Flying visits online

and the game — well, it was about as high as the hotel
bill, and thafs saying something. So, being wise in
his generation, he simply took the first boat back to

England. I believe Mr. A is a Unionist now.

• . . The city is crammed, so we are at the mercy



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FLYING VISITS. 19

of the hotel vampire^ who is busily sucking the gold
out of the unfortunate visitors' pockets. It is well we
booked rooms beforehand. I had a gorgeous bedroom



allotted to me^ but notwithstanding my surroundings^
the first night I turned in the arms of Morpheus posi -
tively declined to enfold me. This I put down to the
change of climate ; but on the second night I felt as
if I were in a Turkish bath, and the night after I
imagined I was being baked in an extra hot oven.
My temperature was at fever-heat ; but in answer to
all my inquiries they assured me that the kitchen
fires were on the other side of the hotel. However, a
friend of mine, also a visitor, who happened to be on
the Health Committee, and who knew something about
practical sanitation, was horrified to find me in such
a vapor bath, and quickly rescued me^ just as I was
on the point of being cooked alive. It was then ac-



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20 FLYING VISITS.

knowledged that my bedroom was right over the hotel
fires. Upon this I was relegated to another room,
where sleep was equally impossible, owing to the noise
of the stone pavements, the tramways, and the rat-
tling of the draughty windows. After that I was
removed to some box under the stairs {I will not dig-
nify it by the name of bedroom), and eventually, out
of compassion for me, my friend vacated his room —
the only habitable one in the place, I believe — in my
favor, . . . As you can guess, J have not very
much time for festive gatherings, but I was fortunate
enough to renew acquaintance with a charming lady
whom I had met during the London season, who has
been very kind to us here, and with whom we spent a
most enjoyable evening at her quaint and picturesque
country house, at Dalkey. On Sunday I had the
pleasure of dining with an old acquaintance, in the

person of Dr. H , at whose hospitable house I met

the genial editor of the " Irish Times " and other de*
light ful representative people.

Yours, etc.^




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AFTER THE HORSE SHOW'S
OVER."



s:



Irish Celebrities—Dublin in Darkness—** Liberty ! "—Typical
incongruities— The permanent Lord Mayor of Dublin—
The fiery, untamed athlete — Football extraordinary-
Curious cricket — Enthusiastic Parnellites — Between
Scylla and Charybdis.

over, Dublin
:kly emptied.
The Presi-
dent of the
Show, Sir
Thomas But-
^ ler, whom I
sketch here,
umbrella in
hand, is to be congratulated on the success
of the Show this year. I find that on the
same page of my notebook is a slight sketch
of the two leading lights of Ireland. One
looks like a well-to-do farmer, always jolly and
rubicund; the other seems to bear a strong
resemblance to the *' sporting gent" in a
modern drama. They are hurried notes, and



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22



FLYING VISITS.



I publish them just
as they were made
on the spot.

It would be well
for Dublin if its brill-
iancy were not con-
fined to one week in
the year, and the
other fifty-one left in
darkness ; for after
dusk the streets of



the city are disgrace-
fully lighted, and what
Dublin wants is a
scavenger, an elec-
trical engineer, and a
wood pavior. You can't
see the names of the
streets, and to read an



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''AFTER THE HORSE SHOW'S OVER:' 23

address you have to go in search of a lamp-
post, and climb halfway up to get any h'ght
from the scanty illuminations of the city, and
you run the risk in doing so of tumbling down
upon the good-natured priest who is standing



underneath, endeavoring to decipher the
columns of the Natioiial Press by the light of
the ** gas-lamp dimly burning."

The Irish are always crying out for Liberty,
but the Hibernian who said, " We don't know
exactly what we want, but we mean to have
it," might well be informed the Liberty they
most require is the well-known firm of that



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24 FLYING VISITS.

name hailing from Regent Street. It is strange
that the native city of that great advocate of
aestheticism, Oscar Wilde, should turn a deaf
ear to the teachings of
the Postlethwaitian school.
The Irish, to judge from
their houses, are quite
devoid of all artistic
taste, and it makes one
shudder to see the vile
decorations and furniture
of the worst period of
taste in the Victorian era
still untouched in Ireland.
In England the £^o sub-
urban villa of the hard-
worked City clerk would
\ put to shame the arrange-
ments in the houses of
the dlite of Ireland ; in
fact the chief character-
istic of the Irish I may
venture to say is a want
of thoroughness. They are never thorough in
anything they do, individually or collectively,
and this is why they must always play second
fiddle to the sister isle in the British orchestra.



