IRISH LIFE AND HUMOUR IN ANECDOTE ANDSTORY. BY WILLIAM HARVEY IRISH LIFE AND HUMOUR IN ANECDOTE AND STORY. IRISH LIFE & HUMOUR IN ANECDOTE AND STORY. BY WILLIAM HARVEY, F.S.A. Scot. A uthur oj " Scott inh Life and Character in Aneedate and Stori/," "Scottish Chapbiiok Literature," " l^cturesque Ayrshire," " Robert Burns in Stirlinrj6hire," " Kcnncthcrook : Some Sketches of Village Life," - fore, everyone gave except Tim, who again looked sly. The priest wondered, and after the service took his parishioner to task. "Now, Tim," he said, "why didn't you give something, if it was but little?" "Faith, I'm up to ye!" said Tim. "Tim!" "Yes, father." "^^^lat do you mean?" "Oh, nothing. Just that I'm up to ye, that's all." "Tim, your words are disrespectful, and require an explanation. What do you mean?" "Oh, faith, father, a thrying to pull the wool over me eyes, a thrying to make us believe ye wants the money to buy coal to heat the church, an' yer riv'rence knows it's heated by stame!" A distinguished Irish prelate was by nature a very keen sportsman, and though he never allowed his tastes in this direc- tion to interfere with his many duties, there was nothing he enjoyed more than a day's shooting now and then. On one of these occasions he was met by an old lady, who strongly dis- approved of any member of the clerical profession, and espec- ially one of the heads of the Church, indulging in such pursuits. "I have never read in the Bible that any of the Apostles went out shooting, my lord," she observed severely. "Well, you see, " returned his lordship cheerfully, "all their spare time they spent out fishing!" The old lady retired discomfited. A priest who resided in Cork, and was a strong advocate of temperance, was, through failing health, compelled to call in Priest and People 5? medical assistance. The doctor recommended a stimulant, but this was objected to by his reverence, because, as he said, "My servants would know, then my parishioners ; and how could I preach to others if I myself became a castaway. " "Nonsense, " replied the doctor, "you have all the requisites in your side- board except the hot water, and that could be supplied from your shaving water without anyone being a bit the wiser." A few days afterwards a squire who lived in the neighbourhood, and who had heard of the priest's illness, called, and said to the servant who answered the door — "Well, IMichael, how is his reverence to-day?" "He is fine in his health, glory be to God; but, your honour," added Michael in a whisper, "I think he is quare in his mind." "Quare in his mind! What do you mean?" "Well, your honour, I'U lave it to yourself to judge when I tell you he is calling for shaving water five times a day." A clergyman in Cork one day remarked to his servant — "Patrick, I shall be very busy this afternoon, and if anyone calls I do not wish to be disturbed." "All right, sor. Will I tell them you're not in?" "No, Pat, that would be a lie." "An' what'll I say, yor reverence?" "Oh! just put them off with an evasive answer." At supper-time Pat was asked if anyone had called. "Faix, there did." "And what did you tell him?" said the priest. "Shure, an' I give him an evasive answer." "How was that?" queried his reverence. "He axed me was your honour in, an', I says to him, says I, ' Was your gran'-mother a hoot-owl?'" A priest having preached a sermon on miracles, was asked by one of his congregation, walking homewards, to explain a little lucidly what a miracle meant. "Is it a merakle you want to understand?" said the priest. "Walk on then there forninst me, and I'll think how I can explain it to you." The man walked on, and the priest came after liim and gave him a tremendous kick. "Ugli!" roared the man, "why did you do that?" "Did you feel it?" asked the priest, "To be sure I E 58 Irish Life and Humour did," replied the man. "Well, then, it would have been a merakle if you had not." It is related of Father Darcy, one of the celebrated wits of Ireland, that he once visited the palatial mansion of a man who had lately come into a fortune. He was shown over the house, his pompous host taking great pains to inform his guest as to the cost of aU the beautiful objects he saw. Finally, after making the tour of the rooms, the couple reached the hbrary. Here were shelves groaning under the weight of thousands upon thousands of volumes, all resplendent in magnificent bind- ings. They seated themselves, and the host said, with a sigh of snobbish exultation : " Well, father, I have brought you here last because this is my favourite room. The other rooms, may- be, give pleasure to my wife and daughters ; but this is my place — right here amongst these books, which are my friends. And these here on the desk" — pointing to a score of fine-look- ing volumes — "are what I may call my most intimate friends." Father Darcy got up and examined one of them, when a broad grin spread over his good-natured face as he noticed that the leaves had never been cut. "Well, it's glad I am to see that you never cut your intimate friends!" he exclaimed. In one part of the ruins of an Irish Abbey there are windows of various sizes on the same level. An English tourist in J.0OG asked an Irishman the cause of this, and he promptly replied, "By my soul, the big windows were for the fat friars to look through, and the smaller ones for the lean ones." A newly-arrived Viceroy asked one of his chaplains at a grand dinner in Dublin — the centre of intrigue and jobbery in those (Jays — ^why there were no toads to be seen in Ireland. He replied, with a biting wit worthy of Swift, "Because, your Excellency, there are so many toad-eaters." The element of the unexpected which characterises Irish fun crops out in the pulpit as in other places. It may be an old Btory, but it is as perennial as its subject, of the priest who preached a sermon on "Grace." "An', me brethren," he said Priest and People 5& iu conclusion, "if ye have wan spark av heareuly grace wather it, wather it continually 1 " A priest, discoursing one Sunday on the miracle of the loaves and fishes, said iu error that five people had been fed with 5,000 loaves and two small fishes. It having come to the priest's knowledge that his mistake had given rise to a large amount of controversy (one Murphy particularly declared he could do such a miracle himself), he (the clergyman) decided to rectify the mistake. Next Sunday, on concluding his sermon, he said — "I should have told you last Sunday that 5,000 people had been fed with five loaves and two small fishes." Looking down upon Mr. Murphy, he said — "You could not do that, Mr. Murphy, could you?" "Ah! sure, yer riv'rence, I could, aisily," he replied. "How would you do it, Mr. Murphy?" "Why, I'd give 'em what was left over from last Sunday," answered Murphy. "I'm sorry to see you giving way to drink like this, Pat," said the village priest, as he met one of his parishioners staggering homewards; "you that were always such a respect- able boy, too." "Shure, an' Oi'm obleeged to do it, your 'anuer, " replied Pat, with whom, by way, things had not been prospering. "Obliged to do it?" exclaimed the priest in surprise; "wiiy, how's that, PatP" "Oi have to dhrink to droun moi trubles, your holiness," whined Patrick, giving vent to a sound which was a cross between a sigh and a hiccup. "H'm, " said his interrogator, "and do you succeed in drown- ing them?" "No, begorra," cried Pat, "shure an that's the warst uv it. The divvies can shwim?" A well-known preacher in the Irish Church is justly famed for his eloquence. Particularly does he shine iu this respect when he is making an appeal for any charitable object. Re- cently two country tradesmen went to hear him and on their way home were comparing notes. "Man, Bradley," said one, "that was a grand discoorse entoirely! Oi cudn't help giviu' hali-arcrown at the collection." "Well, ye see," replied 60 Irish Life and MumouY Bradley, "Oi hed the advantage ave ye this toime, fur OiVe heard him afore. Whin Oi wns puttin' on me Sunday clothes, shure Oi left iverything out ave me pocket but wan sixpence. Man, he has a powerful way wid hum altogether." A clergyman during his first curacy found the ladies of the parish too helpful. He soon left the place. One day there- after he met his successor. "How are you getting on with the ladies?" asked the escaped curate. "Oh, very well," was the answer, "there's safety in numbers." "I found it in Exodus," was the quick reply. V.-THE MEDICAL MAN. THE Irishmau, like bis brother of every nationality, has his share of the "ills that flesh is heir to," and after the manner of other folks he calls in the doctor to ward off these ills or cure them when they come. The Irish doctor meets with many amusing characters and tells many interesting stories connected with his profession. In his sick- bed, ay, even at the point of death, Pat continues to be a healthy Irishman in wit and in humour. These characteristics do not desert him in the hour of physical decay, and many an other- wise cheerless scene is rendered brighter by the happy say- ings of the patient. An old soldier was for some time an inmate of a city hospital, and while he was there he grew very tired of his food, which consisted chiefly of fish. One day Pat was asked by the doctor how he was, when he said — " Och, it's hungry I am, to be sure. " The doctor said he would change his diet from fish to chicken broth, which Pat received next day. On being asked how he liked his dinner, he began questioning as to whether the chicken was fed on land or water, and when he was told "sometimes on water" and "sometimes on land," he replied — "Shure he was never near the water he was boiled in; he must have been on stilts, so wake was the flavour." "My dear madam, I am truly glad to see you alive! You know at my last visit I gave you but six hours to live," said a doctor to his patient. "Yis, docthur, " replied the patient; "but Oi didn't take the dose you lift me." "Well, Pat, my lad," said the kindly doctor, "you must drink this stuff. I'm afraid it's a case of kill or cure with you now, my lad." "Well, I don't care if it kills me, so long as it cures me in the end, " said Pat. " Gimme the bottle. " 62 Irish Life and Humour "I will leave you this medicine to take after each meal," said a doctor to a poor labourer who was very ill. "And will ye be koind enough to leave the meal, too, docthor?" enquired the labourer. A country doctor in the north was driving down a narrow lane on his way to visit a patient, when he espied an old woman in the middle of the road picking up some pieces of turf, which had evidently dropped from a passing cart. Pulling his horse up to prevent running over her, he said rather sharply — "Women and donkeys are always in the way." "Shure, sir," said she, stepping to one side, "I'm glad you've the manners to put yourself last." "Well, my man," said the visiting physician of a Dublin In- firmary to a patient, "how do you feel this morning?" "Purty well, sur," was the reply. "That's right. I hope you Hke the place?" "Indeed and I do, sur!" said the man. "There's only wan thing wrong in this establishment, and that is I only get as much mate as wud feed a sparrow." "Oh, you're getting your appetite, are you?" said the doctor. "Then I'll order an egg to be sent up to you." "Arrah, docther," rejoined the patient, "would you be so kind as to tell thira at the same time to sind me up the hin that laid it?" A patient once told the doctor that her Uver was troubling her, pointing at the same time to a spot high up under her left arm. "God bless us, woman!" roared the doctor, "your liver does not lie there." "I think I ought to know where my own liver lies," was her dignified, insulted reply. "Haven't I suffered from it these twenty years ?" A well-known Irish Resident Magistrate tells the following story, for the truth of which he vouches. When stationed in the West, there were two doctors in the place, one of whom had a great reputation for the cures he effected, and the other was not believed "to be much good," to use an Irish expres- sion. The favoured doctor found his ser\'ices in great request, but, as payment was not always forthcoming, he made a rule The Medical Man 63 that a certain class of his patients should pay in advance. One winter's night he was roused by two farmers — from a townland 10 miles away — the wife of one of whom was seriously ill. He told them to go to the other doctor, but they refused, saying they would prefer to have his services. "Veiy well," replied the medico, "in that case my fee is £2, the money to be paid now." The men remonstrated, but the doctor was obdurate, and shut down his window. He waited, however, to hear what they would say. "Well, what will we do now?" asked the farmer whose wife was ill. And the reply that was given must have been as gratifying as it was amusing to the listening doctor; it was — "Begorl I think you had better give it. Sure! the funeral and the wake would cost you more!" An Irish country doctor had an interview with a circus per- former. He was anxious to know something of the artiste's business, and the explanation — consisting of tumbling and various gyrations — was proceeding when an old lady came in search of the doctor's advice. She stood va. breathless awe, whilst the doctor was a laughing spectator. At length he stopped the sweating performer, and the old lady tremblingly approached, pleading — "For goodness sake, doctor, don't ex- amine me like that, for I couldn't do it at all." A man was one day mending the roof of his house, when he fell to the ground and broke a rib. A friend went quickly for the doctor, who happened to live close by. "Have you ivor fallen from a house?" was the first question Pat asked the doctor. "No, indeed," was the laughing reply of the doctor. "Thin bejabers, ye can go on away at once. I want a doctor who has fallen and knows what it is loike." "Did you notice the direction on that bottle?" "Yis, sor; it said 'shake well before using.'" "Well, did you obey?" "Yis, sor; Oi shook loike th' ould boy. Oi had a chill." "Lastly, M'Gorry, " said a doctor who was giving his patient advice, "don't go to sleep on an empty stomach." "No danger 64 Irish Life and Humour av thot, doctor," replied M'Gorry; "Oi always dape on me back." There is a doctor in Dublin whose proportions are such that the inhabitants hare a riddle, "What is more wonderful than Jonah in the whale?" "Doctor — in a fly!" One day the doctor was squeezing himself into a cab when an old woman begged of him. Seeing that her eloquence was not going to residt in any pecuniary gain she began to chaff him. "Ah, then!" she cried, "isn't he the handsome giutleman! An' iv-ry button on 'um doiu' it's jooty!" A man employed in a large factory had, without permission, taken a day off to celebrate the fall of Pretoria, and he seemed likely to lose his job for so doing. When he was asked by his foreman why he had taken a holiday, he exclaimed — "Bejabers, sor, Oi was so ill yesterday that Oi could not have come to work to save my loife. " "How happens it then, Pat, that I saw you pass the factory on your bicycle during the morning?" asked the foreman. Pat was slightly taken aback, but, not to be beaten, he replied — "Sure, sor, that must have been when Oi was going for the doctor." A man who had sent for the doctor for the first time in his life watched with astonishment while the physician took his clinical thermometer from its case, slipped it under the patient's armpit, and told him to keep it there a second or two. Mike lay stUl, almost afraid to breathe, but when the doctor removed the thermometer he drew a long breath and exclaimed, "Ail, I do feel a dale betther already, sor!" Poor Mike was very ill — almost as ill as he was short, and what that meant those who knew him can best say, for physically he was hardly more than a dwarf. The doctor was called in, and after investigation informed Mrs. Mike that her husband was suffering from actinomycosis, a name which appeared to strike terror to the soul of the anxious woman. "Act phwat ? " said she. "Actinomycosis," replied the doctor. "Oh, no," cried Mrs. Mike, in a tgoe of genuine unbeU?f. "Shure, The Medical Man 65 doctor, how can ye say that. A little man loike Moikel couldn't hoiild the name of ut, much less th' disaze that goes wit ut !" It is related of a coachman that his medical adviser prescribed animal food as the best means of restoring health and activity. "Patrick," said he, "you're run down a bit, that's all. What you need is animal food." Remembering his case a few days afterwards, he called upon Pat at the stable. "Well, Pat," said he, "how are you getting on with the treatment?" "Oh, shure, sir," Pat replied, "01 manage all right with the grain and oats, but it's mighty hard with the chopped hay." A doctor was examining a poor woman patient in a local hospital in which the dietary did not err on the side of extravagance. "Do you expectorate much, my good woman P" asked the doctor. "Begorra, doctor," was the reply, "I don't expect t' ate much, but I can ate all I can get here. " A man who had gone into a dentist's to get a tooth pulled had it out in a few minutes. "That will be half-a-crown, " said the dentist. "Half-a-crown!" said Pat; "why, the last tooth I got pulled at home the old doctor set me down on the floor, and put the nippers in my mouth, and pulled me round and round the room, out of the door, and down the stair. When we got to the foot the doctor said, ' By the help of Heaven and the attraction of gravity, we'll hev her out yet,' so when we got to the top out came the tooth, and he only took a shillin' ! " A man went to a dentist to have a troublesome tooth ex- tracted. The dentist told his assistant to get behind the chair, and, at the proper moment, stick a pin into the man's leg so that the pain there would distract attention from the greater agony in the jaw. Tooth pull and pin stab came together, and Pat, with a howl of anguish, yelled — " Och, murther! I didn't know the roots was so far down! " ' ' How did ye f ale ph win the dentist was pullin' yure tathe ? ' ' enquired Mrs. M'Gorry of her husband. "How did I fale, is 66 Irish Lift and Hwnaur ut?" exclaimed Mike. "Bedad! Oi regritted wid ahl me hear-rt thot Oi wasn't bom a hen ! " While a drove of bullocks were being driven through a northern village, one of them suddenly stopped, and, notwith- standing all the efforts of the drover, would not move. A chemist who happened to see the affair went up to the bullock and injected a drug, which made the animal career down the street. A few minutes after the drover entered the chemist's shop, and asked him if he gave the bullock the medicine. "I did," replied the chemist. "Well," said Pat, "I'll take a penn'orth of it, as I've got to follow the baste." A man, requiring a small bottle, and seeing one in a chemist's shop which he thought would suit him, entered the shop and enquired the price of the bottle. "Well," said the shopman, "as it is, it wUl be twopence, but if you want anything in it, I won't charge for the bottle." "Faith, sir," said the man, "please put a cork in." In a Dublin workshop, when the men absented themselves they were expected to produce a doctor's certificate. A man, absent, however, on a second occasion, and told to bring his certificate, gave in the one used before. The manager, looking at it, said — "Why, Maguire, this is an old certificate!" "Sure I know that, your houour, " said Maguire calmly. "And isn't it the same ould complaint?" VI.— THE FLOWING BOWL. THE Irishman is a sociable mortal. He joins heartily with his brother in a "glass," and is not very particular whether his beverage is "poteen" or not. Like all others he is an amusing — if undignified — animal when under the influence of drink, and many anecdotes relate his sayings and doings. He is fruitful in excuses and always ready with his tongue; and, indeed, it may be said, with perfect truth, that Paddy is an exception to the rule implied in the Scots proverb " 'WTien drink's in wit's oot. " The Irishman's wit burns brighter when nourished by that oil which is said to lubricate the wheels of social life. "Pat, whoi are ye so often dhrunk whin ye come to mate me?" reproachfully asked an Irish girl of her lover. "Shure, me darlint, it's all through yer purty face," replied Pat, with an admiring glance. "Away wid yer nonsense!" exclaimed the girl. "Phwat has me 'purty face,' as ye call it, to do wid ye gettin' dhrunk?" "Whoi, colleen," said Pat, "y-> can't have too much av a good thing, an' whin Oi'm dhrunk, an' look at yer purty face, Oi can see two or three av thim, an' it's a timptation Oi can't resist!" In a dark room in an Irish cabin Biddy was searching for the whisky bottle, when her husband, who was in bed, enquired — "What is't yer lookin' fur, Biddy?" "Nuthin', Pat," answered Biddy. " Shure, " replied the husband, who suspected the reason of her search, "you'll find it in the bottle where the whisky was." A tipsy labourer was travelling in a train, and every time tho train stopped, out came a string of oaths. "Don't you know, 68 Irish Life and Humour sir," said a lady opposite, "that it is impolite to swear before a lady?" The labourer looked dazed for a moment, and then replied, "Sure, mimi, I beg your pardon; but Oi didn't know ye wanted to swear first!" "Talking about whisky, Mike, isn't one kind of whisky just as good as another?" "Indade it is not. Some pfwiskey hasn't a rale good foight in a barrel av it." A lady requiring her windows cleaned sent for her soldier- servant, and told him that whisky mixed with whiting would make the glass shine beautifully. She gave him the whisky, with strict injunctions to use as directed. Some time after- wards she went to see how he was getting on, and, seeing signs of his having drunk the whisky, she 'asked him if he had mixed it with the whiting as directed. He rephed — "Shure, ma'am, it was a pity to waste it like that ; and I managed betther, for by drinking it, and then braything on the windows, shure they got the good of it, and that does just as well!" "Papa was very shocked, Patrick," said the vicar's daughter to a parishioner, "to see you standing outside the Green Man this morning, after church." "Oi can 'sure ye, miss," replied Patrick, "it wus no fault o' moine that I wus standin' ootside. " "After ye've drank all the whisky that's good for ye, ye should call for sarsapariUa ! " said Mrs Dooley to her husband. "Begorrah!" exclaimed the husband, "after Oi've drank all the whisky that's good for me I can't say sashp'rilla!" In the old days, when smuggling was rife amongst the in- habitants of the English South Coast towns, an old Ramsgate boatman, of Irish extraction, was asked to name the hardest- worked creature next to himself. After a little consideration he replied — " Och, a Ramsgate donkey, to be sure ; for, after cany- iug angels aU day, be jabers, he has to carry sperrits all night. " A stingy son of Erin, on one occasion, upon seeing another Irishman just going to drink a glass of whisky, exclaimed — "Hould on, Pat, just let an ould frind have a drop, the laiste drop in the wurruld. " His friend passed the glass, ajid the The Plowing Bowl 69 stingy one quietly emptied it. Pat was naturally annoyed, and said — "Bedad, I thought you only wanted a drop?" "Yes," replied the stingy friend, "but the drop I wanted was at the bottom! " Two men went out skating, and one took a bottle of whisky with him as a sort of "heart warmer." When they decided to "hit the bottle," they found the cork was very tight, and impossible to remove without a corkscrew. "Can't ye get it out, Moike?" said Pat, after a few minutes of hard work by Moike with the cork. " Yis, " said Mike, "I'll get it out, shure, if I have to push it in." Judge Porter, the popular Irish Magistrate, in sentencing a notorious drunkard, said, "You will be confined in jail for the longest period the law allows ; and I hope you will spend your time in cursing whisky." "I will, sir," promptly answered the impertinent toper, "and Porter, too." A little Irishman, smoking a short clay pipe entered the crowded inn of a market town, walked up to the bar, elbowed several customers aside, took a match from the matchstand on the counter, and then walked out without saying a word. The astonished barman gazed after him and wondered who he was. The very next morning the little Irishman walked into the same place, lit his pipe, and then made his way out again. As he reached the door, the barman called after him : "I say, who are you?" The Irishman turned round and said, "You know me," then went out. Next day at the same time he came again, helped himself to a match as usual, and lit his pipe. He waa just walking off when the barman caught him. "Who are you?" asked the barman. "Oh, you know me," replied the Irishman. "No, I don't, " said the barman. "Who are you ?" "Why," was the cool reply, "I'm the man that comes in here to light his pipe every morning." Mr. Gerald Balfour was on one occasion visiting a congested district in Ireland, when he was laid up with a sharp chill. Hearing of this, an Irishwoman, loafing at a cabin door, said to 70 Irish Life and Humour a constable, "Ocli, if the gintleman was to dhrire in a car the day long and take just one single glass of the cratliure at ivery house he met, by the powers, sur, he wouldn't at dark have any idea he was ill at all, at all!" The firemen were industriously trying to extinguish a blaze in a public-house one night when an impeciuiious Irishman who had been drinking "on tick" said to his friend iu the brigade — "If ye love me, Mick, play on the ' slate.'" A labourer, who was fond of his little drop, determined to pass his favourite public-house on his road home. Nearing the shop he began to get shaky, but summoning up courage he passed it about fifty yards, then turned, saying to himself — "Well done, Pat, me bhoy! Come back and I'll trate ye!" An Englishman boasted to an Irisliman that porter was meat and drink, and on his way home fell into a ditch and lay there. Pat, on finding him, said, "Arrah, my honey, you said it was meat and drink to you, but it's much better, for it's washing and lodging, too." VII.— WIT AND HUMOUR. IT may be said with something approaching truthfulness, and our earlier chapters bear out the remark, that in all circumstances and at all times the Irishman is a wit and a humorist. It is true that his humour is at times unconscious, and that on occasion he is witty without inten- tion, but this is a condition of things which proves that wit and humour are part and parcel of his being. To such an extent has he become identified with a propensity for joking that if any one has difficulty in locating an anecdote he at once attributes it to the proverbial Paddy. Nor is Paddy annoyed at this ; he takes the responsibility with undisturbed equanimity. In the matter of making a suggestion the Irishman always employs his native humour. "Well, Pat, " said a Dublin manu- facturer to one of his employees on the morning after a little con\'iviality, "they tell me I made a fool of myself last night." "It's not for the loiks o' me," answered Pat, "to be sayiu' 'yes' or 'no' to that, sor." "But isn't it true," continued the employer, with that relish which so many men have for talking of their misdeeds, "that I was so loaded that you had to carry me home from the Club?" "It is, sor," sjiid Pat. "And I suppose you had a good deal of trouble doing it?" "Well," said Pat, recognising that he might talk with some little freedom, "Oi can't say about the trouble, but Oi had my regrets." "Ah!" said the employer, "you regretted to see me in that condition, of course?" "Not exactly that, sor," admitted Pat; "but Oi regretted that ye didn't think of it ia toime, and ax me to carry half yer load." t2 trish Life and Humour "Get away to tlie poorhouse," said a lady, irritated by the appeals of a beggar woman who had called ac her door. "Get away to the poorhouse, is it?" said the old croue, with scorn in her voice. "Faix, thin, I needn't stir, for it's at a poor house I am!" The following story illustrates one way, the easiest way, of excusing personal deficiencies — "Th' professor kin spake in four differint tongues, Dinny. " "Thor's only wan t'ing thot kapes me from doin' the same, Larry." "An' phwat is thot.''" "Oi hovn't the four tongues." An Irishman was riding a frisky horse. The animal pre- sently got its hind foot into one of the stirrups. "Be jabers," said the Irishman, "if ye're going to get up it's time for me to get down." "Look here," exclaimed Pat. "That half-crown ye lent me yisterday wuz a counterfeit. " "Well, " retorted Mike, " didn't ye say ye wanted it bad?" "Do you think Oi'm a mug?" enquired Mike. "A mug, me bhoy?" said Pat. "Ye're a regular challenge cup!" "Why don't you get your ears cropped ?" cried a big cabman to an Irishman who was trudging after a drove of donkeys. "They are a precious sight too long for a man. " "Are they ?" said Paddy, turning round and looking his assaUaut full in the face. "Then, be jabers, yours are much too short for an ass." "Sure, yer hair is falling frightfully. You'll be bald soon if it kapes on," said one Irishman to a companion. "Faith, I'U be baldor still if it don't kape on," was the reply. "Supposing, Bridget," asked Mrs. Hiram, "I should deduct from your wages the price of all the china you broke ? " " Well, mem," said Bridget, "I think I'd be loike the china." An Irishman, who had on a very ragged coat, was asked of what stuff it was made. "Bedad, I don't know," said he; "but most of it is made of fresh aii-, I think." "Well, anyway," said Mike, "I kin flatter mesilf that I was nivver so droonk that I didn't know what I was doin'." "An' Wit and Humour 73 be the same token," said Pat, "ye war uivver so sober that ye did." An Irishman leaving Belfast by steamer, waving his cap to his friends in the harbour, accidentally let it blow into the water. The captain, thinking he would have a joke at the Irish- man's expense, said — "Hallo! Pat, is that the only cap you've got;-'" Pat immediately replied — "Be jabbers, I haven'<- got that one either." "Well, Mr. M'Ginnis," said the landlady, "I hope you had something you liked for breakfast this morning. "Yes, indeed, Mrs. Irons," said the boarder. "I had a magnificent appetite." A young man once went to a kind-hearted old squire for a recommendation. An elaborate testimonial was written and read to him. He took it with thanks, but did not move. "T\Tiat's the matter with it.P" demanded the squire. "Oh, nothin', sorr," said the lad quickly. "Well, then, why don't you go?" "Sure, sorr, I thought on the stringth of a recom- mind like that you'd be wantin' to hire me." "It's a fine morning, Biddy," said the squire. "It is a foine morning, your banner and ladyship. And shure I had a foine drame last night." "What did you dream, Biddy?" inquired the lady. "Shure, I diimt his banner gave me a pound of baccy, and your ladyship gave me a pound of tay!" "Ah," laughingly replied the squire, "but, you know, Biddy, dreams go by contraries." "Shure, thin, your banner can give me the pound of tay, and her ladyship can give the pound of baccy!" At a large exhibition of pictures an Irishman was standing, catalogue in hand, before a vivid representation of the Deluge, when an old lady, seeing he had a catalogue, asked him to tell her the subject of the painting. "A summer's day in the Vv'est of Ireland, ]\radam," replied the Irishman, promptly. "Shure, ^frs. Miilcahey, they do bo a sayin', ma'am, thnt ye're a two-faced woman." "Pwliats thot ? Shure, I'll have 74 Irish Life and Humour ye arrested if ye say a thing like thot fominst me!" "Faith, Mrs. Mulcahey, ma'am, I didn't say it at all ! "Why, I stood up for ye ! I said it wasn't so, bekase if ye did have two faces ye'd wear th' other one mighty quick." In one of the principal streets of Dublin, a stranger accosted an Irishman with the question — "Could you tell me the way to the station, Pat?" To this the Irishman replied — "Shure, but how did you know my name wor Pat P" "^Tiy, I guessed it." "Well, seeing you're such a good guesser, you can guess the way to the station," wa-s Pat's retort as he passed along. "Ye say th' beer wint to th' catcher's head?" enquired Larry. "Yis, and bedadl" said Dennis, "th' bottles wint to th' umpire's head." Even when there is an undercurrent of reality the stream of Irish humour flows smoothly. A man walking along a country road met a peasant driving a wretched-looking donkey, with .a load of turf that seemed to tax the strength of the unfortunate animal to its utmost. "Why," said the man, "you ought to be taken up for cruelty to animals for loading the ass so heavily as that!" "Begorra, sir," said the peasant, who was on his way to the market-town to seU the turf, "begorra, if I didn't do that I'd be took up for cruelty to a wife and six childer!" An Irishman entered a tramcar, seated himself, took out his pipe, and put it in his mouth. "You can't smoke here," said the guard. "I know it, sorr ; I'm not smokin'," said the Irishman. "But you've got your pipe in your mouth," con- tinued the guard. "Yes, sorr," retorted the Irishman; "an' I've got me feet in me boots, but I'm not waUdn', sorr." Once there chanced to be a young lady passenger on board an Irish boat named Eagle, who had got with her a very good character from her place in England. She was on her way home to Ireland. She was so pleased with her character that she was showing it to some of the passengers on board when the wind caught it, and blew it out of her baud and into the Wit and Humour 75 sea. She was terribly upset, and at once went to the captain. He, being a good-natured Irish fellow, said he would soon put it right for her. He went to his cabin, and wrote out the following — "This is to certify that Mary Ann Murphy lost her good character on board the Eagle, while sailing from England to Ireland. Signed, Captain Spooner. " An Irish gentleman who wished to express his hospitable feel- ings to his surrounding friends said — "Now, mind, if you are ever within one mile of my house, I hope you will stay there for a week I" "Are there any fish in the pool to-day?" asked a gentleman of an Irish peasant. "Fish is it?" said the peasant. "It's fair polluted with theml" At a dinner party given by the Archbishop of Dublin to some of his fellow bishops, his Grace noticing that the wine was not circulating, remarked to the Bishop of Cork, "If you are Cork, you need not stop the bottle." "Your Grace should draw me out," was the smart reply. To which the Archbishop re- joined — "What! you don't mean to say you want to be screw'dl" When Bamum was in San Francisco, he advertised for a cherry-coloured cat. An Irishman answered the advertise- ment, and offered to bring him a fine cherry-coloured pussy for two dollars and a half. Bamum was so delighted that he sent the man the money at once, in order to hold him to his bargain. But his delight changed to uimiitigated disgust when the Irish- man came and jerked a wall-eyed, sickly-looking black cat out of the bag, and told him that it's name was BUly, and that it was very fond of fish. " \\'hat d'ye mean by bringing me this thing?" yelled Baruura. "Didn't you say you had a cherry- coloured cat?" "I did that, Mr. Bamum," said the Irish- man, "and didn't Oi bring ye wan? Didn't ye iver ate bhick cherries, asthore?" The great showman never advertised for a cherry-coloured cat again. "If," said Pat, "Oi had half a million pounds." "Tut, tut. 76 Irish Life and Humour man!" exclaimed Miko. "Phwat's the use av dhramin' whin yer not ashlapeP" An Irishman, who had walked a long distance, feeling very dry, and seeing a milkman in the streets, asked the price of a quart of milk. "Threepence," replied the milkman. "Then give us a quart in pints," said Pat. "Right," was the reply. Pat, on drinking one pint, asked — "How do we stand?" The milkman replied — ' ' I owe yer a pint, " " And I owe you one, ' ' said Pat; "so we are straight." "Me M'oife nearly broke me head lasht night wid a chair," explained Clancy. "Phwy don't ye git easy chairs .P" enquire I Casey, An Englishman and an Irishman met one day, and the former, to have some fun with Pat, asked him if he was good at measure- ments. "I am that," said Pat. "Then could you tell me how many shirts I could get out of a yard?" asked the Englishman. "Well," said Pat, "that depends on whose yard