In a fit of exuberant humour he began to tickle the horse under his tail with a straw! In an instant the animal reared and plunged, and then set off at a gallop down hill.
The result was, that the car was dashed to bits and the looking-glass broken into a thousand atoms! On another occasion, a man was carrying to Cashel on his back one of Bianconi's large looking-glasses.

An old woman by the wayside, seeing the odd-looking, unwieldy package, asked what it was; on which Bianconi, who was close behind the man carrying the glass, answered that it was "the Repeal of the Union!" The old woman's delight was unbounded! She knelt down on her knees in the middle of the road, as if it had been a picture of the Madonna, and thanked God for having preserved her in her old age to see the Repeal of the Union! But this little waywardness did not last long.

Bianconi's wild oats were soon all sown.

He was careful and frugal.

As he afterwards used to say, "When I was earning a shilling a day at Clonmel, I lived upon eightpence." He even took lodgers, to relieve him of the charge of his household expenses.