Ronald John McNeill

“ This element of danger cannot be said to enter usually into the enjoyment of driving at the present day. Though accidents occasionally happen, the pastime is practically unattended by serious risk; and the source of the pleasure it affords the driver must be sought in the skill it requires, combined with the love of the horse which is common to sportsmen, and of exercise of power. The art of driving as practised to-day for pleasure without profit, and without the excitement of racing, is of quite modern development. ”

“ When Peter Burrowes, notwithstanding his close personal friendship with Grattan, declared that Flood was “perhaps the ablest man Ireland ever produced, indisputably the ablest man of his own times,” he expressed what was probably the general opinion of Flood’s contemporaries. Lord Charlemont, who knew him intimately though not always in agreement with his policy, pronounced him to be “a man of consummate ability.” He also declared that avarice made no part of Flood’s character. ”

“ In the middle ages, though jousts and feats of horsemanship and field sports of various kinds were popular, the more systematic training of the body which the Greeks had associated with the gymnasium fell into neglect; while the therapeutic value of special exercises as understood by Hippocrates and Galen appears to have been lost sight of. Rousseau, in his Émile, was the first in modern times to call attention to the injurious consequences of such indifference, and he insisted on the importance of physical culture as an essential part of education. ”

“ Lord Durham filled a larger place in the eyes of his contemporaries than many statesmen who have been better remembered. He was in his lifetime regarded as a great popular leader; and his accession to supreme political power was for some years considered probable by many; his opinions were, however, too extreme to command the confidence of any considerable party in parliament before 1840. That Brougham hated him and Melbourne feared him, is a tribute to his abilities ”

“ With rare exceptions, reins should be shortened or lengthened by pushing them back or drawing them forward with the right hand from in front of the driving hand, and not from behind it. As soon as the team is in motion the leaders may be let out till they draw their traces taut; but draught should be taken off them on falling ground or while rounding a corner. Good drivers touch the reins as little as possible with the whip-hand, and nothing is less workmanlike than for a coachman to act as if he were an angler continually letting out or reeling in his line. ”

“ Men like Anthony Malone and Hely-Hutchison fully realized the necessity for far-reaching reforms, and it only needed the ability and eloquence of Flood in the Irish House of Commons to raise up an independent party in parliament, and to create in the country a public opinion with definite intelligible aims. ”

“ Nor was the creation of modern English equity Lord Hardwicke’s only service to the administration of justice. Born within two years of the death of Judge Jeffreys his influence was powerful in obliterating the evil traditions of the judicial bench under the Stuart monarchy, and in establishing the modern conception of the duties and demeanour of English judges. While still at the bar Lord Chesterfield praised his conduct of crown prosecutions as a contrast to the former “bloodhounds of the crown”; and he described Sir Philip Yorke as “naturally humane, moderate and decent.” ”

“ About the same time O’Mahony in the United States established the “Fenian Brotherhood,” whose members bound themselves by an oath of “allegiance to the Irish Republic, now virtually established,” and swore to take up arms when called upon and to yield implicit obedience to the commands of their superior officers. The object of Stephens, O’Mahony and other leaders of the movement was to form a great league of Irishmen in all parts of the world against British rule in Ireland. ”

“ These were the last words spoken by Grattan in the Irish parliament.
The bill establishing the union was carried through its final stages by substantial majorities. The people remained listless, giving no indications of any eager dislike of the government policy. “There were absolutely none of the signs which are invariably found when a nation struggles passionately against what it deems an impending tyranny, or rallies around some institution which it really loves.” ”

“ The issue of a third writ of ship-money on the 9th of October 1636 made it evident that the ancient restrictions, which limited the levying of the impost to the maritime parts of the kingdom and to times of war or imminent national danger, had been finally swept away, and that the king intended to convert it into a permanent and general form of taxation without parliamentary sanction. The judges again, at Charles's request, gave an opinion favourable to the prerogative, which was read by Coventry in the Star Chamber and by the judges on assize. ”

“ The genius of Shaftesbury found in the Green Ribbon Club the means of constructing the first systematized political organization in England. North relates that “every post conveyed the news and tales legitimated there, as also the malign constructions of all the good actions of the government, especially to places where elections were depending, to shape men’s characters into fit qualifications to be chosen or rejected.” ”

“ What is certain is that from the moment Londonderry was menaced by the troops of King James, Lundy used all his endeavours to paralyse the defence of the city. In April 1689 he was in command of a force of Protestants who encountered some troops under Richard Hamilton at Strabane, when, instead of holding his ground, he told his men that all was lost and ordered them to shift for themselves; he himself was the first to take flight back to Derry. ”

