A Frenchman's Walk in Ireland by The Chevalier De Latocnaye

CHAPTER II - Dublin.

The banks of the Suir are lined with pleasant-looking country-houses, and the water is deep as far as Waterford, a town with a great trade in salted meat, and which seems to be very prosperous. There is a quay which might be a very ornamental feature had the authorities not thought fit to place some boat-building yards on it, along with several tasteless sheds for the public service. It would have been infinitely better for the workers to have had the ship-building industry on the other side of the river, and its settlement there would have left the quay an uninterrupted sweep, and saved the neighbouring houses from the unpleasantness of the overpowering odour of tar—but O! sweet smell of gain.
The bridge is the first in Ireland to be constructed in its manner—the wood piles have thirty feet of water round them at high-water. The beauty and solidity of the structure and adaptability to such deep water reflect great credit on the architect, who has designed several others on the same plan.
There was at the time, in the river, an American vessel, with passengers from Nantes for New York, which had suffered shipwreck on the Irish coast within a few days from leaving France. The inhabitants subscribed money and furnished provisions for the benefit of the poor voyagers. I questioned a few of the passengers about the country they had left—they were for the greater part artisans—but they could tell me nothing, except that bread was very dear, that they were very miserable, and that they were going to New York in the hope of finding work.
As it was my intention to reach Dublin as quickly as possible, I took place in a coach to convey me to Gowran, where I expected to join the Cork mail. Unfortunately when this arrived every place was occupied, and I was left in this miserable village with no way of proceeding with my luggage except by hiring what they call a car. Their car is a species of low cart on wheels two feet in diameter, made out of one or two pieces of wood, attached to a great axle of wood or iron turning with them. This singular construction seems to be well fitted for carrying heavy loads, but not for the country work in which they are commonly employed. I take it to be a farmer's invention.
Having then made a bargain with a driver to take me six miles at the price of a post-chaise, I mounted beside my luggage. My man stopped at every public house to drink or talk, leaving me in the middle of the road exposed to the rain. Two or three times I begged him, civilly, to proceed, but as he did not appear to pay the slightest attention to my requests, I commenced to repeat those eloquent compliments which one may learn about the docks and markets of London, and was pleased to see that I had, at last, impressed him, for I heard him say, when quitting some of his friends, 'By ——, I'm sure he's a gentleman for he swears most confoundedly.' After this little lesson I had not the least trouble with my charioteer, but the rain, and some annoyances due to my position at the horse's tail, put me in such bad humour that I vowed never again to expose myself to such discomfort.
I stopped at Carlow, where there has been established recently a seminary for Catholic priests. This town is situated on the Barrow, which joins with the Grand Canal of Ireland. Wishing to see something of this waterway I went to Athy, from whence every day there is a service of public boats to Dublin. At the entrance to the village I was stopped by four or five persons who asked for charity—they explained that it was to be used to give decent burial to a poor wretch who had died of hunger. I replied that since he was dead he wanted nothing. This answer did not appear to satisfy them, and so I contributed to the funereal pomp, the occasion being, perhaps, the only one in which the poor fellow's friends were interested in his concerns.
The canal boats are very comfortable, being indeed very like those of Holland, but the cost here is nearly double. The one in which I travelled carried a large number of political talkers of the type known in France as mouchards.<1> Seeing that I was a foreigner, one of them spoke to me several times on delicate and difficult matters affecting the Government. Fearing false interpretations I responded in ambiguous terms, and in the end found it politic to feign sleep—a very good way of getting out of such difficulties.
The canal is a magnificent piece of work, crossing immense tracts of moor, where ten or twelve feet of peat have had to be removed before reaching earth in which the waterway could be cut. Several aqueducts have been necessary, one of them of really prodigious length and height.