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''AFTER THE HORSE SHOW'S OVER:' 2$

For example, you go into one of the
principal restaurants in Dublin : everything
possible is done to pander to tTie taste of the
lover of display and splendor. The pillars
are enveloped in plush and lavishly gilt,
flowering plants of various descriptions are
placed on every window-ledge, huge tropical
ferns, standing in beautifully-finished tubs of
polished wood, resplendent with fittings of
brightly burnished brass, form a perfect
canopy above with their wide - spreading
leaves. Everything, in fact, is on a scale
magnificent enough to vie with any other
establishment of the kind elsewhere ; but the
plush round the pillars shows a gaping seam
from top to bottom, the plants in the windows
are placed in old biscuit boxes wrapped round
with paper, while the gorgeous tubs containing
the ferns are placed upon empty rough deal
wine cases.

In the Mansion House the best of banquets
is provided by the best of Lord Mayors:
everything is carried out to the minutest
details, and the Saxon guest might almost
imagine he was in the Guildhall ; but the
gorgeous flunkeys, with all their brilliant
finery, have not taken the trouble to button



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26 FLYING VISITS.

the knees of their plush breeches, and their
stockings hang in wrinkles over their ankles,
in contrast to* Mr. White, their chief, who is
known as the permanent Lord Mayor of

Dublin. The ban-
quet is gastro-
nomically perfect,
but you find a loaf
of Irish bread is
put by the side of
your plate instead
of the neat and
more appetizing
3 French roll. A
' well-built carriage,
turned out in style,
and horsed to per-
fection, will be
awaiting you, but
the coachman will
have a hat green
with age, and his
boots will be more
suited for the
stable-yard. If by some odd chance the Jehu
is in keeping with the equipage, probably the
handle of the carriage- door has at some time



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''AFTER THE HORSE SHOW'S OVER:' 27

or Other been broken off, and is now tied up
with a bit of string. But perhaps the artistic
eye should not be too severe in its criticisms
of a nation whose country, above all others,
stands as the typical land of hospitality.

Quite recently Dublin has been receiving
the Institute of Journalists and the Chamber
of Commerce ; but should they ever invite the
Sunday Obser-



vance Society to J
Ireland, I wonder '



what they (the
S.O.S.) would
say if they
chanced to stroll
through Phoenix
Park on a Sun-
day morning, the
time usually
selected by the
fiery, untamed
athlete of '' Ould
Oireland" to
work off his su-
perfluous energy.

On entering the gates you are not solicited
by poke-bonneted lasses to invest in the



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28 FLYING VISITS.

War Cry or a varied selection of tracts,
but extraordinary wooden instruments, which
I thought were boomerangs on an enlarged
scale, are offered on the hire system. And if
you go a little further the whole Park seems



alive with holiday makers, more or less clad,
and the air is rent with wild, ear-piercing yells
peculiar to the sons of Erin ; in strong con-
trast to the comparative quiet of Hyde Park
or Hampstead Heath on a Sabbath morning,
Phoenix Park is a perfect Pandemonium.

The aforesaid truculent-looking clubs turn
out to be Irish hockey sticks, wielded by men



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''AFTER THE HORSE SHOW'S OVER:' 29

and boys clad for the most part in tatter-
demalion attire. Whack ! whack ! whack !
they drive the ball all over the field, these
immense clubs whizzing round their heads
like the national shillelah, and it is an ex-
traordinary thing that among all this banging
and club swinging the majority of the partici-
pants preferred to play in bare feet. As my
hat was in jeopardy, I moved on, and came
across a crowd of footballers, or, more properly
speaking, several crowds, for there seemed to
be teams spread all over the magnificent
Dublin football ground, and each side con-
sisted of close on a hundred members. My
travelling companion, who is a football enthu-
siast himself, nearly fainted at the incongruous
mixture of attire of the different players
engaged in this desperate meUey and spent a
long time looking on in the vain endeavor to
fathom the mystic rules which governed this
truly extraordinary game. Cricket at another
point was carried on in the same original way.
The batting-side gamble at cards by the side
of the scorers till their turn comes to go in,
and then the fielders have to wait while
" Tirence " plays his hand out before he takes
up his bat. The more juvenile athletes I



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30 FLYING VISITS.

show in my sketch were also of the fiery un-
tamed persuasion, and their costume and
antics defy description.

