Even the _slang_ of English pickpockets and coiners is, as we may see in Colquhoun’s View of the Metropolis, free from all seducing mixture of wit and humour. What Englishman would ever have thought of calling persons in the pillory _the babes in the wood_? This is a common cant phrase amongst Dublin reprobates. Undoubtedly such phrases tend to lessen the power of shame and the effect of punishment, and a witty rogue will lead numbers to the gallows. English morality is not in so much danger as Irish manners must be from these humourous talents in their knights of industry. If, nevertheless, there be frequent executions for capital crimes in England, we must account for this in the words of the old Lord Chief Justice Fortescue--“More men,” says his lordship, “are hanged in _Englonde_ in one year than _in Fraunce_ in seven, _because the English have better hartes_; the _Scotchmenne_ likewise never _dare rob_, but only commit larcenies.” At all events, the phlegmatic temper of _Englonde_ secures her from making bulls. The propensity to this species of blunder exists in minds of a totally different cast; in those who are quick and enthusiastic, who are confounded by the rapidity and force with which undisciplined multitudes of ideas crowd for utterance. Persons of such intellectual characters are apt to make elisions in speaking, which they trust the capacities of their audience will supply: passing rapidly over a long chain of thought, they sometimes forget the intermediate links, and no one but those of equally rapid habits can follow them successfully. We hope that the evidence of the Dublin shoeblack has, in some degree, tended to prove our _minor_, that the Irish are disposed to use figurative language: we shall not, however, rest our cause on a single evidence, however respectable; but before we summon our other witnesses, we beg to relieve the reader’s attention, which must have been fatigued by such a chapter of criticism. They shall now have the tale of a mendicant. A specimen of city rhetoric is given in the shoeblack; the country mendicant’s eloquence is of a totally different species. CHAPTER IX. THE HIBERNIAN MENDICANT. Perhaps the reader may wish to see as well as hear the petitioner. At first view you might have taken him for a Spaniard. He was tall; and if he had been a gentleman, you would have said that there was an air of dignity in his figure. He seemed very old, yet he appeared more worn by sorrow than by time. Leaning upon a thick oaken stick as he took off his hat to ask for alms, his white hair was blown by the wind. “Health and long life to you!” said he. “Give an old man something to help to bury him. He is past his labour, and cannot trouble this world long any way.”