Part 2

"I come home last night, as usual, more dead than alive, until I got sitting down with the childre; for, having put two or three potatoes, as usual, my lady, to heat, just on the bar, I thought, tired as I was, I'd iron out the few small things 'Loo' had put in blue, particularly a clane cap and handkercher, and the aprons for to-day, as yer honor likes to see me nice; and the boy got a prize at school; for, let me do as I would, I took care they should have the _edication_ that makes the poor rich. Well, I noticed that Loo's hair was hanging in ringlets down her face, and I says to her, 'My honey,' I says, 'if Annie was you, and she's my own, I'd make her put up her hair plain; the way her Majesty wears it is good enough, I should think, for such as you, Louisa;' and with that she says, 'It might do for Annie; but for her part, _her_ mother was a tradeswoman.' Well, I bit my tongue to hinder myself from hurting her feelings by telling her _what_ her mother was, _for the blush of shame is the only one that misbecomes a woman's cheek_.

But I waited till our work was over, and, _picking her out the two mealy potatoes_, and sharing, as I always did, my half pint of beer with her, when I had it, I raisoned with her, as I often did before; and looking to where my three sleeping childre lay, little Jemmy's cheek _blooming like a rose_, on his prize book, which he took into bed with him, I called God to witness, that though nature, like, would draw my heart more to my own flesh and blood, yet I'd see to her as I would to them.

She made me no answer, but put the potatoes aside, and said, 'Mother, go to bed.' I let her call me mother," continued Biddy, "it's such a sweet sound, and hinders one, _when one has it to call_, from feeling lonesome in the world; it's the shelter for many a breaking heart, and the home of many a wild one; ould as I am, I miss my mother still! 'Louisa,' I says, 'I've heard my own childre their prayers--kneel down, a'lanna, there, and get over them.'

'My throat's so sore,' she says, 'I can't say 'em out. Don't ye see I could not eat the potatoes?' This was about half past twelve, and I had spoke to the po-lis to give me a call at five. But when I woke, the grey of the morning was in the room with me; and knowing where I ought to have been, I hustled on my things, and hearing a po-lis below the window (we know them by the steady tramp they have, as if they'd rather go slow than fast), I says, 'If you plaise, what's the clock, and why didn't you call me?' 'It's half past seven,' he says; 'and sure the girl, when she went out at half past five, said you war up.'

'My God!--what girl?' I says, turning all over like a _corpse_; and then I missed my bonnet and shawl, and saw my box empty; she had even taken the book from under the child's cheek. But that wasn't all. I'd have forgiven her for the loss of the clothes, and the tears she forced from the eyes of my innocent child; I'd forgive her for making my heart grow oulder in half an hour, than it had grown in its whole life before; _but my wedding ring_, ma'am!--her head had often this shoulder for its pillow, and I'd throw this arm over her, so. Oh, ma'am darlint, could you believe it?--she stole my wedding ring aff my hand--the hand that had saved and slaved for her! The ring! oh, many's the tear I've shed on it; and many a time, when I've been next to starving, and it has glittered in my eyes, I've been tempted to part with it, but I couldn't. It had grown thin, _like myself_, with the hardship of the world; and yet when I'd look at it twisting on my poor wrinkled finger, I'd think of the times gone by, of him who had put it on, and _would_ have kept his promise but for the temptation of drink, and what it lades to; and those times, when throuble would be crushing me into the earth, I'd think of what I heard onct--that a ring was a thing like etarnity, having no beginning nor end; and I'd turn it, and turn it, and turn it! and find comfort in _believing_ that the little penance here was nothing in comparison to that without a beginning or an end that we war to go to hereafter--it might be in heaven, or it might (God save us!) be in the other place; and," said poor Biddy, "I drew a dale of consolation from _that_, and _she_ knew it--she, the sarpint, that I shared my children's food with--_she_ knew it, and, while I slept _the heavy sleep of hard labour_, she had the heart to rob me!--to rob me of the only treasure (barring the childre) I had in the world! I'm a great sinner; I can't say, God forgive her; nor I can't work; and it's put me apast doing my duty; and Jessie, the craythur, laid ever so much store by it, on account of the little innocent charrums; and, altogether, it's the sorest Christmas day that ever came to me. Oh, sure, I wouldn't have that girl's heart in my breast for a goolden crown--the ingratitude of her bates the world!"

It really was a case of the most hardened ingratitude I had ever known--the little wretch! to rob the only friend she ever had, while sleeping in the very bed where she had been tended, and tendered, and cared for, so unceasingly. "She might take all I had in the world, if she had only left me _that_" she repeated continually, while rocking herself backwards and forwards over the fire, after the fashion of her country; "the thrifle of money, the _rags_, and the child's book--all--and I'd have had a _clane breast_. I could forgive her from my heart, but I can't forgive her for taking my ring--for taking my wedding ring!"

