Another Irishman,--who may be taken as a type of the less informed, and who had been between two and three years in England, having been disappointed in emigrating to America with his wife and two children,--gave me the following account, but not without considering and hesitating. He was a very melancholy looking man, tall and spare, and decently clad. He and his family were living upon 8_d._ a day, which he earned by sweeping a crossing. He had been prevented by ill health from earning 2_l._, which he could have made, he told me, in harvest time, as a store against winter. He had been a street-seller, and so had his wife; and she would be so again as soon as he could raise 2_s._ to buy her a stock of apples. He said, touching his hat at each holy name,--
“Sure, yis, sir, I’m a Roman Cartholic, and go to mass every Sunday. Jesus Christ? O yis,” (hesitating, but proceeding readily after a word of prompting), “he is the Lord our Saviour, and the Son of the Holy Virgin. The blessed saints? Yis, sir, yis. The praste prays for them. I--I mane prays to them. O yis. I pray to them mysilf ivery night for a blissin’, and to rise me out of my misery. No, sir, I can’t say I know what the mass is about. I don’t know what I’m prayin’ for thin, only that it’s right. A poor man, that can neither read nor write--I wish I could and I might do betther--can’t understand it; it’s all in Latin. I’ve heard about Cardinal Wiseman. It’ll do us no good sir; it’ll only set people more against us. But it ain’t poor min’s fault.”
As I was anxious to witness the religious zeal that characterizes these people, I obtained permission to follow one of the priests as he made his rounds among his flock. Everywhere the people ran out to meet him. He had just returned to them I found, and the news spread round, and women crowded to their door-steps, and came creeping up from the cellars through the trap-doors, merely to curtsey to him. One old crone, as he passed, cried, “You’re a good father, Heaven comfort you,” and the boys playing about stood still to watch him. A lad, in a man’s tail coat and a shirt-collar that nearly covered in his head--like the paper round a bouquet--was fortunate enough to be noticed, and his eyes sparkled, as he touched his hair at each word he spoke in answer. At a conversation that took place between the priest and a woman who kept a dry fish-stall, the dame excused herself for not having been up to take tea “with his rivirince’s mother lately, for thrade had been so bisy, and night was the fullest time.” Even as the priest walked along the street, boys running at full speed would pull up to touch their hair, and the stall-women would rise from their baskets; while all noise--even a quarrel--ceased until he had passed by. Still there was no look of fear in the people. He called them all by their names, and asked after their families, and once or twice the “father” was taken aside and held by the button while some point that required his advice was whispered in his ear.