DRINK
Of course one of the great troubles in Ireland is drink. I am no
advocate for teetotalism, for I think a man who can enjoy a moderate
glass is a better one than his brother who has to drink water in order
that he may not yield to the overpowering 'tempitation'--to quote Mr.
Huntley Wright--to get drunk! But for my fellow-countrymen I can see
that drink is a terrible curse, one which is the cause of half the
crime, half the illness, and more than half the misery that exists
there.
Of all Irish benefactors, possibly Father Mathew was the greatest; but
in my boyish days, when it became known that men, not yet in a lunatic
asylum, had taken up the notion that human life was possible without
alcoholic drinks, the wits of Kerry and Cork were heartily diverted at
the bare idea.
It used to be the stock joke after dinner, even when Father Mathew was
in the zenith of his triumph.
In Cork if you laugh at a thing you can generally suppress it, for,
whereas all Irishmen are keenly susceptible to ridicule, the Cork folk
are even more so.
The cold water business furnished endless jests, but it survived them.
Perhaps the strangest thing of all was the clergyman who preached
against it as being irreligious, taking as the text of his sermon,
'Wine, that maketh glad the heart of man.'
I like a man who is disinterested, therefore I wish to remind the
present generation that Father Mathew came of a stock of distillers, and
his family was among the first to suffer by his preaching.
It was probable there would be a reaction after his death; and when that
event took place, after the famine and fever, none really took his place
to warn the diminishing population, in sufficiently effective fashion,
of all the ills that drink was laying up for them.
Wherever, in my work, I found Government relief works, within a stone's
throw of every pay office a whisky shop started into operation.
New Ireland arose from the famine, and she has never since shown much
sign of temperance. Indeed, an excessive amount of money is, and has
ever since then been, spent on liquor in Ireland.
At Castleisland, the scene of so many outrages, the population of the
town is thirteen hundred, and the number of whisky shops is fifty-two.
Very nearly the same proportion can be noticed in several other towns.
There never was an outrage committed without an empty whisky bottle
being found close to the scene of the murder.
In the worst time a moonlighter slept for a fortnight close to the house
of an Irish landlord, who was well aware that he was there for the
express purpose of shooting him, but he never even attempted it.
'Time after time I lay in a ditch to have a go at him, but he would ride
by, looking for all the world as if he would shoot a flea off the tail
of a shnipe, so that, with all the whisky in the world to help me, I
dared not do it,' was his explanation before he left for America.
Did you never hear the parish priest's sermon?
'It's whisky makes you bate your wives; it's whisky makes your homes
desolate; it's whisky makes you shoot your landlords, and'--with
emphasis, as he thumped the pulpit--'it's whisky makes you miss them.'
There is as much truth in that sermon as in any that was preached last
Sunday between Belfast and Glengariff.
As a matter of fact, the profits to the drink retailer are not so
enormous as might be imagined, owing to the competition.
In the neighbourhood of Castleisland there is one group of twelve houses
and nine of these are whisky booths. However anxious the population may
be to consume immoderate amounts of the fiery liquor, and however large
the traffic on the road--never a big thing in Ireland, except on
market-day--the division of the local receipts by nine is apt to
diminish the profits in each case.
It has been suggested to me by a lady who knows Kerry well, that the
consumption of drink might be diminished if a law were passed forcing
the publicans to sell food. As she very truly remarks, it is often
impossible for the country folk, even on market-day, when coming into a
town, to get food for immediate consumption.
However, I do not think this would have any effect. When away from his
cabin the Irishman and the Irishwoman want drink, not food, for there
are a few potatoes at home which will provide all the solid sustenance
most of them desire.
If her proposal were made law, each publican would keep a loaf in his
window, and there it would stay for a year.
That reminds me of the man who was waiting in Waterford Station on March
12th, and to pass the time had a ham sandwich at the bar.
After one mouthful he asked the astonished barmaid for another, made of
February bread, because he really felt that it was time January bread
might have a rest.
To give an example of how Irishmen crave for drink, I will relate an
incident connected with the Parnell Commission.
Three of Lord Kenmare's tenants had been sent over in charge of an
experienced and reliable man to give evidence, and on their return
journey, when they arrived at North Wall--the hour being 6 A.M.--the
conductor said:--
'There is cold meat, or bread and cheese. Now, what will your fancy be?'
Far from wanting nutrition after an all night journey, or even the
soothing solace of a cup of tea, it was half a pint of whisky apiece
that they all asked for.
Just as much drinking exists among the Protestants as among the Roman
Catholics, only there is a trifle more geniality in the bibulous
propensities of the latter. Much less affects an Irishman than a
Scotsman. The latter, when he has absorbed all the whisky he can
assimilate in a bout--and no bad amount it is, let me observe--will go
quietly to sleep. But an Irishman's joy is incomplete unless he knocks
somebody down, which may account for the fact that the Irish are the
best soldiers in the world.
