70 THE RECORDER OF BALLYPOREKN. 



quietude, it is probable that the people of Ballyporeen would have 

 continued to exist, but that some wise men for they were magis- 

 trates determined that petty sessions should be held in the village of 

 Ballyporeen, as most convenient to their respective residences. Thus, 

 as you will shortly see, was an election created, and thus ended the 

 peace of Ballyporeen ! 



What a change was produced by that determination ! Those who 

 had never dreamed that there was a wiser man in the world than 

 Cornelius O'Kelly, the schoolmaster, nor a better dressed man than 

 their parish priest, Father Carney, now beheld both individuals sink 

 into insignificance before the ponderous learning of Counsellor Lang- 

 ley (a non-practising barrister) and the gorgeous liveries of Colonel 

 Wilson, an old East India commander both magistrates, most regu- 

 lar in their attendance at petty sessions. With the hebdomadal 

 sessions came magistrates and barristers, attorneys and attorneys' 

 clerks, with ' e all the quirks and ~quiblets of the law," and with the 

 law came " actions for assault and battery," a thing unheard of before 

 in Ballyporeen ; for though its people fought with one another, as all 

 Irishmen do, they never, until the sessions were established, thought 

 of revenging themselves by the law for any injuries they might 

 receive. The broken head that was given on one market day was 

 sure to bs repaid upon the other, and though the Hogans might 

 suffer to-day, the Hickeys would be certain of enduring a reverse to- 

 morrow. The primeval character of the people has suffered from the 

 change the law has begun to take its course, and instead of a pugi- 

 list being confined to his bed by a broken limb, for his unwonted 

 prowess upon some particular occasion, it is now his hard fate to be 

 confined as many months in gaol. From being a decent, open, fair- 

 fighting village, it has degenerated into a nasty, litigious, summons- 

 giving, process-serving town. The people have begun to live in an 

 unnatural state of society, and amonst the evils of civilization which 

 first invaded them, was that of "ambition." The same passion that 

 agitates rulers, that overturns governments, that makes emperors and 

 unmakes kings, that starts candidates for county elections and ruins 

 them in the process, divided the people of Ballyporeen as to the 

 election of a recorder for their petty sessions. 



No sooner had the increase of litigation in the neighbourhood 

 created a necessity for the erection of a court-house, and no sooner 

 had that magnificent pile of brick and mortar been raised from its 

 foundation, and crowned with a roof of real blue slates, the wonder 

 and admiration of all the straw-thatchers in that part of the country, 

 than the election to the new office of " Recorder" (so designated by 

 Counsellor Langley) separated the town into two desperate and 

 relentless factions, one calling itself " the true Irish," and the other 

 " the Church and State party ;" in other words, " Radicals" and 

 " Conservatives." 



Many were the meetings, many the debates, and many were the 

 gallons of potheen drank by "the Irish," , before they could determine 

 upon a candidate. The schoolmaster, Cornelius O'Kelly, was first 

 named by them, and it must be admitted he was the prime favourite 

 of the populace ; for it was said by many, and strongly hinted by 



