The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1874-07-24
BULLS AND BLUNDERS.


Some Specimens by Samuel Lover.
The Irish hsve achieved a great &C.
Iebrity in the matter of bulls and blum
ders. BY the uninitiated these are
terms which are constantly confounded;
but, when they are looked into, it will
be seen there is the greatest difference
between. Blundering arises from stu
pidity, and the stupid are a race who
are found all over the world but the
buII-a peculiarly that belongs exclu-
sively to IreIand-isz always connected
with thought, and originates in the
imaginative power of its people. It is
not at all a dull absurdity which no one
can comprehend-it is always compre-
hensible, even when it is most confused.
It proceeds, not from the want, but the
superabundance of ideas, which crowd
on each other so fast in an Irishman's
pericranium that they get jammed to-
gether, so to speak, in the doorway of
his speech, and can only tumble out in
their ordinary disorder.
Confusion may, indeed, be called
national characteristic. It pervades all
Irish history. If the stream of the
latter in early days has its CLEANS of
bright tranquility, sorely troubled does
1t become as it descends the sleeps of
time, till, as it flows on in later ages, 1t
encounters distractions, political and
religious, which give it a turmoil and
perplexity that we cannot survey with
out deploring. As with the affairs of
unhappy Ireland, so has 1t ever been
with It's peasantry. Public and social
disorders have communicated a jar TO
the brain of Pat and, if he can be &C
cused now aud then of being a little
cratic in his sayings and doings, he
can at least console himself by pointing
to a long historical authority. He may
say:
''Arrah now, why wouldn't be con-
fused Wasn't all of us confused, and
from the airliest times, and isn't a man
to be consistent? Would you have him
turn his coat when scarcely a rag of it
is left him ?"
A good example of a bull may be
cited in the case of the two Irishmen,
who, fancying that they knew each
other, crossed the street to shake hands.
On discovering their error.
+ 81 beg your pardon!" crisd the one.
sob, don't mention it." said the
other. cts a mutual mistake you
see, I thought it was you, and you
thought it was me, and, after all, it was
neither of us p
A good pendant to this is told of two
friends who met, and referred to the
illness of q third.
"Poor Michael Hogan Faith, I'm
afraid he's going to die %
"And why should he dep?
"Oh, he's so thin You re thin
enough, and 1 m thin-but, by my
sowl, Michael Hogan is thinner than
both of us put together -
A bull is sometimes produced by the
false use of a word, as in the case of an
Irish Waterman giving evidence at a
police Office:
What is this mans offense ?" &,
"He was disorderly, your worship,
in the strates, last night"
"And did you give him warming be-
fore you took him into custody ?"
81 did, your worship. 1 said to him,
'disparse =
Again, bull may be occasioned by a
confusion Of identities, as when it was
said of an ugly man that he was hand
some when an infant, but he was an
luckily changed at nurse or it was
shown in the fervor of girl who, de.
string her lovers miniature and he fear
ing it might lead to a discovery
"Oh, it needn't" she exclaimed,
"Ill tell the painter not to make it
like you p
And again, bull may be owing to a
limited amount of knowledge, as in the
case of an old woman going to the
chandler's for a farthipg candle, and
being told it was raised to a half-penny
on account of the Russian war:
" Bad luck TO them - she exclaimed;
g and do they fight by candle-light ?"
Apart, however, from all of these,
the ordinary saying of the Irish have
an imaginative quality which is Just as
characteristic, and not at all confusing.
As, for instance, when they say of
man who is irretrievably ruined
"Saltpetre wouldn't save him, and
that is a strong pickle " or when they
would advise another to avOi1 arrest
"Be off while your shoes are good "
or, as they delicately say of an elderly
lady, whose number of years they for
bear to mention A kitten of her age
wouldn't play with a cork"
And apart from all these again, is the
genuine humor OF the Irish, which has
nothing of the bull in 1t whatever, but,
on the contrary, the cIearest notions,
and very often the shrewdest sense. [
will only cite a couple of instances,
which will not be the less welcome if
they happen to have been heard before.
A gentleman seeing an Irishman
staggering homeward from a fair, and
observing to him :
All, Darby, I'm afraid you'll find
the road you're going is rather a longer
one than you think"
Sure, your honor" he replied, cts
not the length of the road / care about.
it's the breadth of it is destroyin' me.
And again, in the Bog OF Aughrim,
in the last century, plenty of gun bar
rels used to be found as a memento of
its great battle, and there was a black
smith who dug them up in order to
make use of their material. On one
occasion one of them exploded in his
furnace, when he exclaimed:
" Bad luck to your love of murther
isn't the battle of Aughrim out of you
yet?"
PARIS GREEN is a safe remedy for in
ssets of every kind of plant except sal
ads, cabbages, or any other plants the
foliage of which is to be eaten. One part
of the green provided IL be pure, mixed
with twenty parts of -four. Is sifted up-