244 STRAY- AW AYS 



case of a recipient of Unemployed Benefit who recently 

 presented liimself with a heavily battered countenance 

 at the bureau appointed to dispense tliis tribute from 

 a grateful nation. " AVhat happened to you?" it 

 was asked of him. " I went to D — — looking for 

 work, and praying to God I wouldn't get it," returned 

 the petitioner smoothly, " and I didn't either." 



Carleton's peasants, with their shillelahs flourishing 

 round their caubeens, their preposterous courtships, 

 their oaths with grotesque reservations against 

 liquor, faithfully adhered to until the convert dies 

 of delirium tremens ; their faction fights, in which 

 the combatants, with " powerful blows " upon the 

 ear, " send each other to the ground with amazing 

 force," and lie there, " the blood spurting from their 

 mouths and nostrils," their legs " kicking convul- 

 sively." After which, instead of being, as the reader 

 might justly expect, conveyed to the mortuary chapel, 

 they spring again to their feet, and the contest is 

 resumed with undiscouraged zest and vigour. 



Mr. Figgis complains that it was not permitted to 

 Carleton " to express a nation's whole and complete 

 historic idiom." It is a little difficult to understand 

 what is meant. Completeness in farce or in tragedy 

 could hardly go farther; and if Ireland can accuse 

 one writer more than another of having introduced 

 to the world that wearisome effort of fancy, the Stage 

 Irishman, it is indisputable that one of the chief of 

 his sponsors is the creator of Phelim O'Toole. 



*' Phelim wore his hat on one side, with a knowing 

 but careless air; he carried his cudgel with a good- 

 humoured, dashing spirit, precisely in accordance 

 with the character of a man who did not care a traneen 

 whether he drank with you as a friend, or fought with 

 you as a foe. . . . The droop in his eye was a standing 

 wink at the girls ; and when he sang his funny songs. 



