A Journey of a Jayhawker

by W. Y. Morgan

IRELAND.

FIRST DAY IN IRELAND.

Cork, Ireland, June 3.

The first vivid impression made upon me in Ireland was the morning after we landed. We had come ashore late at night at Queenstown, and except for the Irish names and Irish brogue there was nothing to indicate but that we were going through an American custom-house into an American hotel. But when we went to breakfast up came the waiter attired in full dress and extra long-tailed coat with a red vest. I had always supposed the pictures of an English or Irish waiter in such livery at breakfast was a joke. It is not a joke. It is a most serious and proper attire, and I suppose an Irish waiter in a first-class hotel would as soon appear to serve breakfast without any pants as without the long swallowtail coat. And when I saw that, I knew I was far away from home.

A European breakfast is “rolls and coffee.” In anticipation I had thought of hot rolls and delicious coffee. Put this down: There are no hot rolls in Ireland, and I am guessing there will be none in Europe. “Rolls” means plain, very plain, cold bread, hard and a trifle stale. The coffee is bum and the cream is skim-milk. An English hotel, for that is what Irish first-class hotels are, ought to put more into the eating and less into the waiter’s uniform. Along with other Americans at that first breakfast, we joined in a howl and managed to get some eggs.

Queenstown is one of the largest and best of the British harbors. It has an important navy yard and several English warships are anchored among the numerous merchant vessels. The town is on the side of a high hill which comes down to the water’s edge, and the narrow streets go up and down the slope at every angle except a right angle to the street along the waterfront. The chief resources of Queenstown are sailors and tourists, and the main occupations of the leading inhabitants are lodging-houses and saloons. Over nearly every store is the sign, “Licensed to sell ale, porter and spirits seven days in the week.”

THE IRISH JAUNTING (JOLTING) CAR.

There is nothing much to Queenstown except the quaintness that comes from age and dirt, and I have seen enough American towns with the same characteristics to make this an old story. But we walked and climbed to the top of the hill, and there I saw a panorama spread out before me which will stick to my memory a good long while. The large harbor, locked on three sides and part of the fourth with land, made a blue setting for the white of the numerous ships. Little sailboats drifted over the quiet water and tugs and launches darted in and out among the big vessels. Eight-oared boats from the warships, manned with uniformed sailors from the royal navy, skimmed back and forth, the eight oars rising and falling as one. Flags were flying from mastheads, and the decks were lively with the work of the day. Up from the shore on every side except where the ocean’s blue appeared, rose the greenest green hills you ever saw, and they reached to the bluest blue sky you ever saw, a frame for the picture which no artist could ever hope to portray.

An Irish woman whose son had gone to America and sent back for the mother and little sister, had never been far from home before. Leading the little girl by the hand she was walking to Queenstown and came in sight of the harbor from the top of the hill. The beauty of the scene impressed her, but she added a lesson for the benefit of the daughter: “Look at the beautiful sight and see how wonderful is the work of Nature. See the big ships side by side, and all around them their little ones.”

Queenstown is the harbor for Cork, which is twelve miles up the river Lee. It is the commercial metropolis of southern Ireland and has furnished more policemen to America than any town of twice its size in the United States. Of course the first thing we did was to ride in a jaunting-car and go to Blarney Castle. The castle looks just about as it did last summer on the Pike at St. Louis. But the surrounding grounds are as pretty as they can be. I hesitate when it comes to describing the park with its stately trees, its beautiful grassy slopes crowned with wild flowers, its moss and ivy which cling to wall and tree, covering defects, revealing charms, enhancing beauties. The castle itself was built by McCarthy, king of Munster, in 1446, and while of course uninhabited and in partial ruin, is in good preservation, to make an Irish bull of it. We climbed to the top, we reveled in the rich scene around us, kissed the blarney stone and cheerfully gave the care-taker twice the usual fee because she said Americans were the best people on earth. Then we had the nicest lunch that has come our way since we left Kansas—an Irish lunch of bread and butter, cold ham and milk. We had traveled all morning and climbed among ruins from 12 to 2 o’clock. If you want the best lunch on earth, no matter what it is made of, climb towers for a couple of hours.

