AN IRISH ENCORE.
We certainly are a very original people, and contrive to do everything after a way of our own! Not content with cementing our friendships by fighting, and making the death of a relative the occasion of a merry evening, we even convert the habits we borrow from other land into something essentially different from their original intention, and infuse into them a spirit quite national. The echo which, when asked “How d'ye do, Paddy Blake?” replied, “Mighty well, thank you,” could only have been an Irish echo. Any other country would have sulkily responded, “Blake—ake—ake—ake,” in diminuendo to the end of the chapter. But there is a courtesy, an attention, a native politeness on our side of the channel, it is in vain to seek elsewhere. A very strong instance in point occurs in a morning paper before me, and one so delightfully characteristic of our habits and customs, it would be unpardonable to pass it without commemoration. At an evening concert at the Rotundo, we are informed that Mr Knight—I believe his name is—enchanted his audience by the charming manner he sung “Molly Astore.” Three distinct rounds of applause followed, and an encore that actually shook the building, and may—though we are not informed of the circumstance—have produced very remarkable effects in the adjacent institution; upon which Mr. Knight, with his habitual courtesy, came forward and sang—what, think ye, good reader? Of course you will say, “Molly Astore,” the song he was encored for. Alas! for your ignorance;—that might do very well in Liverpool or Manchester, at Bath, Bristol, or Birmingham—the poor benighted Saxons there might like to get what they asked so eagerly for; but we are men of very different mould, and not accustomed to the jog-trot subserviency of such common-sense notions; and accordingly, Mr. Knight sang “The Soldier Tired”—a piece of politeness on his part that actually convulsed the house with acclamations; and so on to the end of the entertainment, “the gentleman, when encored, invariably sang a new song”—I quote the paper verbatim—“which testimony of his anxiety to meet the wishes of the audience afforded universal satisfaction.”
Now, I ask—and I ask it in all the tranquillity of triumph—show me the country on a map where such a studied piece of courteous civility could have been practised, or which, if attempted, could have been so thoroughly, so instantaneously appreciated. And what an insight does it give us into some of the most difficult features of our national character. May not this Irish encore explain the success with which Mr. O'Connell consoles our “poverty” by attacks on the clergy, and relieves our years of scarcity by creating forty-shilling freeholders. We ask for bread; and he tells us we are a great people—we beg for work, and he replies, that we must have repeal of the union—we complain of our poverty, and his remedy is—subscribe to the rent. Your heavy-headed Englishman—your clod-hopper from Yorkshire—or your boor from Northumberland, would never understand this, if you gave him a life-long to con over it. Norfolk pudding to his gross and sensual nature would seem better than the new registration bill; and he'd rather hear the simmering music of the boiled beef for his dinner, than all the rabid ruffianism of a repeal meeting.
But to come back to ourselves. What bold and ample views of life do our free-and-easy habits disclose to us, not to speak of the very servant at table, who will often help you to soup, when you ask for sherry, and give you preserves, when you beg for pepper. What amiable cross-purposes are we always playing at—not bigotedly adhering to our own narrow notions, and following out our own petty views of life, but eagerly doing what we have no concern in, and meritoriously performing for our friends, what they had been well pleased, we'd have let alone.
This amiable waywardness—this pleasing uncertainty of purpose—characterises our very climate; and the day that breaks in sunshine becomes stormy at noon, calm towards evening, and blows a hurricane all night. So the Irishman that quits his home brimful of philanthropy is not unlikely to rob a church before his return. But so it is, there is nobody like us in any respect. We commemorate the advent of a sovereign by erecting a testimonial to the last spot he stood on at his departure; and we are enthusiastic in our gratitude when, having asked for one favour, we receive something as unlike it as possible.
Our friends at the other side are beginning to legislate for us in the true spirit of our prejudices; and when we have complained of “a beggared proprietary and a ruined gentry,” they have bolstered up our weakness with the new poor law. So much for an Irish encore.
“The sixth of Anne, chap, seventeen, makes it unlawful to keep gaming-houses in any part of the city except the 'Castle,' and prohibits any game being played even there except during the residence of the Lord Lieutenant. This act is still on the statute book.”—Dublin Paper.
One might puzzle himself for a very long time for an explanation of this strange morceau of legislation, without any hope of arriving at a shadow of a reason for it.