“ But for those whose means do not permit the more costly luxury of a four-horse team, a tandem will be found to make all the demand on skill and nerve which, in combination with the taste for horses, makes the art of driving a source of enjoyment. ”

“ On the 27th of July, when the queen was dying, the earl of Oxford received his long-delayed dismissal from the office of lord treasurer. On the 30th Shrewsbury and other ministers assembled at Kensington Palace, and being admitted to the queen’s bedchamber Bolingbroke recommended the appointment of Shrewsbury to the vacant treasurership; Anne at once placed the staff of that high ollice in the duke’s hands. When the queen died on the 1st of August Shrewsbury was thus in a position of supreme power with reference to the momentous question of the succession to the crown. ”

“ The value of gymnastics both for curing defects, and still more for promoting health and the development of normal physique, is recognized even more clearly on the continent of Europe than in Great Britain. In Germany the government not only controls the practice of gymnastics but makes it compulsory for every child and adult to undergo a prescribed amount of such physical training. ”

“ The judgment of the court practically abrogated the right of parliament to control supply; and the necessity for curbing the royal prerogative in regard to taxation, thus rendered arbitrary by legal decision, became one of the chief motives in the popular resistance to Charles I., which after the Hampden trial grew increasingly formidable. ”

“ But after a convention held at Chicago under O’Mahony’s presidency in November 1863 the movement began to show signs of life. About the same time the Irish People, a revolutionary journal of extreme violence, was started in Dublin by Stephens, and for two years was allowed without molestation by the government to advocate armed rebellion, and to appeal for aid to Irishmen who had had military training in the American Civil War. At the close of that war in 1865 numbers of Irish who had borne arms flocked to Ireland, and the plans for a rising matured. ”

“ These principles are common to all branches of the art of driving, whether of one, two or four horses. When they are observed no great difficulty confronts the coachman who is content with single or double harness, provided he has acquired the eye for pace and distance, and the instinctive realization of the length of the carriage behind him, without which he may suffer collision with other vehicles, or allow insufficient room in turning a corner or entering a gateway. ”

“ Elizabeth, whose prudence and parsimony were averse to so formidable an undertaking as the complete subjugation of the powerful Irish chieftain, desired peace with him at almost any price; especially when the devastation of his territory by Sussex brought him no nearer to submission. Sussex, indignant at Shane's request for his sister's hand in marriage, and his demand for the withdrawal of the English garrison from Armagh, was not supported by the queen, who sent the earl of Kildare to arrange terms with O'Neill. ”

“ In France also, physical training by gymnastics is under state control; in Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, Italy, Russia, systems more or less distinct enjoy a wide popularity; and in Finland gymnastics are practised on lines that exhibit national peculiarities. The Finns introduce an exceptional degree of variety into their exercises as well as into the appliances devised to assist them; women are scarcely less expert than men in the performance of them; and the enthusiasm with which the system is supported produces the most beneficial results in the physique of the people. ”

“ Considerable dexterity is required in using the whip on the leaders without at the same time touching, or at all events alarming or fretting, the wheelers. The thong of the whip should reach the leaders from beneath the swinging bar; and proficient “whips” can unerringly strike even the near leader from under the off-side bar without disturbing the equanimity of any other member of the team. This demands great skill and accuracy; but no coachman is competent to drive four horses until he is able to touch with the whip any particular horse that may require it, and no other. ”

“ Dumb-bell exercises, therefore, when arranged judiciously and with knowledge, are admirably suited for developing the physique, and are extensively employed in schools both for boys and girls. The bar-bell is merely a two-handed dumb-bell, and its use is similar in principle. The Indian club is also in use in most gymnasia; but the risk of overstraining the body by its unskilful handling makes it less generally popular than the dumb-bell. All these appliances may be, and often are, used either in ordinary schoolrooms or elsewhere outside the gymnasium. ”

“ One of the most effective strokes in racquets is the “drop,” which means that the ball is hit so that it only just reaches the front wall and drops close to it, while the player conceals his intention by appearing to strike hard. “The drop-stroke,” says Mr Eustace Miles, who regrets that it is less cultivated than formerly, “is one of the most beautiful, and of all drop-strokes, the volley or half-volley is the best." The “half-volley,” in which the ball is struck at the moment of its contact with the floor and before it has had time to rise, is also employed with great effect in hard play ”

“ Essential as is proficiency in the use of the whip when driving four horses, it is even more imperative for the driver of tandem. For in four-in-hand the leaders act in some measure as a restraint upon each other’s freedom of action, whereas the leader in tandem is entirely independent and therefore more difficult to control. If he takes it into his head to turn completely round and face the driver, there is no effectual means of preventing him. ”

