The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Irish Penny Journal, Vol. 1 No. 14, October 3, 1840, by Various This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license Title: The Irish Penny Journal, Vol. 1 No. 14, October 3, 1840 Author: Various Release Date: February 26, 2017 [EBook #54238] Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE IRISH PENNY JOURNAL, OCTOBER 3, 1840 *** Produced by Brownfox and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by JSTOR www.jstor.org)
| Number 14. | SATURDAY, OCTOBER 3, 1840. | Volume I. |
We need hardly have acquainted our Irish readers that in the prefixed sketch, which our admirable friend the Burton has made for us, they are presented with the genuine portrait of a piper, and an Irish piper too—for the face of the man, and the instrument on which he is playing, are equally national and characteristic—both genuine Irish: in that well-proportioned oval countenance, so expressive of good sense, gentleness, and kindly sentiments, we have a good example of a form of face very commonly found among the peasantry of the west and south of Ireland—a form of face which Spurzheim distinguished as the true Phœnician physiognomy, and which at all events marks with certainty a race of southern or Semitic origin, and quite distinct from the Scythic or northern Indo-European race so numerous in Ireland, and characterized by their lighter hair and rounder faces. And as to the bagpipes, they are of the most approved Irish kind, beautifully finished, and the very instrument made for Crump, the greatest of all the Munster pipers, or, we might say, Irish of modern times, and from which he drew his singularly delicious music. Musical reader! do not laugh at the epithet we have applied to the sounds of the bagpipe: the music of Crump, which we have often heard from himself on these very pipes, was truly delicious even to the most refined musical ears. These pipes after Crump’s death were saved as a national relic by our friend the worthy and patriotic historian of Galway—need we say, James Hardiman—who, in his characteristic spirit of generosity and kindness, presented them to their present possessor, as a person likely to take good care of them, and not incompetent to do justice to their powers; and the gift was nobly and well bestowed! Yet, truth to tell, Paddy Coneely is not to be compared with John Crump, who, according to the recollections of him which cling to our memory,[Pg 106] was a Paganini in his way—a man never to be rivalled—and who produced effects on his instrument previously unthought of, and which could not be expected. Paddy is simply an excellent Irish piper—inimitable as a performer of Irish jigs and reels, with all their characteristic fire and buoyant gaiety of spirit—admirable indeed as a player of the music composed for and adapted to the instrument; but in his performance of the plaintive or sentimental melodies of his country, he is not able, as Crump was, to conquer its imperfections: he plays them not as they are sung, but—like a piper.
Yet we do not think this want of power attributable to any deficiency of feeling or genius in Paddy—far indeed from it:—he is a creature of genuine musical soul; but he has had no opportunities of hearing any great performer, like that one to whom we have alluded, or of otherwise improving, to any considerable extent, his musical education generally: the best of his predecessors whom he has heard he can imitate and rival successfully; but still Paddy is merely an Irish piper—the piper of Galway par excellence: for in every great town in the west and south of Ireland there is always one musician of this kind more eminent than the rest, with whose name is justly joined as a cognomen the name of his locality.
But we are not going to write an article on Irish pipers, or to sketch their general characteristics—we have no such presumption as to attempt any thing of the kind, which we feel would be altogether abortive, and which we are sure will be so perfectly done for us by our own Carleton. We only desire to present a few traits in the character of an individual of the species; and these after all are more relating to the man than the musician. We are anxious, moreover, to let our English, Continental, American, and Indian readers understand that all our pipers are not like “Tim Callaghan” with his three tunes, of whom a sketch has been given by a fair and ingenious contributor in our last number. Tim with his three party tunes may do very well for the comfortable farmers in the rich lands of the baronies of Forth and Bargie—Lord! what sort of ears have they?—but he would not be “the man,” nor the piper either, “for Galway!” Paddy can play not three tunes, but three thousand: in fact, we have often wished his skill more circumscribed, or his memory less retentive, particularly when, instead of firing away with some lively reel, or still more animated Irish jig, he has pestered us, in spite of our nationality, with a set of quadrilles or a galloppe, such as he is called on to play by the ladies and gentlemen at the balls in Galway. But what a monstrosity—to dance quadrilles in Galway! Dance indeed: no, but a drowsy walk, and a look as if they were going to their grandmothers’ funerals. Fair Galwegians, for assuredly you are fair, put aside this sickly affectation of refinement, which is equally inconsistent with your natural excitability, and with the healthy atmospheric influences by which you are surrounded. Be yourselves, and let your limbs play freely, and your spirits rise into joyousness to the animating strains of the Irish jig, the reel, and the country dance; so it was with your fathers, and so it should be with you.
But we are wandering, perhaps, from our subject, forgetful of our friend Paddy, of whose character, not as a piper but as a man we have yet to speak; and a more interesting character in his way we have rarely met with—a man deprived by fate of eyesight, yet by the light of his mind tracking his journey through life in one continued stream of sunshine, beloved by many, and respected by all whose respect is worth possessing. We had heard enough of his possession of the qualities which had procured him this respect, independently of his musical renown, before we had met with him, to make us desire his acquaintance; and on a visit with some friends to Galway last year, we made an endeavour for two or three days to get him to our hotel for an evening, but in vain. He was from home on his professional avocations, and could not be found, till, on taking our way towards Connemara, we encountered a blind man coming along the road, who we at once concluded must be the Galway piper; and we were right. It was Paddy Coneely himself, who had returned home for a change of clothes, and was on his way back to Galway to spend the evening with a party of gentlemen by whom he was engaged to play during the Regatta. We could not, however, conveniently return with him, and so we determined very wisely to carry him off with us; and this we were easily able to do by first making a seizure of his pipes, after which we soon had him, a quiet though for a while a repining captive. “Oh! murdher, what will Mr K—— and the gentlemen think of me at all at all?” exclaimed Paddy. “Never mind, Paddy,” we replied, “they can hear you often, but we may never have another opportunity of doing so; so come along, and depend upon it you will be as happy with us as with the gentlemen at the Regatta;” and so we trust he was. In a few minutes after, we had Paddy crooning old Irish songs for us, and pointing out all the objects of any interest or beauty on either side of the road, and this with a correctness and accuracy which perfectly astounded us. “Is not that a beautiful view of Lough Corrib there now, Sir? That’s St Oran’s Well, Sir, at the other side of the road we are now passing. Is not that a very purty place of Mr Burke’s?” and so on with every feature on either side to the end of our day’s journey at Oughterard.