Dublin is a very considerable city, about one-fourth the size of London, of which it is the image in little—even the streets bear the same names; the beauty of the buildings may dispute for precedence with those of the capital; one is astonished at their magnificence and number. The Parliament House does honour to the nation's representatives; it is an immense circular building surrounded by a magnificent colonnade.
It is worthy of remark that the place where the deputies or representatives of the greatest nation assemble is commonly an old, irregular, ugly building, for which there is such attachment or affection that nobody thinks of displacing it by a new and more commodious structure.
The Bourse or Royal Exchange is somewhat like the Mansion House in London, but smaller. The Customs House is much too fine for its work, and the new building which they call the Four Courts of Justice gives Themis the pleasure to see herself decently lodged, a rare thing in European countries. Her old residence was a frightful place, as much on account of the members as by reason of the lugubrious and sombre appearance of the cave where they practised. I amused myself often by walking among them, and as it was extremely unlikely that I, in my circumstances, should ever have anything to do with them, I could laugh at their big wigs, in which the face is so buried that only a long nose protrudes. They reminded me of hawks dressed to pounce on their prey, with the beaks only visible. If rumour is to be believed, attorneys here yield in nothing to their brethren of our courts; indeed, from certain stories I have heard it would seem that they are even cleverer.
The squares are large and well built, only the port seems to me to be unworthy of the city. There has just been constructed an immense dock, which will make good certain shortcomings when some houses have been built to protect it from wind. It is singular that the inhabitants have never thought of building a beautiful church here; the churches are all old and without the least decoration. Among them all there are but two miserable bell-towers, and this want prevents the city from having the fine appearance it should exhibit from a distance.
As my object is not to give a topographical description of this great city, I shall not attempt to describe the Castle and the beautiful buildings associated. The splendid carriages and the apparent wealth of the principal houses render the more displeasing the sight of the beggars, whose abject poverty is horrible. They may be seen hanging on for hours to the railings of basement stories, forcing charity by depriving those who live in these places of light and air. Some of them are insolent, seeking to get in some fashion, by force, what is not forthcoming by goodwill. These disgusting scenes harden the heart little by little, and I never felt less disposed to alms-giving than after having lived some time in Dublin.
I occupied my leisure in the early days of my sojourn as I do ordinarily in such times elsewhere, by moving from one place to another, and mixing as much as possible with the crowd. I joined one which seemed, on a certain day, to be expecting something with impatience, and found myself among them in front of a large building which had something of the look of an old castle. There was a little platform at the level of a window in the second storey; two men of somewhat disagreeable look made their appearance on it, and I thought I was about to witness some peculiar ceremony. But I was promptly disabused of this idea, for one of them passed a loop of rope round the neck of the other and fastened the cord to a bar of iron above him. I turned to get away, but the crowd was too dense for movement; the poor wretch stood for a moment, alone, in view of the people, then a bolt slipped, and the little platform on which he stood fell against the wall. The Irish have, perhaps, got the better of their neighbours in the matter of hanging people with grace, but to me it appears a great cruelty to make a sort of parade of the death of a man, and in diminishing the horror of the punishment crime is increased and executions multiplied. I think I am not far wrong in assigning this as the reason why there are more people hung in Great Britain and Ireland than in all the rest of Europe.
The crowd seemed to move steadily in one direction, and I followed again—this time to be led to Phoenix Park, where there was a horse race. I really could not say which of the two—execution or race—gave the greater pleasure to the hundred-headed monster.
Although the part of the city where the well-to-do people live is perhaps as beautiful as anything similar in Europe, nothing anywhere can compare with the dirt and misery of the quarters where the lower classes vegetate. They call these quarters 'The Liberties' of Dublin, and this made me think often of 'liberties' of France under Robespierre, than which there was nothing more disgusting in the universe.
