of a glass yourself \.\\\s minit." The laugh which this rejoinder produced finished "the counsellor," and he sat down without roaring, as usual, at the witness, " Go down, sir." But Larry kept his seat until the laugh was over ; and not receiving the ordinary mandate to retire, he looked at the discomfited barrister with the most provoking affection of humility, and said : " Do you want me any more, sir ? " Hrfsb mtt anD Ibumor 123 This renewed the laugh, and Finnegan retired from the table under the shadow of his laurels. [4] Irish " Divarshin " Those who remember Ireland not very long ago, can bear witness how lightly life was valued, or death regarded. Illustrative of this, one may refer to the story of two basket-women in Dublin, who held gentle converse on the subject of an approaching execution. "Won't you go see de man die to-morrow, Judy ? " "Oh, no, darlin','' said Judy. [By-the-bye, Judy pronounced the n through her nose, and said "do."] "Ah, do, jewel," said her friend. Judy again responded, " Do." "And why won't you go, dear?" inquired her friend again. " I've to wash de child," said Judy. "Sure, didn't j'ou wash it last week?" said her friend in an expostulatory tone. " Oh, well, I won' t go," said Judy. " Troth, Judy, you're ruinin' your health," said this soft-hearted acquaintance ; " dere's a man to die to-morrow, and you won't come — augh ! — you rfever take do divarshin." Paddy and His Savings A land-agent writes : I should scarcely be credited were I to tell of the large sums of money which, from time to time, I was earnestly besought to take care of, and the strange secrets of which I Avas made the depository. I remember on one occasion remonstrating with an apparently pauper peasant, who, expecting "that the big war would soon begin," entreated me to receive from him a sum of ;^20o in sovereigns, in order that it might be safely kept. He asked no interest for it ; he did not even require a written acknowledgment of its receipt ; all he wanted was that I would take it and keep it for him, " It would make my mind asy," he said, " if once I knew it was safe in your honor's hands." "But," replied I, " you know well the Ribbonmen lt^4 Urisb Mit anO Ibumor have sworn to shoot me, and perhaps if I were down, your money would not be so easily forthcoming." " Oh, great luck to your honor," replied the man, " I have no fear of that. I always said you would bate them blackguards yet ; never fear, but the luck will stick to you still, and ye' 11 get the better of them in the end, with all their devil's devices ; but sure if you were down itself, wouldn't the money be safe enough in the office, and I'd have it as big as ever when I wanted it." " Why not put it in the bank ? " I asked ; " it would surely be much safer there ; and, besides, they would give you interest for its use." " Troth, and that's the very thing I'm afraid of! " replied this accomplished financier ; " it's spe)iding it themselves they'd be, or maybe lending it to someone else, and then it wouldn't be asy to come at when I'd want it most. Just lock it up yourself in the office safe, and there's no place I'd be so sure of coming at it all right again." The importance of obtaining the identical sovereigns back again which he was now anxious I should receive, appeared to take a strong hold upon his mind, [ii] The Furlough I was standing one morning at the window of "mine inn," when my attention was attracted by a scene that took place beneath. The Belfast coach was standing at the door, and on the roof, in front, sat a solitary passenger, a fine young fellow in the uniform of the Connaught rangers. Below, by the front wheel, stood an old woman, seemingly his mother, a young man, and a younger woman, sister or sweetheart ; and they were all earnestly entreating the young soldier to descend from his seat on the coach. " Come down wid ye, Thady," — the speaker was the old woman. " Come down now to your ould mother. Sure, it's flog ye they will, and strip the flesh off the bones I giv ye. Come down, Thady, darlin' ! " "It's honor, mother," was the short reply of the soldier ; and with clenched hands and set teeth, he took a stiffer posture on the coach. Urisb mil anD Ibumor 125 " Thady, come down, come down, ye fool of the world, come along down wid ye ! " The tone of the present appeal was more impatient and peremptory than the last ; and the answer was more promptly and sternly pronounced — " It's honor, brother ! " and the body of the speaker rose more rigidly erect than ever on the roof. " O, Thady, come down ! sure, it's me, your own Kathleen, that bids ye. Come down, or ye'U break the heart of me, Thady, jewel ; come down, then ! " The poor girl wrung her hands as she said it, and cast a look upward, that had a visible effect on the muscles of the soldier's countenance. There was more tenderness in his tone, but it conveyed the same resolution as before — " It's honor, honor bright, Kathleen ! " and, as if to defend himself from another glance, he fixed his look steadfastly in front, while the renewed entreaties burst forth from all three in chorus with the same answer. " Come down, Thady, honey ! " " Thady, ye fool, come down ! " " O, Thady, come down to me ! " " It's honor, mother I It's honor, brother ! Honor bright, my own Kathleen ! " Although the poor fellow was a private, this appeal was so public that I did not hesitate to go down and inquire into the particulars of the distress. It appeared that he had been home, on furlough, to visit his family, and having exceeded, as he thought, the term of his leave, he was going to rejoin his regiment, and to undergo the penalty of his neglect. I asked him when the furlough expired. " The first of March, your honor ; bad luck to it of all the black days in the world ; and here it is, come sudden on me like a shot." "The first of March? why, my good fellow, you have a day to spare then ; the first of March will not be here until to-morrow. It is leap-year, and Febru- ary has twenty-nine days." The soldier was thunderstruck. " Twenty-nine days is it? You're sure of that same ! Oh, mother, mother ! the divil fly away wid ye'r ould almanack; a base cratur of a book, to be deceavin' one afther living so lang in a family of us ! " 126 ITrisb TlXIlit anD Ibumor His first impulse was to cut a caper on the roof of the coach and throw up his cap, with a loud hurrah ! his second was to throw himself into the arms of Kathleen ; and the third was to wring my hand off in acknowledgment. " It's a happy man I am, your honor, for my word's saved, and all by your honor's manes. Long life to your honor for the same ! May ye live a long hundred and lape years every one of them." [13] Applying •' By Mail ! " An Irishman went into a Chicago store and, sa5'^s he : " Faith, an' did you put in the papers you wanted a man ?" "Yes," said the storekeeper, "and I distinctly stated that all applications must be made by mail." " An' faith, an' it's meself that's a male, sure," says Pat, and he was hired. " Only a Lodger ! " An honest Hibernian, being in bed in a great storm and told that the house would tumble over his head, made answer : " What care I for the house ; I am only a lodger." Paddy and the Hotel Lift The Irishman who went up in the hotel lift without knowing what it was, did not easily recover from the surprise. He relates the story in this way : " I wint to the hotel, and, says I : 'Is Misther Smith in ? ' " ' Yes,' says the man with the sojer cap : ' Will yez step in ? ' " So I steps into the closet, and all of a suddint he pulls the rope, and— it's the truth I'se telling yez— the walls of the building began runnin' down to the cellar. " ' Och, murther ! ' says I, ' what' 11 become of Brid- get and the childre which was left below there?' " Says the sojer-cap man : ' Be aisy, sorr ; they'll be all right, when yez come down.' " ' Come down, is it? ' says I. ' And it is no closet at all, but a haythenish balloon that yez got me in ! ' f ci6b mil anD Ibumot 127 " And wid that the walls stood stock still, and he opened the door, and there I was in the roof just over my head ! And, begorra, that's what saved me from goin' up to the hivins intirely I " A Witty Waiter A gentleman who frequently visited Ireland, and generally stopped and dined at the same hotel in Dublin, on his arrival one day, perceived a paper wafered on the looking-glass in the coffee-room with the following written notice : " Strangers are particu- larly requested not to give any money to the waiters, as attention is charged for in the bill." The man who had waited on him at dinner, seeing him reading this notice, said : " Oh, Mister — sure that don't concern you in any waj'. Your honor was never made a stranger of in this house." Anything for a Sleep ! An old Irishman occupied the barber's chair the other day and he was drowsy. His eyes could not be kept open, and his head tumbled about and dropped over upon his shoulder and down upon his breast in a way that made shaving a difficult operation for the knight of the lather, and a dangerous one for the patient. Finally the barber said gently but firmly, " Look a here, sir ; I can't possibly shave you unless you hold your head up." To which the response was made with drowsy indifference : " Coot my hair thin." A Long Prayer Very innocently an Irish newspaper thus concludes its account of an imposing ceremony : " The proces- sion was very fine, being nearly two miles long, as was also the prayer of the Rev. Mr. M'Fadden." The Biggest Lie He Ever Told "Here, you bog-trotter," said a half dandy to an Irish laborer, " come and tell me the biggest lie you ever told in your life, and I'll treat you to a whiskey punch." "An' by my sowl, yer honor's a gentleman!" retorted Pat, 128 ircisb ma mt> Ibumoc Irish Endurance There is not a people on the face of the earth who possess a more elastic temperament than the Irish ; no circumstances, however adverse, can subdue their cheerfulness ; no fatigue break it down ; and even hunger, which, as the proverb says, "breaks through stone walls," even that potent agent cannot conquer an Irishman's habitual hilarity. There is certainly no people in Europe, and perhaps, not in the world, so ill provided with the comforts, it might almost be said, the necessaries of life, as the humbler classes of the Irish ; and it is a fact they may be proud of, that they do not repine at the want of such bodily enjoy- ments as their neighboring countrymen are in the possession of. A peasant once spoken to on the sub- ject, answered in a proverb — " Sure," said he, " ' what the eye never sees the heart never grieves for,' and, sure, we never see anything from year's end to year's end but the praties, and well off we are when when we have the butthermilk along with them ; and though we know that there's more cattle and pigs and sheep sent out o' the country than id feed nine times over what's in it ; yet, as none of uz can afford it, why one isn't better off than another, and so as I said afore, ' what the eye never sees the heart never grieves for,' and we're used to the hard living." Two Meals a Day An Irishman traveling through Scotland outside the stage coach, seemed surprised at seeing large posting bills stuck up on every prominent wall, pier, and gable, stating the dreadful hardships the lower orders were suffering, and appealing to the humanity of the public for their relief. The coach offices and turnpike gates were studded with these appeals to the charitable, in hopes of inducing travelers to con- tribute ; and at one of these places the Irishman had time to read over the contents of this petition. It stated, amongst other grievances, that such was the uncommon distress of the poor, that they were abso- lutely reduced, in some instances, to Iwo meals a day ! Ilclsb mit auD Ibumoi: 129 ''Two males a day!" said the Irishman aloud, " faith, an' myself often seen them in Ireland, with only one male a day ; and they never put it in prent as a curiosity. Two males a day ! — faix, an' its many a strappin' fellow is workin' on that same in poor Ireland. Arrah then, sir, do ye see that ?" said he, turning to a fellow passenger, " throth, then it's long till they'd put sich a postscript at the beginnin' of a famine in Ireland ; but it's a folly to talk of comparin' with us at all— augh, sure, there is none of them can stand the starvation with uz ! " Paddy, the Yankee, and the Turtle In New York a man was carrying a live turtle along the street, when by came an Irishman followed by a large dog. The countryman tried by gentle words to get the son of the Emerald Isle to put his finger into the turtle's mouth, but he was too smart for that. " But," says Pat, " I'll put my dog's tail in, and see what the baste will do." He immediately called up his dog, took its tail in his hand, and stuck it in the turtle's mouth. He had scarcely got it in when Mr. Turtle shut down on the poor dog's tail, and off the latter started at railroad speed, pulling the turtle after him at a more rapid rate than ever it had traveled before. The -country- man, thinking that his day's work would be thrown away if the animal should run at that rate, turned with a savage look upon the Irishman, and exclaimed : " Call back your dog ! " Paddy put his hands into his pockets, threw his head to one side, winked, and then answered, with a pro- voking sang froid : " Call back your fish ! " What Ignorance Nearly Made of Paddy An artisan who has long been, and still is employed upon the Bath estate, applied to be accepted as a tenant to a nice little farm which had recently become vacant, and was well circumstanced, and suited to its pur- pose. As he had long been in the employment, I con- sented to accept him as tenant, though I well knew he 9 130 Urisb IKait anD Ibumor had been one of those who had formerly conspired against my life. We had made it up, however, long since, and had been good friends for some twelve or fourteen years. I had directed the man to come to my private residence to make arrangements about the farm ; and when all was settled, as I passed out of the house, I heard my daughter playing on her harp in the drawing-room. " Would you like to come in and hear the young lady play? " I asked. " Bedad, I would, your honor, if it wouldn't be makin' too bold," replied the man. I took him into the drawing-room at once, and having requested my daughter to play a few airs on the harp, which I thought would please him — such as, "Patrick's Day," and " Garryowan " — the man was leaving the room in high delight at the music and the compliment thus paid him, when I said suddenly to my daughter : " Do you know who this man is ? " " No," she replied, " I don't recollect having ever seen him before." " This is ," said I, giving the man's name in full ; " and you will be surprised when I tell you that this is one of the old conspirators against my life, when the times were disturbed some few years ago." My daughter looked with mingled wonder at us both, scarcely believing that I spoke in earnest, as she saw a half-smile upon my face. "It is true, I assure you," I replied, in answer to her incredulous look. "Well, indeed, now," urged the man, appealing to my daughter, " what his honor says is all true enough ; but, sure, he knows well I wasn't as bad as others ; and, anyway, there is not a man on the estate would be less willing to see a hair of his head touched now; but, sure, none of us knew him then." I could not help laughing outright at the curi- ous innocence of the man's confession, so I only replied — " Well, if you were a bad boy then, I hope you will be a good boy now ; and as you escaped hanging then Urtsb TlClit anD Ibumor 131 I'm not going to remember it now. Perhaps you thought I didn't know of your proceedings, but I have been aware of them these past twelve years. I believe you are a changed man, so you shall have the little farm." The man bowed and retired, and is now in pos- session of the holding, [ii] Thieving Which Didn't Pay- Some Dublin men keeping watch over a coffin in a barn, pass the time by telling the following tales of crime. " Now women are troublesome cattle to deal with mostly. They are remarkably cute first, and then they are spiteful afterwards ; and for circumventin' either way are share hands. You see they do it quieter than men ; a man will make a noise about it, but a woman will do it on the sly. There was Bill Morgan — and a sharp fellow he was, too — and he had set his heart on some silver spoons he used to see down in a kitchen windy, but the servant-maid, some- how or other, suspected there was designs about the place, and was on the watch. Well, one night, when she was all alone, she heard a noise outside the windy, so she kept as quiet as a mouse. By and by the sash was attempted to be riz from the outside, so she laid hold of a kittle of boiling wather and stood hid behind the shutter. The windy was now riz a little, and a hand and arm thrust in to throw up the sash altogether, when the girl poured the boiling wather down the sleeve of Bill's coat. Bill roared with the pain, when the girl said to him, laughing, through the windy, ' I thought you came for something.' " " That was a cute girl," said Larry, chuckling. " Well, now, that's an instance of a woman's clever- ness in preventing. I'll teach you one of her deter- mination to discover and prosecute to conviction ; and in this case what makes it curious is, that Jack Tate had done the bowldest thing, and run the greatest of risks, 'the eminent deadly,' as the poet says, when he was done up at last by a feather-bed." *' A feather-bed ! " repeated Larry, wondering how 132 Urisb 'CClit anD Dumor a feather-bed could influence the fate of a bold burglar, while Goggins mistook his exclamation of surprise to signify the paltriness of the prize, and, therefore, chimed in with him. " Quite true — no wonder you wonder — quite below a man of his pluck ; but the fact was, a sweetheart of his wus longmg for a feather-bed, and Jack deter- mined to get it. Well, he marched into the house, the door of which he found open, and went upstairs, and took the best feather-bed in the house, tied it up in the quilt, crammed some caps and ribbons he saw lying about into the bundle, and marched downstairs again ; but you see, in carrying off even the small thing of a feather-bed, Jack showed the skill of a high practi- tioner, for he descendhered the stairs backwards." " Backwards ! " said Larry ; " What was that for ? " " You'll see by and by," said Goggins ; " he descend- hered, backwards, when suddenly he heard a door opening, and a faymale voice exclaim, ' Where are you going with that bed ? ' "'I'm going upstairs with it, ma'am,' says Jack, whose backward position favored his lie, and he began to walk up again. "'Come down here,' said the lady, 'we want no beds here, man.' " ' Mr. Sullivan, ma'am, sent me home with it him- self, ma'am,' said Jack, still mounting the stairs. *' ' Come down here, I tell you,' said the lady, in a great rage. ' There's no Mr. Sullivan lives here — go out of this with your bed, you stupid fellow.' " ' I beg your pardon, ma'am,' says Jack, turning round, and marching off with the bed fair and aisy. Well, there was a regular shillo in the house when the thing was found out, and cart-ropes wouldn't howld the lady for the rage she was in at being diddled , so she offered rewards and the dickens knows all ; and what do you think at last discovered our poor Jack? " " The sweetheart, may be," said Larry, grinning in ecstasy at the thought of human perfidy. " No," said Goggins, " honor even among sweet- hearts, though they do the trick sometimes, I confess ; Urieb Mlt anD Ibumor 133 but no woman of any honor would betray a great man like Jack. No — 'twas one of the pakry ribbons that brought conviction home to him ; the woman never lost sight of hunting up evidence about her feather- bed, and, in the end, a ribbon of one of her caps settled the hash of Jack Tate." [5] Why Biddy Thought Her Dying Husband Insane An Irishman over the age of four score and ten, who by strict economy had accumulated a moderate fortune, and was about to die, called in the parish priest and the family lawyer to make his last will and testament. The wife, a grasping covetous old party, was also in the room. The preliminaries of the will having been concluded, it became necessary to inquire about the debts owing to the estate. Among these were several of importance of which the old lady had been in ignorance, but was neverthe- less pleased to find that so much ready money would be forthcoming after the funeral. " Now, then," said the lawyer, "state explicitly the amount owed you by your friends." " Timothy Brown," replied the old man "owes me fifty pounds ; John Casey owes me thiry-seven pounds ; and " " Good — good ! " ejaculated the prospective widow ; " Rational to the last ! " " Luke Bowen owes me forty pounds," resumed the old man. " Rational to the last ! " put in the eager old lady, again. " To Michael Liflfey I owe two hundred pounds." " Ah," exclaimed the old woman, " hear him rave ! " Hydrophobia and Popery A peasant taking supper in the kitchen of the squire, begins to talk about dogs, and entertaining the cook with a short lecture, says : " No one can dhrink afther a dog bites them, and that's the rayson that the larn'd fackleties calls the disaise high-dhry — " 134 Uriab Wit anD Ibumot " High-dhry what?" asked the cook. " That's what I'm thinking of," said Larry, " High- dhry — high-dhry-something." " There's high-dhry snuff," said the cook. " Oh, no — no, no, ma'am ! " said Larry waving his hand and shaking his head, as if unwilling to be interrupted in endeavoring to recall ' some fleeting remembrance' ; " high-dhry po—po— something about po ; faith, it's not unlike Popery," said Larry. " Don't say Popery," said the cook ; " it's a dirty word ! Say Roman Catholic when you spake of the faith." [5] ♦• Chateing the Public ! " In May 1868, I was riding with two young friends over one of the most distant portions of the Bath Estate. My business led me to visit a man's farm which he complained was too highly rented. Having examined the land, I was passing out of the last field, when another odd-looking man, unshaven and ragged, came up to me, and told me that his rent needed reduction as much as his neighbor's. I replied that he had made no formal application to that effect, and that I could not, therefore, at present entertain his case. "Well, your honor," said the man, "I wouldn't trouble you, only I wouldn't like to see this chap's rent reduced and I not get the same favor." " But he does not ask it as a favor," I answered ; " he says his land is too highly rented, and he wants me to examine it myself. I have formed my opinion on that matter, and he shall know it when he comes to the office next Thursday." " Don't mind a word that blackguard says, your honor," returned the ragged man; " he's the biggest villain in the country, and it's well he knows it's too cheap he has the land entirely ! " It may well be supposed that such an onslaught set the disputants at high words at once, and, to the astonishment of myself and friends, these wordy war- riors fired into each other's characters with the most remorseless severity. Irisb mit anD Ibumoc 135 " You are the biggest villain in the barony ! " cried the ragged man ; "you know well I had ye in Mon- aghan gaol for six months ; you thief of the world, you stole my property, so you did ! " " You're a liar ! " shouted the other ; "ye well know ye wrongfully accused me, and perjured yourself when ye swore against me ; and, anyhow, my character is better than yourn ; let his honor ax the priest or any dacent man in the country." " I'll hould ye a five-pound note agen that," cried the ragged man. " I'll bet ye a five-pound note this minute, and let his honor hold the stakes, that my character is far preferable to yourn." '■^ Five pounds !'''' returned the other contemptu- ously ; " where would the likes of ye get five pounds? And ye boasting there to get his honor to hold the stakes ! It would be fitter for ye to give five ha'pence to some ould tailor and get your clothes mended ! Five pounds, indeed ! " " I'll prove it ! " shouted the