There are some things that are peculiarly Irish. The jaunting-car is one of them. It is the favorite vehicle for driving. It looks like a two-wheel cart, driver’s seat in the front end and passengers’ seats back to back, facing outward. My fellow-traveler, Mr. McGregor, says the Irish brogue has perverted into jaunting-car the real name, which is jolting-car. The driver is always a good fellow and he keeps the horse on the gallop much of the time. You have to learn to keep your seat on a jaunting-car as you do on a bicycle. You also have to learn to weigh the statements of your driver as to distances and legends as you do the promises of a candidate for office. We suggested to one that a jaunting-car driver had to lie. “We never lie, sir,” said the Irishman. “But we stretch it a little.”

After a week on shipboard, during which time I had patiently shaved myself, I yearned for the comforting work of a good barber. At the best hotel in Cork, a city of 80,000 people, I went to the best barber shop in town. The chair was just like a common wooden kitchen chair, only not quite so comfortable. There was a head-rest made out of a two-by-four scantling, and when the barber pulled my head back onto that I knew my dream of a comfortable shave was to be a nightmare. He made the lather in a wash-basin and I think he honed the razor on a grindstone. It cut all right when it didn’t pull out by the roots. When the operation was finished he combed my hair with my head still back, washed my face with cold water and rubbed it with a coarse towel. The barber charged me twopence (equivalent to four cents). And that was my first experience with a European tonsorial artist. Perhaps sometime in my life I have felt cross at a barber at home because the razor pulled or because he squirted bay rum into my eye. But in the future I will never murmur, except to recall my experience in Cork and thank God for American barbers.

The day we came to Cork there was an election for poor-law guardians, only a local affair, but I attended. The voting is by Australian ballot just as in America. The suffrage is restricted to householders, including those who pay a certain rent, and women vote the same as men. The politicians at the polling-place treated me well and explained all the methods. One of the workers told the judge that they should let me vote, as when he had visited his brother in America they had let him vote twice while there. I proposed that if they would let me vote for poor-law guardians in the county of Cork I would let any of them vote for councilman in the Fourth ward of Hutchinson. We had a good friendly visit, and it was easy to see that Irishmen are politicians in the Old World as well as the New. After a man or woman voted he or she was always given a drink at the nearest place where “spirits” are sold. But when the polls closed instead of going ahead and counting the votes, the judges adjourned until noon the next day—the invariable custom. It was not until the afternoon following the election when it was learned who “stood at the top of the poll.” We couldn’t stand the pressure that long in America.

There were placards up all around telling the voters to “vote the straight ticket,” “vote for the interest of labor,” and “vote for your own interests.” The newspapers the next day told of the vicious conduct of the opposition and the immoral practices resorted to. But as a rule the Irish people are like Americans, accepting the result with good feeling and promises of what will be done to the other fellows the next time.

BY KILLARNEY’S LAKES.

Killarney, June 8, 1905.

We have spent four days in the Irish mountains and have ridden a hundred miles in a jaunting-car and coach. I have had mountain scenery, lake scenery and plain scenery for every meal in the day. I enjoy scenery, but I fear I am getting it in too large quantities and am having it shaken too well while taking. Sunday was spent in Glengariff, a picturesque place where the mountains rise abruptly from the salt water of Bantry bay. Monday we coached from Glengariff to Killarney and Tuesday we did the lakes with a jaunting-car, slightly assisted by a row-boat. The Irish mountains are not as high as the Rocky Mountains, but they are a very good imitation. The Rockies are grand and beautiful. The mountains of Cork and Kerry are pretty and beautiful. The Irish mountains are covered with green. It is as if the Rocky Mountains were smaller, covered with ivy and moss, dotted here and there with whitewashed cottages and flocks of sheep, and topped with a blue sky which is bluer than any indigo and clearer than any crystal.

