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.'

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!'

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

'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.

'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!'

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.'

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.'

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.

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.

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.

'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.

'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.'

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.

'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.

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.

'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.

'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.

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.'

'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.'

'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.'

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.

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.

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.

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.

'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.

'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.

'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:—

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.

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.

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.

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.

'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.'

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.

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:—