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Show WIT AND HUMOR OF IRELAND. Vivid Glimpses of Life and Character of People of Emerald Isle. "The Irish are to other nations a strange and incomprehensible race." says Michael MacDonagh in his recently recent-ly published entertaining volume on his countrymen. "Irish Life and Character." Char-acter." He has accordingly devoted a good many pages to explaining them, and nearly every one of those pages is amusing and interesting. The very chapter headings have, fascination. "Bulls From Irish Pastures," one chapter, chap-ter, is quite crammed with the frisky cattle, while who is there who could refrain from wanting to read of "Love-making "Love-making in Ireland," "The Sunniness of Irish Life." 'The Irish Beggar" and nearly a score more promising equally well? In the chapter "Irish Humor." the author asks: "What is the national characteristic that excites us to laughter?" laugh-ter?" He thinks "it cannot, perhaps, be exactly defined. However, this much I may say. Everything, no matter how sober, serious or solm-emn. solm-emn. has its comic, its ludicrous side, if we could only see it: am? it seems to me that the source of Irish humor lies in the extraordinary intuition of the people in discovering this, not always obvious, side of a situation." Two peasants at a street corner are watching a gloriously uniformed officer. offi-cer. After he has passed by one of them, gazing after the glittering vision in awe and admiration, exclaims: "Ar-rah. "Ar-rah. now, shouldn't I like to .pawn him?" A servant w ho has broken a valuable tea set replies to her mistress' exclamations exclama-tions of distress, "Don't be onaisy, ma'am; the Lord be praised, I didn't hurt myself in the. laste." The bitter touch often to be found in the humor of the poor receives illustration illustra-tion in several anecdotes. A man about to emigrate is given a box by a charitable chari-table ladv. "And What Is flip Vinr fnr ma'am?" he asked. "To put your clothes in." "Arrah, ma'am, do you wish me to go naked?" And when a ragged old woman was commiserated for the loss of her last tooth: "Time for me to loss 'em when I've nothing for 'em to do," she replied. On one occasion a gentleman noted for his huge bulk fell ill and was kept alive by an occasional teaspoohful of brandy. A servant in the house men- j tioned this to a friend, and received the I contemptuous answer: "And what good ! would a tayspoon be. sthrayin' round I in such a wilderness of a man?" An Irish peasant was asked whether he knew what an "Irish bull" was. "To be sure I do. If you was goin' along a high road and you seen three cows lyin' in a field and wan of thim's standin' up that wan is an Irish bull." Pat is always al-ways ready with his answer. A refractory prisoner, refusing to go on the treadmill, replied to the warden's war-den's command: "Me go on the thread- mill? Xiver. sur! I'll lave the jail first!" The marriages of Ireland are mostly settled in continental fashion bv the older people, the youngsters doing as they are bid in 'the matter. But they are vouched for as generally happy, and the wife is mistress in her own home. The tendency, which we ascribe on this side of the water to our colored population, of using big and high-sounding high-sounding words with no clear idea as to their meaning, is, Mr. MacDonagh says, an Irish characteristic. "Ah! the poor thing was always full of sediment," was said of a romantic girl who made a poor runaway match. Another voices the opinion that "the ways of Providence is unscrupulous." Mr. MacDonagh expresses the hope, in his preface, that his book may not be regarded as simply a collection of funny stories. There is a laugh on every page, to be sure, even the chapter chap-ter headed "The Gates of Death" having hav-ing its quirk. But reading the volume through one also gets a fair idea of the conditions that go to make the present Ireland, and some conception of the characteristics that bundle up into the Irish man or woman. Of their passionate passion-ate love for their country we get many a proof. Of their courage and good humor under circumstances which would break the heart of another race. as many more. Even their faults and weaknesses have about them something winning, a mingling of child and poet. They are like people who have stepped within a fairy ring and who, hearing words and seeing visions, can afford to laugh at griefs and. hardships which would bring despair to those without The rainbow that shimmers so frequently fre-quently in their rainy skies has colored the light of common day for them and enriched them all with its magic gold. New Tork Times' Saturday Review of Books. |