From William Ginty   Thursday 2nd Nov. 1843.

O.S.O.¹ Thursday 2nd Nov. 1843.

Dear [1 word illeg]

The first in my mind shall be first on the paper ‘don’t curse my delay, Bill’² but I have cursed you aye, in no mean terms either. You should have had it ready for this week’s. I’m afraid it will be no go in the next, as this holy 2nd of Nov., is the ‘first day of term’ on which that illustrious countryman of ours³ is to appear at the bar of the Court of Queen’s Bench to answer the charge of ‘conspiring and misdemeanour’. Our worthy rulers are mad. Even if Dan was imprisoned during secula secularum,⁴ it would not stop Paddy’s⁵ wrath. Lord Byron says ‘persecutions or coercion will never crush a popular opinion’⁶ but stop – this is no address to the people of Ireland. Now for Chadwick’s⁷ letter, it is commenced ‘Dear Hunter’ (Dick),⁸ Ginty &c’ – There is a brother of his⁹ here, he had a letter from him lately in which he requested us to write to him – so we did – And oh tell it not in Gath¹⁰ he answered it! I shall quote some of it. ‘Hurrah three cheers for you my old shots’ ‘faith I give you credit for bearding the old chief constable of the lobsters’ ---------- Again ‘go it ye cripples’----- ‘Ginty inspired me with such dread by adjuring me in such a solemn manner to look after Miss McCarthy¹¹ that I immediately shut shop and ran like blazes down to the Market Place. They were all well and unchanged I think they are more extensive in business than they were, as I saw a great quantity of penny loaves, butter, onions bacon &c &c. I was advising her to get into the fruit trade. Well I saw Miss McC. When I mentioned Ginty’s name she blushed like a posy and fell in a faint under the counter I leaped over and caught her in my arms and after administering a pint of heavy wet¹² which stood by fortunately, she was able to answer all enquiries. I showed her the letter and she watered the well known characters with her tears, after the manner of Amanda in the Children of the Abbey.¹³ I stopped up her countenance with what the bad times had left me of an ould wipe and she became composed. She is a fine girl and as there is no marrying men in this town she will be likely to remain single until Ginty returns to claim her for his Bride (loikly).¹⁴ She desired me to send her fondest love tenderest regard and all the rest, and to believe her to be Ginty’s ‘truly devoted well wisher and chosen Houri’.¹⁵ This is peerless – rich beyond comparison, it outshines all modern pretenders to the comic. The more I read it the more I roar – Mind the polite scandal of the fellow about the extensive business, and his advice, then her blushing like a posy, then the reference to the Children of the Abbey, in such beautiful keeping with the fainting, tears, and blushes, and then ‘the ould wipe’ – Its worth all Boz¹⁶ wrote these two years! One quotation more and you have the cream of his inimitable letter. ‘By heavens nothing could give me greater satisfaction than knowing that the bloody damned upstart ignorant haughty high coclelorum¹⁷ officers of the Royal little goods should be taught their level and that by the worms they trampled on in their pride – the said worms having now thrown aside their chrysalis of dirt and meanness and emerged in the wing state which will allow them to soar to that height of respectability which their high and talented members in many cases have a claim to’. Again ‘Prepare to welcome me next summer as one whom “Cubs delighteth to honour”’.¹⁸ he says in another place that John Abbot wants to emigrate with him to America and he is likely to agree to the proposal! Of course your name is used by him in very affectionate terms! The letter is too long to copy and too heavy to send by post – you have here at all events its choicest parts! ‘Coclelorum’ – there’s a word for you! He says he is passing his life in a sober monotonous obfuscation and like a bloody fine river gliding along decently to the say of futurity’. He is father of two daughters.

I am no advocate for scurrilety¹⁹ father John. I am of the same opinion as your absent friend.²⁰ The sooner the Tithe humbug²¹ is unfolded to public gaze the better, and hurry it for pity’s sake. He told me long ago ‘he would like to get them in after other’ and now post your affair on Sunday evening so that Monday evening will see it in his clutches. I am very certain the old 8 chap²² will chuckle over the exposure of the tithe work and the botchering of the survey in general. He published the short march on the strength of what is to come. Of course past and present are very different – but be quick. Damn your quadrilles²³ and French and love affairs. They are things of this world when compared to the grand project of Spectatorisms.²⁴

I am very certain you may gain a very fine proficiency in phonography²⁵ without attending to lectures. It would cost me 14s, aye £1 to attend the lectures here. I am however 3 weeks aye 3 months before some that have attended them. I will send you the two books I have when I have done – they are very complete in themselves. ‘The Phonographic Classbook’ and ‘The People’s Edition of Phonography or writing by sound a natural method of writing all languages by one alphabet composed of signs that represent the sounds of the human voice’.²⁶ As for the lectures they are only catch-pennys,²⁷ and no service to any except fellows remarkably stupid. The Liverpool lecturer is just come from Manchester – he is a Rev. Benjamin Pitman,²⁸ brother to the inventor Mr Isaac Pitman.²⁹

