Various

“ You raise the cost of living to me by the imposition of taxes to foster your trades; yet you reduce my means of living by suffering immigration which tends to reduce the level of wages.’ Here is friction, and friction which is already producing sparks. It is not difficult to foresee the result. The working-classes cannot continue to burn the candle at both ends for ever. It is not practicable for any country in these days to prohibit, or even to restrict, the importation of human beings. ”

“ That means, in plain English, that the enhancement in the value of land, legitimately produced by settlement and cultivation—in other words, by the employment of actual capital and labour—will have an artificial enhancement of indefinite extent added to it by the action of speculation. In all commodities dealt in by man, there is an intrinsic value and a speculative value. When the speculative value becomes inflated above the level of intrinsic value, there ensues a period of dangerous excitement, which invariably ends in collapse and disaster. ”

“ There are worse things in the world than poverty, when two people love each other as you and I love each other, sweet one.’
What bold beings are these lovers! Nothing daunts them. They will take the world by storm and set Fortune herself at defiance. A very Paladin seemed Archie in the eyes of the girl who loved him. ”

“ Although her figure might display a greater amplitude of proportions than of yore, yet was her hair still black and glossy, her large dark eyes still as coldly bright as ever they had been, while if the fine bloom on her cheeks owed nothing of its tints to the lily, there are many people who prefer the rich damask of the rose even in the matter of complexion. ”

“ It must not be supposed that America—and for the present let us confine our attention to the United States—welcomes without exception the human stream. There are undoubtedly elements in it which would be objectionable anywhere. There are hordes of paupers and loafers and ne’erdoweels, who are as little likely to do any good for themselves, or to benefit the community, in the New World as in the Old. ”

“ Nor can America say: ‘We will receive any number of farm-labourers, or miners, or anybody disposed to squat in the backwoods and open up our country; but we will draw the line at mechanics or any form of skilled labour which we can ourselves produce to the extent of our requirements.’ The effect of the supply of foreign labour would have been more apparent ere this but for the suicidal policy of the American trades-unions, which practically prohibit the evolution of domestic skill, by forbidding apprenticeship to crafts. ”

“ During the last twelve months especially, the number of schemes for the employment of British capital across the Atlantic has increased enormously; and at the present time, there are many millions of money, belonging to people still residing on this side, invested directly or indirectly in land, and in industries connected with land in the States of the Union and of Canada. The receptivity of the American continent in respect both of labour and of capital is very great; but it is not unlimited. Nor is the supply of either labour or capital unlimited in the countries of the eastern hemisphere. ”

“ The dominant economic policy of America has been, as we know, one of strict protection of their own industries. For the benefit of the few, the many are heavily burdened, in the belief—fallacious, and not always genuinely entertained—that in process of time the many will reap the harvest. The conductors of these domestic industries are glad enough to get all the experienced foreign labour they can ”

“ Life in a log cabin, with bacon and beans and canned vegetables for food, and a lot of uneducated cowboys as daily associates, is not the most fascinating thing in this world. Your men may be good, honest, trustworthy fellows; but they are rough and uncouth in speech and manners, and you soon get utterly tired of their company.
Your letters, papers, and magazines help, of course, to while away many a weary hour. Riding after cattle, branding, &c., is your chief excitement; but let me say that constant daily work at that gets monotonous in time. ”

“ One of the greatest economic problems of our time is associated with the double stream which has been setting westward across the Atlantic with steady persistence for some two or three years, and which even now does not seem to have passed its height. It is a stream which is composed of the labour and the capital of the Old World. To the number of many hundreds of thousands of individuals, some of the best bone and sinew of the European states has been transplanted each year to America. ”

“ If, however, it be really the matter of rent or interest which affects the price of labour, then the American citizen has all the more reason to regard with attention the other portion of the stream, namely, the flow of British capital for investment in land and cattle in the West. We do not know the aggregate capital of the numerous Ranche and other Companies which have been lately formed, but it is enormous; and with private investments as well, the total British capital occupied in them cannot be short of twenty millions sterling, and probably is even considerably more. ”

“ The wound may be dressed twice a day; but in dressing, the wound should be exposed to the air the shortest possible time. If the lint adheres to the wound, it must not be pulled off, but first moistened thoroughly with the oil, when it comes off easily. In some cases, it is not advisable to remove the lint. Under such circumstances, the best way to proceed is to lift up one fold of the lint, drop the oil within the folds, replace the fold as before, and secure the bandage. Carron oil is one of those things that no household should be at any time without. ”

“ The first blow which it received was the disbanding of the revenue police about the year 1858, and the absorption of their duties, and the drafting of the most capable members of the force into the Royal Irish Constabulary. This body have a great many duties to perform: they keep the peace; act as public prosecutors in petty cases; distribute and collect the census papers and votes for poor-law guardians; make up the agricultural statistics; act as an armed drilled force in time of riot; and lastly, as detectives of crime and, since 1858, of illicit distillation. ”

“ Some fellows have a hazy sort of idea that by hiring out as cowboys, they eventually will be, by hook or crook, taken in as partners by the stock-owner. This is about the greatest error they can fall into. Nine stockmen out of ten would not give a new arrival his board for his services. He cannot ride—I mean, he cannot sit on one of our quarter-tamed bronchos much over three minutes; he knows nothing whatever about the semi-wild habits of Western cattle, or how to manage them. A good cowboy requires special knowledge and special points in his character ”

“ With free-trade in labour concurrently with land-speculation, subjecting them to diminution of wages, and at the same time increase in the cost of living, they will have no alternative but to demand the free admission of all materials bearing on their industries and affecting the cost of living. ”

