“Spend half a crown out of sixpence a-day,”
“Spend half a crown out of sixpence a-day,”
“Spend half a crown out of sixpence a-day,”
“Spend half a crown out of sixpence a-day,”
as an ensign to pay mess-money and band-money, and all other regulation monies, keep himself in dress coat and epaulettes, and all the other et ceteras, upon his mere pay. The thing cannot be done. To live in any comfort in the army, a subalternshould have an income from some other source, equal at least in amount to that which he receives through the hands of the paymaster. The army is, in fact, an expensive profession, and of all others the least agreeable to one who is prevented, by circumscribed means, from doing as his brother officers do. Yet the mistake of venturing to meet all these difficulties is not unfrequently admitted, with what vain expectation it is needless to inquire. The usual result is such as one would anticipate, namely, that the rash adventurer, after incurring debts, or putting his friends to unlooked-for charges, is obliged after a short time to sell out, and bid farewell for ever to the unprofitable profession of arms.
It would be painful to dwell upon the situation of those who enter other professions without being duly prepared to wait their turn of employment. It is recognised as a poignantly applicable truth in the profession of the bar, that “many are called but few are chosen;” but with very few and rare exceptions indeed, the necessity ofbidingthe time is certain. In the legal and medical professions there is no fixed income, however small, insured to the adventurer; and unless his circle of friends and connections be very wide and serviceable indeed, he should make up his mind for a procrastinated return and a late harvest. But how many from day to day, and from year to year, do launch their bark upon the ocean, without any such prudent foresight! The result therefore is, that vast proportion of disastrous voyages and shipwrecks of which we hear so constantly.
Such is the admitted evil—it is granted on all sides. The question is, what is to be done?—what is the remedy? Now, the remedy for an overstocked profession very evidently is, that people should forbear to enter it. I am no Malthusian on the subject of population: I desire no unnatural checks upon the increase and multiplication of her Majesty’s subjects; but I should like to drain off a surplus from certain situations, and turn off the in-flowing stream into more profitable channels. I would advise parents, then, to leave the choice of a liberal profession to those who are able to live without one. Such parties can afford to wait for advancement, however long it may be in coming, or to bear up against disappointment, if such should be their lot. With such it is a safe speculation, and they may be left to indulge in it, if they think proper. With others it is not so. But it will be asked, what is to be done with the multitudes who would be diverted from the professions, if this advice were acted upon? I answer, that the money unprofitably spent upon their education, and in fees of admission to these expensive pursuits, would insure them a “good location” and a certain provision for life in Canada, or some of the colonies; and that any honourable occupation which would yield a competency ought to be preferred to “professions” which, however “liberal,” hold out to the many but a very doubtful prospect of that result.
It is much to be regretted that there is a prevalent notion among certain of my countrymen that “trade” is not a “genteel” thing, and that it must be eschewed by those who have any pretensions to fashion. This unfortunate, and I must say unsound state of opinion, contributes also, I fear, in no small degree, to that professional redundancy of which we have been speaking. The supposed absolute necessity of a high classical education is a natural concomitant of this opinion. All our schools therefore are eminently classical. The University follows, as a matter of course, and then the University leads to a liberal profession, as surely as one step of a ladder conducts to another. Thus the evil is nourished at the very root. Now, I would take the liberty of advising those parents who may concur with me in the main point of over-supply in the professions, to begin at the beginning, and in the education of their children, to exchange this superabundance of Greek and Latin for the less elegant but more useful accomplishment of “ciphering.” I am disposed to concur with that facetious but shrewd fellow, Mr Samuel Slick, upon the inestimable advantages of that too much neglected art—neglected, I mean, in our country here, Ireland. He has demonstrated that they do every thing by it in the States, and that without it they could do nothing. With the most profound respect to my countrymen, then, I would earnestly recommend them to cultivate it. But it may perhaps be said that there is no encouragement to mercantile pursuits in Ireland, and that if there were, there would be no necessity for me to recommend “ciphering” and its virtues to the people. To this I answer, that merchandize offers its prizes to the ingenious and venturous much rather than to those who wait for a “highway” to be made for them. If people were resolved to live by trade, I think they would contrive to do so—many more, at least, than at present operate successfully in that department. If more of education, and more of mind, were turned in that direction, new sources of profitable industry, at present unthought of, would probably discover themselves. Much might be said on this subject, but I shall not enter further into the speculation, quite satisfied if I have thrown out a hint which may be found capable of improvement by others.
F.
The rearing of geese might be more an object of attention to our small farmers and labourers in the vicinity of bogs and mountain tracts than it is.
The general season for the consumption of fat geese is from Michaelmas to Christmas, and the high prices paid for them in the English markets—to which they can be so rapidly conveyed from many parts of Ireland—appear to offer sufficient temptation to the speculator who has the capital and accommodation necessary for fattening them.