So my poor fellow ‘they are all completely Irishized’ or you are Englishized – If I don’t mistake the latter version is the correct one. You are a proselyte,³⁰ your anti-Saxon soul is bamboozled into a belief that these Englishers – these semi-barbarians sentimentalists are even equal to the Houris of the Emerald Isle.³¹ Verily you are in a pitiable plight – Poor unsuspecting Paddy – did Miss Bull³² blarney³³ you into a belief that her charms were charms indeed. How damned fortunate you are ‘preengaged’ – you are not out ‘in danger’. Well you are in love and ergo out of danger of being fancy struck with another. This is consolation with a vengeance – Talk of your philosophy now, Tyndall – pon my conscience you have made the most contemptible display in the love trade of any yet – Miss ----³⁴ the ‘Southern Briton’³⁵ is I calculate some ugly skinny romantic – rawbone – long-legged devil like yourself. Why don’t you send me her address and if I don’t do you justice I’m a fish that’s all. Send me her name anyway until I make an acrostic³⁶ for you. I hear she is the wrong side of 30 – Oh damn your taste. I never fell in love with an ugly girl that’s my shine. Come rake up the memories of the past and see Ginty’s enamoratas will strut before you in the characters of Haidees – Dudus – Nourmahals. Golatis and Katinkas.³⁷ Bright Houris of by-gone days to the devil I bob you all. I am a man. Is Jim³⁸ in love? I suppose not unless he dropped into the wake of the Bessie species.³⁹ Jim is very fond of pigmy beauties – it is very fortunate that Bessie and him did not ‘strike up’ – To such combinations may be attributed the present degenerate and anti-behemoth state of the human family. Poor little devil, celibacy will be the end of him.

I have been thinking – we have been thinking that you ought to come to Liverpool at Xmas – Faith will give you enough to eat anyway – Such as it is. Jack⁴⁰ and I will invite you and Jim and Bill Latimer. Geo and you may bring the full of a carriage if you like. Say what you think of it. Plenty of time yet – If you do not scout the idea at once we will draw up a proper instrument of indictment for ye all. You could come Saturday evening. Then Sunday, Monday for ‘bladdering’ &c and on Tuesday morning you could one and all ‘go to hell out of this’ – ‘I wonder would they come’. – ‘We ought to ask them’. – ‘It’s no use I’m afraid’. ‘It’s so expensive’. – ‘They could walk part’. – ‘They can come at the contract price’.– ‘Since they would eat the fare anyway in Preston’. And so on, such are our cogitations on the matter. ‘Come! dwell with me’. Come dwell with me.

And you soon shall see and you soon shall see

That our house is bright with the image bright

Of Irish laughter mirth and glee

Yours Pastorine.⁴¹

Come! Come! Come! By heavens man it will make you a year or two younger. Lord how I will pummel you and abuse you about the romantic looking caricature you have fell in love with. You have two months yet to ponder on it. Be sure to make up your mind at once and none of Jim Evans’s Cork expedition hesitatings nor no repetition from Jim – Tell Geo.⁴² he will hear a great sermon. Tell him he will get a big plate for himself.

Hip hip hurrah – old Tucker sent my letter to Hamley who I have just been with – A memorandum accompanied it which Hamley was desired to read for me. After saying he had received a letter from me, he says to Hamley tell him that the words ‘if there were fewer men on the survey then the men would be better off’, are not easily misunderstood – The old dog. I never made use of such words he is a damned liar – he also says tell him he ought to have forwarded it through you. Well Sir says I (without a comment on the note) if I have any further remarks to make on the subject I will send them through you! And thus ended the interview. Now what’s to be done? Is it worth further answer I am greatly inclined to treat the old humbug with silent contempt – Either that or tell him in a roundabout way that he is a liar. What is your opinion? We had Danefield⁴³ – that personification of Chesterfield’s principles of politeness⁴⁴ here all the week – When Sinnett found out who he was, he was looking for him to eject him – but lo the bird was flown. I hear he has got 30 shillings a week as commercial or travelling clerk! Every man in the house has been with me during the last 10 minutes to learn the purport of my interview with Hamley. I have told them with the utmost gravity that Hamley read an order for me to hold myself in readiness to join St. Mc.Kerlie’s⁴⁵ surveying party, for Scotland, on the 1st of the ensuing month! They all believe it – What damn fools!

I can hear two fellows this moment at the fire muttering. ‘Damn them, I knew they would hail Ginty, oh man Tucker had it in for him, I knew it ‘he is sent away from here because he is a spirited chap!’ &c &c &c

I will expect a letter from you by the first post, if you approve of my further writing to the old bothered fellow. I’ll walk into him.

Yours faithfully | Ivanhoe⁴⁶

This letter is what Lt. Hamley called our memorial.⁴⁷ ‘A damned long yarn’. ‘Did you forward the memorial Sir?’ ‘Yes and a damned long yarn it was!’

After dinner

8 sent me the copy of the memorial I sent him for his perusal – On the envelope appears the following:– ‘I. S.⁴⁸ is sorry he has been so frequently out of late when Mr G⁴⁹ called’. This I take to be a hint to call on him, for I was not there this week at all. I long to see his honour and I don’t want to go with my finger in my mouth now that he has been disappointed by you. Bad luck to your quadrilles and balls and such flimsey gew-gaw trash occupies too much of your time.

Yours | ‘The Attorney General’.⁵⁰

RI MS JT/1/TYP/11/3618-3619

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