ragged man, in a high state of excitement ; " I'll prove it to his honor this minute!" And, rummaging amongst his rags, he pulled out an old greasy purse, and, taking from thence two five-pound notes, he walked up to me in a majestic manner and requested me to hold one of them as the stake in this characteristic wager. Of course I declined ; but the whole scene was so absurd that it was impossible we could help laughing, when his antagonist, seeing the case going against him, and that the stakes were really forthcoming, became excited beyond measure, and at last, losing all control of himself, he said : "Ye are a public robber, so ye are; and I could tell that of ye which, if his honor knew, he'd banish ye off the estate, as he did better men than ye are." " I defy ye," returned the ragged man ; " say what ye like, only down with the five pounds first and let his honor hold the stakes." "Why do you call him a public robber ? " I inquired, having observed that the man laid particular stress upon this unusual description of his ragged opponent. " Because he chated the public," replied the man. 136 Tli<6b mit anD Ibumot " How so? " I asked again. The man gave a look at his ragged neighbor to see if he shrank from what he was now about to tell ; but his look was answered by a bold defiance. " I defy ye — do your worst now if ye can." "Then I'll tell his honor all about it," said his opponent. " That same public robber there before ye put down his name for a one-pound note to get Paddy McArdle shot that's alive and well now ; and when them that was to do the job came round to him after- wards for the money to pay the heavy expenses they were under, the thief of the world only buttoned up his pocket and refused to pay a farthing; and thaf s why I call him a public robber ! " "And why would I pay them a farthing, the rogues that they were^ when they did)iU do the job ? " shouted the ragged man. " Sure, isn't Mr. McArdle safe and sound this minit — long life to him, and long may he reign, himself and his big white horse ! May I never, but I wouldn't for a five-pound note this minute that they got him down, and yet the thieves of the world wanted me to pay them for shoot in'' him, when they never done it at all! That's a quare way of doing business. Pay the one-pound note, indeed ! In troth, I'll pay nothing of the kind ! " Having thus fully admitted his original engagement, but indignantly repudiated the obligation his oppo- nent wanted to fasten on him, inasmuch as the con- tract had never been performed, he put his two five- pound notes quietly into his purse again, as if he thought this awkward claim might possibly be revived, and walked away with the air of an indignant and injured individual, [ii] *' Match-making " A bachelor, being told by a priest that marriages (vere made in heaven, doubted it, and taking a piece of paper from his pocket wrote : "Though matches are all made in heaven they say, Yet Hymen, who mischief oft hatches, Sometimes deals with the house C other side of the way , And thef-e they make Lucifer matches." Uriab llClit anD Ibumor 137 The Superiority of " Chancery " over Newgate Andy and his mother had been talking over their wrongs and thirst for vengeance. " Can't you take the law o' them, aunt ? " asked her niece. " To be sure he can — and shall, too," said the mother. " I'll be off to 'torney Murphy to-morrow ; I'll pursue her for my eye, and Andy for the property, and I'll put them all in Chancer}-, the villains 1 " " It's Newgate they ought to be put in," said Andy. "Tut, you fool," said his mother, "Chancery is worse than Newgate ; for people sometimes get out of Newgate, but they never get out of Chancery, I hear." What Relation was Paddy to His Sister's Child ? Lord Scatterbrain, wishing to know whether a child was a boy or a girl, made the inquiry in the true spirit of Paddy ism — " Tell me, Mister Dawson, are you an tincle or an aunt ? " An Irish Nomination Day At an election a major rose to propose the name of the gentleman whom he thought was the fittest person to represent the county in Parliament. The proposition was received with cheers, and the major suggested reading to the crowd a few extracts from •some documents in support of what he said. But the crowd was afraid that there would be some tedious references to facts which would not be at all to their taste, and some one sung out — " Never mind, major — sure, we'll take your word for it ! " Cries of "Order!" and "Silence!" ensued; and were followed by murmurs, coughs and sneezes, in the crowd, with a considerable shuffling of hobnail shoes on the pavement. " Order ! " cried a voice in authority. " Order anything you plaze, sir I " said the voice in the crowd. 138 f tf0b Wiit anD Ibumor " Whiskey ! " cried one. " Porter ! " cried another. " Tabakky ! " roared a third. " I must insist on silence ! " cried the sheriff in a very husky voice. "Silence! or I'll have the court house cleared ! " " Faith, and if you cleared your own throat it would be better," said a wag in the crowd. The Difference Between Paddy, Rich, and Paddy, ♦ Poor Handy Andy finds himself very hardly used. Nothing he does prospers. His wife, who has been forced into marriage with him, leaves him half an hour after the priest has helped them (in the facetious parlance of Paddy) to " tie with their tongues what they could not undo with their teeth " ; and when he goes to his mother for sympathy she only pours out a torrent of abuse on him. Some few minutes silence followed her eloquent outburst, which Andy broke by uttering a long sigh and ejaculating : " Och ! it's a fine thing to be a gentleman ! " " Cock you up ! " said his mother. " Maybe it's a gentleman you want to be ; what put that into your head, you omadhau'?iF^' "Why, because a gintleman has no hardships, compared to one of uz. Sure, if a gentleman was married, his wife would not be tuk off from him the way mine was." " Not so soon, maybe," said the mother. "And if a gintleman brakes a horse's heart he's only a ' bowld rider,'' while a poor servant is a ' care- less blackguard,' for only taking the sweat out of him. If a gentleman dhrinks till he can't see a hole in a laddher, he's only 'fresh,'' — but ' dhrunk ' is the word for a poor man. And if a gintleman kicks up a row he's a ' fine sperited fellow,' while a poor man is ' a disordherly vagabone ' for the same ; and the justice axes the one to dinner and sends the other to jail. Oh, faix, the law is a dainty lady; she takes people by the hand who can afford to wear gloves, but people with brown fists must keep their distance." [5] Irisb limit an& Ibumor 139 Sociable to the Last Once there was a well-to-do Irishman who found himself about to pass awa}'. His name was Maloney. He sent for his old friend O' Conor to come and make his will. Everything was in readiness, and the dying man said : " Put down ^50 for masses up at the church for the repose of my soul." The man scratched away, and then Mr. O' Conor said : "What next, Mr. Maloney?" " Put down ;^2oo for the Little Sisters of the Poor. Have we that down, Mr. O' Conor?" " I have, Mr. Maloney. What next? " " Put down ^250 for the Cork Orphan Asylum." "What next, Mr. Maloney?" " Put down /"looo for me brother Pat. He don't nade it, but it's all the same. I can't carry it with me." " What nixt, Mr. Maloney ? " So the work went on slowly, the dying man bring- ing himself up with an effort to the task, and Mr. O'Conor stopping now and then to draw his finger across his nose and sniff sympathetically. Finally the dying man said faintly : " I think that is all I have to will." O'Conor footed up the items, looked at the balance in the little old bank-book and said : " No, Mr. Maloney, there's tin pounds yit." The dying man lay absorbed in thought for a few minutes, and then said : " O'Conor, put down that tin pounds to spend with the bhoys at me funeral." Mr. O'Conor began to write ; then he stopped, looked towards the bed with a puzzled expression, and asked softly : " Mr. Maloney, shall I put it down to spend going to the funeral or coming back ? " The dying man lay very quiet for a few moments, as he studied the problem, and then with an effort replied : " O'Conor, put down tin pounds to spind goin' to the funeral, for thin I'll be wid ye." 140 f rtsb XClit anD "fcumor Soap and Water At the Wicklow election Mr. Bagenal Dah' was a conspicuous character " on town " ; on foot and alone, he was at once recognized by the mob, who cheered him as an old but long-lost-sight-of acquaintance. The densest crowd made way for him as he came, and every mark of respect was shown him by those who set a higher price on his eccentricity and daring than even upon his patriotism ; and a murmuring com- mentary on his character followed him as he went. " By my conscience ! it's well for them they haven't to fight for the Union, or they wouldn't like old Bagenal Daly agin them ! " " He looks as fresh and bowld as ever he did," said another ; " sorra a da\' oulder than he was twenty- eight years ago, when I seen him tried for his life at Newgate." " Was you there, Mickey?" cried two or three, in a breath. " Faix was I, as near as I am to you. 'Twas a coalheaver he kilt, a chap that v/as called Big Sam ; and they say he was bribed by some of the gentlemen at Daly's Club House to come up to Bagenal Daly in the street and insult him about the beard he wears on his upper lip, and sure enough so he did — it was Ash Wednesday more by token — and Sam had a smut on his face just to imitate Mr. Daly's. 'We are a purty pair, ain't we?' says Sam, grinning at him, when they met on Essex Bridge. And wid that he slips his arm inside Mr. Daly's to hook wid his." " To walk beside him is't ? " "Just so, divil a less. 'Come round to the other side of me,' says Daly, 'for I want to step into Kert- land's shop.' And in they went together, and Daly asks for a pound of strong white soap, and pays down one-and-eightpence for it, and out they comes again quite friendly as before. ' Where to, now ? ' says Sam, for he held a grip of him like a bailiff. ' Across the bridge,' says Daly; and so it was. When they reached the middle arch of the bridge, Daly made a spring and got himself free, and then stooping down, caught Sara by the knees, and, before you could say Urisb XClit anO Ibumor 141 'Jack Robinson,' hurled him over the battlements into the Liffe}-. ' You can wash your face now,' says he, and he threw the soap after him ; df\il a word more he said, but walked on as cool as you saw him there." " And Sam ? " said several together. " Sam was drowned ; there came a fresh in the river, and they took him up beyand the North Wall — a corpse." " Millia murther ! what did Daly do? " " He took his trial for it, and sorra excuse he gave, one way or other, but that he * didn't know the blackguard couldn't swim ! ' " "And they let him off?" " Let him off ? Arrah, is it to hang a gentleman ? " "True for you," chimed in the bystanders ; them that makes the laws knows better than that ! " [14] Two Bishops in One Diocese A Catholic bishop gave one of his priests in a rural district of Australia the serviceable gift of a horse. To commemorate the circumstance the young priest named the animal after the donor, and " Saddle ' The Bishop,'" "Feed 'The Bishop,'" "Water 'The Bishop,' " and so forth, became familiar phrases in his household. Shortly afterwards the children of the parochial schools were ready for contirmation, and a day was fixed by the diocesan to confer this sacrament of the Catholic Church upon them. The priest, who was the soul of hospitality, invited the principal official persons in the district to meet the prelate at dinner after the ceremony. It was a very hot day in the Australian mid-summer, and just as the distinguished company sat down to table, the door opened slowly, and the priest's groom put his head into the room and whispered : " Might I have a word with your reverence?" " Oh, not now, Mick; don't you see I am engaged with his lordship? Come to me after dinner." "It'll be too late then, your reverence." The prelate considerately suggested that Michael should be heard on the spot. 142 Urisb mil anO Ibumor "Well, Mick, his lordship will permit you to tell what you want at once." " It's a Tiornd hot day, your reverence ! I was thinking whether I oughtn't to throw a bucket of water on the ' The Bishop ! ' " Bad Luck and its Cause Shemus Rhua was very fond of speaking about his master, Sir Thomas Macnamara. One day he told his friends about an election in which Sir Thomas figured largely. Said he : "You see, Mark, the ould master had stood for the county. Well, from the time he came into possession of the estate, of course, Sir Thomas was, like his father, a Sunday man ; and as he couldn't meet the sheriffs openly at the election, what the devil does he do, but he sits out in a boat, where he could hear how things were goin' on, and give orders to the tenants. The Lord sees the craytures did all they could for a good master as he was. Didn't they kidnap the electors, tare down the booths, burn Peter Daly's tally-room teetotally, — and throw a jaunting car, with six voters, clane over the bridge — horse, driver and all ! And what more could they do ? The money bate us in the long run ; and it was well Sir Thomas wasn't taken into the bargain— for the bailiffs chased him to the very gates. No wonder thin, poor ould gentle- man, that the very name of the election put him always in a rage. " ' Never mind,' said the priest, striving to say something pleasant, and comfort the old master ; ' it's a long lane that wants a turn — and luck will come at last. There's yer two sisters. Sir Thomas — the best Catholics in Connemara, and ready to travel any moment that they're wanted— if the Lord would only mercifully take them to himself. Indeed, they're too good for this wicked world — and they would be far snugger in the next.' " ' Divil a chance there,' says Sir Thomas ; ' they're the very counterpart of their mother— the Lord be good to her ! — and she lived to ninety-seven.' <' * Are ye in the lottery the year ? ' asked the priest. Hrfsb ma an& Ibumot 143 " < Arrah, what matter whether I am or not ? ' said Sir Thomas. ' Haven't I been in it since I was a boy, and niver won anything beyond a blackguard twenty or two? Upon my conscience, I verily believe, if I had been bound to a hatter, people would be born without heads ! ' " Well, the divil a one could point out the likelihood of luck ; and the poor old gentleman seemed mighty disconsolate. " ' Arrah,' says I, * hould up. Sir Thomas — who knows but we'll get to the sunny side of the hedge yet? There's Master Dick — and if he would only marry an heiress ' " * Bedad,' says the ould gentleman, 'Father Pat, there's sense in that.' " The priest shook his head. " 'And why shouldn't he? ' says Sir Thomas. " ' Because,' returned the priest, ' he's never out of one scrape till he's into another. And then he's so captious ; if he was in heaven — where the Lord send him in proper time, if possible ! — why, he would pick a quarrel with St. Peter.' " ' It's all a flow of spirits,' says the ould man. " * //'j- a flow of spirits that causes it generally,' says the priest.' " [15] The Towers of Clonmacnoise One day I was accosted by a peasant, who had watched for a long time, in silent wonder, the draft of the stone cross, as it grew into being beneath my pencil ; and finding the man " apt " as the Ghost says to Hamlet, I entered into conversation with him. To some remark of mine touching the antiquity of the place, he assured me " it was a fine owld place in the owld ancient times." In noticing the difference between the two round towers, for there are two very fine ones at Clonmacnoise, one on top of the hill, and one close beside the plashy bank of the river, he accounted for the difference by a piece of legendary information with which he favored me, and which may prove, perhaps, of sufficient importance to interest the reader. 144 Urisb Mit an& Ibumor " You see, sir," said he, " the one down there beyarU at the river side, was built the first, and finished com- plate entirely, for the roof is an it, you see ; but when that was built, the bishop thought that another id look very piirty up on the hill beyant, and so he bid the masons to set to work, and build another tower there. " Well, away they went to work, as busy as nailers ; troth, it was just like a bee-hive, every man with his hammer in his hand, and, sure, the tower was com- plated in due time. Well, when the last stone was laid on the roof, the bishop axes the masons how much he was to pay them, and they ups and they towld him their price ; but the bishop they say was a nej'ger (niggard) — God forgi' me for saying the word of so holy a man — and he said they ax'd too much and he wouldn't pay them. With that, my jewel, the masons said they would take no less ; and what would you think, but the bishop had the cunnin' to take away the laddhers that was reared up agin the tower, ' and now,' says he, ' my gay fellows,' says he, ' the devil a down out o' that you'll come antil you learn manners and take what's offered to yiz,' says he, ' and when you come down in your price you may come down yourselves into the bargain.' Well, sure enough, he kept his word and wouldn't let man or mortyel go nigh them to help them ; and faiks, the masons didn't like the notion of losin' their honest airnins, and small blame to them ; but, sure, they wor starvin' all the time and didn't know what in the wide world to do, when there was a fool chanced to pass by and sees them. ' Musha ! but you look well there,' says the innocent; ' an' how are you? ' says he. 'Not much the better av your axin',' says they. ' Maybe you're out there,' says he. So he questioned them, and they towld him how it was with them, and how the bishop tuk away the ladthers, and they couldn't come down. ' Tut, you fools,' says he ; ' Sure, isnU it aisier to take down two stones nor put up one?' Wasn't that mighty cute o' the fool, sir ? And wid that, my dear sowl, no sooner said nor done. Faiks, the masons began to pull down their work, and whin they went Urieb Wit an& Ibumor 145 on for some time the bishop bid them stop, an' he'd let them down ; but, faiks, before he g-ev into them they had taken the roof clane off ; and that's the raison that one tower has a roof, sir, and the other has none." He Couldn't Make it Out An Irishman received a challenge to fight a duel, but declined. On being asked the reason: " Och," said Pat, " would you have me leave his mother an orphan ? " Irish "Tay" The porter of a Dublin grocer was brought up before a magistrate on a charge of stealing chocolate, which he could not deny. Upon being asked to whom he sold it, the pride of Patrick was greatly wounded : " To whom did I sell it ? " says Pat ; " why, does he think I took it to sell? " " Then, sir," said the magistrate, " what did you do with it?" " Do wid it ? Since you must know," said he, " we made ^qy with it." A " Fall " that Pleased Paddy An Irishman having been told that the price of bread had fallen, exclaimed : " This is the first time I ever rejoiced at the fall of my best friend." An Irish Thief's Opinion of His Own Deeds Two Irishmen were traveling together and, as night was falling, one of them proposed hastening on, for, said he, •' the road, they say, is unsafe after dark. They robbed the mail last week." " They'll not rob us," returned the other, who was a ratcatcher, " Where hard blows and light purses are only to be got, people who understand their busi- ness never trouble themselves with such customers." " Well, Shemus, you know best ; for you're foully belied if there was a handier gentleman out in ninety- eight." 10 146 Hrfsb Timit anD Ibumor " I never robbed, if robbing you can call it," returned Shemus, " but twice ; and if everything I did besides sate so light on my conscience, the devil a knee I need crook to Father Ulick M'Shane." " And who did you rob ? " inquired the ratcatcher's companion. " A miser and a king— God bless his majesty ! I should have spared him, for he's a dacent ould gentleman, or my head would have been on a spike at Castlebar ! " " Well, Shemus, let us hear one of your exploits." "When I robbed the king it was only taking the saddle-bags from an honest tax-gatherer, whom I chanced to meet ' accidently on purpose,' one winter's evening at the deer-park wall of Cloghanteeley. The man was drunk, the horse tired, and I took care of the silver — only that, forgetting the owner's name, I never knew where to return it afterwards." [15] Begging the Culprit's Pardon A learned Irish judge, amongst other peculiarities, had a habit of begging pardon on every occasion. On his circuit his favorite expression was employed in a singular manner. At the close of the assize, as he was about to leave the bench, the officer of the court reminded him that he had not passed sentence on one of the criminals, as he had intended. " Dear me ! " said his lordship, " I really beg his pardon ; bring him in." Paddy's View of Delirium Tremens A Stocktonian was, a short time ago, describing to an Irishman in vivid language the multiform monsters who visited him during an attack of delirium tremens — devils of all shapes and sizes and of sufficient num- ber to justify the term "delirium tremen(dou)s." " But," concluded he, in a consolatory key, " it is all imagination, you know." "By my sowl," replied Paddy, evidently disconcerted, " I'm not so sure of that. It is strange you never imagine you see angels flying at you such times." Urtsb *Mit anD Ibumor 147 Irish Definition of a Yankee He'd kiss a queen till he'd raise a blister, With his arms round herneck, and his old fefthaton; Address a king by the title of Mister, And ask him the price of the throne he sat on. The Place Where the Coach Stops The traveler was awakened from the reverie in which he was indulging by the blowing of a long tin horn, announcing the arrival of the coach at a dirty little town, where it was to stop for the night. It drove up to what was called an hotel, round the door of which, though still raining heavily, a crowd of beggars stood so thick, that the passengers could hardly press their way through them into the house ; and while they were thus struggling for admittance, obstreperous prayers assailed them on all sides, in horrid discord and strange variety — for their com- plaints and their blessings became so jumbled together as to produce a ludicrous effect. There were blind and lame, broken bones, widows and orphans, etc., etc. " Pity the blind ! and may you never see " " To-morrow morning won't find me alive if you dcn't relieve " " The guard will give me something, your honor, if you'll only bid him " " Be quiet, you devil ! and don't taze the gintle- man ! Sure he has " "Three fatherless childher " " And broke his two legs " " That is stone blind " " And met a dhreadful accident ! and shure the house fell on him, and he's lying undher it these three weeks, widout a bit to ate, but " "Three fatherless childerand a dissolutewidow " " Lying on the broad of her back wath nothing on her but " " The small-pox, your honor ! " " For heaven's sake ! let me pass," said the young traveler, who had an horn^r for small-pox ; and press- ing through the crowd that environed him into the house, he entered the first room he saw, and suddenly closed the door behind him. [4] 148 txiBb Mit anD t)umor How Paddy Took the Bounce Out of Him Rory O'More transacted his business in Dublin sat- isfactorily, and having done so, he mounted his out- side place on one of the coaches from town, and found himself beside a slight, pale, but rather hand- some young gentleman, perfectly free from anything of that repulsive bearing which sometimes too forci- bly marks the distinction between the ranks of parties that may chance to meet in such promiscuous society as that which a public conveyance huddles together. He was perfectly accommodating to his fellow-trav- elers while they were shaking themselves down into their places, and on the journey he conversed freely with Rory on such subjects as the passing occurrences of the road suggested. This unaffected conduct won him ready esteem and liking from his humble