“Given under our hands, this 37th day of June, 18004.

     “Larry Dolan. 
     “Dick Dolan, his (X) mark. 
     “Jem Coogan, his (X) mark. 
     “Brine Murphey. 
     “Paddy Delany, his (X) mark. 
     “Jack Traynor. 
     “Andy Connell. 
     “Owen Roe O’Neil, his (X) mark.”

“N.B. By making airly application to any of the undher-mintioned, he will hear of further particklers; and if they find that he will shoot them, he may expect the best o’ thratement, an’ be well fed among the farmers.*

“N.B.  Would get also a good Night-school among the vircinity.”

* Nothing can more decidedly prove the singular and extraordinary thirst for education and general knowledge which characterizes the Irish people, than the shifts to which they have often gone in order to gain even a limited portion of instruction.  Of this the Irish Night School is a complete illustration.  The Night School was always opened either for those of early age, who from their poverty were forced to earn something for their own support during the day; or to assist their parents; or for grown young men who had never had an opportunity of acquiring education in their youth, but who now devoted a couple of hours during a winter’s night, when they could do nothing else, to the acquisition of reading and writing, and sometimes of accounts.  I know not how it was, but the Night School boys, although often thrown into the way of temptation, always conducted themselves with singular propriety.  Indeed, the fact is, after all, pretty easily accounted for—­inasmuch as none but the steadiest, most sensible, and best conducted young men ever attended it.

Having penned the above advertisement, it was carefully posted early the next morning on the chapel-doors, with an expectation on the part of the patrons that it would not be wholly fruitless.  The next week, however, passed without an application—­the second also—­and the third produced the same result; nor was there the slightest prospect of a school-master being blown by any wind to the lovers of learning at Findramore.  In the meantime, the Ballyscanlan boys took care to keep up the ill-natured prejudice which had been circulated concerning the fatality that uniformly attended such schoolmasters as settled there; and when this came to the ears of the Findramore folk, it was once more resolved that the advertisement should be again put up, with a clause containing an explanation on that point.  The clause ran as follows: 

“N.B.—­The two last masthers that was hanged out of Findramore, that is, Mickey Corrigan, who was hanged for killing the Aagent, and Jem Garraghty, that died of a declension—­Jem died in consequence of ill-health, and Mickey was hanged contrary to his own wishes; so that it wasn’t either of their faults—­as witness our hands this 207th of July.

“Dick Dolan, his (X) mark.”