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found as regards smartness. Nearly all are tooled by men who are 

 innate drivers and turned out as smartly as Melton men at Kirby Gate 

 on the first Monday in November. 



Irish drivers, be they jarveys, servants, or gentlemen, as a rule drive 

 entirely for themselves ; they do not care a jot for their neighbours 

 and never think of giving them a chance. Our streets, where with com- 

 paratively little traffic blocks and collisions constantly occur, give ample 

 proof of this. In England a man drives quite as much for his neighbour 

 as for himself, and each knows exactly where the other will go ; 

 this, with ten times the crowd and traffic met with in Ireland, enables 

 them to steer their traps clear through, with at times little more than 

 an inch to spare between the wheels. Thus it is that driving in London 

 with all its crowd is easy and safe, while in Dublin, notwithstanding 

 its wider streets and little traffic, it is difficult and dangerous, for one 

 man seldom knows where the other will go to. 



Our Sackville-street is, I believe, the finest and widest street of its 

 length in Europe. I am sorry to say it has not nearly the thoroughfare 

 its dimensions would accommodate. There, at times, you see what bad 

 driving is, particularly at the Carlisle Bridge end, where the cross-traffic 

 of the quays intersects that of the bridge and street. You also see some 

 fun occasionally in Dame and Grafton streets, but everything goes on 

 jovially enough. No one gives quarter, and no one expects it. Carts 

 cross carriages, while cars go for cabs, running at or into one another 

 just as opportunity afTords. Notwithstanding the confusion, you hear 

 none of the slanging, barging, or bad language from Dublin drivers you 

 hear from Londoners when a block occurs. No, with us that sort of 

 thing is taken as a matter of course, and in the best of humour. 



At times we find on the stand a really excellent "outside," smart 

 in appearance and well driven by a man properly got up, but it is the 

 exception and you see scarcely any in whose get-up .or method faults 

 cannot be found ; while the great majority, as regards horse, harness^ 

 car, and man, are badly turned out, and the driving is infamous. 



Dear old Dublin has been described as the " car-drivingest city in the 

 world," and so it is. To see the jarveys rattling along Essex and other 

 narrow quays of our city at ten miles an hour every evening from the 

 Cork Express at King's Bridge is a caution ! Still more is it on a 

 Curragh evening, and tenfold more when returning rom Punchestown. 

 But that is not driving. 



Our Irish "car-driver" is one of the last of our old institutions, and 

 far be it from me to say or do anything to injure him. I write as I do 

 with the earnest wish to induce him to smarten himself and his turn-out. 

 He is civil and honest to a degree, and always contented with a just 

 fare, the assessment of which he generally leaves " to your own honour." 

 No other man in his humble sphere of life possesses such a fund of 

 interesting anecdote, nor is Irish wit brought to the front more promi- 

 nently than by Larry Doolan. 



Notwithstanding all I have said, we have cars in Dublin which can 