neighbor, as in such cases it never fails to do ; but its effect was heightened by the contrast which another passenger af?orded, who seemed to consider it a great degradation to have a person in Rory's condition placed beside him ; and he spoke in an offensive tone of remark to the person seated at the other side, and quite loud enough to be heard, of the assurance of the lower orders, and how hard it was to make low fellows understand how to keep their distance. To all this, Rory, with a great deal of tact, never made any reply, and to a casual observer would have seemed not to notice it; but to the searching eye of his pale companion, there was the quick and momen- tary quiver of indignation on the peasant's lip, and the compression of brow that denotes pain and anger, the more acute from their being concealed. But an occasion soon ofifered for this insolent and ill- bred fellow to make an open aggression upon Rory, which our hero returned with interest. After one of the stoppages on the road for refreshment, the pas- sengers resumed their places, and the last to reappear was this bashaw. On getting up to his seat, he said, " Where's my coat? ' To this no one made any answer, and the question was soon repeated in a louder tone. "Your coat, is it, sir?" said the coachman. Hdsb Mit anD Ibumor 149 ** Yes— my coat ; do you know anything of it ? " " No, sir," said the coachman ; " maybe you took it into the house with you." " No, I did not ; I left it on the coach. And, by the bye," said he, looking at Rory, "you were the only person who did not quit the coach — did jyou take it?" " Take what?'' said Rory, with a peculiar empha- sis and intonation on the what. " My coat," said the other, with extreme effrontery. " I've a coat o' my own," said Rory, with great composure. "That's not an answer to my question," said the other. " I think you ought to be glad to get so quiet an answer," said Rory. " And I think so, too," said the pale traveler. "I did not address my conversation to you, sir," said the swaggering gentleman. " If you did, sir, you should have been lying in the road now," was the taunting rejoinder. At this moment a waiter appeared at the door of the inn, bearing the missing coat on his arm ; and handing the coat up to the owner, he said, " You left this behind you in the parlor, sir." The effect was what any one must anticipate ; indig- nant eyes were turned on all sides upon the person making so wanton an aggression, and he himself ::eemed to stagger at the evidence against him, and carcely knew what to do. After much stammering and hemming and hawing, he took the coat from the waiter, and turning to Rory, said, " I see — I forgot — I thought that I left it on the coach ; but— a— I see, 'twas a mistake." "Oh, make no apologies," said Rory; "we were both undher a mistake." " How both? ' said the Don. " Why, sir," said Rory, " ye mistuk me for a thief, and I mistuk you for a gentleman." The swaggerer could not rally against the laugh this bitter repartee made against him, and he was effectually silenced for the rest of the journey. [4] 150 Hrlsb mtt anD Ibumor Paddy Always Able to Rise Above His Circumstances Have you ever observed that on a sudden dash of rain the coachman immediately begins to whip the horses ? So it was during Rory O'More's journey from Dublin, when he first met Mr. DeLacy ; and the more it rained the faster he drove ; and the faster he drove the faster it seemed to rain. At last the passengers seated on the top of the coach began to be aware that their seats were invaded by the flood that deluged the coach roof, just as they arrived at the usual place for changing horses. The moment the coach stopped, Rory jumped off, saying to the coachman, " I'll be back to you before you go ; but don't start before I come," and off he ran up the town. " Faix, that's a sure way of being back before I go!" said the driver; "but you'd better not delay, my buck, or it's behind I'll lave you." While change was being made, the passengers endeavored to procure wads of straw to sit upon, the rain becoming more and more inconvenient ; and at last all was ready for starting, but Rory had not yet returned. The horn was sounded, and the coach- man's patience was just exhausted, when Rory hove in sight splashing his way through the middle of the street, flourishing two gridirons over his head. "Here I am," said he, panting and nearly exhausted ; " faith, I'd a brave run for it ! " "Why, thin, what the dickens do you want here with gridirons?" said the coachman. "Oh, never mind," said Rory; "just give me a wisp of sthraw, and God bless you," said he to one of the helpers who was standing by ; and having got it, he scrambled up to the top of the coach ; he said to his pale friend, " Now, sir, we'll be comfortable " "I don't see much likelihood of it," said his com- panion. "Why, look what I've got for you," said Rory. " Oh, that straw will soon be sopped with rain, and then we'll be as badly off as before." " But it's not on sthraw I'm depindiu'," said Rory; HrlBb TKait anD Ibumor 151 "look at this!" and he brandished one of the grid- irons. " I have heard of stopping the tide with a pitch- fork," said the traveler, smiling, " but never of keep- ing out rain with a gridiron." " Faith, thin, I'll show you how to do that same," said Rory. " Here — sit up — clap this gridiron undher you, and you'll be tindher wather no longer. Stop, sir, stay a minit — don't sit down on the bare bars and be makin' a beefsteak o' yourself ; here's a wisp o' sthraw to put betune you and the cowld iron — and not a dhryer sate in all Ireland than the same gridiron." The young traveler obeyed, and while he admired the ingenuity, could not help laughing at the whimsi- cality of the contrivance. " You see I've another for myself," said Rory, seat- ing himself in a similar manner on his second grid- iron ; " and now," added he, " as far as the sates is consarned, it may rain till doomsday." [4] How Mike Nearly Won His Bet! Pat made a bet with Mike that he could carry a hod full of bricks up three ladders to the top of the building, with Mike sitting on the hod. The ladders were on the outside of the building. On the third ladder Pat made a misstep, but caught himself in time to save Mike falling forty feet to the stone sidewalk. Arriving at the top, Pat said: " Begorra, I've wan the bet." "Yis," replied Mike, "but whin ye shlipped I thought I had ye." Why an Irishman Wanted to Alter His Will An elderly gentleman who knew something of law, lived in an Irish village where no solicitor had ever penetrated, and was in the habit of arranging the disputes of his neighbors, and making their wills. At an early hour one morning he was aroused from his slumbers by a loud knocking at his gate, and 152 Urieb IKIlit ant) Ibumor putting his head out of the window, he asked who was there. " It's me, your honor— Paddy Flatherty. I could not get a wink of sleep, thinking of the will I have made." "What's the matter with the will?" asked the amateur lawyer. "Matter, indeed!" replied Pat; " shure, I've not left myself a three-legged stool to sit upon." How Letters are Addressed in Ireland — Sometimes An amusing incident occurred at one of the large new London hotels. One of the chambe/- maids, Bridget Maloney, in writing to her friends in Ireland, used the hotel letter-paper. Imagine the surprise of the manager on finding a letter by return addressed — " Bridget Maloney, care Hotel— all modern improvements — lift. Tarif? on application, terms moderate — London, England." It was evident Bridget's Irish friend was deter- mined the letter should not miscarry for want of full directions. " No Visible Means of Support " It is a very sharp emergency that can catch Pat, even when he is ignorant and ragged. An Irishman, whose garments were in tatters, was brought before a magistrate on the charge that he was a vagrant, with no visible means of support. Pat drew from the pocket of his torn coat a loaf of bread, the half of a dry codfish, and several cold potatoes. These he spread upon the stand before him, and coolly asked : " What do you think of thim, yer honor? Shure, an' isn't thim visible manes of support ? " An Irish Comparison An Irish reporter lately described some heavy drops of rain as varying in size " from a shilling to eighteenpence. ' ' Urisb Mlt anD Ibumor 153 Shemus O'Brien PART I Jist after the war, in the year ninet3^-eight, As soon as the boys were all scattered an' bate, 'Tvvas the custom, whenever a peasant was got, To hang him by trial — barrin' such as was shot, An' the martial-law hangin' the lavings by night. It's them was hard times for the honest gossoons; If they missed in the judges they'd meet the dragoons ; An' whether the sojers or judges gave sentence. The divil a much time they allowed for repentance • An' many a fine boy was then on his keepin'. With small share of restin', or sittin', or sleepin' ; An' because they loved Erin, an' scorned to sell it, A prey for the bloodhound — a mark for the bullet — Unsheltered by night and unrested by day. With the heath for their barrack, revenge for their pay • An' the bravest an' honestest boy of thim all Was Shemus O'Brien, from the town of Glingall ; His limbs wor well set, an' his body was light. An' the keen-fangled hound had not teeth half as white; But his face was as pale as the face of the dead, An' his cheek never warmed with the blush of the red ; An' for all that he wasn't an ugly young boy. For the divil himself couldn't blaze with his eye — So droll and sg wicked, so dark an' so bright. Like a fire flash that crosses the depth of the night ; An' he was the best mower that ever has been. An' the elegantest hurler that ever was seen : In fencin' he gave Patrick Mooney a cut. An' in jumpin' he bate Tom Malony a foot ; An' for lightness of foot there was not his peer. For, begorra, he'd almost outrun the red deer; An' his dancin' was such that the men used to stare, An' the women turn crazy, he did it so quare ; An', sure, the whole world gave in to him there ! An' it's he was the boy that was hard to be caught, An' it's often he ran, an' it's often he fought. An' it's many's the one can remember right well The quare things he did ; an' it's oft I heerd tell Hov/ he frightened the magistrates in Cahirbally, 164 txieb ma anD Ibumot An' escaped through the sojers in Aherloe valley, An' leathered the yeomen, himself agin four, An' stretched the four strongest on old Galtimore. But the fox must sleep sometimes, the wild deer must rest, An' treachery will prey on the blood of the best ; Afther many an action of power an' of pride, An' many a night on the mountain's blake side, An' a thousand great dangers an' toils overpast, In the darkness of night he was taken at last. Now, Shemus ! look back on the beautiful moon, For the door of the prison must close on you soon ; , And take your last look at her dim, misty light. That falls on the mountain an' valley to-night — One look at the village, one look at the flood, An' one at the sheltering, far-distant wood : Farewell to the forest, farewell to the hill. An' farewell to the friends that will think of you still. Farewell to the patthern, the hurlin' and wake, An' farewell to the girl that would die for your sake ! Twelve sojers soon brought him to Maryborough jail, An' with irons secured him, refusin' all bail, The fleet limbs wor chained and the sthrong hands wor bound, An' he lay down his length on the cold prison ground , An' the dlirames of his childhood came over him there; As gentle and soft as the sweet summer air ; An' happy remimbrances crowdin' on ever. As fast as the foam-flakes dhrift down on the river, Bringin' fresh to his heart merry days long gone by. Till the tears gathered heavy and thick in his eye. But the tears didn't fall, for the pride iv his heart Wouldn't suffer one dhrop down his pale cheek to start, An' he sprang to his feet in the dark prison cave. An' he swore with a fierceness that misery gave, By the hopes iv the good an' the cause iv the brave. That when he was mouldering in the cowld grave. His inimies never should have it to boast His scorn iv their vengeance one moment was lost. His bosom might bleed, but his cheek should be dhry, For undaunted he'd lived, and undaunted he'd die. •ffrisb 'Mit an{) Ibumoc 155 PART II Well, as soon as a few weeks were over an' gone, The terrible day of the trial came on ; There was such a great crowd there was scarce room to stand, An' sojers on guard, an' dragoons sword in hand ; An' the court-house so full that the people were bothered ; An' attorneys and criers on the point of being smothered ; An' counsellors almost gave over for dead, An' the jury sittin' up in the box overhead, An' the judge settled out so determined an' big, With the gown on his back, an' an elegant wig ; An' silence was called, an' the minit 'twas said The court was as still as the heart of the dead. An' they heard but the opening of one prison lock, An' Shemus O'Brien kem into the dock — For one moment, he turned his eyes round on the throng, An' then looked on the bars, so firm and so strong ; An' he saw that he had not a hope nor a friend, A chance to escape, nor a word to defend ; An' he folded his arms as he stood there alone, As calm and as cold as a statue of stone. An' they read a big writin', a yard long at laste, An' Shemus didn't see it, nor mind it a taste. An' the judge took a big pinch of snuff, an' he says : " Are you guilty or not, Jim O'Brien, if you please?" An' all held their breath in the silence of dread. An' Shemus O'Brien made answer an' said : " My lord, if you ask me if in my life-time I thought any treason, or did any crime. That should call to my cheek, as I stand alone here, The hot blush of shame or the coldness of fear, Though I stood by the grave to receive my death- blow. Before God an' the world I would answer vou No ! But if you would ask me, as I think it liRc, If in the rebellion I carried a pike. An' fought for ould Ireland, from the first to the close, 156 Urish mn atiD Ibumor An' shed the heart's blood of her bitterest foes— I answer you Yes ; an' I tell you again, Though I stand here to perish, it's my glory that then In her cause I was willin' my veins should run dry, An' now for her sake I am ready to die." Then the silence was great and the jury smiled bright. An' the judge wasn't sorry the job was made light ; By my soul, it's himself was the crabbed ould chap ! In a twinkling he ])ul]ed on his ugly black cap. Then Shemus's mother, in the crowd standin' by, Called out to the judge with a pitiful cry : " O, judge, darlin', don't— oh ! don't say the word ! The craythur is young — have mercy, my lord ! You don't know him, my lord ; oh ! don't give him to ruin ! He was foolish — he didn't know what he was doin' ! He's the kindliest craythur, the tinderest-hearted ; Don't part us forever, we that's so long parted ! Judge mavourneen, forgive him — forgive him, my lord! An' God will forgive you — oh ! don't say the word ! " That was the first minit O'Brien was shaken. When he saw he was not quite forgot or forsaken ! An' down his pale cheek, at the w^ord of his mother, The big tears were running, one after the other, An' two or three times he endeavored to spake. But the strong manly voice used to falter an' break. But at last, by the strength of his high-mounting pride, He conquered and mastered his grief's swelling tide ; An' saj^s he : " Mother, don't— don't break your poor heart. Sure, sooner or later, the dearest must part. An' God knows it's better than wand' ring in fear On the bleak trackless mountain among the wild deer, To be in the grave, where the heart, head, an' breast From labor an' sorrow forever shall rest. Then, mother, my darlin', don't cry any more — Don't make me seem broken in this my last hour ; For I wish, when my heart's lyin' under the raven, tvieb Mit anD tbumcr 167 No true man can say that 1 died like a craven," Then towards the judge Shemus bent down his head, An' that minit the solemn death-sentence was said. PART III The mornin' was bright, an' the mists rose on high, An' the lark whistled merrily in the clear sky — But why are the men standing idle so late ! An' why do the crowd gather fast in the street ? What come they to talk of ? — what come they to see ^ An' why does the long rope hang from the cross- tree ? O, Shemus O'Brien, pray fervent an' fast ! May the saints take your soul, for this day your last. Pray fast an' pray strong, for the moment is nigh. When strong, proud, an' great as you are, you must die! At last they threw open the big prison gate, An' out came the sheriffs an' sojers in state ; An' a cart in the middle, an' Shemus was in it — Not paler, but prouder than ever that minit ; An' as soon as the people saw Shemus O'Brien, Wid prayin' and blessin', an' all the girls cryin*, A wild wailin' sound kem on all by degrees. Like the sound of the lonesome wind blowin' through trees ; On, on to the gallows the sheriffs are gone, An' the cart an' the sojers go steadily on. An' at every side swellin' around iv the cart, A wild sorrowful sound that would open your heart. Now under the gallows the car takes its stand, And the hangman gets up with the rope in his hand. An' the priest havin' blest him, gets down on the ground ; An' Shemus O'Brien throws one look around. Then the hangman drew near, and the people grew still. Young faces turn sickly, an' warm hearts turn chill ; An' the rope bein' ready, his neck was made bare. For the gripe of the life-strangling cords to prepare ; And the good priest has left him, havin' said his last prayer. 158 Hcisb Mit anD tbumor But the good priest did more — for his hands he un- bound, And with one daring spring, Jim has leaped to the ground ; Bang, bang, go the carbines ! an' clash go the sabres ; He's not down ! he's alive ! now attend to him, neigh- bors ! By one shout from the people the heavens are shaken — One shout that the dead of the world might awaken. Your swords they may glitter, and your carbines go bang ! But if you want hangin' 'tis yourselves you must hang ! To-night he'll be sleepin' in Aherloe glin. An' the divil's in the dice if you catch him agin. The sojers run this way, the sheriffs run that. And Father Malone lost his new Sunday hat : An' the sheriffs were, both of them, punished severely, An' fined like the divil, because Jim done them fairly. [i6] Consoling Himself With the Remembrance ot Former Mirth Paddy has a great power of enjoyment after all. One day he saw a bull attack a man, and he» had to hold on his sides with both hands, the scene was so funny. After a time the animal turned his attention in another direction, and poor Pat, after exploring the heights, came down with a thump on the other side of the fence. He rubbed his wounds, and as he said to himself, " Faith, I'm glad I had my laugh when I did, or I wouldn't have had it at all, at all." An Irish Method of Helping a Strike Mrs. O Doyle: "Top of the mornin' till ye, Mrs. Grady. Is Mr. Grady sick ? " M}'s. Grady : " Never a bit. It's sympathy for the coal strikers, that's all." " How is that, Mrs. Grady? " " Not a lump of coal will he handle while the stroike lasts. So I hav' to build the fire meself, bad luck to it." irr(6b mit anO Ibumor 169 " Call for 'Ah Song ! ' " An Irishman, a newl}^ appointed crier in the county court in Australia, where there are many Chinese, was ordered by the judge to summon a witness to the stand. " Call for Ah Song ! " was the command. Pat was puzzled for a moment. He glanced slyly at the judge, and found him as grave as an under- taker. Then, turning to the spectators, he blandly simpered : " Gentlemen, would any of you favor his honor with a song? " Invalided by His Washerwoman Miss Georgie St. Clare, after spending two hours in dressing for the opera the other evening, was thrown into hysterics on the arrival of the following note in a dainty cream-tinted envelope, with a big red seal plastered all over the back of it : " Dear Miss St. Clare : I regret exceedingly that a sudden and very severe illness confines me to my room, so that I am unable to keep my engagement with you this evening. My physician positively for- bids my going out for a week. Regretfully yours, A. Lilly." - The " physician " who issued this "positive order" was Mrs. Bridget O'Callahan. She arrived at Mr. Lilly's room at 7 p. m., with a bundle under one arm. " Ah, my good woman," said Mr. Lilly, kindly, " 1 was awfully afraid you'd not get here in time. Just lay the bundle on the table." " Faith, thin, an' Oi'll not, young man." "You'll not? " " Oi will not, until Oi'm paid the tin shillin's yez owes me up to this noight." " My good woman, haven't I told you ? " " Ye've tould me ye'd pay me iv'ry wake for a month, an' Oi'll have me money this noight, or yer shirt goes back to me laundhry." " See here, woman, I'm going to the opera in full dress to-night, and " 160 Urisb mit anD Ibumor " Ye'll go widout a shirt, then, or pay me now." " Drop that bundle and get out ! " " Oi'll not dhrop the bundle, sor ; but Oi'll get out fast enough, sor, an' the shirt'll go wid me, sor ! " And it did. And that is why Mr. Lilly stayed at home with two ball-tickets for the opera in his pocket. A Glass for the Other Man, Too " How do you like that whiskey, Pat ? " *' Shure, your honor, it has made another man of me, an' that other man would like a glass, too." Too Late for the Fair A Kerry boy, a born artist in the use of the national maul-stick— the shillelagh— having been arrested for damaging the skull of a compatriot, an old bald- headed man, who would not charge him with the assault, was asked by the magistrate : " Are you not ashamed to have half killed this old man, who will not even give information against you ; had you any ill-will against him ? " " Oh, none at all, yer honor ! I never seen him before to-day." " Then what made you do it ? " " Well, I'll tell yer honor the truth. Ye see, I came late to the fair. Luck was agin me, for all the fightin' was over; so, as I was struttin' about lookin' for some boy to cross a stick wid, I see this man's head poked out of a slit of the tent that he might cool it ; and it looked so purty, that for the sowl of me I couldn't help hittin' the blow." O'Connell and Lord Shrewsbury "My lord, I love the Jesuits— I admire the Jesu'ts —the greatest benefactors to religion and to literature that the world ever saw. There is a shrewd compact- ness in the way they embody common sense greatly to be prized. One of their maxims is, ' T/ial there is no theologian so dangerous to religion as a very pious fool.' The Jesuit who uses this phrase does not intend personal offence to any individual ; nor certainly do I ! I use the expression not as a descrip- Urisb limit anO Ibumoc 161 tion or designation, but admitting to the fullest your lordship's piety, I give it as a warning. Do, my lord, I implore you, beware how you mix up foolishness with your sentiments of devotion." [17] How Mike's Father Guarded the Bank " Them's beautiful streets, anyhow," said Mike to his master as they were driving from Cork to Fer- moy, " av they wasn't kept so dirty, and the houses so dark, and the pavement bad. That's Mr. Beamish —that fine house there, with the brass rapper and the green lamp beside it; and there's the hospital— faix, and there's the place we beat the police, when I was here before ; and the house with the sign of the High- landers thrown down ; and what's the big building there with the stone posts at the door ? " " The bank, sir," said the postilion, with a most deferential air, as Mike addressed him. " What bank, acushla?" " Not a one of me knows, sir ; but they call it the bank, though it's only an empty house." " Gary and Moore's bank, perhaps," said Mike's master, having heard that in days long passed some such names had failed in Cork for a large amount. *' So it is ; your honor's right," cried the postilion, while Mike, standing up on the box, and menacing the house with his clenched fist, shouted out at the very top of his voice : " Oh, bad luck to your cobwebbed windows and iron railings ! sure, it's my father's son ought to hate the sight of you." " I hope, Mike, your father never trusted his prop- erty in such hands ? " " I don't suspect he did, your honor ; he never put much belief in the banks, but the house cost him dear enough without that. But maybe it's not Cary and Moore's, after all ; and I'm, maybe, cursing decent people." Having been reassured in his mind by being told that the reservation he made by the doubt would tell in their favor should he prove mistaken, he afforded the following information. 