Nuts and Nutcrackers

From Carrickfergus to Cape Clear, the whole island is on the “qui vive” as to whether her gracious majesty the queen will vouchsafe to visit us in the ensuing summer. The hospitable and magnificent reception which awaited her in Scotland has given a more than ordinary impulse to every plan by which we might evince our loyalty, and exhibit ourselves to our sovereign in a point of view not less favourable than our worthy neighbours across the sea.

At first blush, nothing would seem more easy to accomplish than this. A very cursory glance at Mr. O’Connell’s speeches will convince any one that a land more favourably endowed by nature, or blessed with a finer peasantry, never existed: with features of picturesque beauty dividing the attention of the traveller, with the fertility of the soil; and, in fact, presenting such a panorama of loveliness, peace, plenty, and tranquillity, that a very natural doubt might occur to Sir Robert Peel’s mind in recommending this excursion to her majesty, lest the charms of such an Arcadia should supersede the more homely attractions of England, and “our ladye the queene” preferring the lodge in the Phoenix to the ancient towers of Windsor, fix her residence amongst us, and thus at once repeal the Union.

It were difficult to say if some vision of this kind did not float across the exalted imagination of the illustrious Daniel, amid that shower of fortune’s favours such a visit would inevitably bring down – baronetcies, knighthood deputy-lieutenancies would rain upon the land, and a general epidemic of feasting and festivity raise every heart in the island, and nearly break Father Mathew’s.

If the Scotch be warm in their attachment, our affections stand at a white heat; if they be enthusiastic, we can go clean mad; and for that one bepraised individual who boasted he would never wash the hand which had the honour to touch that of the queen, we could produce a round ten thousand whose loyalty, looking both ways, would enable them, under such circumstances, to claim superiority, as they had never washed theirs since the hour of their birth.

Notwithstanding all these elements of hospitality, a more mature consideration of the question would show how very difficult it would be to compete successfully with the visit to Scotland. Clanship, the remains of feudalism, and historical associations, whose dark colours have been brought out into glowing brightness under the magic pencil of Scott – national costume and national customs – the wild sports of the wilder regions – all conspired to give a peculiar interest to this royal progress; and from the lordly Baron of Breadalbane to the kilted Highlander upon the hills, there was something of ancient splendour and by-gone homeliness mixed up together that may well have evoked the exclamation of our queen, who, standing on the terrace at Drummond, and gazing on the scent below her, uttered – “How grand!”

Now, unfortunately in many, if not in all these advantages, we have no participation. Clanship is unknown amongst us, – only one Irishman has a tail, and even that is as ragged an appendage as need be. Our national costume is nakedness; and of our national customs, we may answer as the sailor did, who, being asked what he had to say in his defence against a charge of stealing a quadrant, sagely replied – “Your worship, it’s a damn’d ugly business, and the less that’s said about it the better.”

Two doubts press upon us – who is to receive her Majesty; and how are they to do it? They who have large houses generally happen to have small fortunes, and among the few who have adequate means, there is scarcely one who could accommodate one half of the royal suite. In Scotland, everything worthy of being seen lies in a ring-fence. The Highlands comprise all that is remarkable in the country; and thus the tour of them presents a quick succession of picturesque beauty without the interval of even half a day’s journey devoid of interest. Now, how many weary miles must her Majesty travel in Ireland from one remarkable spot to another – what scenes of misery and want must she wade through from the south to the west. Would any charms of scenery – would any warmth of hospitality – repay her for the anguish such misery must inflict upon her, as her eye would range over the wild tract of country where want and disease seem to have fixed their dwelling, and where the only edifice that rises above the mud-cabin of the way-side presents the red brick front of a union poor-house? These, however, are sad topics – what are we to do with the Prince? His Royal Highness loves sporting: we have scarcely a pheasant – we have not one capercailzie in the island; but then we have our national pastimes. If we cannot turn out a stag to amuse him, why we can enlarge a tithe-proctor; and, instead of coming home proud that he has bagged a roe, he shall exult in having brought down a rector. How poor and insignificant would any battue be in comparison with a good midnight burning – how contemptible the pursuit, of rabbits and hares, when compared with a “tithe affray,” or the last collision with the military in Tipperary. I have said that the Scotch have a national costume; but if semi-nakedness be a charm in them, what shall be said of us, who go the “whole hog?” The details of their ancient dress – their tartan, their kilt, their philabeg, that offered so much interest to the royal suite – how shall they vie with the million-coloured patches of an Irishman’s garment? or what bonnet that ever flaunted in the breeze is fit to compare with the easy jauntiness of Paddy’s caubeen, through which, in lieu of a feather, a lock of his hair is floating?