The following Sunday I avoided the Park,



X - / '



not because I was uninterested in the Sunday
recreations of this human *' oUapodrida,*' but
because I heard that there was a political
meeting in the Park, and I had had more
than enough of such gatherings, so I remained
in my hotel. Just when I was dressing for
dinner, the more or less musical strains of
approaching bands smote upon my ear, and
soon music, shouting, and cheering seemed to
surround the hotel. I went down, and there
saw, standing in a brake and haranguing a



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''AFTER THE HORSE SHOW'S OVER:' 3 1

surging mass of people, the familiar figure of
Charles Stewart Parnell. He descended from
the wagon at the close of his oration, and
literally fought his way into the hotel, while
his admirers, who had invaded the hall, clung
to his coat-tails till they were summarily
ejected by the hotel servants, I am thankful



to say this is all I saw of political life in
Ireland.

My travelling companion had a peculiar
little experience in Dublin, which gives an in-
sight into the absurd state of political feeling



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32 FLYING VISITS.

in that city. While walking with two Dublin
acquaintances over the bridge leading into the
principal street, he made some casual remark
about Sackville Street not having altered much
of late years, whereupon the friend on his right
turned upon him with :

**Shure,if it's Sackville Sthrate ye're after
callin' it, it's dropping yer into the Lififey Oi'll
be ! It's O'Connell Sthrate ! "

Well, as differences of opinion with an ex-
cited son of Erin are apt to be detrimental to
the symmetry of one's features, and as the
name was a matter of total indifference to my
companion, he acquiesced, saying :

" All right, O'Connell Street it is then ! "

When the friend on his left jumped round,
shillelah on high, and roared :

** Call it O'Connell Sthrate in moi prisince,
bedad, and Oi'll hold yer head under the furst
thram-car that comes along ! "

My perplexed companion, in this awkward
dilemma, might not inaptly be termed an Eng-
lish rose between two Irish blackthorns !



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w



Dublin.



My dear J/.,

Thanks for the press cuttings you sent me^
containing the screeching criticisms of the Irish press
upon my articles in " Black and White.^' Of course I
shall take no notice of them : I- have only pity fof their
utter want of common sense. It is a very curious fact
that the French and the Irish, who are par excellence
the jesters of Europe, frequently making themselves
the butt of their own jokes, cannot stand the slightest
chaff or fair criticism. I suppose it is their having
this trait in common that makes Pat and Alphonse
such friends. As long as you flatter an Irishman, so
long will he bless you; but be frank with him, and he
curses you. I think this was very neatly summed up



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FLYING VISITS. 35

by a drawing of Charles Keene's which appeared in
" Punchy' of an old Irishwoman soliciting alms from
a local doctor,

" Won't ye give me a copper ^ docther dear f Thry,
noWy if ye haven't wan penny convanient ! and may
the blissid saints increase ye / "

" Stand aside, my good woman, I've nothing for
you,"

" Oh^ thiny the Lard presarve yer eyesight, for the
divil a nose ye have to mount the * specs ' upon I "

But it is a good thing that this only applies to the
majority of the Irish in their own country. No one
laughs more at the idiosyncrasies of his stop-at-home
countryman than does the Irishman you meet in Eng-
land and elsewhere ; and I am proud to say that I
number among my friends a great many Irish people
indeed. Some of them I have met here have laughed
heartily over the criticisms you sent me, . . . It
is rather flattering to find the long and highly eulo-
gistic criticisms of my performance followed by big
houses^ and certainly no actor has been more honored
both by audiences and press notices ; but then mem*
bers of the profession show their cleverness in giving
effect to the lines of others, and their duties are re-
stricted to the boards. Should an actor be his own
author y manager, and scene-painter, a7td at the same



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36 FLYING VISITS.

time fill up his spare moments by practising in another
prof essiony journalism to wity and should he chance to
be a man out of the common who treats things he sees
in anything but the stodgy orthodox twaddle of the
globe-trotter y he would never visit an Irish town the
second time. The people pay their money to hear me
as a satirist on the platform^ and they expect me to
wash off the critical and satirical side of my nature
as soon as I leave the boards after amusing them^just
as an actor washes off his paint and removes his
make-up : to use their own words^ " in that style which
is peculiarly his own, the style which makes anyone
who looks at 07ie of his cartoons in * Punch ' feel that
they know ' Harry FurnisSy he at once set the audi-
ence at their ease^ making them feel in a much more
increased degree that they too knew the eminent cari-
caturist as intimately as if they had been for years
his close companion. This is the charm of Mr. Fur-
niss^s manfter'^ " The whole aim of his work is
friendly satire y^ and so on, and so on : and yet when
I amuse my English readers with equally friendly
satire on the subject of Ireland^ the old woman
representing the Press turns rounds just as the
old beggar woman did to the doctor y and anathema-
tizes me ; in the first place claiming me as an Irish-
man (a compliment I don't deserve )y and then express*



