have had me afterwards, though my own wife always says 'for shame' if I
make the remark in her presence, God bless her.

When I went to the Abbey of St. Denis, near Paris, I told the verger I
was very anxious to see the likeness of the saint who had walked for six
miles with his head in his hand, because I was the nearest living
counterpart, having walked a quarter of a mile with my face in mine.

Hickson was universally congratulated on his lucky escape. He went out
to India and was dead in eighteen months, and here am I at eighty with
half my face and some of my health still in spite of the attentive care
of my family and the doctor.

My present doctor is a capital fellow, and when he comes to see me he
laughs so much at my stories that I always think he ought to take me
half price. Instead of that he regards me as an animated laboratory for
his interesting chemical experiments; but I had the best of him last
time I was laid up, for I made him take a dose of the filthy compound he
had ordered for me the previous day.

First he said he wouldn't, then he said he couldn't, but I said what was
not poison for the patient could not hurt the physician; and in the end
he had to swallow the dose, making far more fuss over its nasty taste
than I did. But I noted that he at once wrote me a new prescription,
which was as sweet as any advertised syrup, and further, that he
arranged his next visit should be just after I finished the bottle.

However, that is years and years after the time of which I am treating.

Yet I am tempted to anticipate, because the mention of Edenburn earlier
in this chapter suggests a quaint individual about whom a few
observations may be made.

Bill Hogan was our factotum. He was stable-boy, steward, ladies'-maid,
and professional busybody, as well as a bit of a character, though he
possessed none worth mentioning.

When we were packing up to leave Edenburn, my wife was watching him fill
two casks, one with home-made jam, the other with china.

Called away to luncheon, she found on her return both casks securely
nailed down.

'Oh, you should not have done that, Bill,' she said, 'for now we shan't
know which contains which.'

'I thought of that, ma'am,' replies Bill, 'so I have written S for
chiney on the one, and G for jam on the other.'

Bill's orthography was obviously original.

So was the drive he took with a certain cheery guest of mine one Sabbath
morning.

The said guest desired more refreshment than he was likely to get at
that early hour at Edenburn, so he drove into Tralee, ostensibly to
church, and told Bill to have the car round at the club at one.

'Well,' narrated Bill afterwards, 'out came the Captain from the club,
having a few drinks taken, and up he got on the car with my help, but at
the corner of Denny Street he pulled up at the whisky store, and said we
must drink the luck of the road. Well we drank the luck at every house
on the way out of the town, and presently in the road down came the
mare, pitching the Captain over the hedge, and marking her own knees, as
well as breaking the shaft. At last we all got home somehow, and there
in the yard was the master, looking us all three up and down as though
he were going to commit us all from the Bench. Then a twinkle came into
his eye, and he said as mild as a dove to the Captain, "I see by the
look of her knees you've been taking the mare to say her prayers."'

CHAPTER IX

THE HARENC ESTATE

So large a part has the purchase of this estate made in my more public
appearances, owing to the fact that I have been brought into general
notice through offensive legal proceedings, that a brief account of the
matter must form part of my reminiscences.

Prior to 1878, a gentleman named Harenc, the owner of a large extent of
landed property in the north of Kerry, died.

Who the estate subsequently belonged to I am uncertain. Anyhow,
according to the title-deeds, it was somehow divided among ten or twelve
individuals before the property came into the Land Estate Courts for
sale.

This circumstance suggested to a large number of the tenantry that it
might be an opportunity to avail themselves of the provisions of the
Bright Clauses, and become pretty cheaply the owners of the land on
which they lived.

After they had offered the sum of £75,000 for the estate, for the
purpose of splitting it up into small holdings, it was found that the
trustee had privately agreed to sell it to Mr. Goodman Gentleman, the
agent for the late Mr. Harenc, for £65,000.

The tenants were not going to be frustrated by that--being Irishmen and
litigious, which is one and the same thing. So they appealed to the
Landed Estates Court, and induced Judge Ormsby to make an order
annulling the deed of sale, and directing that the property should be
put up in lots suitable to the purposes of the tenants.

Several of the tenants who did not want the property split up approached
me to suggest I should buy the property, and appeared by counsel--the
present Judge Johnson--in support of me.

I met the tenants, and stated that if it fell to me I would give each of
them a lease of thirty-one years, and indemnify myself for the
purchase-money by a rise on the entire rental of five per cent, on the
valuation of each estate, according to current estimates, at which they
showed every sign of satisfaction.

I then offered £80,000 for the whole estate, and was declared the
purchaser. A large bonfire was lighted on February 20th, 1878, by the
tenants at Aghabey, near Luxnow, on their being apprised I had become
their landlord.

Another section of tenants, however, were anxious that the property
should be bought by Messrs. Lombard and Murphy, private individuals I
never met.

The judge of the Landed Estate Court, Judge Ormsby, gave them the
property.

I appealed against this decision, and the Court of Appeal unanimously
reversed the verdict of Judge Ormsby, the three judges being the Lord
Chancellor of Ireland, the Master of the Rolls--who said it was one of
the most important cases decided since the foundation of the Land
Court--and Lord Justice Deasy. I have been told on most excellent
authority that Lord Justice Christian declined to sit because, as he
told the Lord Chancellor, he felt so strongly in my favour that he could
not hear the case with an unbiassed mind.

There had been a demonstration at the previous decision, but it paled
before the great rejoicings over my success among all the tenantry over
whom I was agent. There were more than fifty bonfires blazing that night
in Kerry, so that the county looked as though it were signalling the
advent of another Armada, as in the fragment Macaulay left. The only
place where any opposition was exhibited was in Castleisland, whence the
Lombard family originally sprang; and there the lighted tar-barrels,
which had been placed on the ruins of the old castle, were extinguished,
to avoid unpleasant contact with a gang of rowdy roughs.

Messrs. Lombard and Murphy had stated that they were buying on behalf of
the tenants. So I served them with notice that if they undertook to sell
to every tenant his own holding they might have the property.

This they very wisely declined, and left me in the position that in 1879
I finally purchased a property on what was called an indefeasible
Parliamentary title, under the approval of Her Majesty's Judges, and in
1881 an Act of Parliament practically took one-third of it from me.

In 1881 I wrote a letter to Mr. Gladstone, asking him to take my
property and give me back my money.

To this he returned an evasive answer, declining my offer.

If the tenants had themselves bought the Harenc property at that time
they would by this time all be paupers, for they could only get
two-thirds of the money from Government, and would have had to borrow
the other third at a heavy rate of interest.

One man, Mr. Hewson, bought one of the farms for £13,500, and under Mr.
Gerald Balfour's Act of 1896 it was compulsorily sold to the tenants for
about £6000. I have the exact figures at Tralee, but these are
approximate enough for the purpose of demonstration.

Several of the other tenants took me into Court.

I had a piece of reclaimable ground on my own hands which I let for
eight shillings an acre. The adjoining tenant, with exactly the same
nature of land--which he swore on oath he had paid more than the
fee-simple in improving--had his rent fixed by the County Court at four
shillings an acre.

To be sure, if the County Court valuer had not done so, he would have
quickly lost his employment. The position is one incompatible with
honesty, and the value of land, apart from what you can get for it, is a
very disputable matter.

My relations with my Harenc tenantry were always good.

After the purchase in 1879 I had no trouble with them, and on the
contrary received the warmest thanks from the parish priest for my
conduct as a landlord.

I drained soil and imported seed potatoes, besides executing other
improvements. The estate was not in good order when I purchased it, and
I know from other sources that the tenants were well satisfied with me.

I may as well mention, that having no agencies on the Listowel side of
Kerry, I was never on the Harenc property before the question of
purchasing arose, and it had on it no house in which I and my family
could reside.

Until 1881 no tenant made any hostile move, but one fellow, who took me
into the Land Court after the Land Act, presented a very curious case.

This man, whose rent was sixty-five pounds a year, applied to the Court
for reduction. There was a press of business at the time which
necessitated an adjournment, but in the end the Court fixed the new rent
at the same amount as the old rent.

The tenant appealed; but though the Appeal Court valuers attested that
it was worth seventy-five pounds a year, still the rent was unchanged.

In other words, the Government sold me a farm and parliamentary title at
sixty-five pounds a year which one set of Commissioners thought fair and
the other thought cheap, and yet I had to spend more than half a year's
rent in defending my title to it.

There is no appeal as to value, except to the head Commissioners. They
appoint two other Sub-Commissioners to inspect the land, and they of
course avoid disagreeing with their brethren.

It is very like Mr. Spenlow in _David Copperfield_, who said, 'If you
are not satisfied with Doctors' Commons you can go to the delegates,'
and being asked who the delegates were, he replied that they came from
Doctors' Commons.

I bought the Harenc property as a speculation, and it turned out a
confoundedly bad one.

Once I had a conversation with a Land Leaguer on the subject. He said:--

'You bought a stolen horse, and must take the consequences.'

'If that were so,' I retorted, 'I would have an action against the
Government which sold me the horse.'

I had a correspondence on the subject with Mr. Chamberlain, which
elicited some remarkable letters; but as he marked all of his private
and confidential, they of course cannot be published.

Now for a few anecdotes, just to show that I have not exhausted my
stock.

It would be cruel to specify the individual of whom I can truthfully
say, he was the biggest fool that ever disfigured the Irish bench.

He had been tutor to the children of a great peer, and his patron
subsequently pressed the Prime Minister to do something for him.

'I can't make him a County Court judge,' said the Prime Minister, 'for
he would never decide rightly.'

'Well,' said another Minister, 'we are going out, and have not the ghost
of a chance of ever getting in again in our time. Let him be
Solicitor-General for Ireland during the last weeks we hold office.'

So this was done out of sheer good-nature; but after the election the
Government found themselves saddled with him, for in those days holders
of high office were not shelved at the caprice of Premiers, whilst the
country had unexpectedly returned the old gang to power.

It has always been averred by the Irish Bar that an office was specially
created for the purpose of shunting this legal luminary into it, but as
an historical fact I will not vouch for the truth of the sarcasm. The
account of the Cabinet conclave came to me on excellent authority.

When Chief Justice Monaghan died, Lord Morris, who was then a Puisne
Judge of Common Pleas, observed that he himself had a good chance of the
post.

'What about Keagh and Lawson?' asked his acquaintance, they being
brother judges.

'Very good men,' replied Lord Morris, 'but as they were not appointed by
the Tories, I don't think they'll promote them.'

'And how about Ormsby?' continued the other.

'Ah now,' said Morris, 'you are getting sarcastic.'

There is a cheery story about Judge Keagh, who has just been mentioned.

A number of brothers were before him, charged with killing a man at
Listowel.

The judge was most anxious to ascertain from an important witness what
share each of the accused had in the murder.

'What did John do?'

'He struck him with his stick on the head.'

'And James?'

'James hit him with his fist on the jaw.'

'And Philip?'

'Philip tried to get him down and kick him.'

'And Timothy?'

'He could do nothing, my lord, but he was just walking round searching
for a vacancy.'

Which reminds me that fair play is not always recognised as essential in
these matters, as the following anecdote shows.

There was a faction feud between the Kellehers and Leehys near Sneem.

One of the Leehys had a bad leg, and was therefore bound apprentice to a
shoemaker in Sneem.

On a fair day a solitary Kelleher ventured into the town, and very
speedily the Leehys had half-killed and beaten him as well as their
numbers would allow.

Suddenly there was a shout, and the poor lame Leehy came hobbling down
the street as fast as his wooden leg would permit.

'Boys, for the love of mercy,' says he, 'let a poor cripple have one go
at the black-hearted varmint.'

One of the counsel engaged in the Harenc case was Mr. Murphy, who was a
near relative of Judge Keagh, and he was a man of ready wit into the
bargain.

There was a company promoter from London, who had induced several people
to take shares in a bogus concern, and was consequently defendant in an
action brought against him in Cork.

He thought he would make an impression on the wild Irish by being
overdressed and gorgeously bejewelled.

When Murphy arose to address the jury, he said:--

'Gentlemen of the jury, look at the well-tailored impostor without a rag
of honesty to take the gloss off his new clothes.'

Another counsel in the case was Mr. Byrne. He was always in impecunious
circumstances despite his legal eloquence, but the lack of a balance at
his banker's never troubled him.

Once he took Chief Justice Whiteside to see his new house in Dublin,
which he had furnished in sumptuous style.

'Don't you think I deserve great credit for this?' he asked at length.

'Yes,' retorted Whiteside, 'and you appear to have got it.'

Lord Justice Christian, who had declined to sit on the Appeal, was
considered one of the soundest opinions in Ireland. When he ceased to be
sole Judge of Appeal, he had addressed the Bar after this fashion:--

'As this is the last time I sit as sole Judge of Appeal, it is an
opportune time for me to review my decisions. By a curious coincidence,
I have been thirteen years in this Court, and I have decided thirteen
cases which have been taken to the House of Lords. Eleven of my
decisions were confirmed, one appeal was withdrawn, and the last was a
purely equity case. The two equity lords went with me, the two common
law lords were against me, and when I inform the Bar that my judgment
was reversed on the casting vote of Lord O'Hagan, I do not think they
will attach much importance to the decision.'

Judge Christian's allusion to the Land Act is most noteworthy, for he
said:--

'The property of the country is confided to the discretion of certain
roving commissioners without any fixed rules to guide and direct them.
In fact, we have reverted to the primitive state of society, where men
make and administer the laws in the same breath.'