This was not all. The girl was traced and captured; and the same day Biddy was told she must go to Queen-square to identify the prisoner.

"Me," she exclaimed, "who never was in the place of the law before, what can I say but that she tuck it?"

An Irish cause always creates a sensation in a police-office. The magistrates smile at each other, the reporter cuts his pencil and arranges his note-book, and the clerk covers the lower part of his face with his hand, to conceal the expression that plays around his mouth.

Biddy's curtsey--a genuine Irish dip--and her opening speech, which she commenced by wishing their honours "a merry Christmas and plenty of them, and that they might have the power of doing good to the end of their days, and never meet with ingratitude for that same," was the only absurdity connected with her deposition.

When she saw the creature with whom her heart had dwelt so long, in the custody of the police, she was completely overcome, and intermingled her evidence with so many entreaties that mercy should be shown the hardened delinquent, that the magistrate was sensibly affected. Short as was the time that had elapsed between Louisa's elopement and discovery, she had spent the money and pawned the ring: and twenty hands at least were extended to the Irish Washerwoman with money to redeem the pledge.

Poor Biddy had never been so rich before in all her life; but that did not console her for the sentence passed upon her protegé, and it was a long time before she was restored to her usual spirits. She flagged and pined; and when the spring began to advance a little, and the sun to shine, her misery became quite troublesome, her continual wail being "for the poor sinful craythur who was shut up among stone walls, and would be sure to come out worse than she went in!"

The old cook lived to grow thoroughly ashamed of the reproaches she cast on Biddy, and Jessie shows her off on all occasions as a specimen of an Irish Washerwoman.

QUICK SENSES OF THE ARAB.--Their eyesight is peculiarly sharp and keen. Almost before I could on the horizon discern more than a moving speck, my guides would detect a stranger, and distinguish upon a little nearer approach, by his garb and appearance, the tribe to which he belonged.--_Wellsted's City of the Caliphs._

THE IRISH IN 1644:

AS DESCRIBED BY A FRENCHMAN OF THAT PERIOD.

We are indebted to our talented countryman, Crofton Croker, for the translation of the tour of a French traveller, M. de la Boullaye Le Gouz, in Ireland in 1644. Its author journeyed from Dublin to the principal cities and towns in Ireland, and sketches what he saw in a very amusing manner. The value of the publication, however, is greatly enhanced by the interesting notes appended to it by Mr Croker and some of his friends; and as the work is less known in Ireland than it should be, we extract from it the Frenchman's sketch of the habits and customs of the Irish people as they prevailed two centuries back, in the belief that they will be acceptable to our readers.

"Ireland, or Hibernia, has always been called the Island of Saints, owing to the number of great men who have been born there. The natives are known to the English under the name of Iriche, to the French under that of Hibernois, which they take from the Latin, or of Irois, from the English, or Irlandois from the name of the island, because land signifies ground. They call themselves Ayrenake, in their own language, a tongue which you must learn by practice, because they do not write it; they learn Latin in English characters, with which characters they also write their own language; and so I have seen a monk write, but in such a way as no one but himself could read it.

Saint Patrick was the apostle of this island, who according to the natives blessed the land, and gave his malediction to all venomous things; and it cannot be denied that the earth and the timber of Ireland, being transported, will contain neither serpents, worms, spiders, nor rats, as one sees in the west of England and in Scotland, where all particular persons have their trunks and the boards of their floors of Irish wood; and in all Ireland there is not to be found a serpent or toad.

The Irish of the southern and eastern coasts follow the customs of the English; those of the north, the Scotch. The others are not very polished, and are called by the English savages. The English colonists were of the English church, and the Scotch were Calvinists, but at present they are all Puritans. The native Irish are very good Catholics, though knowing little of their religion; those of the Hebrides and of the North acknowledge only Jesus and St Colombe [_Columkill_], but their faith is great in the church of Rome. Before the English revolution, when an Irish gentleman died, his Britannic majesty became seised of the property and tutellage of the children of the deceased, whom they usually brought up in the English Protestant religion. Lord Insequin [_Inchiquin_] was educated in this manner, to whom the Irish have given the name of plague or pest of his country.

The Irish gentlemen eat a great deal of meat and butter, and but little bread. They drink milk, and beer, into which they put laurel leaves, and eat bread baked in the English manner. The poor grind barley and peas between two stones, and make it into bread, which they cook upon a small iron table heated on a tripod; they put into it some oats, and this bread, which in the form of cakes they call haraan, they eat with great draughts of buttermilk. Their beer is very good, and the eau de vie, which they call brandovin [_brandy_] excellent. The butter, the beef, and the mutton, are better than in England.