One redeeming feature in the liquor traffic is the increasing
consumption of porter, for that at least has some nourishment in it, and
is reasonably wholesome, whereas the whisky is vilely adulterated, not
only by the publicans before it reaches the consumer, but also in some
of the factories.
Puck Fair is the great annual fête and mart of Killorglin; and it is so
called because a goat is always fastened to a stave on a platform, and
gaily bedizened. Formerly the animal was attached to the flagstaff on
the Castle. To this fair all Kerry for many miles congregates, and the
neighbouring roads towards evening are literally strewn with bibulous
individuals of either sex.
On one occasion a Killorglin publican was in jail, and his father asked
for an interview because he wanted the recipe for manufacturing the
special whisky for Puck Fair. It has been a constant practice to prepare
this blend, but the whisky does not keep many days, as may be gathered
from the recipe, which the prisoner without hesitation dictated to his
parent:--
A gallon of fresh, fiery whisky. A pint of rum. A pint of methylated
spirit. Two ounces of corrosive sublimate. Three gallons of water.
An Irishman's constitution must be tougher than that of an ostrich to
enable him to consume much of the filthy poison. Temperance orators are
welcome to make what use they like of the recipe of this awful
decoction, annually sold to a confiding population.
It is not considered etiquette to come out of Killorglin sober on Puck
Fair; and, judging by the state of the people in the vicinity in the
evening, this social custom is rigidly observed.
They are wonderfully particular in Kerry in attending to exactly what is
congenial to them, and if it were not for the thickness of their heads a
good many lives would be lost.
There was a gauger, in a central county in Ireland, killed by a blow on
the head from a stick.
The man who struck him, in his defence, stated:--
'I did not hit him a very hard blow, and why the devil did the
Government make a gauger of a man that had a head no thicker than an
egg-shell?'
Mighty few of the Killorglin folk have egg-shell heads, and the bulk of
these do not come to maturity.
The avowed fact that lunacy is largely on the increase in Ireland has
been pronounced by the committee which sat on the question in Dublin to
be mainly due, not only to excessive drinking, but to the assimilation
of adulterated spirits.
Though the foregoing recipe furnishes a pretty fair example, I certainly
would not wager that it could not be beaten elsewhere in Ireland.
For a long time the priests were entirely apathetic on the subject, but
latterly they are bestirring themselves, and are doing their best to put
down wakes, which simply mean one or more nights of disgusting
intemperance in the immediate vicinity of the corpse.
Keening, by the way, is dying out, and what remains of this curious,
mournful waiting is now almost entirely in the hands of old women who
are experts in the art, and get remunerated not only in drink but also
in cash.
It is, however, possible that when I am deploring the alcoholic
tendencies of the Irishman, that these may be due to his more vegetarian
dietary, and not to any undue natural craving for alcohol. This is borne
out by the fact that no Irishman will willingly drink alone, and that
his potations are in the shops where whisky and porter are sold for
consumption on the premises, or at fairs, markets, weddings, or wakes,
to the diminishing number of which I have just called attention.
The parish priest of Dingle recently stated in court that in a
population of seventeen hundred there were over fifty licensed houses,
and he rightly declared that all dealings in licences should for the
present be only by transfer, and that for five years at least no new
licences should be granted. The argument so often heard against stopping
licences is that then more illicit drinking will ensue, but this does
not convince me that the redundant licences should be renewed.
My remedy would be to increase all renewals of licences to fifty pounds
apiece, and to apply the difference as compensation to unrenewed
licences. If a man fits up his house as a shebeen, and has conducted it
tolerably, he ought to receive just compensation when his licence is
cancelled owing to there being too many in a district.
If this is not done, he would be the victim of as great a robbery as was
perpetrated on the unfortunate landlords by the Land Act.
I have a yarn or two on the subject of drink which may be appropriately
related here.
Old David Burus, the steward at Ardrum, County Cork, was a great
character who had got inextricably confused between the Council of Trent
and the Trant family in the vicinity, and no amount of explanation could
ever enlighten him. Directly he had begun to be jovial, he used to
say:--
'My blessing on Councillor Trent, who put a fast on meat, but not on
drink.'
And he proved the devoutness of his gratitude by conscientiously getting
drunk every Friday.
That recalls to my mind the case of the illustrious gentleman--also a
fellow-countryman, I regret to say--who committed burglary and murder
when there was an opportunity, but religiously refrained from eating
meat on Friday.
Reverting to David Burus: on one occasion I remonstrated with him on the
amount of whisky he drank.
'I did drink a great deal of whisky, and I would have drunk more.' was
his reply, 'if I had known it was going to be as dear as it is now.'
He evidently regretted not having thoroughly saturated himself with
alcohol. It was the only way in which he could have possibly increased
his consumption.
