264 THE BEST OF THE FUN 



Tipperary. I will add, moreover, the point wherefrom 

 the strength of this, and similar Irish countries, comes 

 home most prominently to the Saxon mind. In England 

 we ride a run and may ride it hard. Between times {i.e. j 



when hounds are not running or only running slowly) we j 



go at our leisure, chiefly through gates. Even a huntsman, ; 



while making his casts, probably jumps only a few gaps. i 



The case is altogether different in Ireland. You have to ' 



take the country as it comes, with or without excitement j 



to urge you on. Thus, if there be need for the process j 



known as " hardening your heart," it should be undertaken, I 



I advise, shortly after breakfast, your fearful breast being 'I 



then as far as possible encased in robur and a:s triplex for j 



the day ; while, for a man to hunt hounds effectively and 1 



for a full term of years in Ireland, he ought to be (as in \ 



the case of the Master of the Tipperary, I make free to add) { 



entirely free from all considerations of personal peril. 1 



The capital town of this neatly farmed, and to all ^ 

 appearance flourishing, district is in itself a most extra- 

 ordinary contrast to its surroundings. If its name happens 

 to be not altogether un-Irish, the inhabitants and their 

 dwelling-houses of Mxillmahone are more typically Hiber- 

 nian than any I have yet encountered. The bulk of the 

 population lounged about the streets, having their heads as 

 indifferently covered as their dwellings were incompletely 

 roofed. Nobody seemed to have anything to do, nor even 

 serviceable clothes to do it in. They might have been 

 waiting for rain, but that, if so, one would imagine it should 

 have occurred to them to make their houses watertight — 

 though, if appearances go for anything, the filthy interior 

 cannot but be by comparison more healthy when freely 

 ventilated than if hermetically closed. The very next 

 day's county newspaper, by the way, recorded the fact 

 that a member of Mullinahone's agricultural population 

 had just died, aged 115, which goes to bear out the theory 

 advanced. But, in view of raising the revenue of the 

 coming nation, will, I wonder, assessors be guided by the 

 appearance of the land itself, or of the bedraggled-looking 

 people who will be responsible for the increased taxation ? 



Nor have I wandered so far from fox-hunting as it 



