simply move on a bit;" and the latitude with which this word is used may best be illustrated by a further anecdote. This same lady, when stopping with her husband at a fishing inn in South Kerry, was sorely tried by the dirtiness of a small protégé of hers. At last, in response to her repeated requests, he went so far as to wash his face. "But why didn't you wash your neck, Johnny?" "Och, ma'am, 'tis too far wesht entirely." ing, -a man who had that fondness for big words so frequently observable in the Irish peasant, delivered himself in the course of his evidence of the following remarks: "I have rayalized [realized] siven children, and if I were to rayalize siven more, I wouldn't wish one of them to imbibe an acre of land." And later on, reverting to the same metaphor, he observed, "'Tis bad weather for one that is immersed in land.” Another marked characteristic of the This brings me back again to the "bull," Celt is his fatalism. This resignation has of which I have one or two fresh speciits ludicrous as well as its tragic side. As mens. I mentioned in my former letter with the lower middle classes of the north our old doctor, who possessed a facility in of England, a death in the family is a sort uttering them that was positively papal. of excitement, and is often unhappily His remarks, though paradoxical in form, made the excuse for a great deal of feast- were often not without an admixture of ing and drinking. Fortunately, the Irish- truth; but when he said, "The day is far man has not the same facilities which his spent, bedad, and the night aiqually so," English brethren possess for spending he gave vent to an utterance of Delphic large sums on all the hideous pageantry ambiguity. The writer's sister, some of an elaborate funeral. Still, the event years ago, after leaving the ticket-office in in a poor Irish household is an important an Irish statton, went back in the belief one, and the following story would seem that the clerk had given her too much to show that an unexpected recovery is change. But on counting it over, he exregarded as an unfair proceeding on the claimed, "No, but it's I who's given you part of a moribund person. A doctor vis- too little. And there's the reward for iting the house of a poor family, found your honesty, for ye get sixpence for yourthem all gathered round the bed of a sick self." The following malaprop, the proman, sprinkling it at times with holy wa- duction of an Irish lady, is perhaps worth ter, and saying at intervals, " Depart, chronicling. Speaking to a friend, she Christian soul." On inquiry, he ascer- declared that she would sooner be tied by tained that this process had been going the neck to a milestone than marry a on for a great many hours, during which Frenchman. no nourishment had been administered, for as they said, "Why should we interfare wid a dyin' man?" My readers will be prepared to hear that the exercise of a very little skill sufficed to restore the patient to complete health. Paddy is very superstitious and very devout. But just as in Roman Catholic countries on the Continent, this devoutness carries with it a familiarity in speaking of things divine that is occasionally grotesque and suggestive of irreverence. The following conversation between two tenant farmers, one of whom had been worsted in a suit with his landlord, was overheard outside the courthouse in Kenmare. "Won't ye appale?" said the one. No," replied the unsuccessful litigant," I'll lave him to God Almighty, and he'll surely play the divil with him." Though not always conveying an edifying impression as to the honesty of the Irish peasant, the proceedings in court at Petty Sessions are often exceedingly diverting. So, too, the transactions of the land commission in Kerry have been enlivened by sundry humorous episodes. The tenant of a swampy hold With regard to the long words which the Irish peasant is so fond of, it must be borne in mind that in outlying districts many of the "mountaing" men, as they are called, still speak English as a foreign language, and carry away from their early schooling a good many bookish words which they reserve for their conversation with the "quality." A ragged native once offered to carry "my thrumperies," ie., traps; and another, an assiduous fisherman, has spoken of having "perused the stream for several hours." On this point it seems that the Highlanders resemble the Irish. Only the other day when I was staying at a shooting-box in Rossshire, my host related to me how his gillie had diverted him by replying to his remark that the wind was very good for driving the deer, "Yes, its jeest classi cal." Much that is picturesque and quaint in the speech of the Irish peasant is due to his surroundings and the conditions of his life. Inasmuch as seaweed is largely used in agriculture, one can realize the feelings which prompted a country woman 66 -called in at an emergency to do housemaid's work, and seeing some alga employed as an ornament - to exclaim, Glory be to God, to think that I should live to see the manure in the drawingroom.' So, when in reply to the question of a friend of mine whether he had seen any rabbits, a native answered, "Yes, your honor, whole