11 162 ird0b Wiit atiD Ibumor " When my father — the heavens be his bed — was in the ' Cork/ they put him one night on guard at that same big house you just passed— av it was the same ; but av it wasn't that it was another— and it was a beautiful fine night in August and the moon up, and plenty of people walking about, and all kinds of fun and devilment going on — drinking, and dancing, and everything. " Well, my father was stuck up there, with his musket, to walk up and down, and not say ' God save you kindly,' or the time of day, or anything, but just march as if he was in the barrack yard ; and by reason of his being the man he was he didn't like it half, but kept cursing and swearing to himself like mad when he saw pleasant fellows and pretty girls going by, laughing and joking. " ' Good evening, Mickey,' says one ; ' fine sport ye have all to yourself, with your long feather in your cap.' " ' Arrah, look how proud he is,' says another, ' with his head up as if he didn't see a body.' " ' Shoulder too ! ' cried a drunken chap with a shovel in his hand ; they all began laughing away at my father. " ' Let the decent man alone,' said an old fellow in a wig ; ' isn't he guarding the bank wid all the money in it ? ' " ' Faix, he isn't,' says another, 'for there's none left.' " * What's that you're saying ? ' says my father. " ' Just that the bank's broke, devil a more,' says he. " ' And there's no goold in it ? ' says my father. " * Devil a guinea.' " ' Nor silver?' " ' No, nor silver ; not as much as a sixpence, either.' " ' Didn't ye hear that all yesterday, when the people was coming in with their notes, the chaps there were heating the guineas in a frying-pan, pretending they were making them as fast as they could ; and sure, when they had a batch red-hot they spread them out to cool ; and what betune the hating and the cool- Urisb Mlt anD Ibumor 163 ing, and the burning the fingers counting them, they kept the bank open to three o'clock, and then they ran away.' " ' Is it truth ye're telling? ' says my father. " ' Sorra word o' lie in it ! myself had two-and-four- pence of their notes.' " ' And so they're broke,' says my father ; ' and nothing left.' " ' Not a brass fatheen.' " ' And what am I staying here -or I wonder, if there's nothing to guard ! ' " ' Faix, if it isn't for the pride of t le thing * " ' Oh, sorra taste.' " ' Well, maybe for divarsion.' " ' Nor that either.' "'Faix! then, you're a droll nif.n to spend the evening that way,' says he, and all the crowd — for there was a crowd — said the same. So with that my father unscrewed his bayonet, and ;:ut his piece on his shoulder, and walked on to his be 1 in the barrack as peaceable as need be. But, well, when they came to relieve him wasn't there a raal commotion ? and, faith, you see, it went mighty hard with my father the next morning ; for the bank opened just as usual, and my father was sentenced to fifty lashes, but got off with a week in prison, and three more rowling a big stone ill the barrack-yard, [i] Amateur Acting and What It Led To Harry Lorrequer's regiment was once quartered in Cork, and he and some of his brother officers on one occasion played "Othello," and invited the elite of the city to witness it, and included his colonel, who had taken a great dislike to Lorrequer, among the invited. In giving an account of the performance and after, he says : " By universal consent I was preferred to Kean (Lorrequer had personated Othello) ; and the only fault the most critical observer could find with the representative of Desdemona (the senior lieuten- ant of the regiment) was a rather unladylike fondness for snuff. " But whatever little demerits our acting might 164 ftfeb Mlt anD l)umor have displayed, were speedily forgotten in a cham- pagne supper. There I took the head of the table ; and in the costume of the noble Moor, toasted, made speeches, returned thanks, and sang songs, till I might have exclaimed with Othello himself, ' Chaos is come again ' ; and I believe I owe my ever reaching the barrack that night to the kind offices of Desde- mona, who carried me the greater part of the way on her back. " The first waking thoughts of him who has in- dulged overnight, are not among the most blissful of existence, and certainly the pleasure is not increased by the consciousness that he is called on to the dis- charge of duties to which a fevered pulse and throb- bing temples are but ill-suited. My sleep was suddenly broken in upon the morning after the play by a * row-dow-dow,' beat beneath my window. I jumped up hastily from my bed and looked out, and there, to my horror, perceived the regiment under arms. It was one of our confounded colonel's morn- ing drills ; and there he stood himself, with the poor adjutant, who had been up all night, shivering beside him. Some two or three of the officers had descended ; and the drum was now summoning the others as it beat round the barrack-square. I saw there was not a moment to lose, and proceeded to dress with all despatch ; but, to my misery, I discovered everywhere nothing but theatrical robes and decorations — there, lay a splendid turban, here, a pair of buskins — a spangled jacket glittered on one table, and a jewelled scimetar on the other. At last I detected my ' regi- mental small-clothes,' most ignominiously thrown into a corner in my ardor for my Moorish robes of the previous evening. " I dressed myself with all possible speed ; but as I proceeded in my occupation, guess my annoyance to find that the toilet-table and glass, ay, and even the basin-stand, had been removed to the dressing- room of the theatre ; and my servant, I suppose, fol- lowing his master's example, was too tipsy to remember to bring them back, so that I was unable to procure the luxury of cold water— for now not a ITdsb Mit anD Ibumor 165 moment remained, the drum had ceased, and the men had all fallen in. Hastily drawing on my coat, I put on my shako, and buckling on my belt, as dandy-like as might be, hurried down the stairs to the barrack- yard. By the time I got down, the men were all drawn up in line along the square, while the adjutant was proceeding to examine their accoutre- ments, as he passed down. The colonel and the officers were standing in a group but not conversing. The anger of the commanding officer appeared still to continue, and there was a dead silence maintained on both sides. To reach the spot where they stood I had to pass along part of the line. In doing so, how shall I convey my amazement at the faces that met me — a general titter ran along the entire rank, which not even their fears for consequences seemed able to repress — for an effort on the part of many, to stifle the laugh, only ended in a still louder burst of merriment. I looked to the far side of the yard for an explanation, but there was nothing there to account for it. I now crossed over to where the officers were standing, determining in my own mind to investigate the occur- rence thoroughly, when free from the presence of the colonel, to whom any representation of ill conduct always brought a punishment far exceeding the merits of the case. " Scarcely had I formed the resolve, when I reached the group of officers, but the moment I came near, one general roar of laughter saluted me, the like of which I never before heard. I looked down at my costume, expecting to discover that, in my hurry to dress, I had put on some of the garments of Othello. No — all was perfectly correct. I waited for a moment, till, the first burst of their merriment over, I should obtain a clue to the jest. But there seemed no prospect of this, for, as I stood patiently before them, their mirth appeared to increase. Indeed, poor G , the senior major, one of the gravest men in Europe, laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks ; and such was the effect upon me, that I was induced to laugh, too — as men will sometimes, from the infectious nature of that strange emotion— but, no sooner did I 166 1ln9 a very long interview, the colonel accepted my apolo- gies, and we parted. " Before a week elapsed, the story had gone far and near ; every dinner-table in Cork had laughed at it. As for me, I attained immortal honor for my tact and courage. Poor Gullable readily agreed to favor the story, and gave us a dinner as the lost wager, and the colonel was so unmercifully quizzed on the subject, and such broad allusions to his being humbugged were given in the Cork papers, that he was obliged to negotiate a change of quarters with another regi- ment, to get out of the continual jesting, and in less than a month we marched to Limerick, to relieve, as it was reported, the Ninth, ordered for foreign service, but, in reality, only to relieve Lieut. -Colonel Carden, quizzed beyond endurance." An Insinuating Servant Hopeful Youth: "Is Miss De Cash in?' Serva}it : " Yis, sor." Hopeful Youth: Is she engaged?" Set-'ant : " Yis, sor ; but he isn't here this evenin'. Come in." Irish Peasants and a Coroner's Verdict The following is a discussion between some Irish peasants respecting a murder and the coroner's inquest : " 'Twas a schoolmaster, that was found dead on the road one morning with his head full of fractions," said a widow. "All in jommethry,"* said Larry. "And some said he fell off the horse," said the widow. " And more say the horse fell on him," said Larry. " And again there were some said the horse kicked him in the head," said the widow. " And there were talk of the shoe-aside," said Larry. * Anything very badly broken is said by the Irish peasantry to be in " jommethry." 170 Urisb imilt anD f)umor " The horse's shoe was it ? " asked Oonah. "No, alanna," said Larry; "shoe-aside is the Latin for cutting your throat." " But he didn't cut his throat," said the widow. " But, sure, it's all one whether he did it with a razhir on his throat, or a hammer on his head ; it's shoe-aside all the same." "But there was no hammer found, was there?" said the widow. "No," said Larry; "but some people thought he might have hid the hammer afther he done it, to take off the disgrace of the shoe-aside." " But wasn't there any life in him when ue was found? " " Not a taste. The crowner's jury sot on him, and he never said a word agin it, and if he was alive he would." "And didn't they find anything at all?" said Oonah. " Nothing but the vardict," said Larry. " And was that what killed him ?" said Oonah. " No, my dear, it was the crack in the head that killed him, however he kem by it ; but the vardict of the crowner was, that it was done, and that some one did it, and that they wor blackguards, whoever they wor, and persons onknown ; and sure if they wor onknown then, they'd always stay so, for who'd know them after doing the like ? " Killing Wrath By Criticism A well-known clergyman tells the following story against himself: " I was writing by my study win- dow, and a little Irish child was busying himself by throwing beans at the window. Losing all patience, I rushed out of the house, determined to frighten the boy. " It happened that his mother was coming after him at the same moment, and we met by his side. I stormed at the child, and then, as the mother seemed excessively stupid, I gave her a piece of my mind. Finally, as a grand and overwhelming conclusion to my scolding, I said : ' A little discipline now with Itleb 'QClit anD fbumor 171 your children will save you much pain, if not disgrace, in the future. Think of that, madam ; that is, if you ever do think.' " ' Think, is it ! ' she replied ; ' I think if you d go back to your bed-room, and wipe the ink aff av your nose you'd be prettier, even if you didn't make so much av a sensation.' It was not a soft answer, but it had the effect of turning away wrath." To My First Love I remember Meeting you In September Sixty-two. We were eating. Both of us ; And the meeting Happened thus : Accidental, On the road ; (Sentimental Episode.) I was gushing. You were shy ; You were blushing, So was I. I was smitten, So were you. (All that's written Here is true.) Any money? Not a bit. Rather funny, Wasn't it? Vows we plighted Happy pair ! How delighted People were ! But your father. To be sure, Thought it rather Premature ; 172 Urisb TlCllt atiD Ibumoi: And your mother Strange to say, Was another In the way. What a heaven Vanished then ! (You were seven, I was ten.) That was many Years ago — Don't let any- body know. [19] The Humors of the Parnell Commission There were some truly amusing incidents between the counsel for the prosecution, in the Parnell Com- mission, and some of the witnesses who had been summoned to give evidence in support of the charges. W^hether the answers given were designed to produce the effect which resulted, or not, it is certain that greater deftness in avoiding giving the answer that was sought, while at the same time giving an answer that could not exactly be termed hostile, although looking suspiciously like it, could not be imagined. The following are some examples of Paddy's fencing with Sir R. Webster and his colleagues : " Do you know any of the men who wrecked your house ? " " Shure, an' I do." " What are their names? " " Their names, is it ? " "Yes." "Shure, all the shorthand writers in the world couldn't put their names down, there was so many ov 'em." Stand up, sir," said the counsel ; " are you tired ? I am, that — av talkin' to you." " Is the farm vacant? " another witness was asked. " No ; it's stocked with a caretaker and two police- men," was the reply. Hrlsb mit anD IDumor 173 '■ *' Have you been to a house in the Strand? " was asked of a witness who was suspected of having been interviewed by the other side, since his arrival in London. " I saw no house on the Strand. There wasn't one," replied the witness. "What! no houses in the Strand? What Strand are you talking about ? " " One about a mile beyant our house at home." Counsel sat down. Some of the witnesses fenced with almost every question. Innocent as they looked, they were hard nuts to crack. "When you say, 'I might,' said Mr. Davitt to a witness who did not intend to answer a certain ques- tion if he could avoid it, " does that mean, I did ? " " Sure, it might." " Yes, but does it? " " It may." " Please answer. What does * I might ' mean?' " Divil a bit do I know." ** Now, sir," said counsel to another, "you bought some hay, and a shot was fired into your house because you would not give it up. Did you give it up after the shot was fired ? " "I did that." "Did you get your money back?" •' Sorra a bit." " How was that ? " " I don't know." " Do you mean to say you didn't try?" "Sure, and I did nat." "Why not?" " I don't know." " What did you pay for the hay ? " "Is it phwat I paid for the hay? Begorra ! " with a sly wink, " I paid nothing at all ! " 174 Irieb Timtt anD tbumor A Kerry witness was asked how many children he had. "Only six," he replied. " Is that a long family ? " " There's longer." " Any of them earning money ? " " One's married." " What does he earn ? " " I've tould ye he's married." " Now, Michael," said counsel familiarly, "you say you heard a gun, one night, and found a hole in the door that wasn't there before ? " "I did so." "Was it a bullet hole?" " To the best of my belafe." " Will you swear it was a bullet hole?" " It might have been a bullet hole." " Will you swear it was ? " "Arrah, now, be aisy. I didn't see the bullet doin' it." Michael was asked no more questions. " They took me out into the yard, fired at me, an' then bate me," said Pat Donoghue. " What did they beat you with ? " " I don't know that same." " Was it sticks ? " " I don't know." " Did it feel like sticks?" "Begorra, it did that ! " "Now, sir," said counsel to a witness, who was trying his level best to convince the court that he had no intellect whatever, " the constable accompanied you from Galway ; did he talk to you about 'his case? " " Is it talk ye mane ? " "Yes." "Eh?" f tisb Mtt anD Ibumor 176 <'Did he talk?" "I didn't hear him." "You know you did." " Well, if I did, what did he say ? " ^ ,. j " That I mean to find out. Will you swear he did not talk to you?" " How should I know ? " " You know he did." " I don't." "Come, now, answer the question; you are an intelligent man." " Begorra ! that's just what I'm not ! Counsel thought it was a convenient opportunity to sit down. " You say vour husband was shot ; had he joined the League ? '' counsel inquired of a female witness. "Phwat did ye say?" r x. r a "Was your husband a member of the Land League?" . ^^ " He was verv fond of whiskey. " Answer the 'question. Was your husband a mem- ber of the Land League ? " , J , u- 1 i»> " No ; I towld you he was very fond of whiskey ! " What had whiskey to do with it ? " " Shure, that's for a clever gentleman like you to find out." . ^ ^, . Counsel did not put any more questions to this witness. Irish Rent Collecting It having been resolved by Mr. Shirley that the rents which were due should be at once demanded from all defaulting tenants, and if they refused to pay, that the most rigorous measures should be taken to force them into compliance ; the bailiff was accordingly sent out to warn all backward tenants to come in and settle their accounts. The reply to this summons was uniform : " They would pay no rent until their grievances were redressed." Every power conferred by the law was, therefore, brought to bear upon them. Some were served with 176 Urisb Mit anO Ibumor notices to quit ; some with processes for rent ; some with a legal document called a " latilat^^ ; and besides all these, " driving," upon an extensive scale, was adopted as the quickest and most effective mode by which the rent could be hurried in. Grippers, process-servers, keepers, and drivers were now brought into full requisition. The " grii> pers " were directed to arrest all tenants against whom decrees for non-payment of rent had been obtained; the. " process-servers " were employed to serve the tenants with legal processes for rent ; whilst the " keepers " were employed to watch the crops, lest they should be carried away in the night ; and a numerous staff of "drivers" was engaged to drive all the live stock in possession of the defaulting tenants, and to lodge them in the pound at Carrick- niacross. But the tenants kept a watchful eye upon all these preparations, which soon became known through every part of the country, and they took their own measures to frustrate them. To effect this object they established a system of what was called " Molly Maguires." These " Molly Maguires " were generally stout, active young men, dressed up in women's clothes, with faces blackened or otherwise disguised ; some- times they wore crape over their countenances, some- times they smeared themselves in the most fantastic manner with burnt cork about their eyes, mouths, and cheeks. In this state they used suddenly to surprise the unfortunate grippers, keepers or process-servers, and either duck them in bog-holes, or beat them in the most unmerciful manner, so that the " Molly Maguires" became the terror of all our officials. At last neither grippers, process-servers nor keepers could be got for love or money to perform any duty, or to face the danger of these lusty termagants. Under these perple.xing circumstances it was deter- mined at headquarters that I and the bailiffs should go out in a body and " drive for rent," taking a suffi- cient force of police along with us to ensure pro- tection to ourselves and the drivers ; and thus bring the recusant tenants to order. "Driving" enabled Irisb Mft anD Dumor 177 a landlord to seize in the open and impound, without previous notice, the cattle of a defaulting tenant. I shall not readily forget the procession as we started on this expedition, Mr. Barry, the sub- inspector of police, an excellent officer, attended with a large force, which accompanied us as our escort. In front rode the bailiff of the estate. He was a short, fat man, more suited to peace than war : and he did not hesitate to confide to me that he was at that moment " shaking like a hare in her form." ,1 rode beside him, partly in my official capacity as agent, and partly to comfort him by my presence. Behind us tramped our escort of police, and the rear was brought up by three or four magistrates, who had been called into requisition for the occasion, and who seemed to consider it a most unpleasant duty, as it undoubtedly was. No sooner had this formidable party appeared upon the roads in the open country, than the people rushed to the tops of the numerous hills with which the dis- trict abounds ; and as we moved forward, they ran from one hill to another, shouting and cheering with wild, defiant cries, and keeping a line parallel to that in which our party was traveling. The object of our expedition was clearly understood by the people ; and the exact position of our company was indicated to those in the lowlands by the move- ments of thepeople on the hills ; and accordingly as we advanced, every beast belonging to every tenant who owed rent was housed or locked up, or driven some- where away. Thus, as we had no legal right to break open any door, or take any cattle out of any house, but only to seize those we might find in the open fields and upon the lands of the defaulting tenants, we soon perceived (as we might have known before we started) that we were likely to return without success. The bailiff declared with a sigh, " that not a hoof nor a horn was left in the whole country-side." At length, when about to return home, without having secured any booty whatever, we came unex- pectedly upon a poor little heifer calf, browsing quietly on the long grass beside the hedge. The 12 178 Tlrisb Mit anD Ibumor bailiflF having ascertained that she was grazing on the land of a tenant who was a defaulter, we seized upon the unhappy little beast, and drove it ingloriously home to the pound at Carrickmacross, a distance of about two miles amidst the jeers and laughter of the populace, at the result of our formidable day's driving. " Bedad, it's not every day that your honor would be able to bring home such grand stock as that!" remarked one fellow, as the bailiff and I rode to the pound with our prize, in all the dignity we could muster. " Ah, shure, his honor comes from a good counthr)', and should know good stock when he sees it," said another, mischievously. " Sorra hap'orth else he'd be contint wid," said a third ; " and, shure, isn't he goin' to set up an agri- cultural show upon the estate, and that's the very baste will bear away the prize anyhow, as the greatest show of them all." Annoyed as I was at the result of our expedition, I felt it to be impossible to avoid laughing at their fun, and I took it all good-humoredly. Not so the bailiff ; he sighed and groaned at the thought of how low he must have fallen in the opinion of the tenants before they could have dared to use such language towards him whom they had always addressed with respect — which, indeed, he had always deserved — and he whispered to me, in a confidential voice, that " he was ready to sink into the airth with shame." For- tunately for the credit of all parties concerned, we never again attempted a "driving expedition." [ii] An Irishman's Reading of O'Connell's Societies O'Connell had a strange incapacity for inventing attractive titles for his popular organizations. One was called by the bald name of the " Anti-Tory Association," another the " General Association," a third the "Reform Registry Association," and a fourth the " Precursor Society," meaning that it was the precursor of his last resource—" Repeal the Union." But the subtle idea quite escaped the people, who were only puzzled by the unfamiliar word. There Urtsb mil anD Ibumor 179 was a story current in those days that an English traveler having asked a Dublin car-driver what was the object of the "Precursor Society," the boy who was never to be caught without his answer, replied, " Praycurse-sir — why to pray curses on the inimies of Ireland, to be sure." Nicholas and the Low-Backed Car Whilst Lord Callonby was, on one occasion, staying at his country-seat near Kilrush, he had several visitors. Among these came a maiden lady from the neighborhood of Ennistimon, Miss Elizabeth O'Dowd, the last of a very old and respectable family in the county, and whose extensive property, thickly studded with freeholders, was a strong reason for her being paid every attention in Lord Callonby's power to bestow. Miss Betty O' Dowd — for so she was popularly styled — was the very personification of an old maid ; stiff as a ramrod, and so rigid in the observance of the proprieties of female conduct, that, in the estima- tion of the Clare gentry, Diana was a hoyden com- pared to her. Miss Betty lived, as I have said, near Ennistimon, and the road from thence to Callonby, at the time I speak of— it was before Mr. Nimmo— was as like the bed of a mountain torrent as a respectable highway ; there were holes that would have made the grave of any maiden lady within fifty miles ; and rocks thickly scattered, enough to prove fatal to the strongest wheels that ever issued from " Hutton's." Miss O'Dowd knew this well — she had upon one occasion been upset in traveling it — and a slate-colored silk dress bore the dye of every species of mud and mire to be found there, for many a year after, to remind her of her misfortune and keep open the wound of her sorrow. When, therefore, the invitation to Cal- lonby arrived, a grave council of war was summoned to deliberate upon the mode of transit, for the honor could not be declined. The chariot was out of the question ; Nicholas declared it would never reach the " Moraan Beg," as the first precipice was called ; the inside car was long since pronounced unfit for haz- 180 Irieb mtt anD Ibumor ardous enterprise ; and the only resource left was what is called, in Hibernian parlance, a "low-backed car," that is, a car without any back whatever, it being neither more nor less than the common agri- cultural conveyance of the country, upon which, a feather bed being laid, the farmers' wives and daughters are generally conveyed to fairs, wakes, stations, etc. Putting her dignity, if not in her pocket, at least where it could be most conveniently accommodated, Miss O'Dowd placed her fair self, in all the plenitude of her charms and the grandeur oi a "bran-new green silk," a " little off the grass, and on the bottle," upon this humble conveyance, and set out on her way, if not " rejoicing," at least consoled by Nicholas, that " It 'id be black dark before they reached the house, and the divil a one 'id be the wisef than if she came in a coach-and-four." Nicholas was right ; it was perfectly dark on their arrival at Callonby, and Miss O'Dowd having dis- mounted and shaken her plumage, a little crumpled by her half-recumbent position for eight miles appeared in the drawing-room, to receive the most courteous attentions from Lady Callonby, and from his lordship the most flattering speeches for her kindness in risking herself, and bringing her " horses " on such a dreadful road, and assuring her of his getting a presentment at the very next assizes to repair it, — "For we intend. Miss O'Dowd," said he, "to be most troublesome neighbors to you in future." The evening passed off most happily. Miss O'Dowd was delighted with her hosts, whose charac- ter she determined to uphold in spite of their reputa- tion for pride and haughtiness. Lady Jane sang an Irish melody for her. Lady Callonby gave her slips of a rose geranium she got from the Princess Augusta, and Lord Kilkee won her heart by the performance of that most graceful step yclept " cover the buckle " in an Irish jig. But, alas ! how short-lived is human bliss, for while this estimable lady revelled in the full enjoyment of the hour, the sword of Damocles hung suspended above her head ; in plain English, she had, on arriving at Callonby to prevent any unnecessary txieb 11Cl(t anD Ibumor 181 scrutiny into the nature of her conveyance, ordered Nicholas to be at the door punctually at eleven ; and then, to take an opportunity of quietly slipping open the drawing-room door, and giving her intimation of it, that she might take her leave at once. Nicholas was up to time, and having disposed the conveyance under the shadow of the porch, made his way to the door of the drawing-room, unseen and unobserved. Reopened it gently and noiselessly, merely sufficient \o take a survey of the apartment, in which, from the glare of the lights, and the busy hum of voices, he was so bewildered that it was some minutes before he recognized his mistress. At last he perceived her ; she was seated at a card-table, playing whist with Lord Callonby for her partner. Who the other players were, he knew not. A proud man was Nicholas, as he saw his mistress thus placed, actually sitting, as he afterwards expressed it, " fornint the lord," but his thoughts were bent on other matters, and it was no time to indulge his vauntings. He strove for some time patiently to catch her eye, for she was so situated as to permit of this, but with- out success. He then made a slight attempt to attract her attention by beckoning with his finger ; but all in vain. " Oh, murther," said he, " what is this for ? I'll have to sphake afther all." " Four by honors," said his lordship, " and the odd trick. Another double, I believe, Miss O'Dowd." Miss O'Dowd nodded a graceful assent, while a sharp looking old dowager at the side of the table called out, "a rubber of four only, my lord"; and now began an explanation from the whole party at once. Nicholas saw this was his time, and thought that in the melee, his hint might reach his mistress unobserved by the remainder of the company. He accordingly protruded his head into the room, and placing his finger on the side of his nose, and shutting one eye knowingly, with an air of great secrecy whispered out, " Miss Betty— Miss Betty, alannah !" For some minutes the hum of the voices drowned his admonitions, but as, by degrees waxing warmer in the cause, he called out more loudly, every eye was 182 Tlrlsb "Mit atiD Ibumor turned to the spot from whence these extraordinary sounds proceeded ; and certainly the appearance of Nicholas at the moment was well calculated to astonish the company of a drawing-room. With his one eye fixed eagerly in the direction of his mistress, his red scratcii wig pushed back off his forehead, in the eagerness of his endeavor to be heard, there he stood, perfectly unmindful of all around, save Miss O'Dowd herself. It may well be believed that such an apparition could not be witnessed with gravity, and, accordingly, a general titter ran through the room, the whist party, still contending about odd tricks and honors, being the only persons insensible to the mirth around them. " Miss Betty, arrah, Miss Betty," said Nicholas, with a sigh that converted the subdued laughter of the guests into a perfect burst of mirth. " Eh," said his lordship, turning round, " what is this? We are losing something excellent, I fear." At this moment he caught a glimpse of Nicholas, and, throwing himself back in his chair, laughed immoderately. It was now Miss Betty's turn ; she was about to rise from the table, when the well-known accents of Nicholas fell upon her ears. She fell back in her seat — there he was ; the messenger of the foul fiend himself would have been more welcome at that moment. The blood rushed to her face and temples ; her hands tingled ; she closed her eyes, and when she opened them, there stood the accursed Nicholas glowering at her still. " Man— man ! " said she at length, " what do you mean? What do you want here? " Poor Nicholas, little guessing that the question was intended to throw a doubt upon her acquaintance with him, and conceiving that the hour for the announcement had come, hesitated for an instant how he should designate the conveyance. He could not call it a coach ; it certainly was not a buggy ; neither was it a jaunting car; what should he say? He looked earnestly, and even imploringly, at his mis- tress, as if to convey some sense of his difficulty, and then, as it were, catching a sudden inspiration, winked once more, as he said ; f rf9b llCKt an& l)umor 183 **Miss Betty— the — the— the — ," and here he looked indescribably droll — " the thing— yoti know — is at the door." All his lordship's politeness was too little for the occasion, and Miss O'Dowd's tenantry were lost to the Callonby interest forever. An Irish Strike A labor agitator — a " walking delegate " — prominent for his chronic idleness, was known among the real working men as old Jawsomeness. His wife, seeing starvation staring her in the face, resorted to the washtub as a means of support. One day the elegant Mr. Jaw entered the kitchen, where his wife was perspiring over a customer's linen. " Oi tell ye, Biddy, the only way for men to kape their liberty is to strike whoile the iron's hot, an' kape these slave-drivin' capitalists from realizin' the profits av our labor." "Jimmy," replied Biddy, with a dangerous flash in her eye, " Oi've heard enough of that whang doodle. Oi'm 'bliged to iron whoile the strike's hot, an' ef ye come here wid yer gravances Oi'il interduce ye to the argyment av the broom-handle." Proposed Duel Between O'Connell and Sir Robert Peel— Result When the late Sir Robert Peel was Chief Secretary for Ireland, a sharp quarrel arose between him and Mr. O'Connell, in which the latter permitted himself the use of very insulting language to the representa- tive of the English Government. Sir Robert Peel, though by no means of a combative temper, thought it his duty to challenge O'Connell to fight a duel ; but the patriot declined on the ground that his wife was in delicate health, and that, if anything happened to him. Sir Robert would have two deaths instead of one on his conscience. The Chief Secretary accepted this excuse the more willingly because, as he explained to his adversary, his own daughter was far from strong, and the conse- quences of a shock to her nerves might have been 184 1lri5b TICKt anD Ibumor disastrous. When this pacific arrangement came to the ears of Chief Justice Burke, he composed the fol- lowing lines on the subject : Two heroes of Erin, intent upon slaughter, Improve on the Hebrew command ; One honors his wife, and the other his daughter, That their days may be long in the land. The Butler and the Whiskey He was a butler of Irish descent, and much given to the study of alcohol. At last his mistress, Mrs. Gilbert, could stand it no longer. " Dennis," she said, as he brought in the tea-urn, "you've been at the whiskey again." " Indade, ma'am, sorra a dhrop has passed my lips this blissed day." " How dare you tell me such a falsehood ? I can smell your breath." " Is it me bhrith, ma'am ? Sure it's not the whiskey at all, at all, but the bad drains." How Two Irishmen Sold Out their Stock-in-Trade Two Irishmen going to the Derby races took a keg of whiskey to sell there. In going they agreed that neither should have a drink without paying for it. They went a good way and then had a rest. One 6f them, who had threepence (the other had nothing) gets some whiskey and pays the other for it. By-and-by the one who got the threepence gets thirsty, too, so he has some whiskey and pays the one who first had the threepence for it. They go on their way, first one paying and then the other, till all the whiskey was drunk. They then started to count the receipts and were a little surprised to find they had only threepence. Biddy and the Policeman The following dialogue actually took place in Covent Garden between a new policeman and an Irish basket worn an : Jrishwomaji : " Pray, poleeshman, what's the rason Urisb mn ant) Ibumoc 185 of your wearing that white thing round one of your wrists? " Policeman : " Why, woman, that is to show that we are on duty." Irishwoman : Och, by the powers ! I thought it was because ve didn't know yer right hand from yer left." What Pat Did When the WeU Fell In An Irishman took a contract to dig a well. When he had dug about twenty-five feet down, he came one morning and found it had fallen in, and that it was filled nearly to the top. Pat looked cautiously around and saw that no per- son was near, then took off his hat and coat and hung them on a windlass, crawled into some bushes and awaited events. In a short time the neighbors discovered that the well had fallen in and, seeing Pat's hat and coat on the windlass, they supposed that he was at the bottom of the excavation. Only a few hours of brisk digging cleared the loose earth from the well. Just as the excavators had reached the bottom and were wondering where the body was, Pat came out of the bushes and good- naturedly thanked the diggers for relieving him of a sorra job. Some of the tired diggers were disgusted, but the joke was too good to allow of anything more than a laugh, which followed promptly. National Characteristics An Englishman was accosted thus : " What will you take to stand all night in the dome of St. Paul's?" " A beefsteak and a pint of beer," was the frank reply. The next one accosted was a Scotchman : Says Sandie : " What will ye gie ? " Lastly came along Patrick, and when he was asked what he would take to stand all night in the dome of St. Paul's, he willingly answered : "Shure, an' I'll be apt to take a bad cowld." 186 tvieb ma atiD Ibumor Irish Confidence Johnson : " So you know young Jones ? " O' Kelly : " Yis, sorr, I know him." Johnsoti : " Can a person believe what he says? " Pat : " Faith, an' it's just this way : When he tells ye the truth, ye can belave every word he says ; but when he lies to yez, ye'd betther have no confidence in him at all." A Tight Pair of Boots An Irishman who had blistered his fingers by endeavoring to draw on a pair of boots, exclaimed : " I shall never get them on at all until I wear them a day or two." Paddy's Test of Goodness The following took place in an American court on one of the occasions of " naturalization," which is usual previous to a general election : Judge " Do you know O'Brien?" Irish Witness : "Yes, sorr." Judge : " How long has he been in this country ? " Witness : " A little over five year." Judge : " Is he a man of good moral character ? " Witness {quite bewildered) : " Shure, yer honor, I don't know what moral character means." Judge : " Well, sir, I will talk more plainly to you. Does O'Brien stand fair before the community ? " Wittiess {completely nonplussed) : "By my sowl, 1 don't apprehend your maning, your honor." Judge {rather irritated) : "I mean to ask you, sir, if O'Brien, the person who wants to be a citizen, and for whom you are a witness, is a good man or not? " Witness ■ " Oh ! an' why didn't you ax me that way before? To be sure he's a good man. Shure, an' I've seen him in ten fights durin' the last two years, an' iv'ry time he licked his man." A Facetious Lawyer Not long ago, in the Court of Appeal, an Irishman, while arguing with earnestness in his cause, stated a point which the court ruled out. Hrfsb IKHit anD Ibumor 187 " Well," said the lawyer, " if it plaze the coort, if I am wrong in this, I have another point that is equally as conclusive." An Irishman's Plea " Are you guilty, or not guilty?" asked the clerk of the criminal court of an Irish prisoner. " An' shure," said Pat, " what areyees there for but to foind that out ? " Why Pat Decided to Plead " Guilty ! " Two Irish prisoners were brought up on a charge of larceny. One of them pleaded guilty, but the other preferred to take his chance. The judge asked him if he had counsel, and finding that he had not, assigned him a young gentleman not so remarkable for brains as for hair and jewelry. He rose to put the case of his new client, looked first at the prisoner, then at the judge, then all over the court-house, but never a word could he find to utter. He was stuck ! The prisoner broke the silence. " Be jabbers ! yer honor," said Pat, " if you can't do any better for me than that, I may as well plade guilty, too ! " which he did forthwith, Paddy's Preciseness in Giving Evidence The following took place in a London police-court, at which Thackeray (then a young reporter) was in attendance. Pat Fogarty had gone all the way from Manchester to London to thrash Mick Fitzpatrick, which he did, winding up the performance with the assistance of an "awful horseshoe." He was detected, and brought before the magistrate, and a part of his examination is here given : Cou7-i : " Well, sir, you came here from Manchester, did you not?" Pal: " Your honor has answered correct." Court : You see the complainant's head ; it was cut by a sharp instrument. Do you know what cut it? " Pai: " Ain't your honor afther sayin' that a sharp insthrument did ? " 188 txisc Mit anD Ibumoc Cour/ {becoming restive): "I see, you mean tc equivocate. Now, sir, you cut that head ; you came here to cut it, did you not? Now, sir, what motive brought you to London ? " Pat : " The locomotive, yer honor." Court {waxing zcarm) : " Equivocating again, you scoundrel ! " (Raising up the horseshoe, and holding it before Pat) Do you see this horseshoe, sir?" Pat : " Is it a horseshoe, yer honor? " Court {testily) : " Don't you see it is, sir? Are you blind ? Can you not tell at once that it is a horse- shoe ? " Pat : " Bedad, no, yer honor." Court {angrily) : " No ? " Pat : " No, yer honor ; but can yerself tell ? " Court : " Of course I can, you stupid Irishman." Pat {soliloquizing aloud) : " Oh, glory be to good- ness, see what education is, yer honor ! Shure, a poor ignorant creature like meself wouldn't know a horse's shoe from a mare's. The Judge Which Best Suited Patrick Biddy {to Pat, in charge about a difficulty) : " Never fear, Pat ! Shure, y'ave got an upright judge to thry ye ! " Pat: "Ah, Biddy, darlin', the divil an upright jidge I want 1 'Tis wan that'll lane a little ! " A Coroner on Irish Mortality It was an Irish coroner who, when asked how he accounted for an extraordinary mortality in Limerick, replied sadly : " I cannot tell ; there are people dying this year that never died before." How Paddy Proposes to Wake Himself An Irishman a short time since offered an extra- ordinary price for an alarm clock, and gave for a reason, " That as he loved to rise early, he had nothing to do but to pull the string, and he could wake himself." f rlsb Mit anD Ibumor 189 How His Hat Looked on Another Head " I say, John, where did 3'ou get that horrible look- ing hat? " "Please, yer honor," said John, "it's an ould one of yours that missis gave me yesterday, when you went to town." A Funny Announcement It was an Irish handbill that announced with boundless liberality, in reference to a great political demonstration in the Rotunda, that " Ladies, without distinction of sex, would be welcome." Paddy's Patience Under Difficulties Some years ago, in one of the Western States of America, an Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotch- man were found guilty of murder, and sentenced to death ; but were allowed to decide the manner of death themselves. The Scotchman promptly chose to be hanged on an ash tree ; the Englishman chose an oak ; but Pat said : " If you plaze, your honor, I'd rather be hung on a gooseberry bush." " That's not big enough," said the judge. " Begorra, thin," said Pat, brightening up, " Oi'Il wait till it grows." An Irishman's Thoughts on the Various Trades and Callings Of all the trades that men may call Unpleasant and offensive. The editor's is worst of all, For he is ever pen-sive ; His leaders lead to nothing high, His columns are unstable, And though the printer makes him pie, It does not suit his table. The carpenter— his course is plane, His bit is always near him ; He augurs every hour of gain, He chisels — and none can jeer him ; 190 Urtsb IKIlit anD fbumor He shaves, yet is not dose, they say ; The public pay his board, sir ; Full of wise saws, he bores away, And so he swells his hoard, sir. St. Crispin's son— the man of shoes- Has all things at control, sir; He waxes wealthy in his views, But ne'er neglects his sole sir ; His is, indeed, a heeling trade ; And when he comes to casting The toe-tal profits he has made, We find his ends are lasting. The tailor, too, gives fit to all, Yet never gets a basting; His cabbages, however small, Are most delicious tasting ; His goose is heated— happy prig! Unstinted in his measure, He always plays at thimble-rig, And seams a man of pleasure. The farmer reaps a fortune plump, Though harrowed, far from woe, sir; His spade forever proves a trump, His book is I've-an-hoe, sir; However corned, he does not slip ; Though husky, never hoarse, sir; And in a ploughshare partnership He gets his share, of course, sir. The sailor on the giddy mast- Comparatively master — Has many a bulwark round him cast To wave away disaster ; Even shrouds to him are full of life, His mainstay still is o'er him, A gallant and a top-gallant crew Of beaux esprits before him. The sturdy Irish laborer picks And climbs to fame— 'tis funny ! He deals with none but regular bricks. And so he pockets money ; Irisb "CClit an^ Ibumor 191 One friend sticks to him (mortar 'tis), In hodden grey, unbaffled, He leaves below an honest name When he ascends the scaffold. The printer, though his case be hard, Yet sticks not at his hap, sir ; 'Tis his to canonize the bard. And trim a Roman Cap, sir. Some go two-forty— what of that? He goes it by the thousand ; A man of form, and fond of fat, He loves the song I now send. The engine-driver, if we track His outward semblance deeper, Has got some very tender traits- He ne'er disturbs the sleeper ; And when you switch him as he goes He whistles all the louder. And should you break him on the wheel It only makes him prouder. I launched this skiff of rhymes upon The trade-winds of the Muses, Through pungent seas they've borne it on, The boat no rudder uses ; So masticate its meaning once, And judge not sternly of it— You'll find a freight of little puns, And very little profit." [12] An " Irish " Sailor An Irishman, brought before a justice of the peace on a charge of vagrancy, was thus questioned : " What trade are you ? " ^, " Shure, now, your honor, an' I'm a sailor. " You a seafaring man? I question whether you were ever at sea in your life." - ., • , t ^^^^ " Shure, now, an' does your^ honor think I came over from Ireland in a wagin ? " An Irish Cause and an Irish Effect I In hearing an Irish case of assault and battery, (counsel, in cross-examining one of the witnesses, 192 f rlab TlDKt anD "toumor asked him what they had the first place tliey stopped at ? " Four glasses of ale," was the reply. "Next?" " Two glasses of whiskey." " Next ? '* " One glass of brandy." "Next?" " A fight." Making it Even With the Judge A certain judge was once obliged to sleep with an ,' Irishman in a crowded hotel in America, when the I following conversation took place between them : " Pat, you would have remained a long time in the old country before you could have slept with a judge, would you not ? " "Yes, your honor," said Pat; "and I think your honor would have been a long time in the ould country before ye'd been a judge, too." He Struck Her With Impunity "And, now, Mrs. Sullivan," said the counsel, " will you be kind enough to tell the jury whether your husband was in the habit of striking you with impunity ? " "With what, sir?" "With impunity." " He wuz, sir, now and thin ; but he shtruck me oftener with his fisht." An Amusing Threat An Irishman once contracted to clean a well, and descended for that purpose. When he was through, be made the signal to be hauled up. His companions, who were determined to have a joke at his expense, hauled him up about half way and then stopped. There he hung— no way to get up— no safe way to get down, if that were desirable. He begged and entreated, but it was of no use. He stormed and raved, but it did no good. At last he sung out : " Haul it out, ye spalpeens, or, by the piper that played before Moses, I'll be afther cuttin' the rope ! " Icisb Wit anD Ibumoc 193 What'U We Take Now? An excited