Reverting to the Harenc estate, a rather amusing account was once
perpetrated by a Special Commissioner.

'Never heard tell of Ballybunion?' said his carman to the journalist as
on the road they met the carts laden with sand and seaweed from that
place. 'Why it's a great place intirely in the season, when quality from
all parts come for the sea-bathing.'

As he evidently regarded it as the first watering-place in the world,
the Special Commissioner thought he had better see the place, and here
is his description:--

'A village perched on the summit of a cliff, an ancient castle of the
Fitz-Maurice clan, wonderful caves, and a little hotel are the leading
features of the place.

'The morning after my arrival, I experienced a wish to see the cliffs
and caves, and no sooner were the words spoken than a figure bearing an
unlit torch appeared at the door.

'It was Beal-bo (which may be translated into a somewhat Sioux
cognomen--the Yellow Cow). A figure in rags with an inimitable limp, and
a fashion of closing one eye that reminds one of Victor Hugo's Quasimodo
of Notre Dame. A more intimate acquaintance proved there was much
instruction, and a good deal of amusement, to be derived from this
strange character.

'The grand cave is Beal-bo's special source of revenue. He regards it as
his own property, and takes a pride in it accordingly. This is the
theatre of the many wiles he practises upon unsuspecting strangers. When
he has lured them into the bowels of the cave, he turns down a gallery,
and informs them that they cannot get out unless they cross a pool about
five feet wide. When he has his victim upon his back, he seizes the
opportunity to levy blackmail, for the pool is a quicksand and he
suddenly affects great fear. After he has sunk to the knees in the
yielding sand, the tourist is glad enough to give him a shilling to
hurry across.

'In another gallery it is necessary for the stranger to cross a pool on
a plank which Beal-bo provides for the occasion, and on this he charges
a toll. He used to let the water in to deepen the pools before the
tourists came through, in order to bring his plank into requisition.

'Suspended on a cliff between heaven and sea, one hundred feet above the
water, on all sides were piled the immense masses of masonry, the ruins
of which are all that remains of the once proud Castle of Doon. Gazing
in awe down the horrid depths of the "Puffing Hole," Beal-bo informed
us:--

'"Twas there Brian used to sleep in the day, and come out at night to
milk the cows up in the Killarney hills, he and his dog."'

The Special Commissioner looked incredulous, but Beal-bo was
confident:--

'"May I never be saved, sir, if I haven't seen him meself, many a night,
sir, as he climbed the cliffs backwards to rob the hawks' nests."'

How can even a Special Commissioner dispute an eyewitness?

Still the knowledge that I own a harbour of refuge for Brian will hardly
repay me for all the expense and anxiety the Harenc property has caused
me.

Before quitting the subject, I can conclude with a more gratifying fact.

At the time of the Tralee election, when I stood as a Conservative, a
small clique of mob orators and amateur politicians tried to make
political capital out of the history of the Harenc estate, and a priest,
Father M. O'Connor, rode the jaded topic to death. The unkindest cut of
all to him was the direct contradiction by the tenants themselves of
every assertion that their self-constituted champions made on their
behalf.

'We, the tenants of the Harenc estate, think it our duty to state that
since Mr. S.M. Hussey became purchaser of the above estate, he has in
every respect treated us kindly. He was good enough to give us seed
potatoes for half the price they cost himself; he also drained our
portions of the land at two and a half per cent., employed all the
labourers, and paid them good wages while so employed by him. As a
landlord we find him liberal and generous.'

To this were appended fifty signatures, and the best part of all is that
the whole of the manifesto was absolutely unsolicited by me, proving an
unexpected source of pleasure.

CHAPTER X

KERRY ELECTIONS

An election in most places is an occasion for breaking heads, abusing
opponents, and other similar demonstrations of ardent local
philanthropy. Such opportunities are never lost by Kerry men, whose
heads are harder and whose wits are sharper than those of the average
run of humanity. If you are a real Kerry man of respectable convictions,
and self-respecting into the bargain, you will never let the man who is
drinking with you entertain any opinions but your own at election times.
If he contradicts you, it's up with your stick and a crack on his skull,
and as that only tickles him up--having much the effect of a nettle
under a donkey's tail--you then go outside and mutually destroy as much
of each other as can be effected in a fight. Some weeks later, when the
vanquished is able to crawl away from the dispensary doctor, and so save
his own life amid the dire forebodings of that physician, who refuses to
answer for the consequences, you begin to drink with him again just to
show there is no ill-feeling; which of course there is not, if you and
he are both real Kerry men. Naturally, if you get a sullen, revengeful,
calculating Protestant from the North, it's another matter, for he'll be
far too friendly with the constabulary and won't hold with the good old
local ways approved by every Kerry Papist and tolerated by most of the
priests.

In 1851 there was a Kerry election. A Protestant candidate stood, and so
did one who in those days was a Whig. I went stoutly for the
Protectionist, but the priests plumped for the Free Trader, and their
congregations have been regretting it ever since.

One tenant was driving in a gig with me to the poll when a priest passed
me on the road and said to my tenant:--

'May the blast of the Almighty be upon you, for I know you are being
taken to vote the wrong way.'

The tenant got very nervous, for in those times it was generally
believed that the priests had power to change men into frogs and toads,
a superstition by no means obsolete even now in lone districts. However,
I took him along very easily, giving him the benefit of the roll of my
tongue as to what he should do, and before he reached the polling-booth
he recovered and voted for the Tory.

A Mr. Scully from Tipperary was the Whig candidate, and the family was
not popular in its own county.

A Cork man, making inquiries of a Tipperary man about him, was
answered:--

'I don't know this gentleman personally, but I believe we have already
shot the best of the family.'

Mr. Scully was a very amusing man, and in the House of Commons he used
to go by the nickname of 'old Skull.'

Lord Monk accosted him by this name one night, and Mr. Scully replied:--

'If you have taken the "e y" off your own name, my lord, it is no reason
you should do it off mine.'

Here is another story of him.

Mr. Dillwyn said to him, a Roman Catholic:--'I have lived sixty years in
this world, and I don't yet know the difference between the two
religions.'

'Bydad,' retorted Scully, 'you will not have been five minutes in the
other without finding it out.'

Shortly after the franchise was enlarged--which threw Imperial
Parliament at the mercy of the ignorant--old Lord Kenmare died and the
present peer was called up to the House of Lords.

Lord Kenmare was the most popular landlord in Kerry, and he selected a
Roman Catholic cousin of his, Mr. Dease, to stand for the county, Mr.
Roland Blennerhasset, a young Protestant landlord, being started against
him in support of Home Rule principles.

The Roman Catholic bishop and most of the priests backed Mr. Dease, but
the Home Rule candidate beat him by three to one. Some of the priests,
who were very obnoxious to the people, supported Mr. Blennerhasset, and
were then idolised, whilst a very popular parish priest, who canvassed
for Mr. Dease, had to run for his life.

From thenceforth no one but a Home Rule candidate had any chance in
Munster, and Mr. Roland Blennerhasset, having seen the error of his
ways, afterwards became a Unionist candidate in England. He is a very
clever man, who was quite young then, but has now blossomed into a K.C.
in London, and is mighty shrewd about speculations.

The election was great fun except for the stones and bricks, of which
enough were thrown about to build a city without foundations. Mr. Dease
got a blow on his ribs at Castle Island, which told on his health, and
he died soon afterwards. He was a brother of Sir Gerald Dease, and a man
very much liked.

It was during this election that I was fired at one night at Aghadoe,
returning from Puck Fair at Killorghin. A rumour was started that it was
the work of one of the tenants on Sir George Colthurst's Cork estates,
and the Tralee correspondent of the _Examiner_ telegraphed his belief in
this, adding 'so repugnant are Kerry men to these dastardly outrages.'

They took to them as greedily as a duck to water in later times, as all
the world knows; and in the light of subsequent events it is delightful
to remember that the _Freeman_ stated, 'All condemn this dastardly act,
for Mr. Hussey is universally respected.'

It atoned for this lapse into truth by subsequently taking my name in
vain hundreds of times in the bad periods that were ahead.

There had been a libel case between the Rev. Denis O'Donoghue, parish
priest of Ardfert, and myself. The address of this cleric in proposing
Mr. Blennerhasset at the nomination had annoyed those he assailed
intensely. Up to that point I had been utterly indifferent, but after
that I strained every nerve to defeat Father O'Donoghue's nominee.

This is an extract from his speech at Ardfert:--

'Sam Hussey is a vulture with a broken beak, and he laid his voracious
talons on the consciences of the voters. (Boos.) The ugly scowl of Sam
Hussey came down upon them. He wanted to try the influence of his dark
nature on the poor people. (Groans). Where was the legitimate influence
of such a man? Was it in the white terror he diffused? Was it not the
espionage, the network of spies with which he surrounded his lands? He
denied that a man who managed property had for that reason a shadow of a
shade of influence to justify him in asking a tenant for his vote. What
had they to thank him for?'

A voice: 'Rack rents.'

'They knew the man from his boyhood, from his _gossoonhood_. He knew
him when he began with a _collop_ of sheep as his property in the world.
(Laughter.) Long before he got God's mark on him. It was not the man's
fault but his misfortune that he got no education. (Laughter.) He had in
that parish schoolmasters who could teach him grammar for the next ten
years. The man was in fact a Uriah Heep among Kerry landlords.
(Cheers.)'

The result of this and other incentives to irritability was that the
voters for Mr. Dease had to be escorted by troops and constabulary.

The sporting proclivities had already been shown over a race. In the
County Club at Tralee there was an altercation between Mr. Sandes and a
leading 'Deasite' as to the rival merits of a bay mare belonging to one
and a chestnut horse owned by the other.

Quoth Mr. Sandes:--

'I'll run you a two mile steeplechase for a hundred guineas if you like,
and I'll call my horse Home Rule--do you call yours Deasite; each to
ride his own horse.'

No Kerry man could refuse such a challenge, and the race excited more
interest than the election.

Mr. Sandes won, leaving 'Deasite' nowhere, and this helped Mr.
Blennerhasset to head the poll.

More than one man is asserted to have voted for:--'Him you know that me
landlord wants me to vote for.'

But I should say several dozen voted for:--

'Him you know that the priest, God bless him, tells me to vote for.'

The libel over which the action arose was alleged to have been published
in the _Cork Examiner_, and the words complained of were pretty sturdy.

The jury returned a verdict of one farthing for the plaintiff priest,
and I do not think he derived as much advertisement out of it as Miss
Marie Corelli obtained from a similar coin of the realm.

Of course all this should have shown me that I had in my own interests
better keep clear of Kerry politics, but after I had bought the Harenc
estate, I stood for Tralee as a Tory against The O'Donoghue, who was a
Nationalist. I never supposed I was going to get in, but I really had a
capital run for the Parliamentary Handicap, though I was weighted by
political convictions and penalised by my creed. The priests made a most
active set against me. There were only fifty Protestants on the
register, and yet I managed to get one hundred and thirty votes, for
which suffrages some eighty honest men must have been well worrited in
the confessional.

The O'Donoghue polled one hundred and eighty votes, and I believe a good
many of his supporters had strong views on the currency question, and he
was backed by a wealthy merchant. The constituency is now merged into
the county, and the remotest chance of returning a rational member is
now at an end.

The O'Donoghue did not stand after the merging of the constituency,
though he was well used to electioneering work and had fought me very
pleasantly, with as much devil about him as would make an angel
palatable.

I did not much care for the whole thing. Still I was always a bit of a
stormy petrel rejoicing in a gale, and my capacity has not waned even in
my eightieth year.

The mob indulged in some lively work. A good many windows of houses
belonging to my supporters were broken and a man stabbed.

The polling day was made the occasion of a public holiday, which meant
that the bulk of the population was imbibing a great deal more than was
compatible with the laws of equilibrium. Some amusement was caused by
the panic of The O'Donoghue's supporters at the votes I was getting, and
presently they brought up in cars one poor man in an advanced stage of
consumption, and another unable to walk from old age.

It was a wearisome day to me; but before its close it became abundantly
evident that if the electors were allowed to exercise a free discretion
and vote according to their consciences, I should have headed the poll
by a large majority. However in Ireland man proposes and the priest
disposes.

At a meeting of the Conservative electors in Cork, Mr. Standford read a
telegram announcing the return of The O'Donoghue in Tralee, which was
received with hisses. He said the reason I had stood there was a
requisition, signed by Sir Henry Donovan, in the presence of nine grand
jurors of the County of Kerry, calling on me to do so. Sir Henry Donovan
had since turned over to The O'Donoghue from the man he had forced into
the field. Now that would teach them not to be fooled by Liberal
promises. It almost made him believe no truth, no honour, and no
sincerity existed among their opponents.

This was received with applause, which was renewed with laughter when
Mr. Young observed:--

'I will make one remark. I think Sir Henry Donovan and The O'Donoghue
are well met.'

To show that strong views in my favour were not confined to Protestants,
I may quote the following letter written from the Augustinian Convent in
Drogheda by J.A. Anderson, O.S.A.:--

'If the electors of Tralee return Mr. O'Donoghue (_alias_ The
O'Donoghue) as their representative in the coming Parliament, they will
be false to Ireland, false to the men that galvanised the dead body that
Gavan Duffy left on "the dissecting table" before starting for
Australia, and they will have the honour (?) of returning to Parliament
the greatest political renegade to Irish nationality that this
generation has known.'