A well-organized system of feeding this hardy and nutritious species of poultry, in favourable localities, would give a considerable impulse to the rearing of them, and consequently promote the comforts of many poor Irish families, who under existing circumstances do not find it worth while to rear them except in very small numbers.
I am led to offer a few suggestions on this subject from having ascertained that in the Fens of Lincolnshire, notwithstanding a great decrease there in the breeding of geese from extensive drainage, one individual, Mr Clarke of Boston, fattens every year, between Michaelmas and Christmas, the prodigious number of seven thousand geese, and that another dealer at Spalding prepares for the poultry butcher nearly as many: these they purchase in lots from the farmers’ wives.
Perhaps a few details of the Lincolnshire practice may be acceptable to some of the readers of this Journal:—
The farmers in the Fens keep breeding stocks proportioned to the extent of suitable land which they can command; and in order to insure the fertility of the eggs, they allow one gander to three geese, which is a higher proportion of males than is deemed necessary elsewhere. The number of goslings in each brood averages about ten, which, allowing for all casualties, is a considerable produce.
There have been extraordinary instances of individual fecundity, on which, however, it would be as absurd for any goose-breeder to calculate, as it is proverbially unwise to reckon chickens before they are hatched; and this fruitfulness is only attainable by constant feeding with stimulating food through the preceding winter.
A goose has been known to lay seventy eggs within twelve months, twenty-six in the spring, before the time of incubation, and (after bringing out seventeen goslings) the remainder by the end of the year.
The white variety is preferred to the grey or party-coloured, as the birds of this colour feed more kindly, and their feathers are worth three shillings a stone more than the others: the quality of the land, however, on which the breeding stock is to be maintained, decides this matter, generally strong land being necessary for the support of the white or larger kind. Under all circumstances a white gander is preferred, in order to have a large progeny. It has been remarked, but I know not if with reason, that ganders are more frequently white than the females.
To state all the particulars of hatching and rearing would be superfluous, and mere repetition of what is contained in the various works on poultry. I shall merely state some of the peculiarities of the practice in the county of Lincoln.
When the young geese are brought up at different periods by the great dealers, they are put into pens together, according to their age, size, and condition, and fed on steamed potatoes and ground oats, in the ratio of one measure of oats to three of potatoes. By unremitting care as to cleanliness, pure water, and constant feeding, these geese are fattened in about three weeks, at an average cost of one penny per day each.
Thecrammingsystem, either by the fingers or the forcing pump, described by French writers, with the accompanying barbarities of blinding, nailing the feet to the floor, or confinement in perforated casks or earthen pots (as is said tobe the case sometimes in Poland), are happily unknown in Lincolnshire, and I may add throughout England, with one exception—the nailing of the feet to boards. The unequivocal proofs of this may occasionally, but very rarely, be seen in the geese brought into the London markets: these, however, may possibly be imported ones, though I fear they are not so.
The Lincolnshire dealers do not give any of those rich greasy pellets of barley meal and hot liquor, which always spoil the flavour, to their geese, as they well know that oats is the best feeding for them; barley, besides being more expensive, renders the flesh loose and insipid, and ratherchickenyin flavour.
Every point of economy on this subject is matter of great moment, on the vast scale pursued by Mr Clarke, who pays seven hundred pounds a-year for the mere conveyance of his birds to the London market; a fact which gives a tolerable notion of the great extent of capital employed in this business, the extent of which is scarcely conceivable by my agricultural countrymen.
Little cost, however, is incurred by those who breed the geese, as the stock are left to provide for themselves, except in the laying season, and in feeding the goslings until they are old enough to eat grass or feed on the stubbles. I have no doubt, however, that the cramp would be less frequently experienced, if solid food were added to the grass, when the geese are turned out to graze, although Mr Clarke attributes the cramp, as well as gout and fever, to too close confinement alone. This opinion does not correspond with my far more limited observation, which leads me to believe that the cramp attacks goslings most frequently when they are at large, and left to shift for themselves on green food alone, and that of the poorest kind. I should think it good economy to give them, and the old stagers too, all spare garden vegetables, for loss of condition is prejudicial to them as well as to other animals. Mr Cobbett used to fatten his young geese, from June to October, on Swedish turnips, carrots, white cabbages, or lettuces, with some corn.
Swedish turnips no doubt will answer very well, but not so well as farinaceous potatoes, when immediate profit is the object. The experience of such an extensive dealer as Mr Clarke is worth volumes of theory and conjecture as to the mode of feeding, and he decides in favour of potatoes and oats.
The treatment for cramp and fever in Lincolnshire is bleeding—I know not if it be hazarded in gout—but as it is not successful in the cases of cramp in one instance out of twenty, it may be pronounced inefficacious.