The towns are built in the English fashion, but the houses in the country are in this manner:--Two stakes are fixed in the ground, across which is a transverse pole to support two rows of rafters on the two sides, which are covered with leaves and straw. The cabins are of another fashion. There are four walls the height of a man, supporting rafters over which they thatch with straw and leaves. They are without chimneys, and make the fire in the middle of the hut, which greatly incommodes those who are not fond of smoke. The castles or houses of the nobility consist of four walls extremely high, thatched with straw; but, to tell the truth, they are nothing but square towers without windows, or at least having such small apertures as to give no more light than there is in a prison. They have little furniture, and cover their rooms with rushes, of which they make their beds in summer, and of straw in winter. They put the rushes a foot deep on their floors, and on their windows, and many of them ornament the ceilings with branches.

They are fond of the harp, on which nearly all play, as the English do on the fiddle, the French on the lute, the Italians on the guitar, the Spaniards on the castanets, the Scotch on the bagpipe, the Swiss on the fife, the Germans on the trumpet, the Dutch on the tambourine, and the Turks on the flageolet.

The Irish carry a scquine [_skein_] or Turkish dagger, which they dart very adroitly at fifteen paces distance; and have this advantage, that if they remain masters of the field of battle, there remains no enemy; and if they are routed, they fly in such a manner that it is impossible to catch them. I have seen an Irishman with ease accomplish twenty-five leagues a day. They march to battle with the bagpipes instead of fifes; but they have few drums, and they use the musket and cannon as we do. They are better soldiers abroad than at home.

The red-haired are considered the most handsome in Ireland. The women have hanging breasts; and those who are freckled, like a trout, are esteemed the most beautiful.

The trade of Ireland consists in salmon and herrings, which they take in great numbers. You have one hundred and twenty herrings for an English penny, equal to a carolus of France, in the fishing time. They import wine and salt from France, and sell there strong frize cloths at good prices.

The Irish are fond of strangers, and it costs little to travel amongst them. When a traveller of good address enters their houses with assurance, he has but to draw a box of sinisine, or snuff, and offer it to them; then these people receive him with admiration, and give him the best they have to eat. They love the Spaniards as their brothers, the French as their friends, the Italians as their allies, the Germans as their relatives, the English and Scotch as their irreconcileable enemies. I was surrounded on my journey from Kilkinik [_Kilkenny_] to Cachel [_Cashel_] by a detachment of twenty Irish soldiers; and when they learned I was a Frankard (it is thus they call us), they did not molest me in the least, but made me offers of service, seeing that I was neither Sazanach [_Saxon_] nor English.

The Irish, whom the English call savages, have for their head-dress a little blue bonnet, raised two fingers-breadth in front, and behind covering their head and ears. Their doublet has a long body and four skirts; and their breeches are a pantaloon of white frize, which they call trousers. Their shoes, which are pointed, they call brogues, with a single sole. They often told me of a proverb in English, 'Airische brogues for Englich dogues' [_Irish brogues for English dogs_] 'the shoes of Ireland for the dogs of England,' meaning that their shoes are worth more than the English.

For cloaks they have five or six yards of frize drawn round the neck, the body, and over the head, and they never quit this mantle, either in sleeping, working, or eating. The generality of them have no shirts, and about as many lice as hairs on their heads, which they kill before each other without any ceremony.

The northern Irish have for their only dress a breeches, and a covering for the back, without bonnets, shoes, or stockings. The women of the north have a double rug, girded round their middle and fastened to the throat. Those bordering on Scotland have not more clothing. The girls of Ireland, even those living in towns, have for their head-dress only a ribbon, and if married, they have a napkin on the head in the manner of the Egyptians. The body of their gowns comes only to their breasts, and when they are engaged in work, they gird their petticoat with their sash about the abdomen. They wear a hat and mantle very large, of a brown colour [_couleur minime_] of which the cape is of coarse woollen frize, in the fashion of the women of Lower Normandy."

BARBARITY OF THE LAW IN IRELAND A CENTURY AGO.

"Last week, at the assizes of Kilkenny, a fellow who was to be tried for robbery, not pleading, a jury was appointed to try whether he was wilfully mute, or by the hands of God; and they giving a verdict that he was wilfully mute, he was condemned to be pressed to death. He accordingly suffered on Wednesday, pursuant to his sentence, which was as follows:--That the criminal shall be confined in some low dark room, where he shall be laid on his back, with no covering except round his loins, and shall have as much weight laid, upon him as he can bear, _and more_; that he shall have nothing to live upon but the worst bread and water; and the day that he eats he shall not drink, nor the day that he drinks he shall not eat; and so shall continue till he dies."--_Reilly's Dublin News Letter, August 9, 1740._

WHIPS FOR A PENNY.

BY MARTIN DOYLE.

