Who would not think that the Irish were a nation of misers, when
our readers are informed that all this bloodshed arose from their
unwillingness to lose a shilling by remaining in Liverpool another
night? Or who could believe that these very men, on reaching home, and
meeting their friends in a fair or market, or in a public-house after
mass on a Sunday, would sit down and spend, recklessly and foolishly,
that very money which in another country they part with as if it were
their very heart's blood? Yet so it is! Unfortunately, Paddy is wiser
anywhere than at home, where wisdom, sobriety, and industry are best
calculated to promote his own interests.

This slight sketch of Phil Purcel we have presented to our readers as
a specimen of the low, cunning Connaught-man; and we have only to add,
that neither the pig-selling scene, nor the battle on the deck of the
vessel in Liverpool, is fictitious. On the contrary, we have purposely
kept the tone of our description of the latter circumstance beneath the
reality. Phil, however, is not drawn as a general portrait, but as
one of that knavish class of men called "jobbers," a description
of swindlers certainly not more common in Ireland than in any other
country. We have known Connaughtmen as honest and honorable as it was
possible to be; yet there is a strong prejudice entertained against
them in every other province of Ireland, as is evident by the old adage,
"Never trust a Connaugtaman."