Various

“ This library, situate in an antique building to one side of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, is graciously open to the public in general, and to all under-graduates of the University in particular, and wears a secluded, cloistered, antiquated air about it, that invites to contemplation. You are there on classic ground. The genius of Swift seems to hover o’er you. You fancy yourself with an age that has passed away, and among spirits that have long since winged their flight from earth. ”

“ There is scarcely a trait of human nature involved in more mystery, or generally less understood, than the singular strength of affection which binds the humble peasant of Irish life to his foster-brother, and more especially if the latter be a person of rank or consideration. ”

“ There lies a great secret, which in these costermonger days we deserve great credit for communicating to the world free-gratis for nothing.
Knowledge is power—that’s our major; there one stands in the midst of a noble army of books—that’s our minor, or lieutenant; then a man feels strong, and vastly well pleased with himself—and that is our fife and drum, or conclusion, by every law of drill or logic. ”

“ When a single traveller is met with, a novice is instructed to make a trial of his skill; the party sets off during the night, and stops while it is still dark to drink water or to smoke. While seated for the purpose, the jemadar inquires what time of the night it may be, and the Thugs look up at the stars to ascertain. This being the preconcerted signal, the strangler is immediately on the alert, and the unsuspecting traveller, on looking up at the heavens in common with the rest of the party, offers his neck to the ready handkerchief, and becomes an easy prey to his murderer. ”

“ A secret, however, communicated even under the most solemn sanction to a great number, stands a great chance of being no secret at all, especially during civil war, where so many interests of friendship, blood, and marriage, bind the opposing parties together in spite of the public principles under which they act. Miss Moore’s maid had a brother, for instance, who, together with several of his friends and relatives, being appointed to aid in the attack, felt anxious that she should not be present on that night, lest her acquaintance with them might be ultimately dangerous to the assailants. ”

“ Irish history and tradition furnish us with sufficient materials on which to ground clear and distinct proofs that the attachment of habit and contiguity in these instances far transcends that of natural affection itself. It is very seldom that one brother will lay down his life for another, and yet instances of such high and heroic sacrifices have occurred in the case of the foster-brother, whose affection has thus not unfrequently triumphed over death itself. ”

“ Now, every individual, we humbly think, should have a library of his own, if it were ever so small. No man ever made a good gardener that had not a small garden, his own property, to begin with; and it is something the same with a good reader. The careful, and leisurely, and repeated study of a few good books, does one more real good than a cursory and indigestive perusal of a vast number. ”

“ It would be very difficult to produce a more honourable testimony to the moral honesty, generosity, and exquisite kindness of heart which characterize our people, than the authentic facts we have just mentioned. They fell naturally in our way when treating of the subject which preceded them, and we could not, in justice to circumstances so beautiful and striking, much less injustice to the people themselves, pass them over in silence. ”

“ Our fancied superiority to others is in some one thing, which we think most of, because we excel in it, or have paid most attention to it; whilst we overlook their superiority to us in something else, which they set equal and exclusive store by. This is fortunate for all parties. I never felt myself superior to any one who did not go out of his way to affect qualities which he had not. In his own individual character and line of pursuit every one has knowledge, experience, and skill; and who shall say which pursuit requires most, thereby proving his own narrowness and incompetence to decide? ”

“ But we must come to an end ourselves. We would, in short, advocate the claims of literature in general, and its high title to consideration, as it commends itself to all men in common; and we plead guilty to the ambition of adding to the numerous honourable characteristics of our countrymen, that of being in an eminent degree a reading people. ”

“ When it is taken into consideration that many of the Thugs confess to their having, for the last twenty-five or thirty years, annually made a tour with parties of more than a hundred men, and with no other object than that of murder and rapine; that they boast of having successively put their tens and twenties to death daily; and that they say an enumeration of all the lives they have personally assisted to destroy would swell the catalogue to hundreds, and, as some declare, to thousands—some conception of the horrid reality may be formed ”

“ We have here presented to us an ancient castellated residence, of irregular but highly picturesque outline, still surrounded and protected by its ancient moat, and, though in good condition and inhabited, still retaining to such an extent its original character as a place of strength, that as we look upon it, we might almost imagine ourselves living in the ages of its military greatness, and belonging to a state of society very different from that secure and peaceful one in which we happily have our existence. ”

“ If not, belike you might walk down our noble library’s length, and survey the books and busts, and stalls and gallery at each side, and the beautiful antique manuscripts in glass cases at the end just before you enter the Fagel Library, and be no more impressed—you will excuse us—no more than a grave-digger in knocking about an old coffin or a skull, yea, though the skull should once have belonged to poor Yorick, the king’s jester! ”

“ They are music to the melancholy, and as a dance to the merry; as salt are they to the solid, and to the solid as salt. They are as a new world to him that has exhausted the old, for “of making many books,” as the preacher saith, “there is no end.” ”