Among those to whom I had letters of recommendation were generals and doctors, bishops, and curates, bankers and authors, lords and professors, barristers and solicitors. Mr. Burton Conyngham was one of those who welcomed me most warmly; he was kind in encouraging me to carry out my plan. He was a most honourable man, a friend of the public good, a supporter of every effort made for the benefit of his country. I can say this now without fear of being accused of flattery, for he is dead. To him I owe my introduction to various learned societies, and the friendship of some of their members. There were among them some very amiable and highly educated men—there was not among them one without something peculiar or original in his manner.
In natural history collections the cabinet of which Mr. Kirwan has charge merits the attention of the curious. There will be found in it a most interesting assemblage of all known stones and minerals. Lord Charlemont's library is a gem of elegance and taste.
From seeing Irishmen abroad one would imagine them to be most gallant and incapable of living without society. The very same men who appear to find so much pleasure in dancing attendance on our ladies allow cavaliers to flirt with their own. When an Irishman presents himself at the door of a Jacques Roastbeef in England, the latter fears immediately an attack on his purse, his wife, his daughter, or his wine. In revenge Dublin is shy in receiving the foreigner. One would say that the Dubliners remember their own faults of youth.
There are few social functions except those that are called routs. With reason I might describe them as déroutes.<2> Where a house might comfortably entertain twenty persons, sixty are invited, and so in proportion. I have seen routs where, from vestibule to garret, the rooms were filled with fine ladies beautifully dressed, but so crushed against each other that it was hardly possible to move. A foreigner has cause for embarrassment in these too brilliant assemblies, for he may here see really charming women in greater number than in most cities, and he thinks it a pity to see them lose on a stairway the time which might be passed much more agreeably with a small number of appreciative friends.
Nearly all the rich, I am told, spend more than their incomes, and so are obliged to resort to ruinous expedients in order to keep up style. In most European countries such prodigality is not so injurious to society, in that the expense goes to encourage art and talents, which serve to make life agreeable. Here in Ireland there is no such redeeming result, for the things on which the money is spent are not products of the country, and those who practise the fine arts, being without encouragement, and being, indeed, despised, seek other lands where their work is more highly appreciated. To nobles who are bent on ruining themselves, I counsel the spending of their means on Irish-made goods. That would be real patriotism.
When it was known that I intended to write the trifles which occupy the attention of the reader at the moment, several people exerted themselves to procure for me entry to various establishments where never before had foreigner been admitted.
I was warned by the case of a certain Mr. Twiss to be careful as to what I should put on paper. This Twiss was an Englishman, not wanting in wit, but still an Englishman of a commonly-seen type, full of prejudice in favour of his own country and considering all peoples of other lands as very inferior species. After having travelled over the greater part of Europe he came to Ireland, and had the imprudence to express discontent when several persons for whom he had letters of recommendation did not invite him to their houses. He should have remembered that the usage had been copied from England, where people will sometimes pay you the compliment of inviting you to an inn and leave you to pay your own charge. Such treatment was, perhaps, responsible for some dry responses at which he was much mortified. Thereupon he proceeded on his travels, and found in the towns what I have myself experienced—that is to say, a too ceremonious hospitality, the person to whom you have presented your letter paying you a visit of ceremony and then sending you on the day following an invitation for three or four days ahead. Surely it is a curious compliment to oblige a traveller to remain so long in a little town, where he has neither friend nor acquaintance, in order that he may, at last, have the pleasure to see much beautiful silver shining beautifully on the sideboard, servants in livery, and a huge piece of beef on the end of the table with hungry executioners round it. But it is the custom, and those who practise it think they are acting with great politeness in not asking you on the first day. However, in all towns there are folk who follow the good old custom, and the thing to do is to avoid having letters for the other sort, then one can pass the time very agreeably.
