IRISH HUMOUR.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 578, 21 June 1913, Page 7

IRISH HUMOUR.

NATIVE WIT AND ENGLISH IMITATIONS. From the Irish Supplement of The Times. It would be a mistake to suppose that the Irish peasant is always saying funny things. Life in Ireland has not flowed for centuries through scenes shadowed by tragedy without receiving a deep tinge of sadness. There is in the Irish nature an underlying melancholy, which at times fills the individual with a strange disquietude as of an impending catastrophe. Many peasant sayings might be quoted that wear a sable fringe. But, even so, in the life of Ireland, viewed as a whole, there is a widespread sens*; of gregarious fun and gaiety, and a droll vein of humour —conscious as well as unconscious —is prevalent in the peasant class, to a larger extent, perhaps, than is commonly allowed by Nature as an alleviation of human infirmity elsewhere. One constantly sees, however, in the comic columns of Engilsh news papers specimens of Irish comicality which are imbued with no touch of the colour and breath of the atmosphere of Irish life. They appear to ba survivals of a traditional type of Irish humour, once accepted as genuine in high places, but ringing hollow in ears attuned to the sound of the real gold of Irish fun and feeling. Southey, in a letter to a friend, Written in 1835, relates that the curate at Kewick, an Irishman, having had a baby born to him, he, as godfather, suggested, in order to make the child, "a true Paddy," the flooring of the lying-in chamber with turf from the Bog of Allen, the use of whisky, in3tead of water at the christening, and the suckling of the baby by—a bull. "And if that would not have made him Irish, what would?" asks the poet. And even still it is believed that the ingredients of an Irish joke are turf, whisky, and a bull. ENGLISH IMITATIONS. The writer has heard three distinguished Britons—all of whom gave a thousand proofs of the possession of a high sense of humour—publicly tell Irish stories of this class which purported to give the Irish way of looking at things, but which, nevertheless, were without the true Irish flavour. In the House of Commons j Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman related how the head of a family complained to three friends —an Englishman, a Scotsman, and an Irishman — that an awkward or careless servant was constantly breaking his china, and asked their advice as to what he ought to do with her. The practical Englishman said, "Dismiss her;" "Take it out of her wages," said the thrifty Scot. The gentleman explained that the wages were less than the amount of damage. "Then raise her wages," said the Irishman. General Booth substantiated his praise of the Salvation Army in a speech by stating that an Irishman named Patrick Maloney, who applied for a situation, presented a testimonial which ran — "This is to testify that Patrick Maloney is a good workman and de serving of substantial wages. (Signed) Patrick Maioney; and when it was pointed out to him that the recommendation had been written by himself, replied, "Yes, so it is an' is there anbyody in this wide world that knows Patrick Maloney and what is his due better than himself?" Mr W. T. Stead, speaking on the subject of one of the several schemes to which be gave his countenance, referred to a bet that was made by two Irishmen. It was that Pat would not carry up three ladders a hod of bricks with Mike sitting on the top of the hod. Two of the ladders were ascended without mishap, but on the third Pat missed a step. He held un, however, and thus saved himself and Mike from falling a distance of 40ft. "I've won the bet!" he exclaimed when they reached the top. "Yes," replied Mike, "but when yez slipped I thought I had yez." The engaging attributes displayed in these stories, a childlike simplicity as well as a childlike lack of commonsense, are commonl" supposed to pretain to the character of an Imh peasant But if anyone were to act uponthat assumption in making a fine bargain with a peasant in the market or at the fair he would find himself, in the end, most grievously disillusioned, for the soaring mind of the peasant is really ballasted by solid, practical qualities. These anecdotes are good fun in their way, but they are not convincing. To the Irishman their sound has an odd mixture of strangeness and familiarity. The voice in them is a colourable imitation of the Irish voiee,' but the words that are spoken are the invention ot some one unacquainted with the Irish habit and character of expression. In fact, they no more reveal the Irish mind than the Irish physical characteristics were revealed in the caricatures of an Irishman once so popular in the music halls. PEASANT HUMOUR. A good deal of peasant humour is unconscious, or, perhaps, sub-con-scious, the humour that is character and habit rather than purposely jocular, playful, and witty—in fact, a process of mind, the swift expression of exuberant and impetuous feeling. Many stories might, however, be told that bear evidence of intentional effort, and yet are a rude effluence of Irish nature. A labourer who fell off a building and fractured his ribs was awarded £25 compensation by the Court. But his solicitor kept £ls for professional services. The labourer gazed at the ten sovereigns that were handed to him in great surprise. "What are you looking at?" asked the solicitor. "Well, as you asked me, sir, " replied the workman, "I was just wonderin' which of us it was that fell off the buildins' and broke his ribs.' During 1 the great railway strike of 11 an amateur enginedriver, in pulling up at a country station, took the train a long way past the platform, and then backing the train, went as far again as beyond the platform at the other end. "Stop