He was wont to say that if he had known the trick Mr. Gladstone was
going to play on honest, God-fearing men, with sound stomachs and a
decent appetite, by imposing a ten shilling duty on every gallon of
whisky, he would have drunk his fill beforehand, even if _delirium
tremens_ had been the penalty.
Such hard drinking as his, and so calmly avowed, must, even in the south
of Ireland, be fortunately rare, for few constitutions can stand
conversion into animated whisky vats.
There was a farmer at Kanturk railway station who confided to the
stationmaster that he himself on the previous evening had been as drunk
as the very devil.
A parson on the platform, overhearing him, said:--
'You make a mistake, my friend, the devil does not drink. He keeps his
head cool for the express purpose of watching such as you.'
The countryman replied:--
'You seem to be very well acquainted with the respected gentleman's
habits, your riverince.'
And then they walked off different ways.
Which reminds me of another clerical incident.
A parish priest within twenty miles of Tralee, who subsequently left the
Church--I will not say on account of his thirst, though, as that was
unquenchable, it no doubt conduced to his retirement--came into the
parlour of the manager of the bank with two farmers to have a bill
discounted.
The manager, having ascertained the farmers were good security, cashed
the bill and gave the proceeds to the priest. He was very much surprised
on the following day at the two farmers walking into his room with the
money.
'What's the meaning of this?' says he.
'Well, your honour, we could not stay in the parish, if we refused to
join his reverence in the deal, which was sure to be a very bad one for
us. So we thought the best thing to do was to get him a little hearty at
his own expense on the way home. And then we picked his pocket and have
brought the money to your honour, whilst he is cursing every thief
outside his parish, and will probably ask the congregation to make up
the amount next Sunday.'
And that is a true story, and as illustrative of the Irish peasant as
any you could ever get told to you.
A coffin-maker named Sullivan thrived in Tralee. He received an order
for a coffin for a man living about six miles away from the town. It was
not called for for a week, and so he went out to the house where the man
lay dead to inquire the cause.
When he came back to Tralee, he said to a friend:--
'Who do you think I saw, Mick, but that scoundrel of a corpse sitting in
a ditch eating a piece of pig's cheek.'
That reminds me of another coffin story.
A man who lived in Cork was notorious for being always behind time for
everything. He knew his failing, and was rather touchy about it.
One night, stumbling out of a whisky shop, he lurched into a yard, fell
against a door, which gave way, and finished his slumbers peacefully in
the shed, which was the storehouse of an undertaker.
In the morning he awoke, rubbed his eyes in astonishment at the strange
surroundings amid which he found himself, and after recollecting his own
pet proclivity, as he ruefully surveyed all the empty coffins,
ejaculated:--
'Just my usual luck. Late for the Resurrection.'
Which recalls another tale:--
A man was dead drunk, so some friends, for a lark, brought him into a
dark room, lit a lot of phosphorus, and made up one of their party in
the guise of a devil before they flung a bucket of water over their
victim.
'Where am I?' asked the fellow, looking round 'skeered.'
'In hell,' retorted the devil, with exaggerated solemnity.
'Heaven bless your honour, as you know the ways of the place, will you
get me a drop of drink?'
But a mere drop does not suffice as a friend of mine found out.
He was wont to reward his car-driver with a glass of whisky, and gave it
to him in an antique glass, which did not contain as much as cabby
wished for.
'That's a very quare glass, captain,' says he.
'Yes,' replied Captain Stevens; 'that's blown glass.'
'Why, Captain,' says the carman, 'the man must have been damned short in
the breath that blew that.'
This would no doubt have been the opinion of a Dublin carman who was in
the habit of bringing a present to an acquaintance of mine from a lady
living at some distance, and being recompensed with a glass of grog. By
degrees, however, the water grew to be the predominant partner in the
union within the glass, so at last he burst out in disgust:--
'If you threw a tumbler of whisky over Carlisle Bridge, it would be
better grog than that at the Pigeon House.'
Which being interpreted into cockneyism would read, 'If you threw a
glass of whisky over Westminster Bridge it would be better grog than
that at Greenwich Pier.'
Still all consumption of liquor is not confined to Ireland, and I well
remember when I was with Bogue in Scotland, that one night he had a
fellow-farmer of the very best type to dine with him, and about ten
o'clock, with much difficulty, my man and I hoisted him into the saddle.
An hour afterwards we heard a knock at the door, and a voice rather
quaveringly inquired:--
'Pleash, can you tell me the way to X., I have lost my way?'
The tracks next morning revealed he had been riding round and round the
house without once quitting the vicinity, which was almost as bad as
Mark Twain's famous nocturnal perambulation with his pedometer, when he
went on a tramp abroad!
Of potation stories I could tell scores more, and the Tralee Club has
seen enough whisky imbibed within its walls to drown all the members.
