I can well understand Mrs.Colquhoun's objections to the housing of the Dublin poor in tenements,--even in those of a better kind than the present horrible examples; for wherever they are huddled together in any numbers they will devote most of their time to conversation.

To them talking is more attractive than eating; it even adds a new joy to drinking; and if I may judge from the groups I have seen gossiping over a turf fire till midnight, it is preferable to sleeping.

But do not suppose they will bubble over with joke and repartee, with racy anecdote, to every casual newcomer.

The tourist who looks upon the Irishman as the merry-andrew of the English-speaking world, and who expects every jarvey he meets to be as whimsical as Mickey Free, will be disappointed.

I have strong suspicions that ragged, jovial Mickey Free himself, delicious as he is, was created by Lever to satisfy the Anglo-Saxon idea of the low-comedy Irishman.