“Nor clasp nor nodding plume was there;”

“But for feather he wore one lock of hair.”

    Marmion.

Then, again, how will the watch-fires that blazed upon the mountains pale before the glare of a burning haggard; and what cheer that ever rose from Highland throats will vie with the wild yell of ten thousand Black-feet on the march of a midnight marauding? No, no; it is quite clear the Scotch have no chance with us. Her Majesty may not have all her expectations fulfilled by a visit to Ireland; but most assuredly a “touch of our quality” will show her many things no near country could present, and the probability is, she will neither have time nor leisure for a trip to New Zealand.

Everything that indicates nationality will then have its reward. Grave dignitaries of the Church will practise the bagpipes, and prothonotaries will refresh their jig-dancing; whatever is Irish, will be la vogue; and, instead of reading that her Majesty wore a shawl of the Gordon tartan, manufactured at Paisley, we shall find that the Queen appeared in a novel pattern of rags, devised at Mud Island; while his Royal Highness will compliment the mildness of our climate by adopting our national dress. What a day for Ireland that will be! – we shall indeed be great, glorious, and free; and if the evening only concludes with the Irish Quadrilles, I have little doubt that her Majesty will repeat her exclamation of “How grand!” as she beholds the members of the royal suite moving gracefully to the air of “Stony-batter.”

Let us, then, begin in time. Let there be an order of council to preserve all the parsons, agents, tithe-proctors, and landlords till June; let there be no more shooting in Tipperary for the rest of the season; let us “burke” Father Mathew, and endeavour to make our heads for the approaching festivities; and what between the new poor-law and the tariff, I think we shall be by that time in as picturesque a state of poverty as the most critical stickler for nationality would desire.

A NUT FOR “A NEW COMPANY.”

By no one circumstance in our social condition is a foreigner more struck than by the fact that there is not a want, an ailing, an incapacity for which British philanthropy has not supplied its remedy of some sort or other. A very cursory glance at the advertising columns of the Times will be all-sufficient to establish this assertion. Mental and bodily infirmities, pecuniary difficulties, family afflictions, natural defects, have all their separate corps of comforters; and there is no suffering condition in life that has not a benevolent paragraph specially addressed to its consolation. To the “afflicted with gout;” to “all with corns and bunions;” to “the friends of a nervous invalid” – who is, by the bye, invariably a vicious madman; to “the childless;” to “those about to marry” Such are the headings of various little crumbs of comfort by which the active philanthropy of England sustains its reputation, and fills its pocket. From tooth-powder to tea-trays – from spring-mattresses to fictitious mineral waters – from French blacking to the Widow Welch’s Pills – all have their separate votaries; and it would be difficult to conceive any real or imaginary want unsupplied in this prolific age of contrivance.

A gentleman might descend from the moon, like our clever friend, “The Commissioner,” and, by a little attention to these plausible paragraphs, become as thoroughly John Bull in all his habits and observances as though he were born within St. Paneras. “A widow lady with two daughters would take a gentleman to board, where all the advantages and comforts of a private family might be found, within ten minutes’ walk from Greenwich. Unexceptionable references will be given and expected on either side.” Here, without a moment’s delay, he might be domiciled in an English family; here he might retire from all the cares and troubles of life, enjoying the tranquil pleasures of the widow’s society, with no other risk or danger, save that of falling in love with one or both of the fair daughters, who have “a taste for music,” and “speak French.”

