an being
objected to, on the ground that he had left the qualifying property, and
that _Eugene_ O'Donovan was now the occupier. I explained to the
Barrister that in the South of Ireland the names of Owen and Eugene were
often applied to the same man, Eugene being the Latinized form of Owen.
I gave as an illustration our national hero, Owen Roe O'Neill, who, in
letters written to him in Latin, was styled Eugenius Rufus. A Welsh
official in Court suggested that O'Donovan was anxious to become a
Welshman by calling himself Owen. I replied that the name Owen was just
as Irish as it was Welsh, coming no doubt from the same Celtic stock,
and that, as a matter of fact, our man preferred being on the Register
as Owen. The Barrister, being satisfied that both names applied to the
same man, allowed the vote, and our voter would appear on the Register
as Owen O'Donovan.

In looking up our people to have them put upon the Register, or in
connection with an election, our canvassers are often able to form a
good judgment of the creed, or nationality, or politics of the people
of the house they are calling at by the pictures on the walls. If they
see a picture of St. Patrick, or the Pope, or Robert Emmet, they assume
they are in an Irish house of the right sort. One of my own apprentices,
when I was in business, came across a bewildering complication on one
occasion, for on one side of the room was the Pope, which seemed all
right, but facing him was a gorgeous picture of King William crossing
the Boyne. It was the woman of the house he saw, a good, decent
Irishwoman and a Catholic, who explained the apparent inconsistency. Her
husband was an Orangeman, "as good a man as ever broke bread" all the
year round, till it came near the twelfth of July, when the Orange fever
began to come on. (Our people at home in the County Down, as my father
used to tell us, often found it so with otherwise decent Protestant
neighbours.) He would come home from a lodge meeting some night, a
little the worse for drink, and smash the Pope to smithereens. The wife
was a sensible body, and knew it was no use interfering while the fit
was on him. When she knew it had safely passed away, she would take King
William to the pawnshop round the corner and get as much on him as would
buy a new Pope. He was too fond of his wife, "Papish" and all as she
was, to make any fuss about it, and would just go and redeem his idol,
and set him up again, facing the Pope, for an