A lady has recently drawn my attention to a footnote in Mr. Lecky's
_History of Ireland_, where is quoted from a letter of my ancestor,
Colonel Maurice Hussey, the following opinion:--

'It--i.e. Tralee--was a nest of thieves and smugglers, and so it always
will be until nine parts of ten of O'Donoghue's old followers be
proclaimed and hanged on gibbets on the spot.'

So when O'Donoghues have troubled me, it is a case of history repeating
itself, and if the percentage of the followers of the modern chieftain
had been 'removed'--as the modern phrase in Ireland ran--according to
the manner advocated by my ancestor, I could have voted in Parliament
against dismembering the Empire to gratify the eagerness of an old man
to truckle to the traitors of the country intrusted to his care.

CHAPTER XI

DRINK

Of course one of the great troubles in Ireland is drink. I am no
advocate for teetotalism, for I think a man who can enjoy a moderate
glass is a better one than his brother who has to drink water in order
that he may not yield to the overpowering 'tempitation'--to quote Mr.
Huntley Wright--to get drunk! But for my fellow-countrymen I can see
that drink is a terrible curse, one which is the cause of half the
crime, half the illness, and more than half the misery that exists
there.

Of all Irish benefactors, possibly Father Mathew was the greatest; but
in my boyish days, when it became known that men, not yet in a lunatic
asylum, had taken up the notion that human life was possible without
alcoholic drinks, the wits of Kerry and Cork were heartily diverted at
the bare idea.

It used to be the stock joke after dinner, even when Father Mathew was
in the zenith of his triumph.

In Cork if you laugh at a thing you can generally suppress it, for,
whereas all Irishmen are keenly susceptible to ridicule, the Cork folk
are even more so.

The cold water business furnished endless jests, but it survived them.

Perhaps the strangest thing of all was the clergyman who preached
against it as being irreligious, taking as the text of his sermon,
'Wine, that maketh glad the heart of man.'

I like a man who is disinterested, therefore I wish to remind the
present generation that Father Mathew came of a stock of distillers, and
his family was among the first to suffer by his preaching.

It was probable there would be a reaction after his death; and when that
event took place, after the famine and fever, none really took his place
to warn the diminishing population, in sufficiently effective fashion,
of all the ills that drink was laying up for them.

Wherever, in my work, I found Government relief works, within a stone's
throw of every pay office a whisky shop started into operation.

New Ireland arose from the famine, and she has never since shown much
sign of temperance. Indeed, an excessive amount of money is, and has
ever since then been, spent on liquor in Ireland.

At Castleisland, the scene of so many outrages, the population of the
town is thirteen hundred, and the number of whisky shops is fifty-two.
Very nearly the same proportion can be noticed in several other towns.

There never was an outrage committed without an empty whisky bottle
being found close to the scene of the murder.

In the worst time a moonlighter slept for a fortnight close to the house
of an Irish landlord, who was well aware that he was there for the
express purpose of shooting him, but he never even attempted it.

'Time after time I lay in a ditch to have a go at him, but he would ride
by, looking for all the world as if he would shoot a flea off the tail
of a shnipe, so that, with all the whisky in the world to help me, I
dared not do it,' was his explanation before he left for America.

Did you never hear the parish priest's sermon?

'It's whisky makes you bate your wives; it's whisky makes your homes
desolate; it's whisky makes you shoot your landlords, and'--with
emphasis, as he thumped the pulpit--'it's whisky makes you miss them.'

There is as much truth in that sermon as in any that was preached last
Sunday between Belfast and Glengariff.

As a matter of fact, the profits to the drink retailer are not so
enormous as might be imagined, owing to the competition.

In the neighbourhood of Castleisland there is one group of twelve houses
and nine of these are whisky booths. However anxious the population may
be to consume immoderate amounts of the fiery liquor, and however large
the traffic on the road--never a big thing in Ireland, except on
market-day--the division of the local receipts by nine is apt to
diminish the profits in each case.

It has been suggested to me by a lady who knows Kerry well, that the
consumption of drink might be diminished if a law were passed forcing
the publicans to sell food. As she very truly remarks, it is often
impossible for the country folk, even on market-day, when coming into a
town, to get food for immediate consumption.

However, I do not think this would have any effect. When away from his
cabin the Irishman and the Irishwoman want drink, not food, for there
are a few potatoes at home which will provide all the solid sustenance
most of them desire.

If her proposal were made law, each publican would keep a loaf in his
window, and there it would stay for a year.

That reminds me of the man who was waiting in Waterford Station on March
12th, and to pass the time had a ham sandwich at the bar.

After one mouthful he asked the astonished barmaid for another, made of
February bread, because he really felt that it was time January bread
might have a rest.

To give an example of how Irishmen crave for drink, I will relate an
incident connected with the Parnell Commission.

Three of Lord Kenmare's tenants had been sent over in charge of an
experienced and reliable man to give evidence, and on their return
journey, when they arrived at North Wall--the hour being 6 A.M.--the
conductor said:--

'There is cold meat, or bread and cheese. Now, what will your fancy be?'

Far from wanting nutrition after an all night journey, or even the
soothing solace of a cup of tea, it was half a pint of whisky apiece
that they all asked for.

Just as much drinking exists among the Protestants as among the Roman
Catholics, only there is a trifle more geniality in the bibulous
propensities of the latter. Much less affects an Irishman than a
Scotsman. The latter, when he has absorbed all the whisky he can
assimilate in a bout--and no bad amount it is, let me observe--will go
quietly to sleep. But an Irishman's joy is incomplete unless he knocks
somebody down, which may account for the fact that the Irish are the
best soldiers in the world.

One redeeming feature in the liquor traffic is the increasing
consumption of porter, for that at least has some nourishment in it, and
is reasonably wholesome, whereas the whisky is vilely adulterated, not
only by the publicans before it reaches the consumer, but also in some
of the factories.

Puck Fair is the great annual fête and mart of Killorglin; and it is so
called because a goat is always fastened to a stave on a platform, and
gaily bedizened. Formerly the animal was attached to the flagstaff on
the Castle. To this fair all Kerry for many miles congregates, and the
neighbouring roads towards evening are literally strewn with bibulous
individuals of either sex.

On one occasion a Killorglin publican was in jail, and his father asked
for an interview because he wanted the recipe for manufacturing the
special whisky for Puck Fair. It has been a constant practice to prepare
this blend, but the whisky does not keep many days, as may be gathered
from the recipe, which the prisoner without hesitation dictated to his
parent:--

A gallon of fresh, fiery whisky. A pint of rum. A pint of methylated
spirit. Two ounces of corrosive sublimate. Three gallons of water.

An Irishman's constitution must be tougher than that of an ostrich to
enable him to consume much of the filthy poison. Temperance orators are
welcome to make what use they like of the recipe of this awful
decoction, annually sold to a confiding population.

It is not considered etiquette to come out of Killorglin sober on Puck
Fair; and, judging by the state of the people in the vicinity in the
evening, this social custom is rigidly observed.

They are wonderfully particular in Kerry in attending to exactly what is
congenial to them, and if it were not for the thickness of their heads a
good many lives would be lost.

There was a gauger, in a central county in Ireland, killed by a blow on
the head from a stick.

The man who struck him, in his defence, stated:--

'I did not hit him a very hard blow, and why the devil did the
Government make a gauger of a man that had a head no thicker than an
egg-shell?'

Mighty few of the Killorglin folk have egg-shell heads, and the bulk of
these do not come to maturity.

The avowed fact that lunacy is largely on the increase in Ireland has
been pronounced by the committee which sat on the question in Dublin to
be mainly due, not only to excessive drinking, but to the assimilation
of adulterated spirits.

Though the foregoing recipe furnishes a pretty fair example, I certainly
would not wager that it could not be beaten elsewhere in Ireland.

For a long time the priests were entirely apathetic on the subject, but
latterly they are bestirring themselves, and are doing their best to put
down wakes, which simply mean one or more nights of disgusting
intemperance in the immediate vicinity of the corpse.

Keening, by the way, is dying out, and what remains of this curious,
mournful waiting is now almost entirely in the hands of old women who
are experts in the art, and get remunerated not only in drink but also
in cash.

It is, however, possible that when I am deploring the alcoholic
tendencies of the Irishman, that these may be due to his more vegetarian
dietary, and not to any undue natural craving for alcohol. This is borne
out by the fact that no Irishman will willingly drink alone, and that
his potations are in the shops where whisky and porter are sold for
consumption on the premises, or at fairs, markets, weddings, or wakes,
to the diminishing number of which I have just called attention.

The parish priest of Dingle recently stated in court that in a
population of seventeen hundred there were over fifty licensed houses,
and he rightly declared that all dealings in licences should for the
present be only by transfer, and that for five years at least no new
licences should be granted. The argument so often heard against stopping
licences is that then more illicit drinking will ensue, but this does
not convince me that the redundant licences should be renewed.

My remedy would be to increase all renewals of licences to fifty pounds
apiece, and to apply the difference as compensation to unrenewed
licences. If a man fits up his house as a shebeen, and has conducted it
tolerably, he ought to receive just compensation when his licence is
cancelled owing to there being too many in a district.

If this is not done, he would be the victim of as great a robbery as was
perpetrated on the unfortunate landlords by the Land Act.

I have a yarn or two on the subject of drink which may be appropriately
related here.

Old David Burus, the steward at Ardrum, County Cork, was a great
character who had got inextricably confused between the Council of Trent
and the Trant family in the vicinity, and no amount of explanation could
ever enlighten him. Directly he had begun to be jovial, he used to
say:--

'My blessing on Councillor Trent, who put a fast on meat, but not on
drink.'

And he proved the devoutness of his gratitude by conscientiously getting
drunk every Friday.

That recalls to my mind the case of the illustrious gentleman--also a
fellow-countryman, I regret to say--who committed burglary and murder
when there was an opportunity, but religiously refrained from eating
meat on Friday.

Reverting to David Burus: on one occasion I remonstrated with him on the
amount of whisky he drank.

'I did drink a great deal of whisky, and I would have drunk more.' was
his reply, 'if I had known it was going to be as dear as it is now.'

He evidently regretted not having thoroughly saturated himself with
alcohol. It was the only way in which he could have possibly increased
his consumption.

He was wont to say that if he had known the trick Mr. Gladstone was
going to play on honest, God-fearing men, with sound stomachs and a
decent appetite, by imposing a ten shilling duty on every gallon of
whisky, he would have drunk his fill beforehand, even if _delirium
tremens_ had been the penalty.

Such hard drinking as his, and so calmly avowed, must, even in the south
of Ireland, be fortunately rare, for few constitutions can stand
conversion into animated whisky vats.

There was a farmer at Kanturk railway station who confided to the
stationmaster that he himself on the previous evening had been as drunk
as the very devil.

A parson on the platform, overhearing him, said:--

'You make a mistake, my friend, the devil does not drink. He keeps his
head cool for the express purpose of watching such as you.'

The countryman replied:--

'You seem to be very well acquainted with the respected gentleman's
habits, your riverince.'

And then they walked off different ways.

Which reminds me of another clerical incident.

A parish priest within twenty miles of Tralee, who subsequently left the
Church--I will not say on account of his thirst, though, as that was
unquenchable, it no doubt conduced to his retirement--came into the
parlour of the manager of the bank with two farmers to have a bill
discounted.

The manager, having ascertained the farmers were good security, cashed
the bill and gave the proceeds to the priest. He was very much surprised
on the following day at the two farmers walking into his room with the
money.

'What's the meaning of this?' says he.

'Well, your honour, we could not stay in the parish, if we refused to
join his reverence in the deal, which was sure to be a very bad one for
us. So we thought the best thing to do was to get him a little hearty at
his own expense on the way home. And then we picked his pocket and have
brought the money to your honour, whilst he is cursing every thief
outside his parish, and will probably ask the congregation to make up
the amount next Sunday.'

And that is a true story, and as illustrative of the Irish peasant as
any you could ever get told to you.

A coffin-maker named Sullivan thrived in Tralee. He received an order
for a coffin for a man living about six miles away from the town. It was
not called for for a week, and so he went out to the house where the man
lay dead to inquire the cause.

When he came back to Tralee, he said to a friend:--

'Who do you think I saw, Mick, but that scoundrel of a corpse sitting in
a ditch eating a piece of pig's cheek.'

That reminds me of another coffin story.

A man who lived in Cork was notorious for being always behind time for
everything. He knew his failing, and was rather touchy about it.

One night, stumbling out of a whisky shop, he lurched into a yard, fell
against a door, which gave way, and finished his slumbers peacefully in
the shed, which was the storehouse of an undertaker.

In the morning he awoke, rubbed his eyes in astonishment at the strange
surroundings amid which he found himself, and after recollecting his own
pet proclivity, as he ruefully surveyed all the empty coffins,
ejaculated:--

'Just my usual luck. Late for the Resurrection.'

Which recalls another tale:--

A man was dead drunk, so some friends, for a lark, brought him into a
dark room, lit a lot of phosphorus, and made up one of their party in
the guise of a devil before they flung a bucket of water over their
victim.

'Where am I?' asked the fellow, looking round 'skeered.'

'In hell,' retorted the devil, with exaggerated solemnity.

'Heaven bless your honour, as you know the ways of the place, will you
get me a drop of drink?'