It is said that few countries offer less resources to the stranger than England; which I stoutly deny, and assert that no land has set up so many sign-posts by which to guide the traveller – so many directions by which to advise his course. With us there is no risk of doing anything inappropriate, or incompatible with your station, if you will only suffer yourself to be borne along on the current. Your tailor knows not only the precise shade of colour which suits your complexion, but, as if by intuition, he divines the exact cut that suits your condition in life. Your coachmaker, in the same way, augurs from the tone of your voice, and the contour of your features, the shade of colour for your carriage; and should you, by any misfortune, happen to be knighted, the Herald’s office deduce, from the very consonants of your name, the quantum of emblazonry they can bestow on you, and from how far back among the burglars and highwaymen of antiquity they can venture to trace you. Should you, however, still more unfortunately, through any ignorance of etiquette, or any inattention to those minor forms of breeding with which every native is conversant, offer umbrage, however flight and unintentional, to those dread functionaries, the “new police;” were you by chance to gaze longer into a jeweller’s window than is deemed decorous; were you to fall into any reverie which should induce you to slacken your pace, perchance to hum a tune, and thus be brought before the awful “Sir Peter,” charged by “G 743” with having impeded the passengers – collected a crowd – being of suspicious appearance, and having refused “to tell who your friends were” – the odds are strongly against you that you perform a hornpipe upon the treadmill, or be employed in that very elegant chemical analysis, which consists in the extraction of magnesia from oyster-shells. Now, let any man consider for a moment what a large, interesting, and annually-increasing portion of our population there is, who, from certain peculiarities attending their early condition, have never been blessed with relatives or kindred – who, having no available father and mother, have consequently no uncles, aunts, or cousins, nor any good friends. Here the law presses with a fearful severity upon the suffering and the afflicted, not upon the guilty and offending. The state has provided no possible contingencies by which such persons are to escape. A man can no more create a paternity than he can make a new planet. I have already said that with wealth at his disposal, ancestry and forefathers are easily procured. He can have them of any age, of any country, of any condition in life – churchmen or laymen – dignitaries of the law or violators of it; – ‘tis all one, they are made to order. But let him be in ever such urgent want of a near relative; let it be a kind and affectionate father, an attached and doting mother, that he stands in need of – he may study The Times and The Herald– he may read The Chronicle and The Globe, in vain! No benevolent society has directed its philanthropy in this channel; and not even a cross-grained uncle or a penurious aunt can be had for love or money.

Now this subject presents itself in two distinct views – one as regards its humanity, the other its expediency. As the latter, in the year of our Lord, 1844, would seem to offer a stronger claim on our attention, let us examine it first. Consider them how you will, these people form the most dangerous class of our population – these are the “waifs and strays” of mankind. Like snags and sawyers in the Mississippi, having no voyage to perform in life, their whole aim and destiny seems to be the shipwreck of others. With one end embedded in the mud of uncertain parentage, with the other they keep bobbing above the waves of life; but let them rise ever so high, they feel they cannot be extricated.

If rich, their happiness is crossed by their sense of isolation; for them there are no plum-pudding festivals at Christmas, no family goose-devourings at Michaelmas. They have none of those hundred little ties and torments which weary and diversify life. They have acres, but they have no uncles – they have gardens and graperies, but they cannot raise a grandfather – they may have a future, but they have scarcely a present; and they have no past.

Should they be poor, their solitary state suggests recklessness and vice. It is the restraint of early years that begets submission to the law later on, and he who has not learned the lesson of obedience when a child, is not an apt scholar when he becomes a man. This, however, is a part of the moral and humane consideration of the question, and like most other humane considerations, involves expense. With that we have nothing to do; our present business is with the rich; for their comfort and convenience our hint is intended, and our object to supply, on the shortest notice, and the most reasonable terms, such relatives of either sex as the applicant shall stand in need of.

Let there be, therefore, established a new joint stock company to be called the “Grand United Ancestral, Kindred, and Blood Relation Society” – capital any number of pounds sterling. Actuaries – Messrs. Oliver Twist and Jacob Faithful.