We kept Paddy with us for a fortnight, when we brought him safely back to Galway; and during that time, as well as since, we had frequent opportunities of observing his accurate knowledge of topographical objects, and his modes of acquiring it. Ask any questions respecting an old church or castle in his hearing, and ten to one he will give a more correct description of its locality, and a more accurate account of its size, height, and general features, than any one else. Speak of a mountain, and he will break out with some such remark as this—“I discovered a beautiful spring well on the top of that mountain, Sir, that no one before ever heard of.” His knowledge of atmospheric appearances and influences is equally if not still more remarkable. He can always tell with the nicest accuracy the point from which the wind blows, and predict with a degree of certainty we never saw excelled, the probable steadiness of the weather, or any approaching change likely to take place in it. He is a perfect barometer in this way, for his conclusions are chiefly drawn from a delicate perception of the state of the atmospheric air imperceptible to others, and are rarely erroneous. On a fine sunny morning when the lakes are smooth, the mountains clear, and the sky without a cloud, we remark to him that it is a fine morning. “It is, Sir, a beautiful morning.” “And we are sure of having a fine day, Paddy,” we continue. “Indeed I fear not, Sir; the wind is coming round to the south-east, and the air is thickening. We’ll have heavy rain in some hours,” or “before long.” Again, on a rainy morning, when everything around looks hopelessly dreary, and we feel ourselves booked for a day in our inn, we observe to him, “There’s no chance of this day taking up, Paddy.” But Paddy knows better, and he cheers us up with the answer, “Oh, this will be a fine day, Sir, by and bye. The wind is getting a point to the north, the clouds are rising, and the air is getting drier. We’ll have a fine day soon.”
The power thus exhibited of acquiring such accurate knowledge of localities, and of atmospheric appearances and influences, without the aid of sight, affords a striking example of the capabilities beneficently vested in us, of supplying the want created by the accidental loss of one organ, by an increase of activity and acuteness in some other, or others. These capabilities are equally observable in the lower animals as in man; but their degree is very various in individuals of both species, being dependent on the delicacy of organization and amount of intellectuality which the individual may happen to possess. Thus the power to supply the want of vision by the exercise of other organs, is not given to every blind man in any thing like the degree enjoyed by the Galway piper, who is a creature of the most delicate nervous organization, and a man of a high degree of intellectuality. Paddy is a genuine inductive philosopher, never indolent or idle, always in quest of knowledge either by inquiry or experimental observation, and drawing his own conclusions accordingly. To observe his processes in this way is not only amusing but instructive, and has often afforded us a high enjoyment. When Paddy comes to a place with which he has no previous acquaintance, he commences his topographical researches with as little delay as possible, first about the exterior of the house, which he examines all round, measuring with his stick its length and breadth, and calculates its height; ascertains the situation of its doors and the number of its windows, and makes himself acquainted with the peculiarities of their form and material: he next proceeds to the out-offices, which he surveys in a similar manner, feeling even any stray cart, car, or wheel-barrow, which may be lying in the courtyard or barn, and determining whether they are well made or not. If a cow or horse come in his way, he will subject them to a similar examination, and, if asked, pronounce accurately on their points, condition, and value. Having satisfied himself with an examination of all these nearer objects, if time permit he[Pg 107] then extends his researches to those more distant—as the roads, ascertaining their breadth, &c.; the neighbouring bridges, streams, rivers, and even mountains; the nature of the soil too, and state of the crops, are attended to. While we were sojourning at the hotel at Maam last year, we found him one sunny morning standing on the very brink of a deep river, about a quarter of a mile distant, and examining the construction of the arch of a bridge which crossed it. How he had got there we could not possibly imagine, for there was no other mode of reaching it than by a descent from the road of a bank nearly perpendicular, and eighteen or twenty feet in height. But our friend Paddy made light of it, and remarked that there was not the slightest danger of him in such explorings.
On another occasion, being about to visit the island castle on Lough Corrib, called Caislean-na-Circe, Paddy expressed to us his desire to accompany us, as he said he never had an opportunity of seeing it. We took him with us accordingly; and there was not a spot on the rocky island that with the aid of his stick he did not examine, or a crumbling wall that he did not scale, even to places that we should have supposed only accessible to jackdaws. “Dear me, Sir,” he exclaimed on our return, “but that’s a mighty curious castle, and must be very ancient. I never saw walls in a castle so thick before, and how beautiful and smooth the arches were! I think they were a kind of grit-stone?” This was added inquiringly; and so they were—red sandstone chiselled.
But we are dwelling too long on these characteristics, forgetting that we have others to notice of greater interest; and of these perhaps the most eminent is his habitual, and, as we might say, constitutional benevolence. Of this trait in his character we heard many interesting instances, but our space will only allow us to notice one or two which we artfully extracted from himself. Having heard of his kindnesses to some of his neighbours who are poorer than himself, we had determined to make himself speak on the matter; and, accordingly, when passing through the village in which he resides, about two miles and a half from Galway, we remarked to him that some of those neighbours seemed very poor. “Indeed they are, Sir, very,” he replied; “they have been very badly off this year in consequence of the wet, the want of firing, and the dearness of potatoes.” “And how,” I rejoined, “have they contrived to keep body and soul together?” “Why, Sir, just by the assistance of those a little better off than themselves.” Paddy would not name himself as their benefactor, so we had to ask him if he had been able to give them any aid, and then his ingenuousness obliged him to confess that he had: he had lent thirty shillings to one family to buy seed for their bit of ground, ten shillings to another to buy meal, and so on. “And will they ever pay you, Paddy?” we inquired. “Och! the creatures, they will, to be sure, Sir,” Paddy replied in a tone expressive of surprise at the imputation on their honesty; but added in a lower voice, “if they can; and if they can’t, Sir, why, please God, I’ll get over it; sure one couldn’t see the creatures starve!” This was last year. In the present summer we had heard that Paddy’s turf was all stolen from him shortly after—perhaps by some of the very persons whom he had assisted—and we were curious to ascertain how he took his loss. So we inquired, “How were you off, Paddy, for firing last winter?” “Very badly, Sir. I had no turf of my own, and was obliged to buy turf in Galway at four shillings the kish. It would have been cheaper to buy coal, only I don’t like a grate, for the children burn themselves at it.” “And how did it happen that you had no turf of your own?” “Because, Sir, it was all stolen from me, after I had paid two pounds for cutting and drying it.” “Did you ever,” I inquired, “discover who were the robbers?” “Oh, yes, Sir,” he replied. “And could you prove the theft against them?” “I could, to be sure.” “Did you prosecute them?” “Tut, tut, Sir, what good would that do me?” and Paddy added, in a tone of pity, “the creatures! sure they were poor rogues, or they would not have taken every bit away.” “Well, then, Paddy,” I inquired, “did you ever speak to them about it?” “I did, Sir.” “And what answer or apology did they make?” “They said, Sir, that they wouldn’t have touched it if they knew it was mine.” “Did they ever return any of it?” Paddy replied with a laugh, “Oh, no!”