“ As the mountainous districts are the poorest, so the outrages have been more frequent there, and the police in seeking for those intent on committing crime, have often accidentally found those merely intent on distilling poteen. All these discoveries are treasured up, and care taken that the same practice will not again occur in the same place; and thus the opportunities for illicit distillation are gradually becoming fewer and fewer, and everything seems to point towards its total extinction. ”

“ A force of constabulary fully armed steals out under cover of night, carefully surround the fated still-house, and advancing from all sides, simultaneously burst in upon the unfortunate distillers just as the outlying scout has brought word that the police are coming. ”

“ I do not write this to discourage earnest fellows from going into ranching; but they must not expect—as many seem to do—that life out West is one of roses, and that with a small capital to begin with, they can hunt and fish and have a constantly jolly time, and in a very few years come home with a fortune. ”

“ Very often, Englishmen or Scotchmen were selected for Irish districts, and found the peasantry combined to a man against them. They were aided, too, by a body of police whose sole duties were the detection and exposure of frauds against the revenue, and therefore it was a clear issue between two parties, with a large body of spectators standing neutral, or rather, in the national spirit, strongly sympathising with those who were trying to evade the law. ”

“ The secret of his success lay partly in a natural gift for his business, his enthusiasm, and the good-nature which underlay it all. He never allowed a scoundrel to escape; but he dealt very gently with any poor creature who might be betrayed into a first crime.
When Coutts reached his office, Sergeant Dier was waiting for him. Any one looking at the detective as he stood, bareheaded, reading a newspaper, would have imagined that he was one of{643} the bank officials. He accompanied Coutts to his private room. ”

“ The fact is that the chief sources of knowledge are, as might be expected from the analogy of other Irish conspiracies, from within the camp, which is sure to hold sooner or later some informer. A difference of opinion about the division of the spoil, a row amongst their womankind, or some such characteristic quarrel, leads to ill-feeling, and some impulsive member of the gang, in the haste of momentary spite, secretly informs the police. ”

“ But he had not got more than a few yards beyond the tree when he heard himself called.
‘Archie, dear!’ cried some one softly. If it were not a feminine voice that spoke, it was a very good imitation of one.
Mr Ridsdale started, and turned. Beyond two{648} or three loungers round the door of the hotel, some distance away, not a creature was visible save the clerical-looking young man seated under the tree and intent on his book.
Archie’s eyes struck fire and his face flamed suddenly. He advanced three or four paces. ‘Did you address that remark to me, sir?’ he sternly demanded. ”

“ I shaved off my beard and moustache, had my hair and eyebrows dyed black, donned my clerical garb, took a ticket from Euston, and here I am.’
‘Your own mother wouldn’t know you if she were to meet you.’
‘Not much fear of the dowager recognising me, eh?’ asked Mr Dulcimer with a chuckle. Then he added more seriously: ‘If I can only get Bella to myself for an hour while she’s down here—there was no chance of it in town—I’ll know my fate one way or the other. She’s an arrant young flirt, I know; but I’ll have no more of her shilly-shallying ”

“ In order to get the jar or cask safely into the town, the distiller usually envelops it in straw or hay, and tries to pass it off as innocent fodder; or another plan is to place it in the centre of a cart of turf, and on selling the turf to the proper person, its removal is easy, though occasionally even more ingenious methods are resorted to.
Fortunes acquired by means of illicit distillation have given rise to a very curious taunt amongst the inhabitants of the north-west of Ireland. ”

“ A burn treated in time does not take nearly so long to heal, and generally heals better than it otherwise would. The object of the present paper is to make familiar a few of the remedies which are generally applied to burns—remedies so simple in themselves that they can be applied by any person.
The best thing to apply to a burned or scalded part is Carron oil spread on lint or linen. The main object in the treatment of a burn is to keep the affected part out of contact with the air ”

“ Finally, the sad procession of police, prisoners, and utensils—the last being placed in a cart with the manufactured spirits—wends its way down the mountain-side to the nearest barracks. Then, at the next petty sessions of the district, all those who were found engaged, together with the tenant on whose holding the distillation was being carried on, are heavily fined, with the option of a severe term of imprisonment.
But what has conduced more than anything else to the diminution of illicit distillation has been successive bad harvests, rack-renting, and absentee landlords. ”

“ At the same time, when there is a remedy at hand, a man is merely doing himself justice in availing himself of that remedy. I appeal, therefore, simply to your sense of right and fair-play in requesting you to publish my flat and emphatic denial to a paragraph which appeared in the Sydney papers of last Friday—namely, that in the recent encounter with troopers, one of my mates was wounded in the arm. ”

“ Life in summer is endurable; but how about winter? The best ranges are in the north-western country, and the winters are simply awful. It has always been a wonder to me how cattle survive at all, much less come out in good condition in spring. ”

“ He had an appointment which could not be postponed; he could do nothing more at Ringsford; in town he could arrange with some contractor to send out a band of men to make the least injured portion of the Manor again habitable, and to clear away the débris as quickly as possible.
The appointment was to meet Philip and Wrentham at Mr Shield’s apartments. Coutts was confident that the bill he held was a forgery. He had no doubt Philip had been fooled into it somehow, but that was no reason why he should be fooled out of it. ”

“ This Carron oil can be prepared in a very simple way. It consists of equal parts of olive oil and lime-water. Olive oil, or salad or Lucca oil, is the oil best suited for the purpose; but if not easily obtainable, linseed oil answers the purpose very well. Lime-water can be easily made by any one, if it cannot be procured otherwise. About a teaspoonful of the lime used by builders—if the purer kind is not obtainable—added to a pint of water and well shaken, is all that is required. ”