BIANCONI. 177 



justice and punished as they deserve ; but the most 

 cowardly and the most deserving of blame are those 

 better educated persons who, when speaking in public, 

 incite the lower classes to such deeds by their inflam- 

 matory and unprincipled language. But to return to 

 the subject of Irish roads and the public conveyances 

 used thereon. 



The Irish roads are excellent ; they are as good, if 

 not better than English roads ; but when coaches 

 were runnino: in E norland in vast numbers from 

 every town, the communication between Irish towns 

 was very bad. Notwithstanding the fact that there 

 was an abundant supply of horses and plenty of 

 unemployed outside jaunting-cars, it was left for a 

 young Italian picture-frame maker, a man with small 

 capital but indomitable energy, to establish a proper 

 system of stage-carriages in Ireland. 



Bianconi was born in 17S6 at the small village of 

 Tregolo, which lies on the Italian side of the Alps, 

 not far from Como and Milan. The district is known 

 for its extreme beautv ; it is moreover celebrated for 

 the rearing of silk-worms, the finest silk in Lombardy 

 being produced in the neighbourhood. Indeed, it is 

 difficult to say what could have induced young Charles 

 Bianconi to have quitted so beautiful a spot and one 

 which offered so many opportunities of employment, 

 only to exchange the blue skies of Italy for the humid 

 and depressing atmosphere of Ireland. Although the 

 Italian peasantry may be poor, the Irish are certainly 

 poorer, consequently the opportunities for making 

 money must have been rather in favour of the home of 

 "his birth than of the home of his adoption. It may be 

 that he wished to escape conscription. He had three 

 brothers and one sister ; he was sent to school at an 



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