Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1911-04-25
TRUE IRISH BULLS.
They Have a Flavor All Their Own,
"The Effect Of Climate.

no Enect OF Ultimate.
Sir Richard Steele explained why his
countrymen made bulls: "'Tis the ef-
feet of the climate, sir If an English
man were born in Ireland he would
make as many" said he. 1t is not ev-
cry one who knows a bull when he
sees her. 1t may be no bull, but
merely a blunder-a betise, as the
French have it. To make sure that
we have the true criterion let us first
set down a few of the genuine, ortho-
dox Irish kind:
He built the wall wider than 1t was
high, so that when it fell down 1t
should be higher than 1t was wide.
Two weary and footsore Irishmen
come to a milestone, ten miles to Dub
lin. "Arrah,' said one, "'tis but five
miles apiece"
Disputing of the date of st. Patrick's
birthday, He couldn't have had two
unelss he was twins"
An Irish sailor reported that in
Philadelphia they copper bottomed the
tops of the houses with sheet lead.
Give me the loan Of a hatchet to
saw an empty barrel of flour in two to
make the dog pigpen.
His estate Is divided by impenetra-
BILE furze bitches made Of quarried
stones set on edge.
An Irishman, describing a glorious
fight, said, There was only one whole
nose in the house, and that was the
taypot's."
In these and in hundreds like them
we have the true flavor Of the Irish
bull.
There are genuine bulls in French,
but they are rare. The genius Of the
language does not lend itself to any
thing less than neat precision. A
French bull is usually nothing more
than a betise. Still, French bulls ex-
ist.
Leon, Bishop and Count Of Lisieux
wrote to the Duchess of Brissac as fol-
lows:
Madam, knowing how fond you are
of red partridges, send you here
with half a dozen. Three Of them are
gray, and one Is a woodcock. You will
find this letter in the bottom Of the
basket"
A Frenchman used a large stone jar
for a pillow, explaining that 1t was not
hard because he had stuffed 1t full OF
hay.
The very best French bulls are acted,
not spoken. The Duke de st. Simon
relates that lady, lying Ill, was much
disturbed by the ringing Of the church
bells. To deaden the noise her lover
had the street in front Of her house
laid with straw.
A spoken bull in French is apt to be
something different from the Irish va
riety, something more like a betise, as
has been said. And 1t Is difficult to
retain the flavor in translation. "Ce
sont toujours les memes soldats qui se
font tuer," says Marshall Bugeaud OF
his army. This loses little when one
translates, 1T Is always the same SOL
diers who get themselves killed"
En- fait d'inutilites II ne faut que lie
necessaire" is more highly colored in
the French than in its translation,
"Only 80 many useless things are re-
quired as are strictly necessary"
Italian letter:
1--WE have had a most famous earth
quake. II by the mercy Of God 1t had
lasted for another half hour we should
all have gone to paradise, from which
may God deliver us. Whether you re-
ceive this letter or not, please adVise
me in either case"
Here is a Portuguese bull. In offer
ing a reward for the recovery OF the
corpse of a drowned man his relatives
remarked that the deceased might be
identified, If found, by a slight impedl-
ment in his speech.
After much research 1t has been so
far impossible to discover a genuine
Spanish bull, but here is Dutch
bull:
"The pig had no marks on his ears
except a short tail"
And here is a German bull.
Der Zahn der Zeit, der allie Thranen
trocknet, wird auch uber diese Sache
Gras wachsen lassen" ('the tooth or
time, that wipes away all tears, Will
permit grass to grow over this mat
ter also~.
Blunders in English speech are not
uncommon. The orthodox bull OF Ire
land has scarcely crossed the channel
A fellow of the Royal society speaks
Of "the earthquake that had had the
honor to be noticed by the Royal So
ciety."
"The West Indies will now have
future which they have never had In
the past" sounds promising until one
sees that its bullish quality Is mere
blunder by which the word "oppor-
tunity" was omitted. There is none of
the flavor of the famous definition OF
salt by the Irish schoolboy, salt Is
that which makes your potatoes taste
nasty II you don't put 1t in"
Even the best of the foreign bulls In
Latin tongues evoke the suspicion that
they are mere translations from Irish
originals. The Dutch, the Germans
and perhaps the English may have the
genuine article at times. No distinc-
lively American bulls have emerged
from the long research that Is the
foundation of these few paragraphs
New York Sun.