ENGLISH AS SPOKEN IN IRELAND.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—" C. M.'s " letter in the Spectator of April 25th has sug- gested to me to send you a few more Irish stories, if you are not already tired of them. A farmer who was advised to spray his potatoes to keep off the blight replied: " I wouldn't do that, for it would be taking the job out of the hands of the Man above." Another, describing the recent eclipse of the moon, said : " I watched her till the light part of her was that thin if it had been a bit of cheese you'd have been afeard to eat it." A jarvey whose mare was going lame said he had bought her from " the minister." " I wonder your clergyman would sell you such a brute." " Well, your honour, the minister is sound in the faith, but he's a wee bit tricky in horseflesh." Another lame horse was proposed to be cured by rubbing in " Elliman " as "the best combustible," " but it will be a ticklish job, Sir, for he's of a narvous tem- perature." When one of the daughters of the house was going to be married the steward said : "Miss —, dear, this will be the dissolute place when you're gone!" A tenant who had got work in England complained to me that his farm did not pay. " How can it pay when you don't live on it ? Why don't you sell it ? " " Well, you see, Sir, I'd like to keep it to come back to in the latter end of my days,—if I live so long." I was lecturing another for not having paid his rent. With eyes cast down, he solemnly gazed at my brown boots, and suddenly looking up "with a smile that was childlike and bland,"—" I beg your honour's pardon, but have you them boots on inside out ? " Another tenant, of "the female persuasion," wanted her rent reduced because she had twelve children. " But, my good woman, whose fault is that ? " " Oh, I don't blame your honour for it " ! At Killarney one of the District Councillors proposed to put a lot of " gondolas " on the lakes as an attraction to tourists. Up sprang another Councillor and moved as an amendment that instead of buying a lot, they should buy a healthy male and female and breed from them. Another Councillor pro- posed to keep off foot-and-mouth disease by drawing a " croydon " round the district. The same gentleman in the course of a heated discussion said: "Mr. Chairman, I'm not going to allow me character to be dispersed by any man, for all thiough.me public life it has been me endeavour to be, like Caysar's wife, all things to all men."—I am, Sir, &c.,
J. if. IL G.
[Our correspondent's last two stories are "chestnuts," but none the worse for that. After all, one man's " chestnut " is another man's capital new story.—ED. Spectator.]
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