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.