Read Ebook: The Irish Penny Journal Vol. 1 No. 06 August 8 1840 by Various

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So had every one else except Mr Sharpe. He would willingly have kept it secret, but he knew that if he should attempt to use it himself, it would be seen; so he made a virtue of necessity, and lent it to Mr Harvey for the purpose of carving the roast beef!

The dinner was now nearly arranged, and the last basket, in which Mulholland had packed the roast beef, was opened. The remnant of an old college gown was first dragged forth, and Mr O'Brien's servant, to whom the task was assigned, looked in, tittered, looked again, and then drew forth two long large ribs, with a piece of meat about the size of a cricket ball attached to the ends of them. Having laid them on the dish, he dipped again, and produced, with another titter, a shapeless lump of meat without any bone--. Another dip, and with a roar of laughter he raised and deposited on the dish four ribs, from which nearly every morsel of meat had been cut.

"What is the meaning of this, Mr O'Gorman?" said Mrs Harvey, who was quite disconcerted at the turn things had taken, and was now seriously disposed to be angry.

"My dear madam," said he, "it may look a little unsightly, but it is all prime meat, depend upon it. It was dressed yesterday for the College dining-hall."

"My dear madam," said Bob, "you will find that there is as much meat without bone as will compensate. Mulholland is a very honest fellow in that respect."

As soon as the party had re-assembled, after having washed their hands, he again addressed them.

"Mr Sharpe, and Mr Harvey, will you please to drag that, turkey asunder? Mr O'Brien, will you tear a wing off that fowl for Miss O'Donnell? Fitz, gnaw the cord off one of those ale bottles; draw the cork with your teeth, and send the bottle round. The corkscrew was with the knives."

"Draw my teeth with the cork, you mean; I had rather knock off the neck, thank you," said Fitz, about to suit the action to the word.

"No, no," cried Bob, "do you forget that we must drink out of the bottles? Do you want the ladies to cut their pretty lips with the broken glass, you Mohawk! Though, faith," said he, in an under-tone, to his fair companion, "I could almost wish such an accident to happen to some one that I know, that I might have an opportunity of exhibiting my courageous devotion, by sucking the wound."

"I have put a very good edge on the shell," said Sweeny, "but I can't cut the ham with it, it slides about so."

"Psha! take a grip of it by the shank, can't you? What are you afraid of, you omedhaun? Hold it fast, and don't let it slide. Costello, break up that loaf and send it round. Mr O'Donnell, will you have the goodness to hold one of these ribs for me. Oh, faith, finger and thumb work won't do; you must take it in your fist, and hold it tight; now pull--bravo! Beau Brummell would be just in his element here. Be my sowl, as Paddy Murphy says, I think if he saw us, he'd jump into that element there to get away."

Mr Sharpe was now in his glory; he had, with Mr Harvey's assistance, torn up the turkey; and seeing that Bob had decidedly the worst job at the table, he asked him for beef. Mr Harvey joined in the joke, and put in also; but their man was too able for them.

"As you are in partnership in the turkey business, in which you have been so successful," said he, "you had better continue so, in the general provision line," handing them a piece sufficient to satisfy two, and prevent them from calling again.

"Bill" , "here's a shell for you to cut the crust of that pie, and help it. Jem" , "Miss Kate O'Brien wishes for some of that chicken that you are trying to dislocate, as gently as if you were afraid of hurting it, or greasing your fingers." "What part?" said Jem.

"A little of the soul, if you please," said Kate, with a maliciously demure face.

"Here it is for you. Miss Kate, soul and body;" and he handed it to her.

"The mirth and fun grew fast and furious."

No water fit for drinking could be procured, and the consequence was, that the ale, porter, and wine, were swallowed too abundantly by the gentlemen. Songs were called for, and O'Gorman was in the midst of the "Groves of Blarney," when Costello shouted out, "A porpoise! a porpoise!"

Up jumped the whole party, and up also jumped the table-cloth, which Mr O'Donnell and Mr Sharpe had fastened to their coats or waistcoats.

They sat directly facing the opening to the water, with Mrs Harvey between them; so that when, by their sudden start up, they raised the cloth, it formed an inclined plane, down which dishes, plates, bottles, pies, bread, and meat, glided, not majestically, but too rapidly, into the sea. Then, oh! what a clamour!