funerals of them," he only employed the word representing the greatest combination of length and numbers with which his experience had rendered him acquainted. veniently high, if not alarming. In some districts from ten to fifteen of these wanderers will daily implore alms at a wayside cottage or in a lonely village, while the men are busy in the fields, and as their wives and daughters, partly from good nature and partly from fear, hardly like to refuse a crust, no inconsiderable tax is levied on the honest and the industrious. It is only those parts of the country which offer unusual attractions to the vagabond which are subjected to such a visitation as this; but no place is entirely free from From the style of their speech, one annoyance. According to one estimate, would naturally infer what is the fact, that the number of tramps in Germany last when they get the chance the peasantry year amounted to two hundred thousand, of Ireland read, and read widely. Unfor- and the expense they caused the commutunately, the supply at their command, nity to seventy-two million marks, or both in quantity and quality, is entirely about £3,600,000; and though, from the unworthy of the appetite they display. difficulty of obtaining accurate informaNevertheless, I am inclined to believe tion, it is impossible to rely on such a that although they may have drawn their calculation, most of those who have made knowledge from untrustworthy sources, the matter a subject of study seem to the Irish peasantry know more of their think it fairly correct. It would be a great past history than the average Irish gentry. mistake to look upon all these wayfarers The state of literary destitution in the as idle or improvident. Many of them society of an Irish provincial town is are honestly in search of employment in really lamentable. And yet there is a their various professions; indeed almost counterbalancing advantage in the fresh- all seem to have begun their wanderings ness, brightness, and humor, so often to with the best intentions; but by degrees be met with in the conversation of Irish- they are apt to lose their taste for regular men and Irishwomen of all ages who have work and a settled life, and so a large and never muddled their heads with culture or growing class has been formed which is suffered from over-pressure. There are contented to live upon alms, which bears several such men within my own acquaint- the hunger of to day in the hope of the ance, who, whether as original humorists orgies of to-morrow, and so wanders from or as retailers of anecdote, have for all place to place, not to seek, but to avoid their lives been supplying food for honest work. As this state of things is comparalaughter, a by no means common com- tively new to the country, it is not strange modity nowadays, and yet because they that it should have excited attention, and are lazy themselves, or have no Boswells that great efforts should be made both by about them, all this wealth of fun will be the authorities and by private charity to lost to the world. meet the evil. It is from the writings of those who are actively engaged in this good work, especially from a little pamphlet by Herr von Bodelschwingh, a clergyman whose self-devoted efforts have been rewarded by considerable success at Wilhelmsdorf, that we take most of the following particulars with respect to the life of the contemporary German tramp. He can boast of a descent which is both ancient and respectable. From time immemorial the Wanderjahre have been recognized as a distinct period in the life of the German handicraftsman, and almost as a necessary part of his education. As soon as his apprenticeship was over, it used to be considered a matter of course that he should shoulder his knapsack and go out into the world to seek employment, if not a fortune. Unless he had very In conclusion, let me say to those of your readers who have followed me thus far, that the best literary reconstruction of the humor of Irish peasant speech is to be found in the inimitable Irish stories of the late Joseph Sheridan Lefanu; as the best sketches of the Irish character, in its latest phase, are to be met with in the pages of Terence McGrath's "Pictures." M. From The Saturday Review. Of late years the number of German tramps has been steadily increasing until it has reached a figure which is incon pressing reasons for doing so, the youth | meat, beer, and spirits which had been the who stayed at home was considered a occasional luxuries of their youth were milksop, unworthy of the freedom that was now regarded as daily necessaries, and so now his by right. With a few thalers in the small sums they had saved from the his pocket, and all his other possessions wreck were soon spent. In the mean upon his shoulders, the young tailor, time, the relaxation of the police regulasmith, or watchmaker, started on his trav- tions had enabled men of the most dis els. While his money lasted, he led a reputable character to establish inns which pleasant and careless life in the open air, were supported chiefly by vagabonds and and the little inns frequented by persons beggars, and these the workmen were soon of his class. When it reached a