Reader, are you richer in a worldly sense than Paddy Coneely? And if, as it is probable, you are so, let us ask you, do you just now feel an unusual warmth in your cheeks? If so, you need not be greatly ashamed of it, for believe us, there are many nobles in our land who might well feel a similar sensation on reading these anecdotes of the benevolence of Paddy Coneely.
Paddy, like all or most genuine Irishmen, has a dash of quiet Irish humour and much excitability in his character, of which we must venture to give an instance or two.
On a certain day, while Paddy was stopping at Mr O’Flaherty’s of Knock-ban, the coachman, who was blind of one eye, was airing two horses, one of which was similarly wanting in a visual organ, and the other stone blind. A gentleman present remarking that here were four animals, two men and two horses, that had but two eyes among them, proposed a race, to which Paddy and the coachman assented. Paddy was placed upon the horse which could see a little, and the coachman got up on the blind one. Off they started with whip and spur, and to his great delight, Paddy won. This is one of the feats of which Paddy is most proud.
Again—We were standing in the kitchen at Maam one day, listening to Paddy telling his stories to a happy group of young people, when he was addressed by a middle-aged woman, who, from her imperfect knowledge of English, misunderstood him, and imagined that he was paying court to a blooming girl, and representing himself as an unmarried man. To his great surprise, therefore, Paddy heard himself attacked with terrific vituperation, in whole Irish and broken English, on the heinousness of his conduct. Before, however, she had got to the end of her oration, Paddy’s face had assumed an expression which announced that he was determined to lend himself to her mistake, and carry on the joke. Accordingly, when he was allowed to reply, he rated her in turn upon her silly stupidity in supposing that she knew him—denied having ever seen her before—declared that he was not Paddy Coneely at all, and never had heard of or seen such a person; and added, that “it was a shame for a woman with her two eyes to be so foolish.” The woman looked at him for a while in mute bewilderment, and actually seemed to doubt the evidences of her own senses. But she gradually became satisfied of his identity, and, excited into a virtuous rage, she rushed out of the house, declaring that she would never stop till she told his wife—poor woman—of his misconduct! And she kept her word, for we actually met her at Oughterard in a couple of days after, on her return from Paddy’s residence.
We would gladly record some other instances of Paddy’s humour, but our limits will not permit us; and we can only add a few words on one or two other traits in his character.
We have already stated that Paddy, despite of his humble condition, and that loss of sight which would be deemed by most persons as one of the greatest of human calamities, is a happy man—a happier one we never saw. He is always singing—in sunny weather, sprightly airs, and in gloomy weather, pathetic ones; but he never looks or is sad, except when a tale of sorrow excites his pity, or when he is about to separate from friends. The calamity of want of sight he thinks of little moment, and inferior to the loss of any other organ—that of hearing, in particular, which he considers as the greatest of all possible bodily afflictions. “I don’t remember,” said Paddy, “ever wishing for sight but once in my life; ’twas when I went to a horse race. I went with two friends, and somehow we got parted in the throng, and I could not make them out. There was a great deal of bustle and confusion, and I knew that the race would soon begin; and I was a long way from the starting-post, and had not any one to lead me to it. Dear, dear, said I, if I had my sight now, I might be able to hear the horses starting. Just then I heard some one calling Paddy, Paddy! It was one of my friends looking for me; and I think I never seen men so distressed when they found they had lost me. It was mighty pleasant; they never let me go all day after, and we were just in time to hear the horses start.”
We are, indeed, reluctantly constrained to confess that Paddy, notwithstanding his humanity, is, like many other benevolent men of higher grade, who are equally blind in this respect, an ardent lover of field sports, as an instance will show. We were seated at our breakfast in the hotel at Maam one morning, when our ears were assailed by a strange din, composed of the barking of dogs and the shouting of men. We started to the oriel window which commands a view of the road beyond the bridge for a mile or more, and the reader may judge of our astonishment when we saw Paddy Coneely hand in hand with Paddy Lee, one of our car-drivers from Clifden, racing at their utmost speed—Paddy throwing his heels twice as high in the air as the other—both shouting joyously, and attended by a number of greyhounds and terriers, who barked in chorus—and[Pg 108] so they raced till they were out of sight. “What in the world,” we inquired of our host, Rourke, “is the meaning of that?” “It’s Paddy and Lee, Sir, who have borrowed my dogs, and are gone off to course!”
But we must pull up in our own course, and not run Paddy down. Let us however add, for he is a favourite with us, that Paddy is a temperate as he is a prudent man. We came to this conclusion, from the healthiness of his appearance and the equanimity of his manner, in five minutes after we first saw him. “You don’t drink hard, Paddy,” we remarked to him. “No, Sir,” he replied; “I did once, but I found it was destroying my health, and that if I continued to do so, I would soon leave my family after me to beg; so I left it off three years ago, and I have never tasted raw spirits since, or taken more than a tumbler, or, on an odd occasion, a tumbler and a half of punch, in an evening since.”
We only desire to add to this slight sketch, that Paddy appears to be in tolerably comfortable circumstances—he farms a bit of ground, and his cottage is neat and cleanly kept for one in his rank in Galway. He has a great love of approbation, a high opinion of his musical talents, and a strong feeling of decent pride. He will only play for the gentry or the comfortable farmers. He will not lower the dignity of his professional character by playing in a tap-room or for the commonalty—except on rare occasions, when he will do it gratuitously, and for the sole pleasure of making them happy. We have ourselves been spectators on some of these occasions, and may probably give a sketch of them in a future number.