There are several ruined castles about Killarney. I am already getting to shy at ruined castles. The proposal to visit one makes my feet ache as an approaching thunder-storm affects some people’s corns. We first went to Muckross Abbey, a well-preserved ruin about 400 years old. The Muckross family, which owned the estate, has played out, and the property has been bought by Guinness, the Dublin brewer, who was made a lord by Queen Victoria. Whatever the earl of Kenmare does not own around Killarney belongs to Guinness. You can imagine how Muckross Abbey looked 300 years ago when the old monks lived there and occupied the cells and cloister now unroofed. The banquet hall has a big fireplace and there are dark spiral stairways running up and down such as you read about in Ivanhoe. On the tombstones are inscriptions telling of the virtues and sanctity of knights and lords who would be considered tough bats if they lived nowadays and swaggered around as they did in the good old times. I like to look at old tombstones and wonder what the men who lie beneath them would say if they could read the catalogue of virtues accredited to them. I always think of the little girl who had evidently been visiting Muckross Abbey, or some such place, and anxiously inquired if the people in those days did not bury bad folks, as all who were interred there were supremely good. And then the thought comes up that all of these men were great and strong in their time, making history and imagining that they were cutting a gash in the world. Now they are forgotten and their deeds unknown, and they are the subjects of sportive remarks by tourists from a country they never heard of.

The lakes of Killarney have been praised in prose and verse, and they are up to the advance advertising. They are not large, but they nestle among the mountains and reflect on their clear surface the heights that surround them. There is a legend everywhere and the Irish driver knows them all. Here is a reasonable one: One of the O’Donohues, which family was once the royal power in Kerry, was hunting in the mountains. He met the devil, and the two had an altercation in which O’Donohue got decidedly the best of the argument. The devil became so angry that he bit a big chunk out of a mountain. O’Donohue took his shillelah and hit the devil so hard a crack that he dropped the mouthful of mountain into the lake. This tale must be true, for as the driver said: “There’s the place the devil bit and it is called so to this day, and out in the lake is the little island of rock, just as the devil dropped it into the water.”

Everybody who has read Tom Moore—and if anyone has not he should do so—will remember the lines:

“There is not in the wide world a valley so sweet

As the vale in whose bosom the bright waters meet.”

The meeting of the three Killarney lakes was referred to, and Moore was telling truth as well as poetry. The upper lake and the middle lake narrow to small streams and flow together as they merge into the little rosebud of a mouth which the lower lake puts up to greet them. There is a rapid which the boat shoots for a sixpence, but it was not thrilling. In the triangular park made by lakes and mountains are said to be specimens of every kind of tree known. The driver told this proudly, but when I called for a cottonwood he couldn’t produce. Then I told him all about the wonderful cottonwood, and he promised to see the keeper and find out why they couldn’t have one in Killarney.

That reminds me of my experience with music. The first morning I awoke in Ireland at Queenstown I heard the voices of a number of sailors of the royal navy, and as the melodious sounds rolled into the window I was surprised to realize that they were singing “Under the Anheuser-Busch.” At the hotel in Cork the orchestra played the same. At the theatre that night it was greeted with an encore. The driver on the jaunting-car whistled the tune. And last night when I had made friends with a cottager and was sitting with him by the side of a peat fire and he was telling me of Ireland’s woes, his little girl came in and he proceeded to show her off. First he had her sing an old Gaelic song. Then he said, “Now give us an American song,” and she responded with “Under the Anheuser-Busch.”

I have hardly met an Irishman but has told me he had brothers and sisters in America. At Glengariff the hotel proprietor said at least 2,000 young men and women had gone to America from that parish in the last few years—the brightest and best of the young people, he said—nearly all of them to Boston. From Killarney nearly all go to New York. I told them how Boston and New York were ruled by the Irish, and put the question as to why the Irish couldn’t run Ireland. I am trying to answer that conundrum to my own satisfaction, and am gathering ideas on the subject from everyone I meet.

The ordinary Irish village like Killarney is a quaint picture. The streets are narrow, mostly eight to twelve feet wide. The main street is about thirty feet wide. Nearly all the houses are a story or a story and a half, thatched roof, whitewashed walls, dirt floors except in one room, low ceilings, doors and windows, full of chickens, cats and children. I have not yet seen a pig in the parlor. The pig is kept in a little room at one side. But the chickens have as much liberty of the house as anybody and the goat is monarch of the outside. There is very seldom any yard, the houses being built right up to the street. The house is heated by a fireplace and the cooking is done in the same. Peat is the fuel, and it is cleaner and not sooty like coal. The dirt floor and the chickens in the house sound as though the Irish cottage would be dirty, but the whitewash and the scrubbing-brush fight on the other side, and you don’t get that impression. The women-folks are always neat-looking and everybody is pleasant and cheerful. Every window has a window-box of geraniums. There are usually so many children that the house does not hold them, and the street is always filled with them. Remember when you are driving through a town the street is filled with children, and if you are an American and not used to it your heart will be jumping into your throat for fear some of them will be run over—but I am told they never are.

