m existing between the several companies,
are often run so as to miss each other. The present working of the
Irish railway traffic provokes perpetual irritation amongst the Irish
people, and sufficiently accounts for the frequent petitions presented
to Parliament that they should be taken in hand and worked by the State.

Bianconi continued to superintend his great car establishment until
within the last few years. He had a constitution of iron, which he
expended in active daily work. He liked to have a dozen irons in the
fire, all red-hot at once. At the age of seventy he was still a man in
his prime; and he might be seen at Clonmel helping, at busy times, to
load the cars, unpacking and unstrapping the luggage where it seemed to
be inconveniently placed; for he was a man who could never stand by and
see others working without having a hand in it himself. Even when well
on to eighty, he still continued to grapple with the immense business
involved in working a traffic extending over two thousand five hundred
miles of road.

Nor was Bianconi without honour in his adopted country. He began his
great enterprise in 1815, though it was not until 1831 that he obtained
letters of naturalisation. His application for these privileges was
supported by the magistrates of Tipperary and by the Grand Jury, and
they were at once granted. In 1844 he was elected Mayor of Clonmel,
and took his seat as Chairman at the Borough Petty Sessions to dispense
justice.

The first person brought before him was James Ryan, who had been drunk
and torn a constable's belt. "Well, Ryan," said the magistrate, "what
have you to say?" "Nothing, your worship; only I wasn't drunk." "Who
tore the constable's belt?" "He was bloated after his Christmas
dinner, your worship, and the belt burst!" "You are so very pleasant,"
said the magistrate, "that you will have to spend forty-eight hours in
gaol."

He was re-elected Mayor in the following year, very much against his
wish. He now began to buy land, for "land hunger" was strong upon him.
In 1846 he bought the estate of Longfield, in the parish of Boherlahan,
county of Tipperary. It consisted of about a thousand acres of good
land, with a large cheerful house overlooking the river Suir. He went
on buying more land, until he became possessor of about eight thousand
English acres.

One of his favourite sayings was: "Money melts, but land holds while
grass grows and water runs." He was an exc