you get i^ito." Oliver Ogilvie was travelling with a friend to a fair, and at a railway station had to move up to make room for a woman who got into the compartment. At the next station some more marketing folk got in, with the result that Oliver was tightly wedged between two stout basket-women. "Ye'll be uncom- fortable there," said his friend. "Och, naw; shure Oi haVn't much room for gi-umbling. " A wealthy bank officer, being applied to for aid by a needy Irishman, answered, petulantly, "No, no; I can't help you. I have fifty such applicauts as you every day." "Shure and ye might have a hundred without costing you much, if nobody gets more than I do," was the response. In a small village in County Clare lived Pat M'Ginty, a cottar, who was widely famed for his sharpness of wit and readiness of speech. His neighbours loved to boast that no one, not even his wife, Norah, could have tlie last word in an argument with Pat. A stranger coming to the district heard of Pat's linguistic prowess and resolved to put it to the test. Meeting Pat in the I- w Wit and Humour * ' street the visitor hailed hiin Avith— "I'll bet you five sliilliugs, Pat, that I'll take you to where you can't have the last word." "Done!" said Pat. Accordingly the stranger led the way to where there was a famous echo, between two wooded hills. In a short time Pat returned to the village triumphantly jingling his five shillings. His friends inquired how he had beaten the echo. "Byes," said Pat with a grin, "the thing came back to me for a shpell, but, shure, I got even wid it, for I sbpoke th' last wur-rd undher me breath. " Thackeray tells of an Irishwoman begging alms from him, who, seeing him putting his hands in his pockets, said — "May the blessings of God follow you," but when he only pulled out his snuffbox, she immediately added, "and never overtake you-" When Miss Delavelle Baniugton was playing Miami m the "Green Bushes," at the old Mary Street Theatre, Cork, a ludicrous incident occurred. Miami has to jump into the I^Iississippi, but when Miss Barrington reached the rocky eminence from which she had to leap she saw there was no mattress below to receive her. INIiss Barrington, however, no- thing daunted, took her leap, and came down with a thud on the bare stage. The situation struck a member of the "gods, " for a stentorian voice called out— "Oh! be jabers, 'tis frozen!" An Irishman went to a Scottish contractor several times and asked him for a job. The Scotsman, tired of the man's per- severance, told him to go to the devil and see if he could get a job there. "Ah! sure, be my soul, I've been to him," said tlie Irishman, "and he's taking nobody on but Scotsmen." A stranger walking along a country road met an Irishman who was holding a ram by the horns, and the following con- versation took place— "Will you hold this ram," said the Irish- man, "while I climb over and open this gate from the other side?" "Certainly," said the obliging stranger, as he seized the big horns. "Thanks," said the Irishman when he got to the other side. "The vicious brute attacked me about an hour 7s Irish Life and Humour ago, aud vre have been struggling together ever since. As long as you stand before him holding his horns he can't hurt you. Farewell I I hope you will be as lucky in getting away as I've been." One night, two youths at the back of the gallery indulged, as Irish youths will, in a free-fight. When they were parted, one was dragged one way, and the other, borne on an elevated plane of uplifted hands, was carried to a man sitting in the very front row, and was held suspended over the pit. In an instant the audience was hushed in patient, or impatient, ex- pectation of his fall. Suddenly, the silence was broken by a shout from the other side of the gallery — "Don't waste him, Pat; kill a fiddler wid 'im!" It was an instance of tiiat peculiarly economical characteristic of the nation which never wastes anything except its talent. Nobody can pay a prettier compliment than the Irishman when he chooses. His tongue and wit are never nimbler than when he employs them in the service of "blarney." A young professor from Dublin was staying with friends in England. At breakfast the next morning the little daughter of the house, who sat next the young Irishman, saw with amazement that he put no sugar in his tea. "Wouldn't you like even one lump of sugar in your tea?" she asked solicitously. "My papa likes three lumps." "Since you have looked into the cup, my little maid, the tea is quite sweet enough," responded the young fellow gallantly. In a builder's yard it was the custoni to pay the men their wages in a little bag each week. One Saturday the master told Pat, an Irish labourer, when paying him, that he would not require his services any more. On the following Monday, as the master was going round the yard he saw Pat at work as usual. "Hallo, Pat," said he, "didn't I give you the sack on Saturday?" "No, sir," said Pat; "sure it was the same little bag I've always had." Pat's services were retained. "I heard you were on sthrike, " said Mike to his friend Pat. JVit an, I Humour 79 "I v\as tliat," answered Pat. "A sthrike for what?" "For shorter hours, Mike." "And did you get them?" "Sure, we did, Mike. It's not working at all I am now." A man, after waiting some time during a terrific snowstorm at a country railway station for a train to take him to Dublin, was informed by the stationmaster that the line had become snowed-up, and that he therefore could not proceed by rail to Dublin. "How do ye know the line is snowed-up?" asked the irritated man. "By telegraph," answered the station- master. "Be jabers! it's alwez the same in this counthrie. Ye tak' care yer telegrafts don't get snowed-up. Sure an' can't ye stick the railways on stilts as well?" "Only think, Mrs. Grogau, " said Mrs. Doolan, in a burst of confidence; "thot dear Paddy has practised so har-rd at the pianny for the lasht six mouths thot he has paraloized two fingers. " " Begorrah ! " exclaimed Mrs Grogan, " thot's nothin', Mrs. Doolan. Me daughter Mary Ann has practised so har-rd for the lasht six months thot she's paraloized two piaunies. " A waiter complimented a turkey in the following manner — "Faith, it's not six hours since that turkey was walking round his rale estate with his 'ands in his pocket, niver dreaming wha a pretty invitation he'd have to jine ye gentlemen at dinner." "Well, !^Iike," said a traveller, "I see you have a small gar- den!" "Yis, sorr," answered Mike. "What are you going to set in it for next season?" "Nothing, soit. I set it with potatoes last year, and not one of them came up." "That's strange, how do you explain it?" "Well, sorr, the man next door to me set his garden full of onions." "Well, had that anything to do with your potatoes not growing?" "Yis, sorr. Bedad, them onions was that strong that my potatoes couldn't see to grow for their eyes watering." A man being out of work, offered his services to an Ice Com- pany to cut ice on a certain lake. Being asked if he was well up in the use of the cross-cut saw, and answering that he was, he was given the job. The first day after his engagement he 80 Irish Life and llvmour was sent along with another man to cut ice ou the lake. Arriving at the water's edge, Pat seemed rather puzzled, but soon brightened up again, and producing a halfpenny from his pocket, he held it between his finger and thumb, and said — "Now, Jamie lad, fair play. We'U toss np who has to take the under side." As a train was approaching a town on the Great Northern Railway in Ireland an intelligent looking young Irishman observed a lady standing up searching her pocket, and she com- menced to weep. "Have you been robbed?" he asked. "Oh, no," she replied, "I lost my ticket, and they will accuse me of fraud." Seeing her distressed state of mind he said — "Oh, don't mind; here, take my ticket, and I will give the guard a problem." She did so, and their fellow passengers awaited the scene at the station with interest. When the train stopped the guard collected all the tickets but one. "Where is your ticket ?" he asked the young man. "You have got my ticket, " he replied. " No, I have not got it. I'll call the stationmaster and see about it." "Where is your ticket?" asked the stationmaster when he appeared. "He has my ticket; see if he has a ticket in his hand with a small piece off the corner." "Yes, you have, Dave, there it is." "Well, see will that fit it," said Pat, handing him the small piece, and it did. A look of surprise crept over the guard's face as he left the carriage, whUe Pat caused much amusement by exclaiming, "Begorra, I knew he couldn't solve it." Edmund Burke was one day addressing a crowd in favour of the abolition of slavery. In spite of his eloquent appeals the crowd began to get hostile, and at last a rotten egg caught him full in the face. He calmly wiped his face and quietly said — "I always contended that the arguments in favour of slavery were rather unsound!" The crowd roared, and from that time he was no more molested. Two men were one day working on a farm. Just about dinner-time they were called to dine off a large basin of broth. Wit and IluTnoxir 81 The farmer's wife had only one spoon, so she gave Pat a fork. Poor Pat was getting nothing, while Mike nearly got it all. When it was about a third empty, Pat said, " Arrah now, Mike, you dig a bit and I'll shovel. " "And phwat did the gintleman say to ye whin you asht him for the place P " asked a fond father of his son. "He towld me he knowed me boi the lucke av me to me daddy," was the reply. "And phwat did ye say to thot?" queried the father in a pleased tone. "Oi towld him it was not me good lucks thot Oi was expechtiu to ricommind me." An Irishman once went into a hardware shop to buy a stove. The ass stant showed Irs stock, but the Irishman was not satisfied with any of them. Then, coming to a high-priced stove, the assistant said— "Now, sir, there is a stove that will save one-half of your coal." The Irishman promptly said— "I'll take two." An American lawyer came over to County Armagh, on holidays, for many years in succession; and had one of the local characters to show him round. On his last visit, he found that his guide of former years had emigrated, but an elder brother had taken his place. The new guide was very loquaci- ous, thoroughly acquainted with topography, and able to spin a legend about almost every place they visited. One day, they came to a lake — an insignficant inky pool — embosomed in the mountains. "Now, sir," said Pat, "that lake has no bottom. " " Nonsense, " replied the incredulous Yankee, "there is no water without a bottom." "Well," drawled Paddy, "last July, there was a man went into it to bathe, and he never came out again." "That doesn't prove it to be without a bottom, Pat." "But," interposed Pat, "the next day hia father got a telegram, asking for his clothes to be sent on to him in New Zailin'." Two Irislimen, who had not been long in England, met at an inn, and called for dinner. It happened there was a dish of horseradish grated for dinner. Pat, thinking it was some- 82 Irish Life and Uiuuuur tliiug to be eaten with a spoon, put a large spoonful into liis mouth. The tears filled bis eyes, and rolled down his cheeks. His friend saw it, and said, "Pat, what is the matter?" "I was just thinking of my poor father that was hanged in swate Ireland, " answered he. But Jemmy soon filled bis mouth with the same, and as the tears gushed from his eyes also, Pat said, "What's the matter? What has happened to ye?" "Ah!" replied Jemmy, "I was just thinking what a pity it was that you were not banged when your father was!" A tramp went to a farmhouse and asked for food. The mistress gave him a good meal of cold beef and bread and a glass of ale. Then said the son of Erin — "Shure, ma'am, if yer feet were as big as yer heart, it ain't my corruns I'd loike ye to be afther threadin' upon." Garrick, when in Dublin, expressed a poor opinion of Irish wit, so Sir John O'Farrel made him a bet about it, and they agreed to ask an English and an Irish labourer each the same question, the wittiest answer to win. An English workman was asked what he would take to stand naked on the top of St. Paul's Cathedral. He scratched his head and said, "Ten guineas." Then they put the same question to an Iiislunan. "What, in mother's nakedness?" he said, meaning as naked as when born. "Yes, Pat." "Why, then, be jabers, I should take could ! " was the reply. A traveller once, giving himself superior airs, told General Doyle he had been in countries where the bugs were so large and thirsty that two could drain a man's blood in a single night! But the witty general answered promptly, "My good sir, we have the same animals in Ireland ; but they are called by a different name. We call them humbugs." Pat going into a vault heard some men discussing the South African war. He began to take the part of the Boers, where- upon he was thrown through the window, and going to some of his friends outside he told them to come and watch him throw the men out of the vault window, and to count them as Wit and Huniour 83 they came out. They did so, and they counted one. "Stop," exclaimed Pat, "it's me again." Barry Sullivan, the tragedian, was playing in "Richard III." at Shrewsbury on one occasion. When the actor came to the lines, "A horse, a horse! My kingdom for a horse!" someone in the pit called out — "Wouldn't a donkey do, Mr. Sullivan?" "Yes," responded the tragedian, turning quickly on the interrupter. "Please come round to the stage-door." Anything more truly Irish than the fate of the ruins of the famous castle of the O'Neills, on the Castlereagh hills, near Belfast, would be difhcult to find. Anxious to preserve the picturesque walls from total decay, the late Marquis of Down- shire directed his land steward to have a wall built round the ancient and historic fortress. The order was faithfully carried out, and a large substantial circular wall was built around the apex of the hill. The noble Marquis was informed that the work was done, and when next visiting his estate he rode on horseback to see how the ruins looked. Fancy his surprise to find the walls but no castle ! An explanation was immediately demanded, when it was found that the contractor had coolly utilised the ruins of the castle to build the preserving waU! This monument of Irish wit remains intact to the present day. "Don't you keep a brush for that work, porter?" enquired a passenger of an Irish porter who was busy labelling luggage. "Xo, yer honour," replied the porter; "our tongues is the awnly insthruments we're allowed. But they're aisy kept wet, yer honour." A son of the Emerald Isle was removing from the house which he had occupied for a considerable time without paying any rent, when the landlord (who was familiar with him) appeared on the scene and said — "Hullo, Pat, why are you flitting? You've paid no rent at all. Sure you can't be getting a cheaper house." "No," replied Pat, "but I'm getting a larger garden. " An Irish sailor, being desired to heave in a bucket of rub- 84 Irish Life and Humour bish, threw it over the ship's side by a rope, which broke while being hauled up, and the bucket, being full, very naturally found its way to the bottom of the ocean. Poor Paddy was by this accident thrown into a fit of perplexity, and fearing the displeasure of the captain, he resolved to extricate himself from his dilemma by the following singular specimen of nautical logic : — Going up to the captain with a grotesque bow and a humorous grin — "Long life to your honour's riverence, " he said, "and might I be so bowld as to spake a civil word wid you?" "Well, my man," replied the officer, "what have you to say?" "Sure, then," said the tar, "and it's myself, Pat Mullius, would be axing your honour, can a thing be lost when you know whereabouts it is?" "Certainly not," said the captain; "but wherefore do you ask so foolish a question?" "Blud and ouns, then," said Paddy, "the bucket I let over- board a while ago is not Jost, for I can tell where it is — sure enough, it's safe and sound at the bottom of the sea!" A good story is told of an ostler who was sent to the stable to bring forth a traveller's horse. Not knowing which of the two strange horses in the stalls belonged to the traveller, and wish- ing to avoid the appearance of ignorance in his business, he saddled both animals and brought them to the door. The traveller pointed out his own horse, saying, "That's my nag." "Certainly, your honour. I knew veiy well, but I didn't know which was the other gentleman's." An Englishman, travelling in Ireland, was rating a porter for not putting his luggage in the right train. "You donkey! Didn't I tell you I was going to Bray?" "Och, sure," said Pat, "any ass can do that." Here is a pretty little piece of Irish blarney which appears on a notice-board in the garden of a hotel in Killamey district — Ladies and gentlemen will not, others MUST NOT Pull the flowers in this garden. The following joke was heard at a fashionable hotel between Wit and Humour So one of the waiters and a bookmaker who was living there. "I say, waiter," said the "bookie," "you are the slowest lot of waiters I ever saw." "Beg pardon, sir," was the reply, "it's not on first-past-the-post principles here." "What do you know about first-past-the-post?" enquired the bookmaker. "You should be home in Ireland digging turf." "Well, sor, " said the waiter, "if I was home in Ireland, shure, I would be sleeping with the pigs, but here, sure I have only to wait on them." A man went into a grocer's shop and asked the grocer the price of eggs. "Seven for sixpence," said the grocer. "Best new-laid, too." "Oh," said Pat, "seven for sixpence. That's six for fivepence and five for fourpence, and four for three- pence, and three for twopence, and two for a penny, and one for nothing, so I'll take the one for nothing, please." "I understand, Pat," said an employer interviewing an applicant for a situation, "that you have a big family dependent on you?" "Yes, sor — ten childer, seven pigs, and the ould woman!" In a restaurant a waiter was in the habit of bringing an old gentleman's tea, the major part of which was usually in the saucer. "Look here, Pat," said the old gentleman, "to- morrow evening if you bring my tea mthout spilling a drop in the saucer I will give you a shilling to yourself. " "Right, sor, " said Pat, and the following evening he won the shilling by bringing the cup in one hand and the saucer in the other. "Who was it hit ye?" asked Kelly of his friend Cassidy. "Shure, Oi duuuo!" was the reply. "'Twas in a crowd!" "Thin ye are in luck!" exclaimed Kelly. "Now ye won't have to get licked ag'in thrying to lick th' fellow thot hit ye." At one of the west coast watering-places a young lady was walking along the esplanade, when a sudden gust of wind took her parasol from her hand, and sent it full into the face of an old Irishman behind her. The lady hastened to apologise, say- ing — "I am so sorry, sir, the wind took it from my hand." 86 Irish Life and Humour "Shure, now, don't distress yerself, " answered the gallant Irishman. "If ye had been as sthroug as ye are pretty a hurricane couldn't have tuk it from ye." A glazier was putting a pane of glass into a window, when a groom, who was standing by, began joking him, telhng him to be sure to put in plenty of putty. The man bore the banter for some time, but at last silenced his tormentor by : — "Arrah, now, be oflF wid ye, or else I'll put a pain in yer head widout any putty." A policeman, stopping a carter who had not got his name on his cart, examined the cart and said — "I see your name's 'oblitherated!'" "You're a liar!" replied Pat instantly. "Me name's O'Flaherty!" "Well, Mr. Duffy, how are you to-night?" a polite political canvasser asked an Elswick labourer. "We've come to ask for your vote." "Indade, that's what I'm thinking," the voter replied with an amused smile, "for Jack Duffy only gets Mister at election toimes. " He had been canvassed before. Vm.— BULLS AND OTHER BLUNDERS. THE native of the Emerald Isle is, rightly or wrongly, always associated with that form of mixed speech which is designated a "bull." Blunders of a similar kind are made by others than Paddy, but he is such a frequent sinner in this respect that he has come to be regarded as in- separably associated with their manufacture. And in (un- solicited) justice to him it may be said that bulls of foreign make are like many other things of alien production — weak and worthless. To this statement probably one exception must be made, namely, the blunder — of course it was hardly a "bull" — which a French lady perpetrated when, in compiling a bibliography of works dealing with cattle, she included a "Treatise on Irish Bulls!" "How's t'ings wit' you?" enquired Cassidy of a friend. "Busy, very busy, indade," was the reply. "Is it so?" asked Cassidy anxiously. "Aye!" exclaimed the friend. "Faith, ivery toime Oi'm at laysure, Oi hov somethiu' to do. "And how is the wife, Miker" asked Pat of his neighbour one morning. "Sure and I had the doctor la.st night," was the reply. "T didn't know thot she was so sick as thot, " said Pat. "No," said the neighbour, "and she didn't need him; but iv she hod died, sure she would always hov blamed mel" "Pat," said a manager to one of his workmen, "you must be an early riser. I always find you at work the first thing in the morning." "Indade, and Oi am, sor. It's a family trait, Oi'm thinking." "Then your father was an early riser, too?" "Me father, is it? He roises that early that if he went to bed a little later he'd meet himself getting up in the morning." 88 Irish Life and Uuvwnr "And who is it lives there, Mike, in that big stoue house?" euquired a tourist. "Why," replied Mike, "that old geutle- man I was telling you of, that died so suddiut last winter." An Irishman on weighing his pig exclaimed — "It does not weigh as much as I expected, and I never thought it would. " This was somewhat akin to the ejaculation of Mike who, on opening his pay envelope, exclaimed — "Faith, that's the stingiest man I ever worked for." "Phwat's the matther wid ye ; didn't ye git as much as ye ixpicted ? " asked a fellow work- man. "Yis, " was the reply, "biit I was countin' on gettin' more than I ixpicted. " "Ivery day this summer Oi got up earlier to go to work than Oi did the day before," said an Irishman to a companion. "Is that so?" enquired the companion. "It is," said the Irish- man; "an' Oi figgers thot Oi be one wake younger now than whin Oi comminced." A belated husband, resident in Ireland, hunting in the dark for matches with which to light the gas, and audibly expressing his disappointment, was rendered speechless in an instant by his wife suggesting, in a sleepy voice, that he had better light one and look for them, and not go stumbling about in the dark breaking things, A servant girl, when asked if she had a good place, answered --' ' Oh, a moighty f oiue place ! My misthress is that rich that all her flannel petticoats are made of silk!" "Can't you keep the baby quiet, Maiy?" an Irish nurse was asked, after a loud noise had been coming from the nursery for a long time. "Sure, ma'am," answered Mai-y, "I can't kapo him quiet at all unless I let him make all the noise he wants ! ' ' Some of the most delicious bulls are in act rather than in word. An Irishman was found standing out in a hard rain over a little bridge, carefully, and with a strained position, holding his line in the water uuder the bridge. "Sure," said he to a Bulls and Other Blunders 89 marvelling passer-by, "the fishes 'II all be crowdiu' in there to get out of the wet!" An irate landlady, pounding on the door of her slothful lodger's room, exclaimed — "Is it dead or alive ye are, Mister Maloney?" "Nayther; I'm slaping!" was Maloney's answer. "Where," said the Irish orator, triumphantly, "where will you find a modem building that has stood so long as the ancient ? ' ' In a watering-place in the South, a large number of persons were summoned for non-payment of their water rates. Among the defendants figured an Irish tradesman, who, in reply to the bench as to why he had not paid for the water he had used, replied — "Well, you see, your worship, I pay 12s a quarter for water, and many's the day it's off for a whole week! " An ironmonger received a case of hardware, and on com- paring it with his invoice found everything all right except a hammer, which was missing. "Och! don't be troubled about that," said his Irish porter, "sure and faith the man took it out to open the case wid it." An Irish agricultural journal advertised a new washing- machine under the heading, "Every man his own washer- woman," and in its culinary department said that "potatoes should always be boiled in cold water." An Irish threat is a threat that cannot be disregarded : — "Is there any of No. 9 mess down there?" called an Irish cook to the men below ou one of H.M. ships. "Yes, there is," came the reply. "Well," shouted the Irishman again, "tell them if they don't come up to peel the spuds I'll cook them raw." "'Tis very fortunate," remarked Mr. Grady wisely, "thot hay be not as hivy as coal." "For whoy, Pat?" "Shure, a ton av the shtuff would weigh so much thot a poor man couldn't afford to kape a cow." Murphy had been to the superintendent of works to make a demand for more pny and shorter hours. He had retunied (J 90 Irish Life and Humour unsuccessful and dejected. "Shure, " said he, "Oi'd heard that he wot dafe an' dumb, an' Oi've found thot he is." "Gwan!" said Brannigau. "How did ye foind thot out?" "Be jabers!" replied Murphy stoutly, "he admitted ut." An Irish squire, seeing a man who was engaged in painting a gate on his estate working away with unusual energy, asked • — "What are you in such a hurry for. Murphy?" "Sure, I want to get through before me paint runs out! " was the reply. "You shouldn't beg," said a gentleman, who had been asked to bestow a copper on "a lone, lorn cratur; " "there's plenty of work in the hayfields. " "Ah, sur, we can't all work, for thin there'd be uothin' for the rest to do!" was the woman's reply. One has only to mix with an Irish crowd to hear mauy a laughable expression, quite innocently uttered. As the Princ • and Princess of Wales were leaving Dublin in 1897, amid enthusiastic cheering, an old woman remarked, "Ah! Isn't it the fine reception they're gettin', goin' awayp" In 1892 Dublin University celebrated its tercentenary, and crowds of visitors were attracted to the city. Two labourers, re- joicing at the general prosperity, thus expressed their feelings — "Well, Tim," said one, "thim tarcintinaries does a dale for the thrade of Dublin, and no mistake." "Oh, faix they do!" said the other. "And whin, with the blessin' of God, we get Home Rule, sure we can have as manny of thim as we plase. " An old woman, seeing a man pidling a young calf roughly along the road, exclaimed — "Oh, you bla'guard ! That's no way to thrate a fellow crather. " "Sure," said a labourer to a young lady who was urging him to send his children to school, "I'd do anything for such a sweet, gintlemanly lady as yourself." "Friends," said an agitator, at a meeting of Home Rulers, "the cup of our trouble is running over, and it is not yet full. " A poacher, up liofore a magistrate, made this defence — "In- Bulls and Other Blunders &1 dade, your Worships, the only bird I shot was a rabbit ; and I knocked that down with a stick. ' ' At a meeting where a committee was being condenmod for ita management, the speaker said — "Perhaps you think that in our committee half do the work, and the other half do no- thing. As a matter of fact, gentlemen, the reverse is the case. " A workman, being at a lodging-house, and having to rise very early for work, arranged to be called. After he had gone to sleep some of his "pals" blacked his face. When Pat got up and looked in the glass he exclaimed, " Arrah! and shure they've called the wrong man." An Irishman, who got a situation from a funeral undertaker, was sent with a coffin to a house where one of the family had died. Not getting right instructions from his master what door it was, Pat went to a door, pulled the bell, and asked»in true Hibernian fashion — "Is this where the man lives that's dead?" William Burke was a genial, courteous, and withal bright Irish lawyer, and this is the way he demolished his opponent — the plaintiff's counsel — and that, too, with the utmost serious- ness — "Your honour, the argument of my learned friend is lighter than vanity. It is air; it is smoke. From top to bot- tom it is absolutely nothing. And therefore, your lionour, it falls to the ground by its own weight." Speaking of a neighbour, who was a daring rather than an expert mariner, a country doctor related how his yacht had "stuck fast and loose in the mud." At a meeting of churchwardens, when it was debated whether the pew of a gentleman who had seceded to Revivalism should be retained for him or not, the doctor urged that it should, adding as a reason, "'Tis unbeknownst but one of his ancestors might happen to want it." "Faith, an' it's loik old toims it do be to see yon again," said Pat to his friend Mike. "Why didn't ye niver wroite me a loine since Oi last met ye?" "Sure," said Mike, "an' l)i D^ Irish Life and Humour would, but Oi wasn't after knowin' yer address at all." "Thin," enquired Pat, "why in th' name o' sinse didn't yer tillyphon me an' Oi'd hev sint it to ye?" An honest Hibernian, in recommending a cow, said that she would give miik year after year without having calves, "be- cause," said he, "it runs in the hrade, for she came of a coiv that never had a calf. ' ' An Irishman, who had blistered his fingers by endeavouring to draw on a pair of boots, exclaimed, "I shall never get them on at all until I wear them a day or two." A gallant Irish colonel, on relinquishing his command of a brigade depot, was entertained at a farewell dinner by the local Volunteers, at which several of his friends in the county were present. Before his speech he said to one of those present — "I hope my speech will go off as well to-night as it did last night at the ban'acks. I am going to use the same words, but I will try to vary the sentiment!" In his address he said — "To-day I have relinquished my command, to-night I say good-bye to you, Volunteers, good-bye for ever ; and in saying good-bye to you for ever, Volunteers, I trust to God I am saying the same to everyone of my friends who is in this room." An Irishman, on leaving his home, and looking f">r the last time at tlie village graveyard, was heard to exclaim — "Well, please God, if I live, I will be buried there." An old County Carlow man, who was giving an account of a boating accident, added — "Faith, they couldn't save the poor fellow till he was drowned." It was a little Irish boy brought over to England who, com- plaining of some grievance, said — "If you treat me like this, one of these mornings I shall get up dead," In the House of Commons, an Irish member, being inter- rupted by the Speaker, exclaimed — "Then, sir, I will reiterate what I was going to say." An Irish priest wrote to a Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, ask- Bulls and Other Blunders 93 ing him to permit a prisoner to attend the funeral of his mother on the plea, "that, alas! she was his only survi\aug relation." Pat Maloney was uailiug a box containing articles which he intended sending by rail. From the nature of the contents a friend knew it was essential that the box should not be in- verted during the passage. He ventured to suggest to Pat to write conspicuously on the case — "This side up with care." A few days afterwards, seeing Pat again, he asked — "Heard any more about your goods ? Did they get there safely ?" " Every one of them broke," said Pat. "The whole lotF Did you label it, ' This side up, as I told you ?" "Yes, 1 did. And for fear they shouldn't see it on the cover, I put it on the bottom, too." " Oi hear thot Dinnis wuz caught be a premachoor explosion, " said Casey to a neighbour. "Wor he hurted any?" "He wor," replied M'Manus. "They tell me thot wan av his wounds is fatal, but th' other two ain't dangerous an' wuU heal up quick." "This is the seventh night you've come home in the morn- ing," exclaimed Mrs. O'Brien. "The next toime you go out, Mr. O'Brien, you 11 stay at home and open the door for your- self." "You have been in many ructions, I suppose, Pat.P" said a landlord to one of his tenants. "Oh, a great many, yer hou- ner, " replied Pat unaffectedly. "And I suppose you fight grimly— you never give in, I mean." "I always fight till I die," said Pat. "Hev you seen this, Pat?" asked Bridget as she laboriously read a paragraph in a newspaper. "It sez here that whin a man loses wan av his sinses his other sinses get more develyuped. F'r instans, a blind man gets more sinse av hearin', an' touch, and' " "Share, an' it's quite thrue, " interrupted Pat. " Oi've noticed it moself . When a man has one leg shorter than the other, begorra, the other leg's longer, isn't it, now?" "If I put me money in the bavin's Bank, whin can I draw 94 Irish Life and Humour it out agin?" asked Dennis Moriarty of a friend. "Shure," said his friend, "an' if you put it in to-day you can get it out agin to-morrow by giving a fortnight's notice." "Out of work again, Pat?" enquired the priest of one of his parishioners. "I thought that old Milligan gave you a job?" "He did, sor; but Oi'll be kilt afore Oi'll starve to death for the sake of kapin' aloive, sor. "Come down out o' that, young man," commanded a self- important policeman on the occasion of a fire in Dublin. " But I'm a reporter, and want to get a description of the fire," explained the young man. "Get out wid you," insisted the man in blue. "You can't stay there. You kin foiud out all about the fire from the paper in the mamin'." An Irish cyclist was bitten on the leg by a savage bull terrier. He wrote a long complaint to the local paper, the communication closing with the sentence: — "The dog, I understand, belongs to the town magistrate, who resides in the neighbourhood, and is allowed to wander on the road un- muzzled, and yet sits on the bench in judgment on others. " "Phwot, Phalim M'Gorry?" interrogated O'Brien. "Wull, wull, me b'y, Oi'm glad to see ye! Ut's foive years since last we met. Tell me, Mack, is yure owld father aloive yet?" "No," replied M'Gorry solemnly; "not yet." A beggar called at a house, and said to the woman — "For the love of hiven, ma'am, give me a crust o' bread, for I'm so thirsty I don't know where I'll sleep to-night!" A man was one day boasting about his horsemanship, and to let his mates see how good he was at it he got on to the back of an old nag. The horse began to kick and fling, and Paddy was nearly thrown off, when one of his own race shouted out — "Paddy, can you not come off?" To which Paddy re- plied, excitedly — "How can a man get off when he can't stay on." "An' phwat'll Oi do at all, Moike?" asked Mrs. Gallacher who was treating herself at a country station to a pennyworth Bulls and Other Blunders 95 of her "exact weight." "This machine only goes up to fifteen shtone, an' Oi'm sixteen shtone if I'm an ounce." "Get on twice, Bridget," said the resourceful GaUacher, "an' add up th' totals." "I am not expecting anything," said the lady of the house. "This is the number," persisted the driver of the delivery van, looking at his book again. "Name Iliggins, ain't it?" "Yes, number 374?" "That's our number." "Then it's for you. " "I think not. It must be a case of mistaken identity. " "No, mum — it's a case of wine." There was a slight smash on a South of Ireland railway. Ow- ing to a misplaced rail or sleeper a few carriages rolled over on turning a curve in the line. From the midst of the wreckage a young farmer crawled out and demanded from a wounded passenger Ijing near if this was Bandon? "No," was che gaspiug reply, "this is a railway smash." "Holy Mary," cried the farmer in dismay, "Oi've got out at the wrong station, and will be too late for the market entoirely." The advertisement writer is not free from the national fail- ing. Here is an illustration: — "Missin, Jane O'Foggerty ; she had in her arms two babies and a Guernsey cow, all black, with red hair, and tortoise shell combs behind her ears, ani large black spots all down her back, which squints awfully." A man was sent to post a letter one day. "When he returned his master asked him "why he went away without getting an address on it." "Shure," replied the man, "I thought as how you didn't want me to know where it was going to. " "Luk here, me bhoy, this warr will be a moighty bad thing for poor ould Oirelaud, " exclaimed a sou of the Emerald Isle when discussing the South African campaign. "How's that?" asked his companion. "Why, don't ye see by the papers that Oirishmen are foightin' for both sides? Shure, an' some ov them will got bate — unless it's a draw." The following is the reply of an Irishman to a bootmaker who had sent him a bill: — "Oi niver ordered the boots; ef Oi did, 96 Irish Life and Humour ye niver sent 'em ; ef ye sent 'em, Oi niver got 'em ; an' ef Oi did, Oi paid for 'em, and ef Oi didn't, Oi won't." A startling telegram was received on one occasion at the head office of an Irish bank from a remote country branch. The communication read — "Regret inform you I died this morning of pneumonia," and was "signed for John Brown, manager, Thomas Smith." Evidently the prevailing idea in Mr Smith's mind when he dispatched the wire was at all hazards to comply with the regulations, and so he used the form "as laid down," and no doubt congratulated himself upon being equal to the emergency. Of course, it was Mr. Brown, the manager, who had the misfortune to die of pneiimonia. An Irish principal in a fight, realising that he was being badly worsted, vigorously protested to the bystanders against the methods of his adversary. "Shure, an' wasn't it to be a fair stand-up fight?" he excitedly exclaimed. "It certainly was," returned an onlooker, who had been a witness of these arrangements. "An' how, thin," retorted the defeated candi- date, "can he be ixpictin' me to shtand up and f eight 'im fairly if he do be knockin' me down all the toime.P" "Shure," exclaimed O'Rafferty philosophically as he paused with a hammer in his hand, "Oi wish Oi was lift-handed!" "What for.P" asked a fellow workman. "Why," explained O'Rafferty, "thin if Oi iver hurt my roight hand, workin', Oi'd have my lift hand to fall back on. " A manservant in the employment of an English gentleman residing in Cork, one day discovered a part of the woodwork of a chimney-piece on fire, that endangered the whole house. He rushed upstairs to his master, and announced the alarming intelligence. Down he went with him. A large kettle of water was on the fire. "Well, why don't you put out the fire?" "I can't, surr. " "WTiy, you idiot, pour the water upon it." "Sure, it's hot water, surr." "I see you have a glass eye, Pat." "Yes, yer 'anner; bub it's a swindle, sir. I can't see nothing out of it." Bulls and Other Blunders 97 "You are not opaque, are you?" sarcastically asked one man of another who was standing in front of him at the theatre. "Faith, an' Oi'm not," replied the other. "It's O'Brien thot Oiam." A recent advertisement in an Irish paper announced that Mr. So-and-so extracted teeth with great pains. "Look here, my man," demanded a car conductor; "what the mischief are you ringing the bell at both ends of the car for?" "Sure," replied O'RafFerty, "an' Oi want both inds of the car to stop." "Have ye ever read Burns, Mrs. Grogan?" asked an Irish- man of a neighbour one 25th of January. "Faith, and phat colour would burns be if they wasn't red, " enquired Mrs. Grogan in astonishment. "The grocer charged me a shillin' a pound fer this mate," said Mrs. MuUigan. "Bedad, an' thot's too high," exclaimed her husband. "A mon wud hov to ate half a dozen pounds to git his money's worth." "Ye'll hov to be sawmthin' wid that clock to make it run corrictly," said Mrs. M'Gorry one evening to her better half, "Sure, phwhiuiver Oi don't set ut back ivery half day ut gains an hour or more in ivery tin or twelve." "Lave ut alone till ut gits a whole day fast," said M'Gorry. "Oi want to find out phwhither ut would prove that we wus livin' back in yisterday an' the clock was on toime, or we was all roight an' the clock was tellin' the toime av to-morrow to-day." "Oi'd loike to take a trip around the wurruld," said O'Brien to his wife. "Sure, thot wud be foine!" said the goodwife. "Yis," returned O'Brien; "but tink av the cost av gettin' home agin! " A stalwart Irishman paid a begging visit to a gentleman's mansion. Contrary to his usual good breeding, Pat went "right forward" into the sanctum of his butlership, who, in a burst of indignation, asked him what brought him there. "Och," said Paddy, "an' it's that ye're axin', is it? Sure, 98 Irish Life and Ilvmovr thin' an' it was to spake with yer honour's glory." "Well, then, sir," retorted the butler, "do you not know that, according to the rules of this house, it is customary btfore coming in to knock at the door!