reprimand from his commanding officer; and it was intimated, that if again found absent from his post, arrest and a court-martial might be looked for. A very few days after this, the colonel met him again in Dublin; and the case appearing of a very serious nature he was put in arrest, the detachment recalled, and Captain G ordered to supply his place, though the circumstances attending his removal were not known at the time. Although he escaped a court-martial, he was allowed to do so only on condition of retiring from Her Majesty's service. "He was a good fellow," said the narrator;" and being so very young, I really think he might have got off if he had not made such an absurd excuse. Imagine a man being such an idiot as to say that he could not remain with his detachment, because the bedclothes were taken off him every night, and he could not account for it! Why, it amounted to a positive insult to the colonel!"

Imagine the astonishment of his neighbour, when Captain G— gravely informed him that the same thing had happened to himself night after night!

The gentleman looked at him for a mo

ment; then gravely passed his hand over his chin, executed a short dry cough, and finished with a long and sonorous pinch of snuff, while he fixed his eyes upon the opposite wall.

But it was true notwithstanding.

THE ADVENTURE OF TIM DALEY.

In the county of Limerick, about six miles from the city of that name, is a place called a scattered village on the slope of a low range of hills facing the north. It was peculiar, among other villages of that county, as being clean; the houses, for the most part, tidily whitewashed; and there were neither dunghills nor "loughs" before the doors. The absence of the latter might perhaps have been accounted for by the natural slope of the ground; but the general good order of the place was certainly owing to the fortunate circumstance of its possessing a kind, gentlemanlike, and, in every respect, most excellent resident landlord.

But the great peculiarity of the village was, that the pigs were not on visiting terms with

the inhabitants. This had been a prime object with the landlord, who, from having travelled much in other countries, had imbibed ideas of comfort and cleanliness at variance with those of his native place, and, on settling down for life at the family mansion, commenced a course of reforms; the first of which was, to put his tenants' pigs upon the European footing.

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This revolution was not effected without much outcry of all concerned: the people and their fathers before them had lived with pigs, and they saw no harm in the " poor crathurs." Sure, he do be picking up and incrasing," was urged by the anti-restrictionists; and "it's him that pays the rint," was an argument, one would think, likely to find its way to a landlord's heart. But the tenants pleaded in vain. The village was in a state of siege; doors shut that had never been shut before, at least in the day-time; at every one a long and anxious face; at every sill an inquiring nose, and a general wailing along the street.

The oldest beggar never remembered such a state of things as an Irish door to be shut at dinner-time; it was tearing up a noble old custom by the roots, and all to put their pigs upon the European footing!

VOL. I.

G

It was felt to be a case of partial legislation : nowhere else were such goings on there was darkness and grumbling in the houses, and I fancied when I visited the place, that the pigs had combined to leave their tails out of curl from sheer sulkiness and vexation.

But worse was to come. The pigs were soon to be deprived of personal liberty. The ruthless agent went about and commanded that, from and after a certain day, the right of wallowing, or promenading, or otherwise exposing themselves in public places, was utterly forbidden in a word, they were summarily sentenced to close imprisonment in little comfortable bastiles built by the landlord, till brought out by the great habeas corpus at Christmas.

:

No wonder the Insurrection Act was in force in this part of the world; no wonder that ricks and haggards were set alight, and that a requisition of the magistrates caused a subaltern officer with an imposing force of twenty men to be marched to the rescue, to prevent, if possible, an enlightened landlord, somewhat in advance of the (Irish) age, and his innovating agent from being burnt in their beds!

"What great events from trivial causes spring!"