P.
Disappointment—pho! What is disappointment, I should like to know? Why should any body feel it? I don’t. I did so at one time, however, certainly, and have a vague recollection of it being a rather unpleasant sort of feeling; but I am a total stranger to it now, and have been so for the last twenty years.
“Lucky fellow!” say you; “then you succeed in every thing?”
Quite the reverse, my dear sir; I succeed in nothing. I have not the faintest recollection of having ever succeeded in any single thing, where success was of the least moment, in the whole course of my life. I have invariably failed in every thing I have tried. But what has been the consequence? Why, the consequence has been, that I now never expect success in any thing I aim at; and this again has produced one of the most delightful states of feeling that can well be conceived. In fact, the reader can not conceive how delicious is the repose, the placidity of mind, the equanimity of temper, the coolness, the calmness, the comfort, arising from this independence of results—this delightful quiescence of the aspirations. It is a perfect paradise, an elysium. You recline on it so softly, so easily. It is like a down pillow; a bed of roses; an English blanket. I recollect the time when I used to fret and fume when I attempted any thing. How I used to be worried and tortured with hopes and fears, when I commenced any new undertaking, or applied for any situation! What folly! what absurdity!—all proceeding from the ridiculous notion that I had some chance of success!
Grown wiser, I save myself a world of trouble now. I know that I need not look for success in any thing I attempt, and therefore never expect it. It would do you good, gentle reader, to see with what calmness, with what philosophy, I now wait the result of any effort to better myself in life. It is truly edifying to behold.
Notwithstanding, however, this certain foreknowledge of consequences as regards the point in question, I deem it my bounden duty, both to myself and family, to make every effort I can for their and my own advancement; to try for every situation to which I think myself competent, and, therefore, I do so; but it is merely in compliance with this moral obligation, and from no hope whatever of succeeding; and the result has invariably shown, that to have given myself any uneasiness on the subject, to have entertained the most remote idea of success, would have been one of the most ridiculous things conceivable.
What a triumph is mine in such cases! I suffer nothing—no distress of mind, no uneasiness, not the least of either: I am calm and cool, and quite prepared for the result, and sure as fate it comes—“Dear Sir, I am sorry to say,” &c., &c. I never read a word beyond this.
Perhaps it would amuse the reader to give him one of those instances—I could give him five hundred—of what the generality of people call disappointments, which has induced the happy state of mind I now enjoy, which enables me to contemplate such crises as would throw any other person into the utmost agitation, with the most perfect equanimity.
About four or five years ago, a very intimate and dear friend suddenly burst in upon me while at breakfast one morning. He was almost breathless, and his look was big with intelligence.
“Well, Bob,” said he, with a gleeful smile, “here’s something at last that will do you good.”
I smiled, and shook my head.
“Well, well, so you always say,” said my friend, who perfectly understood me; “but you cannot miss this time. I have just heard from a confidential friend that Mr Bowman is about to retire from business, and that he is on the lookout for a respectable person to purchase his stock in trade, and the good will of his shop, privately. Now, Bob, that’s just the thing for you. You know the trade; you know, too, that Mr Bowman has realised a handsome fortune in it, and that his shop, where that fortune was made, has the best business in town.”
Now, all this that my friend said was true, perfectly true. Mr Bowman had made a fortune in the shop alluded to. It had by far the best run in town: it was crowded with customers from morning till night. But I felt quite confident that the moment I took the shop there would be an end of its prosperity. However, my friends prevailed. To please them, and to show that I was willing to do any thing to better my circumstances, I took the shop. I bought the stock and good will of the business, and entered on possession. My friends all congratulated me, and declared that my fortune was made. I knew better.
However, to give the speculation fair play, a thing I thought due to it, I prevailed on Mr Bowman to forego the usual proceeding in such cases of advertising his retirement from business and recommending me as his successor, because I knew that if he did so, all chance of my doing any good would be instantly knocked on the head. Recommend me! Why, the bare mention of my name—any allusion to it—would be certain and immediate destruction to me. I knew that if the public was made aware that I had succeeded to the business, it would instantly desert the shop.
Impressed with this conviction, I had the whole matter and manner of the transfer of property and interest in the shop managed with the utmost privacy and secrecy, my object being to slip unperceived and unobserved, as it were, into my predecessor’s place, that the public might not have the slightest hint of the change.
In order further to secure this important secret, I would not permit the slightest alteration to be made, either on the shop itself, or on any of its multifarious contents. I would not allow a box, or an article of any kind, not even a nail, to be removed or shifted from its place, for fear of giving the public the slightest clue to the fact of the shop’s being now mine. As to my own appearance in it, which of course could not be avoided, I hoped that I might pass for a shopman of Mr Bowman’s.
All, however, as I expected, was in vain. The public by some intuitive instinct, as it seemed to me, discovered that I was now proprietor of the shop, and took its measures accordingly. On the very first day that I took my place behind the counter, I thought it looked shy at me. I was not mistaken. Day after day my customers became fewer and fewer, until hardly one would enter the shop.
Being quite prepared for this result, I felt neither surprise nor disappointment, but shortly after coolly disposed of the shop, and all that was in it, to another party, who, as I wish every body well, I am glad to say, did, according to his own account, amazingly well in it, he declaring to me himself that it fulfilled his most sanguine expectations.
It could not be otherwise, for, as I well knew would be the case, the moment I quitted the counter, and this person took my place, the stream of public patronage returned; customers came thronging in faster than he and two stout active shopmen could serve them.
Now, in this affair, as in all others of a similar kind, my friends confessed that I had given the spec fair play, and that there was nothing on my part to which they could attribute the blame of failure. Unable to account for it, therefore, they merely shrugged their shoulders and said, “It was odd;[Pg 109] they didn’t understand it.” Neither did I, good reader; but so it was.
One rather odd feature in my case I may mention. Although I never actually succeed in anything, I am always very near doing so—very near getting every thing—within an ace, in almost every instance, of obtaining all I want. My friends are frequently bitten by this will-o’-the-wisp in my fortunes, and have fifty times congratulated me on the strength of its deceptive promises or successes, which of course are never realised.
