and
"My Lodging is on the Cold Ground," have particularly pleased us in
their arrangement. The song which Mr. Moore has written to "The Black
Joke," is both poetical and political, and though the affairs of Spain
have now rendered it, as to that country, an _old newspaper_, yet it is
still good in the cause of Ireland."

SPORTING INTELLIGENCE.

The coterie of old ladies in the British parliament, the _chairwoman_ of
which was the late sir Richard Hill, have failed in all their attempts
to tie up the hands of the people from their old sports. They have
declaimed in parliament, and they have declaimed in print, against all
the gymnastic exercises which time immemorial have been the pride and
the pastime of the hardy natives of the British islands. Never did
Robespierre weep such unfeigned tears over "sweet bleeding humanity," as
those good souls have shed over the broken heads, and black eyes, and
bloody noses of the Bull family, who, obstinate dogs, will still go on
and laugh at their ladyships. Indeed Bonaparte himself, whose interest
it really is, could not more anxiously desire the abolition of those
gymnastic exercises.

The sports of England are horse-racing; fox, hare, and stag-hunting;
coursing with greyhounds; shooting, fishing, bull-baiting, wrestling,
single stick, pugilism, pedestrianism, cricket, &c. These are practised
by all ranks and on national accounts, are encouraged by all the wise
and patriotic men of the country; some few, and those mostly fanaticks,
excepted. To those games they add, in Ireland, the noble sport of
hurling, in which that vigorous race exhibit such prodigies of strength
and activity as induced the celebrated Arthur Young to speak to this
effect in his Tour through Ireland: "In their hurlings, which I would
call the cricket of savages, they perform feats of agility that would
not do discredit to Sadler's Wells."

The gymnastic games have been long carried on so systematically that
they make as regular a part of the public intelligence as any that finds
its way into the public papers, and have, like the theatre, their
appropriated periodical publications.[9] On this subject we would say
much more, as we mean to present our readers with such things as appear
curious or extraordinary in those publications; but by way of a
beginning, and to pave the road for the reception of this part of our
work by the public, we beg leave to offer, not to their hasty perusal,
but their profo