Above the jingling of broken bottles and plates, the crash of dishes, and the exclamations of the gentlemen, arose the never-failing shriek of the ladies. And then came a pause, whilst they silently watched the last dish as it gracefully receded from their view.

The "want," however, had made Bob's eyes particularly and unusually luminous; nor did Kate take his proposition "to launch all the hampers and baskets, after their recent contents, into the sea," to be any additional proof of his self-possession; and when, with a caper and whoop, he sent Mulholland's basket to the fishes, her suspicions that he was slightly elevated became considerably strengthened.

"Mrs Harvey," said Mr Sharpe, "you think your party unfortunate. I have been upon a great many parties of this kind, and I assure you I have seen far more unpleasant affairs--. Now, the very last party that I was on last season, three or four of the gentlemen quarrelled , and one of them, in the scrimmage, was knocked over the rocks into the sea."

"Mercy on us, Mr Sharpe! was he drowned?"

"Why, no, but his collar-bone was broken, and his shoulder dislocated. But a worse accident happened in coming home."

"What was it?"

"Poor Singleton had come, with his wife and two nieces, in a job carriage; the driver got drunk, and overturned the whole concern, just where the road branches off down to the strand; they rolled over the cliff, and fell about twenty feet; the horses were both killed, and the whole party dreadfully injured, barely escaping with life. Then, the quarrel after dinner led to a duel on the following morning, in which one of the parties, Edwards, fell; and his antagonist, young O'Neill, got a bullet in his knee, which has lamed and disfigured him for life. Pass the wine, gentlemen."

"No! no! no!" screamed Mrs Harvey, on whom the above delectable recital had had the desired effect, and who was worked into a desperate state of terror, "no more wine, gentlemen, if you please. Come, ladies, we must return at once, before evening closes in."

Here Mr Sweeny facetiously gave him a slap on the crown of the hat, which drove it down, and stuck it gracefully over his eye, thereby breaking the thread of his discourse. He then addressed the fair Catherine; but all his eloquence and profundity were unavailing to induce her to return with him in the gig. She would listen to nothing but the carriage, and as room could not be made for him inside, he mounted the box, leaving the gig to any one that pleased to have it. Nor was it long untenanted. Frank Costello and Bill Nowlan mounted together, and were found in it next morning fast asleep, in the stable-lane behind Mr Sharpe's house, the horse having found his way home when left to his own guidance.

The remainder of the party arrived as safely, but somewhat more regularly, in the evening of their eventful day, and all dissatisfied except Mr O'Gorman, and

STREET TACTICS.

You, most respectable reader, who owe no man any thing that you are not able and willing to pay, may know nothing of the tactics alluded to in the title of this paper. But there is, you may depend upon it, a pretty numerous class of the community to whom these tactics are quite familiar, and who practise them to a greater or lesser extent every day of their lives.

Street tactics, let us define the term, is the art or science of avoiding all persons on the streets, and all places in the streets--shops, for instance--whom and which, for particular reasons of your own, you are desirous of eschewing.

The art is thus one of deep concernment to the whole of that numerous and respectable body known by the generic name of "gentlemen in difficulties." This term, however, is one of very extensive signification, and includes various descriptions of gentlemen as well as difficulties; but on the present occasion we mean to confine ourselves to one particular class--the gentlemen whose difficulties arise from their having more creditors than crowns--the gentlemen who have contrived to surround themselves with a large constituency of the former, and who cannot by any means contrive to get hold of an adequate supply of the latter--the gentlemen who are sufficiently respectable to get into debt, but not sufficiently wealthy to get out of it.

The reader can have no idea how difficult a matter it is for a gentleman of this description to work his way through the streets, so as to avoid all unpleasant encounters; how serious a matter it is for him to move from one point of the city to another. To him the streets are, in fact, as difficult and dangerous to traverse as if they were strewed with heated plough-shares, or lined with concealed pitfalls. He cannot move a hundred yards, unless he moves warily, without encountering somebody to whom he owes something, or passing some shop where his name is not in the most savoury odour.

It is, then, the manoeuvring necessary to avoid those disagreeables that constitutes street tactics, and confers on the gentleman who practises them the character of what we would call a street tactician.

This person, as already hinted, when he moves at all, must move cautiously, and must consider well, before he starts, which is his safest course; which the course in which he is least likely to encounter an enemy in the shape of a creditor, and which will subject him to running the gauntlet of the fewest number of obnoxious shops. The amount of manoeuvring required to accomplish this is amazing, and the ingenuity exhibited in it frequently very remarkable.