Only think of the benefits of such a company! Reflect upon the numbers who leave their homes every morning without parentage, and who might now possess any amount of relatives they desire before night. Every one knows that a respectable livelihood is made by a set of persons whose occupation it is to become bails at the different police offices, for any class of offence, and to any amount. They exercise their calling somewhat like bill-brokers, taking special pains always to secure themselves against loss, and make a trifle of money, while displaying an unbounded philanthropy. Here then is a class of persons most appropriate for our purpose: fathers, uncles, first cousins, even grandfathers, might be made out of these at a moment’s notice. What affecting scenes, too, might be got up at Bow-street, under such circumstances, of penitent sons, and pardoning parents, of unforgiving uncles and imploring nephews. How would the eloquence of the worshipful bench revel, on such occasions, for its display. What admonitions would it not pour forth, what warnings, what commiseration, and what condolings. Then what a satisfaction to the culprit to know that all these things were managed by a respectable company, who were “responsible in every case for the good conduct of its servants.” No extortion permitted – no bribery allowed; a regular rate of charges being printed, which every individual was bound, like a cab-man, to show if required.

So much for a father, if respectable; so much more, if professional; or in private life, increased premium. An angry parent, we ‘ll say two and sixpence; sorrowful, three shillings; “deeply afflicted and bound to weep,” five shillings.

A widowed mother, in good weeds, one and sixpence; do. do. in a cab, half a crown; and so on.

How many are there besides who, not actually in the condition we speak of, would be delighted to avail themselves of the benefits of this institution. How many moving in the society of the west end, with a father a tobacconist or a cheesemonger in the city, would gladly pay well for a fashionable parent supposed to live upon his estate in Yorkshire, or entertaining, as the Morning Post has it, a “distinguished party at his shooting lodge in the Highlands.” What a luxury, when dining his friends at the Clarendon, to be able to talk of his “Old Governor” hunting his hounds twice a week, while, at the same moment, the real individual was engaged in the manufacture of soap and short sixes. What happiness to recommend the game-pie, when the grouse was sent by his Uncle, while he felt that the only individual who stood in that capacity respecting him, had three g It balls over his door, and was more conversant with duplicates than double barrels.

But why pursue a theme whose benefits are self-evident, and come home to every bosom in the vast community. It is one of the wants of our age, and we hope ere long to see the “fathers” as much respected in Clerkenwell or College-street, as ever they were in Clongowes or Maynooth.

A NUT FOR “POLITICAL ECONOMISTS.”

This is the age of political economists and their nostrums. Every newspaper teems with projects for the amelioration of our working classes, and the land is full of farming societies, temperance unions, and a hundred other Peter Purcellisms, to improve its social condition; the charge to make us

“Great, glorious, and free,”

remaining with that estimable and irreproachable individual who tumbles in Lower Abbey-street.

The Frenchman’s horse would, it is said, have inevitably finished his education, and accomplished the faculty of existing without food, had he only survived another twenty-four hours. Now, the condition of Ireland is not very dissimilar, and I only hope that we may have sufficient tenacity of life to outlive the numerous schemes for our prosperity and advancement.

Nothing, indeed, can be more singular than the manner of every endeavour to benefit his country. We are poor – every man of us is only struggling; therefore, we are recommended to build expensive poorhouses, and fill them with some of ourselves. We have scarcely wherewithal to meet the ordinary demands of life, and straightway are told to subscribe to various new societies – repeal funds – agricultural clubs – O’Connell tributes – and Mathew testimonials. This, to any short-sighted person, might appear a very novel mode of filling our own pockets. There are one-idea’d people in the world, who can only take up the impression which, at first blush, any subject suggests; they, I say, might fancy that a continued system of donation, unattended by anything like receipt, is not exactly the surest element of individual prosperity. I hope to be able to controvert this plausible, but shallow theory, and to show – and what a happy thing it is for us – to show that, not only is our poverty the source of our greatest prosperity, but that if by any accident we should become rich, we must inevitably be ruined; and to begin —

