The Irish standard., 1908-01-04

q stronger word, for he had not heard
laugh since he came to Dublin. He
hoped that no disrespect was meant
to him as a Britain and a loyal sub
3ect OF King Edward.
Our esteemed friend, the Anglo
Saxon. Is quite right in some of his
impressions Of Dublin. There is no
staga-lrishman here even on the stage
He was hunted from the city; he never
would have entered but for the Eng
.lish or quasi-Engish support he re-
ceived, long ago. The last of the
tribe returned to London where he
was invented, or, it is said, went to
New York, from which we hear, lie
has been or is getting hunted also. The
the Empire City. The Irishman is no
laughing machine. He was not made
to wear the cap and bells for the
amusement of any people. If he even
did So. or thought go; he must have
been more blind than the captive
Sampson, when led out to make sport
his sight.
Nor is he quite wrong in his i'm
preston as to at least some of Dub
Inns streets. There is an expression
about them of vacuity and quiet which
one would not expect to find in the
streets of city which more than Il
hundred years ago, a writer refers to
as next to Paris, THE gayest capital
in Europe There il 10 Disgusting
the fact any more than there is dis
suisinE the cause. The stamp of an
alien and unsympathetic rule is on
her empty and quiet streets. The
quiet" is moreover of peculiar kim.
1t is not natural. 1t is not the quiet
Of satisfa ction: the composure indica-
tive of certain sense of conplacency
much more the quiet of exhaustion,
Of indifference. of extinguished hope,
such quiet as one might see in it's
worst aspect, in tho hushed and hun
cry city ruled by the Turk, or other
similar despot.
Tho stranger who visits Dublin sees
no doubt many things strange to him
and which would be strange to the
most experienced traveller; for instance
n senate house as someone has re-
marked. without a senate, a. custom
house without customs, and a palatial
like court house where twelve judges
are nominally engaged in doing the
work that might be done by three. To
these peculiarities may be added man
sions once the home of opulence and
hospitality, now turned into barracks
or tenement houses, within whose
crumbling walls the poorest Of the
population find A wretched shelter.
All these things, and many more OF a
similar kind, the stranger sees, and is
impressed by them, he hardly knows
how or why, and made according to
his temperament or circumstances, a
cynic, moral censor, or a critic, who,
as a loyal Englishman, il English. feels
bound to find fault and as q practical
man to give reasons for his feelings,
but Is at loss where to begin. The
English critic above referred to did
not so beyond these. His knowledge
Of Ireland, like that OF many Eng
lishmen who have been sent from Eng
land to govern il, was bounded by
bricks-as there usually is something
still more mpenetrable.
But the lrishman who knows any
thing of Ireland could explain all these
seeming mysteries. He knows the
reason why. He knows that as they
are they We're not always; that there
was time when Dublin's public
buildings were not SO silent and de-
serted as if closed indefinitely for re-
pairs, or sealed for early demolition;
that the Custom House. which has now
no customs, WAS once Il center of mer-
camille ACTIVITY, lndL worth ana plenty
and refinement once made merry the
mansions now given over to vulgarity
and want, and that along the corridors
where now are heard only the chatter
OF the money mongers and the chink
Of the coin once resounded the fusil-
ade like reasoning of Plunkett and the
gorgeous eloquence Of Grattan. For
Ireland's Senate House is now bank
Dublin Is a type Of many people in
ireland. 1t has, to use a pathetic and
profound though common expression,
''seen better days" 1t opens perhaps
too much of it's vitality in the effort
to hold on by the fragments of it's los,
dignity. This is not wonderful, for it
IS city of many and mighty memo
ries. 1t has produced men and women
who would have adorned and done
honor to any country or city in the
80 I. o.