This style of entertainment displeased Mr. Twiss very much, and as in the world disagreeableness is a coin which can be given as well as received, his retaliations were as bad as the provocations he had received. He finished his journey very quickly, and immediately on his return published a record, not of what he had observed, but of what had been told by travellers four or five hundred years ago, and certainly set down some things not generally known, as, for example, the manner of baking bread by Cork girls in the year 1400. He permitted himself certain pleasantries about the skins of potatoes and the legs of ladies—this latter is a delicate subject to treat, and one about which the narrator should keep to himself the observations he has been fortunate enough to make. The Irish were extremely displeased by his remarks, going so far as, childishly, to represent him pictorially in a very undignified position.<3> What may, perhaps, console him for the contumely with which he has been treated, is that his work, which had no great merit, had so much attention called to it by this angry fuss that the sales were good, and a copy could hardly be found in Dublin unsold. As for me, I have no spite against anyone; the prejudices of this country are foreign to me; the political and religious quarrels which have rent it for so long are as little to me as those of the Chinese. That being the case, why should I not say what I think, and what merit would my book have if I stooped to flattery on any occasion whatsoever.
One of my friends took me to the Society Theatre, assuredly the most sumptuous thing of the kind which I have seen anywhere. The house is very fine, the company numerous and select—the number of beautiful women seen there is something bewitching, and the only kind of crowd by which I don't mind being squeezed is one like that which here fills the hall where coffee is served after the performance. Nevertheless, I must say that this playhouse does a great injury to the public theatre, for the rich young folk who ruin their fortunes in trying to be actors at the Society Theatre will certainly not encourage their rivals at the public playhouse, and we cannot there expect good actors unless they are well supported and adequately paid. Men are not admitted to the Society Theatre unless they are subscribers, and the subscription runs to about a guinea per representation. Each gentleman subscribing may bring two ladies, and on the day of my admission this rule gave occasion to a young blade to rig himself out in petticoats, and find his way in as a lady through the introduction of one of his friends. Unfortunately, he was a bit merry and came out with some oaths of ill accord with femininity, which scandalised the hearers and occasioned his ejection. Some of the actors played their parts passably well, but I must say I do not take kindly to the sight of men of rank on the theatrical stage before the public, for the assembly was numerous enough to allow my use of the term.
The public playhouse is ugly enough, the theatre being poorly attended, and the actors nothing better than what are to be found in a little provincial town. They have devised in Dublin a rather singular form of entertainment, the proceeds of which are applied to the maintenance of a Maternity Hospital. It is called a Promenade, and the name made me wish to go and see one. The visitors walk in a circular hall called the Rotunda, and while there is somewhat more freedom than that which obtains at private entertainments, people only mix with, and speak to, members of their own circle. After a certain time a bell sounded, and the company hurried through a door just opened, and groups of friends settled round tea-tables. My society consisted of myself, and being unable to join any party I had opportunity to scan the various groups: everywhere there reigned a kind of quiet enjoyment which gave me much more pleasure than I had expected to find. The good mammas were not very numerous, and those who were present appeared to be absent-minded. The young folk, on the other hand, were very numerous and making good use of their time—I think, perhaps, the Promenade attained its object along more lines than one. The cash result is nearly all the hospital has to depend on for maintenance; balls are given sometimes, and for these the hall seems to be better suited than for Promenades.
There are several other hospitals, all maintained by subscriptions as in England. I hate to see the aid given to the poor depend on the caprice or fashion of the moment. If it were not here the fashion to subscribe, what would become of all these establishments! Formerly they had the revenues from lands to support them, but at the time of the Reformation these were taken possession of by certain rich families, in order to avoid malpractices of which the former administrators were accused.
The Hospital for old men does honour to the inhabitants of this city. Here are maintained a great number of aged men, fallen on evil times, near the end of their lives.
The House of Industry is a large establishment containing about 1700 poor folk who, in part, support themselves by their labours. Their food is infinitely better than that found on the tables of the peasantry. They have meat once a week; bread, potatoes, and other vegetables every day; very clean beds; only their clothes remain as they were before entry. Any poor person has the right of entry; those who come of their own accord are allowed to go out one day weekly. Notwithstanding these advantages, the love of liberty is so rooted in the heart of man there are very few who come of their own will, and the others are constantly trying to escape. Artisans and tradesmen are generally occupied in making things foreign to their experience, and perhaps to this cause is to be attributed the mediocrity of the most of the goods manufactured.