orator, during the late American civil war, exclaimed : " We have taken Atlanta ; we have taken Savannah, Columbus, Charleston, and now, at last we have captured Petersbuig, and occupy Rich- mond ; and what remains for us to take? " An Irishman in the crowd shouted, " Let's take a drink! " The crowd dispersed in various directions. Paddy and the Telephone Father O'Halloran had a telephone put into the parsonage in connection with the church, parochial school, etc. Patrick McFee, his reverence's handy man, was instructed in the use of the instrument, and it was only the next day when Pat, dusting out the church, heard the clatter of the telephone. Well, taking down the receiver, he was pleased to hear Father O'Halloran's familiar vo'ce asking him some- thing or other about his work. Pat, in essaying to answer, remembered that his reverence was a long way off, and consequently hallooed into the trans- mitter at the top of his voice. " I didn't understand you, Pat," said the telephone. Pat tried again with no better success. On his third trial he came near splitting the telephone, but came again Father O'Halloran's voice: " I can't hear what you're saying, Patrick." Pat had by this time lost some of his patience, and as he stood gathering up his breath for his fourth blast, he couldn't refrain from soliloquizing in a low tone : " Ah, may the devil fly away with the old fool ! " But Pat dropped the telephone like a hot potato and fell on his knees in dismay, when he heard Father O'Halloran's voice again : " Now, I hear you perfectly, Patrick." Going to •• Kill 'Em All " A story is told of an Englishman who landed in Dublin not long ago filled with apprehension that life was not worth a farthing there, and thereabouts. IS 194 Urisb TlCllt an& Ibumor The Land Leaguers, he imagined, were all blood- thirst.v assassins, and all that kind of thing. But it was his dut}' to travel in the land — a duty he approached with fear and trembling. Now, there happened to be on his route a number of towns, the names of which began with the suggest- ive syllable " Kil." There was Kilmartin, and soon. In his ignorance of geographical nomenclature, his affrighted senses were startled anew on hearing a fellow passenger in the railway carriage remark to another as follows : " I'm just afther bein' over to Kilpatrick." "And I," replied the other, "afther bein' over to Kilmary." " What murderers they are ! " thought the English, man, " and to think that they talk of their assassina- tion so publicly ! " But the conversation went on : "And phare are ye goin' now?" asked assassin No. I. " I'm goin' home, and then to Kilmore," was No. 2's reply. The Englishman's blood curdled. "Kilmore, is it?" added No. i. "You'd better be comin' along wid me to Kiln- maul ! " It is related that the Englishman left the train at the next station. Pat and His Gun I've heard a good joke of Emerald Pat, Who kept a few brains and a brick in his hat. He was bound to go hunting ; so taking his gun He rammed down a charge — this was load number one ; Then he put in the priming, and when all was done, By way of experiment, he thought he would try And see if perchance he might hit the " bull's eye." He straightened himself until he made a good figure, Took a deliberate aim, and then pulled the trigger. Click ! went the hammer, but nothing exploded ; " An' shure," muttered Pat, " the gun isn't loaded." Hrfsb llClit an& Ibumor 195 So down went another charge, just as before, Unless this contained a grain or two more ; Once more he made ready and took a good aim And pulled at the trigger— effect quite the same. " I wonder, can this be still shootin' ? " said Pat, " I put down a load, now I'm certain of that ; " I'll try it again and then we shall see ! " So down went the cartridge of load number three. Then, trying again with a confident air, And succeeding no better, he gave up in despair. Just at that moment he happened to spy His friend, Mike Milligan, hurrying by : " Hello, Mike ! Come here and try on my gun ; " I've been trying to shoot until I'm tired and done ! '* So Mike took the gun and picked up the powder Remarking to Pat, " It would make it go louder." Then placing it firmly against his right arm. And never suspecting it might do him harm, He pointed the piece in the proper direction. And pulled on the trigger without more reflection, When off went the gun like a county election — Where whiskey and gin have exclusive selection Of those who are chosen to guard the inspection — There's a great deal of noise, and some little inspec- tion — And Michael went off in another direction. " Hold on ! " shouted Pat ; " hold on to the gun, " I put in three loads, and you fired off but one ! " Get up, and be careful ! Don't hold it so level ! " Or else we are both of us gone to the — cemetery ! " " I'm goin'," says Michael, "it's time that I wint, " I've got meself kicked, and I'll just take the hint.'* Now, old boys, and young, here's a moral for you : Don't take Pat as your pattern whatever you do ; Don't carry too much in the crown of your hat ; Of all things you lodge there, beware of the bat ! I don't mean the mouse which flies in the air. Which ladies oft fear may get into their hair ; But the dangerous brick-bat, so much worse than that. Which nobody wears who isn't a " flat," 196 Urisb Mit an& Dumor And then, don't forget it is one of old Nick's Diabolical methods of playing his tricks On foolish young men— who become " perfect bricks ;" And he don't give the hint until after he kicks 1 Pronounced " Hostility " A pedagogue told one of his scholars, a son of the Emerald Isle, to spell " hostility." " H-o-r-s-e, horse," began young Pat. "Not * horse-tility,' " said the teacher, " but hos- tility." "Shure," replied Pat, "an' didn't ye tell me the other day not to say ' hoss ' ? Be jabers, it's one thing wid ye one day and anither the nixt." An Irishman's Love Letter The following letter was actually written by a young Irish small farmer : " Dear Miss : I have been in love with you for a long time, and take this opportunity to inform you by letter ; and would ye like to cort for marriage ? If so, I would like to have you if you are not spoke for. And if you are spoke for, is your sister spoke for? You and she is both so hansom it is hard to tell which is the hansomis. I have got a little farm, an' don't you think I am pretty good looking. I think you are very good looking. And if you want me an' if you don't want me be sure an' answer me yis or no." [20] Biddy Malone's Certificate Biddy Malone was in a great fever of excitement when she landed in America, direct from the " ould counthry." Her certificate of character was lost on board ship, and what would she be after doin' ? To her great happiness and consolation, Tim Mulligan, her Irish friend, volunteered and wrote her the fol- lowing beautiful recommendation : " This is to certify tliat Biddy Malone had a good character before she left the ' ould counthry,' but lost it on shipboard, comin' over." txi6b Mit anD Ibumot 197 Why Pat Ate the Chicken A Scotchman and an Irishman happened to be journeying together through an almost interminable forest, and losing their way wandered about in a pitiable condition for awhile, when fortunately they came to a miserable hovel, which was deserted save by a lone chicken. As this poor biped was the only thing eatable to be obtained, they eagerly dispatched and prepared it for supper. When laid before them, Pat concluded that it was insufficient for both himself and Sandy, and he there- fore proposed to his companion that they should save the chicken until the next morning, and that the one who had dreamed the pleasantest dream dur- ing the night should have the chicken, which was agreed to. In the morning Sandy told his dream. He thought angels were drawing him up to heaven in a basket, and that he had never before been so happy. Upon hearing the conclusion of the dream, Pat exclaimed : " Och, shure, an' be jabers, I saw ye goin' an' thought ye wouldn't come back, so I got up an' ate the chicken meself ! " Hitting the Nail on the Head A man was complaining to some bystanders that he did not know what was the matter with his horses. He had tried everything he could hear of — condition powder and all other specifics — but to no purpose. They would not improve in flesh. A stable boy, of Irish extraction, whose sympathies were aroused by the story, comprehended the situa- tion and modestly asked : " Did you iver try corn ? " A Personal Reflection " I see the villain in your face," said a western judge to an Irish prisoner. "May it plaze yer worship," replied Pat, "that must be a personal reflection, sure." 198 Tlrisb Mit anD Ibumor Why O'Connell was Patient When traveling in France, during the time of his sojourn at St. Omer's, O'Connell encountered a very talkative Frenchman, who incessantly poured forth the most bitter tirades against England. O'Connell listened in silence ; and the Frenchman, surprised at the indifference, at last exclaimed : " Do you hear? do you understand what I am say- ing, sir ? " " Yes, I heard you, I comprehend you perfectly." ** Yet you do not seem angry ? " " Not in the least." " How can you so tamely bear the censures I pro- nounce against your country ? " " Sir, England is not my country. Censure her as much as you please ; you cannot offend me. I am an Irishman, and my countrymen have as little reason to love England as yours have, perhaps less." A Political Hurrah at a Funeral Ascending the mountain road between Dublin and Glencullen, in company with an English friend, O'Connell was met by a funeral. The mourners soon recognized him, and immediately broke into a voci- ferous hurrah for their political favorite, much to the astonishment of the Sassenach, who, according to the solemn decorum of English funerals, was not pre- pared for the outburst of Celtic enthusiasm upon such an occasion. A remark being made on the oddity of a political hurrah at a funeral, it was replied that the corpse doubtless would have cheered lustily, too, if it could. O'Connell and a «' Pointed " Quotation Mr. Goulburn while secretary for Ireland, visited Killarney, when O'Connell (then on circuit) happened to be there. Both stopped at Finn's hotel, and chanced to get bedrooms opening off the same corridor. The early habits of O'Connell made him be up at cock-crow. Finding the hall door locked, and so hindered from walking outside, he commenced walking up and down the corridor. To pass the time, he repeated aloud Irisb limit anD Ibumor 199 some of Moore's poetry, and had just uttered the lines — We tread the land that bore us, The green flag flutters o'er us. The friends we've tried are by our side — At this moment Goulburn popped his nightcapped head out to see what was the matter. O'Connell instantly pointed his finger at him, and finished the verse — And the foe we hate before us ! In went Goulburn's head in the greatest hurry. The Irishman's Prayer When the British ships under Nelson were bearing down to attack the combined fleet off Trafalgar, the first lieutent of the Revenge, on going round to see that all hands were at quarters, observed one of the men devoutedly kneeling at the side of his gun. So very unusual an attitude in a British sailor exciting his surprise and curiosity, he went and asked the man if he was afraid. "Afraid?" answered the honest tar; "No; I was only praying that the enemy's shots may be distribu- ted in the same proportion as prize-money — the greatest part among the officers." " Dry " Humor An Irish post-boy having driven a gentleman a long stage during torrents of rain, the gentleman civilly said to him, " Paddy, are you not very wet ? " " Arrah ! I don't care about being very wet, but plase your honor, I'm very dry." Irish Cordiality A distinguished officer was lately president of a court-martial. He had sworn a witness, a raw Irish recruit, and held out his hand for the Bible. Judge his astonishment, however, at finding it — his hand — grasped and heartily shaken by Pat, who, in the very broadest brogue said— " It's meself who is proud and happy to hould the hand of ye, sir, and may St. Patrick and all the saints o1 ould Ireland bless your honor." 200 Irigb "Mix anD tbumor A Gentleman Caned in Court by O'Connell "I remember," said O'Connell, " being counsel at a special commission in Kerry against a Mr. S , and having occasion to press him somewhat hard in my speech, he jumped up in court and called me ' a purse-proud blockhead.' I said to him, ' In the first place, I have got no purse to be proud of, and, secondly, if I be a blockhead, it is better for you, as I am counsel against you. However, just to save you the trouble of saying so again, I'll administer a slight rebuke ' — whereupon I whacked him soundly on the back with the president's cane. Next day he sent a challenge by William Ponsonby of Crottoe ; but very shortly after, he wrote me to state, that since he had challenged me, he had discovered that my life was inserted in a very valuable lease of his. ' Under these circumstances,' he continued, ' I cannot afford to shoot you, unless, as a precautionary measure, you first insure your life for my benefit. If you do, then heigh for powder and ball ! I'm your man.' " A Short-sighted Irishman An Irishman who was very nearsighted, about to fight a duel, insisted that he should stand six paces nearer to his antagonist than the other did to him, and they were both to fire at the same time. Hov^r Sheridan "Turned Away" His Creditor's Wrath Sheridan and Kelly were one day in earnest con- versation close to the gate of the path (which was then open to the public) leading across the church- yard of St. Paul's, Covent Garden, from King Street to Henrietta Street, when Mr. Holloway, who was a creditor of Sheridan's to a considerable amount, came up to them on horseback, and accosted Sheridan in a tone of something more like anger than sorrow, and complained that he never could get admittance when he called, vowing vengeance against the infernal Swiss, Monsieur Fran9ois, if he did not let him in the next time he went to Hertford Street. Holloway was really in a passion. Sheridan knew trisb TlUit anD l)umor 20i that he was vain of his judgment in horseflesh, and, without taking any notice of the violence of his manner, burst into an exclamation upon the beauty of the horse which he rode. He struck the right chord. "Why," said Holloway, " I think I may say there never was a prettier creature than this. You were speaking to me, when I last saw you, about a horse for Mrs. Sheridan ; now, this would be a treasure for a lady." " Does he canter well?" said Sheridan. " Beautifully," replied Holloway. " If that's the case, Holloway," said Sheridan, "I really should not mind stretching a point for him. Will you have the kindness to let me see his paces?" " To be sure," said the lawyer; and putting him.- self into a graceful attitude, he threw his nag into a canter along the market. The moment his back was turned, Sheridan wished Kelly " good morning," and went off through the churchyard, where no horse could follow, into Bedford Street, laughing immoderately, as indeed did several of the standers-by. The only person not entertainer' by this practical joke was Mr. Holloway. The Taxman Taxo, tax&\s, taxex, /ajreton, /ajromen, laxeXe, taxoxxsx. — Greek Grammar. A moon ago, one morning, as I tried to kill the blues By the fragrance of Manillas and elopements in the news. All suddenly the echo of a spurious double knock So startled me that both of them dropped from me at the shock ; But my vinaigrette was near — it was near me, thank my stars. For my nerves are very weak from dissipation and cigars. I sank upon the cushions of a lounger rich and thick (Like all my other furniture, I had it upon tick), Till the valet brought me, grinningly, an oblong billet-doux, 202 Hrlsb mil anD Dumor With Queen Victoria's compliments, requesting one- pound two — By Parnassus, 'tis the taxman ; he hath called three times before — " The phantom of the threshold" — the lion's at the door ; "Say, Tom, I'm sick, or not at home, and won't be back at all." " So I tould him, plase your honor, but he wouldn't lave the hall." Well, then, thought I, soft solder must be given as before ; So I took a gentle stimulant, and hastened to the door. In my richest robe-de-chambre, and my Turkish slippers, too. And my very blandest simper, I began with, " Ah— how do? " But the taxman spake unto me, " Three times I've called in vain ; " By the Hokey you shall rue it if you make me call again." {Mem. — Probably this Hokey's he whom savage Muses sing — Of all the islands cannibal, the not unworthy king.) And then thedoorhe most melodramaticallyslammed — A fine emphatic pantomime, expressing " You be ." A week of doubt most terrible, of expectation dire, And again the phantom cometh, he cometh in his ire, And the taxman spake unto me, he spake with jeer and scoff, " Fork out the blunt instanter, or I'll cant your chat- tels off." And thereto, besides, moreover, superadded he an oath, But the Muse, unused to swearing, to repeat it here is loath — The Muse, a pious virgin, never swears but when she's vexed — So alas for future critics on this here most classic text ! Screw microscopic goggles on each philologic snout. If the Muse won't tell you what he swore, you'll scarcely make it out. Irisb limit anD Ibumor 203 But, courage, future philomaths, and friends of lyric lore— By Jingo — living Jingo — was the solemn oath he swore. But who this awful Jingo is, none know, 'tis very odd ; He, possibly, of taxmen is the tin-devouring god. In vain to soothe the worshiper of Jingo I began — " Dear sir, I'll tell my uncle, who's a very public man, " And whose ready generosity will gladly knuckle down " Whatever tin I ask him for, from a yellow to a brown ; " And if you call to-morrow, I, mayhap, shall tell you then "What Sunday in the coming week you'd better call again." Now the taxman spake not to me, but, with eccentric bound, Like a bit of Indian-rubber uprose he from the ground. And falling round the corner, from the horizon and from me. Went oflf hopping like a chess-knight or intoxicated flea. But many an imprecation flitted back on zephyr's wing — " By Jingo ! " and " By Hokey !— by Hokey ! " and "By Jing!" And though I know he loves me so he'll surely come again. With certain raw crustaceae, most likely in his train, The phantom and his lobster host with calmness I shall view. For my uncle above-mentioned has supplied the one- pound-two. [2l] Full of Information A gentleman going up Sixth Avenue, New York, overtook an Irish laborer, to whom he said : " Can you tell me if I am half way to Central Park ? " " Faith, an' I may ; but I'll nade to know where ye started from," was the prompt reply. Pursuing his inquiries, and seeing a large funeral procession, the gentleman asked his companion whose funeral it was. 204 Icteb Wit anD Dumor " Be gorrah, sir," said Pat, with a most innocent look, " it's meself that cannot say for sartain, but I'm afther thinkin' it's the man'' s in the coffin.'" Why Pat Refused to Buy a Trunk " Buy a trunk, Pat ? " said a dealer. "And what for should I buy a trunk?" rejoined Pat. " To put your clothes in," was the reply. " And go naked ? " exclaimed Pat ; " not a bit of it.*' O'Connell and His Literary Criticism Daniel O'Connell, on meeting a literary friend one day, exclaimed : " I have just seen a capital thing in your last new pamphlet." " Did you ? " eagerly replied the delighted listener ; " what was it ? " " A pound of butter," was the merciless answer. How O'Connell Entrapped a Witness An illustration of his dexterity in compassing an unfortunate culprit's acquittal may be here narrated. He was employed in defending a prisoner wiio was tried for a murder committed in the vicinity of Cork. The principal witness swore strongly against the prisoner — one corroborative circumstance was that the prisoner's hat was found near the place where the murder took place. The witness swore positively the hat produced was the one found, and that it belonged to the prisoner, whose name was James. " By virtue of your oath, are you positive that this is the same hat? " "Yes." " Did you examine it carefully before you swore in your information that it was the prisoner's? " " Yes." " Now, let me see," said O'Connell, and he took up the hat, and began carefully to examine the inside. He then spelt aloud the name James— slowly, thus : "J — a — m — e — s." " Now, do you mean to say that name was in the hat when you found it ? " Irisb limit anD Ibumor 205 "Ido. " " Did you see it there ? " " I did." " And this is the same hat ? " "It is." " Now, my lord," said O'Connell, holding up the hat to the Bench, " there's an end to this case — there is no name whatever inscribed in the hat." The result was instant acquittal. Letting Out the Darkness A gentleman seeing an Irishman removing an embankment from a dwelling, inquired : " Patrick, what are you doing?" " I am opening the cellar window, to be sure." " And what are you doing that for? " " May it plaise your honor," said Patrick, " to let out the dark.