Absenteeism is agreed on all hands to be the bane of Ireland. No one, whatever be his party prejudices, will venture to deny this. The high-principled and well-informed country gentleman professes this opinion in common with the illiterate and rabid follower of O’Connell; I need not, therefore, insist further on a proposition so universally acknowledged. To proceed – of all people, none are so naturally absentees as the Irish; in fact, it would seem that one great feature of our patriotism consists in the desire to display, in other lands, the ardent attachment we bear our own. How can we tell Frenchmen, Italians, Germans, Russians, Swedes, and Swiss, how devoted we are to the country of our birth, if we do not go abroad to do so? How can we shed tears as exiles, unless we become so? How can we rail about the wrongs of Ireland and English tyranny, if we do not go among people, who, being perfectly ignorant of both, may chance to believe us? These are the patriotic arguments for absenteeism; then come others, which may be classed under the head of “expediency reasons,” such as debts, duns, outlawries, &c. Thirdly, the temptations of the Continent, which, to a certain class of our countrymen, are of the very strongest description – Corn Exchange politics, vulgar associates, an air of bully, and a voice of brogue, will not form such obstacles to success in Paris, as in Dublin. A man can scarcely introduce an Irish provincialism into his French, and he would be a clever fellow who could accomplish a bull under a twelvemonth. These, then, form the social reasons; and from a short revision of all three, it will be seen that they include a very large proportion of the land – Mr. O’Connell talks of them as seven millions.

It being now proved, I hope, to my reader’s satisfaction, that the bent of an Irishman is to go abroad, let us briefly inquire, what is it that ever prevents him so doing? The answer is an easy one. When Paddy was told by his priest that whenever he went into a public-house to drink, his guardian angel stood weeping at the door, his ready reply was, “that if he had a tester he’d have been in too;” so it is exactly with absenteeism; it is only poverty that checks it.

The man with five pounds in his pocket starts to spend it in England; make it ten, and he goes to Paris; fifteen, and he’s up the Rhine; twenty, and Constantinople is not far enough for him! Whereas, if the sum of his wealth had been a matter of shillings, he’d have been satisfied with a trip to Kingstown, a chop at Jude’s, a place in the pit, and a penny to the repeal fund; all of which would redound to his patriotism, and the “prosperity of Ireland.”

The same line of argument applies to every feature of expense. If we patronise “Irish manufacture,” it is because we cannot afford English. If we like Dublin society, it is upon the same principle; and, in fact, the cheap pleasures of home, form the sheet-anchor of our patriotism, and we are only “guardian angels,” because “we have n’t a tester.”

Away then with any flimsy endeavours to introduce English capital or Scotch industry. Let us persevere in our present habits of mutual dislike, attack, and recrimination; let us interfere with the projects of English civilisation, and forward, by every means in our power, the enlightened doctrines of popery, and the patriotic pastime of parson-shooting, for even in sporting we dispense with a “game license;” let no influx of wealth offer to us the seduction of quitting home, and never let us feel with our national poet that “Ireland is a beautiful country to live out of.”

A NUT FOR “GRAND DUKES.”

God help me but I have always looked upon a “grand duke” pretty much in the same light that I have regarded the “Great Lama,” that is to say, a very singular and curious object of worship in its native country. How any thing totally destitute of sovereign attributes could ever be an idol, either for religious or political adoration, is somewhat singular, and after much pains and reflections on the subject, I came to the opinion, that German princes were valued by their subjects pretty much on the principle the Indians select their idols, and knowing men admire thorough-bred Scotch terriers – viz., not their beauty.

Of all the cant this most canting age abounds in, nothing is more repulsive and disgusting than the absurd laudation which travellers pour forth concerning these people, by the very ludicrous blunder of comparing a foreign aristocracy with our own. Now, what is a German grand duke? Picture to yourself a very corpulent, moustached, and befrogged individual, who has a territory about the size of the Phoenix Park, and a city as big and as flourishing as the Blacklock; the expenses of his civil list are defrayed by a chalybeate spring, and the budget of his army by the license of a gambling house, and then read the following passage from “Howitt’s life in Germany,” which, with that admirable appreciation of excellence so eminently their characteristic, the newspapers have been copying this week past —

“You may sometimes see a grand duke come into a country inn, call for his glass of ale, drink it, pay for it, and go away as unceremoniously as yourself. The consequence of this easy familiarity is, that princes are everywhere popular, and the daily occurrence of their presence amongst the people, prevents that absurd crush and stare at them, which prevails in more luxurious and exclusive countries.”

