AN AMATEUR TRAMP.

Waikato Argus, Volume IV, Issue 281, 30 April 1898, Page 4

AN AMATEUR TRAMP.

Thk words •' Turn out,,' which 1 heard in Tipperary workhouse, were uttered by the porter, who, having put down a lighted candle, withdrew, locking the door again behind him. There was much grumbling and growling on the part of my companions, from none more than from the late ditturber of our peace and slumber, .it being roused up so Jong before daylight. The morning was cold ; so clothes were soon huddled on, the bedclothes folded, pipes lit, and down we all sat to wait for sunrise. I now found that Jack was a pauper permanent inmate of the houses, and slept in this probationary, or casual, ward to act as a spy upon the others. The madman and he were old friends, and I overhead a promise of a tip made by the former to the latter if he was allowed to " slide " as soon as the gates wereeopen. Number four had been a visitor before ; so Mike and myself were the only strangers. After we had sat shivering for nearly an hour the door was opened, and " Come on," said a strange voice, that of the taskmaster ; and up we all got, went out into the cold morning air. Neither Jack nor the soldier did I see again, but the rest of us followed the man who had called us to a large open shed, in which there arranged, at short distances from each other, other thirty piles of blocks of stone. We were each handed a small hammer and a wisp of straw, and our respective heaps were pointed out. Mike, with a look of great discomfiture, but wonderfully alert for a man "infirm," throwing clown the ttraw, sat himself upon it, and, spreading his legs out, took up one of the blocks near him and commenced at work upon it with his hammer. Haviug watched his start, I followed his example ; and the number four took his place near by. For a time no one spoke. Mike went at it with a wil', and the heap of broken road metal grew quickly under his skilled hands, while mine, though I put all the energy I possessed iuto my work, seemed to grow very slowly. Still I kept on, and took encouragement from the fact that I was keeping ahead of No. 4. The hours, seven, eight, nine, I heard struck, and soon after up jumped Mike; he hud finished his heap, and if he had been silent before he was voluble enough now, and he vowed vengeance on the head cf the little sneak Jack, who he said had s-plit upon him. Had he not done so he knew that we should have had no work given us. " But don't we always have to do some ?" I asked. "Sorra a bit when we're strangers; but the blackguards kep' me till four at Limerick the other day, because I had been there before. Shure, Kilmallock ia the place ; you're treated like a jintleman there,' said Mike. Half an hour afterwards, as I was till plodding away, 'ho taskmaster made his appearance, and complimented Mike upon his work. " Shure, I ought to do it well; it's myselt bez been in every workhouse in Oireland, nearly," said Mike, very proudly. " There, that will do, go to breakfast," said the man addressing us; and very gladly I relinquised my hammer, rose, and with the others went to the house. " Can I go now ?" I said to the porter at the door. " Yes, if you won't stay for your breakfact." was the answer. The prospect of a skilly meal was not sufficiently tempting to delay me; and shaking as much of the dint from myself as I could I left, and so ended my visit to Tipperary workhouse. From Tipperary I found my way to Dublin, and in that city visited the South Dublin Union In England the casual is treated as a criminal and punished for his impecuoiosity ; in Ireland he is treated as an unfortunate, and sympathetically. In the latter country there is none of the dragooning by Jacks in office which is so rampant in the former. In Tipperary, rough as my experience was, there was no domineericg insolence on the part of the officials; neither myself nor my companions received anything but civility. Consequently none of that bitter feeling was engendered which is the result of a night spent in an English workhouse as a casual. What the feeling of the English labourer is towards casual wards was shown very forcibly the evening I left town for Ireland. I was asked fur afsiitauce by a typical English navvy of about sixty, who said he was broktn down by " rheumatics." "Why not go to a casual ward tonight ?" 1 asked. "Why, btcos I'd sooDer die in a ditch. I never have been, thank heaven ! in what you call a casual ward, and I never will ; I'd sooner be run in, by long chalks. Thank you, sir. Good-night," replied the man, as he hobbled off. " How do you account for the difference of workhouse management in the two countries ?"' 1 have bicn asked. " The masters in Ireland, so far as I was able to judge are drawn from a higher social class, are much better educated men, men likely to be better able to judge the character of the people they have to deal with than those in charge of unions in this country," is my answer. Ireland is not an ideal country for the pedestrian tourist, but he will find much to amuse, much to interest, and perhaps more to surprise him. I had a five or six miles' walk one day in the company of a farmer who had missed his train, and we chatted all the way. " Wurn't ye afraid of being murthered in Oireland, walking all alone ?" said my companion. " Why?" I asked. "Oh ! it's a bad character we Oirish have intoirely; but the devil's not as black as he is painted maybe. It's the blatherskiting agitators and the newspapers that are to blame," was Paddy's reply. " What newspapers, Irish or English ?' I asked. "Both, devil spoil 'em!" said my friend, as laughingly we shook hands. In one of the last new Channel boats I crossed from Kingstown to Holyhead, and I shall always look back with pleasure to my experiences in Ireland as an Amateur Tump.