low ebb, obliged to frequent. However small their he sought for work in some neighboring store, they were sure of a hearty welcome, town. How long he remained in his new and were freely supplied with food and position depended upon circumstances. spirits, for which afterwards their tools, In summer it was seldom longer than their clothes, and even their papers, were enabled him to earn money enough to re- held as a pledge. Indeed, the host resume his vagrant life. When autumn garded the latter as a valuable piece of came, he grew critical as to the character property, as he could sell or hire them out of the masters, and made full inquiry of to confirmed vagabonds, who were thus his companions as to the mistress's liber-enabled to impose on the more discreet of ality with respect to diet, before he ap- the charitable. When he had his guest plied for work; for it would have been entirely in his power, he introduced him unpleasant to have to turn out again in the to a friend, who instructed him in the ice and snow. Two or three years would whole art of professional begging. This, be passed in this way, and then the wan- according to Herr Von Bodelschwingh, is derer would fall in love, and either return usually the first stage in the German home or settle down in the place in which tramp's progress; and he adds that these he happened to be. This harmless body vagabond inns are usually provided with a of wandering craftsmen seems to have complete list of the houses at which alms formed the centre round which the great may be expected, and of the good-natured, army of tramps that now afflicts Germany but unscrupulous, cooks who give food to has formed. Even in the old days there beggars without the knowledge of their were, of course, black sheep among the employers. This, we believe, is also the Handwerksburschen; but the authorities case in many English lodging-houses; insoon discovered these, and kept their eyes deed, there is a sameness about the life upon them. If a man was evidently living of the criminal and semi-criminal classes upon alms instead of seeking employment, in all countries which makes it, on the he soon found that the good-natured in whole, an uninteresting subject. The dulgence with which he was accustomed sudden growth of vagrancy in Germany to be treated had come to an end. An rendered it worth while to dwell upon elderly wanderer was always regarded some of the causes of a phenomenon which with suspicion if he made any claim on is exciting considerable alarm. There public charity, for it was generally thought can be little doubt that the occasional that, though circumstances might compel begging of the Handwerksburschen has him to change his place of residence, he rendered the transition to vagabondage ought to have saved enough to be able to pure and simple easier than it would do so at his own expense; and without otherwise have been to many workmen, straining their powers the police were able and we fear that the Wanderjahre which to make the most indolent feel that honest have played so large a part in the popular work was less disagreeable than a con- life, fiction, and poetry of Germany are stant series of indignities and vexations. now doomed. It was one of those insti We have already said that almost all of tutions which could only exist under conthem set out with the best intentions. ditions which modern ideas rather than Work was all they asked or hoped for. modern circumstances have rendered imBut their short period of prosperity had possible. Whether the comparative free. rendered them improvident. They had dom from the rule of the police, which been earning four or five times as much every German subject now enjoys, affords as they had ever done before, and as they the young handicraftsman an adequate believed that the age of gold would last at compensation for the loss of his few years least as long as the unity of the Empire, of youthful travel is another question, and they had spent what they earned. The one to which we shall attempt no reply. From The Spectator. AMID the smoke and stir of this feverishly active century, it is a refreshment to hear of a quiet but earnest attempt to revive a long-disused and very peaceful industry. Time was when spinning played such an important part in a woman's existence that, as Grimm observes, it came to be regarded as her sole occupation, nay more, as her very life and being. Our own legal code appears to have taken precisely the same view, for the only portion of the female sex which up to the last year or two seemed to have any claim to be recognized by it at all, was recognized by the appellation "spinster." And yet for the last sixty or seventy years all spinning-wheels have been silent. I well remember a lumber-room in my grand father's house, into which, when a child, I¦ used to peep and see more than a dozen old ones; some were prettily inlaid with mother-of-pearl, but all of them were overlaid with other wheels made by spiders, and thickly covered with layers of white dust. My poor grandmother used to look very sad when I asked about these spinning-wheels; they were hers, and her mother's, and her grandmother's, and no doubt she sometimes fancied