-'" "Arrah, by me sowl, " bawled Paddy, "an' how should I know the rule of the house until I came in to ax ? " The JVIisses Muldoon, two simple maiden ladies, ordered two portraits of their deceased motlier, one in crayon and the other in water-colours. Both pictures duly arrived, but the Misses Muldoon were not satisfied with the water-colour. "You see," said the elder, "'taint as like mother as the other. Why, even Mr. Biuks could see the difference. I showed him this here" — pointing to the water-colour — "and he says nothing; and then I showed him this" — indicating the crayon — "and he says at once, ' Ah, that's the thing — that's more like.' And if he, that never saw mother at all, could see it was a better likeness, it surely must be." "Pat, can you tell me what is an Irish 'bull?'" asked an inquiring tourist, "Well, if your honour seen four cows lying down in a field an' one o' them standin' up, that 'ud be a bull I " retorted Pat triumphantly. IX.— BIRTHS, MARRIAGES, AND DEATHS. THE three important events in Irish life, as in the life of every other people, are Births, Marriages, and Deaths. Each of these is signalised in some special manner. The two former are, naturally, seasons of rejoicing, and one is not far wrong when he says that the son of Erin does his best to preserve the harmony of the trio by making the last- mentioned as merry as possible. A story is told of an English- man who, being greatly amazed at the conviviality which he saw at a Scottish funeral, exclaimed that in Scotland the burials were as blith as English bridals. Ireland may well share in the compliment or the slander. It does its best by means of its wakes to turn a season of gloom into one of brightness, and if on the face of it the attempt seems a little incongruous, it at all events helps to foster that spirit of kindly friendship which is the essence of all neighbourliness. But it is not on the side of custom or folklore that we are to look at present. Our intention is rather to present such anecdotes relating to the three events as we have been able to gather, and by doing so further illustrate the life and humour of the Irish people. The Irishman is usually frank in his speech. Two men, who had not met for years, ran across each other, and after shaking hands adjourned for a modest refresher. "Well, here's to ye," said Mick. "It's a long toime shure since we met, Pat, isn't it? Lots of things have happened to ye, Oi'll be bound." "Yes, indade," replied Pat. "Shure, an' it's married Oi ami" "You don't mane it?" "Faith, an' it's true. An' Oi've got ft fine healthy bhoy, an' the neighbours say he's the very picture 100 Irish Life and Humour of me." "Och, niver moind what they say," said Mick. "What's the harm, so long as the child's healthy!" A priest was once sent to baptise a baby. In the cabin he could find no water, but there was a pot of t-ea. "Tea," he reasoned, "contains water, the rest is but accident," and pro- ceeded to pour out a cup. But it was strong, even to black- ness ; so he went in search of water, and, having found some, watered the tea down to a passable light colour, christened the baby with it, and reported the circumstance, as a case of conscience, to his superior. It had not occurred to him, hav- ing found the water, to use it by itself. Many stories are told in connection with the rearing of families. "Ah, Pat," said Cassidy meeting Mr. and Mrs. Casey with a child, "thot baby is a perfect picture av ye." "Shut up, ye fule!" said Casey with peremptoriuess. "Somebody left it on our front steps and Oi'm taking it to the police station." "An' ye've raised quoite a big family, Mrs. Murphy .P" re- marked Mrs. M'Canty when visiting a friend. "Yes," said Mrs. Murphy with pride, "seven polacemin, Mrs. M'Canty." "Mrs. Donegan, " said a neighbour one day when she heard Mrs. Donegan's children howling, "how can you let your old child beat the others so?" "D'ye think a harrd wurrukin woman has toime to beat thim tin children iverry day ? I thry me hand at the oldest wan ivery maming, an' he's a good Bthrong b'y, and beats the other nine fer me!" A tourist who was in the North of Ireland came across an Irishman whipping a boy. "Why are you punishing the lad.P" he asked. "Well, sorr, his brother hit me wid a shtone. " "Then this lad is not to blame for that." "Well, ye see, sorr, the two lads is twins." "But that makes no difference." "Beg pardon, sorr, it does," said the son of Erin. "For bein' twins, an' bein' so much aloike, the one might just as well hit me as the other." "I want a pair of shoes for this little boy," said Mrs. Mao- Births, Marriages, and Deaths lOl namara to the Bhoemaker. "French kid, ma'am?" enquired the shoemaker politely. "Indade not," said ]VIrs Macnamara with some heat. "He's my own son, and was bom and bred in Ireland." "Come, now," said Cassidy proudly when Casey called to see the new arrival ; "did ye ever see such a baby as thot before ?" "Sure, an' Oi can't remimber, Cassidy," replied Casey. "Oi havn't bin to a freak museum or a soide show for twinty years. " "Early marriages are to be deprecated," said Lord Beacons- field, "especially for men." This doctrine does not find fav- our among the peasantry of Ireland. "\Miat they say is, "Either marry young, or become a mouk young." Those who are accustomed to comfort exercise greater self-restraint in matri- mony than do the poor. These last rush in, reasoning as they do in Ireland in this matter, "Shure, whatever we do we can't be worse off than we are." And yet many of the Irish poor enter into matrimony as a sort of investment for old age. When children come, as quickly as they do to the poor, into the little cabin of Pat and Biddy, they say, "Shure they will be a grate support to us in our ould age." And this they generally are, for in no country is the duty of children to pro- vide for aged parents held so sacred as in Ireland. With the Irishman, as with all others, courting is the pre- liminary to marriage. "Courting," said an Irishman, "is like dying; sure a man must do it for himself; " and indeed so pleasant is the occupa- tion (it is said) that it is only those who are abnormally shy who wish to do it by proxy. There is a great difference between flirtation and courtship. The first is attention without inten- tion. It was well described by Punch as "a spoon with nothing in it," but the latter, though it may be a "spoon," too, is a spoon with something in it — tliat is to say, the intention to marry. The sage has had his say against marrying in haste; here is the same thought with a prettier colouring — A solemn and awe- 102 Irish Life and Humour inspiring bisliop was examining a class of girls, and asked — "What is the best preparation for the sacrament of matri- mony?" "A little coortin', me lord!" was the unexpected reply of one of the number, "I'm a-thinking I shall 'list and go and help and fight the Boers, Widow Skelly, " said young Regan, who was a bashful suitor for the widow's hand. "Faith, thin, it's a poor sojer you'll make!" "Phwat de ye mane?" "Oh, nothing! Only a man who kapes on callin' on a widdy for a couple of years without pluck enough to spake his moind hasn't the makdn' of a sojer in him." "Oh, what a recreation it is," exclaimed an Irishman, "to fall in love; it makes the heart beat so delicately that you can't got a wink of sleep for the pleasure of the pain ! " "Do you drame of me, Mike?" asked a girl of her young man. "Drame of you, is it, me darlin', why I can't get any sleep for draining of you. " "You must not kiss me, Pat, Oi'm afraid we'll be seen," said Bridget to her sweetheart. "Bridget, darlint, there's no one lookin'," said Patrick. "Yis, Pat," rejoined Bridget; "but the potatoes have eyes, remimber. " Beauty always wins the Irish heart. A "purty" face, a neat ankle, a pair of sparkling eyes act like champagne to native wit of the chivalrous order. Courtesy to the gentle sex is a feature in Pat's character, and he is an adept at courting. "It is a grat-e pleasure entirely to be alone, especially whin your sweetheart is wid ye," observed one reflective swain. Now and then some of the bhoys require to be prompted a bit in their love-making. "Ah," said a sweet Kerry maid to her lover, "if you wor me, Tim, and I wor you, I wud be married long ago. " William iMonachan and Maria !Mulvauey were walking along a lonely country road near Kildare one fine evening. William was carrying a large tub on his head and a live pig in a sack on his back, when suddenly Maria exclaimed — "Oi be afear'd, Births, Marriages, and Deaths 103 Bill! Oi be fear'dl" "WTiat be'st fear'd on, greaat stoopud, w'en Oi be 'long w'id 'ce?" was Bill's reassuring response. "Oi be fear'd you'll git a'kissin' an' a-coortiu' o' me, Oi be!" re- plied the tremulous maiden. "'Ow can Oi git a-kissin' au' a- coortin' o' ye w'en Oi 'a' got this great tub on me 'ead an' a pig on me back?" reasoned William. With true maiden simplicity Maria replied — "C'u — c'u'du't you put that pig on the groun', an' turn that tub atop on im, an' set down on't, an' pull me 'side of ye, ef ye wus amind to 't, ehP" "I hear, Pat, that you're taking a great fancy for the girls," said an employer to one of liis labourers. "Well, sorr?" queried Pat. "Well, hare you met your fate yet?" "Shure, Oi met wan av her father's fate lasht noight. " "Shtop, Moike, shtop, Oi hear some wan comin', " said Bridget as Mike put his arm round her. "Shure, ut's a iligent ear ye have, Biddy, " exclaimed Pat tightening his hold. " Ut's mesilft ye'se hearin' comin' to the p'int. Will ye marry me, darUnt?" An Irishman, asking whether she would accept his love or not, wrote thus to his sweetheart: — "If you don't love me, plaze send back the letter without breaking the seal." One day Mr. O'Brien, a land agent in the West of Ireland, met a countryman, and, having heard of his man-iage, saluted him with — "Well, Pat, so you have taken to yourself a wife?" "Yis, yer honour," said Pat, touching his hat; "I have." "Well," said Mr. O'Brien, looking comically at him, "here I am, and I can get no one to take me, and I feel very lonely sometimes." "I think I can put yer honour in the way," tiaid Pat with a confidential look. "How, Pat?" "Do as I did: go where you are not known." An Irish member of Parliament, popular and a bachelor, had been very polite to the daughter of the house where he was visiting. Wlien the time came for him to go the too-anxious mamma called him in for a serious talk. "I'm sure, I don't know what to say," she went on; "'tis reported all around 104 Irish Life and Humour that you are to marry Letitia. " "Just say that she refused me," quietly advised the Parliamentarian. "Bridget, I don't think it looks well for you to entertain company in the kitchen the way you do," said the young mistress. "Thanks, mum," replied the cook; "but I wouldn't want t' take Im int' th' parlor — he spits t'baccy. " "As you say, Mary," said another mistress, "the young man now sitting in your kitchen may be highly respectable and well known to you. But please remember that this is my house and that he is a perfect stranger to me." "Lawks, mum," replied Mary, "if you'll come in an' let me interjuice ye to him, it's as prowd as a paycock with two tails he'll be, an' no mistake, mum." Of course of all the Irish servants' sweethearts the policeman holds first place. "Bridget, didn't I see two policemen in the kitchen last night?" "Yiss, mum; but wan o' them wis the polis on the next bate. " It was this lady who is said to have inscribed the following in her prayer-book : — "If hivin's a place thot's so paceful," said Bridget O'Riley the fair, "there'll be no perlice ter patrol it — the divil-a-bit Oi'll go there." An Irish small farmer was asked by his landlord if the report of his intended second marriage was true, and replied — "It is, yer honner. " "But your first wife has only been dead a week, Pat," said the landlord. "An' shure, " retorted Pat, "she's as dead now as she ever will be, yer honner." "Matrimony" was defined by a little girl at the head of a confirmation class in Ireland as "a state of torment into which souls enter to prepare them for another and a better world." "Being," corrected the examining priest, "the answer for 'Purgatory.'" "Put her down," said the curate, ashamed of his pupil, "put her down to the foot of the class ! " " Leave her alone," quoth the priest, "the lass may be right after all. Wliat do you or I know about it?" Births, Marriages, and Deaths 105 "Good maruiu', Mrs. O'Toole," said Mrs. Fiuuigau. "An' piiwat makes ye look so sad!-'" "Sure, Michael has been sint to jail fer six months!" explained Mrs. O'Toole. "Arrah, now, don't worry," said the other in a consoling tone. "Shure six months will soon pass. " "Faith an' that's phwat worries me, " said Mrs. O'Toole. "Phwat's the matter wid yer face, Casey?" asked a fellow- workman. "Th' ould woman hit me wid the I'avin's o' this momin's meal o" mush," was the reply. "G'on, " said the fellow-workman. "Shure mush is too soft to " "Faith," interrupted Casey, "she didn't shtop to take it from the pot." A disposition to look always on the bright side of things spares its possessor much uuhappiuess, but when the cheerful- ness rests upon reasoning so unsound as Mr. Dolan's there must some time come an awakening. Mr. Dolan had lost his situa- tion at the mill, owing to his persistent lateness, and in conse- quence his wife was "low in her moiud. " But Dolan was as cheerful as ever. "Now don't be losin' your smoiles, Norah, darlin'," he said coaxingly. "Oi'm out o' wurrk, to be sure, but 'twas only foive shilliu's a day Oi got. If Oi'd been gettin' tin shillin's, our loss would be twoice as bad. Kape that in moind, darlin', and not be complaiuin'." An Irishman who owed his landlord a few pounds arrears of rent was one day in the house, sitting with his wife, when a knock came to the door. Pat answered, and to his surprise saw two bailiffs. In a bit of fun Pat said— "Will you come agiuu in an hour, as my wife is going, and I want her to pass away in peace." The bailifiFs, thinking Pat's wife was dying, agreed, and he gave them sixpence to get some beer. Whilst they were away he and his wife moved the furniture out of the back door, and in about an hour a knock came. Pat went to the door, and one of the bailiffs said, "Has she passed away.'^" "Yes," said Pat, "and so has the furniture." "So Cassidy is engaged to be married," said O'Brien. "Oi H 106 Irish Life and Humour always thought he was a gi-eat thrifler. " "Well, he thought BO himself — till he thrifled wid a widow," was the reply. "Ye don't tell me Mi-s. Brady is to be marii'd agiii?" said Mrs. Hogan. "Yis; it's thrue. Oi knowed ye'd be sur- proised at her," said a neighbour. "Faith, 'tis not at her Oi'm surproised, " replied Mrs. Hogan. Bridget had buried John just a few days previous to being visited by Pat M , a worthy widower. "It's lonely ye'll be since poor John died," said Pat. "It is lonely Oi am, but what can Oi do ? I'll just have to bear it," replied the widow. "Troth, an' it's yerself that'll be gettin' married again," said Pat. "Married again. No. Sorrow a wan will ever fill poor John's shoes," replied the widow. "And who would have me, anyway.^" "Sure," said Pat, who was in his bare feet, "an' Oi'd loike ye meself if Oi had a pair of shoes." "Sure," re- plied Bridget, wiping away a tear, "an' will John's fit ye?" One of the hardest things in the world is to condole with any- body in a misfortune or a bereavement. If it were not that the matter is generally serious, a great many funny stories could be told of the condolences offered to the bereaved. At Dublin some time ago a hard working Irishman fell out of a fourth-storey window and broke his neck. After the funeral a neighbour called to offer the widow sympathy and condolence. "It was a veiy sad thing indeed." "Indeed it was. To die like that — to fall out of a fourth-storey window." "An' was it as bad as that?" asked the visitor. "Sure, an' I heard it was only a third-storey window." Mulligan's mother lay dying, and all her relations were called to the bedside, where they stood dropping tears and taking a sly inventory of the furniture. Bridget was to have the kitchen dresser. "How generous o' the dear cratur!" cried Bridget. "Indade, indade, she is!" said the rest of *he family. The horse was to go to Tim. "Conscious and rayson- able to the last!" exclaimed Tim. The family loudly agreed. The old lady's watch was to be given to Pat and the cow to Births, Marriages, and Deaths 107 Kathleen. "Wonderful, her memory's perfect to the end!" cried eveiybody in chorus. Then Mulligan's mother begged them to remember Donovan, and pay the fifteen polinds which she owed him. "Don't listen! Don't listen!" shrieked all the relatives together. "She's ravin' — poor sowl — she's ravin'!" An Irishman was once passing through a country village in England when he saw a crowd of people standing outside the squire's house. On inquiring the cause he was told that the squire was going to be buried. " Och ! " says Pat, "begorra, an' I must stop, for in my country we have to carry them." "So Kelly is dead?" said Pat. "Yia," replied Mike. "He hadn't an inimy in th' wur-r-ld." "Phwat did he doi of?" asked Pat. "He was killed in a foight, " explained Mike. An Irishman went into a graveyard one day and was looking around casually. Coming to a certain grave he read the in- scription on the tombstone, which was as follows — "Here ^ies Jonathan Jones, who was born July 2, 1831, and died April 3, 1892. He was a lawyer and an honest man," etc. "Holy Patrick!" exclaimed the Irishman, "the soil about here must be very expensive, when they have to bury two men in the same grave." X.— YOUNG IRELAND. THE wit and humour which are characteristic of Ii-ish character frequently manifest themselves long ere man- hood is reached. The juvenile son of Erin has oft- times an abundance of that ready wit which is pro- verbial of his fathers, and is apt to make those blunders of speech which are not unknown to his seniors. Many amusing stories are told of Irish children, and in a book of this kind a place may very appropriately be given to their sayings and doings. A man who pursued the humble occupation of a ragman was a great orator in his way, and frequently addressed local meet- ings. On one occasion he was endeavouring to prove that even a savage state is better than the condition of Ireland. "Gentlemen," he exclaimed, "I saw little children out in Africa there. They had no clothes, it is thrue. They were naked, but they were free. " " Bad place for a ragman, jMick, " shouted a little fellow in the back seat, and the orator collapsed amid the laughter of the audience. In a country school the principal undertook to convey to his pupils an idea of the use of the hyphen. He wrote on the blackboard, " bird's-nest, " and pointing to the hyphen, asked the class, "What is that for?" After a short pause, a young son of the Emerald isle piped out— "Please, sorr, for the bird to roosht on." Little 'Mike, who was of an enquu'ing mind, began thinking about some curious things one evening, and applied to his father as to their meaning— " Father 1 " he enquired. "Phwot?" queried the father. "Father, av wan av thim pug Young Ireland 109 dogs was to follow his nose wild he txim summersets, or go down his own t'roat?" "Ar-r-r-r; Oi dunuo! But phwot Oi do know is thot av ye ask me another quiston loike thot, me youug intirrygation p int, aph to bed ye'll go loike ye was shot out av a gun! D'ye moind thot?" "Phat ye afther makin' out av the boy, Diunis?" enquired one neighbour of another. "Shure Oi don't know," was the reply. "If he takes after his mother he'll be a natural prize- fighter an fut-ball player on his buttin' an' kickiu' abilities." "It cost me two shillings last noight to tell the gang phwat me baby said!" explained Cassidy to a friend. "Ye got off aisy, Cassidy!" replied the friend. "Suppose ye had triplets!" A gentleman had occasion to visit Connaught. Travelling along, he overtook a boy who was in charge of a number of donkeys carrj-ing loads of turf in panniers. Noticing that the donkeys were not shod, he asked the reason. "Shure," re- turned the boy, who was shoeless himself, "it wud ill become the bastes to be shod an' their master barefut!" "Spell hostility, " commanded the schoolmaster. "H-o-r-s-e, horse " commenced Pat. "Not horse-tility, " said the master, "but hostility." "Shure," repUed Pat, "an' didn't ye tell me the other day not to say ' hoss ? ' Shure, it's one thing wid ye wan day, an' another the nixt." "Now, Patsy," said a teacher, "would it be proper to say, 'You can't learn me nothing?'" "Yes'm," said Pat. "Why?" enquired the teacher. "'Cause you can't," was the frank reply. A peasant girl went two or three times to a rectory with a hare and other game for sale. The rector, wishing to ascer- tain whether she came by them honestly, asked her where she got them. "Sure, your riverence," said she, "my father is poacher to Lord Clare." Of the Dublin boys a famous baritone, in his reminiscences, tells some good stone*— one of "Faust," in wliich he played 110 Irish Life and Humour Valentine, After the duel Martha, who rushed in at the head of the crowd, raised Valentine's head and held him in her arms, during the first part of the scene, and cried out, in evident alarm — "Oh, what shall I do?" There was a death-like still- ness in the house, which was interrupted by a youthful voice from the gallery, calling out — "Unbutton his weskit. " "Why is it, Dennis, that you are always fighting with Willie Simpkins? I never heard of you quarrelling with any of the other boys in the neighbourhood." "He's th' only one I can lick," answered Dennis. Little Mike Doolan was busy with his reading lesson one night and he applied to liis father to explain the meaning of certain words. "Feyther, " he asked, "phwot is an incubus?" "Thot's roight, Moikey!" replied the father. "Phwiniver ye foind a worrud tliot ye don't understand, come to me wid ut. Shure, an incubus is wan av thim ixtinct bur-r-r-rds thot lays iggs as big as yure hid." "And, father, phwat's a vampii'e?" "G'wan wid ye. Wlioy don't ye use jur oyes an' ears whin ye hov a chance ? Begorra ! a vampire is the feller thot gits bate to dith at a football match!" "Feyther, and phwere was Solomon's timple?" "Solomon's timple, is ut? On the soide av his head, av coorse. " "And a mongoose, father. What is that?" "Sure, a mongoose is wan av thim spindle-legged fellers thot plays golf." Mike was getting on fairly well with his answers. As a last question he said — "Feyther, phwot is a bigot?" "A bigot," explained his knowing parent, "is wan av thim t'ings thot ates holes in chaze." "Edication is a good thing, Tim, an' don't you run it down." "Ever get any of it, Pat?" "Me? Well, I should say yes. I went to night school all one winter." "An' what did you get to show for it, Pat ? " " What did I get ? I got four over- coats, three hats, and seven umbrellas. Don't you tell me that goin' to school is a waste o' time." "Haven't you a son named John William, Mrs. Timmins?" asked an important School Board officer on the hunt for de- Young Ireland 111 linqnents. "Yes!" assented Mrs. Timmius. "Then why doesn't he go to school P" '"Cause he's been in Ameriky this sixteen years!" was the unexpected reply. A shoemaker in Dublin, getting on well in the way of business, became proud. One day tliere were a number of customers in the shop, when the shop-boy came in to say that the mistress bid him say dinner was ready. "What's for din- ner, sir?" asked the shoemaker. "Herrings, sir," answered the boy. "All right," said the shoemaker, and when he went up to dinner he reprimanded the boy for not mentioning some- thing decent and big, telUng the boy in future always to men- tion a good feed when there were any people in the shop. A few days afterwards the boy came to say that dinner was ready. ""What's for dinner, sir?" asked the shoemaker. "Fish, sir," answered the boy. "What sort of fish?" asked the shoemaker. "A whale, sir," answered the boy. One day an examiner was listening to a class of boys as they repeated Macaulay's "Horatius. " "Would three soldiers now- adays," he asked, "be likely to hold a bridge against a whole army?" "No, sir," the boys answered. "Would three Englishmen, for example?" he continued. "No, sir," said the class. "Would three Scotchmen?" They again dissented. "Would three Irishmen ?" "Please, sir," shouted an excitable little fellow, "one Irishman would do it!" A school inspector in the North was once examining a geography class, and asked the question — "What is a lake?" He was much amused when a little feUow answered, "It's a hole in a can, sir." A schoolboy was once asked by his teacher what the four pro- vinces of Ireland were. He replied — "Leinster, Munster, Con- naught," and he didn't know the other one, so the teacher pointed to his Ulster. Then the boy said — "I know, sir! It's Leinster, Munster, Connaught, and Overcoat." "What is a fraction?" asked the teacher. "A part of any- 112 Iri$h Life and Humour thing, sorr," was the reply. "Give an example," queried the teacher. "The siviuteeuth of June," was the answer. "Phot's thot medal fer. Patsy?" asked Mr. Roouey of his Bon. "For standing at the head of me class in English history," replied young Rooney. "Ye young shnake!" exclaimed the irate parent. "Oi'll teach ye to dishgrace your Oirish ancestry thot way." The lads of a school acquired the habit of smoking, and re- sorted to the most ingenious methods to conceal it from the master. In this they were successful until one evening, when the master caught them pufl&ug most vigorously. "How now?" shouted he to one of the culprits. "How dare you to be smoking?" "Sir," said the boy, "I am subject to head- aches, and a pipe takes off the pain." "And you? and you? and you?" inqiiired the pedagogue, questioning every boy in his turn. One had a "raging tooth; " another "colic; " the third a "cough; " in short, they all had something for which the weed was an unfailing remedy. "Now, sir!" bellowed the master to the last boy, "pray, what disorder do you smoke for?" Alas! all excuses were exhausted ; but the interrogated urchin, putting down his pipe and looking up in his master's face, said, in a whining, hypocritical tone: — "I smoke for corns, sir!" In the slums of Manchester a rent-collector had great diffi- culty in getting the rent from one Pat Magiunis. On being applied to for a couple of weeks' rent, he said he would pay it if the landlord would put in a new cellar door. This was done, and the collector called for the money. Maginnis was out, but his eldest son paid the money that was due. "Glad you have it ready for once," said the man. "Yes, sir," the boy re- plied; "but it has been an awful trouble. We had to sell some of the furniture." "Oh," said he, pocketing the rent. "I didn't know you had any." "Yes," contimxed the lad. "Father sold the new cellar door to get it." XI.