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FLYING VISITS. 37

ing herself as exceedingly and sincerely sorry that
Mr. Furniss's rotund little body wasn't well kicked
while he was here J' . . .
// is not my intention to
worry you with a long
letter y nor have I time to
waste upon such stuff and
nonsense ; but were I in-
clined to take matters
seriously^ I might reply ,
in tlie same vein as
Shelley did when he was
attacked : " When we
consider who makes this

accusation, and against whom, I need only rebut such
an accusation by silence and a smiled' But, after all,
isn't it sad that such balderdash should be printed?
I can tell you it highly amused me to see my portrait
as painted by the penny-a-liner. Some people said I
wouldn't succeed in London because I didn't come with
the orthodox half-crown in my pocket, but with a sub-
stantial banking account. However, I at once got into
harness with more work than I could do, or rather
draw ; and I have been pulling right up to the collar ever
since. So much for the facts of the penny- a-^lie "-ner !



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38 FLYING VISITS.

The Professor has just heard a very good sample of
an Irishism. His cabman^ who met him by the early
train, remarked to him that ^^Ifs a foine thing to git
up befoore ye go out in the mornitC ! " Of course every-
one in Dublin during this week must in duty bound go
to the Horse Show, so one day I gave the Professor a
ticket. In the evening I asked him what he thought
• of the magnificent show. He hesitated, coughed a lit-
tie, and then to my astonishment said that he hadn't
been there. " Ah, well, Horse Shows are not much in
my line; but I spent a very pleasant afternoon in
Glasnevin Cemetery ! " He also subsequently informed
us that he had paid a visit to the spot where Burke and
Cavendish were murdered. We are beginning to think
the Professor is of a very morbid turn of mind. • . .

Yours, etc.^




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ROUND BELFAST AT HIGH
PRESSURE.



Jottings en route— The Legs of the Law — ** When Constabu-
lary's duty's to be done " — Mr/* MacMoneygle" — Off! — An
Electrical Rush — Round the Town — A Mammoth Work-
shop — Nearly Cremated — We are frozen, baked, galvan-
ized, hammered, planed, tarred, and varnished — ** Flesh-
ers " — * * Far from the Madding Crowd " — The Spirit of
Belfast.

T IS curious that a hundred
miles should make such a
difference in the character of
a people as exists between the
inhabitants of Dublin and those
of Belfast. You notice the
change as you travel from frivo-
lous Dublin to money-making
Belfast in the train, by means
of the stranger who gets in for
short journeys. For most of the
distance you have the companion-
ship of clericals of a party that
now rules Irish opinion, but as
you approach Belfast their places are taken
by representatives of the Dissenters and
Episcopalians.




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40 FLYING VISITS.

The character of the people you see on the
railway platforftis undergoes a change ; in the
South we have the open-mouthed caricature of

the Hibernian
and an ** ould
Uady'' of the
same class; an
\ arm of the law
(legs of the
law, the R. I.
C. might well
be called,
judging from
the length of
their nether
limbs) stands
at attention.
Toward the
North the peo-
ple look keen-
er and more
well-to-do, and
when ''constabulary's duty's to be done" it
is done in a more agreeable fashion than in the
South, judging from this pretty little tite-h-Ute,
which I sketched at a station as the train
stopped. Belfast is neither Irish flesh, Eng-



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ROUND BELFAST AT HIGH PRESSURE. 41

Hsh fowl, nor good Scotch herring. It is a
conglomeration of various trades and national-
ities, a hotch-potch thick and strong.

The cheery ** Grand Juryman '' welcomed
us to his pala-
tial hotel, and
I spent most
of my week in
this comforta-
ble hostelry,
as Jupiter Plu-
vius, Boreas
and Co. were^
masters of the
situation, and
reigned su-
preme out of
doors. How-
ever, I man-
aged to see a
good deal of •
the Belfast
people, and
quite enough

of the city. I ought to say enough of the shop and
the shopkeepers, for Belfast is but a vast empo-
rium of commerce, and its inhabitants live, move.