In reply to their congratulations on such occasions, I merely smile and shake my head; adding, perhaps, “Not so fast, my good friends; wait a bit and you’ll see. I have been as near my mark a hundred times before.”
Perhaps the reader would like to glance at a case in point. I will present it to him: it is not yet three weeks old. I applied for a certain appointment in the gift of a certain board. Here is the reply of the secretary, who was my personal friend:—“My dear Sir, I am exceedingly happy to inform you that your application, which was this day read at the board, has been most favourably received. Indeed, from what has passed on the subject, I may assure you of success, and beg to congratulate you accordingly. Your success would not perhaps have been quite so certain had Mr S— been at home, as he would probably support his friend B., who is the only person you had to fear. But Mr S—, who is on the continent (at Carlsbad), is not expected for a fortnight, and cannot be here for a week at the soonest; so you are safe.”
“Well, then, now surely, Bob,” said my friends to whom I showed this letter, “you cannot doubt of your success in this instance.”
“No, indeed!” exclaimed I, with the usual shake of the head and accompanying smile of incredulity; “never had less expectation from any thing in my life. Don’t you see, Mr S— will be home in time, and will give his powerful interest to my rival?”
“Impossible, my dear sir; Mr S— is at Carlsbad, and cannot be home in less than a week. Neither steam-boat nor rail-road could enable him to accomplish such a feat.”
“No, but a balloon might; and depend upon it a balloon he will take, rather than I should get the situation. This he’ll certainly do, although he knows nothing of what is going on.”
“There’s the postman, my dear,” said I with gentleness and equanimity to my wife, on the morning of the third day after the conversation above alluded to had taken place. “It is a letter from my friend Secretary Wilkins, to inform me that I have lost the situation of ——; that Mr S—, performing miracles in the way of expedition, although not impelled by any particular motive, came home just in time to support his friend and, of course, to cut me out.”
It was precisely so. “My dear Sir,” began my friend’s letter, “I am truly sorry to inform you”——I read no more; not another word. It was quite unnecessary; I knew it all before. So, laying the letter gently on the table, I said with my wonted smile, “Exactly; all right!”
Now, does the reader think that, in this, or in any other similar case, I gave myself the smallest uneasiness about the result? Not I, indeed—not the smallest. I expected no success, and was not therefore disappointed.
C.
The Beautiful in Nature and Art.—In looking at our nature, we discover among its admirable endowments the sense or perception of beauty. We see the germ of this in every human being; and there is no power which admits greater cultivation: and why should it not be cherished in all? It deserves remark, that the provision for this principle of the creation which we can turn into food and clothes, or gratification for the body; but the whole creation may be used to minister to the sense of beauty. Beauty is an all-pervading presence; it unfolds the numberless flowers of the spring; it waves in the branches of the trees and the green blades of grass; it haunts the depth of the earth and sea, and gleams out in the hues of the shell and the precious stone; and not only these minute objects, but the ocean, the mountains, the clouds, the heavens, the stars, the rising and setting sun, all overflow with beauty. The universe is its temple, and those men who are alive to it cannot lift their eyes without feeling themselves encompassed with it on every side. Now, this beauty is so precious, the enjoyments it gives are so refined and so akin to worship, that it is painful to think of the multitude of men as living in the midst of it, and living almost as blind to it, as if, instead of this fair earth and glorious sky, they were tenants of a dungeon. An infinite joy is lost to the world by the want of culture of this spiritual endowment. Suppose that I were to visit a cottage, and to see its walls lined with the choicest picture of Raphael, and every spare nook filled with statues of the most exquisite workmanship,[Pg 110] and that I were to learn that neither man, woman, nor child, ever cast an eye at these miracles of art, how should I regret their privation; how should I want to open their eyes; and to help them to comprehend and feel the loveliness and grandeur which in vain courted their notice? But every husbandman is living in sight of the works of a diviner artist; and how much would his existence be elevated, could he see the glory which shines forth in their forms, hues, proportions, and moral expression! I have spoken only of the beauty of nature; but how much of this mysterious charm is found in the elegant arts, and especially in literature? The best books have most beauty. The greatest truths are wronged if not linked with beauty, and they win their way most surely and deeply into the soul when arrayed in this their natural and fit attire. Now no man receives the true culture of a man in whom the sensibility to the beautiful is not cherished; and I know of no condition in life from which it should be excluded. Of all luxuries, this is the cheapest and most at hand; and it seems to be most important to those conditions where coarse labour tends to give a grossness to the mind. From the diffusion of the sense of beauty in ancient Greece, and of the taste for music in modern Germany, we learn that the people at large may partake of refined gratifications which have hitherto been thought to be necessarily restricted to a few.—Channing.
