* * * * *
are now at an end, and I must conduct you to a breakfast at the
Post-office. The Director, Sir Edward Lee, a very agreeable and
accomplished man, who gave the entertainment, first conducted us, in
company with a number of elegant ladies, through the various offices
'pour nous faire gagner de l'appetit.' In one of them, called the 'Dead
Letter Office,' a very strange incident occurred in our presence. All
letters, the address of which is unintelligible, or which are addressed
to persons who cannot be discovered, are taken into this office, where
they are opened at the end of a fortnight, and, if they contain nothing
important, burnt. This seems to me rather a barbarous custom, since many
a heart might be broken from the loss of what a Post-office clerk might
think 'of no importance.' So it is, however, and we found three men
busied in the operation. Several of us seized these doomed epistles, and
turned them over with great curiosity, when the clerk who stood nearest
to me took up rather a large packet on which there was no address
whatever, only the post-mark of an Irish country town. How great was his
surprise and that of all of us, when on opening it we saw not a single
line of writing, but £2700 in bank-notes! This, at least, appeared 'of
importance' to all, and an order was immediately given to write to the
town in question to make inquiry about it.
In the evening I went to pay the 'nightingales' a visit, but found them
flown, and only their father at home, with whom I had a scientific
conversation. He showed me several curious newly-invented
instruments;--one among them for ascertaining the exact strength of the
lungs, and therefore invaluable in consumptive diseases. He told me that
a person high in office was given over last year by all of the most
eminent physicians in Dublin, as far gone in pulmonary consumption.
Believing his danger to be imminent, he had made up his mind to give up
his place, and to go to Montpellier, as the only means of prolonging his
life. Sir A---- was at last consulted, and resolved to try this
instrument, which he had just received from London. Scarcely could he
believe his eyes when he found on experiment that the lungs of the
patient were two degrees stronger than his own,--he being in perfect
health. The disease was now discovered to be in the liver, though it had
exhibited every symptom of consumption; and in four months the patient
was entirely cured, and kept his lucrative place which he had determined
to give up.
I shall not describe to you the various instruments of torture which I
saw; 'tant pis pour l'humanité, qu'il en faut tant.' A prettier thing
was a barometer, in the figure of a lady, who at the approach of bad
weather holds up her umbrella, in a hard rain opens it, and in settled
fine weather uses it as a walking-stick. To use a lady as a continually
changing prophet of weather. 'Quelle insolence!'
_December 8th._
Sir A----, who has a place in the Bank, showed that building to me this
morning. The edifice is fine, and formerly served as a place of meeting
for both houses of the Irish Parliament, whose restoration is now so
ardently desired. The thing most worth seeing is the printing of
bank-notes. The whole machinery is moved by a magnificent steam-engine,
while a smaller one fills the boiler with water and the furnace with
coals, so that human assistance is scarcely wanted. In the first room
the printing ink is prepared; in the next the bank-notes receive their
various marks and ornaments. This process is very rapidly performed.
Only one man is employed at each press; and while he places the blank
papers, one after another, under the stamp, the number of printed notes
marks itself in the inside of a closed box. In the next room they are
numbered. This is done on a small chest; and the machinery numbers them,
as if by invisible hands, from one to a thousand. The man employed there
has nothing to do but to blacken the numbers as they come out with
printer's ink, and to lay the notes in their proper order. All the rest
is accomplished by the machine.
Every note which returns to the Bank after circulation is immediately
torn, and kept seven years, at the expiration of which time it is burnt.
This last operation leaves a residuum of indigo, copper, and the
materials of the paper, which looks like metal, and glitters with all
the colours of the rainbow. Of course many hundred notes go to make up
an ounce of this substance, of which I carried away a beautiful piece.
We afterwards ascended the roof of this great building, a sort of world
in miniature, whence, like the 'Diable Boiteux,' we could see into the
surrounding houses; but at length so confused ourselves, that we thought
we should need Ariadne's clue to enable us to find our way down again. I
arrived too late, in consequence, at dinner at Sir E---- L----'s; a
thing which is not taken so ill in England as with us.