That gaming should be suppressed by a government is in no wise unnatural; nor should we feel any surprise at our legislature having been a century in advance of France, in the due restriction of this demoralizing practice. But that the exercise of a vice should be limited to the highest offices of the state is, indeed, singular, and demands no little reflection on our part to investigate the cause.
Had the functions of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland been of that drowsy, tiresome, uninteresting nature, that it was only deemed fair by the legislature to afford him some amusing pastime to distract his “ennui” and dispel his melancholy, there might seem to have been then some reason for this extraordinary enactment. On the contrary, however, every one knows that from the remotest times to the present, every viceroy of Ireland has had quite enough on his hands. Some have been saving money to pay off old mortgages, others were farming the Phoenix; some took to the King Cambyses' vein, like poor dear Lord Normanby—raked up all the old properties and faded finery of the Castle, and with such material as they could collect, made a kind of Drury-lane representation of a court. And very lately, and with an originality so truly characteristic of true genius, Lord Ebrington struck out a line of his own, and slept away his time with such a persevering intensity of purpose, that “the least wide-awake” persons of his government became actually ashamed of themselves. But to go back. What, I would ask, was the intention of this act? I know you give it up. Well, now, I have made the matter the subject of long and serious thought, and I think I have discovered it.
Have you ever read, in the laws of the smaller German states, the singular rules and regulations regarding the gaming-table? If so, you will have found how the entire property of the “rouge et noi” and “roulette” is vested in certain individuals in return for very considerable sums of money, paid by them to the government, for the privilege of robbing the public. These honourable and estimable people farm out iniquity as you would do your demesne, selling the cheatable features of mankind, like the new corn law, on the principle of “a general average.” The government of these states, finding—no uncommon thing in Germany—a deficiency in their exchequer, have hit upon this ready method of supplying the gap, by a system which has all the regularity of a tax, with the advantage of a voluntary contribution. These little kingdoms, therefore, of some half-dozen miles in circumference, are nothing more than rouge et noir tables, where the grand duke performs the part of croupier, and gathers in the gold. Now, I am convinced that something of this kind was intended by our lawgivers in the act of parliament to which I have alluded, and that its programme might run thus—that “as the office of Lord Lieutenant in Ireland is one of great responsibility, high trust, and necessarily demanding profuse expenditure; and that, as it may so happen that the same should, in the course of events, be filled by some Whig-Radical viceroy of great pretension and little property; and that as the ordinary sum for maintaining his dignity may be deemed insufficient, we hereby give him the exclusive liberty and privilege of all games of chance, skill, or address, in the kingdom of Ireland, whether the same may be chicken-hazard, blind hookey, head and tail, &c.—thimble-rigging was only known later—to be enjoyed by himself only, or by persons deputed by him; such privilege in nowise to extend to the lords justices, but only to exist during the actual residence and presence of the Lord Lieutenant himself.”—See the Act.
I cannot but admire the admirable tact that dictated this portion of legislation; at the same time, it does seem a little hard that the chancellor, the archbishop, and the other high functionaries, who administer the law in the absence of the viceroy, should not have been permitted the small privilege of a little unlimited loo, or even beggar-my-neighbour, particularly as the latter game is the popular one in Ireland.
There would seem, too, something like an appreciation of our national character in the spirit of this law, which, unhappily for England, and Ireland, too, has not always dictated her enactments concerning us. It is well known that we hate and abhor anything in the shape of a legal debt. Few Irishmen will refuse you the loan of five pounds; still fewer can persuade themselves to pay five shillings. The kingdom of Galway has long been celebrated for its enlightened notions on this subject, showing how much more conducive it is to personal independence and domestic economy, to spend five hundred pounds in resisting a claim, than to satisfy it by the payment of twenty. Accordingly, had any direct taxation of considerable amount been proposed for the support of viceregal dignity, the chances are—much as we like show and glitter, ardently as we admire all that gives us the semblance of a state—we should have buttoned up our pockets, and upon the principle of those economical little tracts, that teach us to do so much for ourselves, every man would have resolved to be “his own Lord Lieutenant;” coming, however, in the shape of an indirect taxation, a voluntary contribution to be withheld at leasure, the thing was unobjectionable.