That princes do go into country inns, call for ale, and drink it, I firmly believe; a circumstance, however, which I put the less value upon, inasmuch as the inn is pretty much like the prince’s own house, the ale very like what he has at home, and the innkeeper as near as possible, in breeding, manner, and appearance, his equal. That he pays for the drink, which our author takes pains to mention, excites all my admiration; but I confess I have no words to express my pleasure on reading that “he goes away again,” and, as Mr. Howitt has it, “as unceremoniously as yourself,” neither stopping to crack the landlord’s crown, smash the pewter, break the till, nor even put a star in the looking-glass over the fire-place, a condescension on his part which leads to the fact, that “princes are everywhere popular.”

Now, considering that Mr. Howitt is a Quaker, it is somewhat remarkable the high estimate he entertains of this “grand ducal” forbearance. What he expected his highness to have done when he had finished his drink, I am as much at a loss to conjecture, as what trait we are called upon to admire in the entire circumstance; when the German prince went into the inn, and knocking three times with a copper krentzer on the counter, called for his choppin of beer, he was exactly acting up to the ordinary habits of his station, as when the Duke of Northumberland, on his arriving with four carriages at the “Clarendon.” occupied a complete suite of apartments, and partook of a most sumptuous dinner. Neither more nor less. His Grace of Alnwick might as well be lauded for his ducal urbanity as the German prince for his, each was fulfilling his destiny in his own way, and there was not anything a whit more worthy of admiration in the one case, than in the other.

But three hundred pounds per annum, even in a cheap country, afford few luxuries; and if the Germans are indifferent to cholic, there might be, after all, something praiseworthy in the beer-drinking, and here I leave it.

A NUT FOR THE EAST INDIA DIRECTORS

When the East India Directors recalled Lord Ellenborough, and replaced him by Sir Henry Harding, the impression upon the public mind was, as was natural it should be, that the course of policy adopted by the former, was such as met not their approval, and should not be persisted in by his successor.

To supersede one man by another, that he might perform the very same acts in the same way, would be something too ludicrous and absurd. When John Bull chassées the Tories, and takes to the Whigs, it is because he has had enough of Peel, and wants to try a stage with Lord John, who handles the ribbons differently, and drives another sort of a team; a piebald set of screws they are, to be sure, but they can go the pace when they are at it; and, as the road generally lies downhill, they get along right merrily. But John would never think of a change, if the pace were to be always the same..No; he ‘d just put up with the set he had, and take his chance. Not so your India Directors. They are quite satisfied with everything; all is right, orderly, and proper; but still they would rather that another man were at the head of affairs, to do exactly what had been done before. “What are you doing, Peter?” – “Nothing, sir.” “And you, Jem, what are you about?” – “Helping Peter, sir.” That is precisely the case, and Sir Henry is gone out to help Lord Ellenborough.

Such a line of proceeding is doubtless singular enough, and many sensible people there are, who cannot comprehend the object and intention of the wise Directors; while, by the press, severe imputations have been thrown upon their consistency and intelligence, and some have gone so far as to call their conduct unparalleled.

This, however, is unjust. The Old Almanack, as Lord Brougham would call it, has registered a not inapplicable precedent; and, in the anxious hope of being remembered by the “Old Lady,” I hasten to mention it: —

When Louis XIV. grew tired of Madame la Vallière, and desired to replace her by another in his favour, he committed the difficult task of explanation on the subject, to his faithful friend and confessor, Bossuet. The worthy Bishop undertook his delicate mission with diffidence; but he executed it with tact. The gentle La Vallière wept bitterly; she knew nothing of the misfortune that menaced her. She believed that her star still stood in the ascendant, and fancied (like Lord Ellenborough) that her blandishments were never more acknowledged. “Whence, then, this change?” cried she, in the agony of her grief. “How have I offended him?”