“ Reinhard, who considered Arthur O’Connor “a far abler man,” accurately read the character of Lord Edward Fitzgerald as that of a young man “incapable of falsehood or perfidy, frank, energetic, and likely to be a useful and devoted instrument; but with no experience or extraordinary talent, and entirely unfit to be chief of a great party or leader in a difficult enterprise.” ”

“ But it must be done instantaneously, and the driver who has got his thong coiled round the stick of his whip, or who cannot make certain of striking the horse on precisely the desired spot, will miss the opportunity and may find his team in a sad mess, possibly with disastrous results. If the leader, in spite of a stroke from the whip at the right moment and on the right spot, still persists in turning, the only thing to be done is to turn the wheeler also; and then when the tandem has been straightened, to turn the horses back once more to their original direction. ”

“ The best position in the court for the hand-out about to take the serve depends entirely on the nature of the service, and he has to use his judgment the instant the ball leaves the server’s racquet in order to determine where it will strike the floor and at what precise point in its course it will be best for him to attempt to take it. ”

“ He was a man of brilliant and versatile ability, whom Lord Townshend, the lord lieutenant, described as "by far the most powerful man in parliament." William Gerard Hamilton said of him that "Ireland never bred a more able, nor any country a more honest man." Hely-Hutchinson was, however, an inveterate place-hunter, and there was point in Lord North's witticism that "if you were to give him the whole of Great Britain and Ireland for an estate, he would ask the Isle of Man for a potato garden." ”

“ The leader thus draws as before from the wheeler’s tugs; but the length of trace is broken up by the two swinging bars, and as these are prevented from falling low by their attachment to the wheeler’s collar, the danger from a too slack leading trace is reduced to a minimum; though care is needed when the leader is not pulling to prevent the bar falling on his hocks.
Expert tandem driving, owing to the greater freedom of the leader from control, is a more difficult art than the driving of four horses, in spite of the fact that the weight on the hand is much less severe ”

“ Discontent in Ireland was now rapidly becoming dangerous, and was finding a focus in the Society of the United Irishmen, and in the Catholic Committee, an organization formed a few years previously, chiefly under the direction of Lord Kenmare, to watch the interests of the Catholics. French revolutionary doctrines had become ominously popular, and no one sympathized with them more warmly than Lord Edward Fitzgerald, who, fresh from the gallery of the Convention in Paris, returned to his seat in the Irish parliament and threw himself actively into the work of opposition. ”

“ Under all these different conditions driving is a work of utility, of economic value to civilized society. But from very early times driving, especially of horses, has also been regarded as a sport or pastime. This probably arose in the first instance from its association with battle. In the earliest historical records, such as the Old Testament and the Homeric poems, the driver of the chariot fills a place of importance in the economy of war ”

“ Their belief, and that of their partisans, influenced no doubt by political hostility to James, was that the king had invented the story of a conspiracy by Gowrie to cover his own design to extirpate the Ruthven family. James gave some colour to this belief, which has not been entirely abandoned, by the relentless severity with which he pursued the two younger, and unquestionably innocent, brothers of the earl. Great efforts were made by the government to prove the complicity of others in the plot. ”

“ It is of the first importance, moreover, that he should know instinctively the position in his hand of each of the reins, and be able automatically and instantaneously to lay a finger on any one of them. The driver who has to look at his reins to find the off-side leader’s rein, or who touches the near-side wheeler’s in mistake for it, is in peril of a catastrophe. ”

“ For the next seven years Shrewsbury lived abroad, chiefly at Rome, whence in 1701 he wrote a celebrated letter to Lord Somers expressing his abhorrence of public life and declaring that if he had a son he “would sooner bind him to a cobbler than a courtier, and a hangman than a statesman.” On the accession of Queen Anne the Whig leaders made an ineffectual attempt to persuade Shrewsbury to return to office. ”

“ When the ambition of the amateur coachman leads him to attempt a tandem or four-in-hand he enters on a much more complex department of the art of driving. In the first place he has now four reins instead of two to manipulate, and the increase of weight on his hand, especially when four Tandem and four-in-hand.horses are being driven, requires considerable strength of wrist to support it without tiring. ”

“ The constitution of Grattan’s parliament offered no security, as the differences over the regency question had made evident that in matters of imperial interest the policy of the Irish parliament and that of Great Britain would be in agreement; and at a moment when England was engaged in a life and death struggle with France it was impossible for the ministry to ignore the danger, which had so recently been emphasized by the fact that the independent constitution of 1782 had offered no safeguard against armed revolt. ”