"PARTY CRIES " JN IRELAND. 263 



meek and lowly Protestants who stoned them till all the region round about 

 was marked with blood. I thought that only Catholics argued in that way, but 

 it seems to be a mistake. 



Every man in the community is a missionary and carries a brick to admon- 

 ish the erring with. The law has tried to break this up, but not with perfect 

 success. It has decreed that irritating "party cries" shall not be indulged in, 

 and that persons uttering them shall be fined forty shillings and costs. And so, 

 in the police court reports, every day, one sees these fines recorded. Last week 

 a girl twelve years old was fined the usual forty shillings and costs for pro- 

 claiming in the public streets that she was " a Protestant." The usual cry is, 

 *'To hell with the Pope!" or "To hell with the Protestants! " according to the 

 utterer's system of salvation. 



One of Belfast's local jokes was very good. It referred to the uniform and 

 inevitable fine of forty shillings and costs for uttering a party cry — and it is no 

 economical fine for a poor man, either, by the way. They say that a policeman 

 found a drunken man lying on the ground, up a dark alley, entertaining him- 

 self with shouting, " To hell with ! " " To hell with ! " The officer smelt a fine 

 — informers get half: 



« What's that you say .? " 



« To >%f// with ! " 



" To hell with who 1 To hell with what ! " 

 , "Ah, bedad ye can finish it yourself — it's too expinsive for me! " 



I think the seditious disposition, restrained by the economical instinct is 

 finely put, in that. 



