Another example I can cite of the difficulty in getting people to put their intelligence to practical use in the south is to this effect:-- There was a certain widdy woman in a neighbouring parish who was making great lamentation over her 'pitaties' to the priest, and in consequence he lent her a machine for the purpose of spraying them. She professed the profoundest gratitude as well as interest in the implement, but the task speedily became too big an effort, for she subsequently informed me that she had sprayed 'half the field to plase his Rivirence, but left the rest to God.' And that is the kind of negative piety which is distinctly a characteristic Irish trait. CHAPTER XV LORD-LIEUTENANTS AND CHIEF SECRETARIES Any Irishman who has reached the shady side of threescore years and ten must remember many Lord-Lieutenants--the pompously visible symbols of much vacillating misdirection. To analyse them would be the work of an historian, to criticise would be superfluous. They have been so many Malvolios, all alike anxious to win the favour of that capricious Lady Olivia Erin, and not one of them has succeeded, though several have merited better fortune than they met with on Irish soil. The first Lord-Lieutenant I personally met was Lord Carlisle. He was a gentleman, but not otherwise remarkable. He had come into the Government on the resignation of the Peelites, and his popularity in Ireland was greater than any other holder of the post in the century, possibly owing to his negative qualities, and also to a charm of manner more effusive than usual among Englishmen. He had a habit of dropping his state, and going about Dublin, if not like Haroun Alraschid, at least with the independence of men in less august positions. On one occasion, needing some local information, he went to see the Lord Mayor of Dublin, but finding him out, was given the address of an alderman who could tell him what he wanted to know. The alderman was not in either, but his wife was, and begged him to stop to lunch, which was just being served. Lord Carlisle told her he hardly ever ate lunch, and was not in the least hungry. But under pressure he sat down to the meal, and got on very well with it, whereat the lady remarked:-- 'You see, your Excellency, eating is like scratching: when you once begin it is hard to stop.' His predecessor, Lord Clarendon, had been in office when Lord John Russell, the Prime Minister, urged on the House of Commons a bill for the abolition of the Lord-Lieutenancy. The great point that he made was that the Chief Secretary might become a mayor of the viceregal palace, a thing that has now long been the case, for the Lord-Lieutenant has to be a plutocrat of high descent, and the Chief Secretary is the virtual administrator of Ireland--a thing unknown, however, until the advent of Mr. Foster. The second reading was carried by a majority of over a hundred and fifty, but it was then dropped.