r the
purchase of cattle, he prefers to raise the money on a bill at six per
cent.

That is to say, the bank is lending him his own money at five per
cent.--a truly Hibernian trait, which it would be difficult to beat
anywhere.

A bill for drink is not recoverable, but occasionally an insidious
publican will take a man's I.O.U. and sue on that.

One applied to me to help him to get the money from a tenant.

'You must show me the account,' said I.

As I suspected, there was whisky in it, and I declined on the spot.

All drink in Ireland is on cash down terms only.

If they gave tick, they would never recover the money, and if every
Irishman is a knowing scoundrel, the publican is a trifle more
knowledgable than the customer, whose brains are besodden.

A man, who had been a servant of mine, started a public near Tralee, and
thinking he would get customers from the other whisky stores, he gave
tick. His popularity lasted just as long as the tick did, and a week
later he was broke. I do not say so much about Tralee being able to
support one hundred and sixty liquor shops, because there is a little
shipping, but how Cahirciveen can enable fifty publicans to thrive is a
melancholy mystery to me.

I was animadverting once, at Dingle, on the topic, when one of my
labourers remarked:--

'It's the gentry does the drinking.'

'Now that's very curious,' said I, 'for as there are only two of us, and
as I never touch spirits, the other must have such a thirst that he'd
consume the bay if only it were made of whisky.'

In these democratic days, it is as well to resist any undue aspersion on
the upper classes.

To pass any aspersion on the bibulous propensities of a tenant of mine
named Flaherty would be impossible. When he was buying his farm, I told
him the Government ought to take him on very easy terms, when they
became his landlords.

'And for why?' he asked.

'Because,' I replied, 'the duty you pay on the whisky you drink is more
than twenty times your annual rent.'

I had, however, one personal illustration of the drinking propensity in
Scotland, which I think is worth preserving. It is some years now since
I went to see a certain farmer who, his wife told me, on noticing my
approach, was compelled to go upstairs to cool his head as it was after
dinner. She said this much in the same casual tone, as I should mention
that my wife had gone up early to dress for that meal.

Next, I heard heavy splashing of w