_Dec. 9th._
Lord Howth invited me to a stag-hunt, whence I am just returned, equally
tired and pleased. My lessons in Cashel were now of great use to me, for
Lord Howth is one of the best and most determined riders in Great
Britain. He had given me a very good horse, in spite of which I fell
twice: this also happened once to Lord Howth himself, and I followed him
so well that I think I brought no discredit on our cavalry. At length
more than two-thirds of our fifty red-coats were missing. I was
particularly struck with an officer who had lost an arm, and
nevertheless was one of the first: his admirable horse had not refused
or missed a single leap.
This sort of hunt is a very agreeable diversion now and then; but how a
man can devote himself to so utterly unintellectual an amusement three
times a week, for six months of every year, and always pursue it with
the same passion, does, I own, remain unintelligible to me. What,
besides, makes stag-hunting much less interesting in England than on the
continent, is, that the stags are tame, and are trained to the sport
like race-horses. They are brought to the place of rendezvous in a kind
of box, and there turned out. When they have run a certain distance, the
hunt begins, and before it ends the hounds are called off, and the stag
is put into the box again and kept for another hunt. Is not this
horribly prosaic, and scarcely compensated by the 'agrément' of being in
continual risk of breaking one's neck over a wide ditch, or one's head
against a high wall?
_December 10th._
For some weeks past I have been a frequent visitor at the Gymnastic
Academy. These exercises are become very fashionable in Great Britain
and Ireland. Certainly they are of inestimable value in the training of
youth; they are a highly improved _Turnen_,[152] but without politics.
When one considers what facilities are now at hand for the physical as
well as moral education of man; how those whom nature has misshapen are
placed within cases of iron till they are transformed into Apollos; how
noses and ears are created; and how academies are daily advertised in
the newspapers, in which the most profound erudition is engaged to be
communicated in three years,[153]--one really longs to be a child again,
that one might come in for a share of all these advantages. It appears
as if the law of gravitation operated in the moral as well as in the
physical world, and that 'the march of intellect' went on in an
increasing ratio like the rapidity of a falling cannon-ball. A few more
political revolutions in Europe, the perfecting of steam-power for soul
and body, and God knows what we may get to, even without the discovery
of the art of steering air-balloons. But to return to the Gymnasium, the
utility of which, at least, is undoubted. It strengthens the frame to
such a degree, and imparts such agility to the limbs, that a man really
doubles or trebles his existence by it. It is literally the fact, that I
saw a young man, the arch of whose breast, after an uninterrupted
practice of three months, had increased seven inches; the muscles of his
arms and thighs had at the same time enlarged to three times their
volume, and were as hard as iron. But even much older people,--men of
sixty,--though they cannot expect to effect such changes, may strengthen
themselves very considerably by moderate exercise in the gymnasium. I
constantly found men of this age, who played their part very well among
the young ones who had but recently begun. Some perseverance is however
necessary; for the older a man is, the more painful and fatiguing is the
beginning. Many feel themselves for months as if they had been on the
rack, or were set fast with universal rheumatism. A Frenchman was at the
head of the establishment, although his predecessor had sacrificed
himself, two years before, to the glory of his art: his name was
Beaujeu. He was endeavouring to show two ladies, (for there are also
feminine gymnastics,) how easy exercise No. 7. was. The pole broke, and
so did, in consequence of his fall, his spine. He died in a few hours;
and, with an elevation and enthusiasm worthy of a greater cause,
exclaimed with his last breath, "Voilà le coup de grâce pour la
gymnastique en Irlande." His prediction, however, was not fulfilled, for
both gentlemen and ladies are more gymnastically-minded than ever.
_December 14th._
As I have been unwell for several days and unable to go out, I have no
interesting news to give you. You must therefore receive with indulgence
a few detached thoughts, the offspring of solitude; or if they tire you,
leave them unread.