rs so closely
connected with Irish affairs reminds me of an amusing incident which
took place in a Dublin tram. Two members of the fair sex were discussing
their plans for the summer in the interior of a car, and one of them in
a mincing brogue said to the other:--

'I think I shall go to England this summer; it is so difficult in
Ireland to get away from the vulgar Irish.'

'Faix,' screamed in much indignation an old Biddy sitting opposite, 'if
it's the vulgar Irish you want to avoid, and the English you want to be
meeting, it's to hell you must go, and you'd better go there this
summer.'

That's the sort of quick retort which a Scotchman calls Irish insolence,
but then, who expects appreciation of real wit from any one canny? Wit
is irresponsible, a truly Irish propensity.

The two mincing young women were almost as much disgusted as another old
lady who found herself opposite a stalwart working man, who incensed her
by his frequent expectoration. Gathering her skirts round her somewhat
ample form, she called the conductor and asked:--

'Is spitting allowed in this tram?'

'By all manes, me lady,' was the gallant reply, 'shpit anywhere you
like.'

While alluding to trams, I cannot forbear relating one other Dublin
tale, which Lord Morris picked up from me and was fond of telling. Its
brief course runs thus:--

'Would you tell me, if you plaze, where I'll find the Blackrock tram?'
asked a fussy little old woman of a policeman, busily engaging in
manoeuvring the traffic of a crowded street.

'In wan minute you'll find it in the shmall of your back,' was the
laconic reply.

The mere allusion to a query suggests how the British tourist invariably
starts trying to discuss the Irish question directly he is across the
Channel, and the insoluble part to any Saxon is that half the Irish do
not seem to desire a solution at all.

'What a fine country this would be if it were peaceful,' observed a
thoughtful Britisher, with a Cook's ticket in his pocket, on Killarney
Lake.

'Peace! What would we do with it?' was the scornful reply of his
boatman, surprised for once into ejaculating the truth.

Some landlords know how hopeless it is to attempt to prevail against
these sons of our epoch.

'It has been of no use to hold up a candle to the hydra-headed devil,'
said one landlord to me about his tenants, 'for affability is more
expensive than absenteeism. If I say, "Good morning, Tom," the fellow
expects twenty per