^^ An Irish Recruit's Height I An Irish recruit was asked by his officer, "What's [your height?" to which Pat replied, " The man that I measured me told me it was five feet ten, or ten feet Ifive. I am not exactly sure which, but it was either lone or the other." Getting Paddy to Emigrate It frequently happened that far more delicate trusts than those of a financial nature were committed to my care ; I became the depository of little secrets of a very different class, and especially amongst the intending emigrants. In no case, I admit, did they consult me unless they thought they could obtain some valuable assistance ; but on such occasions they did not hesitate, in the most open and unrestrained manner, to confide in me all their hopes and fears. An instance of this nature, and illustrative of what I have stated, occurred about this period. There was at this time a young man living on the Bath Estate, named Patrick M'Dermot, or "Patsy," as he was generally called in the country. He was an idle, rollicking, pleasant fellow, remarkably good looking, and a general favorite amongst the girls. Not 206 -ffrfsb TDClit anD Ibumor a fair, nor a wake, nor a race, nor a funeral could go on with advantage unless Patsy graced it with his presence. His father and mother had died during the famine. They had held a small plot of ground, and a house or cabin attached ; but not having been of an industrious disposition, they sank at once — as did thousands of others — when the hungry year came upon them. Patsy was only a " slip of a boy " in 1847 ; but he was so handsome and good-natured, and of such a genial, pleasant disposition, that he readily obtained the run of his neighbors' houses, who, partly from pity, and partly because he seldom failed to enliven the social circle with his presence, were always glad to grant him " his bit and sup " whenever he chose to call in. The natural indisposition to labor which Patsy had inherited from his father was by no means amended by this vagabond sort of life; and he grew up, as I have stated, a good-looking attractive youth, with manners superior to most of the hard-working young men around him, but without having acquired any habits of labor or steadv industry. This was all very well, and proved to be a pleasant life enough, so long as he was not forced to pay any rent whatever ; but when a firm demand was made, and a clear understanding come to, that the rent must be paid or the land surrendered, poor Patsy " lost his presence of mind," as he expressed it, and frankly expressed he did not know what to do. It was in this condition of affairs that my first interview occurred with Patsy M'Dermot. "Well, M'Dermot," says I, as he appeared one daj in reply to a summons from my office, " what are you going to do ? You owe four years' rent. Are you going to settle the amount? " " Couldn't your honor call me ' Patsy,' replied he, evading my question with adroitness ; " it's a kindly sort of name the neighbors has for me, and I'd know far better how to spake to your honor if you was to use it yourself." " I have no objection," I answered, "and shall be happy to call you Patsy in future ; but that does nrt f r(6b TKIlit an& Ibumor 207 affect my question, and I must know at once what your intentions are, as I cannot allow you to remain in possession of your land unless you come to some settlement about your rent." " For the matter of that," replied Patsy, " there are plenty holdin' their land still who owe as many years as I do?" "Quite true," said I, "but I don't intend they should do so long." " Maybe your honor won't find it so aisy to put them out of it as you think," remarked Patsy. " Perhaps not," replied I ; " and perhaps, also, I estimate the difficulties of the situation quite as highly as you do. But let other people take care of their own business, Patsy, and let me bring you back to yours, which you are so uncommonly quick at evading ; once more— do you intend to pay up or to emigrate ? " " Your honor is mighty tight upon a poor, desolate orphan boy like me, without father or mother to care for him," answered Patsy, with a slight affectation of whimper in his tone of voice. " But truth is best," continued he, seeing this would not go down, " and I may as well tell ye at once, that I haven't a ha'porth of goods in the world, nor as much money in my pocket as would buy me a breakfast of Indian meal." "And how have you lived up to this?" I asked ; " you don't seem starved, or as if you had wanted anything ; even your clothes are better than most people can afford these times. How have you got on so well hitherto ? " " Well, your honor," replied Patsy, " it would only be troubling you too much, and taking up your time, to tell you all about it ; but the neighbors was always good to me, and the girls was kind and more than good, as they always are ; and, what with one thing or another, I never wanted up to this — that is, always barrin' a thrifie of cash. I could get victuals and clothes aisy enough ; but, somehow, whenever I axed the loan of a few shillin's, sorra farthin' there hap- pened to be in the house just then, and I never could get money to pay my rent. An' now, if your honor takes the little place from me, maybe the girls them- 208 Hdsb ma anD t>umot selves — good as they always were — wouldn't think me so comely or clean lookin' a chap as they always thought me before." " Nonsense, Patsy," said I ; " you know well half the girls in the country are in love with you, and there is no such favorite, I hear, in the barony." " Was your honor ever a bachelor?" asked Patsy, with an innocent look. " To be sure I was," replied I. "An' ye got married after awhile, I suppose?" inquired Patsy, still retaining his affected innocence. " Of course I did." said I ; you know well I have a wife and family." " I was thinkin' as much," rejoined Patsy, with a reflective air ; " an' I was just turnin' in my mind whether your honor ever remarked that the noble young ladies you would be coortin' ever found out by any chance in life that you were not nigh so handsome or illegant a young gentleman after your wedding as you was before it." "You are a shrewd fellow," replied I, laughing, " and uncommonly active at changing the venue from your own case to that of some one else. But all this won't do. You must give me an answer — Will you pay up or emigrate?" "Well, well, now," observed Patsy, scratching his head in a puzzled manner, " but your honor is mighty strict in wanting to get a straight answer from a poor orphan boy like me, that's not accustomed to give it ; but shure, I suppose if you must have it you must ; and as I've no money to ' pay up,' as you call it, and as I don't want to put your honor to any trouble, I suppose I must cross the says like the rest of them, and seek my fortune in America. And yet," he con- tinued in an altered tone, " I think there is ofie girl, and only one, who would fret in earnest after me. But it can't be helped, she must put up with some other boy, for I'm not able to pay nor stay ; an' I'd never ax her to bear the hardship of comin' out with me, even if she was willin' to do it— which, in troth, I doubt she would be ; for the girls like them best as can always sail with a fair wind— why wouldn't they, poor txieb TKflit anD Ibumoc 209 things? So when will your honor send me out? I have no money to pay for my passage, nor to buy a ha'porth for the journey; so I will give you up my little place freely, an' I only hope your honor will act by me like a gentleman, as no doubt you always wor." I told him that Lord Bath always wished those who emigrated from his estate to go out comfortably, and that I would provide for him as well as I could ; that he should have a free passage to any port in America he pleased, a respectable outfit, and a sovereign in his hand on landing. "Well, your honor," observed Patsy, on hearing what could be done for him, " it's all very fair, and as much as I could expect ; an' the world will go harder with me yet, if I don'' t knock as good a livin'' out o' them chaps in America as ez'er I did in ould Ireland ; so I'll give up the little place wheniver your honor wishes it, and — what is better — I'll give you my blessin' along with it. You may put me down for Boston^ [ii] Examples of Macklin's Wit and Humor Macklin was exceedingly quick at a reply, especi- ally in a dispute. One day Dr. Johnson was contend- ing some dramatical question, and quoted a passage from a Greek poet in support of his opinion. " I don't understand Greek, though, doctor," said Macklin. " Sir," said Johnson, pompously, "a man who undertakes to argue should understand all languages." " Oh," very well," returned Macklin ; " how will you answer this argument?" and immedi- ately treated him to a long quotation in Irish. One night, sitting at the back of the front boxes with a gentleman of his acquaintance, one of the underbred box-lobby loungers of the day stood up immediately before him, and being rather large in person, covered the sight of the stage from him. Everybody expected that Macklin would have knocked the fellow down, notwithstanding his size, but he 14 21C HrfBb TlClit anD Ibumor managed the matter in another temper. Patting him gently on the shoulder with his cane, he requested of him, with apparent politeness, "that when he saw or heard anything very entertaining on the stage, he would be pleased to turn round and let him and the gentleman beside him know of it ; for you see, my dear sir," added the veteran, " that at present we must totally depend on you as a telegraph." This had the desired effect and the lonnger walked off. Macklin was very intimate with Frank Hayman (at that time a well-known historical painter), and happening to call upon him one morning soon after the death of the painter's wife, he found him wrang- ling with the undertaker about his high charge for the funeral expenses. Macklin listened to the alter- cation for some time ; at last, going up to Hayman, " Come, come, Frank," said he, " this bill, to be sure, is a little extravagant, but you should pay it, if it were only on account of the respect you owe j'our wife's memory; for I am sure," he added, with the greatest gravity, " she would have paid twice as much for your burial with the greatest gladness, if she had had the opportunity." An Irish dignitary of the church, not remarkable for his veracity, complaining that a tradesman of his parish had called him a liar, Macklin asked what reply he had made him. " I told him," said the bishop, "that a lie was among those things that I dared not commit." "And why, doctor," said Macklin, with an indescribable sort of a comic frown, " why did you give the rascal so erroneous a notion of your courage ? " A Discussion on Light Two Irishmen entered one day into earnest dis- cussion on the comparative usefulness of the sun and moon. " Shure, the sun gives a stronger light," said one. " But the moon is more sensible," replied the other. irrisb Timtt anD Ibumoi: 211 " How do yees make that out? " " Oh, it's aisy." " Let's hear yees prove it." " Bedad, the moon shines in the night, when we nade it, while the sun comes out in broad daylight, when even a one-e ed man can see without it." A Vividly Descriptive Advertisement A paper printed not a hundred miles from Dublin contained the following advertisement : " Lost, a cameo brooch, representing Venus and Adonis on the Drumcondea road, about ten o'clock on Wednesday evening." O'Connell Outwitted Lord B , who wore a huge pair of whiskers. meeting Mr. O'Connell in Dublin, the latter said : " When do you mean to place your whiskers on the peace establishment ? " " When you place your tongue on the civil list," was the witty rejoinder. Refusing to Become a Forger Pat Murphy was a candidate for admission into the police force of a certain town, and his appearance before the mayor was hailed with a cry from the crowd of would-be officials : " He can't write his name, your honor ! " His honor announced that he was only there to take down the names of those who wished to apply for the vacant situation, and told Murphy to come again that day fortnight. "Now, Pat," said a well-wisher, "go home, and every night do you get a big piece of paper and a good stout pen, and keep writing your name. I'll set the copv for you." Pat obeyed instructions ; and when the day came and the mayor asked if he could write, boldly replied : " Troth, an it's meself that jist can." " Take that pen," said the mayor, " and write your name." 212 Uriab TlUlit anD Ibumor As Pat took up the pen, exclamations arose behind him. "Pat's a-writing; he's got a quill in his fist!" cried an amazed rival. " Small good will it do him ; he can't write wid it ! " cried another. They were dumbfounded when Murphy recorded his name in a bold, round hand, and the Mayor declared "That'll do;" but, recovering from their surprise, two of them shouted out together : "Ask him to write somebody else's name, your honor." , " W^rite my name. Murphy," said the mayor. " Write yer honor's name ! " exclaimed Pat. " Me commit forgery, an' goin' into the police! I can't do it, yer honor ! " Double Meanings When the Irish Union was effected in 1801 the Ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir John Parnell, was the reigning toast. Being one evening at an evening party he jocularly said that by the Union he had lost his bread and butler. " Ah, my dear sir," replied a friend, "never mind, for it is amply made up to you in /oasis." At this time, too, it was customary to drink " to the Union." An old country farmer, who was not very well informed about- politics, sent his assembled guests into roars of laughter by his rendering of the popular toast : " Here's wishing we may all ^o lo the Union.''' Foote, praising the hospitality of the Irish, after one of his trips to the sister-kingdom, a gentleman asked him whether he had ever been to Cork? " No, sir," replied Foote : " but I have seen many drawings of it." An Irish bailiff, having been directed by a former Lady Hardwick, who was by no means slender, to procure a sow of the breed and size she particularly Irtsb mix anC> TDumor 213 described to him, nished one evening into the dining- room, when full of company, proclaiming with a loud burst of joy which he could not suppress : " I've been at Royston fair, my lady, and got a sow exactly of your ladyship's size." Paddy " In the Interim " The habit of verbosity is a standard characteristic of human nature. We have all met people who are fond of using high-sounding speech. A gentleman said to his servant Pat : " I am going to town at ten o'clock, and shall weed out the cucumber bed in the interim." " Interim," thought Pat, "that's a quare name for a garden, anyhow." ''Is Mr. Smith at home?" asked a visitor, who came shortly afterwards. " Yes, sir ; yell find him at work in his interim, there beyant," announced Pat. A Letter from Purgatory An old lady had an ancient servant named Ann Brady, who lived with her for many years. One day Ann came in to her mistress in the parlor, crying and roaring : " Now. aint I the unfortunate woman ! Och, what shall I do at all, at all ! " " What's the matter, Ann?" said her mistress. " Och, ma'am," replied Ann, "thepostmnn'soutside, and he's got a letter for me from purgatory, and I know it's from my ould mother, who's been there this ten 5'ears. and it's all about me not paying for the masses I said I would. Ochone ! but I am the miser- able woman ! " On her mistress going out she found the postman in a fit of laughter with a letter directed to '' Ann Brady, from the Dead Letter Office." Nothing could induce her to touch it. tho " Dead" to her meaning purgatory and nothing else ; and her mistress was obliged to open the letter for her, and found it was one .Ann had written to her nephew in Clare, but who had gone to .-America, and consequently the letter had been returned. 214 lirl6b TKatt anD Ibumor An Irish Dispute about Anchovies Two Irish gentlemen being on a certain occasion at cross-purposes touching the natural history of ancho- vies, one of the disputants expressed his firm and unalterable conviction that the other had not the faintest glimmering of an idea as to what an anchovy was. " 'Deed, then, I know as well as any man living," was the retort, " for I've gathered lashins of them of*- the bushes on the rocks of Malta." High words followed. Naturally, the more enraged person of the twain was (as usual) he who was in the wrong. To doubt his sacred word of honor when he distinctly stated that with his own hand he had culled the fragrant anchovy from the flourishing tree where it grew, was more than the mildest of Irish gentlemen could sit down under. He sent a message next morning by a friend, and a hostile meeting was arranged in the most amicable way. At the first shot the doubter, being winged, began to dance about in much pain. " Pretty capers he's cutting," calmly observed one of the seconds ; and at the sound of the word " capers " a strange new light dawned on the chal- lenger's face. "Capers, is it?" cried he; " bedad, then, it's capers I was maning all the while ! " The Result of Having No Time On the occasion of some popular movement in Tip- perary between 1840 and 1844. Doheney, on return- ing to town, thus described his labors : " For a fort- night I was constantly in the saddle, or on Bianconi's car, or addressing meetings, or attending committees. For more than ten days I had not time to change my linen." " Not change your linen ! " answered McCar- thy (the " Desmond " of the Nation), with a shudder of disgust; "you're as bad as the fashionable ladies in the ' Song of the Shirt ' : " ' Tis not the linen you're wearing out, But living creatures' lives.' " [lo] Urisb mit an& Ibumor 215 " A Local Habit-ation and a Name " Vicar of Bally hooley : "Well, Mab, my child, have you made up your mind to the Irish vicar? " Mab: "Oh, I don't know, father — he's so eccentric." Vicar's Wife: "Eccentric, dear?" Mab: "Yes, mother. When he's in Belfast he calls his congregation ' dear Belfast souls ' ; and in Dublin 'dear Dublin souls'; and in Cork 'dear Cork souls.' " Another Way of Looking at It Priest: "Why, Pat, coming again from the inn?" Pat: "Of course, your riverence, I cannot always stay there." Cause for Thankfulness In the Theatre Royal, Dublin, when the Italian company came to play " Faust," the actor who took the part of Mephistopheles neglected to tr}' the trap- door by which he was supposed to descend into the infernal regions. His bulk was too large for the opening, and at the supreme moment he discovered that he could not get down above the waist. To heighten the awkwardness of the situation, and to relieve the strained feelings of the audience, one of the gods in the gallery, in a rich Irish brogue, exclaimed, " Begorra ! the place is full." Cutting Off His Chance of Retreat "Well, my good fellow," said a victorious general to a brave son of Erin after a battle, " and what did you do to help us to gain this victory? " " Do .^ " replied Mike ; " may it plase your honor, I walked up bouldy to one of the enemy, and cut off his feet." "Cut off his feet! Why did you not cut off his head ? " said the general. "Ah! and faith, that was off already," replied Mike. 216 itltJb Mit anD Ibumor A Kind Master An Irishman, Pat by name, was employed in one of the Newark manufactories. Pat had a habit of get- ting on sprees, and neglecting his work when it was most needed. Mr. W , one of the firm, who had the supervision of the establishment, frequently remonstrated with him, but to little purpose, until one day, as Pat came in rather the worse for the " crayture,' and became somewhat noisy, Mr. \V called him into the office. After awhile Pat came out, when a number went up to hear what Mr. W had said this time. Said Pat : "Misther VV is a fine man^avery finegintleman.'' " Well, what did he say to you ? " " Och, an' he talked kindly to me, jist like a fahther. An' sure, Misther \V is a fine man, an' he spaked to me jist like a kind fahther ; and told me if I ever came in dhrunk agin he would kick me out of the shop ! " Pat and a Runaway Horse An Irishman getting on a high-mettled horse, it ran away with him, upon which one of his companions called to him to stop him. " Arrah, honey," cried he, "how can I do that when I've goL no spurs / ' ' An Ingenious Defence A soldier of a cavalry regiment, during the Crimean War, was brought up for stealing his comrade's ration-liquor. He was an Irishman, and his defence was unique : " I'd be sorry, indade, sorr, to be called a thief. I (put the liquor in the same bottle, and mine was at the ;bottom, and, shure, I was obliged to drink his to get jat mine. Och, sorr, I'd scorn to be a thief ! " It is not known whether this very ingenious defence got him off or not. A Hard-hearted Irishman A Limerick banker, remarkable for his sagacity, had an iron leg, "which," said Curran, " is the so/test part about him." Irieb IKait m^ Ibumor 217 Paddy's Explana ion An Irishman having accidentally broken a pane of glass in a window was making the best of his way out of sight ; but unfortunately for Pat, the proprietor stole a march on him ; and having seized him by the collar, exclaimed : " You broke my window, fellow, did you not ? " " To be sure I did," said Pat, " and didn't you see me running home for money to pay for it?" How Maggie's Wit Avoided a Scandal — A True S cry In a cabin on a hillside, overlooking the Bay of Dublin, dwelt a middle-aged brother and sister. The man was a helpless cripple, entirely dependent upon his sister's exertions ; and on her death a car was sent from the poorhouse to bring him thither for shelter. The poor wretch clung to the only home he had ever known, and utterly refused to leave it, crying he would die if deprived of his "say air, and shut up within prison walls." His loud lamentations had brought the priest and some of the neighbors to his side, and one of the latter, Maggie O'Flynn, felt a deep impulse of pity toward the unfortunate man. She was a single woman of about fifty-five, of weather-beaten and certainly not attractive appearance. She had acted as herd on the estate of a gentleman to whom her services were invaluable. " Hould hard ! ' ' she said to the workhouse oi^cials ; " it's not Maggie O'Flynn that 'ull see a poor crayture taken to the poorhouse when she can give him a shelter. It's a corner and a welcome in me own cabin the unfortunate Mick Costilloe shall have." But here his reverence interposed, and vowed he would allow no such scandal in the parish as an unmarried man and woman sharing the same dwelling. " Shure, Maggie, you won't go back on your word ? " implored poor Mick in despair. Maggie hesitated a moment, then turning to the priest, said, " If there's no other way to save him from 218 irtsb llCllt anO Ibumor the house, your reverence, 1*11 marry him, and sorra a ha'porth will any one be able to say agin it thin." It was in vain that his reverence pointed out the terrible burden Maggie was taking upon herself. " It's for the love of God I'm marryin' him, and not to please meself," was the answer she returned ; " an' sure the Blessed Virgin will never let me want for the bit and the sup when she sees me sharing it with the craythur that has naythur." The marriage took place, and until his death sev- eral years later, the kind-hearted Maggie O'Flynn carefully tended and supported the cripple in her own cabin. [23] An Irish Rencontre / When two Irish laborers meet in England, the / common salutation is : "Ah, Pat ! I'm glad to meet you ( on V other side of the waters Gone— But Not "Lost" The servant of a naval commander, an Irishman, one day let a tea-kettle fall into the sea, upon which he ran to his master, " Arrah, an' plase your honor, can anything be said to be lost when you know where it is?" " Certainly not," replied the officer. "Why, then, by my sowl and St. Patrick, the tea- kettle is at the bottom of the say." An Irishman's Walk to England An Irishman, while on his passage to this country in search of harvest work, was observed to walk up and down the deck at a brisk pace, occasionally giving a look at the captain whenever he came in sight, as if to attract his observation. On being asked by the steward for his passage money, when nearing the port of destination, Pat replied, ' Arrah, honey, be aisy now ; sure the master won't do such a dirty trick as charge a poor shearer, who has walked the whole wayy Irisb Mlt anD Ibumor 219 Curran and the Tobacconist Mr. Lundy Foot, a celebrated tobacconist, applied to Curran for a motto when he first established his carriage. " Give me one, my dear Curran," said he, " of a serious cast, because I'm afraid the people will laugh at a tobacconist setting up a carriage ; and for the scholarship'' s sake, let it be Latin." " I have just hit on it," said Curran ; "it is only two words, and it will at once explain your profession, your elevation, and your contempt for their ridicule, and it has the advantage of being in two languages, Latin or English, just as the reader chooses. Put up ' Quid Rides'' upon your carriage." How Swift Cured a Lady of Love of Dress An instance of Swift's straightforward good sense, accompanied by amusing eccentricity, is related in connection with his visit to a farmer near Quilca, with whom he went to dine. The farmer's wife was dressed very expensively, and her son appeared in a silver-laced hat. The Dean of St. Patrick's saluted her like a duchess, and with successive bows, handed her to a seat, proposing to her husband to " look over his demesne." " The devil a foot of laud belongs to me or any of my line ; I have a pretty good lease from my Lord Fingall, but he will not renew it, and I have only a few years to come." The dean asked when he was to see Mrs. Riley. " There she is before you." "Impossible! I always heard Mrs. Riley was a prudent woman ; she never would dress herself out in silks and ornaments only fit for ladies of fortune and fashion. No, Mrs. Riley, the farmer's wife, would never wear anything beyond plain stuffs and other things suitable." Mrs. Riley, who really was a woman of sense, took the hint, went out, changed her dress to an apparel proper for a farmer's wife, and returned ; the dean then took her by the hand, and said, in the most friendly manner, " Your husband wanted to pass off a fine lady upon me, dressed up in silk in the pink of the mode, for his wife, but I was not to be taken in." He then took a pen-knife, cut 220 txisb Mit anD 1)umor the silver lace off the young master's hat, and folding it up in several papers, put it in the fire ; when burnt sufficiently, he took it out and wrapped it in fresh paper, and put it in his pocket. He then resumed his good humor, entertained them in a manner that could not be excelled, as no one knew better how to suit his conversation to his hearers, and the day passed cheerfully. When he went away, he said, " I don't intend to rob you, there's your son's hat lace. I have changed its form for a better one. God bless you, and thanks for your good entertainment." The paper contained the burnt lace with four guineas. He kept his eye afterwards on these Rileys, and finding they were cured of their foolish finery, he afterwards induced Lord Fingall to renew their lease. " Potheen " versus "Tay " Tom Burke, just after the death of his father, went into the kitchen, where the cook had company. They, being kind-hearted people, pressed him to take a cup of tea, but Tom's friend Darby said in a contemptuous tone of voice : " Arrah ! what's tay ? A few dirty leaves, with a drop of water on top of them, that has neither beatification nor invigoration. Here's the '/o?is animi/'" said he, patting the whiskey bottle affectionately. " Did you ever hear of the ancients indulging in tay? D'ye think Polyphamus and Jupiter took tay?" The cook looked down abashed and ashamed. " Tay's good enough for women — no offence, Mrs. Cook !