Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1870-02-06
a RECORD OF NOTED SLIPS OF
THE TONGUE BY NUMEROUS
PARTIES.

/ am never tired of reading anecdotes
of Sir Boyle Roche, who may perhaps,
without misconstructiOn, be called the
father of the Irish bulls, TO whom the
world is indebted for some Of the finest
recorded specimens of this particular
species of neutrality-suspicious. so ex-
quisitely perfect, that Curran used to in
sist humorously, that they were carefully
prepared.
Most of Sir Boyle's sayings have be
come household words; bat it may not be
unpleasant to the reader to hear two or
three of them. 1t was he who gave
utterance TO the profound aphorism,
"Single misfOrtunCs never come alone,
and the greatest of all possible misfortuncs
is generally followed by much greater. "
In these times of short measures, perhaps
we should find nothing very absurd in the
bill which he introduced, providing that
every quart bottle should hold a quart. II
was he who rebuked the shoemaker from
whom he had ordered shoes for his equity
limbs: 81 told you to make one larger
than the other" said he, "and, instead of
that, you have made one smaller than the
other; the exact opposite" During the
/ trOublOus times that came upon the country,
there was great insecurity of life, and in a
letter to a friend from his country-hOuse
he wrote. "You may judge of our state
when | tell you that | write this with a
pistol in each hand and a sword in the
other His penmanship must have been
rather poor with his hands so full.
1t was in this same Irish House of Com
mons that bill was introduced to cause
the watchmen to sleep in the daytime, in
order that they might be more wakeful at
| night A report of the debate said that
the mover was left in great minority.
But this was not nearly so bad as the act
which may be fOundin chapter Ais of the
Sessions Laws of the State of New York
for 1868, providing that every convict in
our State PRISONS may, by obedience and
good behavior, earn q Communication or
diminutiOn Of his sentence of two days
| for every six months, and closing with this
language: providing, however, that the
provisions of this act shall not affect the
case of any person who shall be under the
| sentence of Imprisonment for the term of
his naturallife. The Pennsylvania Legis-
| lature it is said, once passed an act prOvid-
| ing that the State House yard should be
surrounded by brick wall, and remain an
| open enclosure forever"
Probably very few casually reading the
following sentence in an account of an
| Irish duel would detect the mOnstrOus
proposition embodied in it ''Sir Rich
ard received a slight wound in the breast !;
| his antagonist fired in the air, and so the
affair terminated. But the proposition
here is that one party in a duel might
| wound the other by firing in the air.
Generally, however, bulls of Irish ex-
traction are more apparent. 1t was at the
| dinner of an Irish association that the fol-
lowing sublime toast was given: 'IIere is
to the President of the Society, Patrick
O'Rafferty; an may he live to eat the
| chicken that scratches over his grave"
1t was an Irishman who, hearing that
his widowed mother had married again,
since he quilted Ireland, exclaimed:
'NIurther | hope she wont have son
Oulder than me; if she does | shall lose
| the whole estate