The Speaking Statue Again

Monday, 14.--After preaching at Lurgan, I inquired of Mr. Miller whether he had any thoughts of perfecting his speaking statue, which had so long lain by. He said he had altered his design; that he intended, if he had life and health, to make two which would not only speak, but sing hymns alternately with an articulate voice; that he had made a trial and it answered well. But he could not tell when he should finish it, as he had much business of other kinds and could give only his leisure hours to this. How amazing is it that no man of fortune enables him to give all his time to the work!

I preached in the evening at Lisburn. All the time I could spare here was taken up by poor patients. I generally asked, "What remedies have you used?" and was not a little surprised. What has fashion to do with physic? Why (in Ireland, at least), almost as much as with headdress. Blisters for anything or nothing were all the fashion when I was in Ireland last. Now the grand fashionable medicine for twenty diseases (who would imagine it?) is mercury sublimate! Why is it not a halter or a pistol? They would cure a little more speedily.

Tuesday, 15.--When I came to Belfast, I learned the real cause of the late insurrections in this neighborhood. Lord Donegal, the proprietor of almost the whole country, came hither to give his tenants new leases. But when they came, they found two merchants of the town had taken their farms over their heads; multitudes of them, with their wives and children, were turned out to the wide world. It is no wonder that, as their lives were now bitter to them, they should fly out as they did. It is rather a wonder that they did not go much farther. And if they had, who would have been most in fault? Those who were without home, without money, without food for themselves and families, or those who drove them to this extremity?