THE CONSERVATISM OF THE IRISH PEASANTRY. [To THE EDITOR OF
THE " SPECTATOR.")
Sra,—The Irish Roman Catholic peasantry, though Radical in politics, are exceedingly conservative in other respects. I have just been struck by an instance of the tenacity with which old names and customs survive among them. I have a tenant, a very small one, at five shillings a year, in the County of Wexford, who is known as "Jack the Raker," pronounced as in "rack," not "rake." Why he was so called I could never understand till, happening to turn over a volume of Fronde's "History of the Reign of Elizabeth," I came across a con- temporary Irish document, where the Rakers are enumerated among the dangerous classes, immediately after the minstrels and bards. They were, it appears, professional jesters, like the Court fools, and the seurrw of antiquity. Now, this is pre- cisely Jack's occupation. I gave a supper to the tenants, and the Raker made great sport for them with his songs and jokes, and voracious eating, after the manner of the exhibitors of mac,caroni-eating, so well known at Naples.—I am, Sir, Sze., N. G. BATT.
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