But a mere drop does not suffice as a friend of mine found out.

He was wont to reward his car-driver with a glass of whisky, and gave it
to him in an antique glass, which did not contain as much as cabby
wished for.

'That's a very quare glass, captain,' says he.

'Yes,' replied Captain Stevens; 'that's blown glass.'

'Why, Captain,' says the carman, 'the man must have been damned short in
the breath that blew that.'

This would no doubt have been the opinion of a Dublin carman who was in
the habit of bringing a present to an acquaintance of mine from a lady
living at some distance, and being recompensed with a glass of grog. By
degrees, however, the water grew to be the predominant partner in the
union within the glass, so at last he burst out in disgust:--

'If you threw a tumbler of whisky over Carlisle Bridge, it would be
better grog than that at the Pigeon House.'

Which being interpreted into cockneyism would read, 'If you threw a
glass of whisky over Westminster Bridge it would be better grog than
that at Greenwich Pier.'

Still all consumption of liquor is not confined to Ireland, and I well
remember when I was with Bogue in Scotland, that one night he had a
fellow-farmer of the very best type to dine with him, and about ten
o'clock, with much difficulty, my man and I hoisted him into the saddle.

An hour afterwards we heard a knock at the door, and a voice rather
quaveringly inquired:--

'Pleash, can you tell me the way to X., I have lost my way?'

The tracks next morning revealed he had been riding round and round the
house without once quitting the vicinity, which was almost as bad as
Mark Twain's famous nocturnal perambulation with his pedometer, when he
went on a tramp abroad!

Of potation stories I could tell scores more, and the Tralee Club has
seen enough whisky imbibed within its walls to drown all the members.

A quaint character named Mullane was at one time steward, and decidedly
astonished a member, who was a total abstainer, by charging him in his
bill for three tumblers of punch.

'Well,' explained Mullane, 'it's this way. Some take six tumblers, and
some takes none, so I strikes an average--and to tell you the truth,
it's mighty convenient for the great majority.'

A quaint member of the club was Mr. Edward Morris. He was extremely
diminutive, and he wore an eyeglass. One evening he was standing on the
first landing, pondering in a bemused state whether he could get
downstairs without falling, when a pursey little doctor trotted past him
without even touching the bannister.

This inspired Morris with courage, so he let go his hold of the
balustrade, whereupon he promptly fell on the physician, and both rolled
to the bottom of the stairs.

Thence in hiccuping tones were heard:--

'Waiter! Waiter, put the glass in my eye, and let me see who the
scoundrel was who struck me.'

On another evening in the club, when he had imbibed very freely, he
ordered an additional glass of grog, and began to moralise aloud,
addressing it after this fashion:--

'Glass of grog, if I drink you now, you'll cut the legs from under me.
And yet I want you, and I will not do without you. So I know what I will
do. I'll go to bed and I'll drink you there, for I don't care a damn
what you do to me then.'

The indifference of a drunken man to subsequent consequences was rather
quaintly shown by that weird individual Dr. Tanner, when he went up to
Sir Ellis Ashmead Bartlett in the lobby of the House of Commons, and
abruptly observed:--

'You're a fool.'

Sir Ellis fixed him with his eyeglass, and, in disgusted tones,
replied:--

'You're drunk.'

'I suppose so,' retorted the Irishman, 'but then I'll be sober
to-morrow'--in the most plaintive tone, then in a crescendo of scorn--'
whereas you'll always be a fool.'

Moreover as he slouched down the lobby, he was heard to say:--

'If I do get a headache, I've a head to have it in, not a frame on which
to hang an eyeglass.'

That is a political amenity on which I will not dwell.

Very little money-lending is to be heard of in the south of Ireland, and
in all my experience I only remember one case in Kerry. Tenants in
Ireland, however, have great horror of breaking bulk, and many of them
will do a bill for a neighbour when they have deposits in the bank for
themselves. As it is a point of honour never to refuse a friend in this
respect, you can easily imagine the amount of 'paper' which is
fluttering.

Even when a farmer has a tidy sum of money on deposit with the bank at
one per cent., if he wants to employ a sum for a short time, say for the
purchase of cattle, he prefers to raise the money on a bill at six per
cent.

That is to say, the bank is lending him his own money at five per
cent.--a truly Hibernian trait, which it would be difficult to beat
anywhere.

A bill for drink is not recoverable, but occasionally an insidious
publican will take a man's I.O.U. and sue on that.

One applied to me to help him to get the money from a tenant.

'You must show me the account,' said I.

As I suspected, there was whisky in it, and I declined on the spot.

All drink in Ireland is on cash down terms only.

If they gave tick, they would never recover the money, and if every
Irishman is a knowing scoundrel, the publican is a trifle more
knowledgable than the customer, whose brains are besodden.

A man, who had been a servant of mine, started a public near Tralee, and
thinking he would get customers from the other whisky stores, he gave
tick. His popularity lasted just as long as the tick did, and a week
later he was broke. I do not say so much about Tralee being able to
support one hundred and sixty liquor shops, because there is a little
shipping, but how Cahirciveen can enable fifty publicans to thrive is a
melancholy mystery to me.

I was animadverting once, at Dingle, on the topic, when one of my
labourers remarked:--

'It's the gentry does the drinking.'

'Now that's very curious,' said I, 'for as there are only two of us, and
as I never touch spirits, the other must have such a thirst that he'd
consume the bay if only it were made of whisky.'

In these democratic days, it is as well to resist any undue aspersion on
the upper classes.

To pass any aspersion on the bibulous propensities of a tenant of mine
named Flaherty would be impossible. When he was buying his farm, I told
him the Government ought to take him on very easy terms, when they
became his landlords.

'And for why?' he asked.

'Because,' I replied, 'the duty you pay on the whisky you drink is more
than twenty times your annual rent.'

I had, however, one personal illustration of the drinking propensity in
Scotland, which I think is worth preserving. It is some years now since
I went to see a certain farmer who, his wife told me, on noticing my
approach, was compelled to go upstairs to cool his head as it was after
dinner. She said this much in the same casual tone, as I should mention
that my wife had gone up early to dress for that meal.

Next, I heard heavy splashing of water, and then a crash which portended
that the farmer had fallen over the washstand, making a fearful clatter.

In rushed the drab of a servant maid, perfectly indifferent to my
presence, shrieking:--

'O missus, come up, come up, the maister is just miraculous among the
chaney!'

CHAPTER XII

PRIESTS

I have been asked, since my friends became aware that I am perpetrating
my reminiscences, whether I was going to write anything supplemental to
Mr. MacCarthy's _Priests and People_, and _Five Tears in Ireland_.

My reply was:--

'Certainly not.'

To begin with, I have many friends among Roman Catholics, and plenty of
cheery acquaintances among the priests. Secondly, the state of feud and
hostility on which Mr. MacCarthy dilates is more likely to be found in
Ulster and Leinster than in Kerry, where the Roman Catholics form more
than nine-tenths of the population.

On one occasion, when a distinguished Englishman was staying at
Killarney House, I told him that he should go to the north to see the
strangest sight in the world--two races hating one another for the love
of God.

It is not my business to estimate what would happen in Kerry if a few
thousand rabid Orangemen were plumped down among the present
inhabitants; but according to existing circumstances creeds are not torn
to tatters nor religion disfigured by strife and slander.

All the same, I am bound to say that the Roman Catholic priests, when I
was young, were much superior to those of to-day. They were drawn from a
better class, because, having to be educated at Rome, or, at least, as
far away as St. Omer, entailed some considerable outlay by their
relatives. Moreover, they brought back from their continental seminaries
broader ideas than can be acquired in purely Irish colleges. Their
interest had been stimulated at the most impressionable age in much of
which the farmers and labourers had no conception. Therefore the priest
could address his flock with authority, and was invariably looked up to
as well as obeyed.

The parish priest at Blarney erected a tower in commemoration of the
battle of Waterloo, and a public house in the vicinity bears the name to
this day.

What parish priest would raise a memorial to any English victory in the
twentieth century?

The greatest curse to the Irish nation has been Maynooth, because it has
fostered the ordination of peasants' sons. These are uneducated men who
have never been out of Ireland, whose sympathies are wholly with the
class from which they have sprung, and who are given no training
calculated to afford them a broader view than that of the narrowest
class prejudice.

As for the much discussed Irish university, I do not myself believe it
will be founded.

Should even an English Government be blind enough to allow it, an Irish
university could only become a hot-bed of treason, and practically all
educated members of the Roman Catholic community would avoid sending
their sons to such a seminary of sedition, where the influence would be
insidiously directed to make the undergraduates even more hostile to
England than they already are by inherited instincts and by all they
have been told in their own homes.

On the very day this page is written, I have mentioned the question of
an Irish university to two Protestants in the Carlton, both Members of
Parliament, and both approved of the idea in a languid way. I have also
mooted the topic this afternoon to two leading Roman Catholics, and both
vehemently disapproved, alleging that it will work endless mischief.

As far back as 1872 Dr. Macaulay wrote:--

'The Irish university question has been put off from year to year, and
at length presses for settlement.'

In the best interests of Ireland, may the same thing be written thirty
years hence!

If the Roman Catholics of England send their sons to Oxford and
Cambridge, why should not more Irish Roman Catholics send theirs to
Trinity College, Dublin? Only a very few do, although the education is
said to be quite as good as at either of the great English Universities.
A far tighter hold is kept, however, on the Roman Catholic laity in
Ireland than in England. It always surprises English people to learn
that, in Ireland, Roman Catholics are not allowed to enter Protestant
churches to attend either funerals or weddings. Nor do I think there is
much probability of these restrictions being removed.

Of course, in the years of outrage and terror in Ireland, many of the
priests from the altar denounced loyal members of the congregation, or
incited their hearers to deeds of wickedness by their inflammatory
sermons. These facts are among the blackest in the history of any creed,
and I do not hesitate to class the work of some of the priests who
disgraced their Church with the worst perpetrations of the Spanish
Inquisition.

Fortunately all priests were not, and are not, after this style. I have
known many good and worthy men among them, as well as capital fellows,
fond of a joke. Moreover, the Roman Catholic Church did not always take
the side of the Land League.

For example, the bishops and parish priests laboured assiduously to get
Lord Granard his rents from his estates in Longford.

Why?

Because Maynooth held a great mortgage on the property.

In the famous De Freyne case, the parish priest energetically assisted
the landlord in every way in his power, because the property was heavily
mortgaged with Roman Catholic charges.

These are two facts that occur to me on the spur of the moment, and
probably other people could supply similar instances.

As for the Episcopacy, it was the violence of Dr. Walsh, the Archbishop
of Dublin, which prevented him from obtaining the coveted cardinal's
hat. This was given to Dr. Logue, the Archbishop of Armagh and Primate
of Ireland, a witty, capable, clever man, who had such an inveterate
habit of taking snuff that he did so even when conversing with Queen
Victoria.

'It prevents me from sniffing out heresy,' he explained, with a twinkle,
'and so gives me an excuse for shutting my eyes to the different views
of my neighbours.'

The Queen was much amused, but the remark conveyed a true view of Irish
Catholicism.

The fact is, his bishop can do very little with a treasonable man when
once he has been inducted a parish priest; and the curate who obtains
irregular fees, of course, panders even more to the taste of his
congregation. A bishop will haul up a tonsured subordinate mighty sharp
for any breach of ecclesiastical duty, but when it comes to politics and
instigation to crime, he finds it far more difficult to keep a tight
hand.

As a broad rule it may be stated that the bishops are well selected, and
are of a much higher type than the average priest.

Of the bishops of Killarney, Moriarty put down Fenianism with no light
hand, preaching, as I have already shown, in the most manly and emphatic
style--which could have been emulated with advantage in other
Episcopacies in my country. MacCarthy was a bookworm from Maynooth, who
played the deuce with the diocese, allowing all the priests to run wild,
and by his laxity becoming criminally responsible for much of the
terrible condition of Kerry. Higgins was the nominee of a friend of
Moriarty, and he worked hard to suppress outrages, by which course he
certainly did not add to his popularity among his flock. In his upright
and courageous conduct he has been worthily emulated by his successor,
Coffey, whose demise occurred only in the present year.

Kerry possesses one bishop, fifty-one parish priests and administrators,
sixty-nine curates, and eleven priests occupied in tuition.

There are six religious houses for males, and seventeen convents,
representing about five hundred inhabitants, as well as three hundred
students, which, with the occupants of subsidiary sacerdotal
establishments, is estimated to make up 1265 persons.

In 1871, when the population of Kerry was 196,586, there were 337
priests and nuns. In 1901, when the population had become reduced to
165,726, the priests and nuns had increased to 546.

And these statistics bring me to a salient point:--

The one reality above all others in Irish life is the grip of the
Church.

In the last book which I have received from the library--_Paddy-Risky_
by Mr. Andrew Merry--one of the stories is that of a poor widow
beggaring herself in order to provide the parish chapel with a bell, and
that is the kind of thing you hear of everywhere.

The Roman Catholic Church presides over every function in the life of
each member of its community, and the priest charges heavily for
administering the rites.

At a wedding he does not take a prescribed fee, but makes a bargain,
usually with the family of the bride. I have known as much as
twenty-five pounds paid to a priest at a small farmer's marriage; and
the sum obtained is very often out of all proportion to the dowry of the
bride, or even to the funds of the happy pair.

