Her Judy X M’Quirk, Mark. In bonds or notes, signed in this manner, a witness is requisite, as the name is frequently written by him or her. [10] _Vows_.--It has been maliciously and unjustly hinted, that the lower classes of the people in Ireland pay but little regard to oaths; yet it is certain that some oaths or vows have great power over their minds. Sometimes they swear they will be revenged on some of their neighbours; this is an oath that they are never known to break. But, what is infinitely more extraordinary and unaccountable, they sometimes make and keep a vow against whiskey; these vows are usually limited to a short time. A woman who has a drunken husband is most fortunate if she can prevail upon him to go to the priest, and make a vow against whiskey for a year, or a month, or a week, or a day. [11] _Gossoon_, a little boy--from the French word _garçon_. In most Irish families there _used_ to be a barefooted gossoon, who was slave to the cook and butler, and who in fact, without wages, did all the hard work of the house. Gossoons were always employed as messengers. The Editor has known a gossoon to go on foot, without shoes or stockings, fifty-one English miles between sunrise and sunset. [12] At St. Patrick´s meeting, London, March, 1806, the Duke of Sussex said he had the honour of bearing an Irish title, and, with the permission of the company, he should tell them an anecdote of what he had experienced on his travels. When he was at Rome, he went to visit an Irish seminary, and when they heard who he was, and that he had an Irish title, some of them asked him, “Please you Royal Highness, since you are an Irish peer, will you tell us if you ever trod upon Irish ground?” When he told them he had not, “Oh, then,” said one of the order, “you shall soon do so”. They then spread some earth, which had been brought from Ireland, on a marble slab, and made him stand upon it. [13] This was actually done at an election in Ireland. [14] _To put him up_--to put him in gaol. [15] _My little potatoes_--Thady does not mean, by this expression, that his potatoes were less than other people’s, or less than the usual size--_little_ is here used only as an Italian diminutive, expressive of fondness. [16] _Kith and kin_--family or relations. _Kin_ from _kind_; _kith_ from we know not what. [17] Wigs were formerly used instead of brooms in Ireland, for sweeping or dusting tables, stairs, &c. The Editor doubted the fact, till he saw a labourer of the old school sweep down a flight of stairs with his wig; he afterwards put it on his head again with the utmost composure, and said, “Oh, please your honour, it’s never a bit the worse.”