217 



and anyone who knows how the thing should be done must agree 

 with me. 



Even our funerala we can't do properly. The stately Belgian, 

 whose slow high-kneed action, arched crest, appropriate colour, with 

 long flowing mane and tail, so eminently adapt him for the mourn- 

 ful duty, is conspicuous by his absence as the motive power of our 

 hearses and mourning carriages. In Dublin as well as other towns 

 in Ireland the grotesque appearance of the hearse, horses, and driver 

 is at times provocative of feelings other than those suitable to a 

 funeral. Not so in England, where that sort of business is carritd out 

 on a system alike sombre, sedate, and lachrymose. I venture to say 

 that the body of a humble artisan in Liverpool is, at the cost of some 

 £7 or £8 to his representatives, sent to the grave in style more appro- 

 priately smart than perhaps would be one of the members of an Irish 

 Town Council at five times the money. 



What bothers an Irish servant more almost than anything else is 

 his hat. Not five in fifty can put it on right, while four out of the 

 five will have it wrong in five minutes after. His whip, too, is a source 

 of continued inconvenience to the ordinary Hibernian Jehu ; he seldom, 

 if ever, holds or uses it in orthodox style. 



And, oh ! ye descendants of Barclay and Tautz, take pattern from the 

 boots and breeches of an average Irish coachman. No matter how well 

 off his master may be, see how the poor fellow is rigged out— his clothes 

 suggest, indeed, that they were cut by a carpenter and sewn by a sail- 

 maker. Also take a look at the polish and pipeclay. Hawkes of 

 Piccadilly might at the same time see the effect of utilising a livery box 

 or body coat originally built for a thirteen stone man on his successor 

 in service weighing ten or eleven stone, and two or three inches shorter 

 in stature. 



As a matter of fact it would be well if some of our Irish gentry, 

 particularly the Dubliners, were to follow the example of their English 

 brethren— in Yorkshire, for instance— in the way they turn out, not only 

 their horses and traps, but their men, for of course it is the masters 

 alone who are to blame. Fancy a servant with a big bushy beard, 

 colour, say, carrotty, driving a carriage in Hyde Park ! 



Mr. Thompson's coach, "The Tantivy," which he trots from the Shel- 

 bourne to Bray, etc., and back daily in summer, is as well put together 

 and workmanlike a turn-out as any which leaves the White Horse 

 Cellars. The horses are well matched, and with good action step together ; 

 they are harnessed " brilliant in brass and in leather," and tackled to as 

 good a cut of a coach as any bowling up Piccadilly. Mr. Thompson, too, 

 is up to the work of which he is so passionately fond, for he is a 

 thoroughly good coachman; but— and this plucks " The Tantivy" of first 

 honours — he scarcely possesses that easy grace on the box which 

 *' Nimrod " describes, and he holds his hands too high. 



Look at the thousands of private traps of all sorts we see in London 

 and in England generally ; how few there are in which a fault can be 



