Read Ebook: The Irish Penny Journal Vol. 1 No. 14 October 3 1840 by Various

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THE IRISH PENNY JOURNAL.

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.

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 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.

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.

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 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 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.

A BIT OF PHILOSOPHY.

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?"

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."

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.

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; they didn't understand it." Neither did I, good reader; but so it was.

"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."

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.

OLD TIMES.

BY J. U. U.

"My soul is full of other times!"

Where is that spirit of our prime, The good old day! Have the life and power of that honoured time All passed away! When old friendship breathed, and old kindness wreathed The cot and castle in kindred claim, And the tie was holy of service lowly, And Neighbour was a brother's name,

And the streams of love and charity Flowed far and wide, And kind welcome held the portal free To none denied, And blessed from far rose that kindly star The high roof o'er the well-known hall, The cordial hearth, the genial mirth-- Has Time the tyrant stilled them all!

Ay, some are fallen--their courts are green; The cold calm sky Looks in on many a once-loved scene Of days gone by. And some stand on, but their lights are gone, Their manners are new and their masters strange; They know no trace of that frank old race Swept off by the tide of time and change.

These would'st thou mourn, go, trace the path, The far wild road, To some old hill where ruin hath Its lone abode-- Where morn is sleeping, and dank dews weeping-- Where the grey moss grows on the lintel stone-- Where the raven haunts, and the wild weed flaunts, And old remembrance broods alone:

There weep--for generous hearts dwelt there, To pity true-- Each light and shade of joy and care These old walls knew. With weary ray the eye of day Looks lifeless on their mouldering mound: Their pride is blighted!--but the sun ne'er lighted A happier home in his bright round.

There smiles, whose light hath passed away, Bound young hearts fast; And hope gilt many a coming day Now long, long past. There was beauty's flower and manhood's power-- The frail, proud things in which mortals trust; And yon hall was loud with a merry crowd Of breasts long mingled in the dust.

There too the poor and weary sought Relief and rest; His song the wandering harper brought, A welcome guest; There lay rose lightly, and young eyes shone brightly, And in sunshine ever life's stream rolled on: And no thought came hither how time could wither-- Yet time stole by, and they are gone.

And there--the breast were cold indeed That would not feel, How with the same relentless speed Our seasons steal. The princely towers and pleasant bowers May scoff the hours with gallant show, In vain--they are what once these were, And in their turn must lie as low.

A COMMON FROG!

"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.

'A frog he would a-wooing go, Whether his mother would let him or no.'

And the catastrophe,

'A lily white duck came and gobbled him up.'

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."

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