The Town of Galway is a relic of the times when Spain maintained an active commerce with the west of Ireland, and meddled not a little in the intrigues of the time. Everybody has read of the warden of Galway, who hanged his son outside a window of his own house, to prevent a rescue from justice by a popular rising in the young man's favour. That house still stood, and probably yet stands, a mournful memento of a most dismal tragedy. In 1833 it was in ruins, as was also the whole long row of massive cut stone buildings of which it formed part. In front there was a tablet recording the above event; the walls were entire, but the roof was quite gone, and the upper stories open to the winds and storms. The basement story appeared to have been solidly arched, and in its cavernous recesses, and those of the adjoining cellars along that side of the street, dwelt a race of butchers and of small hucksters, dealing in potatoes, oats, some groceries and rough wares of many kinds. The first floor of a brick store opposite was occupied by a hair-dresser with whom our London fellow-passenger claimed acquaintance. One day we were sitting at his window, looking across at the old warden's house, when a singular scene was enacted under our astonished eyes. A beggarman, so ragged as barely to comply with the demands of common decency, and bearing an old sack suspended over his shoulder on a short cudgel, came lounging along the middle of the street seeking alms. A butcher's dog of aristocratic tastes took offence at the man's rags, and attacked him savagely. The old man struck at the dog, the dog's owner darted out of his cellar and struck at the beggar, somebody else took a part, and in the twinkling of an eye as it were, the narrow street was blocked up with men furiously-wielding shillelaghs, striking right and left at whoever happened to be most handy, and yelling like Dante's devils in full chorus. Another minute, and a squad of policemen in green uniforms--peelers, they are popularly called--appeared as if by magic, and with the effect of magic; for instantly, and with a celerity evidently the result of long practice, the crowd, beggarman, butcher, dog and all, vanished into the yawning cellars, and the street was left as quiet as before, the police marching leisurely back to their barracks.