he mind only (for severe corporal
punishment is now almost exploded), impressed a degree of timidity
almost bordering on pusillanimity. Away, then, with the specious and
long-winded arguments of a false and mistaken philosophy. A child will
be a child, and a boy a boy, to the conclusion of the chapter. Bell
or Lancaster would not relish the pap or caudle-cup three times a day;
neither would an infant on the breast feel comfortable after a gorge of
ox beef. Let them, therefore, put a little of the mother's milk of human
kindness and consideration into their straight-laced systems.

A hedge schoolmaster was the general scribe of the parish, to whom all
who wanted letters or petitions written, uniformly applied--and these
were glorious opportunities for the pompous display of pedantry; the
remuneration usually consisted of a bottle of whiskey.

A poor woman, for instance, informs Mat that she wishes to have a letter
written to her son, who is a soldier abroad. "An' how long is he gone,
ma'am?"

"Och, thin, masther, he's from me goin' an fifteen year; an' a comrade
of his was spakin' to Jim Dwyer, an' says his ridgiment's lyin' in the
Island of Budanages, somewhere in the back parts of Africa."

"An' is it a lotther of petition you'd be afther havin' me to indite for
you, ma'am?"

"Och, a letthur, sir--a letthur, master; an' may the Lord grant you all
kinds of luck, good, bad, an' indifferent, both to you and yours: an'
well it's known, by the same token, that it's yourself has the nice
hand at the pen entirely, an' can indite a letter or petition, that the
priest of the parish mightn't be ashamed to own to it."

"Why, thin, 'tis I that 'ud scorn to deteriorate upon the superiminence
of my own execution at inditin' wid a pen in my hand; but would you feel
a delectability in my supersoriptionizin' the epistolary correspondency,
ma'am, that I'm about to adopt?"

"Eagh? och, what am I sayin'!--sir--masther--sir?--the noise of the
crathurs, you see, is got into my ears; and, besides, I'm a bit bothered
on both sides of my head, ever since I heard that weary _weid_."

"Silence, boys; bad manners to yez, will ye be asy, you Lilliputian
Boeotians--by my hem--upon my credit, if I go down to that corner, I'll
castigate yez in dozens: I can't spake to this dacent woman, with your
insuperable turbulentiality."

"Ah, avourneen, masther, but the larnin's a fine thing, any how; an'
maybe 'tis yourself that hasn't the tongue in