auld hag's death. I've been so overjoyed by the sad news that I took a sma' fit of running with my two shin bones in my porcket, and my head under my arum, til I ran at the rate of 16 miles an hour. I met with Jack Jervis, an auld hack nie couchman, driving fifteen flying jackasses under an empty stame-coach that was loaded with two roasted mill-stones and a 74 man-o'-war vessel with 18 artillery granny-deers and 12 big-book magpies. They were drinking tay until they were ready to bust wi' the hunger. I asked Jack Jervis had he any account o' the shower of auld hags that fell not long ago? He tould me divil the account he had o' them, but John Manx had all kind of 'count about um, and that he lives on one side of the Three Flying Jackasses up and down the street where a mad dog bit a hatchet and pigs rastling for stirabout. I niver stopped till I crashed into a sma' villige twice the size of Dublin, when I met an auld man rouling away wi' a stack of chimneys on his back. He didn't go very far until he had taken a horn-colic in his big toe, and a tooth-ache in his shin-boune, and a headache in the back of his bellie. I hired an impty stamecoach to take hum to apothicary's shop, where I called for a physic for hum, when I got 16 quarts of bees basted, 19 pounds of frog's butter, and 21 gallons of Kirogue's kidneys. Well! I had um all biled in an auld iron leather pot, and conveyded hum to a lock-up 'orspital, where he had been thirteen days and nights coughing, and after that he was safely delivur'd of an auld blacksmith's anvil, 42 pounds" At this point of the story, which appeared to be endless, I left the group, and indeed had only just time to walk to the station, when the train came up, and from the College and village of Maynooth carried me safely back to Dublin. DUBLIN POLICE. As I was anxious, during my short visit, to observe, as accurately as I could, the Irish character in the various phases in which it is to be seen, I obtained permission to inspect the Dublin Metropolitan Police Force, composed of 103 serjeants, 12 detectives, 954 constables, and 20 supernumeraries, making a total of 1099, whose weekly pay is as follows: Sergeants and detectives. 8. d. 21 0 16 9 15 0 Second class Supernumeraries A candidate for admission must be under 26 years of age, must be able to read and write, and, moreover, must be in height 5 feet 9 inches, without his shoes. The whole force average in height 5 feet 11 inches, and they are thus in reality, as they are in appearance, an army of grenadiers, of which the B division, composed of 190, are all 6 feet and upwards. Among the constables there is only one old soldier, and one lawyer. There is scarcely a Dublin man among them, the Commissioners preferring to enlist country people from all parts of Ireland, without making any inquiry as to their religion. The conditions upon which they are enlisted are, that they shall not belong to any secret or political society, and that they shall abstain from the expression of any political or religious opinion in any manner calculated to give offence. To these simple, sensible regulations they at once cheerfully and rigidly conform; and thus, while the whole of Ireland is convulsed with religious animosities, which generations of British statesmen have declared, and still declare, to be implacable, the Dublin Metropolitan Police, composed of Catholics and Protestants, picked up from all parts of Ireland, not only among themselves live in perfect amity, but at a moment's notice, at the sound of a rattle or of a whistle, fraternally join together to collar, handcuff, and, if absolutely necessary, to fell senseless to the ground, any person or persons who, from religious, political, or any other alleged motives, shall presume to disturb the public peace. In this sacred duty, and in attaining this noble triumph, no less than seventy of them, during the last twelve months, were grievously and severely wounded; and yet, is it not strange that, while the Dublin Police Force so clearly sees that by amity and silent unanimity they can beneficently preserve the peace of their metropolis, "another place" ever has been, and is, an arena in which the pronunciation of the very name of Ireland produces acerbity and contention? In fact, there can exist no doubt whatever that if, on the one hand, the members of "the House" alluded to were to be made constables of the Dublin Police, they would, by endless speeches, create infinitely more disturbance than they would allay, and that, on the other hand, if Lieut.-Colonel George Brown, and his Catholic and Protestant constables, were, for a single Session, to be granted an opportunity of legislating from St. Stephen's for Ireland, they would, with perfect unanimity, by silent firmness, laconically impart peace, happiness, and prosperity to the land. There are sixteen station-houses in Dublin, with a clock in each, by the assistance of which, at the same instant, sixteen reliefs are thrown out over a surface of forty-four square miles. The whole is governed by two Commissioners, one civil, the other military, whose office is in the Castle. In the police store, within its precincts, I found a number of trophies that had been obtained by the force. Among them was the tricolour flag given by certain Paris ladies of easy political virtue to Mr. Meagher, and captured in the summer of 1848; a black flag, with the harp of Ireland in white; another black flag, tastefully ornamented with the words "Famine and Pestilence;" pikes of various sorts, for cutting bridles, maiming horses, spitting Protestants, &c. &c.; lastly, a human skull, which, during the State trials in 1848, had been hung on the knocker of Mr. Kemis, the Crown Solicitor, as a reminder. I also observed a lot of very efficient extra weapons, in case the police truncheons should prove insufficient, consisting of swords, ship cutlasses with iron handles, and lastly, as the strongest dose in the Dublin police pharmacopoeia, short detonating muskets with brown barrels. In the clothing store I found piled in masses great coats, coats, trousers, and oil-skin capes, with a quantity of mattresses, stuffed with cocoa-nut fibre. From the Castle, the residence of Vice-Royalty, Colonel Brown was good enough to accompany me to the "Old Bishop's Palace," now the principal establishment of the Police, consisting of a plot of ground and buildings surrounded by a high wall. In one stable, as clean, and, I may add, as smart as a London livery stable, I found twenty capital, well-bred horses, belonging to the mounted force, every man of which is well trained to the use of the bright arms he bears. The sets of harness belonging to four large vans in which, as in London, prisoners are conveyed to the Police Courts, and from thence to the jails, were as highly polished and burnished as if they had belonged to a gentleman's carriage. On entering the largest of the buildings I found a school for recruits, in which they improve their writing, and also learn by heart a "Catechism," in which is very clearly expounded to them that the duty they owe to their neighbour is to conduct him quietly to the nearest station whenever he is disorderly,-carry him there when he happens to be unable to stand,-force him there whenever he resists,--and handcuff him whenever he is what is professionally termed "violent." From the school I proceeded to a room where I found twenty fine, good-looking, powerful country lads, with large white teeth and clean ruddy faces, seated with a dinner before them, and with heaps of potatoes which certainly appeared to me altogether enough to choke them. But they were not only learning to eat a good |