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FLYING VISITS.



and have their being in the sole company of their
ledgers and tapes. They all worship at the shrine
of one firm, Messrs. Money, Grubber and Co.

Mr. ** MacMoneygle " is the true type of the
guide, philosopher, and friend, and the moment
I arrived, rushed into »my hotel, generously
throwing himself at my disposal, and offering
to pilot me through the mazy intricacies of Bel-
fast ; so, as I had only one afternoon to spare,
true to the instincts of the Saxon tourist, I ar-
ranged for him to show me as much as he could
of the town in that short space of time.

On the afternoon in question, a neat '* janting
kyar" is ready at the door to the minute ; and be-



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ROUND BELFAST AT HIGH PRESSURE. 43

fore mounting this vehicle in the well-known Irish
sideways fashion, the worthy MacM. rushes me
to an adjacent jeweller s, and my eyes glitter at
the sight of a gorgeous clock in the window,
bearing an inscription to the effect that it was a
present to the aforesaid MacM. on his wedding-
day. "Only married last week," explains that
individual. I congratulate him, as he shoves me
up on to the car, and off we go, only to pull up
the next minute opposite a splendid club-house.
I am dragged off the car, rushed up the
stairs, shown the dining-room, reading-room,
smoking-room, card-room, and billiard-room
without taking breath, am introduced to the
president, vice-president, secretary, and com-
mittee, and finally find myself shaking hands
with the waiters and hall-porters in the con-
fusion of this electrical rush through the club.
Up on the car again, and we stop before a
large factory for a few moments, in which I am
rapidly told the number of windows, the
height of the chimneys, the quantity of
employes, and the history, prospects, and a
genealogical tree of every partner in the firm.
I have just time to ejaculate, " Extraordinary,
wonderful, how interesting ! " when we are
whirled off again, only to be pulled up suddenly



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44 FLYING VISITS.

opposite another immense manufacturing con-
cern. Breathlessly I take in all the details of
this firm in a few seconds. " Wonderful, how
very marvel ! " Jerk ! I am thrown pros-
trate on my seat in this unwonted conveyance,
as we once more dart off with lightning
rapidity, and in twenty minutes I have
done twenty princely establishments in this
fashion, and my brain is a seething whirlpool
of statistics connected with the rise or fall of
each firm.

But the pt^ce de resistance has yet to come.
Our headlong race against time is checked
upon a bridge, and we are shown the river
thronged with shipping. Vessels of all sorts,
sizes, and nationalities all congregated there,
huddled together like sheep ; from the impos-
ing double-funnelled steamer and the lordly
brig, to the common or garden fishing-smack,
all the different means of aquatic locomotion
are represented, and a perfect forest of masts
rises skyward, like the quills of a gigantic
porcupine. To inform me of the tonnage,
build, horse-power, and speed of every boat
visible is the work of a moment. Then off
again, and in a couple of minutes we pull up
at the offices of a vast shipbuilding yard, where



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ROUND BELFAST AT HIGH PRESSURE. 45

the clang of hammers and the hissing of steam
betokens the combination of Capital and
Labor within.

We are hurriedly introduced to the courteous



manager, who sizing me up from top to toe, or,
in his own phraseology, from masthead to keel,
accompanies a vigorous handshake with the
remark, ** You look bigger on the stage, Mr.
Furniss ; " and, hurried on by the irrepressible
MacM., takes us in tow for a tour round the



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46 FLYING VISITS.

works. By a tortuous path over planks, beams,
huge pieces of wrought iron and colossal bolts






and rivets, we are conducted into an immense
shed, where, amid the glow from the furnaces
and the flying sparks from the forges, big,
swarthy smiths are wielding ponderous sledge-
hammers, causing the sparks to fly out from the
common centre like those of an exploding bomb.
These sparks we dodge, and are hurried up a
ladder to the shops where the fittings of the
big Transatlantic Liners are made, through



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ROUND BELFAST AT HIGH PRESSURE, 47

the lofty sheds where all the surplus stock is
stored, and where the cool air chills all the
marrow in your bones, rapidly down another
ladder, and finally come face to face with the
blast furnaces.

For our edification the doors of thes6 vast
ovens are thrown open, and, in the red-hot
glow in which we are suddenly bathed, we feel
our hair frizz to the roots, a smell of scorched