— but you might boil down Paykin and it'd never be potheen. Ex- quo vis ligyio nonfit Mercur- ius — ' You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.' That's the meaning of it — lignd' s a sow." [6] Retort Courteous "Hold your tongue, for a fool,'' was the polite recommendation of an Irish husband. "Sure, then, you're going to spake j'our.y^^," was the equally polite reply of the wife. Icisb llClit anD Ibumor 221 Why Mike Didn't Pull the Trigger Mike, why don't you fire at those ducks, boy — /don't you see you have got the whole flock before [your gun ? " I know I have, but when I get good aim at one, two or three others will swim right betwixt it and me.'* Swift's First Appearance at Button's Coffee House The knot of wits used to assemble at Button's coffee- house ; and I had a singular account of Swift's first appearance there from Ambrose Philips, who was one of Mr. Addison's little senate. He said that they had for some successive days observed a strange clergyman come into the coffee-house, who seemed utterly unacquainted with any of those who fre- quented it ; and whose custom it was to lay his hat down on the table, and walk backward and forward at a good pace for half an hour, without speaking to any mortal, or seeming in the least to attend to any- thing that was going forward there. He then used to take up his hat, pay his money at the bar, and walk away without opening his lips. After having observed this singular behavior for some time, they concluded him to be out of his senses ; and the name that he went by among them was that of " the mad parson." This made them more than usually attentive to his motions ; and one evening, as Mr. Addison and the rest were observing him, they saw him cast his eyes several times on a gentleman in boots, who seemed to be just come out of the country, and at last advanced towards him as if intending to address him. They were all eager to hear what this dumb mad parson had to say, and immediately quitted their seats to get near him. Swift went up to the country gentleman, and in a very abrupt manner, without any previous salute, asked him, " Pray, sir, do you remember any good weather in the world ? " The country gentle- man, after staring a little at the irregularity of his manner, and the oddity of the question, answered, "Yes, sir; I thank God, I remember a great deal of 222 Urisb IKait anD Ibumor good weather in my time." " That is more," said Swift, "than I can say; I never remember any weather that was not too hot or too cold, too wet or too dry ; but, however God Almighty contrives it, at the end of the year 'tis all very well." Upon saying this, he took up his hat, and without uttering a syllable more, or taking the least notice of anyone, walked out of the coffee-house, leaving all those who had been spectators of this odd scene staring after him, and still more confirmed in the opinion of his being mad. [25] A Doubting Day Walking along a street one day, Patrick and his wife Nora passed by a window where a handsome silk dress was exposed to view. "Ah, Patrick," said Nora, "do ye remember ye said I was to have the silk dhriss when ye had the money to buy it ?" " Did I say that, Nora ? " " Indade ye did, Patrick. An' ye have the money in yer pocket to buy me the dhriss the day." " That I have, Nora ; but I don't buy you the dhriss." "An' why not, shure?" " It's bist, Nora, that I kape the money in me pocket for the day whin we haven't got it." Provisions Cheap — Money Dear An Irish gentleman, in the warmth of national veneration, was praising Ireland for the cheapness of provisions; a salmon might be bought for sixpence, and a dozen mackerel for twopence. " And pray, sir, how came you to leave so cheap a country?" " Arrah, honey ! where were the sixpences and twopences to be got ? ' ' Afraid of Justice An Irishman, placed at the bar, complained bitterly that he should be placed in such an awkward posi- tion, so far from friends and home. Irisb mix anD Ibiimot 223 The judge felt kindly toward him, and said: "Be calm, young man ; you may rest assured that, although among strangers, inUjus/ue zcill be done you^ '* Be me soul, yer honor," groaned Pat, "and it's the fear of that same that troubles me ! " Pat's Description of the Prisoner Magistrate: "Describe the man whom you saw assaulting the complainant." Policeman : " He was a little, insignificant-looking cratur, about your size, your worship." Accepting a Good Offer London Shoeblack {to Innocent Paddy): "Shine your boots, sir ? " Innocent Paddy : " Indade, you may, sorr ! " Then (leaving the shoeblack unpaid) : " Indade, an' the bhoys are very clane an' koind in this part of the counthry." Foote and the Actress Samuel Foote was generous to his actors and much liked by them, and he was much more considerate and business-like than some of his habits would lead one to suppose. An actress complained to him one day of the low salary she had from Garrick, at Drury Lane, on which Foote asked her why she had gone to him, knowing the salary she might have had at the Haymarket. "Oh, I don't know how it was," she said; "he talked me over so by telling me he would make me immortal, that I did not know how to refuse him." " Did he so, indeed," said Foote. "Well, then, I suppose I must outbid him that way. Come to me, then, when you are free; I'll give you two pounds a week more, and charge you nothing for immortality." An Irish *' Tu Quoque" Mr. Feargus O'Connor is the hero of a story which deserves to outlive his political achievements. His father, Roger O'Connor, was tried for robbing a mail coach with the assistance of his sons. The object of this adventure was probably to get possession of 224 f i!5b ma anD Dumor political documents, but the government thought proper to treat the adventure as an ordinary highway robbery, and so it came to be considered. More than a dozen years afterwards, Feargus, traveling on a stage coach, in a district where he believed himself unknown, amused the passengers by bantering the guard on his age and infirmities. "You are too hard on me, Mr. Feargus," said the guard. " Why, my good fellow, you seem to know me." " Of course I do, yer honor, why should not I ? It was I that had charge of the mail Ihal 7ught.'' [lo] "Exit" Paddy! Two Irishmen visited a well-known perambulating menagerie. After completing the circuit of the show they came to a slit in the canvas with a bill printed above it in large letters, containing the legend " Exit." " Begorra ! Pat," said one of them, " here's a place we mustn't miss. I wonder what sort of a baste 'Exit' is?" They followed the index finger on the bill, and to their wonder and astonishment next moment found themselves among the crowd outside. " Och, bedad," says Mick, shaking his fist at the man who barred his re-entrance, "Ye're an auld swindler, ye are. Bad luck to you and your old show." Praying for Rain A clergyman going the rounds of his country parish in the South of Ireland, met a farmer who, though residing in a neighboring parish was a regular attend- ant at his church. Said Pat : " Af ye plase, yer reverence, would yer mind prayin' for a wee drop o' rain next Sunday, for sorra a thing '11 grow in me little garden wid the present hate of the weather? " '' Sorry to hear that, Pat," replied the divine, " but you ought to ask your own parson, not me." " Ah, shure," was the reply, " that's just it ; what's the good in axin' him to pray for rain wid them cocks o' hay a-standing on his lawn?" Hcisb TliGlit anO Ibumoc 225 How An Irish Purchaser Cheated Himself A shopkeeper purchased of an Irishwoman a quan- tity of butter, the lumps of which, intended for pounds, he weighed in the balance and found them wanting. "Sure, it's your own fault if they are light," said Biddy in reply to the complaints of the buyer. " It's your own fault, sir, for wasn't it with a pound of your own soap I bought here, that I weighed them ! " An Irish Pig Hunt An Irishman was observed the other day in a wild chase after a pig, up one street, down another, the excited Irishman following, attended by a yelling crowd of youngsters. The pig in despair, at length made for the open door of a tobacconist's shop, where it was eventually captured, and effectively secured. As Pat was pulling it out of the shop, a gentleman who had been a witness of the " divarsion," said to him by way of a joke : " I think, Pat, your pig has been wanting a smoke, seeing where he ran to." "Then," answered Pat, wiping the perspiration from his brow, " he'll get a smoke much sooner than he wants, sir." The Irishman and the Sphinx An uninformed Irishman, hearing the Sphinx alluded to in company, whispered to a friend, " The Sphinx ! Who's that, now?" "A monster, man." "Oh! a Munster-man: I thought he was from Connaught," rejoined the Irishman, determined not to seem totally unacquainted with the family. Joe McKey and the Landlord's Agent In the year 1851 I received a letter from my relative, the Rev. Richard Chenevix Trench, then rector of Itchenstoke in Hampshire, and now Archbishop of Dublin, to say that the Marchioness of Bath, had requested him to offer me the agency of Lord Bath's estate in the County Monaghan. After some inquiry and correspondence, I wrote to say that I should be happy to undertake it, on certain conditions and 15 226 lci6b TlClit anD Ibumor under certain arrangements. These having been all agreed to, I left Kenmare for Longleat, where I remained a few days with Lady Bath, Lord Bath was then a minor, traveling with a tutor abroad. Amongst the most obstinate and determined of the tenantry was a man named Joe McKey. He called himself a Presbyterian. He held a considerable farm in a wild district bordering on the mountainous part of the county of Armagh ; and he had paid no rent for the past five years. Frequent ''latitats'' and other legal missiles had been hurled at him, but no one ventured to arrest him. He was a man reputed to be of singular courage and daring, able, active, and desperate ; and he prided himself on having defied any man in Ireland to take him prisoner. I was informed that this man was the acknowledged leader of all the recusants over a large district of the estate, that many had bound themselves to act as he did ; and in short, unless Joe McKey were put down, that district would hold out in defiance of both law and order. My first step, accordingly, was to issue a warrant against him for debt, and to offer ^50 to any man who would arrest him. But my surprise was considerable to hear that no one could be found who would under- take a mission so dangerous ; and a bailiff to whom I remarked upon the large premium offered for the arrest of one man, replied, " Thank your honor ; ^^50 is very good, and not to be earned every day ; but life is sweet f and nothing I could say would induce him to attempt it. The report, whether true or not, was, that he always carried a loaded horse-pistol with him, that many people had seen the brass handle sticking out of the breast pocket of his coat, and that he had sworn solemnly to put the contents of the pistol into the body of any bailiff who should ever attempt to take him. Such was the leader with whom I had now to deal. I had only been about six months in office ; and I was plainly, but reluctantly, told by the head bailiff and clerk, " That whilst Joe McKey held sway, no good could be got out of the northern end of the estate." f rieb TlClit anD Ibumor 227 I confess I was much puzzled ; it would have taken a year or more to eject him by the ordinary notice to quit, and resistance to authority was beginning to spread over the district. I determined accordingly to go myself, and at least take the measure of this redoubtable hero, and see if he was so formidable as he was reputed to be. I cannot say that I had any specific plan in view ; but I wished to see him, and speak to him, and be guided afterwards by circum- stances as they might arise. Nothing was then further from my intention than to arrest him myself. The country at this time was very seriously dis- turbed. Several murders had been committed in that immediate neighborhood bordering on the county of Armagh ; and the people, having become excited, were in a very dangerous temper. I, therefore, very carefully loaded a brace of double-barreled pistols on which I could thoroughly depend ; and having deter- mined to go to the man's dwelling alone, but wholly unexpected, I took with me a tracing of the estate map to guide me on my way to his house without the necessity of making inquiries along the road. And mounting my horse, I started from Carrickmacross at at ten o'clock in the morning, telling no one of my destination, McKey's residence was about seven miles from Carrickmacross. I rode quickly to prevent the possi- bility of my intention being suspected or anticipated, and I arrived at the house, of course, wholly with- out notice. It had once been respectable, but had fallen much into decay. The hall-door stood in the centre of the building, with a long, narrow window on either side. I knocked at once, and after a short interval, a man dressed only in his shirt and trousers came to the narrow window and asked what I wanted. " I want to get in," I said. "You can't get in here," he replied curtly, and with a clear, determined voice. I at once suspected that this was the man I sought, and I asked him immediately : " Are you Joe McKey ? " " And what if I am ? " said he, boldly. 228 txieb TlBlit anD f)umor "Nothing," I replied, "but that I want to speak to you, and should be obliged if you would let me in." " Speak to me as you are — you can't get in here." " Do you know who I am ? " I asked. " No," said he, " nor I don't care a rap." " I am Mr. Trench." "Oh," returned he, " I beg your pardon, sir— I did not know it was you ; but I am sorry, I can't possibly let you in." It was something, I thought, to have made him change his tone — so I immediately changed mine. " I heard you were a stout and daring fellow, and that you feared no man when alone. I want to speak to you, so I came alone, and I suppose you will let me in." He looked at me suspiciously for a few moments, cast an eye round to see if there was a bailiff con- cealed, seemed very undecided in his mind, but at length shook his head and said again, " I'm sorry to refuse you, sir, but I can't possibly let you in." I was greatly annoyed, and partly forgetting myself for a moment, I replied : " I believe you are but a coward after all. I told you I was alone, I pledge you upon my word of honor, no one is with me, nor knows that I am here. I came to speak to you and see you entirely alone ; are you afraid of one man ? " He did not hesitate now ; but. going to the door, unbarred and unbolted it, throwing it wide open with an air of offended dignity, he said : "Walk in, sir, walk in, if thaC s the way you talk — walk in and welcome ; you shall never say /hindered you ; " and he strode on before me into the kitchen or living-room, pushing that door also as wide as it could be opened. I gave my horse to a boy to hold, who came out at the same moment, and I followed my conductor in. I felt very much as if I was walking into a lion's den, but there was no help for it now, so I determined to make the best of it. The room into which he led me presented rather a Irf6b TICllt anD Ibumor 229 singular scene. The furniture was of the meanest class ; but sitting at the fire were two men — each between thirty and forty years of age — able, athletic fellows, and they did not seem to welcome me. They also were in their shirts and trousers, and their eyes looked somewhat bleared and inflamed ; but they were all perfectly sober. They stood upas I entered, made a slight obeisance, and remained quietly in their places. Near them was a young woman, neat in her appearance, and very good-looking, though somewhat careworn, and apparently about twenty-three years of age. She seemed frightened and uneasy, not at me — whom she scarcely noticed — but at McKey, off whom she never for a moment took her eyes. Her gaze was so intense upon him, that I turned round from the others whom I was going to address, and sitting down to show that I intended no personal violence, faced McKey himself. A bright fire was burning and the rays of the morning sun, which made their way through a long narrow window, threw a light over his entire frame. It was not a common one. His hair and whiskers were black, and a dark stubble was on his chin and upper lip, as of a beard unshaven for a day or two. His neck was bare, and his shirt-sleeves were tucked up above his elbows, revealing an arm like a knotted rope. His trousers were fastened by a red handkerchief round his waist. He stood per- fectly motionless, following me with his eyes ; his arms were folded, and he leaned somewhat back with a half-savage, half-sneering smile upon his face. His frame was very muscular ; he stood about five feet eleven inches in height. He was apparently in per- fect health, but without one bit on him save hard sinew and muscle strung as tight as whipcord. Though I was by no means a weak man at the time, yet I felt I could be no match for such an antagonist in a personal struggle ; and as I looked at the man before me, a model of activity and strength, with a daring and almost insolent look in the manner in which he threw back his head, I thought I had never seen a finer or a bolder figure. " You wish to speak to me, sir? " 230 irisb llUit anD "toumor " Yes," said I ; " but who are these men, and what are they doing here ? " "We were distilling poteen," returned one of the men ; " would your honor like to taste some?" " No, thank you," I replied, and drawing my chair near the fire, I began to chat. They were civil enough, but seemed perfectly unconcerned as to what I might think of their illegal proceedings. McKey stood apart all the time, his arms still folded, and the young woman watching him intently. I suddenly addressed him : " And so, McKey, you are the terror of the country, and no one dares take you ? " He made a quick uneasy movement as I said this, and cast a rapid glance at the window. " No one has taken me," he replied ; " but you said you wanted to speak to me? " " Yes, I wanted to ask you how you expect all this to end. You owe five years' rent ; you will pay noth- ing, and I hear you have sworn to shoot any one who attempts to arrest you." He went over quietly to a great coat which was hanging against the wall, and turning the coat upon the peg on which it hung, exposed the large brass- mounted handle of a horse-pistol projecting out of the pocket. "Just so," said I—" no wonder they are afraid of you." " You have a pretty set of bailiffs to be afraid of that," returned he— and he drew the pistol out, and I saw that it had neither lock nor barrel ! " That's what I frighten them with," said he, as he replaced the pistol in the coat-pocket, and laughed heartily — his recollection seeming to recur to some ridiculous scene, which probably had passed. The men laughed, too, and so did I ; and for the first time also the young woman smiled, and seemed a little more at ease. "Oh, that's all very well," I remarked, rather out of sorts, however, as the laugh was decidedly against me. [ii] Irlsb mit anD Ibumor 231 Nora's Cash Balance During the excitement owing to bank failures in Indianapolis, a by-stander watching the anxious crowd besieging the doors of a bank that was supposed to be in danger, overheard the following dialogue between an Irishwoman and her husband : " Nora, dhraw yer money out." "An' sure, Patrick, I won't." " But Nora, you musht dhraw it out." " Faith, an' I won't dhraw me money out at all." " Nora, an' don't yees know they'll lose yer money for yees ef yees don't dhraw it out ? " "An' shure, Patrick, ain't they better able to lose it than we are? " Patrick was evidently overpowered with the last astonishing and unanswerable argument, and they both left the scene apparently satisfied. Fortunately the bank survived the pressure, and its ability to lose Nota's balance was not practically tested. An Observant Irishman An Irish bricklayer was one day brought to the hospital severely injured by a fall from a housetop. The medical man in attendance asked at what time the accident occurred. " Two o'clock, yer honor," was the reply. On being asked why he came to fix the hour so accurately, he answered : " Because I saw the people at dinner through a window as I was coming down." Prosecution of an Irishwoman At the Monmouthshire sessions an old Irishwoman was charged with felony, and there were said to be "three counvs " against the prisoner. A gentleman in court, in happy ignorance of technicalities, expressed his great surprise that three counts should think it worth their while to prosecute one poor Irish- woman. 232 Hrlsb XUit anO Ibumor How Paddy Got "Under Government" A place under government Was all that Paddy wanted ; He married soon a scolding wife, And thus his wish was granted. Justice to Ireland Irish Passenger : " Steward, how soon will we be into Liverpool ? " Sleu'urd : "In about ten minutes or a quarter of an hour, sir." Irish Passenger {looking at his watch) : "Ah ! that'll do ! it wants twenty minutes to four ; so I shall save the four o'clock train." Steward: "I fear not, sir. You forget that the Liverpool time is a quarter of an hour before the Dublin time." Irish Passenger : "A quarter before Dublin time! Oh, holy Nelly, and you call that justice to Ireland, I suppose ! " Telling the Time by an English Watch Early in the present century, a gentleman rode up to the door of a well-known inn in the black country, followed by his servant with the saddle bags. There was great curiosity among the guests assembled to know who the stranger might be ; and from the com- municative valet they soon learnt that he was an Irish officer en route to London. They were imme- diately desirous of his company amongst themselves, both for society and news sake ; but the gentleman unsocially kept his own room upstairs, so that at last, driven to desperation, and perchance somewhat pot valiant, one of the company sent up his servant with his chronometer to ask the Irishman if he could tell the time by an English watch. Great anxiety ensued as to the result. Presently the servant returned with his master's compliments, "And he will be down directly with the watch and the answer."- A great shuffling of feet was heard overhead, and by-and-by appeared Milesius, followed Irisb TKnit anD Ibumor 233 by his body-guard, bearing a tray with the watch and a brace of pistols on it. He unhesitatingly announced that he had come to challenge the owner of the watch, and hoped he should have the " dacency " to claim it, and take up one of the pistols. ( To the servant) : " Take the watch round, John ! " "Is it yours, sir?" An old doctor was the first thus addressed. " No, sir!" This was the answer from each one put to the crucial test. At length it came to the owner. " Is the watch yours, sir ! '* " No, sir!" " Well, then, John, since no one will own the watch, put it in your pocket, and as we do not appear to have fallen among gentlemen, bring out the horses, and we'll ride on another stage." An Irish Linguist Louis XIV asked Count Mahoney if he understood Italian. " Yes, please your majesty," said the count, " if it's spoken in Irish." A Harmless Blow— for a Soldier An Irish recruit, being rebuked by the sergeant for] striking one of his companions : " I thought there was , no harm in it," quoth Pat, " as I had nothing in iny\ hand but my fist ^ UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY B 000 002 023 o