I have had occasion lately to remark in this Journal on the general disinclination in England to the barbarous custom of plucking geese alive. In Lincolnshire, however, they do so with the breeding stock three times in the year, beginning at midsummer, and repeating the operation twice afterwards, at intervals of six weeks between the operations.
The practice is defended on the plea, that if the feathers be matured, the geese are better for it, while it is of course admitted that the birds must be injured more or less—according to the handling by the pluckers—if the feathers be not ripe. But as birds do not moult three times in the year, I do not understand how it should be correctly said that the featherscanbe ripe on these three occasions. How does nature suggest the propriety of stripping the feathers so often? Where great numbers are kept, the loss by allowing the feathers to drop on the ground would be serious, and on this account alone can even one stripping be justified.
In proof of the general opinion that the goose is extremely long-lived, we have many recorded facts; among them the following:—“In 1824 there was a goose living in the possession of Mr Hewson of Glenham, near Market Rasen, Lincolnshire, which was then upwards of a century old. It had been throughout that term in the constant possession of Mr Hewson’s forefathers and himself, and on quitting his farm he would not suffer it to be sold with his other stock, but made a present of it to the in-coming tenant, that the venerable fowl might terminate its career on the spot where its useful life had been spent such a length of days.”
The taste which has long prevailed among gourmands for the liver of a goose, and has led to the enormous cruelties exercised in order to cause its enlargement by rendering the bird diseased in that organ through high and forced feeding in a warm temperature and close confinement, is well known; but I doubt if many are aware of the influence ofcharcoalin producing an unnatural state of the liver.
I had read of charcoal being put into a trough of water to sweeten it for geese when cooped up; but from a passage in a recent work by Liebig it would appear that the charcoal acts not as a sweetener of the water, but in another way on the constitution of the goose.
I am tempted to give the extract from its novelty:—“The production of flesh and fat may be artificially increased: all domestic animals, for example, contain much fat. We give food to animals which increases the activity of certain organs, and is itself capable of being transformed into fat. We add to the quantity of food, or we lessen the progress of respiration and perspiration by preventing motion. The conditions necessary to effect this purpose in birds are different from those in quadrupeds; and it is well known that charcoal powder produces such an excessive growth in the liver of a goose as at length causes the death of the animal.”
We are much inferior to the English in the art of preparing poultry for the market; and this is the more to be regretted in the instance of geese, especially as we can supply potatoes—which I have shown to be the chief material of their fattening food—at half their cost in many parts of England. This advantage alone ought to render the friends of our agricultural poor earnest in promoting the rearing and fattening of geese in localities favourable for the purpose.
The encouragement of our native manufactures is now a general topic of conversation and interest, and we hope the present excitement of the public mind on this subject will be productive of permanent good. We also hope that the encouragement proposed to be given to articles of Irish manufacture will be extended to the productions of the head as well as to those of the hands; that the manufacturer of Irish wit and humour will be deemed worthy of support as well as those of silks, woollens, or felts; and, that Irishmen shall venture to estimate the value of Irish produce for themselves, without waiting as heretofore till they get “the London stamp” upon them, as our play-going people of old times used to do in the case of the eminent Irish actors.
We are indeed greatly inclined to believe that our Irish manufactures are rising in estimation in England, from the fact which has come to our knowledge that many thousands of our Belfast hams are sold annually at the other side of the water as genuine Yorkshire, and also that many of those Belfast hams with the Yorkshire stamp find their way back into “Ould Ireland,” and are bought as English by those who would despise them as Irish. Now, we should like our countrymen not to be gulled in this way, but depend upon their own judgment in the matter of hams, and in like manner in the matter of articles of Irish literary manufacture, without waiting for the London stamp to be put on them. The necessity for such discrimination and confidence in their own judgment exists equally in hams and literature. Thus certain English editors approve so highly of our articles in the Irish Penny Journal, that they copy them by wholesale, not only without acknowledgment, but actually do us the favour to father them as their own! As an example of this patronage, we may refer to a recent number of the Court Gazette, in which its editor has been entertaining his aristocratic readers with a little piece ofbadinagefrom our Journal, expressly written for us, and entitled “A short chapter on Bustles,” but which he gives as written for the said Court Gazette! Now, this is really very considerate and complimentary, and we of course feel grateful. But, better again, we find our able and kind friend the editor of theMonitorandIrishman, presenting, no doubt inadvertently, this very article to his Irish readers a few weeks ago—not even as an Irish article that had got the London stamp upon it, but as actually one of true British manufacture—the produce of the Court Gazette.
Now, in perfect good humour, we ask our friend, as such we have reason to consider him, could he not as well have copied this article from our own Journal, and given us the credit of it—and would it not be worthy of the consistency and patriotism of theIrishman, who writes so ably in the cause of Irish manufactures, to extend his support, as far as might be compatible with truth and honesty, to the native literature of Ireland?
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