ffice. He was elected to a Society
for visiting the Sick Poor, and became a Member of the House of
Industry. He might have gone on in the same business, winning his way
to the Mayoralty of Clonmel, which he afterwards held; but that the old
idea, which had first sprung up in his mind while resting wearily on
the milestones along the road, with his heavy case of pictures by his
side, again laid hold of him, and he determined now to try whether his
plan could not be carried into effect.

He had often lamented the fatigue that poor people had to undergo in
travelling with burdens from place to place upon foot, and wondered
whether some means might not be devised for alleviating their
sufferings. Other people would have suggested "the Government!" Why
should not the Government give us this, that, and the other,--give us
roads, harbours, carriages, boats, nets, and so on. This, of course,
would have been a mistaken idea; for where people are too much helped,
they invariably lose the beneficent practice of helping themselves.
Charles Bianconi had never been helped, except by advice and
friendship. He had helped himself throughout; and now he would try to
help others.

The facts were patent to everybody. There was not an Irishman who did
not know the difficulty of getting from one town to another. There
were roads between them, but no conveyances. There was an abundance of
horses in the country, for at the close of the war an unusual number of
horses, bred for the army, were thrown upon the market. Then a tax had
been levied upon carriages, which sent a large number of jaunting-cars
out of employment.

The roads of Ireland were on the whole good, being at that time quite
equal, if not superior, to most of those in England. The facts of the
abundant horses, the good roads, the number of unemployed outside cars,
were generally known; but until Bianconi took the enterprise in hand,
there was no person of thought, or spirit, or capital in the country,
who put these three things together horses, roads, and cars and dreamt
of remedying the great public inconvenience.

It was left for our young Italian carver and gilder, a struggling man
of small capital, to take up the enterprise, and show what could be
done by prudent action and persevering energy. Though the car system
originally "grew out of his back," Bianconi had long been turning the
subject over in his mind. His idea was, that we should never despise
small in