After the chickens and the children the most novel sight is the donkeys with their two-wheel carts, the only ordinary carriages for passengers or freight of the people. The donkey is the size of our mountain burro, and has the same degree of intelligent expression. All of the hauling is done by this patient animal, and he is looked upon as a valued member of the family.

In riding or walking the rule of the country is the same as in England—turn to the left. I have not yet gotten over the yearning to grab the lines from the driver when he turns to the left to avoid a passing carriage. Fortunately the other driver is always fool enough to also turn to the left. I confided my trouble to an Irish driver, and he said it was ridiculous to turn to the right.

One of my traveling companions is a man who chews tobacco, and he had neglected to lay in a supply before leaving America. No one else used the weed that way and there was no help for him. The Irish chew and smoke the same plug tobacco, very dry and not tasting like American tobacco. For a week my friend had been looking through shops trying to find something that would touch the spot. Last night soon after reaching Killarney he came to me greatly excited and said, “Hurry! the finest scenery since we left home.” Away we went down the narrow street and up to a window in which was a familiar shape and a sign, “Battle Ax.” I don’t chew myself, but I have some bad habits, and I could appreciate the tear of joy that glistened in my fellow-traveler’s eye as he gazed on that sign and felt that he had met an old friend just from home.

IRELAND AND THE IRISH.

Dublin, June 9, 1905.

In my short stay in the Emerald Isle I have endeavored to find out what is the matter with Ireland. Why is it that a country of great beauty and resources, with a healthful and productive climate, an intelligent and attractive people, is a country where poverty is widespread, although disguised by picturesque surroundings, and is accepted in such a matter-of-fact and almost nonchalant manner? Why is it that the population of Ireland is decreasing while the number of successful and prosperous Irishmen is rapidly increasing in America, Canada, and Australia? A very intelligent Irishman at Glengariff told me why it was, and this in brief is his story:

A thousand years ago Ireland was ahead of all neighbors in education, religion, and refinement. Then came the civil wars between the chieftains. Then came England, and by utilizing the demoralization of the civil wars and playing one chieftain against another, acquired sovereignty. But this was only nominal, for the Irish chieftains did not submit permanently. In Glengariff country the O’Sullivans maintained practical independence. Finally the English rulers adopted the policy of confiscating the land of the rebellious chieftains and giving it to English soldiers and queen’s favorites. In many places this meant the massacre of the people. The O’Sullivans and their fighting men who escaped went to France and continued to strike at their Saxon foes. But the land passed into the ownership of strangers, who kept it only for the profit they could get out of it. The new Irish nobles lived in London and their agents ran the estates. When the nobles needed more money their agents advanced the rents. If the people who tilled the soil and whose tenancy had been unquestioned for generations, could not pay, they were evicted. Families were ejected from the places they had cultivated and made valuable and were set out on the road. This was done not without fighting for their rights by the Irish people, but by the superior force of English soldiers. No Irish farmer owns his place—he is only a tenant at the mercy of his absentee landlord, who does not know him. In other countries the feudal tenure has not worked so harshly, because the landlords lived among the people and were bound to them by ties of race, common history, and natural affection. But the fact that there was no way for an Irishman to get his own home, or have a reasonable chance to advance in fortune or freedom, sent the brightest to America, and left the others to struggle hopelessly along, knowing that the best they could do was to “pay the rent,” which was fixed like some railroad charges in the United States, on the basis of “all the traffic would stand.”

From the parish of Glengariff more than half the young men and at least half the young women have gone to the land of promise across the sea, and are sending back money to help the parents and brothers and sisters at home, either to “pay the rent” or to pay their passage to America.