When on the move, the street tactician is obliged to be constantly on the alert, to have all his eyes about him, lest an enemy should come upon him unawares. This incessant vigilance keeps him always wide awake, always on the look-out, and makes him as sharp as a needle. Even while speaking to you, his keen and restless eye is roving up and down the street to see that no danger is approaching.

Like the training of the Indian, this incessant vigilance improves his physical faculties wonderfully, especially his vision, which it renders singularly acute. He can detect a creditor at a distance at which the nearest friend, the most intimate acquaintance of that person, could not recognise him: he can see him approaching in a crowded street, where no other eye but his own could possibly single him out.

Gifted with this remarkable power of vision, it is rare that the street tactician is taken by surprise, as it affords him time to plan and effect his escape, at both of which he is amazingly prompt and dexterous.

The skilful street tactician never exhibits any flurry or agitation, however imminent his danger may be: it is only green-horns that do this. Neither does he hurry or run away from an enemy when he sees him. This would at once betray malice prepense, and excite the utmost wrath of the latter, who, the moment he got home, would put his claim into the hands of his lawyer; a proceeding which he must by no means be provoked into adopting.

With a waggon of hay moving along with him, and a very little manoeuvring on his own part, the expert tactician could traverse the whole city without the risk of a single encounter. But his having such an accompaniment for any length of time, is of course out of the question. He must just be content to avail himself of it when chance throws it in his way, and be thankful for its protection throughout the length of a street.

We have heard experienced street tacticians, men on whose skill and judgment we would be disposed to place every reliance, say, that it is a very absurd practice to run across a street to avoid a shop, and to pass along on the opposite side. Such a proceeding, they say--and there is reason and common sense, as well as scientific knowledge, in the remark--only exposes you more to the enemy, by passing you through a larger space of his field of vision--by giving him, in short, a longer, a fuller, and a fairer view of you. Far better, they say, to walk close by his window at a smart pace, when the chances are greatly in favour of your passing unobserved.

This way of giving a shop the "go-by" requires, indeed, more courage, more resolution than the other, being, certainly, rather a daring exploit; but we are satisfied, that, like boldness of movement in the battle-field, it is, after all, the least dangerous.

DEATH OF CATHAL, THE RED-HANDED O'CONOR.

A.D. 1224.--In the spring of this year, a heavy and an awful shower of strange rain fell on a part of Connaught, viz. Hy-Maine in Hy-Diarmada, and other places, which produced virulent infections and diseases amongst the cattle of these territories, as soon as they had eaten of the grass upon which the shower had fallen. The milk of these cattle, also, when partaken of by the inhabitants, caused various inward diseases among them. It was but natural that these ominous signs should appear this year in Connaught, for they were the foreboding heralds of a very great loss and calamity, which fell this year upon the Connacians, namely, the death of Cathal the Red-handed, son of Torlogh More O'Conor, and King of Connaught, who had been the chief scourge of the traitors and enemies of Ireland; who had contributed more than any other man to relieve the wants of the clergy, the poor, and the indigent, and into whose heart God had infused more goodness and greater virtues than adorned any other cotemporary Irish prince; for, from the time of his wife's death to the time of his own death, he had led a chaste and virtuous life. It was in his time, also, that tithes were first lawfully paid in Ireland. This honourable and upright king, this discreet, pious, just-judging warrior, died on the twenty-eighth day of summer, on Monday precisely, in the habit of a Grey Friar, in the monastery of Knockmoy; which monastery, together with its site and lands, he himself had previously granted to God and the monks; and was interred in that monastery with honour and respect.

EELS.

ANECDOTE OF SHERIDAN.

SHERIDAN and KELLY were one day in earnest conversation close to the gate of the path which was then open to the public, leading across the churchyard of St Paul's, Covent Garden, from King street to Henrietta street, when Mr Holloway, who was a creditor of Sheridan's to a considerable amount, came up to them on horseback, and accosted Sheridan in a tone of something more like anger than sorrow, and complained that he never could get admittance when he called, vowing vengeance against the infernal Swiss, Monsieur Fran?ois, if he did not let him in the next time he went to Hertford street.

Holloway was really in a passion. Sheridan knew that he was vain of his judgment in horse-flesh, and without taking any notice of the violence of his manner, burst into an exclamation upon the beauty of the horse which he rode--he struck the right chord.

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