might look, would be apt to snap in the twist and tug of war.  Having cut it as close to the root as possible, we then lopped off the branches, and put it up the chimney to season.  When seasoned, we took it down, and wrapping it in brown paper, well steeped in hog’s lard or oil, we buried it in a horse dunghill, paying it a daily visit for the purpose of making it straight by doubling back the bends or angles across the knee, in a direction contrary to their natural tendency.  Having daily repeated this until we had made it straight, and renewed the oil wrapping paper until the staff was perfectly saturated, we then rubbed it well with a woollen cloth, containing a little black-lead and grease, to give it a polish.  This was the last process, except that if we thought it too light at the top, we used to bore a hole in the lower end with a red-hot iron spindle, into which we poured melted lead, for the purpose of giving it the knock-down weight.

There were very few of Paddy Mulligan’s scholars without a choice collection of such cudgels, and scarcely one who had not, before his fifteenth year, a just claim to be called the hero of a hundred fights, and the heritor of as many bumps on the cranium as would strike both Gall and Spurzheim speechless.

Now this, be it known, was, and in some districts yet is, an integral part of an Irish peasant’s education.  In the northern parts of Ireland, where the population of the Catholics on the one side, and of Protestant and Dissenters on the other, is nearly equal, I have known the respective scholars of Catholic and Protestant schools to challenge each other and meet half-way to do battle, in vindication of their respective creeds; or for the purpose of establishing the character of their respective masters as the more learned man; for if we were to judge by the nature of the education then received, we would be led to conclude that a more commercial nation than Ireland was not on the face of the earth, it being the indispensable part of every scholar’s business to become acquainted with the three sets of Bookkeeping.

The boy who was the handiest and the most daring with the cudgel at Paddy Mulligan’s school was Denis Kelly, the son of a wealthy farmer in the neighborhood.  He was a rash, hot-tempered, good-natured lad, possessing a more than common share of this blackthorn ambition; on which account he was cherished by his relations as a boy that was likely at a future period to be able to walk over the course of the parish, in fair, market, or patron.  He certainly grew up a stout, able young fellow; and before he reached nineteen years, was unrivalled at the popular exercises of the peasantry.  Shortly after that time he made his debut in a party-quarrel, which took place in one of the Christmas Margamores, (* Big Markets) and fully sustained the anticipations which were formed of him by his relations.  For a year or two afterwards no quarrel was fought without him; and his prowess rose until he had gained the very pinnacle of that ambition which he had determined to reach.  About this time I was separated from him, having found it necessity, in order to accomplish my objects in life, to reside with a relation in another part of the country.