While I was in Dublin it was the fashion for people of high style to attend the charity sermons of a famous preacher, Mr. Kirwan. It has happened often at these services that the collections have amounted to a thousand or twelve hundred pounds, the money being applied to the support of Schools for Orphans. The Dublin ladies carry on little industries, providing the materials at their own charge, and selling the finished products for the benefit of the same schools. In most of the rich houses to which I was admitted I found the ladies occupied in this way. As the class below the highest is always disposed to imitate its superiors, charity sermons are very frequent all over the city.
To my mind Mr. Kirwan is a perfect preacher, joining to excellent discourse an eloquence far from common. He draws from the purse of the sinner that aid which cold charity alone could never extract. And yet I must say that the fervour of his expressions and the animation of his gestures do not work for good of the pulpit of Dublin. They have tended to produce a breed of imitators, who by their ridiculous frenzies might well make the weaker folk of the congregations think the devil had tricked himself out in a chasuble to preach to them. Strange how fashion rules the world!—here in Dublin, to imitate a favourite preacher who certainly has great merit, the mob of preachers affect a declamation and gesture more than theatrical, while at Edinburgh, where Mr. Greenfield, the favourite minister, has adopted an entirely different manner, they stand motionless, eyes with a fixed stare, and articulate a cold sermon in a cold way, so lifeless and cold indeed, that the pulpit might as well be occupied by a billet of wood clothed in the Presbyterian cassock,—in both cases influenced by the desire to imitate a man admired, with reason, by the public. The excuse given by Mr. Greenfield for his immobility is that Nature has so built him that, if in the course of his sermon his eye caught sight of anything in the least degree absurd or ridiculous he could not abstain from bursting into laughter,—surely one of the most curious reasons ever heard of. Did any man less gifted offer such an explanation of his manner he would not be believed. Be that as it may, there is no reason for the herd to copy him in it at Edinburgh and to out-Herod Herod in the case of Mr. Kirwan at Dublin.
Justice is dispensed here very much in the same manner as in England. The cost of law and, I may add, of medicine is exorbitant—not only are the poor absolutely deprived of the help of the latter, but even those of moderate means cannot afford it. The middle classes can hardly expect to see one of Messieurs, the disciples of Hippocrates, under a guinea or two guineas per visit. However, it must be admitted that doctors often make it a duty to visit, for nothing, folk who cannot pay anything, and among these latter are some very well-educated and respectable persons.
There are also arrangements for facilitating the procuring of justice for the poor, but these means cannot be employed decently except by the man who has nothing at all. It is difficult for the poor pleader to bring his cause to the ear of a judge; nevertheless, there are examples of poor men obtaining justice, and quickly, but in the main these are cases where rich men have taken their cause and made it their own.
The profession of barrister in the three kingdoms is held to be very honourable, its members well educated and of good families. Whatever may be said of the attorneys they are not such devils as is shadowed forth by their blackness. I have known some very honest and amiable men in this class. Nevertheless, I have been assured that if you must have any transactions with them, whether at London or at Dublin, it is well to say your good-bye in the street, otherwise it will be chalked up against you as a consultation, and they say if you ask one to dinner it may happen that he will charge you for the wear of his teeth.
I have heard of one of these gentlemen who regularly charged his client for having thought about him while at dinner. While I was in Dublin, one of them was asked by a lady in the country to take charge of a letter for her sister in Dublin. Arrived in town he called a carriage, and drove to the lady's house. Not finding her at home he returned, daily, for fifteen days, when, having found the consignee and delivered his letter, he presented a bill for fifteen guineas for his trouble and charges. I should never finish if I started to tell all the stories in circulation about Dublin lawyers. To them one might apply the answer of Lord Chesterfield, when Miss Chudleigh (afterwards Duchess of Kingston) complained to him that people were going about seeking to destroy her reputation by saying that she had brought twins into the world. 'Oh,' said he, 'don't let that bother you. You know that people should only believe half of what they hear.'