— THE IRISHMAN ABROAD. ALTHOUGH the Irishman dearly loves his native land he has frequently to leave it in order that he may live. Like the Scot, he is found in many places of the earth, always cariying with him unmistakable evidence of his origin. Numberless are the anecdotes which deal with him m his wanderings outside the Emerald Isle. Here are a few. An unlettered Irishman applied to the Philadelphia Court of Naturalisation, when he was asked — "Have you read the declaration of independence?" "No, sir," was the reply. "Have you read the constitution of the United States?" "No, sir." "Have you read the history of the United States?" "No, sir," he repeated. "No!" exclaimed the Judge in dis- gust. "Well, what have you read?" "Oi have red hair on me head, your honour," was the innocent reply. An Irishman, newly come to town, and wholly unacquainted with town life, pointed to a gasometer and then asked an equally ignorant Scot — "An' what may that thing be now — that big thing sittin' on its end?" "I dinua ken," replied the Scot. "Git out wid ye!" exclaimed Paddy. "Be me sowl, ye niver saw a dinner can as big as that in all yer loife ! " Perhaps the most laughable instance of Irish simplicity is the following. A Hibernian, who had found employment in Eng- land wrote to his bi-other in the "Emerald Isle," telling him to come over and join him. Larry accordingly went on board ship, and in the course of time he found himself on English soil. Accosting the first man he met, Larry exclaimed nerv- ously — "Is — is this England?" "Of course," replied the man. " 'W'ell— er— will you tell Pat Oi want him?" 114 Irish Life and Humour A wealthy Irish-American was proud of the opportunity to do the honours and "show off" on the occasion of a visit to New York of one of his compatriots from the " Ould Couuthry. " To dazzle him he invited him to dine at one of the most notable and toniest of restaurants. "Now, me bhoy, " he said, "just you follow my lead, and I'll order everything of the best." Seated at table, the host led off with — "Now, we'll start with cocktails," meaning of course, liquid appetisers. "Waiter, fetch in a couple of cocktails." His friend gave himself away, however, when he whispered audibly — "Waiter, if ye don't moind, I'd rather have a wing of the burrd. " A tram Kne in an English Midland town is crossed by three consecutive streets which bear masculine surnames. An Irish- man with a large carpet bag, and carrying a big umbrella, entered one of the cars and sat down gingerly near the door. Four or five other men completed the list of passengers. "James," shouted the conductor presently, the "Street" be- ing quite inaudible to his hearers. A passenger signalled, the tramcar stopped, and he alighted. Half a minute afterwards they neared another cross street. "WilUam," announced the conductor. Another man got out. The Irishman's eyes grew visibly larger. "Alexander," shouted the conductor, and a third man got up and left the car. When it had started again, the Irishman rose and approached the conductor. "Oi want to get out at Avenue Place," he said, tapping his arm. "Me foorsht name is Michael." Two brother Hibernians made up their minds to visit the much-talked-of seaside, and forthwith made elaborate prepara/- tions for the journey. On their arrival, they made their quickest way to the shore, and were soon lost in admiration of the beauties of a high tide. "SplindidI Terry, me boy, we'll be down here betoimes in the mornin', " said DiUon — and so they were, but were disgusted to find the sea so far out — the tide having receded. "Shure, and where's th' wather gone to, Dilly ?" says Terry. "It's them thavin' young blayguards with The Trishman Ahmad 115 them spades aud cans," said Dillon with righteous wrath, "becos' I seed 'em myself last noight cartin' it away in bucketfuLs." One summer, writes a holiday-maker, I formed one of a "Swiss" touring party, and, being Irish, I "chummed" with three other Irish fellows, who were, like myself, strong in the Irish accent, but nothing to boast about in French. AU four of us went to a tobacconist's shop in Geneva, where a pretty girl served. One of the party blundered out his request in atrocious French, but with an unmistakably Irish brogue. The girl smiled, and astonished us by replying, in a broad accent — "Arrahl Why don't you spake plain Englisli ; shure, we're all fram Cork!" An Irishman in search of two relatives arrived in Cape Town, having heard that they were working there in an iron foundry. One day, while looking for his folks, he saw a big boiler, on which were large letters as follows— " P-A-T-E-N-T-E-D, 1890." " Hurrah !" shouted the Irishman ; "I've found 'em— I've found 'em! Pat and Ted, landed 1890! Wurra, wurra! the very names of the bhoys, and the selfsame year! Wun-a, wurra! shure an' I must have been born under a luck}' star!" Paddy, who was home from America, gave his friends some idea of the New World— "I tell you," he exclaimed, "you might roll England through it, and it wouldn't make a dint in the ground ; there are fresh water oceans inside that might hold ould Oireland ; and as for Scotland, you might stick it in a corner and ye'd never be able to find it out, except it miglit be by the smell of the Clyde." On his first visit to "town," a young gentleman from the ISIidlands "put up" at an hotel Knightsbridge way, and spent his first night at a theatre in the distant Strand. The hotel being locked up on his return, he pulled the night-porter's beU. No answer. Again, again, again, same result. Dis- gusted, he walked about till "opening time," then "went" for tliat night-portor. Jiut lie was an Irishman, and his was the IIG Irish lAfe and Humour soft answer that tiirneth away wrath: — "It's sorry I am, sir; but my rule on retiring is to unhitch the bell from the wire at the head of my bed, or divil a wink I'd get at all, at all." An Irishman, one of a gang of harvesters in England, was one day remarking in a village alehouse on the cheapness of provisions in Ireland. "Shure, " said he, "there ye can buy a salmon for sixpence, and a dozen mackerel for twopence." "What made you leave such a fine country then, Pat?" asked a villager. "Arrah, me boy!" answered the son of Erin, "but where waz the sixpences and twopences to come from?" An Irishman, on his holidays, paid a visit to Glasgow, and one day, while walking along one of the large streets he came opposite a gentleman's residence with "Please ring the bell" printed on the dooi-way. Pat walked up and rang the bell. Out came one of the male servants and asked what he wanted. "I want nothing," replied Pat. "I only rang the bell because it said so." "Oh," says the servant. "I suppose you come from the country where the goats grow on the gooseberry bushes?" "Oh, yes," repUed Pat, "and begorra there is strange sights here in Glasgow, too. You have only to ring the bell and the monkey pops out." A Celt just returned from a few days' holiday in London was asked by one of his friends how he liked the Great City? "Och, shure, an' it's a fine town bedad! But, me faith, it's a powerful lot of walkiu' I've had to git through with. For I walked every blessed bit o' two miles behoind a 'bus before I could cross the street!" One evening as Pat was tramping up High Street, Maid- stone, he happened to meet a man who said he was in great distress, and begged hard for help. So Pat put his hand into his pocket and pulled out a penny. "Shure, an' what would ye be a-saying if I gives ye this penny?" said Pat. "I should jump with joy," was the reply. Pat, putting the penny back into his pocket and pulling out a sovereign, exclaimed — "Shure, and what would you do if I gives yer this?" "I should drop The Irishman Abroad 117 down in a fit!" exclaimed tlie mau. Pat put the sovereign into his pocket, and, pulling out the penny, gave it him, saying — "Shure, now, and it's me that is after saving yer loife!" Some Irishmen, tramping across country on the look-out for work, passed a coal-pit mouth just as the cage full of colUers was coming up. They stood speechless for some few minutes, when one of them broke the silence by saying to the others — "Och, shure it's no use coming into this country to look for work, as they are drawing men up out of the 'arth as fast as ever they wants 'em." Two Hibernians were walking along one of the main thorough- fares in Glasgow, when they noticed a large placard in a shop window with the words — "Butter! Butter! ! Butter! ! I " in giant type printed on it. "Pat," says Mike, "what is the meaning of them big strokes after the words?" "Och, ye ignoramus," says Pat, "sure, they are meant for shillelahs, to show it's Irish butter." When Alderman Waithman was Lord Mayor of Loudon a man was brought before him on a charge of vagrancy. "^Tiat countryman are you ?" inquired the alderman. "An Irishman, please, yer honour," was* the reply. The alderman asked — "Were you ever at seaP" "Come, yer honour," answered Paddy, "d'ye think I crossed from Dublin in a wheelbarrow!" A native of the Emerald Isle was travelling by rail for the first time in his Life. The train stopped at a station, and the guard, opening the door of the carriage in which Pat was seated, called out — "All change here!" "All change here!" cried Pat, aghast. "Sure, then, mister, Oi've only wan shilling and two dorty coppers in the woide, woide worruld, an' ye wudn't bo so mane as to be afther takkin' thim from me, wou'd ye, sorr?" An Irishman went to hear a concert in Glasgow, at which the well-known song "Bonnie Dundee" was sung. About the middle of the song Pat got very interested in it, and leaning 118 Irish Life and Humour over to his neighbour said iu a loud whisper — "Sure, I know PhiHp M'Cann well enough, but who is this Philip M'Cup ?" An old Irishwoman recently visited Glasgow for the first time, and had her first ride iu a tramcar. She had taken her ticket, and was shortly afterwards asked by an inspector to show it to him. To the other passengers' amusement she said — "Ticket, yer honour, sui'e, I don't sell 'em." "I know that, my good woman," said the inspector, "but it is your own ticket I want to see." She replied — "My ticket, is it you wantP Faith, then, you'll not get it. You may buy one for yersUf, same as I did." The conductor here interfered, and assured the Irishwoman that the inspector did not intend tc cheat her ; but it was only after seeing the other passengers produce their tickets that she consented to take hers out of a big leather purse. Even then she exclaimed — "It's no Glas- gow sharper as will desaive me." In a large print work iu Scotland a number of the "hands" were in the habit of coming in late after each meal hour. The proprietor thought he would check them himself as they came in ; so one ihoming he stood at the gate after time was up for starting, and as the late comers passed him he held out a heavy gold watch, saying — "Do you see that? Do you see the time it is?" A big Irishman made his appearance; the proprietor held out the watch, saying — "Do you see that, sir?" Barney eyed the watch for a moment, and then replied — "Faith, an' be me sowl, that's a good one! How much did she cost ye?" A venerable Pat landed on Chinese soil. Soon he was sur- rounded by natives, who began to chatter a rather broken sort of English. Pat, who was quick-tempered, was not long before he let fly at one of them with a dish which he seized from a wareshop close by. A Chinaman's face was badly cut, and Pat was brought before the English Consul. "Why have you done this?" demanded the Consul, to which Pat replied, "Och, sure, the ugly haythen spake broken English, and I just gave him broken china in return." The Irisliman Abroad 119 Some years ago there was a barber in Dover named O'Reilh', a well-known character for miles round. He was particularly- fond of hanging on every inch of space in his shop notices, such as "Clean towels a specialty," "A pair of curiosities — an easy shave and a silent barber." "Civility and a keen razor may be reUed upon." One Saturday night his shop was very full, and O'Reilly was rather flustered by the rush of business, when Mrs. O'Reilly called out from regions below the shop that the water pipes had burst, and the front room was already flooded. "That's th' wurst av wimmin," said O'Reilly to his customers, "any sinsible person wud have knocked th' poipe up, an' shtopped th' water. Excuse me just wan minit, gentlemen," and down below he hurried. The next minute a knocking was heard, and, to the dismay of the customers, the gas went out. Siiouts for a light brought up Mrs. O'Reilly with a candle and a roughly-printed notice as follows: — "Patrick M. O'Reilly suspends business until next Monday, he havin', by mistake, knocked up the gas poipe." XII.— BENCH AND BAR. N' OWHERE more than in tlie Law Courts is the Irishman seen at his best. A large crop of anecdotes is in ^ existence to bear witness to the truth of the state- ment. The wit and humour which have made him famous are frequently manifested when he is put on his defence, and his peciiliar knack of saying something different from what he exactly means invests him with a certain amusing interest. It is true that Ireland has not that legal absurdity which Scotsmen tolerate in the verdict "not proven," but the sous of the Emerald Isle have much faith in the practice of "proving an alibi." An Irish barrister, who was evidently prepared for every possible contingency, is alleged to have addressed the presiding judge as follows: — "Your honour, I shall first absolutely prove to the jury that the prisoner coiUd not have committed the crime with which he is charged. If that does not convince the jury, I shall show that he was insane when he committed it. If that fails, I shall prove an alibi!" One ^>onders how a jury could get away from a verdict of "not guilty" in such circumstances, and yet it is probable that if the trial had taken place in Edinburgh the verdict would have been no more than one of "not proven." A judge was once obliged to sleep with an Irishman in a crowded hotel in America, when the following conversation took place between them — "Ah, Pat, you would have remained a long time in the old country before you could have slept with a judge, eh?" "Yes, your honour," said Pat; "and I think your honour would have been a long time in the ould country before ye'd been a judge." Pat has usually a very clear idea of the meaning of an alibi, Bench and Bar 121 although he may not be able to express himself in very lucid terms. During a recent trial the judge interposed in the course of the examination and asked the witness if he knew what was meant by an alibi. "Yes, to be sure I do, yer honour," promptly answered the witness. "Tell me, then," said the judge, "what you understand by it?" "Sm-e, " said Pat, "it's just like this — it's to be afther proving that ye wasn't where ye was when ye committed a ciime that, sure, ye never committed after all." "Now, Pat," said a Magistrate sympathetically to an "old offender," "what brought you here again?" "Two policemen, 3or, " was the laconic replj'. "Drunk, I suppose?" queried the Magistrate. "Yes, sor, " said Pat without relaxing a muscle, " both av them. " Even the legal luminary is not exempt from the national failing of perpetrating "bulls." "Are you married or single?" asked a Magistrate of a prisoner arraigned before him. "Single, please your honour," was the reply. "Oh, then," said the Magistrate, "it is a good thing for your wife." As is only to be expected, Ireland is troubled witli the vagrant nuisance, and the judges frequently insist on the re- moval of prisoners to the Workhouse when their means of subsistence proves doubtful. "Prisoner," demanded a Magistrate of a man charged with begging, "have you any visible means of support?" "Yes, yer honour," responded the prisoner, and then turning to his wife (a laundress) who was in Court, said — "Bridget, stand up, so that the Court can see ye!" Of course in Ireland as elsewhere the prisoner is asked if he has "anything to say" before judgment is pronounced. "Dennis O'Flaherty, " said a judge, "you are ciiarged with an atti'mpt to commit suicide. Have you anything to say for yourself?" "Faith, an' yer honour," replied Dennis, who had been advised to plead guilty and throw liimself on tlie mercy of I 122 Irish Life and Humour the Coiirt, "it's me first offence, an' if ye'll only be aisy wid me this wance, Oi promise on me word as a gintleman to troi to do better next toime!" Michael Docherty was a married man — a much married man ■ — having solemnised nuptials with no fewer than four wives, and as all his spouses chanced to be alive at the same time, Michael found himself at the Dublin Assizes charged with bigamy. The judge, in passing sentence, expressed his won- der that the prisoner could be such a hardened villain as to delude so mauy women, whereupon ]\Iike said, apologetically, "I was only thryin' to get a good wan, an' sure it's not aisy!" Slightly more indiscriminating was the man in his choice of pockets. He was charged with pocket-picking, and when asked if he had anything to say in answer, he replied — "Sure, your worship, I object to the chai'ge. I never picked 'em at all. I took them as them came." We have mentioned the case of the judge who indulged in a "bull." Sometimes he found congenial company with a brother who mixed his metaphors as freely as he mixed his drinks. A butler was convicted of steaUng his master's wine, and the judge in giving judgment exclaimed, somewhat pom- pously : — "Dead to eveiy claim of natural affection, blind to your own real interests, you have burst through all the restraints of religion and moraUty, and have for many years been feather- ing your own nest with your master's bottles!" Truly it was not a "bed of roses." In Ireland as elsewhere the jury is not always all that could be desired. "How did the jury stand at first?" said a curious outsider after an important case had been decided. "B'jarge ! " replied one of the worthy jurors, "the 'leven av us shtood on that conthrary bnite av a wan till he gave in!" Occasionally even the man who is supposed to preserve law and order is ignorant on matters of common knowledge. A policeman in a little town in Donegal was esnmining a witness in the prosecution of a publican who had violated the Sunday Bench and Bar 123 Liquor Law, aud iu the course of his inteiTOgatiou ho pro- pouuded the question — "On the vartue of yer oath, were ye, or were ye not, a bouey-fidey thraveller?" "I object," said the opposing agent. "The policeman must explain to the witness the meaning of the term ' bona-fide.'" The policeman gave a supercilious smile, and turning to the witness said in the off-hand manner of a linguist — "' Boney-fidey ' is the French for ' Did ye sleep in the town last night? '" Bonch aud Bar sometimes engage in a passage at arms. When an Irish barrister was pleading one day a donkey brayed loudly outside the building, when the judge, with questionable taste, remarked — "One at a time, if you please." When counsel had resumed his seat, aud the judge was summing up, the same interruption occurred, whereupon the barrister arose and politely said — "I beg your Lordship's pardon. I am anxious not to lose a word of what you say, aud there is such an echo in the Court." Shortly after jMichael Joseph Barry, the poet, was appointed a Police Magistrate in Dublin, an Irish-American was brought before him, charged with suspicious conduct, aud the constable, among other things, swore that he was wearing a "Republican hat." "Does your Honour know what that means?" inquired the prisoner's lawyer of the judge. "I presume," said Barry, "that it means a hat witliout a crown?" Doyle aud Yelverton, two emiuent members of the Irish Bar, quarrelled one day so violently that from hard words they came to hard blows. Doyle, a powerful man at the fists, knocked down Yelverton twice, and then exclaimed vehemently — "You scoundrel ! I'll make you behave yourself like a gentle- man!" "No, sir, never," replied Yelverton, with equal indignation, "I defy you. You could not do it." And so we leave them to settle the matter. A justice of the peace, whose knowledge of the law was never gained from books or actual practice before the bar, was hear- ing an assault and battery case. Counsel for the defence was 124 Irish Life and Humour shouting his arguments when the magistrate said — "That'll do. Set down." He then adjusted his spectacles and sagely obseiTed — "Prisoner, sthand up! Accordin' to th' law an' th' ivydince — an' there is no ivydince — Oi foind ye guilty, sor, an' foin ye forty shillings. If ye're guilty, faith, 'tis a very loight sintince ; an' if ye're not guilty it'll be a mighty good lesson for ye!" An amusing case occuiTed in a police court, when a woman summoned her husband for ill-usage, and drew the magistrate's attention to a "beautiful" black eye she had as evidence against him. On the husband being called it was found that he also was suffering from one of these "striking" ornaments, and it was learned that his wife had presented it to him in return. When asked by the magistrate why she had done it, she replied — "Och, plaze yer honour, just to kape meself in countenance. " Tim O'Grady stood in the dock, cbarged with stealing a watch. He fiercely denied so base an impeachment, and brought a countercharge against his accuser for assault com- mitted with a heavy golf club. "But," interposed the magistrate mildly, "why did you allow the prosecutor, who is a smaller man than yourself, to assault you without resistance ? Had you nothing in your hand with which to defend yourself?" "Shure, your honour," answered Tim, in a moment of absent- mindedness, "I had his watch, but what was that against a golf club?" A judge on a certain circuit in the west was wont to doze during the speeches of counsel. On one occasion counsel was addressing liim on the subject of certain town commissioners' rights to obtain water from a certain river, water being very scarce at the time. During his speech he made use of the words — "But, my lord, we must have water — we must have water." Whei-eupon the judge woke up, exclaiming — "Well, just a little drop— just a little di'op! I like it strong." "You are charged," said the magistrate, "with talking back Bench and Bar 125 at an officer, sir; have you anything to sayP" "Dayvil a wiird, yer honour," replied the culprit, "OiVe sed too mooch air eddy. " There was tried at Cork on one occasion a case of assault, in which a man had been beaten while he lay asleep. His evidence was that he had been suddenly aroused by a blow on the head. "And how did you find yourself then?" asked the counsel. "Fasht asleep, sur, " was the reply. "Take the Book in your right hand," said the clerk of the court in the usual phrase to a man on his appearance on the witness table. The witness, however, put forth his left hand. "I said your right hand," said the clerk testily. "Plaze, yer honner, " said the witness, stUl proffering his left hand, "shure I'm left-handed." A similar case of simplicity is recorded in the following : — "Where did you receive the blow?" asked counsel of the pro- secutor in an assault case. "Just close to me own door, sur," was the reply. "If it plaze the coort," an Irish attorney said, "if I am wrong in this, I have another point that is equally conclusive.'' "The e^adeuce, " said the judge, "shows that you threw a stone in this case." "Sure," replied Mrs O'Hooliban," an' the looks av the man shows more than that, yer honour. It shows that Oi nit him." An amusing case was investigated in a petty sessions court in the county of Donegal. Prisoner was charged with the larceny of a box, and the principal witness, a simple-looking countryman, was plainly reluctant to tell anything about the matter. A^ked who left the box at his house, he could not say. Pressed, he admitted "it moight be" prisoner. Further pressed, he admitted it was prisoner. He could not see the box, "bekase it was covered wid tickin'." "Something like that?" said the magistrate, pointing to the covering of the box. "Yis, maybe it was somethin' like that," admitted the witness. "It moight be somethin' like that, an' it moight 126 Irish Life and Humour not." "Is that the same sized box?" contiuued the magistrate. "I'm not sartiu, " said the witness. "I didn't mizhur it." "I did not ask you to measure it," said the magistrate warmly. "Was it the same size, or was it ten times as big.P" "I don't know how big that moight be, sor, " replied the witness. "Will you give me a straight answer to a straight question ? Was it about the same size as that box?" demanded the judge. "It was a sizable box. It moight be that size," admitted the witness. "Was it as big?" enquired the magistrate. "Ah — maybe — it moight be bigger," was the reply. "Was it a box like that or not ?" said the magistrate in a stern voice. "Ay — yis, " said the witness reflectively, "I think it is like it." "Then why not say so at once and save all this time?" asked the judge. "Bekase, " explained the witness, "the box was covered. Sure, I can't see through the tickui'. By virtue av me oath, I can't see through the 'tickin' ! " "So the prisoner hit you on the head with a brick, did he?" asked the judge. "Yes, yer honour," was the reply. "But it seems he didn't quite kill you, anyway?" continued the judge. "No," said the complainer, "bad 'cess to him; but it's wishin' he had Oi do be." "Why do you wish that?" asked the judge with a smile. "Begorry, thin," said the complainer in true Hibernian fashion, "Oi would have seen the scoundrel hanged for murther! " "And you say he had murder in his eye?" asked another judge. "No, sor," said the victim, "I think it wuz in his hand. That's where he hild th' rock. " Some years ago Ephraim Mariner tried a case in the CJircuit Court for an old Irishman. The suit was against the brother of Mr. Mariner's client. It was fought bitterly, and there was a great deal of feeling displayed during the course of the trial, as there always is when relatives get to fighting each other. Mr. Mariner won the case. His client was in a state of exulta- tion. He thanked the lawyer again and again. When he Bench and Bar 127 reached the south door of the court house he paused before going down the steps, and slapping his lawyer a vigorous blow on the back, said — "We bate them, didn't we, ]\Iister Mari- ner?" "Yes, Andrew, it came out as I said it would," replied Mr. Mariner, quietly. "Mister Mariner," said the old man, his voice trembling with emotion, "you're a gentleman — in disguise." She was an Irish girl in court as the prosecuting witness against a prisoner arrested for disorderly conduct, and the court was getting at the true state of the case by asking the usual number of entirely relevant questions. "What did the prisoner do?" he inquired, after the preliminaries had been settled. "He coom alahng by the area where I was sthandin' an' begin to address remairrks to me," replied the witness. "What did he say?" "He said, 'Good ave'uin'.'" "There was nothing very bad in that, was there?" "But, sorr, there was no inthroduction pravious." "Oh, yes, I forgot that." "So did he, sor. " "Did you speak to him when he spoke to you?" "Yis, sor, I towld him to gwahn about his business." "Did he do so?" "No sorr. He sthood there talkin' to me." "Did you talk to him?" "No, sor, not wid politeness, sor." "What did he do then?" "He sthood over closer, sor, an' takin' my chin in his hand wid his t'umb in walm cheek and his fingers in th' other, he held my face up, sor, an' thried to kiss me." "Oh, he did?" "Yis, sor, he did." "And what did you do then?" "Oi jerked me hid away, sor, an' towld him Oi wud have him arrested fer personathin' a policeman, sor." "Forty shillings and costs," interrupted the judge, while eveiy- body laughed, except the witness and the policeman. A poacher up before a magistrate made the followiug Hibernian defence — "Indade, your worship, the only bird I shot was a rabbit, and I knocked that down with a stick." "Were you ever up before me?" asked a magistrate. "Shure, I don't know, yer auner," was the reply. "WTiat time does yer anner get up?" 128 Irish Life and Humour "Come along, now, quietly," said a policeman to an inebriate he was hauling to prison, "or it will be the worse for you." "Oi'U not," was the reply. "The magistrate told me last time uiver to be brought before him again, an' begorra, I'm going to obey his instructions." During the hearing of a case against a man in the Police Court in Belfast for maliciously breaking a neighbour's window, the defendant's solicitor during his cross-examination of the complainant asked — "On your oath, ma'am, didn't this man undertake to put in your windows?" "He did indeed, sir," said the complainant, at the same time holding up a stone, "and there's the stone he put it in with." "Did you notice no suspicious character about the neighbour- hood?" said a magistrate to a new policeman. "Shure,-yer honour," replied the keeper of the peace, "I saw but one man, an' I asked him what he was doing there at that time o' night? Sez he, ' I have no business here just now, bat I expect to open a jewellery sthore in the vicinity later on.' At that T says, 'I wish you success, sor.'" "Yes," said the magistrate in a disgusted tone, "and he did open a jewellery store in the vicinity later on, and stole seventeen watches." "Begorra, yer honour," answered the policeman after a pause, "the man may have been a thafe, but he was no liar ! " "Why didn't you go to the assistance of the defendant in the fight ? " asked tlie judge of a policeman, " Shure, " was the answer, "an' Oi didn't know which av thim wus goin' to be th' defendant, yer honour." Mrs. Jenkins had missed Mrs. Brady from her accustomed haunts, and hearing several startling rumours concerning her, went in search of her old friend. "They teU me you're workin' 'ard night an' day, Sarah Ann ?" she queried. "Yes, " returned Mrs. Brady, "I'm under bonds to keep the peace fer pullin' the whiskers out of that old scoundrel of a husban' of mine, and the magistrate said that if I come afore 'im agin, or laid me 'auds on the old man, he'd fine me forty shillin's!" "And Bench and Bar 129 Ro you're workin' 'ard to keep out of mischief?" "I'm what I Not much! I'm workin' 'ard to save up the fiue!" The Irish barrister is not always a man of law, as one anecdote bears witness. A railway, which was to run through a small village, was being consti-ucted in the North. Among the navvies employed was one who frequently got more or less "elevated." One evening he enjoyed being "run in" by one of the village constables. On being brought before the sergeant the customary questions were asked: — "What's your name?" "Patrick O'Xale, sorr." "What do you work at ?" "Oi'm a barrister, sorr." "A barrister! Come, come, tell me at once your proper calling." "Well, sorr, if a man that wheels a barrow isn't a barrister, what is he at all, sorr?" ' Two additions which were made on one occasion to the Cork police force, named Mike and Pat respectively, disclosed great interest in their duties ; so much so that the funds of the court were considerably increased through the frequency of finable cases brought before the magistrate. They were nearly on the eve of promotion, when the inspector was surprised by receiv- ing their resignation. "For why," said that functionary, "do you wish to leave the force? Are you discontented with any- thing?" "It's not leaving the force, yer honour, we mane," replied Mike. "Meself aud Pat there intends starting a station of our own. Pat will run 'em in, an' I'll inflict the fines." At a recent fair in the north the day terminated with a general set-to with shillelaghs and other weapons in general use for the satisfactory settlement of small differences. One man was killed in the melee, and the slayer was brought up and charged with manslaughter. A doctor who was called aa one of the witnesses testified, among other things, that the victim's skull was abnormally thin. The prisoner was found guilty, and before sentence was passed the judge asked hira whether he had any complaint to make. "No, yer honour," 130 Irish Life and Humour was the reply ; "only I should like to ask, ' Was that a skuU for a man to go to a fair wid 't"" Constable Hooligan was on night duty, and so preoccupied with thoughts of a wedding he was invited to next day that he neai-ly trod on a man stretched on the footway. "AiTah, he's spacheless, an' if I lock him up it's at the Coort I'll be instead o' the wedding." He knelt down, and then muttered — "By the powers, 'tis dead he is; bad luck to him!" Hooligan saw visions of an inquest instead of the wedding, got the cadaver on his shoulder, carried it a quarter of a mile, and dropped it on Doyle's beat. But a few minutes before rounds were changed Hooligan nearly fainted at kicking up against the same old corpse in much the same place. Doyle was going to that wed- ding too. "Shure, an' Oi wish ye'd cum up an' arrist me woife. She's a-batin' th' loife out av me all th' mornin', " said a man to the policeman on the beat in which he lived. "Begorrah, ould man," replied the constable, "Oi know that miser)^ loikes com- pany, but ye don't get me into none av it. Oi don't monkey wid family troubles av yours!" "Mr. O'Rafferty, why did you strike Mr. Murphy?" asked the judge. "Because Murphy would not give me a ci^dl answer to a civil question. " "^\Tiat was the civil question you asked him?" "I asked him as polite as ye plase, 'Murphy, ain't yer own brother the biggest tliafe on Manhattan Island, excepting yourself aud your uncle, who is absent at the penitentiary at Sing Sing?" "Aud what rude answer did he give to such a very civil question?" "He said to me, 'Av course prisint company excepted ! ' So I said, ' Murphy, you're another,' aud struck him wid me fist." An old woman who made her appearance for the twenty-thu'd time in answer to a charge of di'unkenness endeavoured to ingratiate herself with the presiding functionary by means of "a bit of blarney." The occasion of her intoxication, she explained, was her boy's birthday. "Just eighteen, your Bench and Bar 131 honour, and a fine strapping boy, with a swate face as it does one good to look upon. He is a fine boy, and, if your honour wouldn't be offended by my boulduoss, he's something like your honour, too, with a kind heart writ big on his face." No less characteristically Irish was the laughable remark made by an Irishwoman before the late Stipendiaiy Magistrate in Glasgow. She had been charged with drunkenness, but "allowed to go" through the clemency of the magistrate, and as she was leaving the bar she replied to him — "Thank you, yer honour ; may you be long spared, and when you die may they take you to where you'll be better appreciated than you've ever been in Glasgow." Daniel Cavanaugh, a dock labourer without a home, entered a restaurant one night, and after seating himself at a table called a waiter of the name of Jackson aud ordered pie. "What kind?" said Jackson. "Apple," answered the labourer. "Bring me a whole pie." Cavanaugh ate the pie as if he had just returned from a voyage of Arctic exploration. "More pie," he ordered. "Apple?" asked the waiter. "No; cocoauut, " said Cavanaugh. "A whole one, please." The cocoanut pie followed the apple in record time. Cavanaugh then ordered successively mince, lemon, peach aud pumpkin pies and ate them all without showing any symptoms of satiety. "Is that all the kinds you have?" he asked. "We have half a gooseberry pie," answered Jackson. "That won't do," said the labourer. "Whole pies or none for me." He then arose from the table aud started to leave the restaurant. "Three- and-nincpence, " shouted the waiter. "You've got a good chance," remarked Cavanaugh, lighting a black clay pipe. Jackson ran to the door and summoned the poUceman, who arrested Cavanaugh Tlie prisoner had no money aud was locked up. When ht> was arraigned before the magistrate in the police court next morning he said: — "Be easy with me, your honor, them's the first pies I've eat in two years." But the magistrate would not listen, fined him twenty shillings, or 132 Irish Life and Humour fourteen days, and as he had no money the pie-eater had to go to gaol. A man was charged before the Stipendiary with assaulting an old gentleman in the public street. The gentleman appeared in court, and proved to be an exceedingly short and remarkably stout person. On being asked what he had to say for himself, Pat replied — "Sure, I came up agin him in the strate by acci- dent, sur. " "And what did he say?" asked the stipendiary. "Bedad, yer honour, he tould me to walk over him at once," said Pat, with a grin. "And what did you say .P" "' Begorra, sur,' says I, 'it would be aisier to walk over you than round you, anyhow.'" "Who bunged up your eye that wayp" asked a policeman. "Moike O'Lafferty, " was the reply. "Was there an eye- witness?" "Indade there was." "W^ho was it?" "Moike O'Lafferty." "I mean, was there anybody else present?" "Indade there was." "AVho?" "Myself, bedad." "Was the stolen article gold or only gilt?" asked the judge. "It was silver, sor," explained the prisoner. "The guilt was all me own, yer anner!" A man was once charged of a crime, and on being found guilty was asked if he had anything to say for himself. Pat rubbed his head for a little while, and at last said — "Yes, sui-; faith, 111 dismiss the case." Two witnesses were at the Waterford Assizes in a case which concerned loug-continued poultry-stealing. As usual, nothing could be got from them in the way of evidence until the nearly- baffled prosecuting counsel asked, in an angry tone of voice — "Will you swear on your soul, Pat Murphy, that Phady Hooligan has never to your knowledge stolen chickens?" The responsibility of this was too much, even for Pat. "Bedad, I would hardly swear by my soul," he said; "but I do know that if I was a chicken and Phady about, I'd roost high!" A woman named O'Connor was brought up in a court for assaulting her husband. Her husband's injuries necessitated Sen^h and Bar 133 his remaiuing at home in bed. The woman's face was fearfully bruised; one eye was closed, her nose split, and she had a bandage around her head. ""VMiat an awful condition the poor woman is in!" exclaimed the magistrate, pityingly. "Och, yer washup ! " returned the prisoner with a ring of exultation, "but just wait till ye see O'Connor!" !