SCOLDING MATCH EXTRAORDINARY.

Evening Star, Issue 3325, 16 October 1873, Page 3

SCOLDING MATCH EXTRAORDINARY.

O’CONNEIA AND Mas MO R TARTY. Tn Madden’s “Revelations of Ireland” wc find a whmsical account of a scolding match between the late Mr U’Gojinoll, then a young man just called t° the Bar, and one Biddy Moriarty, an ancient widow, who kept a huckster's stal : on one of the quays pearly opposite to the Four Courts, and whose powers of abuse were notorious from one end of Dublin to the other. Tim lingual duello was the result «f a wager, Mr O’Connell backing himself to outscold the virago. The result is thus described : The party adjourned to the hu kster’s stall, and there was the owner herself, superintending the sale of her small wares—a few loungers and ragged id'era were lounging round her stall, for Biddy was a “character, ’ and, in her way, was one of the sights of Dublin. O’Connell was very confident of success. He had laid an ingenious plan for over coming her, .and, with all the anxiety of an ardent experimentalist, waited to put it into pract c ‘. He to open the attack. \t: his time 0’( pnnell’s own party and the loungers about the place formed an audience quite sufficient to rouse Mrs iVionarty, on public provocation, to a due exhibition of her powers. O’Cknn-.1l commenced the attack. “ What’s the price of this walking stick, Mrs What’s-your-Name ?” “Moriarty, sir, is my name, and a g-od one it is ; and what have yon got to say agen it? and one and sixpence’s the price of the stick. Troth, it’s chape *s dirt, so it is.” “ One a> d sixpence fora walking stick, whew ! Why you are no better than an im poster to ask eighteen pence for what cost you two pence. “ Two pence your grandmother !” replied Mrs Biddy ; “do you wane to say that it’s chating the- people I am ? imposter indeed !” “Ay, imposter ; and it’s that I call you to your teeth rejoined OVonnell. “ Come cut your stick, you cantankerous jackanapes.” “ Keep a civil tongue in your head, you old diagonal," cried O’Connell, calmly. “ Stop yqup jaw, yog pug-hosed Badger, | or by this and that,” cried Mrs Moriarty, “ I’ll make you go quicker nor you came.” “Don’t be in a passion, my old radius—anger will only wrinkle your beauty.” “ By the hokey, if you say another word of impudence, I’ll tan your hide, yp.qhastely common scrub; and sorry l’<l be'to soil my fists upop you* qarcase!^ “ Whew J bpys, what a pats'ion old Biddy is in ; I protest, as 1 am a Gentleman “ Jintleman ! jintleman ! the likes of you a jintleman 1 Wisha, by gorp, that bangs Banager. Why yqu paiafodaced pippinaneeaer, where did a Madagascar monkey like you pick up enough of common Christian dacency to bide your Kerry brogue ?" “ Easy, now—easy now, ’ cried O’Connell, with i m per tn ruble good humor, “ don’t choke yourself Avith fine language, you old whisky-drinking parallelogram ” “ What’s that you call me, you murderin’ villian ?” roared Mrs Moriarty, stung into fury. “ £ call you,” answered O’Connell, “a parallelogram, and a Dublin judge and jurywill say that it’s no libel to call you so !” “Oh ! tare-an-hounds ! Oh, holy Biddy! that an honest woman like me should be called a parrybellygrum to her face ! I’m none] of yoi r parryhellygrmnp,*you rascally gallow’s-bird ; you cowar.lly, sneaking, platolickin’ bljggard !” “ Oh, not you, indeed!” retorted O’Connell ; “ why, I suppose you’ll deny that you keep a hypothenuse in your house?” “ It’s a lie for you, you robber ; I never had such a thing ffi my house, you swffidlffig thief,'’ “ Why, sure all the neighbors knoAv very wall that you keep not only a hypothenuse, but that you have got two diameters locked up in your garret, and that you go out to walk with th- m every Sunday, you heartless old heptagon .” “ Oh, hear that, ye saints of glory ! Oh, there’s bad language from a fellow that wants to pass for a jintleman ! May thedivil fly away with you, you michcr from Munster, and make celery sauce of your rotten limbs, yon mealy-mouthed tub of guts !” “Ah, you can’t deny the charge, you miserable sub-multiple of a duplicate ratio." “ Go, rinse your mouth in the Liffey, you nasty tickle-pitcher ; after all the bad words you speak it ought to tyj filthier thap ypur face, you dirty chicken qf Beelzebub.” “ Rinse ypur own mouth, you wicked old polygon— to the deuce I pitch you, you blustering intersection of a superficies !” “You saucy tinker’s apprentice, 'if you don’t cease your Jaw I*ll but bore she gapped for breath, unable to hawk up any more words, for the last volley of O’Connell had nearly knocked the wind out of her, “ While I have a tongue I’ll abuse you, you most inimitable periphery. Look at her, boys! There she stands—a convicted perpendicular in petticoats. There’s contamination in her circumference, and she trembles with guilt, down to the extremities of her corrollarics. Ah ! you’re bound out, you rectilineal antecedent, and equiangular old hag ! Tis with you the devil will fly away, you po-ter-swiping similitude of the bisection of a vortex /” Overwhelmed with this torrent of language, Mrs Moriarty was silenced. Catching up a saucepan, she was aiming at O’Connell’s head, when he very prudently made a timely retreat, “You have won the wager, O’Connell, here’s your bet,” cried the gentleman who proposed the contest. I UVonncll know well the use of sound in I vituperation; and, having to deal with

an ignorant scold, determined to overcome her in volubility by using all the sesquipedal'm verha, which occur in Euclid. With these, and a few sigivficant epithets, and a scoffing, impudent demeanour, he had for once imposed silence ou Mrs Biddy Moriarty.