An example may be cited--the case of a labourer in my own employ, who
received forty pounds as his wife's fortune, and had to pay eight to the
parish priest.

It is the same thing with funerals, over which a ridiculous amount is
still spent, although the wake is falling into disrepute under the ban
of the Church, and women are now rarely hired to 'keen.' There is a
craze to have a number of priests attending the service, and a good many
of them do go, very well pleased, as to a picnic.

In parishes where the poverty is something appalling the members of the
congregation not only contribute Peter's Pence, but you cannot go into
the chapel without seeing some tiny candles lighted before the altar of
Mary, which must literally represent the scriptural mites of the widow
and orphan.

Before I relapse into a few stories, let me say something about the
Protestant clergy.

They are nearly always recruited from the ranks of the smaller Irish
gentry, and whilst, perhaps, richer in proportion than many of the
curates and incumbents in England, there are no 'fat' livings, and all
are distinctly poorer since the Disestablishment.

The average in Kerry, and over most of the south of Ireland, is a
stipend of two hundred pounds a year, which involves reading services in
two churches each Sunday, and therefore puts the clergyman to the
expense of keeping a horse and trap.

About 1820 the district around Castleisland was divided into three
parishes--Castleisland, Ballincushlane, and Killeentierna--the joint
revenues of which were eighteen hundred a year. These were vested in the
Lord Bandon of the time, who lived in the lovely cottage on the upper
Lake of Killarney.

He allowed a curate fifty pounds a year to do the joint duties, and I
hardly think the man was worth the money. He subsequently obtained a
Government living and was in the habit of asking his congregation, as
they went into church, whether they wanted a sermon or not. The general
concensus of opinion was a polite negative--to the relief of all
parties.

The method of electing a vicar in Ireland since the Disestablishment is
both sensible and practical.

Three parish nominators, one lay diocesan nominator, two clerical
diocesan nominators, and the bishop, between them, choose the new
incumbent. By the constitution of this Court of Election, it is certain
that no one will be appointed to whom the parish objects, whilst if the
parish desires the nomination of an incompetent man, that is checked by
the diocesan voters in conjunction with the bishop.

In fact it is an admirable system, far better than the patronage plan
still rampant in England.

The Irish bishops are also chosen by nominators drawn from the clergy
and laity of the diocese, provided a two-thirds majority be obtained for
any one candidate. If not, the Irish bench of bishops jointly selects
the new wearer of lawn sleeves.

This, again, works with perfect smoothness and never arouses the
ill-feeling aroused by the selections nominally made by the Prime
Minister. To-day the _Foundations of Belief_ may not be an essay which
causes confidence in the ability of the author to pick the best bishops,
and all the much-vaunted religious convictions of Mr. Gladstone did not
make his nominations to the Episcopacy particularly successful. It is
now no secret that Lord Cairns used to choose bishops for Disraeli and
that Lord Shaftesbury often was consulted by Prime Ministers who knew
more about sport than clericalism.

So far as I can recollect, among all the Irish clergy I have met not one
was an Englishman, though there are plenty of Irish in the English
Established Church.

All the Disestablished Church of Ireland is exceedingly
anti-ritualistic.

'I do not want Mock-Turtle, when I am so near real Turtle,' said Sir
George Shiel, when asked to visit St. Alban's, Holborn, one of the
Ritualistic temples--an observation which represents the feeling
animating clergy and laity in Ireland, though they are none the better
pleased that out of the funds of the Disestablishment, Maynooth should
have received a capitalised sum equal to the previous annual grant from
Government.

And now for just a few clerical tales.

A man was dying and the priest was with him.

'Ah, Father Philip,' said the poor fellow, 'I am sure the likes of you
would never be deceiving a poor man and him on his deathbed. Tell me
straight, is my soul all right?'

'It is, my son, and in a very short time you'll be in the company of the
Blessed Saints.'

'In that case, Father, I'll tell the devil he may just kiss my toe and
bad luck to him for all the trouble I have had to get out of his
clutches,' and the priest noticed his last sigh was one of complete
satisfaction--no doubt anticipatory.

Purgatory forms the foundation of many stories.

A certain very poor widow was paying the priest money for the soul of
her son, who was killed in a faction fight.

'And it's more masses you must have Mrs. Murphy, for Paddy has only got
his red hair out of purgatory.'

Later, when she was asked for further contributions:--

'It's his mouth which is out now, and he sends his mother on earth
messages to have prayers said to get him to heaven.'

A third time did Widow Murphy give the priest what she could not in the
least afford.

Yet again he reported progress.

'Now you must make a great effort, for his head and shoulders are out of
purgatory.'

'Then it's devil another penny of mine will go for masses, for if my Pat
has his head and shoulders out, I can safely reckon he'll soon wriggle
himself away entirely, God bless the poor darling.'

Another purgatory tale, this time concerning Father Batt.

A fellow-priest came to see him, and over a friendly glass:--

'And what's the news?' asked Father Batt.

'None that I know on earth, but I do hear tell that the floor of
purgatory has given way and all the inhabitants have fallen into hell.'

'Oh, the poor Protestants, that will be all crushed by the weight atop
of them,' was Father Batt's rejoinder.

Few priests in Kerry have been better known or more beloved than he,
almost the last of the old-fashioned school, and he was always warm
friends with his Protestant colleague in Milltown, where he resided.

Father Batt invariably took a few tumblers of hot whisky punch after
dinner, and having got ill was advised by the doctor to give it up and
take to claret.

When the bishop met him some time later, he said:--

'Well, Father Batt, I am afraid you do not like claret so well as the
whisky.'

'It's this way, my lord,' he replied. 'I don't object to the taste so
much as I thought I should, but I find it very tedious.'

It is with some diffidence that I venture upon a convent story. To begin
with, I am a Protestant, and secondly, in relation to one of these
ladies' clubs under sacerdotal patronage I feel like Paul Pry, always
apologetic when putting in an appearance.

Still, the tale is quite innocent and is absolutely true.

The convent is in Kerry and up to recently the order had been an
enclosed one. But a papal edict arrived one day, bidding the nuns go out
to teach, and to collect, as well as to relieve, the suffering in their
own homes.

The Mother Superior was exceedingly wroth.

'What!' quoth she. 'Does the Holy Father want to be interfering with me
after I have been within these walls for the last eight-and-twenty
years? I am not going to begin tramping the roads at my time of life,
not for the Holy Father himself, no, nor all the Cardinals too. A pretty
state of things indeed. Why, he'll be telling me to ride a bicycle
next!'

The county of Cork was at one time so notorious for cattle-stealing that
a Roman Catholic bishop went down specially to admonish them.

When telling one parish priest to be firm with his congregation on the
subject, the bishop observed:--

'Nothing is more clearly laid down in the Bible than that if a man has
possession of another man's property he can never enter the kingdom of
heaven.'

'The Saints preserve us,' exclaimed the priest; 'there'll be plenty of
empty houses there.'

It is not uncommon for a priest to get a bit of truth by accident or by
cunning from one of his flock.

The parish priest was congratulating a man who had married three wives
upon getting a bit of money with each, and received this answer:--

'Well, your reverence, I did not do badly at all, but between the
weddings and the funerals, your reverence took care it was not all clear
profit.'

There is plenty of hard barter about the terms of these ceremonies, and
on one occasion at Brosna, when the curate stood out for three pounds as
his fee for performing the marriage service, the would-be bridegroom
held out a thirty shilling note, saying:--

'Marry yourself to this, your reverence, and we'll be happy with your
blessing.'

As the persuasive eloquence of another man could not abate the price
which his priest demanded for a funeral, he blurted out:--

'Why, the blessed corpse in purgatory would shiver at the thought of
costing so much to put away, and we but poor folk, with the pig that
contrary we don't know whether the litter will survive.'

Here is a fish story connected with a member of my own family, Miss
Clarissa Hussey, who was my aunt, and also a pious Roman Catholic. She
used to hospitably entertain her confessor Father Tom, a priest with a
keen appreciation of the good things of the table. Among his
parishioners it was known that he indicated the value he put on the
coming fare by the length of his preliminary grace.

On a certain Friday in Lent he dined with her, and on a huge dish being
put down in front of his hostess, he expected a fine salmon, and
shutting his eyes proceeded to pronounce a benediction the length of
which greatly gratified my aunt. On the cover being removed, however,
his face fell, and in severe tones he rebuked her:--

'Was it for bake, ma'am, that I offered up the full grace?'

Nor could he be appeased all through the meal.

That leads me to relate the funeral sermon delivered by a clergyman on a
lady who had died suddenly at her morning meal:--

'You all, dear brethren, well know the loss we have sustained in our
departed sister. She was ever alert and kindly, ever bountiful though
without extravagance. To the last she preserved her characteristics. On
the fatal morning of her removal from among us, she rose as usual and
came to the family breakfast-table. With no premonition of what was to
come she took her egg-spoon and cracked her egg, an egg laid by one of
her own hens. In another moment failure of the heart transferred her to
a higher sphere. She began that egg on earth, she finished it in
heaven.'

CHAPTER XIII

CONSTABULARY AND DISPENSARY DOCTORS

An Englishman once asked me, if I could suggest any way by which all
Ireland could be made loyal. I inquired if he thought the Irish
constabulary a loyal body.

'Most decidedly,' said he, without hesitation.

'Then,' I replied, 'if you will pay every Irishman seventy pounds a year
for doing nothing, but look after other people's affairs--a thing by
nature congenial to him as it is--you'll have the most loyal race on
earth.'

That Englishman went away thoughtful, but I had shown him the solution
of one Irish problem which may be stated thus:--

Why do one half of the sons of farmers in Ireland, who have been or are
members of the Irish constabulary, represent a body of men unequalled
for their respectability, loyalty, and courage, while a large proportion
of the other, at least in the eighties, made up the bulk of the ignoble
army of moonlighters, cattle maimers, and cowardly assassins crouching
behind stone walls to shoot at an unsuspecting victim in the opening?

The answer is _£ s. d._, not an agreeable one, but truth is not always
composed of sweetstuff.

The constabulary are recruited from the sons of peasants and farmers.
They are drilled, disciplined, well fed, well clothed, well paid, and
show themselves well conducted. During all the bad times, there was not
a single case of a disaffected man, though every sort of inducement must
have been brought to bear on them. The prevailing characteristic of all
ranks has been the high sense of duty, so that they composed the most
mobile and the most effective corps in Europe.

As detectives, they have, however, proved quite ineffective, because the
peasant has everywhere been too shrewd for them; 'yet the relative
position of the police to the people, and the intimate connection with
America, marked it out as a force peculiarly adapted to the prevention
and detection of crime committed in Ireland, but often inspired from
America.' So wrote one of the most experienced resident magistrates, Mr.
Clifford Lloyd, afterwards Minister of the Interior in Egypt, and
subsequently Lieutenant Governor of the Mauritius and Consul at
Erzeroum, where he died at the age of forty-seven.

The constabulary are enlisted without any consideration of creed, but
when Sir Duncan MacGregor was at the head of the force he arranged that
of the five men in every police barrack, two should be Protestant, and
three Roman Catholic, or _vice-versa_. This check has subsequently been
swept away, by no means to the advantage of the service.

Very recently the Inspector General, and the Assistant Inspector General
retired, and their places were filled by an Englishman and an Irishman,
neither of whom had been in the force, which gave rise to great and
well-founded dissatisfaction. One of the pair is a warm friend of my
own, but that is no reason why I should approve of the appointment.

While the bulk of the officers are Irish gentlemen, educated in Ireland,
Englishmen are also to be found among them. Officers enter by nomination
after passing an examination designed to show that they are not
'crammed,' but the perversity of the examiners has always thwarted this
excellent intention. That is like the admirable purpose of Cabinet
Ministers, bent on reforming their different departments, but
dexterously 'blocked' by the permanent officials.

Before the reduction commenced by Mr. Wyndham, the Constabulary numbered
10,679, and cost £1,390,917. In my opinion it will be found necessary in
the future, not only to keep the force up to its full strength, but to
materially increase its number so soon as the Government becomes the
sole landlord in Ireland, especially now that they are going to have
Volunteers in the country.

The existence of this force merely means that landlords will be shot at
half price; so, for the sake of their own skins, the latter had better
get clear of the country before the recruits have had much musketry
instruction. The badness of the shooting saved many a landlord in the
eighties, and if that is remedied, why they will be popped as easily as
my grandson knocks over rabbits.

There is a story of an English tourist seeking for information about the
distressful country, he being at Tallaght near Dublin.

He asked his carman whether there were many Fenians about.

'A terrible lot, your honour,' replied the fellow.

'I suppose a thousand?' the tourist suggested, somewhat apprehensively.

'That is so, and twenty thousand more,' answered the carman without
hesitation.

'Are they armed?' was the next question.

'They are that, and finely into the bargain.'

'And are they prepared to come out?' the tourist being much perturbed,
and thinking it would be his duty to write to the _Times_.

'Prepared to come out in the morning, your honour.'

'And why don't they do so?' with English common sense.

'Begorra, because maybe if they did, the constabulary would put them in
jail.'

So the constabulary have some value after all, in spite of the sneers of
Home Rule members in the House of Commons.

Half a dozen Kerry priests screeched with laughter when I told them that
story in the train, having met them on a journey to Farranfore.

Here is another I also gave them on that occasion.