"Whips for a Penny!" This cry attracted my attention; I looked about, and saw a stout young man with a bundle of children's whips under his arm, standing on a flagway in Ludgate-street, in the centre of a group of little boys, who if not wealthy enough to buy from his stock, were at least unanimously disposed to do so. The whips, considering the price, were very neatly made, and cracked melodiously, as the man took frequent opportunities of proving, for the cadences of his almost continuously repeated cry "Whips for a penny, whips for a penny!" were emphatically marked by a time-keeping "crack, crack," to the delight of the juvenile auditors.

Curious to ascertain if this person would meet such a demand for these Lilliputian whips as would afford him the means of living with reasonable comfort, I watched his movements for nearly an hour, during which period he disposed of five or six of them. One of the purchasers was a good-natured looking woman, with a male child about two years old, to whom she presented the admired object. The infant, with instinctive perception of its proper use, grasped the handle with his tiny fingers, and promptly commenced a smart but not very effective course of flagellation on the bosom from which he had derived his earlier aliment, to the infinite delight of the doting mother. A fine boy, strutting about in frock and trousers, was next introduced by his nurse to the vender of thongs, and the first application of his lash was made to an unfortunate little dog which had been separated from his owner, and was at this time roaming about in solicitude and terror, and probably with an empty stomach, when Master Jack added a fresh pang to his miseries.

A hardier customer came next, and flourished his whip the moment he bought it, at some weary and frightened lambs which a butcher's boy was urging forward through every obstacle, with a bludgeon, towards their slaughter-house. A half-starved kitten, which had ventured within the threshold of a shop, where in piteous posture it seemed to crave protection and a drop of milk, caught the quick eye of a fourth urchin, just as he had untwisted his lash, and was immediately started from its momentary place of refuge by the pursuing imp. A fifth came up, a big, knowing-looking chap, about twelve years old, who, after a slight and contemptuous examination of them, loudly remarked to their owner, "Vy, these ere vhips a'n't no good to urt no vun--I'm blowed hif they his." You young tyrant! thought I to myself. I was moving off in disgust, when a benevolent-looking gentleman came up and was about to buy one for the happy, open-countenanced boy, who called him uncle, when I took the liberty of putting one of my forefingers to my nose, as the most ready but quiet method of indicating my desire to prevent the completion of his purpose. The gentleman took my hint at once, supposing in all probability that there was some mystery in the matter--perhaps that I wished to save him from the awkward consequences of purchasing stolen goods, and walked away. I followed him, and overtaking him, touched the rim of my beaver, as nearly as I could imitate the London mode, and at once said, "My dear sir, excuse me for obtruding my advice upon you, but as _you_ have the organ of benevolence strongly developed, and your little nephew has already indication of its future prominence, if duly exercised, I thought it better that you should not put a whip into his hands, lest his better feelings should be counter-influenced. Look there," continued I, as we reached the steep part of Holborn-hill, "see that pair of miserable horses endeavouring to keep their footing on the steep and slippery pavement; hear the constant reverberations of the driver's whip, which he applies so unmercifully to keep them from falling, by the most forced and unnatural efforts; see them straining every muscle to drag along their burden, while they pant from pain, terror, and exhaustion; look at the frequent welts on their poor skins. Depend upon it, the fellow who drives had a penny whip for his first plaything!" The gentleman looked rather earnestly at me. "You are right, sir," said he; "early initiation in the modes of cruelty"----"Precisely," said I. "The boy-child is taught to terrify any animal that comes within his reach, as soon as he is able to do so; his parents, sponsors, nurses, friends, are severally disposed to give him for his first present a toy whip, and he soon acquires dexterity in using it. Man, naturally overbearing and cruel, is rendered infinitely more so by education. He first flogs his wooden horse (the little boy pricked up his ears, and I hope will retain the impression of what passed) and then his living pony or donkey, as the case may be; he whips every thing that crosses his way; and even at the little birds, which are happily beyond the reach of his lash, he flings stones, or he robs them of their young, for the mere satisfaction of rendering them miserable."

"Ay, sir," said the gentleman, "and he becomes a sportsman in course of time, and flogs his pointers, setters, and hounds, for pursuing their instincts--he becomes their tyrant. He goes to one of our universities, perhaps, and drives gigs, tandems, and even stage-coaches, without knowing how to handle the reins; he blunders, turns corners too sharply, pulls the wrong rein, diverts the well-trained horses from their proper course, which they would have critically pursued but for his interference, nearly oversets the vehicle by his awkwardness, and then, as if to persuade the lookers on that the fault was not his, he belabours the poor brutes to the utmost of his power; or it may be, lays on the thong merely for practice until he is proficient enough to apply it _knowingly_. Are the horses tired," continued he, "worn out in service?--he flogs to keep them alive, and makes a boast of his ingenuity in forcing a jaded set to their journey's end, by establishing a 'raw,' and torturing them there."