A quaint character named Mullane was at one time steward, and decidedly
astonished a member, who was a total abstainer, by charging him in his
bill for three tumblers of punch.
'Well,' explained Mullane, 'it's this way. Some take six tumblers, and
some takes none, so I strikes an average--and to tell you the truth,
it's mighty convenient for the great majority.'
A quaint member of the club was Mr. Edward Morris. He was extremely
diminutive, and he wore an eyeglass. One evening he was standing on the
first landing, pondering in a bemused state whether he could get
downstairs without falling, when a pursey little doctor trotted past him
without even touching the bannister.
This inspired Morris with courage, so he let go his hold of the
balustrade, whereupon he promptly fell on the physician, and both rolled
to the bottom of the stairs.
Thence in hiccuping tones were heard:--
'Waiter! Waiter, put the glass in my eye, and let me see who the
scoundrel was who struck me.'
On another evening in the club, when he had imbibed very freely, he
ordered an additional glass of grog, and began to moralise aloud,
addressing it after this fashion:--
'Glass of grog, if I drink you now, you'll cut the legs from under me.
And yet I want you, and I will not do without you. So I know what I will
do. I'll go to bed and I'll drink you there, for I don't care a damn
what you do to me then.'
The indifference of a drunken man to subsequent consequences was rather
quaintly shown by that weird individual Dr. Tanner, when he went up to
Sir Ellis Ashmead Bartlett in the lobby of the House of Commons, and
abruptly observed:--
'You're a fool.'
Sir Ellis fixed him with his eyeglass, and, in disgusted tones,
replied:--
'You're drunk.'
'I suppose so,' retorted the Irishman, 'but then I'll be sober
to-morrow'--in the most plaintive tone, then in a crescendo of scorn--'
whereas you'll always be a fool.'
Moreover as he slouched down the lobby, he was heard to say:--
'If I do get a headache, I've a head to have it in, not a frame on which
to hang an eyeglass.'
That is a political amenity on which I will not dwell.
Very little money-lending is to be heard of in the south of Ireland, and
in all my experience I only remember one case in Kerry. Tenants in
Ireland, however, have great horror of breaking bulk, and many of them
will do a bill for a neighbour when they have deposits in the bank for
themselves. As it is a point of honour never to refuse a friend in this
respect, you can easily imagine the amount of 'paper' which is
fluttering.
Even when a farmer has a tidy sum of money on deposit with the bank at
one per cent., if he wants to employ a sum for a short time, say for the
purchase of cattle, he prefers to raise the money on a bill at six per
cent.
That is to say, the bank is lending him his own money at five per
cent.--a truly Hibernian trait, which it would be difficult to beat
anywhere.
A bill for drink is not recoverable, but occasionally an insidious
publican will take a man's I.O.U. and sue on that.
One applied to me to help him to get the money from a tenant.
'You must show me the account,' said I.
As I suspected, there was whisky in it, and I declined on the spot.
All drink in Ireland is on cash down terms only.
If they gave tick, they would never recover the money, and if every
Irishman is a knowing scoundrel, the publican is a trifle more
knowledgable than the customer, whose brains are besodden.
A man, who had been a servant of mine, started a public near Tralee, and
thinking he would get customers from the other whisky stores, he gave
tick. His popularity lasted just as long as the tick did, and a week
later he was broke. I do not say so much about Tralee being able to
support one hundred and sixty liquor shops, because there is a little
shipping, but how Cahirciveen can enable fifty publicans to thrive is a
melancholy mystery to me.
I was animadverting once, at Dingle, on the topic, when one of my
labourers remarked:--
'It's the gentry does the drinking.'
'Now that's very curious,' said I, 'for as there are only two of us, and
as I never touch spirits, the other must have such a thirst that he'd
consume the bay if only it were made of whisky.'
In these democratic days, it is as well to resist any undue aspersion on
the upper classes.
To pass any aspersion on the bibulous propensities of a tenant of mine
named Flaherty would be impossible. When he was buying his farm, I told
him the Government ought to take him on very easy terms, when they
became his landlords.
'And for why?' he asked.
'Because,' I replied, 'the duty you pay on the whisky you drink is more
than twenty times your annual rent.'
I had, however, one personal illustration of the drinking propensity in
Scotland, which I think is worth preserving. It is some years now since
I went to see a certain farmer who, his wife told me, on noticing my
approach, was compelled to go upstairs to cool his head as it was after
dinner. She said this much in the same casual tone, as I should mention
that my wife had gone up early to dress for that meal.
Next, I heard heavy splashing of water, and then a crash which portended
that the farmer had fallen over the washstand, making a fearful clatter.
In rushed the drab of a servant maid, perfectly indifferent to my
presence, shrieking:--
'O missus, come up, come up, the maister is just miraculous among the
chaney!'