PUNCH'S FOLK-LORE
St. Patrick's Day
The season of spring gives us lamb and violets, salmon and patron saints. St. David and St. Patrick are commemorated in March, St. George only waits until April. (Of this last-named saint a very careful notice has for some time been in preparation, to include six autobiographical anecdotes of his boyish days, a selection from his unpublished correspondence with his laundress, and an authentic portrait of his chief antagonist—the Dragon.)
Sunday at the Zoo.—"Excuse me, sorr; but can ye direct me to the goin' out intrance?"
St. Patrick's Day! the heart leaps up with uncontrolled delight, and a flood of popular airs comes rushing o'er the brain. What reminiscences of by-gone days invade the territory of the mind! All the population of Dublin, headed by the Lord-Lieutenant and Ulster King-at-Arms, abroad at daybreak, looking for four-leaved shamrocks in the Phœnix Park, and singing Moore's Melodies in unison; an agreeable mixture of whiskey and water provided in unlimited quantities in every market town in Ireland, the expense of the water being defrayed out of the Consolidated Fund; the Lord Mayor of Dublin presented with a new shillelagh of polished oak, bound with brass, purchased by the united contributions of every grown-up citizen bearing the name of Patrick; the constabulary in new boots; a public dinner on the Blarney Stone, and a fancy-dress ball on the Wicklow Mountains! These are but a few of the marks of distinction showered on this memorable day by Erin's grateful sons and daughters, who owe to St. Patrick two of the greatest distinctions that ever befell them—freedom from serpents, snakes, scorpions, efts, newts, tadpoles, chameleons, salamanders, daddy-long-legs, and all other venomous reptiles, and instruction in six lessons, in "the true art of mixing their liquor, an art," it has been well observed, "which has never since been lost."
This leaning of the Saint to potheen is viewed, however, by one section of the community with manifest displeasure—the Temperance and Teetotal Societies—who remain indoors the whole of the day with the blinds closely drawn down and straw in front of their houses, and employ paid emissaries to distribute tracts amongst their excitable countrymen.
