Thomas Street is very wide, and that is understood when you know it was formerly an open market-place outside the city walls for the sale of country produce. The octroi tax levied by the corporation on the farmers who brought in vegetables, butter, chickens, and eggs was paid in kind, a measure of corn from each sack, a pound of butter from each firkin, and one egg from every twelve, which was the origin of a proverb that eleven eggs make a dozen in Ireland. The taxes were farmed out to the highest bidder, who exacted every penny possible from the farmers and used every means of extortion that could be devised to increase his profit. The most odious of all the Dublin tax contractors in history was a woman named Kate Strong, and they hated her so that after her death the farmers erected a gross caricature of her person holding a large toll dish in her hand. It stood for several years. James Street succeeds Thomas Street on the same thoroughfare and runs down upon the river quay, where the enormous brewery establishment of the Guinness Company begins. Across the river from the big brewery is No. 12 Arran Quay, named for the son of the Duke of Ormonde, where Edmund Burke was born in 1729 of a Protestant barrister and a Catholic mother. He was educated at a Quaker school at Ballitore, County Kildare, and at Trinity College, where in 1747 he organized a debating club, which still exists. After finishing his course in 1750 he went to London "to keep terms at the Temple," that is, to finish his law studies and prepare for his examinations; but suddenly, owing to some disappointment, he conceived a strong distaste for his profession, and plunged into a wild career of dissipation. He was introduced by Goldsmith to that circle of Bohemians which gathered nightly at the Cheshire Cheese Inn and similar resorts. He was a close companion of Garrick, Johnson, and others, and became one of the many devoted attendants of his beautiful countrywoman, Peg Woffington, the famous actress. His dissipation gave his family great distress and caused his father to cut off his allowance. This compelled him to do something for himself. He went into politics, and soon made a reputation as a speaker and writer and political manager. He wrote a great deal that was serious and even sublime, and, mending his ways, secured the patronage of the Marquis of Buckingham, the prime minister, who opened the doors of the House of Commons for him. In a very short time he became the most effective debater and the most influential leader of his party. Then his abilities were fully recognized and his fame encircled the world.