What is true at Glengariff applies to the rest of Ireland. The ancient chieftains, the O’Sullivans, the O’Donohues, the McCartys and the rest, were succeeded by absentee landlords, and the law of supply and demand backed up by the English army simply worked out. At Killarney whatever land does not belong to the earl of Kenmare is the property of Guinness. The lakes and rivers are full of fish, but no Irishman can catch a fish; the mountains are full of game, but no one can hunt it except the owner of the estate. The farms are well tilled, but no one can buy the land upon which he works. It makes an American mad, and he says, “How do you stand it?” But it is the law, and along every country road there is a policeman and behind the policeman is the power of England. Far up on the mountain-side, several miles from town or settlement, I saw a fine stone building which on inquiry I found was a police station. The police, or the constabulary, as they are called, were not there to protect the lives of the citizens, but to prevent hunting and fishing in the brooks and mountains. So, after all, it is no wonder the Irishman leaves his beautiful island and emigrates to America.

The Irish have kept the English Parliament in an uproar for a generation on this land question, and in recent years they have secured some friendly legislation. A court can now fix the rent rate on appeal—but the English government names the court. So far as Englishmen of the present day are concerned they would be glad to get out of the Irish problem and let the Irish have their land, but of course that can’t be done. The present parliament provided a plan for the eventual purchase of land by tenant, at a price to be fixed by the court if the two parties cannot agree. This is a step in the right direction and the Irish are glad of it, but as my Glengariff friend said, “It will not do any good in this generation.” And the exodus to America continues.

The Irish are very intelligent. I do not think the poor people of any other country are naturally so bright and so full of perception and understanding. They are kind and gentle. They are affectionate and patriotic. The English say they are “lazy,” but under the circumstances you could hardly expect them to be yearning for work, when more work means more valuable holdings, and that only means more rent for the landlord. The Irish have a reputation among the English for honesty. They are religious, and I thought at first they gave too much to the church and did not keep enough for themselves, when I saw the large and rich cathedrals. But, as an Irishman told me, “We’d rather give to the Lord than the landlord.” Public schools are providing education for the rising generation, and in the public school the boys and girls are being taught the Irish language and prepared for the coming fight which the Irish must make to capture Ireland—not probably for an independent government, but for actual ownership of the Irish soil.

Taxes are heavy. The burden of taxation is the income tax. “That falls on the landlord,” the thoughtless might say. Not on your life. The tax is simply added to the rent. There are fine public roads in Ireland, as good in the country districts as Main street in Hutchinson will be when it is paved. The only advantage a despotic government has over a popular government is that it builds better roads. When the people elect their own road bosses and levy their own road taxes I notice the roads are not so good as when some prince or cabinet minister who does not care what the people think, levies the tax and orders the road built right. The Irish statesmen are struggling for Irish ownership of Irish soil and an Irish parliament to deal with Irish affairs. They are “getting on,” and, as I said before, they make so much trouble in the English Parliament that I know the English would be glad to get rid of Irish local politics and give them back their parliament, if it were not for pride,—and the next parliament may cut out the pride.

I want to record one fact which I was surprised to find. The Irish are very temperate. I have been in city, town and country for ten days, have not been careful about keeping in the nice parts of town, and I have seen only one man under the influence of liquor, and he was an English sailor at Queenstown. This is in spite of the fact that every inn and grocery sells “spirits” and nearly everybody seems to drink them if he or she has the price. Perhaps the reason is that in Ireland all the liquor-selling is done by women—barmaids. Perhaps the influence of women behind the bar makes for temperance. I won’t state that as my conclusion, but just submit it for what it is worth to those who are trying to solve the liquor question in other countries.

Dublin is a good deal like an American city. It is full of business and not as Irish as the inland towns or Cork, although it has statues to O’Connell, Curran and Grattan, and will have one to Parnell. The lord lieutenant-governor, the representative of the king, resides at Dublin, and a big garrison of soldiers gives it an English tone. There is a fine university, which we visited. It was started by Queen Elizabeth, and has only recently been opened to Catholics and to women. Dublin has some great stores where Irish linen and Irish lace should naturally be cheap. If Mrs. Morgan were writing this letter she could add a chapter. I will only tell this little story: I was telling an Irish driver how nice everybody had been to us in Ireland and how pleasant the Irish were to Americans. “Yis,” he said. “Whin you go down the strate, everybody sez: ‘There’s some Americans, God bless ’em: mark up the prices on the linen and lace.’”