A couple of policemen were discussing the state of Ireland once upon a
time.

Says Dan to Mick:--

'Sure we'll niver get peace and quiet in the blessed country until we
fetch Oliver Cromwell up from hell to settle the unruly.'

Replies Mick to Dan:--

'Have done, you fool, isn't he a deal quieter where he is?'

Judge Keagh thought worse of his fellow countrymen than do other men
with less than his great experience, and although a Roman Catholic, he
had to be escorted by two constables wherever he went.

He was told that he ought to be guarded by four policemen, because the
two might be attacked.

But he knew the man that said it wanted to make the protection more
conspicuous, so he replied:--

'Sir, I have the most implicit confidence in the invincible cowardice of
my fellow countrymen.'

That recalls an observation of my own.

On one occasion, a telegram was sent from the Chief Inspector of
Constabulary in Kerry to the Scotland Yard authorities to say there was
to be an attempt to murder me in London, and in consequence a gentleman
from the department for providing traffic directors in metropolitan
streets called at my house in Elvaston Place, to inquire what police
protection I wanted.

'None,' said I, 'for if a man shoots me in London he'll be hung, and
every Irish scoundrel is careful of his own neck. It's altogether
another matter in Ireland, where Mr. Gladstone has carefully provided
that he shall be tried by a jury, the majority of which are certain to
be land leaguers.'

I brought out the same idea on a more important occasion.

Once, in Mr. Froude's house, Professor Max Müller--who was a great
admirer of Mr. Gladstone--remarked that after all I had not much reason
to complain, because I had had plenty of police protection in Ireland.

'I should prefer equal laws,' said I.

'What inequality of law have you to find fault with?' he asked.

'Well,' I replied, 'if a land leaguer shoots me in Ireland, he will be
tried by a jury of land leaguers. If I shoot one of them, I would
require that I be tried by a jury of landlords, and if that be granted
I'll clear the road for myself of all suspicious characters, and ask for
no more police protection than you require at Oxford.'

He subsided at that, and Froude laughed at him so heartily, that he had
not another word to say on the subject all day.

Did you ever hear the rhyme about moonlighting? It runs as follows:--

  'The difference betwixt moonlight and moonshine
   The people at last understand,
   For moonlight's the law of the League
   And moonshine is the law of the land.'

That would have clinched my argument beyond all dispute, but the
expressive poem was not written at that time.

Reverting to the topics of this chapter, it is needless to observe that
there is a bond of connection between constabulary and dispensary
doctors, for the latter are needed on many occasions to attend to the
wounds of those just arrested.

The dispensary doctors do not form a satisfactory feature of Irish life,
simply because the farmers elect individuals out of friendship.

A dispensary doctor had to be appointed at Farranfore, and I was most
anxious to get the best man for the position. So I proposed that the
candidates' papers should all be submitted to Sir Dominic Corragun, a
Roman Catholic physician of high standing in Dublin.

I could not even get a seconder to my motion, which therefore fell
stillborn, and I wrote to Lord Kenmare that if Gull or Jenner had been
suggested, neither of them would have obtained three votes.

Virtually the appointment of the dispensary doctor is vested in the
dispensary Committee, which is a local body, usually consisting of one
or more guardians, and four or five specially elected ratepayers. In the
same way are chosen all the local sanitary authorities, who are of
course under the District Council.

You remember that _Punch_ called the sanitary inspector the insanitary
spectre, but the beneficent climate of Ireland fortunately averts all
the evils his authority would not be able to arrest if it came to really
checking filth.

I remember the occasion of the election of another dispensary doctor,
when I was curtly told that only a moonlighter could hope to be
appointed.

My reply was:--

'I suppose it is easier for him to poison people when he is drunk than
to shoot landlords when in an inebriated condition.'

I do know that a dispensary doctor not thirty miles from Killarney was
thrown out of his trap, because he drove the horse through his own front
door, when he was under the intoxicated impression he was entering his
stable yard.

He broke his leg, and as there was no one to set it, he told his nephew
to get a pail of plaster of Paris, and he himself would tell him how to
manage the operation.

First they had a glass of whisky to fortify them for the ordeal, and
then another, and after that a third to drink good luck to the broken
leg.

Finally, when they set about it, the nephew spilt the whole pail of
plaster of Paris over the bed in which his uncle lay, and then fell in a
drunken stupor into the mess. There they both stayed all night until
they were hacked out with a chisel in the morning.

It is strange that the Irish, who are brimful of shrewd sense, use no
more discretion about appointing schoolmasters than dispensary doctors.

The petty pedagogues, who are the Baboos of Ireland, are drawn from the
small-farmer class. There is great competition among the incompetent to
get lucrative posts in my native land: they probably appreciate the
Hibernian eccentricity of giving important positions to the men whose
claims in any other country would never obtain a moment's consideration.

There was a schoolmaster near Castleisland, who died of sparing the rod
but not sparing the potation. His family were anxious his nephew should
be appointed.

As he was an utter ne'er-do-weel, the parish priest justly considered
him unfit for the situation, and brought from a neighbouring county a
schoolmaster highly recommended by the National Convention.

They had a quiet way of expressing their feelings in Kerry in those
days, and the moonlighters fired by night through the windows of every
one who sent their children to the nominee of the parish priest.

The District Inspector thought he had better look into the matter
himself, for it was stated they had always fired high with the sole
purpose of intimidating the occupants of the various cabins.

However, when this inspecting authority found a bullet-hole in a
window-sill only three feet from the ground, he observed:--

'Well, that shot was meant to kill.'

One farmer standing by remarked:--

'It was not right to fire into a house where there were a lot of little
children.'

'Begorra,' cried another, in a tone of virtuous indignation, 'the
careless fellows might have killed the poor pig!'

That was sworn before me.

Here is another incident, also sworn to in my presence.

I must explain that the first poor rate was in 1848, and half was made
up by local subscription, while the rent was added by the presentment of
the county, and not paid out of the rates. It was in those days a common
practice for dispensary doctors to put down on the list imaginary
subscriptions from friends, so as to draw more from the county.

A young fellow, whose name had thus been used, fired into a Protestant
doctor's house, and threatened to murder everybody unless he was given
some money.

He obtained half a crown, with which he bought a pint of whisky and a
mutton pie; but just as he was putting his teeth into the crust of the
latter, he paused in horror.

'I was near being lost for ever, body and soul,' says he, 'this being
Friday, and me so close on tasting meat.'

The woman in the place where he bought the provisions proposed to keep
the mutton pie for him until the following day.

He thanked her civilly, and went away, but had the misfortune to mistake
the police barracks for the rival whisky store, and was promptly
arrested for threatening with intent to do injury.

The next day he asked to be allowed to eat his pie, which is how the
story came out.

The dispensaries are often worked with more attention to the pocket of
those on the premises than is compatible with the principles of honesty,
as recognised outside the legal and medical professions. At one
dispensary in Kerry the Local Government Board was horrified at the
consumption of quinine--an expensive medicine. Indeed, so much
disappeared that, if it had not been for the chronic aversion of any
low-born Irishman to outside applications of liquid, it might have been
surmised that the patients were taking quinine baths. The matter was
privately put into the hands of the police, who within a week arrested
the secretary getting out of a back window with a big bottle of quinine,
which he meant to sell.

That man, for the rest of his life, inveighed against the petty and
mischievous interference with private industry tyrannically waged by
public bodies.

I should like to claim for Kerry the honour of being the land where the
following hoary chestnut originally was perpetrated, the exact locality
being Castleisland.

A landlord, who had returned in a fit of absent-mindedness to his
property after a sojourn in England, was condoling with a woman on the
death of her husband, and asked:--

'What did he die of?'

'Wishna, then, did he not die a natural death, your honour, for there
was no doctor attending him?'

A not dissimilar story is that which concerns a Scotch laird who had
fallen very sick, so a specialist came from Edinburgh to assist the
local murderer in diagnosing the symptoms.

The canny patient felt sure he would not be told what was the matter, so
he bade his servant conceal himself behind the curtains in the room
where the doctors talked it over, and to repeat to him what they said.

This is what the faithful retainer brought as tidings of comfort to the
alarmed invalid:--

'Weel, sir, the two were very gloomy, one saying one thing and the other
another; but after a while they cheered up and grew quite pleasant when
they had decided that they would know all about it at the post-mortem.'

That recalls to my mind Sidney Smith's definition of a doctor as an
individual who put drugs of which he knew very little into a body of
which he knew considerably less.

There is a rare lot of truth in some witticisms.

For some illogical reason only known to my own brain--perhaps with the
desire of keeping up the fashion for inconsecutive and rambling
observations common to all books of reminiscences--the foregoing stories
suggest to my mind the excuse made to me by a wary scoundrel for not
paying his rent.

'I had an illegant little heifer as ever your honour cast an eye over,
and who is a better judge than yourself, God bless you? But the Lord was
pleased to take her to Himself, and it would be flat heresy for me not
to say He is not as good a judge as your honour's self.'

There was an action brought against a veterinary surgeon for killing a
man's horse.

Lord Morris knew something of medicine, as he did of most things, and
asked if the dose given would not have killed the devil himself.

The vet. drew himself up pompously, and said:--

'I never had the honour of attending that gentleman.'

'That's a pity, doctor,' replied Morris, 'for he's alive still.'

The Government introduced into the House of Lords an additional bill for
the complication and confiscation of landed property in Ireland.

Lord Morris said it reminded him of the bill a veterinary surgeon sent
in to a friend of his, the last item of which ran:--

'To curing your grey mare till she died, 10s. 6d.'

Never was the Irish question more happily expressed than in his famous
reply to a lady who asked him if he could account for disaffection in
Ireland towards the English.

'What else can you expect, ma'am, when a quick-witted race is governed
by an intensely stupid one?'

Lord Morris told many stories, but for a change, here is one told of
him.

A Belfast tourist was riding past Spiddal, and asked a countryman who
lived there.

'One Judge Morris, your honour; but he lives the best part of his time
in Dublin.'

'Oh yes,' says the other, 'that's Lord Chief Justice Morris.'

'The very dead spit of him, your honour; and I was told he draws a
thousand a year salary.'

'He has five thousand five hundred a year.'

'Ah, your honour, it's very hard to make me believe that.'

'Why don't you believe it?'

'Because when he's down here he passes my gate five days in the week,
and I never saw the sign of liquor on him.'

Evidently the bigger salary the bigger profit to the whisky distiller
was the rustic's theory.

I have forgotten how the story came to my ears, but I told it to Lord
Morris, who much appreciated it.

Another Kerry story, not unlike one narrated earlier in this chapter,
runs thiswise:--

Two men came to order a coffin for a mutual friend called Tim
O'Shaughnessy.

Said the undertaker:--

'I am sorry to hear poor Tim is gone. He had a famous way with him of
drinking whisky. What did he die of?'

Replied one of the men:--

'He is not dead yet at all; but the doctor says he will be before the
morning; and sure he should know, for he knows what he gave him.'

Sometimes, however, the patient is quite as clever as the doctor.

A physician in Dublin had a telephone put in his bedroom, and when he
was rung up about half-past one on a freezing wintry night, he told his
wife to answer it.

She complied, and informed him:--

'It is Mr. Shamus O'Brien, and he wants you to come round at once.'

The physician knew this to be purely an imaginary case of illness, so
not wishing to be disturbed, said to her:--

'Tell him the doctor is out, and will not be home till morning.'

Unfortunately he spoke so near the telephone that his remark was audible
to the patient. So when the wife had duly delivered the message, the
answer came back:--

'If the man in your bed is a doctor, send him here.'

CHAPTER XIV

IRISH CHARACTERISTICS

It's the proudest boast of my life that I am an Irishman, and the
compliment which I have most appreciated in my time was being called
'the poor man's friend,' for I love Paddy dearly though I see his
faults. Yes, perhaps one of the reasons why I love him is because I do
see the faults, for the errors of an Irishman are often almost as good
as the virtues of an Englishman, and are far more diverting into the
bargain. You must not judge Paddy by the same standard as you apply to
John. To begin with, he has not had the advantages, and secondly,
there's an ingrained whimsicality, for which I would not exchange all
the solid imperfections of his neighbour across the Irish Channel.

You would not judge all Scotland by Glasgow, and so you should not fall
into the error of judging all Ireland by Belfast. Kerry is the jewel of
Ireland, and it is with Kerry that I have fortunately had most to do in
my life.

Whilst I am alluding to the mistake of generalising, let me point out
how erroneous it is ever, historically, to talk of Ireland as one
country. When Henry II. annexed the whole land by a confiscation more
open but not more criminal than that instigated by Mr. Gladstone, there
were four perfectly separate kingdoms in the island. Now there are four
provinces which are quite distinct, and an Ulster man, or a Munster man,
or a Connaught man, knows far more, as a rule, of England, or even
Scotland, than he does of the other three provinces of his native isle.
For one Ulster man who has been in Munster, three hundred have been to
Liverpool or Greenock, and until lately there was no railway between
Connaught and Munster, so that you had to go nearly up to Dublin to get
from one to the other.

There is much that is incomprehensible to the Englishman who comes among
us taking notes, and not the least is that no one wants his
cut-and-dried schemes of reforming what we do not wish to reform. As for
conforming to his method and rule by vestry and county council autocracy
in a methodical manner, it is utterly at variance with the national
temperament. Very often, too, the stranger falls a victim to the
Irishman's love of fun, and goes back hopelessly 'spoofed' and quite
unaware what nonsense he is talking when he lays down the law on Ireland
far from that perplexing land.