“Come along; don’t stay poking in that ditch; it’s nothing but a common frog,” said a lively-looking fellow to his companion; who replied, “True, it is only a common frog, but give me a few minutes, and I will endeavour to show you that it better deserves attention than many a creature called rare and curious. The fact is, that the history of what we call common animals, and see every day, is often very imperfectly known, though possessing much to astonish and instruct us. Come, sit you down on this bank for a few minutes, instead of pursuing your idle walk, and I will endeavour to excite your curiosity and powers of observation. If I do so by means of so humble an instrument as a common frog, I do better service than if I were to fix your attention by accounts of the mightiest monsters of fossil or existing Herpetology, as the part of natural history which treats of reptiles is called. See! I have caught him, and a fine stout fellow he is, for I perceive from his swelling chops he is a male. Let us now consider his place in the creation: it is in the tailless section of the fourth order of reptiles called Batrachians, and distinguished from the other three orders by the absence of scales on the skin, and by the young undergoing the most extensive changes of form, organic structure, and habits of life. You know, I presume, that frogs are hatched from eggs, or as they are called in mass, spawn, which is laid early in the year in shallow pools, and resembles boiled sago. The peasantry believe that as it is laid in more or less deep water, so will the coming season be dry or wet. This, however, like many other instances of supposed prescience in animals, does not stand the test of observation, for spawn is frequently laid where, when the weather proves fine, the water is dried up. Nevertheless, its position does in some degree indicate the state of the atmosphere, as, under the low pressure of air which precedes and attends rain, the spawn, owing to bubbles of air entangled in it, floats more buoyantly, and is fitted for shallower water than it could swim in under other circumstances. But to our subject. The product of this spawn is in every thing unlike the perfect frog we now behold. He commenced life with some twelve hundred in family, a tiny, fish-formed creature, with curious external gills, which in a short time became covered with skin; and he then breathed by taking in water at the mouth, passing it over the gills, and out at orifices on each side, just as we see in ordinary fishes. The circulation of his blood was also similar to that of those animals. His head and body were then confounded in one globular mass, to which was appended a long, flattened, and powerful tail; his mouth was small, his jaws suited to his food, which was vegetable, and his intestines were four times longer in proportion than they are now. After some time of this fish-like life, two limbs began to bud near to the junction of his body and tail—then another pair under the skin near his gills. His tail absorbed in proportion as his limbs developed, until, casting away the last of his many tadpole skins, and with it his jaws and gills, he emerged from the water a ‘gaping, wide-mouthed, waddling frog,’ to seek on land his prey, in future to consist exclusively of worms, insects, and other small living beings; still retaining his power of swimming and diving, but accomplishing it by powerful exertions of his hinder legs, which serve him on land to effect his prodigious jumps, of which we may form an estimate by knowing that a man exerting as great a power in proportion could jump upwards of one hundred yards. He cannot, however, breathe under water; and though his skin, which possesses enormous absorbing powers, may contribute a portion of the necessary stimulus to his blood, yet he must breathe as we do by getting air into his lungs, and therefore, except when he is torpid from cold, he cannot continue any great length of time under water. Observe now his mode of breathing—see with what regularity his nostrils open and shut, while the skin under his throat falls and rises in the same order, for as he is without ribs or diaphragm, his mode of inspiration is not effected as ours is; but he takes air into his closely shut mouth through his nostrils, which he then closes, and by a muscular exertion presses the air into his lungs. Were you to keep his mouth open, he would be infallibly smothered. His tongue is one of his most striking peculiarities, for instead of being rooted, as in other animals, at the throat, it is fastened to his under lip, and its point is directed to his stomach. Nevertheless, this strange arrangement is well suited to his purposes, and his tongue as an organ of prehension is very effective. It is flat, soft, and long, and is covered with a very viscid fluid. When he wishes to use it, he lowers his under jaw suddenly, and ejects and retracts his tongue with the rapidity of a flash of light, snatching away a luckless worm or beetle attached, by the secretion before alluded to, to its tip. The insertion of the tongue in front of the lower jaw serves not only to aid mechanically in its ejection and retraction, just as we manage the lash of a whip, but it saves material in its construction, for it would require much greater volume of muscle to accomplish the same end posited as tongues usually are; and it has also the advantage of bringing the food into the proper place for being swallowed, without further exertion than that of its retraction.
Look now at the splendour of the golden iris of his eyes, and his triple eyelids; see, notwithstanding the meagre developement of his head, as a phrenologist would say, his great look of vivacity; though his brain is small, his nerves are particularly large, and his muscles are accordingly possessed of more than ordinary excitability, which property has subjected his race to very many cruel experiments, at the hands of physiologists, galvanists, &c. A favourite experiment was, by the galvanic action of a silver coin and a small plate of zinc, on the leg of a dead frog, to make it jump with more than the force of life. Should you be inclined to study his anatomy, you will find ample stores in the ponderous folios of old writers, who have so laboriously wrought out his story as to leave little to be accomplished by us. The frog, now abundantly dispersed over Ireland, was introduced into this country not much more than a century since by Doctor Gwythers of Trinity College; and in thus naturalizing this pretty creature, cold and clammy though it be, he did a service, for it contributes materially to check the increase of slugs and worms. I have often vindicated the frog from charges brought against him by gardeners. I have been shown a strawberry, and desired to look at the mischief he has done. I have pointed out, that the edge where he was accused of biting out a piece was not only dry, but smaller than the interior of the cavity, and it therefore could not be formed by a bite. I have then shown other strawberries with similar wounds, in which small black slugs were feeding; and I have cut up the supposed strawberry-devouring frog slain by the gardener, and shown in his stomach, with several earthworms, a number of little black slugs of the species alluded to, but not one bit of fruit: thus proving, I hope, that the cultivator of strawberries ought for his own sake to be the protector of frogs.
The frog is a good instance of the confusion that constantly arises from applying the same words to designate different animals in different countries. The common frog of the continent is the green frog (Rana esculenta), while our common frog is their red frog (Rana temporaria). The former is of much more aquatic habits than the latter, and is not known in Ireland. I once made an attempt to introduce it here, and when in Paris directed a basket of 100 frogs to be made up for me, giving special instructions that no common frogs were to be amongst them, which order I found on returning was obeyed as understood in that country, and not a single green frog was in my lot, though I intended to have none other. As articles of food there seems to be little difference, but[Pg 111] the preference is given to the green frog. The vulgar opinion that Frenchmen eat frogs for want of better food is quite erroneous; the contrary is the fact; for a fricassee of these animals is an expensive dish in France, and is considered a delicacy. Its chief merit appears to me to be its freedom from strong flavour of any kind; a delicate stomach may indulge in it without fear of a feeling of repletion. In this country the foolish prejudices which forbid the use of many attainable articles of wholesome food, applies with force to frogs. Our starving peasants loath what princes of other nations would banquet on, and leave to badgers, hedgehogs, buzzards, herons, pike and trout, sole possession of a very nutritive and pleasant article of food. When devoured by the heron, it is in part converted into a source of wonder to the unenlightened; for the curious masses of whitish jelly found on the banks of rivers and other moist places, and said by the country people to be fallen stars, are, so far as I have been able to observe, masses of immature frog spawn in a semi-digested state; and they seemed to me to have been rejected by herons, just as we see hawks and owls reject balls of hair, feathers, or other indigestible portions of their prey.