“ Never do we pass a book-shop, or an humble bookseller’s stall, without a feeling of reverence for the profession. There, say we, is a dispensary of ideal aliment indispensable to our mental existence, and, if properly used, yielding nothing but health, prosperity, and enjoyment to the soul. ”

“ It is certainly impossible to impute this wild but indomitable attachment to the force of domestic feeling, because, whilst we maintain that the domestic affections in Ireland are certainly stronger than those of any other country in the world, still instances of this inexplicable devotion have occurred in the persons of those in whom the domestic ties were known to be very feeble. It is true, there are many moral anomalies in the human heart with which we are as yet but imperfectly acquainted ”

“ Such is the extent to which this dreadful system has been carried, that no idea can be formed of the expenditure of human life to which it has given occasion, or the immensity of the wealth that has been acquired by its adoption. ”

“ Irishmen ought to remember that their country was famous in ancient days for its learning, and cherish an honest ambition in modern times to retrieve its character. As one means of forwarding this object, we would seek to diffuse among them a reading habit, and give our best encouragement to whatever instrumentalities might tend to increase libraries, and make reading easy to all classes. Cheap literature is a luxury of sterling value; but until people have acquired a taste for it, they will hold it cheap enough. ”

“ The Thugs adopt no other method of killing but strangulation, and the implement made use of for this purpose is a handkerchief, or any other convenient strip of cloth. The manner in which the deed is done will be described hereafter. They never attempt to rob a traveller until they have in the first instance deprived him of life; after the commission of a murder, they invariably bury the body immediately, if time and opportunity serve, or otherwise conceal it; and never leave a corpse uninterred in the highway, unless they happen to be disturbed. ”

“ Once upon a time each book was fastened by a chain to an iron rod which ran along the shelves, so that all who partook of the bounty of the good archbishop might read and satisfy their souls without any danger of violating the eighth commandment; but this stringent system is now abolished: the chains are broken; the prisoners are free; the books are emancipated! The change may be considered as a compliment to the honesty of modern times; and all we say is, we wish they may deserve it. ”

“ We shall now relate a short story, illustrating the attachment of a foster-brother; but as we have reason to believe that the circumstances are true, we shall introduce fictitious names instead of real ones.
The rebellion of ninety-eight was just at its height, when the incidents we are about to mention took place. A gentleman named Moore had a daughter remarkable for her beauty and accomplishments. Indeed, so celebrated had she become, that her health was always drunk as the toast of her native county. ”

“ It might be supposed that a class of persons whose hearts must be effectually hardened against all the better feelings of humanity, would encounter few scruples of conscience in the commission of the horrid deeds whereby they subsist; but, in point of fact, they are as much the slaves of superstition, and as much directed by the observance of omens in the commission of murder, as the most inoffensive of the natives of India are in the ordinary affairs of their lives. ”

“ Reading will be a delightful resource to the working man, and no bad employment at least to the idle. Poverty will have its compensations. There will be another distinction set up in society besides that of having, or not having, mere worldly professions. ”

“ He who is ignorant of books is often well acquainted with other things; for life is of the same length in the learned and the unlearned; the mind cannot be idle; if it is not taken up with one thing it attends to another through choice or necessity: and the degree of previous capacity in one class or another is a mere lottery.—Hazlitt’s Characteristics. ”

“ Many of the most notorious Thugs are the adopted children of others of the same class. They make it a rule, when a murder is committed, never to spare the life of any one, [Pg 343] either male or female, who is old enough to remember and relate the particulars of the deed. But in the event of their meeting with children of such a tender age as to make it impossible they should be enabled to relate the fact, they generally spare their lives, and, adopting them, bring them up to the trade of Thugs. ”

“ Guard his door, men, for you shall be held responsible for his appearance in the morning.”
The men, in obedience to these orders, escorted him to the door, outside of which was their station for the night. When Frank and he entered the observatory, the former gently shut the door, and, turning to his foster-brother, exclaimed in accents of deep distress, but lowering his voice, “There is not a moment to be lost; you must escape.”
“That is impossible,” replied Hewson, “unless I had wings and could use them.” ”

“ The strangler receives half a rupee extra for every murder that is committed, and if the plunder is great, some article of value is assigned to him over and above his share.
One of the most necessary persons to a gang of Thugs is he who goes by the name of Tillaee, or spy. The Thugs do not always depend upon chance for obtaining plunder, or roam about in the expectation of meeting travellers, but frequently take up their quarters in or near a large town, or some great thoroughfare, from whence they make expeditions, according to the information obtained by the spies. ”

“ There was a spirit of chivalry in this transaction which we cannot sufficiently admire; and though we live in an age in which we pique ourselves excessively on the march of intellect, we doubt that any testimonial more solid and convincing is producible by us to show that our organ of veneration in this respect is at all more highly developed than that of men who went before us in the days of Queen Elizabeth. ”