"black, brown or fair," from my first step forth into life, a raw sub.
in the gallant 4_th, to this same hour, I have no other avowal, no other
confession to make. "Be always ready with the pistol," was the dying
advice of an Irish statesman to his sons: mine, in a similar
circumstance, would rather be "Gardez vous des femmes," and more
especially if they be Irish.

There is something almost treacherous in the facility with which an
Irish girl receives your early attentions and appears to like them,
that invariably turns a young fellow's head very long before he has any
prospect of touching her heart. She thinks it so natural to be made love
to, that there is neither any affected coyness nor any agitated surprise.
She listens to your declaration of love as quietly as the chief justice
would to one of law, and refers the decision to a packed jury of her
relatives, who rarely recommend you to mercy. Love and fighting, too,
are so intimately united in Ireland, that a courtship rarely progresses
without at least one exchange of shots between some of the parties
concerned. My first twenty-four hours in Dublin is so pleasantly
characteristic of this that I may as well relate it here, while the
subject is before us; besides, as these "Confessions" are intended as
warnings and guides to youth, I may convey a useful lesson, showing why
a man should not "make love in the dark."

It was upon a raw, cold, drizzling morning in February, 18__, that our
regiment landed on the North-wall from Liverpool, whence we had been
hurriedly ordered to repress some riots and disturbances then agitating
Dublin.

We marched to the Royal Barracks, our band playing Patrick's Day, to the
very considerable admiration of as naked a population as ever loved