'Don't you want three acres and a cow?' asked an enthusiastic tourist
from Birmingham, soon after Mr. Jesse Collins had provided the
music-halls with the catch-phrase.

'As for the cow I would not be after saying it would not be a comfort,
but what would the pig want with so much land?' was the peasant's reply.

And that suggests an opportunity to give as my opinion that the most
practical measure England could take to benefit Ireland would be to
drain the large bogs and so improve fuel. In some places the bogs are
likely to be exhausted, but in others there is plenty of turf (turf, O
Saxon, is not the grass on which you play cricket or croquet, but is the
Hibernian for peat). Indeed, there is ample for all the needs of Ireland
for a hundred years to come, but it should not be used in the shamefully
wasteful way so often noticeable. It is no excuse that the heat it
contains is not so great as in coal.

If coal were to run out in England, to what a premium would turf rise in
Ireland!

Formerly turf could be picked up free, and even now it is very cheap,
the chief expense to the consumer being the cost of transport from the
bog to the turf rick behind the cabin.

The mineral rights of Ireland are most deceptive. There are plenty of
indications of minerals, but they are of too poor a nature to warrant
working.

Personally, I tried working coal-pits near Castleisland for three
months, and silver lead was worked for six months near Tralee by a
company which was more successful in working its own way with the
bankruptcy court. I firmly believe the reputed mineral wealth of Ireland
to be greatly exaggerated, and should never advise any one to invest
money in a syndicate for its discovery. Smelting was largely perpetrated
in olden times in Ireland, which entailed cutting down the oak forests,
that then crossed the country, to obtain fuel, the ore being brought
from England. But the introduction of the coke process in the north of
England settled that industry, which was one of the earliest Irish ones
doomed to extinction.

An Irish industry which as yet shows no sign of losing its commercial
importance is the blessed institution of matrimony, a holy thing which
in Ireland is particularly beneficial to the pockets of the priest, who
pronounces the blessing, and to the distiller, who sells the whisky, in
which the future of the happy pair is pledged.

The matrimonial arrangements of Irish farmers in Kerry may sound queer
to an English reader, but are the outcome of an innate, though
unwritten, law that the whole family have a vested interest in the
affair.

For example, when the family is growing up, the farm is handed over to
the eldest son, who gives the parents a small allowance during their
lives, while the fortune that he gets with his wife goes, not to
himself, but to provide for his younger brothers and sisters.

Hence, if the eldest son were to marry the Venus de Medici with ten
pounds less dowry than he could get with the ugliest wall-eyed female in
the neighbourhood, he would be considered as an enemy to all his family.

A tenant of a neighbour of mine actually got married to a woman without
a penny, a thing unparalleled in my experience in Kerry, and his sister
presently came to my wife for some assistance.

My wife asked her:--

'Why does not your brother support you?'

And she was answered:--

'How could he support any one after bringing an empty woman to the
house?'

There was a tenant of mine, paying about twenty-five pounds a year rent,
who died, and his son came to me to have his name inscribed in the rent
account.

I asked him what will his father had made.

He replied that he had left him the farm and its stock.

'What's to become of your brother and sister?' says I.

'They are to get whatever I draw,' says he.

'That means whatever you get with your wife?'

'That is so.'

'Well, suppose you marry a girl worth only twenty pounds, what would
happen then?'

'That would not do at all,' very gravely.

'Is there no limit put on the worth of your wife?'

'Oh,' says he, 'I was valued at one hundred and sixty pounds.'

I found out afterwards he had one hundred and seventy with his wife.

A tenant on the Callinafercy estate got married, and the mother-in-law
and the daughter-in-law did not agree. So the elder came to complain to
the landlord of the girl's conduct, and after copiously describing
various delinquencies with the assistance of many invocations of the
saints, she wound up with:--

'And the worst of all, Mr. Marshall, is that she gives herself all the
airs of a three hundred pound girl and she had but a hundred and fifty.'

Filial obedience in the matter of marriage is as uniform in these
classes in Kerry as it is conspicuous by its absence in old English
novels and comedies. The sons never kick at the unions, the daughters
are never hauled weeping to the altar, while an elopement or a refusal
to fulfil a matrimonial engagement would arouse the indignation of the
whole country side.

Decidedly these marriages turn out better than the made-up marriages in
France. I will go further, and seriously affirm my belief that the
marriages in Kerry show a greater average of happiness than any which
can be mentioned. To be sure there is the same dash after heiresses in
Kerry that you see in Mayfair, and the young farmer who is really
well-to-do is as much pursued as the heir to an earldom by matchmaking
mothers in Belgravia. But the subsequent results are much more
harmonious in Kerry, and though the landlord's advice is often asked to
settle financial difficulties in carrying out the matrimonial bargains,
less frequently is he called upon to settle differences between man and
wife.

'Sure, he's well enough meaning, your honour, with what brains the
Blessed Virgin could spare for him,' is the sort of remark a wife will
make on behalf of her lazy husband.

Fidelity is the rule; so is reasonable give and take, though each, being
human, likes to receive better than to give. And one thing which
impresses a stranger is the rarity of illegitimate children out of the
towns. This is, of course, partly due to the influence of the priests,
but partly also to the innate purity of the Irish character, as well as
by the standard of respectability:--

'Ah, he's a strong man,' you will hear said of So-and-So.

'How do you prove that?' says I.

'Why, has he not his farm, and his family with one son a priest, and one
daughter in a convent, and he with a bull for his own cows?'

Could you want more to get him on the County Council if he has no
conscience and a convivial taste in the matter of whisky?

There can be no doubt that the Irish take better care of their children
than the parents of similar position in either England or Scotland.
Cases of cruelty, which so constantly disfigure the police courts in
both the latter countries, are very rarely heard in the sister isle.

It is true that in many cases they cannot do much for their offspring,
but what little they are able to do is done with a good will and
ungrudgingly.

I remember a Saharan explorer telling me that in the desert he came
across some tribe, stark naked, utterly poor, but all on apparently
affectionate terms. He was much impressed with the love shown by the
children of all ages for their parents, and inquired what the latter did
to inspire such enviable emotion.

'We give them a handful of dates, when there are any.'

It was apparently their sole form of sustenance.

The Irishman is very good to his wife, although the courting is a matter
of business, as I have shown. Wife-beating and even more ignoble forms
of marital cruelty are almost unknown.

This is surely a big national asset.

Furthermore, the Irish are a very moral people; and this in spite of the
close proximity and confinement necessitated by the crowded condition of
many cabins.

I was going to add that the light food may have something to say to
this, but as the Irish are not remarkable for their small families, this
would be an unwarrantable aspersion.

Of course in the big towns there are women of no importance, and Dublin
has always borne rather a lively reputation in this respect, though that
in no way affects the general high standard of morality.

The climate of the country, despite the moisture, is one conducive to
good health, owing to the absence of any extreme vicissitudes.

It may be asked why, considering the overcrowding and insanitary
conditions of living in the miserable cabins, there is not more disease,
and my reply is that the peat which is burnt is so healthy as to act as
a disinfectant.

Indigestion, like lunacy, is, however, largely on the increase.

Nearly any old woman--or old man for the matter of that--as well as a
sad majority of younger people, will tell you:--

'I have a pain in the stomach,' with the accent on the second syllable
of the locality.

This is due to excessive consumption of tea.

Nearly twenty times as much tea must be drunk now in Kerry as in the
early sixties, and so far as I can recollect tea was unknown, not only
in the cabins but among the farmers until after the famine.

Fairly good tea is obtained, for the Irish will never buy tea unless
they are asked a high price, and for that price they usually, owing to
competition, obtain an article not too perniciously adulterated.

What is highly injurious is the method of making the tea.

A lot is thrown into the pot on the fire in the cabin in the morning,
and there it stands simmering all day long, that those who want it may
help themselves.

This is in sharp contrast to the method employed by Dr. Barter, the
famous hydropathic physician at Cork, one of the cleverest men I ever
met and one of the very few who never permitted medicine under any
circumstances, relying on water, packing, and Turkish baths, with strict
attention to diet.

He used to make tea by putting half a teaspoonful into a wire strainer
which he held over his cup, and pouring boiling water upon the leaves,
the contents of his cup became a pale yellow, to which he added a little
milk and instantly drank it off, the whole process lasting but a few
seconds. I remember he equally disapproved of the Russian method of
drinking tea in a glass with lemon, of the fashionable way of letting
the water 'stand off the boil' upon the leaves in a teapot, and of the
Hibernian stewing arrangement alluded to above.

Personally I regard all hydros as so many emporiums of disease, an
opinion in which I am singular, but that does not convince me I am
wrong.

A bailiff once went to St. Ann's Hydro to serve a writ, and he told me
afterwards that he served it on his victim in a Turkish bath,
remarking:--

'And your heart would have melted within your honour in pity for the
poor creature not having a pocket to put the document in.'

Which observation recalls to my mind the story of a gentleman in a
Turkish bath asking a friend to dinner, and saying:--

'Don't mind dressing; come just as you are.'

Another misunderstood answer was that of the absent-minded man who
entered a hansom and began to read a paper.

'Where to?' at last cabby asked laconically.

'Drive to the usual place.'

'I'm afraid I have too much on the slate there, sir, unless you pay my
footing.'

'Oh, go to hell,' retorted the other in a rage.

'It's outside the radius, sir, and it will be a steep pull for my old
horse after we've dropped you.'

The light-heartedness of the Celt is another feature which strikes the
least observant stranger.

An Irishman has been described as a man who confided his soul to the
priest, and his body to the British Government, whilst he holds himself
devoid of any vestige of responsibility for the care of either.

Here is another tale, illustrative of his contentment.

A philosopher, in search of happiness, was told by a wise man that if he
got the shirt of a perfectly happy man and put it on, he would himself
become happy.

The philosopher wandered over the world, but could find no man whose
happiness had not some flaw, until he fell in with an Irishman; with
whom he promptly began to bargain for his shirt, only to find he had not
one to his back.

From philosophy to the deuce is not a big stride, according to the view
of those folk who jibe at political economy and all the abstract of
virtues and governments. So, on the tail of their fancy, I am reminded
of another story about the devil--a very large number of Irish stories
are connected with him, because in a very special sense he is the
unauthorised patron saint of the sinners of the country, and he has had
far too much to say to its government into the bargain.

An Englishman, in the witless way in which Saxons do address Irishmen,
asked a labourer by the wayside:--

'If the devil came by, do you think he would take me or you?'

The labourer never hesitated, but replied:--

'He'd take me, your honour.'

'Why do you say that?'

'Oh, he would,' says he, 'because he's sure of your honour at any time.'

The Irishman is not so black as he may seem to the Saxon, who reads with
disgust the horrors that mar the beauty of the Emerald Isle, and I
should say that his finest trait is patience under adversity. No nation,
for example, could have more calmly endured the terrible sufferings of
the famine, more especially as the high-strung nerves of the Celt render
him physically and mentally the very reverse of a stoic.

Again, in no other nation are the family ties closer.

The first thought of those who emigrate to America is to remit money to
the old folk in the cabin at home. So soon as the emigrants have
obtained a reasonable degree of comfort they will send home the passage
money to pay for bringing out younger brothers or sisters to them.

Did you ever hear the story of the homesick Kerry undergraduate at
Oxford, at his first construe with his tutor, translating _contiguare
omnes_ as 'all of them County Kerry men'?

It was a true home touch, though not exactly a classical reading of the
passage.

In the same way, in my boyish days at Dingle, we all of us firmly
believed that King John had asked in what part of Kerry Ireland was.
That question was our local Magna Charta, though what the origin of the
tradition was I have no idea.

But then things do differ according to the point of view, and ours of
history was not stranger than many others of far more importance.

As an example of lack of comprehension I would cite the following
incident.

An English gentleman was shooting grouse in Ireland. He got very few
birds, and said to the keeper:--

'Why, these actually cost me a pound apiece.'

'Begorra, your honour, it's lucky there are not more of them,' was the
unexpected answer.

This allusion to sport reminds me of the Frenchman's description of
hunting in Ireland, which was to the effect that about thirty horsemen
and sixty dogs chased a wretched little animal ten miles, which resulted
in seven casualties, and when they caught the poor beast not one of them
would eat him.

The French do not always appreciate our institutions. One of them
landing at Queenstown in the middle of the day asked if there was
anything he could amuse himself with between then and dinner-time.

'Certainly,' said the waiter; 'which would you like, wine or spirits?'

By way of amusing the reader, before going any further, I will give him
a chance of reading a genuine, but unique testament in which I figured,
and which is not a bit more queer than many which have been as formally
proved.

'I Robert Shanahan in my last will and testament do make my wife
Margaret Shanahan Manager or guardian over my farm and means provided
she remains unmarried if she do not I bequeath to her 2 shillings and
sixpence I leave the farm to my son Thomas Shanahan provided he conducts
himself if not I leave the farm to my son Robert Shanahan I also wish
that there should be a provision made for the rest of the family out of
the farm according as the following Executors which I appoint may think
fit Mr. Hussey Esq. Revd. Brusnan P.P. and James Casey of Gorneybee.
Given under my heand this 7th day of February 1872.

                                               his

                                         ROBERT X SHANAHAN.