You might not like cards, still less the company—a very possible circumstance, the latter, in some times we wot of not long since—Well, then, you saved your cash and your character by staying at home; on the other hand, it was a comfort to know that you could have your rubber of “shorts” or your game at écarté, while at the same time you were contributing to the maintenance of the crown, and discharging the devoirs of a loyal subject It is useless, however, to speculate upon an obsolete institution; the law has fallen into disuse, and the more is the pity. How one would like to have seen Lord Normanby, with that one curl of infantine simplicity that played upon his forehead, with that eternal leer of self-satisfied loveliness that rested on his features, playing banker at rouge et noir, or calling the throws at hazard. I am not quite so sure that the concern would have been so profitable as picturesque. The principal frequenters of his court were “York too;” Lord Plunket was a “downy cove;” and if Anthony Black took the box, most assuredly “I'd back the caster.” Now and then, to be sure, a stray, misguided country gentleman—a kind of “wet Tory”—used to be found at that court; just as one sees some respectable matronly woman at Ems or Baden, seated in a happy unconsciousness that all the company about her are rogues and swindlers, so he might afford some good sport, and assist to replenish the famished exchequer. Generally speaking, however, the play would not have kept the tables; and his lordship would have been in for the wax-lights, without the slightest chance of return.
As for his successor, “patience” would have been his only game; and indeed it was one he had to practise whilst he remained amongst us. Better days have now come: let us, therefore, inquire if a slight modification of the act might not be effected with benefit, and an amendment, somewhat thus, be introduced into the bill:—“That the words 'Lord Mayor' be substituted for the words 'Lord Lieutenant;' and that all the privileges, rights, immunities, &c, aforesaid, be enjoyed by him to his sole use and benefit; and also that, in place of the word 'Castle,' the word 'Mansion-house' stand part of this bill”—thus reserving to his lordship all monopoly in games of chance and address, without in anywise interfering with such practices of the like nature exercised by him elsewhere, and always permitted and conceded by whatever government in power.
Here, my dear countrymen, is no common suggestion. I am no prophet, like Sir Harcourt Lees; but still I venture to predict, that this system once legalised at the Mayoralty, the tribute is totally unnecessary. The little town of Spa, with scarce 10,000 inhabitants, pays the Belgian government 200,000 francs per annum for the liberty: what would Dublin—a city so populous and so idle? only think of the tail!—how admirably they could employ their little talent as “bonnets,” and the various other functionaries so essential to the well-being of a gambling-house; and, lastly, think of great Dan himself, with his burly look, seated in civic dignity at the green cloth, with a rake instead of a mace before him, calling out, “Make your game, gentlemen, make your game”—“Never venture, never win”—“Faint heart,” &c, &c.
How suitable would the eloquence that has now grown tiresome, even at the Corn Exchange, be at the head of a gaming-table; and how well would the Liberator conduct a business whose motto is so admirably expressed by the phrase, “Heads, I win; tails, you lose.” Besides, after all, nothing could form so efficient a bond of union between the two contending parties in the country as some little mutual territory of wickedness, where both might forget their virtues and their grievances together. Here you 'd soon have the violent party-man of either side, oblivious of everything but his chance of gain; and what an energy would it give to the great Daniel to think that, while filling his pockets, he was also spoiling the Egyptians! Instead, therefore, of making the poor man contribute his penny, and the ragged man twopence, you'd have the Rent supplied without the trouble of collection; and all from the affluent and the easy, or at least the idle, portion of the community.
This is the second time I have thrown out a suggestion—and all for nothing, remember—on the subject of a finance; and little reflection will show that both my schemes are undeniable in their benefits. Here you have one of the most expensive pleasures a poor country has ever ventured to afford itself—a hired agitator, pensioned, without any burden on the productive industry of the land; and he himself, so far from having anything to complain of, will find that his revenue is more than quadrupled.
Look at the question, besides, in another point of view, and see what possible advantages may arise from it. Nothing is so admirable an antidote to all political excitement as gambling: where it flourishes, men become so inextricably involved in its fascinations and attractions that they forget everything else. Now, was ever a country so urgently in want of a little repose as ours? and would it not be well to purchase it, and pension off our great disturbers, at any price whatever? Cards are better than carding any day; short whist is an admirable substitute for insurrection; and the rattle of a dice-box is surely as pleasant music as the ruffian snout for repeal.