^Iike had a quarrel with his friend Bill. Matters had gone from better to worse, and Mike applied to have Bill bound over to keep the peace. When the case was called the magistrate asked Mike — "Are you afraid of bodily harm from him?" "I am, sorr," admitted Mike. "Then you admit Bill can thrash you," said the magistrate. "Bill thrash me!" exclaimed Mike. "Niwer! I kin lick him and another half- dozen like him any day. " "And so I understand that Patrick OTlanerty was your uncle?" said a counsel in the course of a cross-examination. "He was," said the witness, "till a bull killed him." A young lawyer had ,t reached the fifth storey. "Oi'm taking it down again, Oi am, av coorse. It's dinner time, and niwer a bit av wur-r-k Oi do af ther the bell goes I ' ' A man who had a pig was observed to adopt the constant practice of filling it to perfection one day and starving it the next. On being asked his reason for doing so, he replied — " Och, sure ! and isn't it this I like — to have bacon with a strake av fat and a strake av lane aqualy one afther t'other P" A man who was leaving his employer asked for a character, which was freely given him. Ho gave it a somewhat long perusal, with a look of perplexity on his countenance. "Well, Pat," said the master, "what is the matter with it?" "Well, sor, you have not made any mention as to sobriety." "But, you know, I could not conscientiously say you were a sober man." "Arrah, now, but couldn't you say I was frequently sober?" observed Pat. "Well, I shall write you a fresh one. How will this do? — "'The bearer, Pat Houligan, has been in 148 Irish Life and Humour my employment for over three years, during which time he has been frequently sober.'" "Thank ye, sor; that will do much better than the other one," said Pat. There is a story told of a Celt who, on returning from market one day, was observed lashing his horse m.ost furiously and galloping by the side of two gentlemen. His friend, seeing fish after fish drop on the road from his panniers, cried out to him to stop or he would lose all his fish. "Arrah!" cried Pat, "bother tak' ye, and what do I care so long as I keep up with the gintlemen?" Pat was no astronomer, but next to his pipe, he loved to be "up to date. ' ' A friend had been telUng him about an approaching eclipse of the sun. That night Pat eat on his door-step, patiently puffing away at his old pipe. He would light a match, pull at the pipe, and then, as the match burned out, try another. This he did till the ground was littered with burnt matchwood. "Come to supper, Pat!" called his wife from the kitchen. "Faith, an' Oi will in a minute, Biddy," said he. "Moike has been a-tellin' me that if Oi smoked a bit av glass, sure I could see the shpots on the sun. Oi don't know whether Moike's been a-foolin' me, or whether Oi've got hold of the wrong kind o' glass." An old potato dealer of Dublin received from a postman a postcard in the presence of a friend. He glanced at it, and burst into tears. It was shortly after the recent change from red to green of the half-penny stamp. "Bad news?" asked the friend sympathetically. The old man, unable to speak, handed him the card, which read — "Dear sir, please forward two sacks of your best potatoes, as before, and oblige, P. Sullivan." "Well, this is rather good news, isn't it?" said the fiiend in surprised tones. "Ye be lookin' at the wrong saide av the carrud. Murphy," replied the old man, as he wiped his eyes. "Look at the shtamp av the Quane, God bless her, hasn't she turned it from red to green in honour av Ould Oireland." Paddy 149 Colouel Sauderson's charge against the Irish was equalled l>y a smart Conservative agont during the 1892 election. This enterprising young man adopted the electioneering plan of entering pubs, apparently as a customer and naranguing the loungers. One night, thinking he had his hearers well in hand, he exclaimed — "Show me an Irishman, and I will show you a coward." This roused a big navvy who had sat in the comer. Rising, he shouted — "I am an Oirishman. " The agent open- uig the door, cried — "I am a coward." An astronomer was once trying to explain to an Irishman that the earth was round, but J:'at would not believe it. After Fome discussion the astronomer said: — "Now, where does the sun rise?" "In the east," said Pat. "And where does it set?" "Sure, sir, in the west." "Then how does the sun manage to get back to the east?" Pat scratched his head for a few seconds, and looked perplexed. At last his face lighted up, and he shouted triumphantly — "Sure, sir, it slips back in the dark." A short time ago a corporation acquired a plot of land with the avowed most laudable intention of converting it into a "children's play-ground." As the work proceeded it was noticed that so much of the gi'ound had been used for flower- beds, and so on, that very little indeed remained for the chil- dren — save the gravelled paths. One morning a fussy little member of the city council was looking over the place when a labourer — who happened to be one of his constituents — addressed him. "bure, an' it's a raoighty foine playground ye're afther making, Mr. X . " "Yes, returned the coun- cillor. "It will be one of the prettiest spots in the city." "Tlirue for ye," was the rejoinder. "Oi was a little puzzled wid the thing at first, but Oi see the idea now. The children'il have to play outsoide, Oi reckon, an' come in hero for a rest loike, whin they're toiredl An' be jabers, " he added before tlic councillor could get in a word, "Oi'ni thinking the little 150 Irish Life and Humour darliuts'U have to come in wan at a toiiae, or it's crowded out entoirely they'll be!" "Come along wid me to the hall," said Mr. HerUhy to his neighbour, Mr. Nolau. "There's going to be a free lecture, and the subject is, ' The Fall of Man; ' it's free to ivery wan." "I dunno as I care to lave me own home the night," said Mr. Nolan, who sat gloomily nursing a bandaged arm. "If it's falls from horses he's talking about, I'm niver likely to have wan, for lack of money; and if it's falls from anything else, from bicycles to ladders, I don't need to go near him to learn about thim. Me last was down the cellar stairs, and I'm thinking I'll kape to home while ricollection is frish in me mind!" The foreman of a labouring squad had taken ill, and Pat was duly promoted to the post for one day. On the foreman's return the following day he found only Pat at work, and in- terrogated him as to the absence of the others. "Where are theyr'" "Shure they're sacked," replied Pat, "every man of them. It's not often I've a chance of showing my authority ; but, bedad, I made the most of my opportunity yesterday." "Where's j'our daughter Mary living now, Mrs. HerUhy?" inquired one of the neighbours, who had dropped in after an absence of some months. "Her hoosband's got a foine job on the ' Toimes,' reporting accidents, " said Mrs. Herlihy, proudly, "and the two av thim and Little Moike is living in a suit up- town." "What's a suit?"" inquired the neighbour, curiosity having got the better of a desire to appear well-informed on all points. "A suit," said Mrs. Herlihy, slowly, "is one o' thim places where the parloor is the bedroom, and the bedroom is the kitchen, and the closets is down in the cellar, and the beds is piaunys — or organs, and — well, it's one o' thim places where iverythiug is something else," concluded Mrs. Herlihy. A poor man, who did any odd job to earn a few pence, was once out walking, when a man asked him if he would white- wash the ceiling of a room for him. Pat said he would, and, on his way home, thought of the things he would want to use for Paddy 151 the job. Ilavuig an old whitewash brush at home, with the hairs almost worn away, aud not having enough money to buy a new cue, he wondered what he should do about it. After pondering some time, a smile suddenly flitted across his face, and he said — "Ah, bcgorrah! I've got sum hair restorer at hum, aud I'll be after a-puttin' sum on the brush." "And now let me show you the genninating house," said a florist, after taking an Irish visitor through his collection of plants and various hot-houses. "The German atiug-house, is it?" rejoined the son of Erin. "Do yer plaze, couldn't ye give us a sight av an Irish drinking-house hereabouts, if it's all the same to you ?" "Will you have a piece of apple-pie?" asked the landlady of th^ Irish boarder. "Is it afther bein' houlsorae?" asked Pat. "To be sure it is," she replied. "Why should you think it otherwise?" "Faith, an' Oi had an uncle waust who doled av apple-plexy, an' Oi thought this moight be somethin' av th' same koiud." An Euglishman was boasting about the big policemen they iiad in England, and said they were so tall they could light their pipes at the street lamps. "Oh, that's naething to the bobbies ower in Scotland," said Scotty, "they are so big yonder they can look ower a land o' hooses." "Is that all the size of 'em?" said Pat. "Shure them would be called kids of polico- meu over in Ireland. Ours are so big they have to stand m a coal pit before they can get their hair cut." "Well, Pat, have you learned to ride that bicycle yet?" "Sorra a bit, sor. Sure Oi can't aven balance mesilf standin' still." "I don't know that you're the man whose name is on this cheque," said the bank cashier. "You'll have to be identified before I can give you the money." " Oidentifoyed, is it?" re- plied Pat. "Sure, thin, cast yer oyo on this bit of fotygraf, an' ye'll see it's mcself entoirely. " "Why did you leave your last place?" said a country squire 152 Irish Life and Humour to an Irish applicant for the post of valet. ' ' Because the man av the house was no giutleman ! " was the reply. " WTiat did he do.^" said the squire. "He locked me out av me room, an' t'rowed me clothes out av the windy, an' called in an officer an' put me out av the house by main force, an', begorry, Oi left an' uiver wint back!" replied the Irislunan. "Why do you think this man who almost drove over you is Irish?" "Because I threatened to lick him." "WeUP" "Well, instead of driving on about his business he got down from his cart and wanted to fight." A coachman had once been suddenly raised to the post of waiter at a dinner party, when sudden resignation had left the place vacant within an hour of the assembling of the guests, and was greatly delighted when the host found an old dress coat and vest that would fit him. Ten minutes were spent in acquaint- ing the servant with the usages of polite society at a dinner. Amoug other things, the host told the coachman that he was on no account to ask any of tlie guests to be helped a second time to soup. The guests took their places at table, and the soup was served quite creditably ; when the coachman observed that one gentleman pushed his plate of soup away from him. He leaned over and drew the plate back in front of the guest, who in turn pushed it from him again. This displeased the coachman. He thought he saw a breach of decorum in the action. "Ate your soup, sorr, " said he in trumpet tones. "Ye'll get no more." "Pfwat wud ye do if Casey called you a liar?" asked Paddy Braunigan of Joe Murphy. "Pfwhich Casey?" enquired Joe cautiously, "the big wan or the little wan?" "I hear you want to sell your dog, Pat. They tell me he has a pedigree?" "Shure, an' Oi niver noticed it, sor. Anyhow, he's nothiu' but a puppy yit, an' Oi'm thinkin' as how he'll be afther out-growin' it, sor." "Will you dine with me to-morrow, Mr. ?" asked one Irishman of another. "Faith, and I wiU, with all my heart." Paddy 153 "Remember, 'tis ouly a family dinner I'm askiu' you to." "And what for not — a family dinner is a mighty pleasant tiling. What have you got?" "Och, nothing uncommon! An elegant piece of com beef and potatoes. " "By the powers, that beats the world 1 Jist my dinner to a hair — barring the beef!" An Irishman who had taken a seat in a theatre other than the one his reserved ticket called for was remonstrated with by the attendant, who insisted on his getting up and giving his seat to the rightful purchaser. "G'wan wid ye," excitedly retorted the Celt; "the sate is moine, an' Oi'll shtand up for me roights ef I hev to sit here all noight. " Two gunners, one a young Irishman unaccustomed to hand- ling a fowling piece, the other a sharpshooter, were in quest of ducks. They had floated their decoys and were patiently await- ing the coming of the game when, on a sudden impulse, the disciple of the shamrock put gun to shoulder and fired both barrels into the midst of the floating flock of mimic ducks. In answer to an expostulation from his companion the offender replied — "It's yureself that hoz no sagacity at all. Faith, when th' birds see what a d bad shot I am they'll think you're no betther, an' it's a boatload ov ducks we'll be afther takin' home, d' y' moind?" In a collection of Irish stories may be mentioned an amusing conversation about Irish affairs in which the disputants got very hot. "The only way to govern Ireland," said the first, "would be to bring Cromwell back from hell to do it." "Shure," was the reply, "do you think he'd comeP Isn't he aisier where he is?" "My friend," said a phrenologist, "I find you have a most remarkable memory." "Profissor," said the man under ex- amination, "wud ye moind puttin' thot down on a bit o' paper so's Oi won't fergit it?" An Irishman in g.nol not being satisfied with his dinner, made an application to see the Governor. Brought before that L 154 Irish Life and Humour gentleman the nest day, he laid down a long story about the quality, quantity, etc. To finish up with he shouted — "And if there isn't an alteration I will have to lift my time." In an instant he saw his mistake, and, covered with blushes, made for the door. Two poor down-trodden peasants, who fancied they had a grievance against their landlord, were waiting behind a hedge by the roadside, with their guns loaded, murder in their hearts, and fully determined to have a shot at the tyrant. The time at which he was expected to come along passed. StiU they waited and waited until the village church clock struck three, and at length they became uneasy. "Bedad, Pat," said Mike, "I do hope nothin' has happened to the poor ould gintleman!" Here is the story of an incident that occurred in a Scottish post-office. An Irish harvester expected a letter from home, and called at the nearest post-office, when the following con- versation took place: — Pat (to postmaster) — "Shure and isn't there a letter for me?" " Who are you, my good sir ? " "I'm myself, shure, now, and that's who I am." "Well, but what is your name?" "And what do you want wid my name? Shure, now, my name will be on the letter if there is one." "Oh, yes, but you must give me your name so that I can find the letter if there is one for you." "Well, then, i:'at Murphy, if you will have it." "No, sir, there is none for Pat Murphy." "If I could g^t round the counter, shure, I'd teach ye better manners than to insist on a gentleman's name. But shure and ye didn't get it, after all, so I'm even with ye. Not one bit is my name Pat Murphy, ayther. " There is a newsman on Kingstown pier well known to all travellers across the channel. It seems that when Queen Victoi-ia was in Ireland he had the honour of supplying her with morning papers. Accordingly, when the Queen re-visted forty-nine years later, Dave Stevens presented himself with a formidable array of journals, for his stock-in-trade has in- creased enormously in the meantuue. One of the gentlemen Paddy 15 oo in attendance reminded Her Majesty of the circumstaaice, and ehe sent for a morning paper, inclosing a sovereign, with a message to the effect that David might keep the rest for him- self. "And which newspaper did she buy?" asked the news- man's interviewer. "I'm like a lawyer, sur; all that takes place between my customers an' myself is a secret, an' I wouldn't tell ye for a handful o' soverins — but that would surprise ye if ye knew." The interviewer's curiosity is still ungratified. Implicit obedience to a lady dispenser's instructions sup- plies the point of this anecdote : — Said an old woman, "I was tuk that bad last night I thought the life 'ud lave me." After due inquiry into her symptoms she was given a packet of arrowroot, with minute directions how to prepare it. As she scarcely seemed to take them in, a happy thought struck the lady, "You know how to make starch, don't you ?" she asked. "Yes," said Biddy, "I do." "Then make it just like that," said her friend, "and add a little sugar to it." Biddy de- parted, to return next day with the information that "she was like to die afther atin' what Miss Norah gave her, and with all due respect to her, she couldn't get it all down, it wint so aginst her." She was requested to bring what remained for inspection, which revealed that the directions as to starch had been literally carried out. She had put blue in it. "I should like to show you, madam, this patent bag to hold clothes pegs," said an agent. "It costs only a shilling, and, as you sec, slips along the line, making it much easier to get at than to stoop to the basket every time." "An' phat's the matter wid me mout' that costs not a ha'penny an' alawys wid me, I'd like to know," demanded the thrifty housewife. "It's mesUf that can howld a dozen o' pegs an' be sociable like over the fence to Mrs. OToole, with the same breat', begorral" When Queen Victoria visited Ireland in 1848 there was one attempt made to disturb tlie order ot the proceedings for con- troversial purposes. Half-way up Parkgate Street, Dublin, Mr. 156 Irish Ldfe and Humour Nugent, a then well-known pubUo man in Dublin, forced his way through the guard and caught at the Royal carriage, while he appealed to the Queen to pardon Smith O'Brien. He was put aside in a moment by Lord Clarendon, who was in attend- ance, and the incident terminated almost before any one realised what was happening. Another incident of the pro- cession — characteristically Irish — was the salute of a spectator in Circular Road. "Arrah! Victoria, will you stand up and let's have a look at ye?" he roared out at the top of his voice. The Queen heard it, and rose at once and bowed and smiled at him. "God bless ye for that, my darling," he responded, to the great amusement of the crowd, while Her Majesty resumed her seat and laughed heartily with Prince Albert at the incident. "Phwat is your son doin' now, Mrs. O'RaflEerty?" asked a neighbour. "Sure he's adopted th' stage as a profession, Mrs. M'Moriarty, " was the reply. "Dhrivin' a stage, is it?" "Be away wid y'r uonsince ! It's an actor he is. He do be a light comedian." "A loight comedian, is it?" "Yis. He stands beyant the black curtain, wid his mouth to a hole fominst a candle, an' whin Pawnee Ike shoots at the candle, he blows it out. " "Is your master a good farmer, Pat?" "Bedad, an' he is that; he makes two crops in one year." "How does he man- age that?" "Well, he sells aU his hay in the autumn an' makes money once, thin in the spring he sells the hides of the cattle who died from want of the hay, an' so makes money twice, begorrah. " "Have ye anny ancisters, Mrs. Kelly?" asked Mrs. O'Brien. "And phwat's ancisters?" "Why, people you sphrung from." "Listen to me, Mrs. O'Brien," said Mrs. Kelly impressively. "I come from the rale sthock av Donahues thot sphring from nobody. They sphring at thim!" It is not often that natural processes take their cue from police regulations, yet this would seem to be the case in the Paddy 157 North of Ireland, where the following police notice, "in view of the earlier approach of darkness," was being widely posted recently: — "Until further notice every vehicle must carry a light when darkness begins. Darkness always begins as soon aa the lamps are lit. " "Was there anything to lead you to believe that the deceased was non compos mentis when he took his life?" queried the coroner of a witness. "Would ye moind axin' me that question in English?" asked the witness. "Well, do you think he was suffering from temporary insanity?" "Faith, 'twas jist th' opposite av temperance insanity, bein' that crazy wid drink he was. " "Oi'd Uke a job wid ye, sor, " said an Irishman to the fore- man in a factory. "Well, I don't know. There isn't much doing just at present. I don't think I could keep you busy, " said the foreman. "ludade, sor," answered Pat, in a reassur- ing tone, "it 'uU take very little to kape me busy." A political candidate, on paying a second visit to the house of a doubtful voter of the peasant class, was very pleased, but somewhat surprised, on hearing from the elector that he would support him. "Glad to hear it," said the candidate; "I thought you were against me." "Shure I was at first," re- joined the peasant. "Whin, the other day, ye called here, and stood by that pig-sty, and talked for half-an-hour, ye didn't budge me an inch. But after ye had gone away, sor, I got to thiukin' how ye'd reached your hand over the rail and rubbed the pig's back tiU he lay down wid the pleasure of it. I made up my mind thin that whin a man was so sociable as that wid a poor fellow-crachure 1 wasn't the bhoy who was goin' to vote agin him." An Irishman was one day observing to a friend that he had an excellent telescope. "Do you see yonder church ?" said he. "Although it is scarcely discernible with the naked eye, when I look at it through my telescope, it brings it so close I can hear the organ playing." 158 Irish Life and Humour "Sure, sor," said Mrs. O'Mara, "an' ye towld me this clock was Frinch. " "Isn't it?" queried the jeweller. "Thin how the divil can Pat understand the toime from it?" asked the woman. "Well, Pat," said a tourist, "this is a grand-looking clock; but shoot me if I can tell the right time by it!" "Well, your honour, it's like this," answered Pat, "when the big hand points to six and the little hand to seven, and it strikes five tunes, then you know it's half-past six o'clock!" At a well-known mill not a hundred miles from Coatbridge, a Scotsman and an Irishman were employed carrying bags of flour. Each had to carry three dozen bags and then get a short spell. The Scotsman, working harder than the Irishman, got through with his three dozen first, and, of course, had a rest. While sitting, the Irishman came along, and exclaimed — "You haven't carried three dozen yet." "Ay," said the Scotsman, "sax (sacks) times sax (sacks) is thirty-sax (sacks)." "Be jabers, " says Pat, "you moight as well say bags times bags is thirty bags." It is not so long since the densest ignorance prevailed amongst Englishmen regarding Ireland. The following is a good story regarding this. It may be apocryphal, but it is ben trovato all the same. A reverend gentleman was lecturing to a large audience in Exeter Hall, London. The subject was foreign missions, and the good man was endeavouring to extract money by his perfervid eloquence. His peroration was as follows : — "Think of it, my brethren, think of the millions of mortal men who live in darkness and ignorance. The cannibals of the Congo, the earth-eating Hottentot, the Australian aborigine. And you can save them, my brethren — there axe none too blinded but can be saved. Even, if we come nearer home, even in that benighted island across the sea, where dwells the wild Irishman, jumping from tree to tree — even he, I say, has an immortal soul." A prominent member of the Tipper House engaged a wild Paddy 159 Irish youth from Comiemara as footman. "Pat," said his lordship one morning, "see if your mistress is 'at home' to- day." "That she is, your lordship; sure Oi jist saw her go into the dhrawiu'-room, " said Pat, who was ignorant of the ways of high society. "You misunderstand me, I'at, " said his lordship; "go and ask your mistress if she is 'at home' to-day." "Well," muttered Pat, as he obeyed, "if his lord- ship ain't quare ! Shure Oi jist saw her ladyship in the dhrawin'- room, an' the masther asks is she at home ! An' now Oi've got to ask her that same, an' she in the house all the toime !" "Are ye at home, me lady?" he asked, thrusting his head into the drawing-room. "No, Patrick!" replied his mistress. Pat stared in stupefaction a minute, then slowly retired. "Well, well! Phwere does she think she is, poor sowl? Sure ifs mad she is, an' the masther, tool More's the pity!" he exclaimed. "Thot fool av a Kelly must read the comic papers," said Cassidy. "Phwat makes ye think so?" asked O'Brien. "Oi heard him say 'Be jabers' the other day," rephed Cassidy. The other day an Irishman went to a fair which was being held in his village, and got mixed up in a free fight. Shortly after hostilities commenced he was knocked senseless by a blow from a thick blackthorn. He was then carried to the local hospital, where, on examination, it was found he had sustained injuries so serious that he would be laid up for several weeks. After his discharge from the hospital he met a friend, who expressed his sympathy for the bad luck he had had. "Yes," replied Pat, regretfully, "the fun had only just commenced whin I had ma sinses knocked out o' me, but," and here he brightened up, "faith, it was an illigant smack." An Irishman having placed a new chimney on his cottage, called one of his neighbours to show him his handiwork. "Now, what do ye thing of it?" said Mike to his neighbour. "Begorra!" said that worthy, "but the chimney is leaning to the left." "^ui' bedad!" replied Mike, "if you wuz to go 160 Irish, Life and Humour round to the backyard an' look at it you'd sae it wuz laneing to the roiglit, so sure it must be stroigbt. " "Why don't ye pump faster? Ye won't get the tub full av ye're going to work at that rate," asked Mrs. O'Finnegan. "D'ye suppose I want to pump the cistern dhry fillin' yer measely tub?" queried her husband. Two Irishmen went out hunting. They became separated, and one of them, hearing a succession of howls and a fearful scratching and hissing, ran toward his companion, whom he discovered with his arms around a tree, wrestling with a wild cat. "Pat, will I come to ye and help ye to hould on to the baste?" "No," replied Pat, "come to me and help me to let go av him." "Phoy is O'Grady carrying his head so hoigh? Hos some- body towld him his veins flow wid genteel blood?" asked Larry Donohue. "It's worse thon thot, " was the reply. "Th' ither day, the foremen told him to bank up th' clay, an' iver since he's bin callin' himsilf a banker." An assessor of property one day entered a cellar, and asked who lived there. The woman did not at first appear to under- stand him, having round her a whole tribe of squalling children. "Who resides here, I say?" demanded the assessor. "An' plase yer honour, I hardly knows," replied the woman. "Larry O'Rake, that's me husband, occupies this corner with me ; Looney, the gravedigger, with his family, live in that corner; O'Houe, the rat-catcher, in the other; and Judy M'MuUigan in the other." "How many of you are there altogether?" asked the assessor. "Forty-two," answered the woman ; "and we might do well enough did not Judy M'MuUi- gan take in boarders." "I have no sympathy wid a strike," said Mike. "But you don't blame folks for not workin'," protested Pat. "Ye can't strike unless ye've got a job, kin ye?" was the withering re- joinder. "They had no business goiu' to work in the first place." Paddy IGl "Does thot look aunyt'iug loike me late laminted Dinnis, Mi-s. O'Toole?" asked the Widow Cliuchy, poiuting to a litho- graphed portrait which she had recently hung on the wall. "Tell me, d'ye detict anny resirablance at ahl?" "Oi do not!" truthfully replied the visitor, who had dropped in for a chat, somewhat surprised at the question. "Av me oyes don't desave me, thot is a picture av thot illigant mon, Lord Roberts." " Yis, 'tis thot," said the widow. "But, phwisper, whin Con Duffy, the soign-painter, slips in an' paints a plug- hat upon its head, a Saint Patherick's Day smoile on its face, an' a grane sash across its chist, tell me now, d'ye t'ink ut would fool thot foine, fore-handed widower, Phalim M'Larrity, who has wake oyes, into belavin' thot av he wins me he'll be marryin' a lady thot is proud av a good husband whin she has wan?" "Now, the divil take me if ye hasn't lost your sinces entirely hanging yer new crayon portrait onto the outside of the house," said Mrs. O'Brien. "Mary EUen," replied O'Brien, "has ye forgot that we are havin' a christenin' party this evening, an' does ye think I'd lave anything as life-like as that haugin' in the parlour to get the face knocked off it ?" "Norah huug her jersey jacket over th' sthove an' it wuz scorched. Did ye hear about it, Dinny?" "Oi did; an' Oi also hur-rud thot it changed th' jacket complately." "How phas thot?" "Well, ye sae, it phas a jersey jacket whin shae huug it thoo, but, faith, after it wuz scorched it phas a smoking jacket." "What do you wish, ma'am?" said a shopman to a customer. "Oi want to sae some miiTors fit to give as a Christmas gift." "Hand mirrors?" "No; some ye kin sae yer face in." An Irishman was recently asked by a friend— "Why don't you stop the leaks in your house, Pat ? " "Ye wouldn't have me go out in the rain to do it, would ye?" "No, but why don't you stop them when it don't rain?" "Oh, they don't leak then, so what's the use?" 162 Irish Ldfe and Humout "Cau't prove Mickey a schoundril?" asked Mr. Hogan, wVien a friend's character was under consideration. "An' the divil, isn't it mysilf that's repeatedly met him in places where no dacent man would be seen?" "I should like a room with an iron bedstead," said a tourist to a hotel proprietor in the west. "Sorr, Oi haven't an iron bedstead in the place ; they're all soft wool. But you'll foiud the mattresses uoice and hard, sorr." An Irish landlord, against whom a writ had been issued, kept himself closely confined to his house. He went abroad only on Sunday, on which day service was not legal. It used to be said of him in the district, "Faix, he's so pious that he never stirs out only on Sunday!" "Shure an' these hair resthorers are fakes!" said an Irish- man to a friend. "Oi've poured mor'n a bottle over this camel's hair brush, an' divil a bit has it hilped th' bald sphots!" "Was Hogan talking about me behind my back?" asked Dennis. "No," said Pat; "but he was talking about you behind yer barn." "Doolan offered to prove to me in black an' white that Oi war a fool," said Casey. "Phwat happened thin?" "Oi proved to him in black an' blue thot he war a liar. " Some gentlemen fishing off the west coast of Ireland encoun- tered heavy rains, and, consequently, kept their bad weather oil-suits in readiness. One day, after a sudden shower, one of them had occasion to go to the neighbouring village. On the way it cleared up, and the sun came out in all its glory, and the gentleman regretted having kept on his surtout. His chagrin changed to amusement when a beggar by the wayside accosted him with— "The Lord protect your honour from the weather ye look like." Some years ago a worthy Irish couple resided in the Tron- gate, Glasgow, directly opposite the statue of King William, which, on a fine 12th July morning, had been decorated with an orange sash and fancy-coloured ribbons, in honour of the Paddy 163 annual demonstration. In the early moniiug, Bridget having occasion to look out of the window, and perceiving the usually unattractive statue arrayed in many colours, cried excitedly to her husband — "Pat, Pat! me bhoy, shure Orange Billy himsilf's going to walk to-day!" "Who tould you that?" asked Pat, bewildered. "Luk out the winder an' see for yersilf, " said excited Biddy. On reaching the window, Pat gazed with astonishment at the bronze horseman for a moment or two, then vehemently exclaimed — "Troth! an' it's for walkin' he isl The ould fool!" "The great trouble with us," said the president of the Pick- pockets' Club, "is that we are iucliued to take things too seriously." "1st thot so?" yelled the policeman, who had managed to slip in unobserved; "Oi t'ought the main throuble wid yez was that yez took things too aisy. Come on, now! None av that, or Oi'll smash in your tiupannum!" "Niver say a word whin ye foind yer gittin' angry," said Mr. Dolan. " Remember, silence is golden. " " It's the good rule, " answered Mr Rafferty. "Waste no words: smash 'im." He was an Irish pilot, and the skipper felt rather doubtfiJ as to his ability to navigate the vessel out to sea. "Are you sure you know all the rocks in the river?" he asked for the second time, as the ship gathered speed. "Sure an' I do, yer 'anner," said the pilot, "ivery wan of them. That's wan now!" as, with a loud crash, the Alary Jane ran hard and fast aground. Two Irishmen came over from the "Ould Country," and were walking through a large village in the Midlands, when they saw a blacksmith shoeing a horse at his forge. They had never seen the Uke before, and stood staring and wondering. Pre- sently Pat turned to Mike and said— "Shure, Moike, an' mo puir ould mither be roight again, as she alius was. She tould me Id niver be ter ould fer larnin', an' 'tis meself as alius did winder wer bosses cum fr?m, an', begorra, er's th' plaize wer they make 'um. Thur jist — nailin' on the feet." 164 Irish Life and Humour An Irishman seeing a fine parrot in a bird fancier's shop bought one of its eggs and had it hatched out. To his bewilderment the outcome was a duck! He hastened back to the proprietor, and said angrily — "Whin I buy a crown's worth o' parrot egg I want wan you kin give a characther wid. See?" "Now is the time for Ix-ishmen to strike for Ireland!" ex- claimed an Irish agitator. "Shure and Oi'd sooner shtrike for higher pay!" replied Pat. "And so Phelim is proud av his descint, is he?" "Yes; he is terribly stuck up about it." "Well, begorra, OiVe a bit av a descint meself to boast about. Oi descinded four storeys wanst whin the ladder broke and niver sphilled a brick!" "Hov ye hur-rud about me ould mon hoving th' liver com- plaint?" "Nivir a wur-rud! Phere did he conthract it?" "He used to wur-ruk in a liveiy stabble." An Irish waiter at a London hotel had charge of the hats of the guests who went there to dine. His accuracy and promptness in giving every man his own headgear as he camo cut of the diniug-room excited one inquisitive gentleman's curiosity. "How did you know so well this was my hat?" he asked. A smile lighted up the waiter's good-natured face as he bowed politely. "Sorr, " he said, "Oi didn't know it was yours, but it's the one ye giv me!" An Irishman, once travelling by train, in his eagerness to see the passing country, had his hat blown from his head by the rush of air. He immediately pulled out a big jack knife and made a great notch in the window sash. His fellow-travellers, wondering, asked him his reason for so doing. "Begorra," replied Pat, with great assurance, "so that I shall know the place where it fell out." A very eloquent stump speaker in America was addressing a meeting where it was a great point to catch the Irish vote, and, after flattering the Irish as a people, he inquired — "Who dig our canals? Irishmen. Who build our railroads? Irish- Paddy 165 men. (Great applause.) Who build all our gaols? Irishmen. (Still greater applause.) Who fill all our gaols? Irishmen.'