We are much inferior to the English in the art of preparing poultry for the market; and this is the more to be regretted in the instance of geese, especially as we can supply potatoes—which I have shown to be the chief material of their fattening food—at half their cost in many parts of England. This advantage alone ought to render the friends of our agricultural poor earnest in promoting the rearing and fattening of geese in localities favourable for the purpose.
IRISH MANUFACTURES.
The encouragement of our native manufactures is now a general topic of conversation and interest, and we hope the present excitement of the public mind on this subject will be productive of permanent good. We also hope that the encouragement proposed to be given to articles of Irish manufacture will be extended to the productions of the head as well as to those of the hands; that the manufacturer of Irish wit and humour will be deemed worthy of support as well as those of silks, woollens, or felts; and, that Irishmen shall venture to estimate the value of Irish produce for themselves, without waiting as heretofore till they get “the London stamp” upon them, as our play-going people of old times used to do in the case of the eminent Irish actors.
We are indeed greatly inclined to believe that our Irish manufactures are rising in estimation in England, from the fact which has come to our knowledge that many thousands of our Belfast hams are sold annually at the other side of the water as genuine Yorkshire, and also that many of those Belfast hams with the Yorkshire stamp find their way back into “Ould Ireland,” and are bought as English by those who would despise them as Irish. Now, we should like our countrymen not to be gulled in this way, but depend upon their own judgment in the matter of hams, and in like manner in the matter of articles of Irish literary manufacture, without waiting for the London stamp to be put on them. The necessity for such discrimination and confidence in their own judgment exists equally in hams and literature. Thus certain English editors approve so highly of our articles in the Irish Penny Journal, that they copy them by wholesale, not only without acknowledgment, but actually do us the favour to father them as their own! As an example of this patronage, we may refer to a recent number of the Court Gazette, in which its editor has been entertaining his aristocratic readers with a little piece of badinage from our Journal, expressly written for us, and entitled “A short chapter on Bustles,” but which he gives as written for the said Court Gazette! Now, this is really very considerate and complimentary, and we of course feel grateful. But, better again, we find our able and kind friend the editor of the Monitor and Irishman, presenting, no doubt inadvertently, this very article to his Irish readers a few weeks ago—not even as an Irish article that had got the London stamp upon it, but as actually one of true British manufacture—the produce of the Court Gazette.
Now, in perfect good humour, we ask our friend, as such we have reason to consider him, could he not as well have copied this article from our own Journal, and given us the credit of it—and would it not be worthy of the consistency and patriotism of the Irishman, who writes so ably in the cause of Irish manufactures, to extend his support, as far as might be compatible with truth and honesty, to the native literature of Ireland?
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