The Irish standard., 1913-07-05

through Dorset Street shortly after
nightfan beheld (says a correspond
ent in the Dublin Freeman) a spec
tacle so rare and unusual nowadays
as not only to arrest attention but to
awaken q feeling of establishment
There passed along the broad thor
oughfare vehicle which called up the
spectres of a generation that is gone.
1t was AN outside car, on four wheels,
drawn by a pair of horses and as it,
ratified along with its load of passen-
gers 1 found myself, in one flash Of
thought, transplanted back to the Ire
land of eighty years ago. The gas
lamps, the electric lights, the whirring
motor cars--all disappeared from
heard nothing but one of Bianconi's
cars. Where it had come from and
where it was going to l did not specu-
late. Had l been told it was an ap-
partition 1 would scarcely have ques-
toned the statement. Were the male
passengers wearing beaver hats, long
tailed coats, shoes and knee breaches,
and were the females enveloped in
great blue-blooded cloaks, little would,
have been added to my amazement.
The Last Of the Bans"
The sight of that 'last of the Bians"
obhterated for the moment all ideas
Of railway communications say
nothing Of aeroplanes-and in place
of the Ireland of today, with it's peas
ant proprietors and it's prospects of
freedom, Bianconis cars were once
again Jogging over ill-made roads in
an unhappy land where the life of the
cry and oppression, where the people
were In rags more scanty and wretch
cd than at the present day are to be
seen even upon the poorest of the
poor; an Ireland in which the dfrest
want prevailed on the one hand and
the grossest extravaganza on the 9TH
er; in which the landlords squandered
their ill-gotten wealth, and in which
mon were to be seen whose sole COW
held with straw rope around the
waist who vainly strove to keep soul
and body together by eating the wild
roots and the leaves of the trees.
To get from town to town or from
village to village, the poor-and even
the better to-do with the exception of
the very wealthy classes-had to
trudge afoot over ill-made roads. The
tax on carriages was so high as to
absolutely preclude the middle classes
from using their own vehicles, nor
was any Catholic. under the Penal
Laws, entitled to own horse Of 4
greater value than twenty-five dol
lars. The contracts for the mails were
confined to the Postmasters, and the
Postmasterships throughout the coun-
try were bestowed by the dominant
ascendancy faction exclusively upon
their Protestant supporters. The re-
suit was a system of jobbery and
maladministration. SO extensive as TO
be difficult of conception nowadays.
The Postmasters looked for their
profits, not to the public, but to the
Government subsidies. and in doing so
they cheated both the Irish public and
the Government. The Irish Mail Coach
service was by far the most unsatis-
factory, and the most expensive in
the three Kingdoms.
Bianooni's Arrival in Ireland.
Such were, briefly, the conditions
prevailing in Ireland when, one bright
summer day in the year 1902, there
arrived in the City of Dublin man
and four boys, travel-stained and
weary after long and tedious jour-
ney, The name of the man was An
drea Faroni, and he was the only
member of the party who could speak
English. The boys, whose ages ranged
from fifteen to eighteen years, knew
no other tongue than that of their
sunny Motherland. Italy. Faroni was
their master. Their parents, after the
custom of Italians-a custom which
still prevails--had bound their sons t.
Faroni, who was an itinerant deale'
in prints, barometers and spy glasses
The life story of one of these alier
boys was to play a conspicuous part
in the Ireland of his day. Born at the
village of Tregolo, in the Lombard
Highlands of Northern Italy, on Sep.
TENDER "a, 1885, Charles Bianconi wa.
the second son of the proprietor Of {
small silk mill. his father also cult.
waiting little patch of ground around
Il his home. In his old age in IRELAND
Bianconi used to relate how, in hi,
early childhood, he gazed with oxen