* This capping climax, if it did not bring down the house, brought down the Irish in a rush for the platform. The speaker did not wait to receive them. "Did you ever save a penny?" "Never!" answered Mike. "Did you ever do a day's work?" "Never!" "Why not?" "Mister, you're an intelligent man, and you can see that these discussions between capital and labour is bound to continae. What I'm aimin' at is to keep me mind perfectly free from prejudice on either side, so's to be ready when they want some- one to do a good job of arbitratin'." A good story is told of three shipmates — English, Scottish, and Irish — who were once rambling along a street and looking in at the shop windows. Through one window they observed a charming gii'l behind the counter, and expressed their admiration of her. "Let's go in and buy something," said the Englishman. "Toots," said the thrifty Sandy, "nae need o" that. Let's gang in and ask if she can change a saxpence for us." The Irishman, however, rose to the occasion in splendid style. "Let's go in," he exclaimed, "and ask if she'll let us light our pipes by the light of her beautiful eyes." That it is well-nigh impossible to out-distance Pat in the art of making compliments is generally admitted, and another clever saying of this kind deserves to be recorded. A veiy pretty lady hired a car to take her from the centre of Dublin to the outskirts of the city. It was quite obvious from har speech that she was not a native, but she chatted away gaily to the jarvey, and he never failed to point out the vario is places of interest as they passed. At length they reached the end of the journey, and the lady asked her fare. "Five shillin', ma'am," was the reply ; "but there will be the exthry for me goin' back." "Now, that is nonsense, you know," was the response, "for it will not be so heavy a burden on your animal since I have got out," "Thrue, ma'am, thrue," wa-i 166 Irish Life and humour Pat's gallant rejoinder; "but, ma'am, 'twill be a very lonelj' journey for the baste and me." Patrick had worked hard all his days, but his sons had spent his money for him, and when he was too old for active work he was oflFered the position of look-out man for a gang of rail- way platelayers. He looked dubious as the duties of the office were explained to him, and the meaning of the various flags was clearly stated. "In case of danger, with a train coming, of course you wave the red flag," said his friend, proceeding with his explanation. A hard oiu hand grasped his arm. "Man, dear, it'll never do," said Patrick, shaking his head solemnly. "I could never trust mesilf to remimber to wave a red flag when there was a green wan handy." Many amusing stories have been told about the shifts to which Irish innkeepers have been driven in order to provide suitable entertainment for their guests. Lady Grove, in an article on "Social Solecisms," tells another, which is one of the best yet related. She states that one of her friends had gone to bed in an Irish inn, bidding the landlady call him at eight. At six, however, next morning she knocked at his door. "YeVe to git up," she said. "What o'clock is it?" "Six, surr. " "Go away, I am not going to get up till eight." At seven she reapppeared. "Indade and ye must get up now, it's seven." Finding him unmoved at her next return, she said, "Git up, there's a sweet gintleman; there's two com- mercial gintlemen waiting for their breakfast, and I can't 'ay the cloth till I have yer honour's top sheet." Lord Dufi'erin used to tell a creepy ghost story, which, ho averred, was absolutely true. He was staying at a country house in Ireland. While dressing for dinner one evening he heard wheels on the gravel, and looking through the window he saw a hearse drive up to the front door. He was struck by the face of the driver — a fat, unpleasant, saturnine face. Assuming that a servant had died in the house, Lord Dufferin mentioned the matter to his host, who informed him that there Paddy 1G7 had been no death, and that the hearse was the ghost of the hou^e. Its appearance was supposed to be a warning of danger to the man who saw it. A little while later Lord DufFerin went to Paris for the Exhibition, and stayed at the Grand Hotel. Entering the lift, he saw, with a shock of alarm, that the attendant had the face of the man on the hearse. He got out and walked downstairs, and immediately afterwards the lift smashed, and all the occupants were killed. The attend- ant was never identified. He had entered the service of the hotel only that morning, and nobody claimed his body. An Irishman had inin up a small bill at the village shop, and went in to pay it, first asking for a receipt. The proprietor grumbled and said it was too much trouble to give receipts ^or such small amounts — it did just as well to cross the account off, and he drew a diagonal pencil line across the book. "Does that settle it?" asked the customer. "Certainly!" "An' ye'U never be asking for it again?" "Certainly not!" "Faith, thin," said the Irishman coolly, "an' I'll kape me money in me pocket, for I haven't paid it yet!" "Well," was the retort, "I can rub that out." "I thought so," said the persistent customer drily. "Maybe you'll give me a receipt now. Here's the money!" A Chicago restaurant boasts of an Irish Munchausen who acts in the humble capacity of waiter and adds much to the entertainment of customers. Some of these gentlemen had been spinning some good yams one evening. One of them, on being served with a small lobster, asked— "Do you call that a lobster, Mike?" "Faix, I do believe they do be callin' thim lobsters here, surr! We call 'em crabs at home!" "Oh," snid the diner, "you have lobsters in Ireland?" "Is it lobsters? Begorra, the creeks is full of 'em ! Many a toime have I seen 'om whin I've leaped over the strames!" "How large do lobsters grow in Ireland?" "Well," said Mike thoughtfully, "to shpako widin bounds, surr, Id say a matter of five or six feet." "WTiat! Five or six feet ? How do they turn round 168 Irish Life and Humour in those creeks?" "Bedad, surr, the creeks in Ireland are fifty or srsty feet wide!" said the unabashed Mike. "But," said the persistent inquirer, "you said you had seen 'em when you were leaping over the streams, and lobsters here live in the sea?" "'Deed I did, surr! We are powerful leapers in Ire- laud. As for the say, surr, I've seen it red with 'em!" "But look here, my fine fellow," said the guest, thinking he had cornered the Hibernian at last, "lobsters are not red until they are boiled." "Don't I know that?" said Mike reproachfully, "But there are hot springs in the ould couuthry, an' they shwim troo 'em and come out rady for ye to crack open and ate ! " — and Mike walked calmly off to wait upon the next guest. It was evident that something of more moment than usual was weighing on the small boy's mind. Three times he passed the door of the house and peered through the window before he dared to enter. Then he made his appearance with an £^ir that dozens of broken windows or bushels of stolen apples could not have given him. "Mrs. Murphy, little Mickey's new tm whistle's all broke." "And how did that happen, dear?" "Well, Mickey was playing on it when the stame-roller wiut over it." A stiiking illustration of how Mr. Parnell could detach his thoughts from important and momentous events is told by Mr. Henniker-Heaton in the following paragraph, which also reveals to us the fact that the famous Irish leader was an able metallurgist and assayist. Mr. Heaton says — He came into the House of Commons one afternoon when the fiercest excite- ment prevailed regarding the publication by "The Times" of the forged letters. He, in a short speech, denied the author- ship of the letters, and then walked into the lobby and engaged me in earnest conversation. Evei-ybody thought he was v^ell- ing mo of the awful political event then stirring men's minds. This is what he said to me — "I have just read in the afternoon paper that a mountain of gold has been discovered in Western Australia, and that some tons of the specimens have been sent Paddy 169 home to you." I replied that it was tnie, and that I had m my locker iu the House some of the crushed specimens. We proceeded to get them, aud I gave him about a wiue-glassful of the "crushing. " He took it away ^-ith him, and to tho bewilderment of his party no one saw him for a week and very few indeed knew his address. On that day week, almost at the same hour, he again appeared in the lobby. Walking up to me, he said, smilingly, "I have analysed the specimens, and they go thirty-two ounces of gold to the ton." I said he was wrong. He then took from his pocket a scrap of paper and read, "Twenty-seven ounces of gold and five ounces of silver." I replied that this was indeed remarkable, for it exactly coin- cided with the analysis of Messrs Johnson, Matthey, & Co., the famous metallurgists. Parnell then showed me the small pin's point of gold he had obtained. I expressed surprise at his work. He said, "The fact is, I take an interest in the matter. I have a small workshop to test the minerals in tho mountains of Wicklow, some portion of which I own." The astonishing thing is that, while his hundreds of thousands of adherents were fulminating against "The Times," he was quietly working away testing minerals iu his laboratoiy. A lady who is a district visitor became much interested in a veiy poor but apparently respectable Irish family named Curran, living on the top floor of a great building in a slum district of her parish. Every time she visited the Cuirans she was annoyed by the staring and the whispering of the other women living in the building. One day she said to Mrs. Curran: — "Your neighbours seem veiy curious to know who and what I am and the nature of my business with you." "They do," acquiesced Mi's. Cun-an. "Do they ask you about it.^" "Indade they do, ma'am." "And do you tell them?" "Faith, thin, an' Oi do not." "What do you tell them.»" "Oi just tell thim," was tho calm reply, "that you are nie dressmaker, an' let it go at that." M 170 Irish Life and Humour- Derrigan lived in a ramshackle shanty which stood in a field near the main highway. The foundations of the house were lower than the road, through which ran a great water-main. As the living floor of the house was raised on posts to make it level with the highway, there was a large cellar underneath, where Demgan kept a dozen hens. One day the water-main burst, flooded the cellar, and drowned the hens. Derrigan immediately put in a claim for damages. After a long delay and much trouble, influential friends assisted the old man to get thirty shillings in settlement of his claim. That evening he saw Mrs. Cassidy, his next-door neighbour, sitting on her back stops. "I got me money from the city!" he called to her. "Did ye, then, Mr. Derrigan? It's glad I am. How much did ye get?" "Thirty shiUings." "Glory be! An hov ye the money?" "I hov not; biit I had it." "What did ye do wid it?" "Sure, I bought thirty shillings' worth of ducks wid it!" During the agrarian disturbances in Ireland an Iiish squire was honoured with the attentions of Moonlighters. They wished the squire no harm, for he was a good landlord, but they had to obey the commands of the secret brotherhood. Accordingly, when they fired through his window one night, they first carefully reconnoitred the room from outside, so that the bullets should not hit any of the occupants. Again, when they ambushed the squire from behind a hedge, they succeeded in hitting their real target — a wood some distance beyond the squire. But he openly defied the secret society, the unknown heads of which, as a last effort at intimidation, ordered the local members to dig a grave at night on the squire's lawn. The squire was doing a little private sentry-go and witnessed unseen the digging of the grave. Stealing back to the house, with the assistance of his gardener, by dawn he made a big wooden headstone. When the midnight grave-diggers strolled casually past the house next morning to see what effect their work had had upon the squire's household, they found, to Paddy 171 their unspeakable amazement and awe, a huge six feet high headstone fixed in position at the head of the grave. Loung- ing by its side, one arm resting easily on the stone and the other hand grasping a cocked revolver, was the squire, a sardonic smile on his face, while painted in large black letters on the headstone was this inscription : "Sacred to the memoiy of . " That was all, but it was more than enough, for the attempts to intimidate the squire were given up in despair, and he was thereafter left in peace. A cyclist while wheeling through some of the rural "out-of- the-ways" in Ireland had cause to pull up at a humble shanty one day to make inquiries as to his whereabouts. Entering the cabin, he was at once struck with the poverty of the furniture and surroundings, and curiously so with what evidently answered the purpose of a sideboard — a rough plank, supported at either end by three bricks. In the middle was half an old brick, and on it a tiny faded flower. After making the necessary inquiries as to his whereabouts, the stranger asked what the brick might be. "Shure, and the brick is it ye're wantin' to know about ? Ye see this big hole at the back of my ear? Shure, it was made entoirely wid that brick!" "An' the flower?" "Ah, shure now, that is a flower off th*} man's grave that threw the brick!" Pat the Ii'ishman and Hans the German were on tour together. A farmer, at whose house they called, refused them food, but kindly allowed them to sleep in the scullery. About two in the morning the pangs of hunger were too much for Hans, and he announced his intention of getting some supper, but to reach the larder he had to pass tlirough the farmer's bedroom. Presently he returned beaming, and said he had had a good supper. But how did you manage it?" qu<^riod Pat. "Veil, I shoost step quiet across de room, and vhen de ole man vake up he say, ' Who's dere ? ' I shoost say, ' !Meaow, meaowl' and he say, ' Boder dat cat!' and go ter sleep." "Faix," said Pat, "it's, a grand (rick, Til \\y if mosol'." Off 172 Irish Life and Humour he started, but he fell over the farmer's boots with an awful clatter and woke their owner up. "Who's there ? " he shouted. "Lie still, and be aisy, now. Oi'm the cat." "Hallo, Pat, I hear your dog is dead.?" "It is." "Was it a lap dog?" "Yes; it would lap anything." "What did it die of ? " "It died of a Tuesday. " "I mean, how did it die ? ' ' "It died on its back." "I mean, how did the dog meet its death.?" "It didn't meet its death. Its death overtook it.'' "I want to know what was the complaint?" "No complaint. Everyone for miles round appeared to be satisfied." "I wish to know how did it occur?" "The dog was no cur; he was a thoroughbred animal." "Tell me what disease did the dog die of ?" " He went to fight a circular saw. " "What was the result?" "The dog only lasted one round." An Irishman made his way to a country gaol, and asked to be allowed to see the governor. On being ushered into that functionary's presence, he begged for the favour of an inter- view with a prisoner who was to suffer the extreme penalty of the law in the course of the morning. "No, my man," said the governor, on being appealed to, "you cannot see th-a prisoner. He is to be executed in half an hour's time, and it is not allowed for visitors to see a prisoner on the day of execution. But what might be your business with him?" "Shure, sorr," answered Pat, "it's his birthday, and I was afther wishing him many happy returns." A man was waiting his turn to be served in a Dublin fish- monger's while a little, weazened old gentleman priced every fish in the shop. "How much is this — and this — and this — and this?" he asked. At last the exasperated shopwoman exclaimed, ".^, go on out of that wid ye! It isn't fish ye want, but ini\.,>mationl" In conversation with a friend, a wi'iter chanced to remark that, wherever he might be, it was extremely difficult for a Yorkshireman to hide the fact that he was born in the broad- acred shire. "I've been in nearly eveiy corner of the king- Paddy 173 dom, " lie added, "and iu all sorts of odd places I've been met with the query, 'You're a Yorksliiremau, are you not?'" "Och, thiu, " remarked the writer's frieud, "it's moighty care- less ye've bin eutoirely. Sure, it's as aisy as gettiu' kilt to desave ivery wan ! Look at me, now ! Oi've been all over the wamild. Oi've bin taken fer a German, a Frinchman, a Roosian, a Greek, a Yankee, a Portugese, a haythun Chiuee, a Turkee, an' even au Oirishman ; but niver a wan av me friends iver looked me in the oye au' sid, ' Tim O'Rourke, ye're a Yorkshireman ! ' "It's the dialect that gave ye away. Dhrop it, me bhoy, dhrop it ! " In his amusing autobiography, the author of "Father O'Flynn" tells this anecdote as au instance of the bliss of ignorance — We had au old farm servant of the name of Fanny Downey, generally known as old Fanny, but she preferred to call herself by her maiden name, Fanny Sullivan, reverting thereto after the loss of her husband and children. She waa a very faithful servant and very hard-working, but strangely simple in her ways. She was an old woman-of-all-work, now carrying the post-bag to the village two miles away, now in the hay-field, now at the turf-rick, now again, as the sequel will show, carrying basketfuls of seaweed from the beach to manure the potato-garden. One day, as she passed the open drawing- room on her way from the kitchen to one of the bedrooms, she espied a little aquarium upon the table full of delicate seaweeds, aud thereupon, raising her eyes and hands, exclaimed — "I never thought to see the manuyure growing on the drawing-room table ! " "Talking about jumping," said an Irishman, "I've got a brother can beat any record. Only a mouth ago P sy Flaherty challenged the whole world for £1,000 a side, it was to be a jump off the highest building in Dublin, and my brother Moiko took him on. Shure, I shall niver forget as long as I remem- ber ; for when I come on the scene there was IMoike on the top of the building ready to jump, and some of Patsy 174 Irish Life and JJumour Flaherty's pals down below (who was bitter against Moike) with a lot of broken bottles, so that when he come down he'd be cut to pieces- I saw it in a moment, and, just as the word was given to ' go,' Moike came half-way down, when I called out to him, ' Moike, don't come any further ; they've put a lot of broken glass under you ! ' And, would you believe it, Moike actually turned round and jumped back again!" A steam "navvy" at work had attracted a large number of spectators, including two Irishmen, who, judging by their appearance, were toilers temporarily out of employment. As the big shovel at a single Uck scooped up half a ton of dirt and dumped it upon a cart, one of the Irishmen remarked — " What a shame, to think of them digging up dirt in that way ! " "What do ye mane?" asked his companion. "Well," said the other, "that machine is taking the bread out of the mouths of hundreds of labourers who could do the work with their picks and shovels." "Right you are, Barney," said the other fellow. Just then a man who had been looking on, and who had over- heard the conversation, remarked — "Look here, you fellows, if that digging would give work to a hundred men with shovels and picks, why not get a thousand men, and give them tea- spoons to do the job?" The Irishmen, to their credit, saw the force of the remark as well as the humour of the situation, and joined heartily in the laugh that followed. Patrick Murphy was conspicuous for a very homely face. He used to say that it seemed like "an offince to the land- scape," a conclusion i\\ which his acquaintances fuUy con- curred ; and he was as poor as he was homely. One day a neighbour met him and said — "And how are ye, Pat?" "Mighty bad," was the reply. "It's shtarvation that is starin' me in the face." "If that is so," said his neighbour, "sure and it can't be very pleasant for aither of ye!" An Irishman was very proud of a huge brindle bulldog which he possessed, and which was his constant companion. One day a friend met him without the dog, and looking very discon- PadiJy 175 solute. "Well, Pat, and how is that bull-pup of yours doing?" "Oh, be jabers, he's dead! The iUigaut baste wiut au' swallowed a tape-measure!" "Oh, I see! He died by inches, then?" "No, begorra, he didn't! He wint round to the back of the house an' died by the yard!" The Hibernian gift for courteous speech was seldom bettar displayed than by a certain Irish boarder. His landlady, a "pleasant-spoken" body, had poured him a cup of tea, and presently inquired if it was all right? "It is jist to my taste, Mrs. Hallakan," said the boarder; "wake and cowld, jist as I loikeit." An American and an Irishman were riding together when they came across an old gallows by the wayside. "You see that, I cardate," said Jonathan. "Now, where would you be if the gallows had its due?" "Riding alone," said Paddy. Nearly everyone knovFs that Mr. Timothy Healy possesses a keen sense of humour, and that it is but seldom, when the necessity arises, that he fails to come off with an exceedingly witty rejoinder. On one occasion, however, his accomplish- ment in the art of repartee altogether failed him. The man who was the hero of this exceptional exploit was Mr. Seymour Bushe, K.C. A case was being heard in the Dublin Recorder's Court on one occasion, and during the proceedings the Testa- ment on which witnesses are usually sworn was found to be mysteriously missing. A search was made for the required book, but for a little time without result. At last, Mr. Bushe happened to notice that Mr. Henly had taken possession of the volume, and was busily engaged in reading it, quite oblivious of the consternation which its disappearance was creating. "I think, .sir," said INfr. Bushe, turning, with a mischievous ex- pression, towards the Recorder, "that Mr. HeaJy has takon possession of the Testament. " As soon as he caught the sound of his name, Mr. Healy glanced up, and then, realising what had taken place, with many apologies, handed over tbo volume. "You see, sir," added Mr. Bushe, "Mr. Healy was 176 Irish Life and Humour so greatly interested iu it that he didn't know of our loss ; he took it for a new publication. " When tlie laugh had snUsided, Mr. Healy, for once, had no reply to make. There is a story on record of three Irishmen rushing away from a race meeting at Punchestown to catch a train back to Dublin. At the moment a train from a long distance pulled up at the station, and three men scrambled in. In the carriage was seated one other passenger. As soon as they had regained their breath one said: — "Pat, have you got th' tickets.^" "What tickets? I've got me loife : I thought I'd have lost that gettin' in th' thrain. Have you got 'em, Moike ?"' "Oi, begorrah, I haven't." "Oh, we're all done for, thin," said the third. "They'll charge us roight from the other soide of Oireland." The old gentleman looked over his news- paper and said: — "You are quite safe, gintlemen; wait till we get to the next station. " They all three looked at each other. "Bedad, he's a director; we're done for now, intoirely. " But as soon as the train pulled up the little gentleman jumped out and soon came back with three first-class tickets. Handing them to the astonished strangers he said: — "Whist, I'U tell ye how I did it. I went along the thrain : * Tickets, plaze ! tickets, plaze ! ' I called, and these belong to three Saxon tourists iu another carriage." A new Irish brakesman had been hired by a North-Western railroad, and was set at work on a construction-train at three cents a mile for wages. One day, says the man who tells the story, the train got away on a mountain grade and went flying down the track at about sixty miles an hour. I twisted the brakes hard all along the tops. Pretty soon I saw Mike crawling along one of the cars on all fours, his face the colour of milk. I thought he was getting ready to jump. "Mike," I yelled, "for goodness' sake, don't jump!" He clamped his fingers on the nmuing-board to give him a chance to turn round, and looking at me contemptuously, answered — "Jump, is it? D'ye think I'd be jumpin' an' me makin' three cints a moile ?" Paddy 177 Shortly after Mr. Wilson Barrett had jomed the theatrical profession he became a member of a company performing at the old Theatre Royal, Dublin. His part naturally was a small one, and Mr. Barrett had no expectation whatever of receiving any sign of approval from the audience. Greatly to his sur- prise, howe\ier, his first small speech was greeted with a round 0*" applause. This unlooked-for tribute quite elated the young actor, and he exerted himself to the utmost in the endeavour to sustain the good impression he appeared to have made. He succeeded even beyond his hopes. Everything he said or did was rapturousiy applauded, and the principal performers were thrown completely into the shade. The "stars" were of course disgusted, and the rest of the company lost in amazement — none more so than young Barrett himself. He scarcely sup- posed that he quite deserved such an ovation, but with the natural vanity of youth he considered that these Dublin folk showed a rare appreciation of budding merit. Just as he was Ic-aving the theatre, however, one of the scene-shifters accosted him, "Sure ye wor cock o' the walk to-night, sir!" "Well, yes, ^lickey, " returned the actor, with pardonable pride — "I think I knocked 'em a bit — eh.^" "Och, sir," said Mickey, "sure it wasn't that at all, at all! But it's got about among the bhoys that ye're a brother o' the man that was hung this morning!" A Fenian named Barrett had that morning paid the extreme penalty of the law. The late Lord Dufferin always said the happiest years of lis Ic ng official life were those spent at Calcutta. He revelled in the sunshine. A friend one day expostulated with him for hia reckless exposure of himself to the weather. "Well, you see," said the Viceroy, "they've always sent me to cold places. They sent me as Viceroy to Canada, where one must live two- thirds of the year in buffalo furs. They sent me to St. Peters- burg, where one has to hibernate like a bear. So, when they ordered me to India, I rubbed my hands and said to myself, ' Now I can hang myself up to dry.'" 178 Irish Life and Humour A thorough Irishman, warm-hearted, generous almost to the verge of lavishness, and unselfish, Lord Dufferin went through life with a disregard for economy which often alarmed nis friends. A trivial but amusing example of this trait is the fol- lowing. He was driving once in a hansom with a friend from Hyde Park Comer to St. James's Street. When they reached the Club Lord Dufferin gave the cabman half-a^-crown. "What on earth did you do that for?" asked his astonished friend; " it's only a shilling fare. " " Oh ! I would never think of giving a cabman less than half-a-crown. Would you?" replied Lord Dufferin, as if the correct fare were an economy unthinkable. After much brain-racking, Pat had invented what he described as "a stame snowplough." "What's the motive power?" asked a waggish acquaintance. "Horses," responded Pat promptly. "Four av 'em." "Then why call it a steam plough?" Pat was puzzled, and reflected a moment before replying. "Arrah!" he remarked, brightening up. "Oi've thought of that same. Av ye saw the machine an' know the weight av it, ye'd onderstand as the horses'll do the staming whin they git to worruk vdd it." "Granted," said the friend. "But where are you going to find the horses capable of drag- ging such a machine through, say, three feet of snow?" "Howld a minute," said Pat, after another thoughtful pause. "They won't have to face it. Sure, Oi'll make both inds av the jigger alike, so the horses can pull it aythur way." "But there's still the snow to face." "Sorra a bit av it. Oi've arranged all that. Bedad, Oi'll have a gang of men to clear the strate for the horses." "Then of what use is the plough?" "That's where the beauty av the thing comes in," said Pat. "Whin there's no snow to shift Oi've arranged matters so that the macliine can be converted into a beautiful milk cart. An' wheer's yer objections now, for, begorra, a milk carrt's alwavs useful annyway. An' av yo are not satisfied now invint ^an for yersilf !" It was in the West of Ireland. The cabin was of the usual Faddy 179 pattern, with cattle stalls to the left as you entered, an open chimney, a round table, one chair, a big box, and one bed to the right. The legs of the bedstead, an old four-poster, tad sunk into the earthen floor. "How many of you sleep there, little girl?" asked the tourist. "Feyther and mother, myself an' me foive brothers and sisbers," answered Biddy, who was about twelve years old. "Oh, but there's not room for eight of you." "But there is, sorr. Four sleep at the top an' four at "the bottom, " chimed in the child. " Still, even four abreast could not manage. There would be no room to turn." "We don't turn, yer honour. When feyther wants to turn he ses, 'Turn!' an' we all turns." An Irish M.P., more noted for his wit than for the depths o* his purse, was travelling by the County Council omnibus to Westminster, and at the request of a lady said, "Conductor, put this lady off at the next comer. " The conductor, who was a new man, failed to understand, and said, "Excuse me, sir, seems as how she's a behavin' of herself ; don't seem no occa- sion for proceedin' to extremes." The little red-haired M.P. was too astonished to reply, and got off himself to avoid an explanation. The tragic times in Ireland, when peasant was at open war with landlord and all were at war with English rule, are relieved by many good stories. The mercurial Celt is whimsical even in time of trouble. When Mr. Arthur James Balfour was Chief Secretary for Ireland, he met Father Healy at a dinner in Dublin. "Tell me, Father Healy," said Mr. Balfour, "is it true the people of Ireland hate me as much as the Nationalist newspapers represent?" "Hate you!" replied the priest. "If they hated evil as they hate you, Mr. Balfour, my occupa- tion would be gone." Yet it was Mr. Balfour who a few years later had accom- plished much toward tlw; pacification of Ireland. His name became amusingly prominent in Irish families. A gentleman 180 Irish Life and Humour driviug into the towu of Westport, County Mayo, was stopp-^d by a pig wliich ran in front of his horse. An old peasant shouted across the ditch to a boy who was watching the pig stupidly: "Arrah, Mick, will ye stir yerself? Don't ye i^ee Arthur James runniu)' away?" Struck by me name, the gentleman asked the old man about it, and found that in gratitude to Mr. Balfour, who had been the means of getting them the pig, the peasant had given the animal his name. A man went to his next-door neighbour's house early one morning in a state of alarm to inquire if he and his family were well. On being told that they were, he exclaimed, in a tone of intense relief, "I'm glad to hear it ; I feared ye were all dead, for I couldn't hear any of ye fightin' last night." "Jerry," said Flaherty, "why is it ye're gittini' so proud since ye're gittin' a bit o' money put by?" "Me b'y, 'tis loiko that wid all th' rich," said Jerry. "'Ks a measure of pro- tiction ag'in me poor relations." One moonlight evening two Irishmen stood on the banks of a lake arguing whether it was the sun or the moon that was shining on the lake. After a while they agreed to ask the first person that came that way. In a few minutes a young man came along, and they asked him whether it was the sun or the moon. "I cannot teU you, " said the man. "I am quite a stranger to this part of the country." Poor old Paddy Rourke had been looking for work for a long time without success. But at last a brighter day dawned, and he got an offer of a job as a diver. They fitted him out with a suit and gave hun instructions tenderly as to a little child. He was told that if he wanted to come up out of tha water he was to give the tube which is attached to the head- covering a sharp pull. Next day was the great day, and Paddy started with joy in his heart. He was lowered into the water, but lo ! scarcely had he been down two minutes before he was pulling the tube to be brought up. They pulled him up like lightning. "What's up — what's up?" queried the master. Paddy LSI "Oh, begorra!" said Paddy, "I'm up, au' I iutiiid to remam up ! I couldn't find the place where ye get your breath from. How far is it from thisi^" 'How many ducks did you kill, PatP" "Faith, an' Oi didn't get a chance to shoot at thim." "Found none at all, eh?" "Oi found pliuty. That's the throuble— there wor too mauny." "Too many? Why, how's that?" "Sure, iv'ry toime Oi took aim at wan, three or four more of the cratures would come shwimmin' in between and shpoil it." Two Irishmen were discussing various books they had read. "Have you read 'The Eternal City?'" "I have." "Have you read Marie Corelli's works?" "I have that." "Have you read ' Looking Backwards? '" "How the divil could I do that?" The same two Irishmen were arguing who was the cleverer. "Well," said Pat, "I'll bet you can't tell me what keeps bricks together." "Shure, " said Mike, "it's mortar." "No," said Pat, "you are wrong; that keeps them apart." "When do you go on?" asked the saucy soubrette at the music hall. "Immediately after the trained donkeys," re- plied the Irish comedian. "Good gracious! It's a wonder the stage-mauager doesn't tiy and break the monotony mor.> than he does." Like the majority of Irishmen, Edmund Burke was ever ready with his retort, and on one occasion at least he scored heaArily. He had been attacking the Government one night 'u the House of Commons very fiercely for a policy which, it was well known, was strongly advocated and approved by no less a personage than the King himself. Stung by Burke's biting sarcasm, George Onslow, a supporter of the Government, rose and said that the hon. member really had gone too far; he had deliberately insulted the Sovereign. I3urke listened to this with due reverence, and then gravely addressed the Speaker — "Sir, the hon. member lias exhibited much ardour but little discretion. He should know that, however I may 182 Irish Life and Humour reverence the King, I am not at all bound, nor at all inclined, to extend that reverence to his ministers. I may honour His Majesty, but, sir, I see uo possible reason for honouring" — and he glanced round the Treasury bench — "His Majesty's man-servant and maid-servant, his ox or his ass!" Pat was going out to see the races, and Bridget was giving him the finishing touch with the clothes brush. "Pat," said she, "an' it's yerself that'll be took for a jintleman." "Thin bejabers," said Pat, "if it's pick-pockets that does they'll find I'm poor Pat wid wan bob in my pooch." The foreman of a Sheffield cutlery works reprimanded &n Irishman for coming late to work. "How is it, Pat, you did not get to work this morning before nine o'clock?" "Shura, sir, I dramed last night I was at the football match, which ended in a draw, and the referee ordered an extra half-hour to be played, and, begorra, I only stopped to see the finish." At the Irish International football match a man was sitting beside a Hibernian, who shouted — "Bowld fellow, Barney Pyper; me lad, ye'U be afther showin' thim Irish." "But," the man remonstrated, "that's kicking the man ; not the ball. ' Taking the cork out of a half-mutchkiu bottle, Paddy gazed at his neighbour in a benevolent manner, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, winked, and raised the bottle. The rapidity with which the contents sank showed he was an expert. Re- placing the cork, he said — "Me young friend, whin ye be done with cuttin' yer wisdim teeth ye'U uudherstand there be more ways than wan of playin' football. lu Oirland there is three ways — Rugby, Association, an' Celtic. Now, me friend, m Rugby you kick tlie bnll, ini Association you kick the man if ye can't kick the ball, and in Celtic ye kick the ball if ye can't kick the man. That lasht same is what they do be playin'." As he was a big, powerful man the other fellow thought his argument was unanswerable. One day a traveller, while passing a fann in Dublin, entered into coDiVersation with an old Irishman who was engaged in the Paddy 183 busiaess of poult 17-reariiig. He expressed surprise at the use of so much meal at feeding time, aud suggested that it should be mixed with sawdust, insisting that the fowls would not know the difference. A few mouths later the traveller .raa again in the district, and he asked the Irislmian if the new diet had been tried, and what the result had been. "It works beautifully, " was the reply. "See that old j-ellow hen ? Well, I tried her on half-and-half, and she liked it so well I changed it to all sawdust, aud the last time she hatched three of the chickens had wooden legs, and a fourth was a woodpecker!" A gentleman had engaged an Irishman as a gardener. One day when the gentleman came out Pat was hard at work raking leaves in front of the house. A strong wind was blowing at the time, and Pat, instead of raking in the direction the wind was blowing, raked against it, with the result that the leaves were all blown back again. The gentleman remonstrated with Pat, and told him he ought to rake the leaves with the wind, meaning, of course, in the dii-oction the wind was blowing. "Be jabers, " replied Pat, "I always rake leaves with a rake." A commercial traveller sauntered into a clothier's shop, and finding the proprietor busy with a customer, leaned against a pile of clothing and waited. Suddenly the pile toppled over and fell to the floor. He hastily began to rearrange the goods, remarking, as he did so: "Well, Mr. Smith, you see clothing has had quite a fall." As I\Ir. Smith kept on working, he added, "And my business is picking up." Commonplace as tlie remark was, it made a great impression upon an Irishman wlio happened to be standing by. "Bcgorra, " he muttered, "that's a foine jokd. Oi'U got that off on some one before night." With the joke still fresh in his mind he sauntered over to the shop of a ]\Ir. Levy, also a clothier, chuckling as he went along. "Aha, Mr. Levy, it's a foine joke Oi do be after hfnring," ho said; "wait till Oi show yo." Seizing a pile of fine goods he threw them on tlie floor, which was none of the cleanest. Levy became indignant. "Vol's der matter mid 184 Irish Life and Huynoiir you, anyhow? Vos you grazy?" he shouted. "No; it's a joke Oi'd be after illusthratia', but Oi'll be blessed if it aiu't clean escaped me. " Levy piled the goods laboriously upou the table, gi'umbliug all the time, while Pat stood cogitatiug. Suddenly he cried: "Be jabers, Oi hev it now!" With a vigorous push he sent the goods to the floor a second time, crying: "Oi hev it! Clothing's cheaper than it used ter be, and business is getting a site better. How's that for a joke?" Pat wondered why he was ejected with such rapidity, and Levy hasn't seen the point of the joke to this day. An English sportsman was invited by an Ii'ish friend to visit the land of the shamrock for a few days' shooting. The gun- room was short of an attendant, and a man-of-all-work was deputed to load for the new-comer. The latter, with his first shot, hit a bird on the wing, which fell at the attendant's feet. "Faith," he exclaimed, "ye might have saved yer honour's powder an' shot!" "Why so?" asked the Englishman. "Sure," repued the attendant, "a fall like that wud kill the biggest burd alive!" "Your wife is always hard at work, and you seem to be always idling. Do you ever do anything to support your home ?" asked a lady who was district visiting. " Yus, Oi leans agin it!" was the reply. The party in the smoking-room of the steamer was talking of Irish wit and the quickness thereof. Several gave personal experiences, and one man, to his sorrow, tried to use an oil story. Then spoke the agent for an exporting house. "I was coming up the South Americiiu coast on a sailing ship last winter," he said, "when this happened. There was a Nor- wegian in the crew who ivas absolutely fearless aloft. He did a number of tricks for us one afternoon, and as a grand finale stood on his head on the top of the mainmast. We held our bi-eaths until he swung himself back into the rigging. ' I would like to see any of you do that,' he boasted when he reached the deck. 