While on the subject of eating frogs, one of many of my adventures with the animal comes upon me with something like a feeling of compunction. When I was at school, it happened on a great occasion that a party of the ‘big boys’ were allowed to sit up much beyond the ordinary time of retiring. Finding it cold, it was proposed to adjourn to the kitchen, poke up the fire, and make warm before going to bed. Proceeding accordingly, we were startled by the repetition of some heavy sounds on the floor, and on getting up a blaze we discovered a frog of gigantic proportions jumping across the room. He was seized, and a council being held upon him, it was resolved that he should be killed, roasted, and eaten; and this awful sentence was at once put into execution—the curious for curiosity, the braggarts for bravado, and the cowards, lest they be thought so, partaking of the repast. We discovered next day that the unfortunate devoured had been for three years a settled denizen of the kitchen, where he dealt nightly havoc on the hordes of crickets and cockroaches it contained. I have had for three years a frog in confinement where his food is not very abundant, and he has grown proportionally slowly, being still of a very diminutive size. Linnæus and others distinguished ours as the mute frog, believing it did not possess a voice. They were mistaken: you hear our captive, when I press his back, give utterance to his woes; but if you desire to attend his concert, get up some bright night in spring, seek out his spawning place about the witching hour, and you will then hear sounds, of strange power, which seem to make the earth on which you stand to tremble. On investigation you will find it to proceed from an assembled congregation of frogs, each pronouncing the word Croak, but dwelling, as a musician would say, with a thrill on the letter r. When speaking of the tadpole, I forgot to allude to the fact, that recent experimenters find that by placing them in covered jars, the developement of the frog is arrested. The tadpole will continue to grow until it reaches a size as great as that of an adult frog. This has been attributed by the discoverer to a withdrawal of the agency of light; but it strikes me he has, in his anxiety to prop a theory, lost sight of the true reason, which appears to be, that while he excluded the young animal from light, he also put it in such a situation as to compel it to breathe alone by its gills, and afford it no opportunity for the developement of its lungs, and so it retained of necessity its fish-like functions. As you are probably more of a sportsman than a naturalist, you have observed in rail shooting, your pointer, after a show of setting, roll on the ground: if you had examined, the chances are you would have found a dead frog of no very pleasing perfume. Why the dog so rolled, I cannot say, unless it be, that he like other puppies wished to smear his hair with nasty animal odours. I have now I think worked out your patience; and though I could dwell much longer on the subject, and eke out much from ancient lore, I will end by a less pompous quotation of part of a well-known song—
And the catastrophe,
Pray apply the moral. Had the said frog had his mind cultivated, and had he been acquainted with nature, he would not have engaged in a thoughtless courtship, that could have no good end, nor have disobeyed the voice of experience, and so met with the fate that awaited him. You may now go on your walk; and if a common frog cannot interest you, take care of the lily white duck.”
B.
The advantage which the working man, possessed of a little patch of land at a moderate rent, has over him who is without any, or holds it at a rate greatly above its value (a common case with the Irish labourer), can only be fully understood by those who have narrowly observed in England the respective conditions of the field labourer, with his allotment of a rood or half a rood of garden, and the workman in a town factory. It is very obvious that the garden gives healthful recreation to the family, young and old, who have always some little matter to perform in it, and if they really like the light work of cultivating kitchen vegetables, fruits and flowers, they combine pleasure with profit. Here is something on which they can always fall back as a resource if a day’s work for hire is interrupted—they can make up at home for so much lost time—the children have something rational and useful to do, instead of blackguarding about roads and streets—they help to raise the potatoes and cabbages, &c., which with prudent management materially assist their housekeeping.
The benefits which have arisen to the labourer and all the rural poor in England who have obtained from ten to forty perches of garden from land-proprietors or farmers, or those who have the privilege of encroaching upon commons for the purpose, is truly surprising. Much of this is attributable to the exertions of the London Labourers’ Friend Society, who, in an age when party violence divides man from his fellows, and excites from some quarter or other opposition to every system designed for the common good, have quietly but steadily pursued their own way.
I have had occasion more than once to press upon the attention of those who have the disposal of land in Ireland, the great benefits which would result to our poor if they would act upon the principle which actuates this benevolent society; and strange though it be, the fact is, that some landlords possessing estates both in England and Ireland are at pains to secure to the English labourer advantages which they take no trouble to provide for the labourer on the soil of Ireland.
I have referred to the principle which guides the society. It is, that the labouring classes should have such allotment of land as will not interfere with their general course of fixed labour, nor render them at all independent of it, but merely give them employment during those hours which they have at command in the intervals of their more profitable occupations. I have myself seen innumerable instances of the happy effects of giving to the labourer or little mechanic even half a rood of land, which he generally has in the highest state of productiveness, and from it his table is frequently supplied; while gooseberry and currant trees, in luxuriant bearing, and flowers close to the road, and without a higher fence than a paling or hedge three feet high, attest the high degree of honesty and decorum which the habit of having such productions in this unprotected way undoubtedly generates.
The local poor-rates have in all instances been greatly lessened by this mode of enabling labourers to help themselves; and if in this country the compulsory system of providing food or employment for the sick or hungry poor had prevailed long ago as in England, the landlords would have found means to guard against those dreadful realities of destitution with which we have been familiarized. Not that it is desirable to give a very open invitation to the parish manger, for this destroys the feeling of self-dependence and weakens the motives to economy and industry. But there should have long since been more practical exertion to place the labourer within reach of reasonable comforts.
What are the circumstances of tens of thousands of working people in the great manufacturing towns of Great Britain, in which no land can be given to them? Families so circumstanced wear out their health and existence in unvarying labour—not requiring much immediate exertion of strength, it is[Pg 112] true; but wearisome from its continued sameness, which gives no exercise whatever to the mind.
The many pictures presented to us of the mental and physical condition of a great portion of our fellow-creatures kept at the slave-like labour of the factory, are appalling, and I fear they are true: this is unquestionably so, that children from nine to twelve years of age (and many have been worked from the age of five) are locked up for six days in the week, for twelve hours every day, in a warm artificial temperature, instead of breathing the free air of heaven; they are looked upon as parts of the machinery, and must move accordingly; with this difference, that while human genius is always at work to devise improvements in inanimate complications, and to keep them in the highest state of order, the condition of the living soul and body is in too many instances neglected altogether. There is a wear and tear of human life, and an accumulation of moral corruption, which it is frightful to think of.
When work is in good demand, the joint labours of the parent and their children earn considerable weekly wages. There is then plenty of bread and butter and some bacon for the children, and beer and gin besides for their parents; but nothing is saved for less prosperous times, and the family is not eventually the better for the short run of high earnings.
