The ingenuity of their mock oaths is sufficient to occasion much perplexity to any one disposed to consider it in connection with the character and moral feelings of the people.  Whether to note it as a reluctance on their part to incur the guilt of an oath, or as a proof of habitual tact in evading it by artifice, is manifestly a difficulty hard to be overcome.  We are decidedly inclined to the former; for although there is much laxity of principle among Irishmen, naturally to be expected from men whose moral state has been neglected by the legislature, and deteriorated by political and religious asperity, acting upon quick passions and badly regulated minds—­yet we know that they possess, after all, a strong, but vague undirected sense of devotional feeling and reverence, which are associated with great crimes and awfully dark shades of character.  This explains one chief cause of the sympathy which is felt in Ireland for criminals from whom the law exacts the fatal penalty of death; and it also accounts, independently of the existence of any illegal association, for the terrible retribution inflicted upon those who come forward to prosecute them.  It is not in Ireland with criminals as in other countries, where the character of a murderer or incendiary is notoriously bad, as resulting from a life of gradual profligacy and villany.  Far from it.  In Ireland you will find those crimes perpetrated by men who are good fathers, good husbands, good sons, and good neighbors—­by men who would share their last morsel or their last shilling with a fellow-creature in distress—­who would generously lose their lives for a man who had obliged them, provided he had not incurred their enmity—­and who would protect a defenseless stranger as far as lay in their power.  There are some mock oaths among Irishmen which must have had their origin amongst those whose habits of thought were much more elevated than could be supposed to characterize the lower orders.  “By the powers of death” is never now used as we have written it; but the ludicrous travestie of it, “by the powdhors o’ delf,” is quite common.  Of this and other mock oaths it may be right to observe, that those who swear by them are in general ignorant of their proper origin.  There are some, however, of this description whose original form is well known.  One of these Paddy displays considerable ingenuity in using.  “By the cross” can scarcely be classed under the mock oaths, but the manner in which it is pressed into asseverations is amusing.  When Paddy is affirming a truth he swears “by the crass” simply, and this with him is an oath of considerable obligation.  He generally, in order to render it more impressive, accompanies it with suitable action, that is, he places the forefinger of each hand across, that he may assail you through two senses instead of one.  On the contrary, when he intends to hoax you by asserting what is not true, he ingeniously multiplies the oath, and swears “by the five crashes,” that