she heard the whirr which feet that trod the earth no longer had once set in motion. She herself had, as she averred with gentle triumph, "spun a rare good thread in her day;" but when I asked her why she did not go on spinning good thread, her answer was, "No one spins now," and if I pushed my inquiries further, I was told it was easy enough to spin, but that there was no way of getting the thread you made used, for there were no hand-looms now. That, no doubt, summed up the whole difficulty. Every little group of villages once had its weaver, to whom the good housewife could take the fruit of her own industry, or the thread she had charitably bought of her poor but industrious neighbors. By his help she could either have this converted into good sheets, or perhaps satisfy some dimly perceived longing for art pleasure by choosing a lovely design of flowers and foliage, or strange, outlandish birds for a best table-cloth. Much earnest thought was given in those days to patterns for table-linen, and one of the truest touches in George Eliot's "Mill on the Floss" is the contempt which the sister who "held with a sprig" felt for the sister who had always "held with a spot." A spot was utterly commonplace, and to be satisfied with a spot when she might About twelve months ago Mr. Albert Fleming, a devout disciple of Mr. Ruskin's and a companion of the Guild of St. George, while pondering how to find some way of helping certain poor women living on the fell-sides above Elterwater and its neighborhood, had the happy thought that it might be a good thing to try to revive what Wordsworth calls "the venerable art torn from the poor." The women Mr. Fleming wished to help were too old to go out to clean, and too blind to sew. Spinning is a work which can be carried on at home. It can, as needle women say, "be taken up and put down," that is, it can be done during odd moments of leisure. What is more, it does not require much eyesight. The difficulty was to find a spinning-wheel, for all those once in use in this valley had, as the local expression goes, long since been "broken down." A wheel was, however, found in that storehouse of ancient things, the Isle of Man; and then an old woman of eighty-four was found whose fingers had not forgotten their cunning. She taught Mr. Fleming, and gradually a few infirm old wheels were got together from various parts of the country, and from these he pieced together a model from which a clever local carpenter made fifteen new ones. Mr. Fleming's next step was to take a cottage, which he dedicated to St. Martin, whose typical act was clothing the poor. Here, with the help of a clever and kind lady friend, classes were held, and here wheels are now busily at work in the Dales, — or, in other words, that twenty women who could not otherwise have earned a penny are now feeling honest pride in helping to provide for their fam Mr. Fleming himself taught many of the 66 Their cottages, too, are much brighter than they used to be, for it is part of a woman's religion to put everything in order before sitting down to work. The Langdale loom produces a strong and thoroughly honest sheeting that can be trusted to outwear many a machinemade rival. It is forty inches wide, and sells readily at 4s. a yard. Some specimens were recently presented to Mr. Ruskin. They were of a finer quality, and had been expressly woven for him. In the corner was embroidered, in soft silks, the lovely cluster of roses from the gar ment of spring in Botticelli's famous picture of Venus. This cluster stands on the title-page of "Fors Clavigera," on the flyleaf of all Mr. Ruskin's books, and has come to be regarded as the badge of St. George's Guild. Besides linen sheeting of various degrees of fineness, the workers in St. Martin's Home produce an unbleached linen so good in tone and texture, that when known it is certain to be in great demand for crewel-work and other kinds of embroidery. It is impossible not to feel a hearty_interest in Mr. Fleming's undertaking. To clothe the naked and feed the hungry is an excellent work, but it is more excellent still to put them in the way of earning their food and clothing for themselves. M. H. EXTRACTS OF TEA AND COFFEE AS SUBSTITUTES FOR COCA AND GUARANA. Dr. Squibb, in the Ephemeris, quoted by the Detroit Lancet, gives in detail the reasons why he has sought to bring to the notice of the profession the extracts of tea and coffee as substitutes for the extracts of coca and guarana. Briefly, he found by observation and experiment, that there was but little of good coca and guarana to be found in the market. The price asked for the poor article was very large. As a result, the profession has been asking the people to buy poor inefficient drugs at a high price. The results have been very unsatisfactory, both to scientific physicians and to patients. To obtain a real substitute for these drugs, Dr. Squibb has taken the trouble to make careful physiological tests. All of these drugs contain caffeine, or an alkaloid having an analogous action. Apparently most of their virtues depend upon this alkaloid Hence he took as a standard a dose of caffeine which would always, under definite conditions, pro- |