Ballinasloe to Dublin.

During the cattle-fair the celebrated town of Ballinasloe is thronged with farmers from all parts of the kingdom — the cattle being picturesquely exhibited in the park of the noble proprietor of the town, Lord Clancarty. As it was not fair-time the town did not seem particularly busy, nor was there much to remark in it, except a church, and a magnificent lunatic asylum, that lies outside the town on the Dublin road, and is as handsome and stately as a palace. I think the beggars were more plenteous and more loathsome here than almost anywhere. To one hideous wretch I was obliged to give money to go away, which he did for a moment, only to obtrude his horrible face directly afterwards half eaten away with disease. “A penny for the sake of poor little Mery,” said another woman, who had a baby sleeping on her withered breast; and how can any one who has a little Mery at home resist such an appeal? “Pity the poor blind man!” roared a respectably dressed grenadier of a fellow. I told him to go to the gentleman with a red neck-cloth and fur cap (a young buck from Trinity College) — to whom the blind man with much simplicity immediately stepped over; and as for the rest of the beggars, what pen or pencil could describe their hideous leering flattery, their cringing, swindling humour!

The inn, like the town, being made to accommodate the periodical crowds of visitors who attended the fair, presented in their absence rather a faded and desolate look; and in spite of the live stock for which the place is famous, the only portion of their produce which I could get to my share, after twelve hours’ fasting and an hour’s bell-ringing and scolding, was one very lean mutton-chop and one very small damp kidney, brought in by an old tottering waiter to a table spread in a huge black coffee-room, dimly lighted by one little jet of gas.

As this only served very faintly to light up the above banquet, the waiter, upon remonstrance, proceeded to light the other bec; but the lamp was sulky, and upon this attempt to force it, as it were, refused to act altogether, and went out. The big room was then accommodated with a couple of yellow mutton-candles. There was a neat, handsome, correct young English officer warming his slippers at the fire, and opposite him sat a worthy gentleman, with a glass of “mingled materials,” discoursing to him in a very friendly and confidential way.

As I don’t know the gentleman’s name, and as it is not at all improbable, from the situation in which he was, that he has quite forgotten the night’s conversation, I hope there will be no breach of confidence in recalling some part of it. The speaker s was dressed in deep black-worn, however, with that dégagé air (peculiar to the votaries of Bacchus, or that nameless god, off-spring of Bacchus and Ceres, who may have invented the noble liquor called whiskey. It was fine to see the easy folds in which his neck-cloth confined a shirt-collar moist with the generous drops that trickled from the chin above, — its little percentage upon the punch. There was a fine dashing black-satin waistcoat that called for its share, and generously disdained to be buttoned. I think this is the only specimen I have seen yet of the personage still so frequently described in the Irish novels — the careless drinking squire — the Irish Will Whimble.

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