Knoxville daily chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1882, 1882-03-05
Sorrows Of the People Of Ireland.

COAuPIcueuu Inc WlQIu, Oeptu dAu
breadth of Irish misery until he has seen
it with his own eyes.
The Irishman of the stage and novel
is always rollicking, happy-go-lucky
sort of reckless fellow, with short
tailed coat, red vest and corduroy
trousers, woolen stockings and stout
brogans, etc., always ready for dance
or fight, or for love-making or any
other pleasant employment. He always
has a laugh on his face, joke on his
lips, and he goes through life with per-
petual "hurroo."
And Katy, she is always presented TO
us clad in a short wooden gown, her
shapely legs enclosed in warm red stock
ings, and she has bright red handker-
chief about her neck, with good, COM
Portable shoes, and coquettish straw
hat, a buxom girl who can dance down
any lad within ten miles, and can
sshurroo" as well as Pat and trihe bet
ter.
These are lies.
The Irishman is the saddest man on
the surface of the globe. You may travel
a week and never see a smile or hear a
laugh. Utter and abject misery, starva-
of merriment.
The Irishman has Lot only no short
tailed coat, but he considers himself
fortunate-A he has any coat at all. He
has what by courtesy may be called
trowsers, but the vest is myth. He
has no comfortable woolen stockings,
nor is he possessed of the regulation
stage shoes He does not sing, dance or
laugh, for he has no place to sing, dance
or laugh in. He is moving pyramid of
rags. A man who cuts bog all day, from
daylight to dark, whose dietconsists of
few potatoes twice day, is not much
in the lumor for dancing all night, even
were there place for him to dance in.
And as for jollity, man with land agent
watching him like hawk to see how
much he is improving his land, with the
charitable intent of raising the rent, if
by any possibility he.can screw it out OF
him, is not in the mood to laugh, sing,
| dance or "hurroo." One might as well
think of laughing at q funeral. Ireland
is one perpetual funeral. The ghastly
procession is constantly passing.
There is unquestionably vast fund of
| humor in the Irishman which would be
| delightful could it have proper vent.
You hear faint tones of it as it is, but it
is in the minor key, and very sad. It al
ways has a flavor of rack-rent in it, q
taste of starvation, suggestion of evic-
ton and death by cold and hunger on
the road side. 1t isn't cheerful. had
much rather have the Irisbman silent
than to hear this remnant of jocularity
which is always streaked with blood
The Irish girl is always comely, and,
properly clothed and fed, would be
beautiful. Still she is comely. Irish
landlordism has not been sufficient to de-
stroy her beauty, though it has done its
best. But she has no gown of woolen
stuff-a cotton slip without undercloth-
ing of any kind makes up her costume
| The comfortable stockings and stout
shoes, and the red handkerchief about
her neck are SO many ibels upon Irish
landlordism. Were My Lords agent to
| see such clothing upon girl. he would
Immediately raise the rent upon her
fsther, and confscate those clothes. And
| lie would keep on raising the rent till he
was certain that shoes and stockings
would be forever impossible. Neither
does she dance Pat down at rustic halls,
/ for most excellent reason, there are no
! balls, and besides when she has cut and
dried donkey load of peat and walked
beside that donkey barefooted in the
cold mud twelve miles and back again,
and sold that peat for sixpence, she is not
very much in the humor for dancing down
anyone. On the contrary she is mighty
glad to getinto her wretched bed of dried
leaves and pull over her the potato sack
which constitutes her sole covering, and
soothed to sleep by the gruntings of the
pigs in the wretched cabiu, forget land
lords and rent, and go off into the land
of happiness, which to her is America.
She finds in sleep surcease of sorrow,
and besides it refreshes her to the de-
gree of walking barefooted through the
mud twenty-f -four miles on the morrow,
to sell another load of peat for sixpence,
that she may pay more money to My
Lord, whose town-house in London and
whose mistresses in Paris require great
deal of money. Champagne and the
delicacies of the season are always ex.
pensive, and My Lords appetite and the
appetite of his wife and mistresses and
his children, legitimate and illegitimate
are delicate. Clearly Katy is in nc
humor for dancing. She has her share
to contribute to all these objects. And
so she eats her meal of potatoes or stir.
about (she never has both at once), ano
goes into sleep and dreams. in
Ioledo Blade.