where yez are," shouted s. Dublin playboy among the pickets, "we'll shift the station tor yez!" "Come now. Pat," said one of a party of tourists to a Connemara peasant, "I'll give you a sovereign if you tell a bigger lie than you told before." Pat at once responded with, "Faith, sir, you're a real gentleman," and the company unanimously declared that the sovereign was well earned. It is doubtful, however, whether Pat really intended that his compliment to the tourist should be taken as the biggest lie he was capable of. The courteous and sensitive Irish peasant, as a rule, is innately incapable of saying rude things to the stranger—even to the rude stranger, so as to put him out of conceit with himself—for the stranger is held almost sacred in rural Ireland. Pat probably intended it as - a genuine expression of thanks and praise for the tourist's offer, as a preliminary to turning his mind to the manufacture of a magnificent lie, in which imagination and not satire would have play, when the approving shouts of the company told him that he had already Won the sovereign unwittingly. But there can be no doubt whatever that the female keeper of the village post office and provision shop intended to be bitterly cutting and severe to a lady who bought her groceries elsewhere and only called at her establishment for her correspondence. "The impudence of you!" cried the irate shopkeeper in the postmistress, "you car: go and get your letters where you get your tay an' sugar." Irish women and men may occasionally lose their tempers, but they can never lose their temperaments. THE IRISH BULL. The story is also illustrative of the incongruous and amusing incidents and situations into which Irish people are Hometimes led by that perversity of thought and action which spring from their keen sensibility and passionate earnestness divorced from reflection. From a somewhat kindred source springs the national aptitude for "bulls"—the swift operation of a vivid fancy combined with high powers of memory and association which blends two or more opposite ideas in a unity which astonishes and amuses by its complication and incongruity. For it is curious effect of an Irish "bull" that however it may turn a thing the wrong way round, it always tends to its complete and more perfect understanding Simple and true to Irish nature was the description recently given by Nationalist member of the desolation of a farm in Ireland, "The only animal that can live on it," said he, "are the seagulls which fly over it." Happy again as an example of 'he fundamental incongruity between the ideas asso ciated in a "bull" ia the retort of a thirsty cab-driver to his English fare who had refreshed him at a roadside publichouse. "Well, has that made another man of you?" said the traveller. "Faith it has, sir," replied the arey: "an' he's dry, too." UNCONSCIOUS WIT. But, after all, what are much more racy of the soil, much mors amusingly illustrative of the peculiar twist of the peasant mind, are the droll replies instinctive and instant without a trace of seeking after-effect and of character different from "bulls" — which are so frequently to be heard in Ireland. A priest called on a farmer who had given way to drink and lectured him on the virtue of restraint. "Just look at your cow there at the stream, you may be sure she won't drink too much." "An' who'd thank her, when 'tis only watfcer'?" retorted the farmer. A member of the Royal Irißh constabulary, taking the agricultural statistics of a rural district, called at a farmer's luiise when | the occupier was oat, and was directed by one of the family—a young lad—where he would find him. "He's oui in the paddock wid the a3s," said the boy; you will know father by his sHraw hat." As an example of the incompatibility of an answer with the real matter in hand another story may be told. An old country woman going to town by train stepped into carriage with her basket and made herself nice and comfortable. Then a porter came along and said "Are you first-claEis, my good woman?" "Begor, I am, ana' thank you," she replied, "how do you feel yerself ?" In somewhat the same vein of inconsequence is the expression of sympathy contined in this dialogue :—"How does this damp weather agree with you, Mrs Maloney?" "Badly, thin. I'm J just contrivin' to keep out of the ) hands of the undertaker." "Faix, an' Im sorry to hear that same, ma'am." Anyone acquainted with the moods and expressions of the Irish people hears the dulcet tones of their voices in these colloquies. He hear 3 it also in the excuse given by a young cattle jobber who imposed upon a Protestanc clergyman by sell ing him an animal that was diseased. The parson thought proper to give him a lecture on his deceit, but he quickly interrupted it by saying, "Ah, dont' be angry with me, sir. Sure, I'm only a poor boy with no way of livin' but by stratigims."