MYSELF, SOME FACTS, AND MANY STORIES

In 1850 I became agent to the Colthurst property, which consisted of most of the parish of Ballyvourney, one estate alone containing about twenty-three thousand acres. The rental was then over £4600. There were only three slated houses on the property, hardly any out-buildings, only seven miles of road under contract, and about twenty acres planted.

By 1880 the landlord had expended £30,000 on improvements, there were over one hundred slated houses, about sixty miles of roads, and over four hundred acres planted.

Under the Land Act of 1881 the rent was reduced to £3600.

That was the encouragement officially given to the landlord for assisting in the improvement of his property.

From the time of Moses downwards, the policy of all Governments has been to give relief to the debtor. By the Encumbered Estate Act, which was passed just after the famine, special relief was given to the creditor.

What the English view was may be taken from the Times—

'In a few years more, a Celtic Irishman will be as rare in Connemara as is the Red Indian on the shores of Manhattan.'

That is to say, English capital was at last to flow into Ireland for the purchase of encumbered estates, but the anticipation of course was erroneous.

Credit was destroyed in Ireland, and every man who owed a shilling was utterly ruined. Had the Government given loans at a reasonable rate of interest, which would have amply repaid them, all this could have been saved. As it was, properties were sold like chairs and tables at a paltry auction, and in thousands of cases the judge expressed himself satisfied that the rent could have been considerably increased.

I knew one unfortunate shopkeeper who paid £6000 for a property under these circumstances; and in place of an increase of rent, the confiscators—that is to say the commissioners imposed by Mr. Gladstone—took a third of the rental off him.

Those purchasers who were English conceived when they bought properties that they would get as much from them as the solvent tenants were willing to pay. The legislation of Mr. Gladstone in coalition with the blunderbuss soon put an end to the pleasing delusion. It was one more of the English mistakes about Ireland, where, when the tenant is content to pay, the British Government and the Land League both combine to prevent him from offering a reasonable rent to a landlord.

There is not the least need to sketch how I gradually became one of the largest land agents in Ireland. It has been published in other books, and would only prove wearisome if set out in detail in this volume. So I will merely observe that only two years after the big Fenian rising, as it was called—which I should describe as being composed of a rabble of less importance than the ragamuffins led by Wat Tyler—so little was I impressed by its magnitude that I went to live at Edenburn. There I laid out a lot of money in rebuilding the house, spending over £2000 in additions. This was most idiotic of me, because I had not counted on the infernal devices of Mr. Gladstone to render Ireland uninhabitable for peaceful and law-abiding folk.

When I first settled down there, labourers were working at eightpence or tenpence a day. Now the lowest rate is two shillings. The labourer rectified this rate by emigration, and if the farmers, who could more advantageously have emigrated, had done so, the cry for compulsory reduction would never have arisen.

Thus far I have dealt with facts and myself as concerned in them, but I propose now to relate a few stories, a thing more congenial to my temperament than any other form of conversational exercise. Whether it will equally commend itself to the reader is a matter on which I, as an aged novice in literature, though hopeful, am of course uncertain.

Indeed I am in exactly the predicament of a farmer's wife who was asked by the Dowager Lady Godfrey, after a month of marriage, how she liked her husband.

'I had plenty of recommendation with him,' was the reply, 'but I have not had enough trial of him yet to say for sure.'

The bridegroom had a valet, a good, faithful fellow, long in his service, but talkative, a thing his master loathed. He said to him:—

'John, I've often told you to hold your tongue about my affairs. This time I emphatically mean it. If you tell the people in the hotel that I am on my honeymoon, I'll sack you on the spot.'

So John promised to be as silent as the grave, but on the third afternoon, as the happy pair were ascending the stairs of the Victoria Hotel, they saw by the giggles and smirks of the chambermaids that their secret had been discovered.

The bridegroom rang his bell and went for John in a towering passion, but the fellow held his ground.

'Is it not unfair the way you are taking on? Sure the other servants did ask me if you were on your honeymoon, but I was even with them, for I told them "devil a bit, your honour was not going to marry the lady until next month."'

I do not know how that alliance turned out, but the happy pair left the hotel early next morning.

I can tell rather more about the matrimonial experiences of an Archdeacon at Cork, who married firstly a woman who was very fond of society. She died, and he then married another, who grew very stout. She also died, and the indefatigable cleric married as his third experiment a widow cursed with a very violent temper.

He was one day chaffed on the practical demonstration he had given to the Romish doctrine of the celibacy of the Church, when he said:—

This Cork story comes naturally, because at that time I was living near Cork and very happily too.

Now and again we took trips up to Dublin when I had business there.

I am not much of a playgoer, but in Dublin we always went to the theatre on the chance of hearing some of the proverbial wit of its gallery.

On one occasion, a lady in the play, when her lover had had some doubt of her fidelity, exclaimed:—

'Would there were a mirror in my side that you could see into my heart.'

Whereupon a voice from the gods shouted:—

'Would not a pain [i.e. pane] in your stomach do as well. I have one myself.'

