12 PREFACE. 



savage caricatures of Punch, or " the lowest races 

 of Australia."* Confining myself, for the present, 

 to the physical form of the men, women, and 

 children of the Irish race I prove, firstly, by 

 the linked testimonies of fifty-one English- 

 men, six Frenchmen, three Italians, and two 

 Spaniards, that the Irish are dowered with 

 nature's gifts in as high a degree as any people 

 on earth ; and secondly, by the testimony of 

 ninety competent witnesses, that the peasants 

 of Mayo, Sligo and Leitrim, who have been 

 cruelly maligned, are a fine race of men. 



Such is the scope of this book ; nothing more, 

 nothing less. From some suggestions of my 

 friends I gather, that Irish readers will be dis- 

 appointed and displeased if I do not pay the 

 English back in their own coin, and if I do 

 not treat of Irish giants. But I am not a press- 

 man or caricaturist, and justice and charity 

 forbid me to disparage a people who, individu- 

 ally, are welli-built and good-natured, and can- 

 not be held responsible for the crimes or sins 

 of certain sections of the British Press. And 

 as to the giants, it is known and admitted that, 



* See the First Chapter. 