'I can do it,' said a little Irishman, one of the kind Paddy 185 who will never be 'stumped.' 'I can do it,' and forthwith lie started up the mast. We could see from the way he climbed that he knew nothing of moving about aloft, and the captain yelled at him through the megaphone to come down before he killed himself. He howled back that he was going to stand on his head first. He reached the crosstretes, and was actually putting his heels into the air when the ship rolled and down he came. We held our breaths again. Fortunately, he struck in the sag of a loose sail, bounded off, and reached the deck on his feet. 'I'd like to see any of you do that! ' he cried, even before he had recovered from the shock. ' I'd like to see you ! ' " An Irishman said to some friend who had been asking conundrums — "What burrud is it that has a long beak, stands first on one leg and then on the otlier, has a neck like an ostrich — and — and — and barks like a dogP" They all thought, but finally gave it up, one of them saying — "A stork is some- thing like that, but " "That's it. That's it!" said Pat. "But a stork doesn't bark like a dog," they declared. "I know it," exclaimed Pat. "I put that in so that it would bo harder." "The Finnigans must hov had a grand toime at th' parthy lasht nioight," said Mrs. Grogan to her neighbour. "Did Bridget Finnigan tell ye so?" asked the neighbour. "Nivir a whishper, " was the reply; "but she sint over this ninrnin' early t' bony th' loan av me bottle of arnicky. " "An' how did ye in joy St. Patrick's Day ?" queried Muldoon of his friend. "Foine," was the answer. "We cracked Casey's skull in th' mamin', an' attindcd his wake in rh' avenin'." One day an Englishman and Irishman were bragging as uo who could see the farthest distance. "Well," said the Englisa- man, "on fine days I can see a distance of thirty mik^s." "Is that all ! " cried the Colt. "On fine nights I can see the moon, and its millions of miles away." An Englishman was rowing against an Irishman in a sculling N 186 Irish Life and Ilumour race at Yarmouth Regatta. The Englishman was winning i-o easily that he stopped two or three times and shouted to Paddy to come along. After the race everyone was chaffing Paddy on the beating he had received from the Englishman, but he simply shrugged his shoulders, and remarked, "If I had had as many rests as he had I could have beat him quite easily. " A certain football club, with one win to its credit as ch^> result of a season's work, found itself in financial difficulties. In order if possible to reduce the club's indebtedness the com- mittee organised a "grand carnival," as the bills had it. A cycle procession round the streets was followed by various sports on the football field. In connection with the latter an fsmusing incident occurred. The interval between a couple of events on the programme was enlivened by the sudden appear- ance of an Irislunan, a well-known supporter of the club. Spick and span in national costume, Pat sat in a low buggy behind a couple of donkeys, driving tandem. Pat bore a lot of good- humoured chaff, but the captain of the football team went h step too far. "You're in good company, Pat," he shouted. "Three of a tribe!" "Tlirue for you," instantly returned Pat. "Sure Oi've long wanted to see a good team on this field, an', be jabers, Oi've had to bring wan mesilf at the finish!" The loss by the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland of his Viceregal dignity and honours from the very moment that he sets foot in England was amusingly illustrated on one occasion whaa Lord Crewe, while Viceroy of Ireland, found himself a fellow- passenger with the Duchess of Devonshire on the trip from Kingstown to Holvhead. Lord Crewe was seated on a reserved portion of the deck between the two paddle-boxes when be caught sight of the duchess, and, with a condescending wave of the hand, signed to her that she might take a vacant chair beside him. The duchess, who had known him since he was {> little boy, remembered that while in Irish waters, and even as long as he trod the decks of the Irish mail steamer, he remaiiDed Viceroy, and was entitled to Royal honours. Indee-l, Paddy 18? she was quite deferential to him throughout the trip across; and it was ouly when they reached Holyhead, and when they were going down the gang-plank of fhe steamer together, that she suddenly exclaimed, in a very sharp and peremptory tone, as if she were talking to a lad of no cousequence : "And now, Bobbie, just take hold of this bag, run on as fast as you can ahead, like a good boy, and see that I have a compartment reserved for me!" "Brace up, man!" said Moouey to his friend Hogan. "Troth, ye luk as if ye didn't hov a fri'nd in th' whole wur'rld. " "Oi hovn't," replied Hogan. "G'wau," said Mooney. "If it ain't money ye want t' borry Oi'm as good a fri'nd as iver ye had." An Irishman, while walking with a friend passed a jeweller's shop wjiei-e there was a lot of precious stones in the window. "Would you not like to have your pick?" asked Pat. "Not me pick, but me shovel," said JNlike. "I notice you don't have as many fights with Orangeman 'm St. Patrick's Day as you used to," said an observant English- man to O'HooIihan. "No, sorr," replied O'HooIihan. "We hov pliuty to do now foightin' among oursilTCS. " An Irish labourer, who was "touring" the couutiy, picking up a job here and there to enable him "to pay for his bed," aa he expressed it, one day called at a fannhouse to see if he could get employment. The fanner surveyed his mani all over, being a bit doubtful of his farming abilities, then asked him if I.e had ever done any work on a faim. " Yis, be jabers! " "Can you make a drill?" "Drill, be hanged! Do you think Oi've been in the mihtia for three years without having leanit ^o di-ill?" There was an Irishman who on going to America was full of homesick brag, in which nothing in America even approached things of a similar variety in Ireland. In speaking of the bees of the ould sod he grew especially roseate, and said — "Wliy, the baze in lliat couutliry is twite as big as in this, bcdad. 1S8 Irish Life and humour Indade, they're bigger than that — they're as big as the sheep ye have in this counthry!" "Bees as big as sheep!" said biia incredulous listener. "Why, what kind of hives do they hav3 to keep them in?" "No bigger than the ones in this counthry," was the reply. "Then how do the bees get into the hives?" he was asked. "Well," replied the Irishman, "that's there own lookout!" "I intend to pray that you may forgive Casey for having thrown that brick at you," said the parson when he called to see a man who had been worsted in a melee. "Mebbe yer riv'rence 'ud be saving toime if ye'd just wait till Oi git well, an' then pray for Casey," rephed the patient. "So ye wur foined £1 fur assaultin' Clanty, " remarked Mr. Rafferty. "I wor, " replied Mr. Dolan; "an' it wor a proud moment when I heard the sintiuce. " "For what rayson? ' "It showed beyond a doubt which man had the best iv tha contest." "Well, Pat, did you fight that duel with Simpson that you threatened .P" inquired Frisbie. "Oi did not, sorr, " replied Patrick. "You weren't afraid, were you.^" "Oi wuz not, sorr; but, ye see, Oi am a portly mon an' Simpson is thin." "Well.?" "Well, sorr, Oi thought it would only be fair >r me t' shtand nearer t' him than him t' me whoile we wnz shootin', sorr; but the second wouldn't listen to it, an' so there wuz no duel." "I hear your son Mike has gone into literature," said Mrs. Casey to her neighbour. "So he has. He's got a job as door- keeper in a library," replied INIrs. Clancy, proudly. The world was ringing with the news of the wonderful Land Bill, and what it was going to do for the Irish peasantry ; but still poor old Michael O'Rooney smiled not as he surveyed his almost hopelessly waterlogged fields, for which recent heavy rains had done their worst. Presently his landlord came riding past. "Well, Mike," said he, "you will soon be rid of me altogether now that you are to have the Land Bill. I suppose Paddy 189 you are delighted P " But Michael said uever a word. "Why, don't you approve of the idea?" continued the landowner. "Surely you don't see anything wrong with it?" "Nothing much, sir," the man answered, casting a patient eye over his submerged acres — "nothing much, except the title." "The title!" the landloi-d exclaimed. "Why, what's wrong with that?" "Well, yer honour," replied Mike, "so far as my holding goes, I'd as lief call it a ' Water Bill' ! " A Dublin firm once advertised for a commercial traveller, and, out of the numerous applicants for the post, selected an individual who had plenty of confidence but very little ex- perience. He started out on his journeyings, and nothing was heard of him for a week. Then a lotter came: "I have not succeeded in obtaining any orders yet, but have had a long interview with the principal of ^lessrs. Brown Bros. This, I flatter myself, is a feather in my cap, as he is a veiy difficult man to get at. " Three days passed, no order came, but another in which the ambassador of commerce "plumed" himself on the fact that he had talked to the secretary of a large company for two hours. Yet another week rolled by, and the traveller wrote claiming another feather iuj lus cap on the strength of an interview with the managing dii-ector of a syndicate, and asking for more cash. The firm wrote him as follows: "Dear Sir, — We have received your letter, and note your request for money. We are not enclosing any, but, noting that you have a good many feathers in your cap, we should advise you to make them into a pair of white wings, and fly home." It was at a small school in Kilkenny, and the village pedagogue was doing his best to elicit the meaning of the word "conscience" from his attentive, but somewhat dull-headed pupils. "Now, boys," said the genial old master, "suppose one of you stole a piece of sugar from the basin and popped it in your mouth, and mother came in, what would happen?" Small boy: "Get a lickin', sorr. " "Yes, T suppose fo. But your face would become red, wouldn't it?" Chorus: "Yis, 190 Irish Life and Humour Borr. " "And what is it that makes your face turn red?" queried the master, thinking he had gained his point. But the small boy answered with a solemn look : ' ' Troyin' to shwallow the sugar quick, sorr. " After a recent International match at Cardiff between Ireland and Wales, when Wales won by 18 points to 0, a street urchin met one of the Irish players, and asked him if he would buy a mourning band for poor Old Ireland. "No, thanks," was the reply, "I have just come from the funeral." Billings was spending his holidays in rest and quiet at a little Irish town boarding-housie. He was peaceful and happy, but much tormented by flies when he sought repose out of doors. "Wliat do you mean," he demanded, "by stretching your hammock in that fly-haunted field of torture you call a lawn?" "Oi"m sorry!" answered Michael, who was the man- of-all-work. "But ye ought to use the hammock durin' the hammock hours, and you'd have no throuble from the floies. " "What are hammock hours?" "From noon till two be the clock. " "Why are there no flies around the hammock between twelve and two?" "Och!" rejoined Mike. "Shure, at that toime they're all busy in the dinin'-room!" An) Irishman in low circumstances having had £5 bequeathed him by a deceased relative, and the amount being to him con- siderable, decided for safety to place it in the savings bank. When leaving after depositing tlie money he collided with a young man entering, who, raising his hat, said politely — "I beg your pardon, sir." "An-ah," said Pat, "don't apologise. Man, sure, I was poor meself once." The contractor of a large building in course of erection in Edinburgh, while making a round of inspection one morning, suddenly came upon a bricklayer's labourer comfortably seated on a barrel, smoking a very black short pipe with evident enrjoy- ment. "Here, my man," exclaimed the contractor, "why are you putting off your time in this way?" "Oi'm kapein' a lookout fur that spalpeen of a gaffer, whilst Oi get a whilf," Paddy 191 replied the ram. "But dou't you know I'm the master on this jobP" asked the contractor. "By me sowl an' I didn't, but now that I do, shure it's yerself will be another of thim I shall have to be afther watchin', " said Pat, resuming his hod- carr}-ing operations. "So you're goin' to make yer b'y a musician," said 1 .rs. RafFerty. "I am," answered Mr. Dolan. "I'm goin' ty have 'm learnt ty play the clar'net." "Why don't ye learn 'ini the vi'lin.'^ It's the graanxl iusthrmnent it is." "Because I want 'im ty have eviery advantage. A vi'lin's a graand insthru- ment and makes fine music ; but a clar'net is a heap more ty be depinded on in a scrimmage." There had been a slight shock of earthquake, and Mr. Dooley and Mr. Dolan had both felt it. "Tim," said Mr. Dolan solemnly, "what did you think whin firrst the ground began to trimble?" "'Think!'" echoed his friend scornfully. "What man that had the use av his legs to run and his loongs to roar would waste his toime thinkin' ? Tell me thot!" "If I were not an Englishman," said Smith patronisingly, "I should wish to be an Irishman." "Indade?" exclaimed O'Brien. "Faith, if Oi was not an Irishman, Oi'd wish Oi was one." Captain Williams, a jovial Irishman, known everywhere as "Bob," used to be a favourite in certain circles. His stories were famous. Give him an incident, and he would set it out to the general admiration. One evening he began telling the true tale of rescuing a lady and her daughters from a dangerous situation, into which tlieir spirited horses had brought them. "I quieted the ladies," said he, "and I quieted the horses. And the gratitude of the ladies! Me boys, I shouldn't be sur- prised if her ladyship left me " At that moment a little Irish page in livery appeared. "Sir," said he, "Lady A says she lost her purse when ye helped her out of the carriage ; and, plaze, she says, do ye know anything about it?" Tlio captain's story was never finished. 192 Irish Life and Humour Two gentlemen, neighbours, on the morning of St. Patrick's Day were giving their reasons for wearing the shamrock. "I am weariu,' it," said one, a true son of Erin, "in honour of St. Patrick and the land that gave me birth." "Well, I'm not an Irishman," responded the other, "and I wear the shamrock merely to show that I appreciate tiie gallant deeds of plucky Irishmen." At that moment the last speaker's little son put in an appearance with a sprig of shamrock in liLs buttonhole. "Hullo, Johnny!" remarked his father, "and why are you wearing the shamrock?" "Because Micky M " (the son of the neighbour present) "said he'd break my head if I didm't!" was Johnny's unexpected reply. Some time ago, while on a holiday, cycling in Ireland, a young man saw a curious sight. Turning a bend in the road, he saw a collection of household furniture scattered in every direction outside the door of a small cabin. In the midst of this scene of disorder sat an old woman. It led him to believe that an eviction had taken place. Full of sympathy, he dis- mounted, and, placing a few silver coins in her hand, asked why she was evicted. "Ah, shure, sir," said she, after pocket- ing the money, "Pat is whitewashin' to-day!" Everybody had enrjoyed themselves at the party, for like every Irish festive gathering it had ended, according to the decrees of conventionality, in a fight, and the sequel was now being fought out before a magistrate. The witness for the prosecution, who had a lump over one eye, a black and blue spot under the other, a nose that pointed decidedly awry, and various strips of courtplaster on his face evidently arranged without any regard to tneir artistic effect, testified that the defendant had knocked him senseless and then kicked him in the head and face for several minutes. "If he knocked you senseless," asked the magistrate, "how do you know he kicked you after you were down.P" The witness scratched his jaw and reflected. "I know it, yer honour," he replied "'cause Paddy 193 that's what I'd 'a' done to him, the playbhoy, if I'd got him down, an/ I'm sure he'd sarve me the same way entoirely!" Pat had come over from the "old counthry" to make his fortune, as so many of his compatriots had done before him. He had read all about Dick Whittington, Carnegie, P. Morgan, and others, who liad climbed the ladders to fame and wealth from the bottom round, and had set his heart on doing likewise. Still, he was not too ambitious. Two thousand pounds was the sum he fixed upon as the summit of his aspirations. There- fore, after having been told that he could "start" on a job the following Monday morning as a hodman, he mused some- what as follows: "There's two ways of doin' it if I'd loike to see me two thousand pounds. I must lay by two hundred pounds a year for ten years, or I must put away twenty pounds a year for wan hundred years! Now, which shall I do?" A grimy working-man entered a small railway station in Ireland and hammered industriously for some minutes at what he took to be the ticket-hole of the booking-ofSce. But the train rumbled in, though still the ticket-clerk did not appear; and the workman commenced to make a noise. "Hallo! and fer whoi are ye making yer row, anyway?" inquired a porter who was passing. "Shure haven't I been waitiru' here tin minutes for a ticket, and I haven't got it yet!" growled the workman. "Troth, an' you'd betther go to the bookin'-office, hadi^t you? You can't get a ticket here, me bhoy. This is the station-masther's dove-cote!" An enterprising insurance agent induced an Irishman to take out an accident policy for his wife. A few days later, while conversing with a friend in his office, he was startled to see the Irishman rush in, brandishing fiercely a stout stick. "You rascal," he yelled, springing towards the agent, "you want to cheat me!" Fortunately the enraged man was disarmed and held fast by the agent's friend, who was a powerfully-built man. "Let me git at the spalpeen!" shouted the Irishman. "Think of it — chargiii' me a pound for insuring me ole woman agin 194 Irish Life and Humour acoidients, an' she jest broke her leg a-falliu' downstairs 1 What'a the good of the ticket, anyhow?" An Irish gentleman's servant, who was very hard to please, called at the village grocer's one day to choose a piece of oheiese for the kitchen. With an air of some importance, she asked to taste some cheese. First one and then another were brought forward, until she had tasted half-a-dozen different sorts, but she hked none of them. At length the shopman, fairly ruffled, could stand it no longer, so putting his iron into a bar of mottled soap which was under the counter, he, with all the politeness at his commanid, ofPered a piece to her, re- marking, "This is the best I can do for you." She took a sharp chew at it, and with a frown she made for the door. The orders for cheese are now sent by post. "Come home an' teck supper wid me, Flaninigan, " said Mr. Brannigan to his companion. "Shure, " repli>ed the com- panion, "it's past yer supper time, now; yer wife'U be mad as a hatter. " That's jist it, " replied Brannigan ; "she can't lick the two of us." A certain Irish sailor, who had been employed for many years on a coasting "tramp," found that he was out of work on one occasion, and so he toured the rural parts of Cormemara to find if anyone would employ him. At length, in sheer despair, he accosted a farmer, and begged him to give him anything in the way of a job. "But, " said the farmer, " phwat can ye do on a farm?" "Och," replied the man, "I'm a handy sort of a chap. I can do a hand's turn at anything. Just thry me, and see." The farmer, being a kindly soul, had pity on him. "D'ye see them sheep in that field? Well, if ye bring them all up inside this walled place I will pey ye a good round sum. " The sailor set to work with a will, and the farmer, returning a couple of hours afterwards, found to his pleasant surprise that all the sheep were safely enfolded, but that the sailor was leaning wearily again^^t the wall, wiping the heavy perspiration from his brow. "Ye did it well," said Paddy 195 the farmer. "But why on earth have ye put that hare with the sheep?" "A hare is it? Is lu'b what you call the little spalpeen ? I can tell you that he gev me more throuble gettin' him inside than all the rest of the bigger things put together!" It was onie of those country funerals in Scotland where most of the males in the district, attired in sombre black, tile hat, and white tie, had turned out to pay the last tribute of respect to the deceased. As the mourners wended their way to the place of interment they were met by a group of Hibernians newly over for the harvest operations (one evidently for the first time). These ranged themselves by the wayside, respect- fully doffing their caps. Just as the cortege had passed them, those in the rear visibly relaxed their features as they overheard one remark, "Well, now, did yez ever in all your life see a funeral wid so many clargy?" A lady who had been travelling abroad was describing an Irishwoman whom she met. "She was so refined, so well- educated!" she said. "Why, she was so careful in avoiding all temptations to brogue that she invariably called the crater of Mount Vesuvius 'the creature '!" An Irisliman wanted to sell a dog, but the prospective buyer was suspicious, and finally decided not to buy. The man then told him why he was so anxious to sell. "You see," he said, "I bought the dog and thrained him meself. I got him so he'd bark all the toime if a person stepped inside the gate, and thought I was safe from burglars. Then me woife wanted me to thrain him to can-y bundles — and I did. If you put any- thing into his mouth the spalpeen'd keep it there till someone took it away. "Well, one night I woke up and heard some- one in the next room. I got up an' grabbed me gun. They were there, three of the blaggards and the dog. " "Didn't he bark?" interrupted the man. "Sorra a bark, he was too busy." "Busy! What doing?" "Carrying the lanthcrn for the burglars!" A passenger in a Belfast tramcar, feeling that q\\& of his 196 Irish Life and Humour boots troubled him a great deal, took it off and Bat in his stocking-foot. This gave umbrage to an old swell sitting opposite, who complained of the offence it was to the ladies in the car. The boot, however, was not replaced, and nothing more was said on either side. But when the remonstrant quitted the car, he contrived to pick vip the boot and carry it away with him unperceived of his victim, who, when he got ready in turn to teave the car, looked for his boot in vain. The last that was seien of him, as the car passed on, was him hopping on on© foot across the muddy street, uttering language which, though fully equal to the occasion, was somewhat too objurga- tory for repetition in print. The other passengers were divided in opiuion as to whether it was a kindness or not to carry off a boot which was too tight for its wearer. An Irishwoman was looking at refrigerators in a house- furnishing establishment. After inquiring iiiito the merits and qualities of a number of them, she purchased the one that the salesman assured her would keep food the best. Some days afterwards the woman called and requested them to take that refrigerator back, as it would not keep anything better than in the old-fashioned meat-safe in the larder. The salesman mildly suggested that possibly she had not put enough ice in it to keep the things cold. "Enough ice in it? Why, is it crazy, ye arre ? I didn't put anny ice in it. Shure anything will keep cowld if you put ice in it. I bought the refrigerator so as I wouldn't need the ioe. " "Yes," said Mrs. O'FIannigan, "me husband's a wonderful man indade. Sure, he can do anything ye like, and can mend clocks better than any of yer jewellers. There's a man for ye ! " "Mend clocks, can he?" interjected Mrs. O'Dougald. "Sure, I didn't know that." "Bedad, I should think he could!" con- tinued Mrs. O'FIannigan. "Sure, Mrs. O'Brien, didn't he mend your cuckoo clock so that it keeps beautiful time now?" "That he did, Mrs. O'FIannigan," said Mrs. O'Brien. "Ho Padity 19? mended it till its got only one single fault now; sure it ' oos ' before it 'cucks'." In connection with a motor race for the Gordon-Bennett cup a good tale is told of an Irish "jarvey's" gratitude. A visitor was informed that no tip, however large, would be con- sidered enough. To maKe the test thorough he gave the man a so\Tereign. "That's for yourself, " he said, "to buy a drink. " The jarvey looked at it pathetically and said nothing. "Isn't it enough?" asked the visitor, and then the jai'\'ey's gratitude broke out. " 'Twould be a shame," he said, "to break upon that bonny piece for the price of a dhrink! Maybe ye've as many coppers about ye as 'ull pay for a glass for me?" A clever ruse adopted by a Dublin newspaper boy in order to secure a speedy sale of his papers is described iu a letter a Scotsman received from a friend residing in that city. A short time after the termination of a great motor race a crowd might have been seen standing around this newspaper vendor gazing somewhat ruefully at a bill affixed to the pave- ment announcing the victory of the Gemaan. Owing to that fact trade was a trifle depressed, and in order to arouse the curiosity of the onlookers somewhat the lad remarked — "Shure, and the Germans are goin' to get into a foine row over this raoe. They placed somethin' on the road that preventit the rest of them from winnin. " "Wliat was that?" excitedly asked the crowd in a chorus. "Shure an' it'll tell yez all about it in here," said the young Hibernian slyly, indicating his bundle of unsold papers. In about as short a time as it takes to tell it his stock was exhausted ; and during the ensuing search he discreetly withdrew. The search to find the startling piece of information hinted at was snort, and evidently unsatis- factory. "You young scamp," shouted one of the victims after the retreating figure, "there's no word here of anything l)eing placed on the road to keep the other from winning." "Bedad, an' it's there all roight, " was the response; "it wor 198 Irish Life and Humour that German chap on his motor caur I was manin' all the toime." "Stand up, M'Nutty, " said the police magistrate. "Are you guilty or not guilty?" "Faith, an' it's mesilf as can't tell thot till Oi hear th' ividence, " replied M'Nutty. After the evidence had been led M'Nutty said — "If you please, your lianner, 01 wud like to withdraw my plea of ' Not guilty ' an' put in a plea of ' Guilty.'" "Th«n why didn't you plead ' Guilty ' in tlie first place auid save aU this trouble?" queried the judge. "Sure, your banner," said tbe prisoner, "Oi had not heard the iWdence ! ' ' In the Dublin Police Court, the magistrate addressing the prisoner said: "AVhat are you?" "Dhock labourer," was the reply. "Whoi, " exclaimed a couBtable, "he's scarcely ever out of prison, your hahner. " "Hould yer tongue!" said the prisoner. "Oi'm always sintenced ter hard labour in this dhock ! So, begorra, if Oi ain't a dhock labourer, what am Oi, shure?" "What's the charge, constable?" queried the magistrate. "Attimpted suicide, sor, " was the reply. "State the particu- lars," said the judge. "Well, he wanted to foight me, sor," repKed the constable. Senator Mason tells this story: "Out in Chicago we have a police justice who was formerly a bar-tender. Mary Mulcahy was up before him for drunkenness on the occasion of his first appearance on the bench. The justice looked at her for a minute, and then said, sternly : ' Well, what are you here for ? ' ' Plase, yer honor,' said Mary, ' the copper pulled me, sayin' as how I was drunk. An' yer honor, I don't drinik, I don't driuik.' 'All right,' said the justice, unconsciously dropping into his old habits. 'All right, Mary; have a cigar.'" A lawyer was instructed by an Irishman to recover a debt of £30. He charged £15 for his services, and, on handing th© remaining £15 to Pat, said — "I am your friend; I cannot charge you my full fee. I knew your father well. " Pat, heav- Paclchj 1D9 ing a sigh as he pocketed the £15, rephed, "How fortunate you didu't know my graudfather. " It was out in the Far West. John Connor had just received a missive summoning him before the local judicial luminary for assaulting one Pete Haynes. He was in a quandary, and, being so, thought he would consiilt ]\Ir. Tirell, the only lawy¥>r the district could boast. Fortunately the man of law was at home, but, unfortunately, he had to act in an important case at a town some distance away on the day when Mr. Connor would be arraigned. "But what am I to do, sur.^" John plead- ingly asked. "Provie an alibi, man," Mr. Tirrell said, curtly. "An Alley Boy, sur.?" "Yes, show that you were at some other place when the assault took place." After racking his brains, which (he not being overburdened in that respect) did not take \^ry long, John thought he could manage it. He had a mate in a distant settlement who, he said, would stand by him. The lawyer told him that formality was one of the essentials to success ; and having imparted to him instructions as to how he was to proceed, so as to appear most impressi^Te at the hearing of the case, John took his departure with a much lighter heart. The eventful day arrived. The evidence for the prosecution, which seemed absolutely conclusive, had terminated, and all eyes were fixed on John. Slowly and solemnly he rose, stri\'ing to combine an air of injured innocence with that of dignified unconcern, and in an impressive voice said — "Call Ted Lane!" A rough, uncouth figure, who was dreamily looking at the bald head of the dispenser of justice, rose from a seat next to John himself, and took the oath. John, having managed to get proper hold of his voice, com- menced : — "Your name is " "Ted Lane, sor. " "You live a good distance from here?" "About fifty miles, sor." "You understand the nature of the oath you ve taken?" "I do, sor." "You have heard the ividence given of an assault on I'ttte Haynes outside the White Hart?" "I've heard it, sor." "You h.ive known me for a long time, and you can 200 Irish Life and Mumouf swear to me identity?" "Oh, that I can, sor. " "You remember the day of the alliged occurrence?" "Yes, sor." "Now, remember you are on your oath, au' state the whole truth and uothin' but the truth." "Yes, sor." "Where was I whin I struck Pete Haynes outside the White Hart?" It was a negligence case, and a good humoured Irislmian was a witness. The judge, lawyers and all the rest were trying their best to extract from the Irishman something about the speed of a train. "Was it going fast?" asked the judge. "Aw, yis, it were," answered the witness. "How fast?" "Oh, purty fasht, your honour." "Well, how fast?" "Aw, purty fasht." "Was it as fast as a man can run?" "Aw, yis," glad that the basis for an analogy was supplied; "as fasht as two min kin rum." In the days when Irish Home Rulers needed to be cautious in their utterances, a Galway gentleman named Martin made a political speech in which some strong passages occurred, and the reporter underlined them. Upon the plea of privilege, the printer of the paper was called to the bar, but offered to prove that the report was an exact transcript of the member's words. "That may be so," said Martin; "but did I spake them in italics?" Serjeant Thomas Gould, whose name was pronounced as if written "Gold," was a contemporary at the Irish Bar of Daniel O'Connell. He and Dan, although diametrically opposed in politics, were fast friends. He was frequently rallied upon his "unhoused free condition," and it was only when approaching his eightieth year that he decided to put himself "in circum- scription and confine" by marrying a very young girl. This resolve he communicated to Dan in a letter, concluding with a couplet — "So you see, my dear Dan, that, though eighty years eld, A girl of eighteen fell in love with old Gould." To this O'Connell immediately replied. Paddy 201 "That a girl of eighteen may love Gould, it is true, But, believe me, dear Tom, it is gold without ' u.'" An Irishman, who had had the misfortune to get hit with a brick while following his employment, engaged a lawj-er to put in a claim for £25. The claim was granted, and in a short time the lawyer sent for Pat. Pat went to the lawyer's ofBce, and got £10, but stood looking at it in his hand. " What 3 the matter.^" said the law^-er. "Begorra," said Pat, "I was just wondering who got hit with the brick — you or I." A young and newly-fledged member of the Bar visited a successful K.C. and requested his advice as to the best general course to pursue in building up a practice. The other gave him some good hints, and added, "Aoove all, keep up your fees. Don't work cheap. If you do, people will think you're good lor nothing." "But, sir, nobody will pay my fees, and I shall die of starvation. " "Oh, well, you must expect to die for a while ; but after that you'll be all right!" ]Many readers will remember the action which Mr. William O'Brien brought against the late Lord Salisbury. The first question put to the plaintiff by Sir Edward Clarke in cross- examination was: "You have called Mr. Balfour a murderer, I believer'" Mr. O'Brien explained, "I referred to his myrmidons, mot to himself." "What do you mean?" asked the learned counsel. Said Mr. O'Brien, in reply, "I will tell you. In accordance with his telegram, ' Don't hesitate to shoot,' a poor young man was run through the back with a bayonet." "It wasiVt me husband at all that hit me, yer honour, an' Oi liope ye'll let him go," said Mrs. M'Grath. "Do you mean to say you lied before when j'ou testified that he did hit you ?" queried the judge. "Shure, Oi had no cause to lie then, but Oi hov now, that's the truth," was the answer. .1. Philpot Curran has hinisielf told the story of his rise out of poverty and squalor inito wealtli and fame. That rise took place O 202 Irish Life and Humour iu Dubliu, where he fouud himself without brief or prospects, but with a wife and family to support. He tells the story with rare humour and succinctness: "I then lived," said he, "upon Hog Hill ; my wife and children were the chief furniture of my apartments; and as to my rent, it stood pretty much the same chance of liquidation as the national debt. ]\Irs. Curran, however, was a barrister's lady, and what was wanted in wealth, she well determined should be supplied by dignity. The laud- lady, on the other hand, had no idea of any gradation except that of pounds, shillings, and pence. I walked out one morn- ing to avoid the pei-petual altercations on the subject, with my mind, you may imagine, in no veiy enviable temperament. 