The want of a bit of land is more serious than many will believe, not only in its effect upon health, but upon moral conduct also.
Among some facts published by the London Labourers’ Friend Society, are the details of the complete reformation of twelve men, who had been severally committed to gaol for different offences of a very serious nature, in consequence of their obtaining portions of land, varying from two acres and a half to one rood; and I may add, that out of eighty occupants of land-allotments in the same neighbourhood, there has been only one case of robbery within seven years.
Some of the foregoing remarks tend to show that the Irish poor would not gain in happiness by the establishment of the modern British factory system among them, unless the advantage of a little land could be afforded them at the same time. A proof of this exists in the altered circumstances of the people who were once employed in the domestic manufacture of linen in Ulster. These had a patch of land, to which they could at pleasure turn from the loom and the reel; and as the labour of their children was not prematurely demanded, they could enjoy the green fields or the garden, and be employed in school, with a certainty of substantial food (instead of bad coffee and adulterated tea), until they attained the age of thirteen or fourteen, when they could take an active part in the labour of the loom.
When field or garden labour can be combined with factory work, the miseries of the manufacturing system are much removed, and manufactures in such a case become serviceable under judicious and moral management: the present state of the town of Lancaster affords some illustration of this. It verges on a purely agricultural district, and now contains both manufacturing and farm labourers. Upon the introduction of cotton manufactures (and half the few mills now existing there were established only seven years ago), the wages of each individual workman were rendered less than they had been before, but the earnings of his whole family increased considerably. Children before that period were burdensome to their parents, who when making application for parish aid pleaded the number of their family. Now children are sources of increased comfort to such parents; and even step-children, grand-children, nephews, and nieces, who were formerly pressed into the list of mouths to be fed from the parish rates, are now studiously kept out of sight, because they earn wages, and contribute to the support of those who would otherwise shift them off their hands. On the whole, those with families are better off than if without them; and the children themselves, except in times of very hurried work, and allowing for occasional abuses by employers and parents over-working them, are better off than formerly. The comparatively good state of the Lancaster operatives arises front the circumstance, that in times of difficulty in the factories many of the work people have farm work to turn to, and numbers of them have allotments of their own.
In proportion as the labouring poor of any community are deprived of the advantage of gardens, is a decrease in their health, happiness, and moral state. Of this, as regards another nation, I have a proof before me in the letter of Mr T. Bastard, who in a communication from Germany (I shall only give a portion of it) to the editor of the Labourers’ Friend Magazine, says, “In regard to the allotment system in particular, as a mode of giving the labourer ‘a stake in the hedge,’ I have learnt nothing here which induces me to change my opinion of its value: on the contrary, I feel rather confirmed in the belief, that where population and capital exist in a high degree, no other practicable mode has yet been proposed, so calculated to prevent the labouring classes from falling into the degraded position, with all its train of ill consequences, of being mere machines in the hands of the capitalists; or if they have already so fallen, so adapted to restore them to a higher moral state.
I believe that a much greater proportion of the labouring classes of Saxony possess some ‘stake in the hedge’ than those of England. … I am sorry, however, to add, that Saxony appears to me, by the increase that is taking place in her population, and by her efforts to push her manufactures, to be approaching the evil which we have long suffered under in England, that of having the sole interest of a great portion of her people dependent entirely on the amount of weekly wages that they can obtain.
During three months of last year I resided in a village at some distance from Dresden, and in every sense a rural one, the occupations of the inhabitants, of which there were between seven and eight hundred living in about one hundred houses, being confined to agriculture, with the exception of some handicraftsmen, such as shoemakers, tailors, blacksmiths, &c. and a few who worked in some stone quarries. Besides two considerable estates belonging to two persons who stood in the position of esquires, and shared the manorial privileges, the land was much divided, two or three persons having as much as 140 acres, but the greater part only from one to five acres, which were held under a sort of feudal tenure; and all the cottages had at least gardens. The appearance of general comfort and happiness certainly exceeded that which I have ever seen in an English village of the same kind and size. The inhabitants were healthy-looking: their houses were all good substantial ones, provided (at least several that I entered) with decent furniture, and they were invariably well clothed. The two latter points are remarkable in Saxony. I have never seen a row of cottages, or rather huts here, and very rarely a raggedly-dressed person. I will here add, also, that the Saxons who visit rich England are particularly struck with the numbers of persons they see in rags and tatters. I found, however, that there were several persons, and even families, who had merely lodgings in the cottages without any land, and these were invariably in bad circumstances. In fact, they were dependent solely on wages; and here was the commencement of that evil to which I have before adverted, and for which I can think of no other effectual remedy than the allotment system.”
Irish Bravery and Honour.—On the surprise of Cremona by Prince Eugene in 1702, when Villeroy, the French general, most of the officers, military chests, &c. were taken, and the German horse and foot in possession of the town, excepting one place only, the Po Gate, which was guarded by two Irish regiments commanded by O’Mahony and Bourk, before the Prince commenced the attack there, he sent to expostulate with them, and show them the rashness of sacrificing their lives where they could have no probability of relief, and to assure them if they would enter into the imperial service, they should be directly and honourably promoted. The first part of this proposal they heard with impatience, the second with disdain. “Tell the Prince,” said they, “that we have hitherto preserved the honour of our country, and that we hope this day to convince him that we are worthy of his esteem. While one of us exists, the German eagle shall not be displayed upon these walls. This is our deliberate resolution, and we will not admit of further capitulation.” The attack was commenced by a large body of foot, supported by five thousand cuirassiers, and after a bloody conflict of two hours the Germans retreated: the Irish pursued their advantage, and attacked them in the streets. Before evening the enemy were expelled the town, and the general and the military chests recovered.
Printed and Published every Saturday by Gunn and Cameron, at the Office of the General Advertiser, No. 6, Church Lane, College Green, Dublin.—Agents:—R. Groombridge, Panyer Alley, Paternoster Row, London. Simms and Dinham, Exchange Street, Manchester. C. Davies, North John Street, Liverpool. J. Drake, Birmingham. M. Bingham, Broad Street, Bristol. Fraser and Crawford, George Street, Edinburgh. David Robertson, Trongate, Glasgow.
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Irish Penny Journal, Vol. 1 No.
14, October 3, 1840, by Various
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