It seems to me that in English jurisprudence too much is made of the oath—it appears at every point—and much importance, it appears, is attached to swearing of witnesses, &c. Is it not plain that the unscrupulous man will make very little of charging his conscience with an additional crime, if he thinks he is going to gain anything by it, and the good man has no need for the formality? Here is a little story which illustrates my views in this matter:
Pierre avait emprunté le chaudron
De son voisin Lucas; puis le trouvant tres bon
Ne voulut pas le rendre, et lui chercha querelle!
De propos insultans une longue kyrielle
S'en suivit: après quoi le juge déclara
Qu'il fallait que Pierre jurât
N'avoir pas du voisin emprunté la marmite!
'De tout mon cœur, 's'ecria l'hypocrite,
Et, sur le champ en l'air sa dextre il lui montra.
'Mais, mechant,' dit Lucas, 'tu vas perdre ton âme.'
'Toi, ton chaudron,' lui repartit l'infame.
"Peter had borrowed a kettle from his neighbour Lucas. Finding it very useful, he wished to keep it, and set himself to pick a quarrel with the lender. Hence a whole litany of insulting remarks. Peter was called on by the judge to swear to the truth of his statement that he had not borrowed the kettle. 'With all my heart,' he said, and held up his right hand. 'O wicked one,' cried Lucas, 'you are about to lose your soul.' 'And you your kettle,' answered Peter."
The Court of the Viceroy at Dublin is nearly as brilliant as that of the King at London, and the castle in which it is held is an ancient structure with an appearance as good at least as that of St. James' Palace. Mr. Burton Conyngham was good enough to present me to Lord Camden, who, having been informed of my plans, believed he could help me much, and urged me to put them at once into execution. Greatly encouraged by this, I set myself seriously to the task, and began to read all the books I could find dealing with the country's history.
If one believes all that is written by these old Irish authors he will find it difficult to imagine that what he reads relates to this island; the pompous descriptions of the High King and of the numberless kings who composed his Court make it appear that the splendour of this Grand Monarch was like that of Alexander after the conquest of Asia.<4>
I went one day to a grand review in Phoenix Park. They fired cannon and made the air thick with noises of sorts. For me, 1 had seen quite too much of stepping and wheeling soldiers, and so I left the sillies to look at them while I reviewed the ladies who were crowded on the parapet of the garden. There were three yellow bonnets forming a battery much more attractive than that of the General, while nearly as formidable. If I had not the fate of poor Twiss before me, oh what could I not say! Let it suffice, ladies, to tell you that never was place better than your perch for demonstrating to the whole earth how greatly you were caluminated by the infamous Twiss when he spoke ill of your ——; but I must be discreet.
I was present at the opening of the new dock—the importance of such a considerable work added interest to the pomp and ceremony. The Viceroy's yacht was the first to pass the gates to the sound of volleys of cannon, and when the centre of the dock was reached his lordship knighted, on the vessel, the contractor who had built, and furnished part of the cost of, this superb national work which completes on this side the junction of the canals with the sea. The Viceroy was afterwards rowed from one end of the dock to the other in an elegant barge, followed and preceded by the acclamations of the people. The enthusiasm of the immense crowd surrounding the basin made me fear that many would be crowded into the water, or, what I should have liked still less, that I should be pushed in myself. In all countries the populace is easily electrified by the sentiment of public joy, especially when there is reasonable motive for it, as on this occasion.