1 fell into the gloom to which from my infancy I had been occa- sionally subject. I had a family for whom I had no dinner, and a landlady for whom I had no rent. I had gone abroad \n despondence ; I returned home almost in desperation. When I opened the door of my study, where Lavater alone could have found a library, the first object which presented itself was an immense folio of a brief, twenty golden guineas wrapped up beside it, and the name of old Bob Lyons marked upon the back of it ; I paid my landlady, bought a good dinner, gave Bob Lyons a share of it ; and that dinner was the date of my prosperity!" Once — only once — in Currau's early days a judge had the temerity to taunt him with his poverty. Curran replied with spirit, and after he had proceeded some length the judge said : "Sir, you are forgetting the respect which you owe to the dignity of the judicial character." "Dignity!" exclaimed Curran. "My Lord, upon that point I shall cite you a case from a book of some authority, with which, perhaps, you are not acquainted." He then briefly related 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 it, but the man had carried it off. Curran thus drove home the tale: "So, Paddy 203 my Lord, when the person entrusted with tlie dignity of the judgment-seat lays it aside for a moment to enter into a dis- graceful personal contest, it is in vain, when he has been worsted in the encounter, that he seeks to resume it — it is in Tain that he tries to shelter himself behind an authority which he has abandoned." "If you say another word, I'll commit you," replied the angry judge. To wliich Mr. C retorted: "If your Lordship shall do so, we shall both of us have the con- solation of reflecting that I am not the worst thing that your Lordship has committed." Curran on occasions made some most curious defences. A correspondent of the "Standard" writes: Curran was once defending a Sir Valentine Blake for bigamy before Lord Fitz- gerald at Dublin, and his assertions were so peculiar that at last his lordship said impatiently, "jNIr. Curran, I fancy you take me for a fool." "That, my lord," answered Curran sweetly, "is an obiter dictum which, however creditable to your lordship's discrimination, has no bearing on the case before the court. As I was saying, the first wife was dead before my client married again." "Don't talk nonsense," interrupted his lordship. "It has been conclusively proved by your own witnesses that the first wife was living wlien he married the second wife, as you call her. The first wife died at noon, and the second marriage took place at eleven o'clock foi'euoon on the same day." "Precisely," asserted Curran blandly. "I'm glad you've come to your senses at last," snarled the judge. "A man cannot legally have two wives at the same time. You admit that the first was living, when he purported to marry the second, and I therefore direct " "Not quite," broke in Curran againi. "Your lordship," he continued, as the Lord Chief Justice lay back in his chair, speechless at his audacity, "forgets to take judicial cognisance of the fact that the earth goes round, and this trifling circumstance has, as I will pro\-e to you, a curious bearing on this case. It is now a quarter to bIx by the correct Dublin time, but the correct time in New 204 Irish Life and Humour York, where the second marriage took place, is exactly thirty- five minutes past one. The solar system, as your lordship may possibly know, has not altered since the date of Sir Valentine Blake's second marriage. When it was twelve o'clock in Dublin it was only twenty minutes past sevenj in New York, so that on the admitted evidence in this case, the first wife had been dead at least three hours and forty minutes before my client married the second lady, and 1 therefore demand an acquittal for him. " There was no help for it. Tiie jury, without leaving the box, gave their verdict as not guilty, and Curran received the heartiest congratulations. The great barrister was a brilliant mimic. Lord Byron relates of him : 1 was much struck with the simplicity of Grattan's manners in private life : they were odd, but they were natural. Curran used to take him off, bowing to the veiy ground, and "thanking God that he had no peculiai'ities of gesture or appearance," in) a way irresistibly ludicrous. And Rogers used to call him "a Sentimental Harlequin;" but Rogers back-bites everybody; and Curran, who used to quiz his great friend, Godwin, to his very face, would hardly respect a fair mark of mimiciy in aniother. To be sure, CuiTan was admirable ! To hear his description of the examination of an Irish witness was next to hearing his own speeches : the latter I never heard, tut I have the former. Curran was himself an object of amiable mimicry to his friend Mathews, the actor; and in this conjiection Sir Walter Scott tells a pathetic stoiy : W'heu Mathews first began to imitate Curran in Dublin — in society, I mean — Curran sent for him and said, the moment he entered the room, "Mr. Mathews, you are a first-rate artist, and, since you are to do my picture, pray allow me to give you a sitting." Everyone knows how admirably Mathews succeeded ini funiishing at last the por- traiture begun under these circumstances. No one was more aware of the truth than Curran himself. In his latter and feeble days, he was riding in Hyde Park one morning, bowed Paddy 205 dawu over the eaddle and bitterly dejected iu liis air. Mathews happened to observe, and sahited him. Curran stopped his horse for a moment, squeezed Charles by the hand, aiwi said, in that deep whisper which the comedian so ex- quisitely mimics, "Don't speak to nie, my dear Mathews; you are the only Curran now!" And, indeed, the end was not far off. Cun-an had retired from the noise of Loudon to a quiet house iu Brompton, and there he died on October 13, 1817. His patriotism had been disappointed, his career as a barrister had been blighted, and even his wit had become but a fitful flame. Perhaps the tragedy of his life is sufficiently indicated iu his own sad words : '"Depend upon it, my dear friend, it is a serious misfortune in life to have a mind more sensitive or more cul- tivated than common — it naturally elevates its possessor into a region which he must be doomed to find nearly uninhabited." A witness was being examined iis to his knowledge of a shooting affair. "Did you see the shot fired?" asked the magistrate. "No, sorr, I only heard it," was the evasive answer. "That evidence is not satisfactory," replied the magistrate, sternly, "stand down!" The witness proceeded to leave the box, and directly his back was turned he laughed derisively. The magistrate, indignant at this contempt of court, called him back, and asked him how he dared to latigh in court. "Did ye see me laugh, yer honour?" queried the offender. "No, sir, but I heard you," was the irate reply. "That evidence is not satisfactory," said Pat, quietly, with a twinkle in his eye. This time everybody laughed except tha magistrate, and it is on record that he never again attempted to be smart at the expense of a witness. The special jury panel in connection with the great Gavan Duffy trial, says a writer in a recent number of the "Cornhill Magazine," contained 170 names. Of these only 90 attended, despite heavy fines. The prisoner was entitled to challenge 20 peremptorily, which he did. This reduced the number to 70. Three were away through illness— "sick," a witty barrister 206 Irish Life and Huviour said, "of tlie Quoen against Gavan Duffy. " Sixty-seven names then remained, from which to select a jury. The empanelling of the jury gave rise to great merriment. A juror was called. He stepped into the box and took the book. Butt rose, and with a genial smile said, "May I ask, sir, if you served on any of the grand juries which found a true biU against the prisoner?" The juror answered "Yes." "Very sorry, sir," said Butt, "that we cannot have your services in this case, but I must ask you to stand aside, " and he waved the juror out of the box. Another and another and another came forward, to be asked the same question, and to disappear the same way At length a juror came foi^ward who had not been on any of the grand juries. Butt said, "May I ask, sir, where you re- side?" The juror said, "In Blacki-ock." "Very sorry, sir," said Butt, "that we cannot have you in the case, but you live out of the district. " Another came who lived in Eathfarnham, another who lived in Kingstown, until a score was disposed of. Then some one was called who had not served on any of the grand juries, and who did not live out of the district. "May I ask, sir," said Butt, "if you are over sixty years of age?" And the juror answered, "Yes. " "Very sorry, sir, " said Butt, "that we cannot have the benefit of your experience in this trial, but I must ask you to stand aside. " Finally the list was so attenuated by this process that the Grown was forced to put on the juiy Catholics who were not "tame" and Protestants who were Liberal. In Donegal there is a custom of engaging both farm hands and servants for six months at hiring fairs, the girls receiving board and only a low wage because their ignorance hitherto has made them only fit for the roughest work. It is, however, more astonishing that girls from these poor homes should know anything at all about service than that they should be, as some of course are, bad servants. Their own homes having mud floors, windows that do not open, no stairs, hardly any kitchen utensils, how can they know even the names, still Padihj 207 less the iisus, of the thousand and oin things in our houses? asks one writer on the subject of the Irish domestic servant. How learn to scrub, or sweep, or dust? Yet, given a short training (not too late in life) and a good example, there is not a servant the world over to compare with a good Irish servant. She has a heart which is wholly given to her mistress, she never degenerates into a mere machine, and she may be trusted to cling even closer in times of trouble, sickness or poverty than when all goes smoothly. Many of the stories in this book bear witness to these traits of character. "Bridget," said Mrs. Hiram sternly, "I met that policeman to-day who sat in the kitchen with you so long last night. I took advantage of the opportunity to speak to him." "Oh, ye needn't think thot'U make me jealous, mum," replied cook. "Oi have got him safe enough." A lady employed a very ignorant servant who would not rise in the morning at a sufficiently early hour. An alarm clock was therefore bought and presented to the girl, with the words — "You know, Mary, that I require the fire alight every morn- ing by seven o'clock ; but I cannot get you to do it, so I have bought you this alarm clock." Mary examined it, and said — "Thank you, mum; it's very nice. But fancy a thing loike this bein' able to loight a fire; sure its a wonderful invention, mum ! ' ' "Kate, I found the gas escaping in the kitchen last night. You must never blow it out." "I didn't, mum; I turned it out, then turned it on again to have it ready to light in the morning." "I should like to know what business that policeman has in my kitchen every night in the week?" asked a mistress of her cook. "Please, mum," replied th© cook, "I think he's suspicious of me neglectin' me work or somethin'." "Bridget," said a mistress, angrily, "I find that yon wore one of my evening gowns at tlie 'bus-drivers' ball last evening. 208 Irish Life and Humour It's th© worst piece of impudence I ever heard of. You ought to be ashajned of yourself." "Oi wus, mum," said Bridget, meekly; "Oi wus, and me young man said as if Oi ivir wore sich a frock in public agin he'd break our engagemint." "Bridget, that pitcher you broke this morning belonged to my great-grandmother," exclaimed a mistress. "Well, Oi'm glad ov thot!" replied the servant in a tone of relief. "Sure, Oi was afroid it was somethin' ye had just boiight lately." "Now, Jane, there is no use of further argument a.s to how this dish should be prepared," said the lady of the house, "but our ideas on the subject are so different that it is evident one or the other of us is crazy." "Tiiie for you, ma'am," replied Jan©; "an' it's not the likes of me as would be after sayin' the likes o' you would have no more sinse than to keep a crazy cook." "I think I'm not hard to get along with," said a lady engaging a servant. "Faith, nayther am I, mum!" replied the applicant. "Whin a misthress is doin' her best, 'tis mesilf thot overlooks lots av things." "This is a very good reference you have from your last place," said a mistress. "It was the best they could do, ma'am," answered the domestic. "That was all I got when I asked for my wages." Mary gave her mistress thorough satisfaction during the short time she had been in her service, and the mistress was greatly surprised when Mary gave notice. "Don't you like your place?" the former inquired. "Well, yes, mum, I likes it in a way," said Mary slowly, "but I 'as my own soshul statis amongst my own class to consider, mum, and I finds that it's bein' lowered by remainin' with you, mum." "How?" was all her astonished mistress could gasp. "You don't keep yer moti-car, mum," said Mary stifSy. "Well, Bridget," said a lady visitor to an old family ser- vant, "did Master Arthur shoot any tigers in India?" "Of Paddy 209 cooriie he did," replied Bridget proudly. "Shure we have the horns of the craj-tures hung in the hall!" Bridget had a kitchen full of her company, and her mistress, looking from the head of the stair, said — "Bridget!" "Yes, ma'am," replied the servant. "It's ten o'clock," observed the mistress. "Thank ye, ma'am," said Bridget. "And will ye be so koind as to tell me whin it's twelve?" On one occasion the Duke of Connaught alighted from a train in Queen's County, and while awaiting another train m irate Irishwoman roundly accused him of stealing her bonnet box, for which she proceeded to search by turning over His Royal Highness's traps. Being unsuccessful, she attacked the laughing prince with her choicest vituperation, and was only prevailed upon to desist when the errant box was discovered elsewhere. The Duke was too considerate to reveal his identity, but he told the story with great gusto for many a day. Perliaps his most diverting experience occurred when a dance was being given by the Duchess at the Royal Hospital in Dublin. A majestic dowager approached her hostess, and asked for the privilege of dancing with Prince Arthur. "But wouldn't you prefer a dance with my husband?" asked her Royal Highness. "No, no," was the disconcerting response, "it is with your handsome son I want to dance." Prince Arthur has to endure to this day the chaff with which his brother officers sometimes remind him of his portly partner in that memorable waltz. The Castle Guard in Dublin was on one occasion furnished by an Irish regiment stationed there. The orderly officer of the day inspected the guard, and told the sentry to read over his orders, which he did as follows: — 1st. — Take charge of all prisoners confined to the Guardroom. 2ud. — Take charge of all Government property in view of your post. 3rd. — In case of fire or any unusual occurrence alarm the Guard. The officer interrupted him here, and said: "Now, before you go any 210 Irish Life and Humour further with the orders, tell me what you would call an unusual occurrence?" The sentry thought for a moment, and ex- claimed, "Sor, phwat oi wud call an unusual occurrance wud be to see the sintry box markin' toirae." A sergeant of a regiment, stationed in Dublin, was recently married, and as the bridal pair emerged from the church they were subjected to the regulation fusilade of rice and old foot- gear, which, in this instance, included one of the regimental "Wellingtons," thrown with such unerring aim that it caught the "non-com." just above th© eye, inflicting a cut sufficiently serious to warrant an immediate visit to the local hospital. The surgeon on duty, after examining the injury, inquired how it came to be inflicted. "Well, sir," replied the soldier, "it was this way. I got married this morning, and " "Oh, ho!" laughed the doctor, "I see. That explains it, me bhoy ; but, be the powers! she's bin after sthartin' early!" While the Hussars were stationed in Dublin they frequently lost a wheelbarrow from the stables, and were quite unable to catch the thief. One night the matter was being discussed in the officers' mess, when Lieut. Softleigh under- took to solve the mystery. Several young brother officers laid him wagers that he would fail. A certain foggy night being selected for th© experiment, Lieut. S., wrapped in his over- coat, crept stealthily towards where the sentry was posted. As he came nearer he heard an unmistakable snore, and peer- ing closely, he saw Tommy seated in the barrow enjoying » profound sleep. Without disturbing the sleeper, the officer began to trundle Tommy to the guard-room, when suddenly he was seized by the collar and pushed into the sentry-box with the remark : "So you're the bounder who has been ' nicking our barrows, are yer. " When the corporal of the guard came with a file of men, the prisoner was marched to the guard- room, and, being identified, was at once released, to be greeted with shouts of laughter from his brother officers who had secretly given the sentry instructions how to act. Padihj 211 A btatf-sergeaut at Aldershot was instructing a squad of recruits in the use of the rifle. He had been explaining to them the course taken by a bullet when fired at an object some distance away. "Now, Private Murphy," he said, turning to one of the rear rank men, "you seem to be doing everything except looking to your front and paying attention. Perhaps you'll answer me a few questions. Suppose I was standing a thousand yards away by yonder farmhouse, and a body of men were firing at me from here, and you were half-way between us, what wotdd happen to you?" Private Murphy: "The bullets would pass over my head, sergeant." "Quite right; and what would happen to me?" Private Murphy : "I hardly know, sergeant. I'm afraid ye'd get dodging behind the house." The subject of the fare haa given rise to much of the humour associated with the Irish jarveys. A military officer who passed through the Tirah campaign was once on a visit to the Irish metropolis. He engaged a car to drive him from Richmond Barracks to Kildare Street, and on arriv- ing at his destination presented the driver with a shilling. Pat fixed hia eye attentively on the coin, and ejaculated viciously, "Wisha, bad luck to the Afradays!" "Why?" asked the officer. "Because, thin, they've killed all the gintle- men that fought agin 'em." The officer was so tickled by the witty remark of the Irishman that he promptly doubled the fare. A sentry, an Irishman, was on post-duty for the first time ?t night, when the officer of the day approached. He called, "Who comes there?" "Officer of the day," was the reply. "Then what are ye doin' out at night?" asked the sentry. When Morris Quill was asked why he had bought his com- mission in the 31st regiment, he replied, "To be near my brother, of course, who is in the 32nd." "Why were you late in barracks last night. Private Atkins?" demanded an officer. "Train from London was very late, sir," 212 Irish Life and Humour was the reply. "Very good," said the oflBcer. "Next toime the thrain's late take care you come hy an earlier one." A young Irishman, who had volunteered for the war, was parting with his sweetheart, who clung to him tenderly, whispering passionate woras of love. When the youth was about to go the girl sobbed out — "Pat, dear, say one sweet word to me before you go." Pat reflected for a moment, and then said — "Ti-eacle, my darling, treacle." One fine day two soldiers, Mike and Pat, went for a walk by the banks of the Suir. When they came to where the Amur flows into it, Mike saw a dead salmon, and, taking it out of the water, examined it. "Pat," he said, "I don't know what can have happened to it. There is no mark on it." "Where are your eyes .P" said Pat. "Don't you see it was the meeting of the waters ci-ushed it to death?" "I'll lead the van. You bring up the rear," said Captain Braveman with a show of bravado. "Say, Captain," said Private Hooligan, "phwat's the matter wid me bringin' up the rear an' gittin' in the van wid it?" He was a raw recruit, but he marched along the street the more proudly for that. Presently his colonel came into view, dressed in mufti; but Pat passed him without any attempt at giving the usual salute. That, however, did not suit the colonel, and he called him back. "Why didn't you salute me?" he inquired sharply. "Faith," was the answer, "sure, colonel, when I saw you in plain clothes I thought you'd bought your discharge. " Apropos of Lord Roberts' complaint respecting the bad spelling of officers of the Army, the following may be of interest. "Spud" Murphy held the responsible post of Lance- Corporal — after 18 years' service, too — in the 1st Battalion Regiment. One day he was directed to take a squad of men to perform some fatigue duty, in the course of which one of the men deliberately refused to obey Murphy. Murphy, with his cap in one hand, and scratching his head with the Paddy 213 other, indicated that he was evidently on the horns of a dilemma, for at lengtn he observed: — "Look 'ere, Smith, it's a foine thing for ye that 1 can't spell ' insubordination,' or else, be jabers, I'd run ye in." I have just heard, says "M.A.P.," a well-told storj' of Lord Roberts at Bisley. I fear that it is only a variant of a well- known legend of Lord Charles Beresford, but it is a clever variant in any case. The Commander-in-Chief was watching the firing, and noticed two or three mistakes on the part of the markers. So he went to the telephone on the firing line and rang up the officer in charge of the butts. "The marking is very bad," said Lord Roberts. "It's the best you'll get," retorted the officer. "Do you know who I am?" sternly de- manded Lord Roberts. "No, I don't." "I am Lord Roberts." "Well, I'm Lord Wolseley." The butt officer afterwards explained that he thought some one was plaj'ing a joke on him, but history does not i-elate what value Lord Roberts attached to the excuse. The drill-sergeant was getting hoarse. The squad of recruits he had to train were as dunderheaded a set as ever drove a man to distraction. Order after order he bawled, but his com- mands were either obeyed wrongly or ignored altogether. "Right-turn!" he yelled. There was a swaying, hesitating movement among the squad, but beyond that no one attempted to obey. One man in particular had, he noticed, stood as a rock. He strode up to this man with rage in his eye. "Why don't you pay attention?" he shouted. "Do you know what your ears are for?" "O' course!" said the startled embi-j'o field-marshal. "They're to keep me hat on, sorr!" "Now, remember your salutes," said the corporal when post- ing the Irish recruit on sentry. "If you see a Lieutenant- — he wears one star — slope arms. If you see two stars — slope arms — slope aim. If you see a Major — a crown — present arms ; if the Colonel — stars and crown — present and turn out the guard." Pat pondered his orders carefully; but presently he 214 Irish Life and Humour was awakened from, his reverie by the approach of the General. The worthy son of Maxs surveyed the crossed swords on the gallant officer's shoulders, and as he was not included in the corporal's category, simply nodded cheerfully. "Well, my man," said the genial General, "and who are you supposed to be?" "I'm supposed to be a bit of a sentry," said Patrick; "and who are you supposed to be?" "Oh, I'm supposed to be a bit of a General," said the latter. "A Gineral, is it?" cried the startled Pat. "Then yell want something big. The corp'ral tould me about the others, but nothing about yourself at all, at all ! But hould hard a minute, and I'll giv» ye the bayonet exercise." A son of Erin, who had volunteered to go to South Africa, was, during the war, discovered by the sergeant of his com- pany in a hole, weU out of the way of a stray shot, when he should have been engaged in active service. "Come out of that hole!" commanded the sergeant, sternly. "Get out of it this minute!" The broad Irish face looked up at him with stubborn resistance written on every feature. "You may be my superior officer," he said boldly, "but all the same Oi'm the one that found this hole first!" The colour-sergeant was calling the roll of the company on commanding officer's parade, when it was noticed that Private Fitzgerald did not answer to his name. "Fitzgerald, " shouted the non-commissioned officer three times, without receiving a reply. "Why do you not answer to your name, Fitzgerald?" inquired the captain. "Shure, sor, me and the sergeant's not on spakin' teiins, " was the unexpected reply. Mrs Elizabeth O'Reilly Neville, in her recent volimie of Irish sketches, "Father Tom of Connemara, " puts into the mouth of an Irishwoman a vivid description of the "hedge schools" which so long afforded their only chance of education to the peasant folk of the "distressful counthiy," before the better days began. "A hedge school," says Molly Mullaney, "was a cabin protected by a mountain and a hedge, and kept Paddy 215 warm by the sods of peat canied bj- the diildher every morn- ing undher their arms. The hedge schools turned out some good scholars, too. I niver larned anything, but that was just me luck. I was always last, and there was only one book to each class, and that was passed round from hand to hand when we stood up to read ; and before it reached me it was always time to ate the dinners; and whin we started again in the afthernoon it was the same thing. Before me turn came round it was time to go home, for on account of the free miles of a lonely mountain road before me, I had to lave airly. 1 fought," she added reflectively, "that the master might have started sometimes at the foot, to give me a chance; but I suppose he niver fought of it. " "But you must have learned something?" "I did. I larnt to make ten different kinds of oafs cradles wid the aid of me knuckles and a sthring. I larnt how many laves there was on a daisy, and how many seeds in the heart of a wild strawberry, as well as how many times I could skip to the beat of a rope widout stopping, and how long I could hould me breath undher water. I could swim like a duck and climb like a goat. I knew where the blackest sloes and the reddest bottle-berries grew ; and how to tickle a boy or girl in front of me wid a bunch of nettles that would raiso a blisther half an inch high, just before their turn came to read. And I knew how to run away from the rache of the master's cane when a complaint went in." "Did your mother never find out?" "She did, in time; but what cud she do to a cripple?" "Oh, the master was a cripple?" "An' d'ye think any one but a cripple would sit all day long and tacha childher, wid fish in the sny widin a rod of him waiting to be caught, and kelp on the beach waiting to be gathered? But he was a gi^eat tacher entirely. He had the longest rache I iver knew, wid a cane at the end of it." Dean Swift was annoyed, after preaching a charity sermon In St. Patrick's Cathedral, to find tliat his sermon had wearied the people, and that they liad shown their resentment by 216 Irish Life and Humour giving a veiy small collection. "They won't have that com- plaint next time," said the Dean. Accordingly, when the next charity sermon was to be preached, he took for his text, "He that giveth to the poor, lendeth to the Lord." "Noav," said he, "look at that text. If you give to the poor to-day, you are lending to the Lord. Do you consider that a good security .f* If so, down with the dust. The collection wid now be taken." That collection "broke the record." A priest, meeting an Irishman who had lately got married, said to him — "Well, Pat, I hear you have got married. " "Yes, sir," replied Pat. "Whose daughter did you marry?" asked the priest. "Shure, sir, I married nobody's daughter; it was the servant lass," was the response. Some fifty years ago the sexton of Lisburn Cathedral incapacitated by illness from perfomiing his duties and pend- ing his recovery an illiterate old man, who kept what are known as the Castle Gardens in order, was engaged as a substitute to do duty as best he might. Three or four Sundays after his advent the Dean was robing himself in the vestry when he complained to the old man that the fire was none of the best "I'll put some more paper in it, your reverence," said he. Before the Dean had the slightest idea of what he was about he had torn a wisp of leaves out of one of the marriage registers and thrust them into the fire. The Dean was dumfounded, and to his horror and consternation found that this old sinner had used nothing else for fire lighting since he had come there, evidently regarding the registers as of no more value than used copy books. The registrar of marriages for the district having been made acquainted with the facts, put the matter before the Registrar-General in Dublin. He at once replied that the gravity of the situation could hardly be over-estimated, and at once despatched an inspector to investigate the matter. On inquiring into the case the inspector said it would be useless to prosecute the old man who, being unable either to read or write, had merely acted through ignorance. Fortunately Paddy 217 copies of all the marriages wore lodged with the local registrar as well as at Dublin Castle, and the registrar was instructed to make fresh entries in a new book in lieu of those destroyed, and then go before a magistrate for the County of Antrim and make a separate statutory declaration in each case that it was a true copy of the original, and even then the Registrar- General stated that the case was to the last degree unsatis- factory as the original signatures were gone for ever. Not many years ago the wife of an American millionaire requested a gentleman to obtain for her a copy of the certificate of her marriage solemnised in the Parish Church at Belfast fifty years before, when a young girl of eighteen, and this he obtained for her without the slightest difficulty. Whateley and Dr. Murray, the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, often sat side by side in the board-room of the Com- missioners of National Education, and knew one another well. At some vice-regal dinner, "UTiateley gravely asked Dr. Murray, "WTiat's the difference, doctor, between you and me?" The doctor began to enumerate a number of momentous differ- ences. "No, that's not it," said Whateley; "the differenctt is that you are a Roman, and I am a Rum-un." When we remember that since Shakespeare the sweetest, joUiest, best-humoured comedies in English have been written by four Irishmen, Farquhar, Steele, Sheridan, and Goldsmith, we are surprised to find a critic saying that most of the popular Irish wit is sardonic. Ferhaps hardships have stiffened the Irishman's humour. However that may be, there is still no lack of the quick analogy, genial animation, and generous farce in the jokes of the Irishman. Here are two bits that never grew east of the Irish Sea: — A boy on a Dublin comer was asked why he stared so intently alter an old gentleman who was tripping up the street with all the jaunty elasticity of youth. "Wh.nt is the matter with the gentleman ?" " Wliat's the matter wid him? Look at the walk of him! He only touches the ground in an odd phiee. " The late Father Ryan P 2l8 Irish Life and Mumouf overheard a similar conimeut on senile spi-yness, made by an old beggar woman. The priest was talking with a dean of his church, a man of seventy, who suddenly broke off the conversation to catch a passing street car. "Yerrah, look at the ould dean," said the beggar woman to Father Ryan, "skippin' about like a new-married flea!" On one occasion an attorney, dining at the same table with Swift, and thinking to make a joke at his expense, asked the Dean, "Suppose, doctor, the parsons and the devil went to law, which, in your opinion, would gain the case?" "The devil would," replied the Dean promptly, "for all the lawyers and attorneys would be on his side." Terence, a powerful, good-natured Irishman, was one of & number of workmen employed in erecting a new building. The owner of the building, who knew him, said to him one day: — "Terry, didn't you tell me once that a brother of yours is a clergyman?" "Yis, sor." "And you are a hod-carrier! The good things of this life are not equally divided, are they, Terry?" "No, sorr, " rejoined Terence, shouldering his hod and starting up the ladder with it. "Poor felly ! He couldn't do this to save his life!" An Irishman, having the good fortune to have £100 left to him from an old uncle, went to tell the priest the good news, and ask his advice. "Shure, Michael," said the priest, "the best advice I can give you is to prepare for a rainy day." ]\reeting Michael a few days after, he asked him how he was going on with his legacy. "Begorra," said Mike, "I've fol- lowed your riverenoe's advoice. Shure, I've sent to Dublin for a hundred pounds worth of umbrellas." "He must take the medicine in a recumbent position," said the physician who had been called to attend an injured Irish- man. The man's wife was puzzled, but would not admit it. She confided her dilemma first to her husband. "Tim, dear," she said, "here's your midicine all roight, but the docther do be saying ye must take it in a recoombant position, and niver Paddy 219 a wan have wa in the house!" "Ye moight horry wan," sug- gested Tim. '"ixiere's Mrs. O'Mara, now — she do always be having things comf-table and handy-loike. " So the wife made her appeal to the more provident neighbour. "Mrs. O'Mara, me Tim has be^n hurted." "The poor soul!" "Yes, and he's that bad the docther says, ' Give him his medicine in a recoombant position,' and, Mrs. O'Mara, we haven't wan in the house. Would ye moind giving me the loan av yours?" Mrs. O'Mara was puzzled in her turn, but she too refused to admit it. "Faith, and ye can have it and wilcome," she said heartily, "but me friend Mrs. Flaherty has it ; she borried it Tuesday week — jist round the third corner beyant, fominst the poomp!" So the quest was continued. "Mrs. Flaherty, excuse me fer troubling ye, me being a sthranger entirely to ye, but me man is hurted, and the docther says, ' No hope of saving him onless ye give him his medicine in a recoombant position.' Meself didn't happen to have wan, so I stepped over to borry ilrs. O'Mara's. Would ye moind me taking it the while, me Tim being so bad ?" "Moind? Av coorse not!" returned Mrs. Flaherty, with the polite readiness of her nationality. "But sorra the day ! Flaherty — he do bo moighty onstiddy betoimes — he dropped it on the flure kvst noight and bruk it!" "I'll have to pour it into him the best way I can, poor man!" said Tim's wife, as she hurried home. "Mrs. M'Lubberty, " said the physician, addressing the mother of the youthful patient, "something must be done to cheer up the little fellow — to raise his spirits and arouse his interest." Turning to the beside, he asked, kindly: — "My lad, would you not like to bery distrustful of her doctor's skill, and therefore wished to dispense with his services and to try another man in his stead. She had not, however, the temerity to inform him of this, so she communi- cated her state of mind to her maid, a gem from the Emerald Isle. "Law 'im to me, mum, lave 'im to me," said Bridget. By and by the doctor knocked at the door, and Bridget opened it about an inch. "Veiy sorry, sor," said she, "but ye can't come in to-day, docthor!" "Can't come inP Why not?" "The misthress is too ill fer to see ye to-day, sor!" A well-known medical man was attending an old Irishwoman who lived in one of the poorer quarters of Edinburgh. She had been verv ill, but was convalescent, when one day she said to the doctor— "Will ye tell me, doctor, dear, for certain, whether I'll be gattin' well again or no' ?" "Oh, yes; I feel sure you will be all right very soon now," was the answer. "I wanted to know for sure, ye see, doctor, because I'm a lone woman, an' I subscribe to a burj-in' society, an' I just wanted to know if I was likely to be gettiu' any benefit out av it or no." The End. BOOKS Sold by ENEAS MACKAY, PUBLISHER, STIRLING. AN TREORAICHE — Leabhran Sgoil air son na Cloinne. A Gaelic Primer for the children, by Malcolm Mac Farlane. Illustrated, cr. 8vo, 4 pp., paper covers, 3d, ELEMENTARY LESSONS IN GAELIC (L. MacBean), with a vocabulary and key, cr. 8vo, cloth is. GUIDE TO GAELIC CONYERSATION AND PRONUN- CIATION (L. MacBean), with Dialogues, Phrases, &c., cr. 8vo, cloth is 6d. GAELIC PRIMER, A New— (James Munro), containing elements of pronunciation. An abridged Grammar, formation of words, a list of Gaelic and Welsh vocables of like orthoepy, and a choice selection of colloquial phrases, cr. 8vo, sewed, IS 6d. GAELIC BOOKS FOR SCHOOLS.— Book I., 2d; Book IL, 4d; Book III., 8d ; Book IV., is. GAELIC READING BOOK.— For the use of Students. Selected and edited by Prof. Mackinnon, cr. 8vo, 3s 6d. GAELIC CONVERSATIONS.— Comhraidhean an Gaidhlig is am Beurla. By Rev. D. Maclnnes, with an Introduction by Prof. Blackie. New Edition, cloth is. THE TOURISTS' GAELIC HANDBOOK.— Gaelic and English phrases, with pronunciations (Mrs Mary M'Kellar), oblong, i6mo, sewed, 6d. PRACTICAL LESSONS IN GAELIC (D. C. MacPherson), for the use of English-speaking Students, with vocabularies, cr. 8vo, sewed, is. SCOTTISH GAELIC as a Specific Subject. — Stage I. compiled by a Committee of the Highland Association, 2nd Edition, cr. 8vo, limp cloth, is. THE PHONETICS OF THE GAELIC LANGUAGE (M. Mac Farlane), with an exposition of the current orthography, and a system of phonography, cloth, is 6d. HOW TO READ GAELIC (John Why te).— Orthographical Instructions, Reading Lessons, and Grammar, cr. 8vo, limp cloth, IS, Urweraty ol CaWomia Los weraty 111 Mill Anqeles L 007 351 91 7 5 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY AA 000 695 510 8