friends and to Nelly Neagle and to my sister Norry not
forgetting yourself answer this as soon as Possible.
               I remain
                       Your affectionate son
                                   DANIEL AHERN
May God bless you all.

More tender allusion was made to Nelly
Neagle in a former letter, and an assurance
given that the writer hoped to shake his leg
again over a gallon of porter in Nancy Flyn's
tap-room.

"Every month reg'lar they write to me,"
said Molly, "and next Friday, plase God,
when I'm bringing your honour the turkey,
I'll have some more letters from the boys to
show you."

Sometimes, in the remote country districts
of the south of Ireland, the epistolary requirements
of the people are supplied by the
parish schoolmasters, who are usually most
willing to act as amanuenses. Occasionally,
too, a village will boast of a genius, and one
who is neither mute nor inglorious. I
knew a character of this description,
who held a small farm in a wild district
of the county Cork. His name was Con
Quill, and his ceaseless endeavours after
knowledge were really surprising. He
usually carried a tattered English school
dictionary under his arm, wherein he never
failed to make diligent search for any unfamiliar
word that was addressed to him: Irish
being his vernacular tongue.

During the height of the potato famine,
the Relief Committee of the district where
Con Quill resided, were forced, from the
prevalence of petty theft, to make a rule that
any one found stealing should be excluded
from receiving the daily dole of Indian meal.
A poor woman, a neighbour of Con's, being
caught in the act of stealing a kid, came
necessarily under the ban of the
committee. On the next day of their meeting,
the following petition, which I have copied
verbatim et literatim, was laid before them:

We the undersigned beg to state that the sole crime
committed by Nelly Keen of Illaninah consisted in
depriving of existence a small cornuted animal. She
is a superannuated old maid who never entered the
bands of Hymen, and on that account has no progeny
to support her. We, under these circumstances,
recommend her to the patronage of the I——relief
Committee.
                  (Signed) CORNELIUS QUILL.

The petition was, I believe, granted; but
the beauty of the business was that not a
single member of the committee, with the
exception of the clergyman, had the most
remote idea of the meaning of the word
cornuted.

A letter addressed to a clergyman residing
in the same locality was as follows. It was
evidently an original composition, and had
not had the advantage of Mr. Quill's
supervision:

REVD. SIR—Your medicines are most solicitely
requested by Catherine Brien who so piteous complain
of a painful body and waist with others concerning the
same matter, contained in the above mentioned place,
you may judge of yourself, but however it is an act of
charity for you to do so.
                        TIMOTHY LEARY.

Another to the same:

MR. S——Be pleased to give the bearer some
plaster for woman that cut her fingure the toe of her
foot stone that fell down on her and cut and Brewsed it.
                 RICHARD TAYLOR
                Mr. O Lary deary Man.

It may be necessary to explain that the
latter words signify that Richard Taylor was
dairyman to Mr. O'Leary.

Very frequently the outside of the letters
passing through the country post-offices are
indicative of the singular nature of their
contents. The following direction is copied
verbatim:

          Dennis Belcher
             Millstreet
                  Co. Cork
As you turn the corner to Tom Mantel's field where
Jack Gallavan's horse was drowned in the bog hole.
N.B. The house is tached and the pigstie slated.

Another, which passed recently through a
country post-office:

          Mr. John Sullivan
            North Street
               Boston
     He's a man with a crutch
     Bedad I think that'll find him.

We may wind up this rambling notice of
Irish epistolary literature, with an anecdote
of an incident which recently occurred in a
small town in the county of Cork.

A poor woman entered the general shop,
and asked for a pound of candles, dipt
fourteens. The price demanded being a
halfpenny or a penny more than usual, she
anxiously inquired the reason.

"'Tis all along of the war, ma'am," was the
reply.

"Yettun what has the war to do with the
price of my pound of dips? "

"Ah, 'tis because of our fighting with
Roosia, the price of the tallow is raised."

"Why then," exclaimed the purchaser
fervently, " bad luck to the Roosians that
they can't fight by daylight, and not be
rising the price of the candles upon us!"

New Tale by the Author of MARY BARTON, publishing
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NORTH AND SOUTH.

By the AUTHOR OF MARY BARTON.

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