Lord Chancellor Brady was of a notoriously convivial temperament, which did not prevent him being an admirable lawyer when he would allow his wits to get their heads above water, so to speak, though it was little enough that he used to dilute his spirits.

When Jenny Lind sang in some Italian opera, he occupied a seat in the vice-regal box, and gazed at her through a portentously enormous lorgnette.

This was too much for a wag in the gallery, who yelled:—

'Brady, me jewel, I'm glad to see you're fond of a big glass yet.'

At the time of the Crimean War, John Reynolds, a very energetic citizen, was perpetually raising the question about the dangerous practice of driving outside cars from the side instead of the box—in which he was undoubtedly right.

When he went to the theatre, a gallery boy shouted:—

The Lord Mayor of the period who sat beside him was a tallow chandler, and the same spokesman shouted out:—

'Three cheers for his grease the Lord Mayor just back from the races at Tallagh.'

That sort of thing seems to be particularly indigenous, the only parallel being when undergraduates or medical students get gathered together.

The eloquence of Irish members in the House of Commons has really nothing to do with my reminiscences, but I remember one occasion when it was uncommonly well excelled by a stolid Englishman.

Fergus O'Connor—an Irishman, as his name betrays—was an ardent Chartist, and before the Reform Bill was introduced he said in the House that he had been accused of being a personal enemy of King William's. This was quite untrue, for if there were only good laws he did not care if the devil were King of England.

Sir Robert Peel replied:—

'When the honourable member is gratified by seeing the sovereign of his choice on the throne of these realms, I hope he will enjoy, and I am sure he will deserve, the confidence of the Crown.'

I gave a good many anecdotes to my dear old friend Mr. W.R. Le Fanu—cheeriest of fishermen, kindest of jolly good fellows—for his garrulous book. He observes in his preface that he makes his first attempt at writing in his eight-and-seventieth year. I am nearly twenty-four months his senior when thus far on the road of these reminiscences. I also echo another phrase of his:—

'I trust I have said nothing to hurt the feelings of any of my fellow-countrymen.'

Just one quotation—and only a little one—which is not mine, but the warning which Sheridan Le Fanu, author of that capital novel Uncle Silas, gave in the Dublin University Magazine against matrimony:—

'Marriage is like the smallpox. A man may have it mildly, but he generally carries the marks of it with him to his grave.'

And very true too in his division of an Irishman's life into three parts:—

'The first is that in which he is plannin' and conthrivin' all sorts of villainy and rascality; that is the period of youth and innocence. The second is that in which he is puttin' into practice the villainy and rascality he contrived before; that is the prime of life or the flower of manhood. The third and last period is that in which he is makin' his soul and preparin' for another world; that is the period of dotage.'

Shakespeare's seven ages of man may have been more poetical, but it does not betray a closer grip of the Irish temperament.

The writer was a daughter of Charles Bianconi, the originator of all the mail-cars in Ireland, who owned at one time sixteen hundred horses, and always laughed at the idea of any violence on the part of the peasantry, pointing out that though his cars daily covered four thousand miles in twenty-two counties, no injury was ever done to any of his property.

Mrs. O'Connell was married to a nephew of the great Dan, and he represented Kerry in Parliament for nearly thirty years. He was an intimate friend of Thackeray's, and gave him all the idioms of his delightful Irish ballads. This O'Connell was a clever, amusing fellow, and precious idle into the bargain.

I remember one story he told me.

Mrs. MacCarthy, near Millstreet, had a son, a small proprietor, and he got married. The mother-in-law lived with the daughter-in-law, who had rather grand ideas, and set up as parlour-maid in the house a raw lass just taken from the dairy.

One afternoon old Mrs. MacCarthy saw the parish priest coming to call, and told the girl if he asked for Mrs. MacCarthy to say she was not in but the dowager was.

Now the maid had never heard the word dowager in her life, but thought she would make a shot for it, so when his reverence asked if Mrs. MacCarthy was at home, she blurted out:—

'No, sir, but the badger is.'

Now it is really time I related how my own beauty was spoilt, by breaking my nose in 1858.

I was racing the present Knight of Kerry and a young gunner named Hickson—no relation—on the Strand, when the horse of the latter collided with my own, and they both fell at the same time. He was a loose rider, and being shot off some distance from his animal picked himself up unhurt. I had always a tight grip, so I got entangled in the saddle which twisted round, and my mare almost literally tore off my face with her hind hoof.

I walked back a quarter of a mile, trying to hold my face on to my head with my hand; and in a month's time I was able to get about again, which the doctor said was one of the quickest cases of healing he had ever known.

But I was absolutely unrecognised by my acquaintances when I reappeared, and Mr. Dillon the R.M. actually took me for a walk in Tralee to see the town, thinking I was a stranger, a situation the fun of which I heartily appreciated.

Before that infernal gallop I had a hooked nose like the Duke of Wellington; and it's lucky I got married when I did, for no one would 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.

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.'

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."'

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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:—

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.

'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.

'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.

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.

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.'

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.

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.'

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.

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.

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.:—

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.

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.

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.

'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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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:—

'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.

'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.'

'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:—