The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-01-23 00:00:00

SELECTIONS.

Tits DOG BILL.—The following capital jeu d'eaprit is
from the playbill of the Flayrnarket pantomime :—" The
public is respectfully informed that the little dog men-
tioned in the original story has been omitted, for fear the
animal's attraction might render the manager liable to the
penalties of the 2d and 3d Victoria, cap. 47, sec. 56, by
which it is enacted, `that no person within the district of

the Metropolitan Police shall use any dog for the purpose
of drawing or helping to draw,' " &c.
CONVIVIAL. HABITS OF THE IRISH IN THE LAST
CENTURY.—The habit of intemperate drinking had
grown to such an excess in Ireland, that it was gravely
asserted there was something in the people's constitution
congenial to the excitement of ardent spirits. The pro-
pensity for intoxication among the people had been re-
marked from the earliest times. Sir W. Petty, who
wrote in the year 1682, when Dublin contained but 6,025
houses, states, that 1,200 of them were public-houses,
and sold intoxicating liquors. In 1798, in Thomas-
street, nearly every third house was a public-house. The
street contained 190 houses, and of these fifty-two were
licensed to sell spirits. Among the upper classes, the
great consumption was claret, and so extensive was its
importation, that, in the year 1763, it amounted to 8,000
totis ; and the bottles alone were estimated at the value of
£67,000. The fact is detailed by honest Rutty, the
Quaker historian of the county of Dublin. Such were the
convivial habits of the day, and so absorbed wert the
people in the indulgence, that the doctor recommended
that port should be substituted in its place, " because,"
said he, with quaint simplicity, "it would not admit so
long a sitting; a great advantage to wise men in saving
a great deal of their precious time." In fact, the great
end and aim of life in the upper classes seemed to be con-
vivial indulgence to excess. The rule of drinking was,
that no man was allowed to leave the company till he was
unable to stand, and then he might depart, if he could
walk. If on any occasion a guest left the room, bits of
paper were dropped into his glass, intimating the number
of rounds the bottle had gone, and on his return he was
obliged to swallow a glass for each, under a penalty of so
many glasses of salt and water. It was the practice of
some to have decanters with round bottoms, like a modern
soda water bottle, the only contrivance in which they
could stand being at the head of the table, before the
host; stopping the bottle was thus rendered impossible,
and everyone was obliged to fill his glass at once, and pass
the bottle to his neighbour, on peril of upsetting the con-
tents on the table. A still more common practice was, to
knock the stems off the glasses with a knife, so that they
must be emptied as fast as they were filled, as they could
not stand. Such orgies Isere not occasional, but often
continued every night, and all night long. A usual ex-
hortation from a father to his son was, " make your head
boy, while you're young."—Dublin University Maga-
zine,

E MASSACRE OF ST. BARTTIOLOMENV,--In the first
instance, the intendants were commanded to summon the
Protestant inhabitants of cities and commonalties, who
were informed that it was the king's pleasure that they
should become Catholics ; and that if they (lid not do so
freely, they should be compelled by force. In vain did
the defenceless Protestants reply that they were ready to
sacrifice their estates and lives to the king, hut that, their
consciences being God's, they could not thus dispose of
them. The gates and avenues of the cities were immedi-
ately seized by the dragoons, who often came, sword in
hand, exclaiming " Kill! kill ! or else be Catholics."
They were quartered upon the reformed, with a strict
charge to allow none to depart out of their houses, or to
conceal any portion of their effects, under the severest
penalties. The first days were spent in consuming all the
provisions which the house afforded, and in plundering
the Protestants of every article of value; selling to the
Papists of the place and neighbourhood whatever goods
could be turned into money. Next they assailed the per-
sons of their victims, upon whom they inflicted every re-
finement of cruelty, in order to compel them to abjure
their religion. Men and women were hung by the feet
to the roofs or ceilings of chambers, or to chimney-hooks,
and were smoked with wisps of wet hay, until they were
no longer able to endure. the torture; and when they were
taken down, they were immediately suspended again, un-
less they would sign their abjuration. Others were thrown
upon great fires, from which they were not removed until
they were half roasted. Others again had ropes tied tin-
der their arms, and were repeatedly, plunged into wells,
from which they were not drawn up until they promised
to change their religion. Others were hound like crimi-
nals, previously to being put to the question on the rack ;
and in this posture wine was poured down their throats
with a funnel, until, being deprived of their reason, they
consented to become Papists.
naked, and, after enduring various iticl,Othe.rsg.ni were stripped
ties, pins were
stuck into them from th head to the rect. They were
cut with penknives ; sometimes they were di agged by the
nose with hot pincers around the room,
until they pro-
mised to abjure, or until their piercing cries constrained
their torment.irs to let them go. They were beaten with
staves ; and, brui,ed as they ' were, they were dragged 1-.1
the churches, where their forced- presence
was deemed to
be an a'ojur.it'on. Others were forcibly kept ae.overfed
ake for
seven or eight days together, and kett!es were '
over their heads, on which they made continual noise un-
til their victims
i became delirious. Drums were kept
besting without intermission for weeks together around
the beds of those who were confined to them by
fevers or
other diseases, till they lost their senses. In some pine",
fathers and husbands were tied to bed-posts, while * *
Of scree, the feet were burnt, and the nails were plue,:ed
off the feet arid hands of others ; men and women were
inflated with bellows till they were ready to berst.—
Church of England Qoarterly Review.