                                              mark

Witnessed by
  JOHN O'BRIEN.
  JEREMIAH CONNOR.'

I have a few tales to tell of Kerry landlords, a race who would have
furnished Lever with a worthy theme, men as humorous as they are brave,
as diverting as they can stand, loyal to the Crown despite much
disparagement, and proud to be Irishmen, though so unappreciated by the
paid agitators and their weak tools.

However, as I wish to be on good terms with all my neighbours in this
world, and with the ghosts of the departed ones when I meet them in the
next, I am not going to give many names or rub up susceptibilities.

Of Kerry landlords, Lord Kenmare naturally suggests himself to be first
mentioned. He has been somewhat unjustly attacked more than once about
the condition of Killarney as though the town was his private property.
As a matter of fact, he is utterly powerless there, as it was all leased
away for five hundred years by his grandfather. About the town the
following may be worth telling:--

A very neat plan was drawn up for improving it, which included a gateway
between every double block of houses to lead down to the stables and
garden, but as it was not thought necessary to put a subletting clause
into the lease, the actual consequence was that all these passages were
converted into filthy lanes. Outside the town Lord Kenmare has built
some nice cottages, but within its confines he could effect nothing.

To show you how short-lived is Irish gratitude, ponder over this:--

When Mr. Daniel O'Connell, son of the great Dan, stood for West Kerry as
a Unionist, he was warned by the police officer that he could not be
answerable for his life if he came into Cahirciveen, for he had only
twenty constables to protect him; and his wife--a most charming
woman--when driving through the town was surrounded by an insulting mob,
members of which actually spat in her face.

That reminds me of a similar experience which befell the wife of Mr.
Cavanagh, the man without arms and legs, who, until denounced by the
Land League, was exceptionally popular.

Mrs. Cavanagh was walking along the road in Carlow carrying broth and
wine to a poor sick woman, when she found herself the target for a
number of stones and had to run for her life amid a shower of missiles.

Despite his exceptional infirmities Mr. Cavanagh could do almost
anything. He used to ride most pluckily to hounds, strapped on to his
saddle. On one occasion the saddle turned under him, and the horse
trotted back to the stable-yard, with his master hanging under him, his
hair sweeping the ground, bleeding profusely; he merely cursed the groom
with emphatic volubility, had himself more safely readjusted, and then
rode out once more.

He always wore pink when hunting. One day a pretty child of ten years
old was out with her groom, who followed the scent so ardently, that he
forgot all about his charge, who was left behind, and finding herself
lost in a wood, began to cry.

Suddenly there swooped out on a very big horse, the armless and legless
figure of Cavanagh in his flaming coat, and seeing her predicament, he
seized her rein somehow--she never seems quite clear how--saying:--

'Don't be frightened, little girl, for I know who you are, and will take
care of you.'

He was as good as his word, but the high-strung, sensitive child, so
soon as she was in her mother's embrace, went from one fit of hysterics
to another, crying:--

'Oh, mummy, I've seen the devil, I've seen the devil.'

In after years they became great friends, and he often dined with her
after she married and settled in London.

Reverting to Lord Kenmare, the following story, which in another version
recently won a railway story competition in some newspaper, really
pertains to his son Lord Castlerosse.

On a line in Kerry there is a sharp curve overhanging the sea. An old
woman in a great state of nervous agitation was bundled at the last
moment into a first-class compartment.

Lord Castlerosse, the only passenger in the compartment, by way of
relieving her obvious agitation, tried to calm her by telling her she
could change at the next station.

'Is it me that can be aisy,' she replied, 'when it's my Pat is driving
the engine, and him having a dhrop taken, and saying he'll take us a
shpin round the Head?'

After all, to my mind, for sheer humour of a quiet sort, nothing beats
the observation of the late Sir John Godfrey, who never got up before
one in the day, and invariably breakfasted when his family were having
lunch. Being asked one day to account for this rather inconvenient
habit, he replied:--

'The fact is, I sleep very slow.'

I commend this to every sluggard who wants an excuse to resume his
slumbers when awakened too soon.

There was a gentleman who had rather a red nose, and some one remarked
that it was an expensive piece of painting, to which some one else
significantly added, that it was not a water-colour.

'No,' said Sir John, 'it was done in distemper.'

One night a landlord in Kerry, who shall be nameless, though he has
passed over to the great majority, went to bed without having much
knowledge how he got there.

Two of his sons crept to the neighbouring town, unscrewed the sign
outside the inn, and put it at the end of their parent's bed.

When he awoke, he looked at the sign for some time in a bewildered way.
Then he observed aloud:--

'I thought I went to sleep in my own bed, but I'm d----d if I have not
woke in the middle of the street.'

A certain roystering gentleman named Jack Ray got drunk and fell asleep
in the woods of Kilcoleman. Some of the Godfrey boys, seeing him
prostrate and with foam on his lips, ran to summon their father, saying
to him:--

'There's a man dead in the wood.'

Sir William hastened to the spot, and having put on his glasses to get a
view of the corpse, observed:--

'Come away, my boys, this man dies once a week.'

Another Kerry landlord, who was also a baronet, dealt with the National
Bank, the local manager of which was an arrant snob, who loved a title,
and bored everybody with his pretended intimacy with the impecunious
baronet. But at last even his patience was exhausted, and he sent the
squire a pretty stiff letter about the arrears due.

The other received the letter at breakfast, and showed it to his son
just come down from a University, who whistled and ejaculated:--

'O tempora! O mores!'

His father instantly retorted:--

'You get me the temporary, and I'll promptly see we have more ease.'

In the bad times, an old woman came into the office at Tralee to pay her
rent. Mr. Francis Denny was in a real bad humour with somebody else who
had defaulted, and he was raging along in a manner qualified to display
his intimate acquaintance with the florid embellishments of the
language. The old woman listened with evident admiration for some time.
At last she ejaculated:--

'Ah, the nate little man.'

And with that slipped out, without settling her account.

Mr. Francis Denny has the misfortune to be rather lame, and one day
another old woman, who liked him, observed:--

'If he had two sound legs under him, there'd be no holding him in
Tralee, but he'd be up at the Castle setting the Lord Lieutenant right
in his many errors, not to mention going over to London to give the
Queen herself a bit of his mind.'

In the bad times, one lady was left in her Kerry residence with her baby
boy and a pack of maidservants, her husband having been called over to
England.

She had sixty pounds of gold in her bedroom, and one night a housemaid
rushed in to say a party of moonlighters were in the house.

The lady threw a sovereign and some silver on to the dressing-table, and
hid the rest under her mattress.

In came the masked scoundrels asking for gold, and when she pointed to
the money that was visible, one replied that it was not enough.

'Very well,' she said, 'give me your name and I'll write you a cheque.'

On that they left precipitately, to her intense relief.

All moonlighters calculated upon the terrorism their appearance would
cause, and if this was apparently conspicuous by its absence they were
nonplussed, because they never felt over secure in their own hearts at
the best of times, and grew frightened directly others were not
frightened by them.

In all moonlighting affrays no one scoundrel ever became personally
conspicuous as a leader, and all the wisest leaders, such as Stephens,
Tynan, and Parnell, shrouded their movements in mystery. Fenianism in
Ireland since Emmett has never had one capable leader possessing the
physical courage to show himself in the forefront on all occasions.

On the other hand, it is a singular fact that nearly every general of
note in the army of the United Kingdom, since the time of Marlborough,
has come from Ireland. The Duke of Wellington was born in County Meath,
Lord Gough in Tipperary, Lord Wolseley in County Carlow, Lord Roberts in
Waterford, Sir George White in Antrim, General French in Roscommon, and
Lord Kitchener in Kerry.

The attempts of the English Government to manufacture an English general
in the South African war were a miserable fiasco. They only produced
one, Sir Charles Tucker, and he did his best to atone for the accident
of his English birth by marrying a Kerry lady.

I had the pleasure of meeting Sir Redvers Buller in Killarney, and after
he had been there a couple of days he proceeded to describe Kerry to me,
who had been managing one fifth of it for several years. His
agricultural reforms would have been as drastic as they were ludicrous
had any one attempted to carry them out, but when expatiating on them to
me, he was not even aware that there was any difference between an
English and an Irish acre. When I heard that he was taking charge of the
whole army in South Africa, I mentioned that as he had been unable to
command three hundred constabulary in Kerry, I was sceptical of his
ability to manage the British army. He was without exception the most
self-sufficient soldier I ever met, and his subsequent career has not
made me change my view.

Here is a soldier story which is mighty illustrative of Irish traits.

A peasant's son in Limerick enlisted in the militia for a month's
training, for which he received a bounty of three pounds. With part of
this money he bought a pig and gave it to his father to feed up. When
the pig was fattened, the father sold it and declined to give him the
price. So the son was seen by the police to take his father by the
throat, saying:--

'Bad luck to you, old reprobate, do you want to deprive me of my pig
that I risked my life for in the British Army?'

Everywhere I like to slip into this book instances of the injuries
suffered by Irish landlords, so here is another case _à propos des
bottes_, if you will forgive it.

The Knight of Kerry let nine acres of land to a tenant for a rent of
forty-five pounds. Having expended a large sum of money in roadmaking
and fences, at the tenant's request, he also borrowed thirty-five pounds
to build a small house for which he has to pay thirty-five shillings per
annum. The commissioners cut down the rent so heavily, that it has
resulted in the landlord having to pay five shillings a year for the
pleasure of looking at the man in occupation of his land.

Reverting to my reminiscences--or rather to what are for myself less
interesting portions, for I am a land agent by profession and an
anecdotist only by habit--I remember that an Englishman subsequently a
Pasha commanded the coastguard at Dingle in 1856, and then had an
encounter with a local Justice of the Peace in which he came off second
best.

Captain ---- occupied the Grove demesne. The J.P., who had been a Scotch
militia officer, had been in the habit of shooting crows over the
demesne, and continued to enjoy the sport, to which the Captain strongly
objected. After an angry correspondence the J.P. sent a challenge, which
the other did not seem to stomach, for he sent an apology by a
subordinate with full permission to continue the immolation of the
birds. If a cruiser had to capitulate to this bold blockade runner, the
Captain himself had to endure a similar humiliation at the hands of an
indignant Kerry man, though he was very popular in Dingle.

There is nothing pusillanimous about the Irishman, except when in cold
blood he was expected to attack an agent, or landlord, or policeman,
armed to the teeth. In such cases, he remembered that his parents, by
the blessing of the Holy Virgin, had endowed him with two legs, and only
one skin, which latter must therefore be saved by the discretionary
employment of the former.

In other cases he is very brave, especially in verbal encounters.
Fighting is in his blood. That is what makes the Irish soldier the best
in the world, and that was why he used to revel in the faction fights.
As a paternal Government now prevents the breaking of heads, at all
events on a wholesale scale, the pugnacious instincts of the nation have
to be gratified by litigation, and certainly there never was such a
litigious race in history as the contemporary Ireland.

I know of a case on the Callinafercy estate, where a widow spent fifty
pounds 'in getting the law of' a neighbour whose donkey had browsed on
her side of a hedge. She took the case to the assizes, and when the
judge heard Mr. Leeson Marshall was her landlord, he said:--

'Let him decide it. He's a barrister himself, and can judge far better
than I could on such a subject.'

To this there are literally hundreds of parallels every year. Readers of
_La Terre_ will remember how much of the funds went into the hands of
the lawyer who thrived on the animosities of the family, and that sort
of thing is constantly reduplicated in Kerry.

'I'd sell my last cow to appeal on a point of law,' I once heard a
Killorgin farmer say; and that is typical of all the lower classes in
the South and West.

As for the solicitors, I am not going to say a word about them, good or
bad: there are men no doubt worthy of either epithet in a profession
that preys on the troubles of other folk. But I will tell one very brief
story on the topic.

Outside the Four Courts, a poor woman stopped Daniel O'Connell,
saying:--

'If you please, your honour, will you direct me to an honest attorney?'

The Liberator pushed back his wig and scratched his head.

'Well now, you beat me entirely, ma'am,' was his answer.

He had more experience than me, being one.

Talking of the Four Courts reminds me of Chief Baron Guillamore, who had
as much wit as will provoke 'laughter in court,' and a trifle over that
infinitesimal quantity as well.

A new Act of Parliament had been passed to prevent people from stealing
timber. A stupid juryman asked if he could prosecute a man under that
act for stealing turnips.

'Certainly not, unless they are very sticky,' retorted the judge.

His brother was a magistrate, and committed a barrister in petty
sessions for contempt of court. An action was brought against him, but
the Chief Baron raised so many legal exceptions, that it had finally to
be abandoned through the fraternal law-moulding. This action was pending
in the civil court, when a lawyer was very impertinent to the Chief
Baron in the criminal. Instead of committing him, the Chief Baron said
very quietly:--

'If you do not keep quiet, I shall send to the next Court for my
brother.'

Another judge had applied for shares in a company of which a friend of
his was secretary. Meeting him in Sackville Street, he stopped him to
inquire what would be the paid-up capital of the concern.

The other forgot whom he was addressing, and blurted out the truth by
replying:--

'Well, I really cannot tell you just yet, but the cheques are coming in
fast.'

The judge withdrew his application by the next post, and confidently
expected to see his friend in the dock. I believe in less than six
months he was not disappointed.

The poorer class in Ireland do not appear to be business-like in the