The party spirit, political<5> or religious, has weakened very much of late, and I would dare to hope that in ten years it will have ceased to exist. The Catholic religion has very many more followers than has the dominant, which is indeed only the religion of the rich. All the lower classes all over Ireland, the North excepted, are Catholics. They observe Lent and the fast days with a regularity perfectly horrible to a man who wishes only to fast after the manner of the Scotch. On Holy Saturday, by way of rejoicing, some butchers promenaded the streets bearing a gaily decorated herring, which they belaboured with a stick at every cross-road, while a crowd of children followed them, crying baa, baa, baa, like a flock of sheep.
The common folk call the English shilling a hog, and the sixpence a pig. As the English shilling is worth a halfpenny more than the Irish, a distinguishing title is needed, and so they have given it the name of the commonest and most useful animal to be found in Ireland. The Irish are very friendly with the pig; he lives on equal footing with the folk in the country, and often when nurses wish to say sweet things to their little brats, they jump them up in their arms, singing 'my dear little pig, pig, pig, sweet little pig,' meaning it as a most endearing expression, somewhat as one of our bourgeois will call his wife mon chou, ma poule or mon rat.<6>
There is a famous university at Dublin, its chairs almost too richly endowed—a statement which will not find favour with the professors, who number among them some very learned and very agreeable men. Before the Reformation one had probably to be a priest to gain a chair, as the professors were not allowed to marry. By a caprice singular for an old maid, Queen Elizabeth made the same stipulation in the new charter which she granted to the College. Although nearly all the professors are married, they make a show of compliance with the old law, for their wives do not bear their husbands' names.
There is a fine library at the College, well furnished with books and rare manuscripts, many of these in the Irish language. There is also a cabinet of Natural History and one of Anatomical specimens. In this latter is the skeleton of a man the whole of whose joints had ossified, and even a part of his flesh. In this way he lived for years until, at last, the malady attacked the vital parts.
They drink infinitely less in Dublin, and, indeed, all over Ireland, than I could have believed. Generally in the principal houses, an hour, or perhaps only half an hour, after the ladies have quitted the dining-room, the master of the house pushes his glass to the middle of the table and rises. I am not going to deny that there are such things as drinking parties where one may get straightforwardly drunk; I have indeed seen a somewhat original example of the outcome of one of these. Returning home one evening I saw a tipsy, rather, I should say, a drunk, man elbow a passer-by, and the latter standing the shock stiffly, the reaction carried the drunkard off his feet. In a fury the incapable arose, seized the man he had jostled by the collar, demanded his name, tendered his own, and insisted on fighting. The assaulted refused, and answered the challenger very coldly. 'I see you're not the man to fight like a gentleman' said the aggressor. 'Well, I'll box you for sixpence.' The other appeared to consent, and then, as one must strip to box, the tipsy man let go his hold of the collar of his adversary, and the latter immediately slipped through the crowd and disappeared. When the warrior had stripped, he looked for his antagonist, and not finding him he began to swear and shout, 'Where is the lousy rascal? Where is the lousy rascal?' and he went through the crowd asking, 'Are you the lousy rascal? 'Having exhausted his rage—no one deemed it his duty to answer such a discourteous question—he looked for his clothes and found the shirt had disappeared. For boxing in earnest to be in order bets must be deposited, otherwise the vanquisher must accept responsibility for consequences. But if a bet has been made, you may with safety, and with an easy conscience, punch out the eye or break the jaw of your opponent.
After having seen all that was curious or interesting in Dublin, and having made such arrangements as would ensure the success of my project, I proceeded to put it into execution. Mr. Burton Conyngham was kind enough to procure a passport from the Lord Lieutenant for me, and to give me a number of letters addressed to his friends in the country. He engaged me to communicate results from time to time, and made me promise to begin my promenade from his house in the county of Wicklow. The Commandant-in-Chief, General Cunningham, also gave me a general letter of recommendation, and I fixed on May 25 as the day of my departure.
I intended to start in the forenoon, but I was asked to dinner by a charming family, and pretty women and a good dinner are two things I never could resist.