72 THE RECORDER OF BALLYPOREKN. 



adored her, and with the emoluments of the office to which he aspired, 

 added to the profits of his farm, he might well claim her, and her 

 hundred pounds fortune. But " the course of true love never did 

 run smooth." Old Switzer was the leading " Church and State 1 ' man 

 in Ballyporeen, and he too was the most active supporter of Corporal 

 Hall, the second candidate for the Recordership. 



The nominee of the church and state party, Corporal Hall, was a 

 gallant, rollicking, hard-drinking, hard-fighting, old Orangeman, 

 who had often bled for his king and country. He came, he said, 

 originally, from the county Cavan, where his fathers held land for 

 many a year, under the " bold Barrys," and " mighty Maxwells," 

 and where he had acquired, amongst his first ideas as a child, a love 

 for King William, and the 'prentice-boys of Derry; with a hatred of 

 f( all the abominations of popery." He had, at an early age, enlisted 

 in the militia; and had seen service, in the year 1798, in the county 

 Wexford, where he acted in the noisy occupation of a drummer ; and 

 was one amongst the seven of his division who escaped from the 

 pikes of the rebels, when two hundred yeomen were slaughtered by 

 them. It was his boast, that, in that encounter, he killed three men 

 and a boy, before he ce beat a retreat." But from that time forward, 

 he never could see a papist, without being ready to swear that he had 

 a pike concealed in his pocket ; and when he was drunk, which, 

 upon an average, was about five times in the week, he " cursed and 

 d d all the Romans, as enemies to the church, the constitution, and 

 the king." With such qualifications to render him disliked, there 

 were few Roman Catholics in Ballyporeen who would raise their 

 hands against him ; first, because they knew he would return any 

 blow he received " with interest and costs ;" and next, because he 

 was the driver on Colonel Wilson's estate, and never had to make a 

 distress for rent ; that he did not give timely warning to the tenants 

 " to take their best cow off the land." His having fought against the 

 rebels, his hatred of the papists, and his noisy exclamations for 

 church and state, constituted his claims to favouritism from his own 

 party. The only objection that could possibly be started against his 

 holding the office of Recorder, was but a slight one " that he could 

 not even write his name." The office, it might be said, was one which 

 required a person capable of writing a plain, good hand ; but his 

 friends said, " Is a loyalist to be rejected, and a papist to be pre- 

 ferred, merely because the one knows his aperseeand (alphabet), and 

 the other hasn't yet learned it ?" Besides, it was wisely urged, that 

 when Corporal Hall got the situation, " he could be taught his pot- 

 hooks-and-hangers, and pay another for doing the business for him, 

 as his betters have done many a time before him." Such arguments 

 were unanswerable ; and accordingly, Switzer and his, faction deter- 

 mined to start the Corporal against Hogan. 



The time for opening the court-house, and appointing a petit-ses- 

 sions' clerk, was fast approaching ; and it became the duty of the 

 respective candidates to put forth all their energies to command the 

 majority of votes. There was a time, when all the patronage of the 

 parish was centered in one magistrate the Rev. Oliver Bible, the 

 rector a man who possessed nearly as much influence as Father 



