204 LIFE IN IRELAND 



punch as ever three hearty fellows knocked down : in 

 truth, it was prime, bang up, and worthy of the 

 Sheriff's Prison, where most of the inmates are in- 

 carcerated for making too free with whiskey, and 

 horses, and pretty women. The prison is in truth a 

 whiskified scefie altogether : men under the restraint of 

 confinement must have some stimulus to keep up the 

 animal spirits, which require more than their usual 

 flow\ The lover of punch cannot take a three mile 

 country walk before he sits down to his beverage ; he 

 has no fresh air to carry off its effluvia ; it floats round 

 his head in his cell a noxious vapour, poisoning the 

 outworks^ whilst the materials from which that vapour 

 arises are reducing the interior of the soul's ct'ladel ^\ith 



more power than ever Doctor G did, who, to 



clear children of worms, generally gives them a medi- 

 cine that brings away every part of the machinery 

 inside, except the heart, and that he leaves them to 

 die with, and be food for other worms in the grave. 

 Here, in a cell of the Sheriff's Prison, sat 



Three sons of Hibernia, who snug on dry land, 

 Stirred the sparkling ttirfjire with whiskey in hand ; 



and a merrier three never bumpered Squire Jones, or 

 played the Midnight Hour more happily. Brian was 

 half seas over, and inclined to be in a merry vein. 

 Blake was inclined to become half seas over, and 

 every vein in him throbbed for merriment and joy. 

 Swan was a complete waste butt, he could be drenched 

 to an overflow, but his hardy frame resisted all attacks, 

 and he never was known to be drunk, except for joy, 

 when he had made a seizure of ivhiskey. 



