mare for me. I give him the money. Donald wanted more from me. But Roddy bought her and it was for me. Yeah, that was a good trick, yeah.

Give them the cash. I keep it up here — a jam bottle full — up there in the cupboard. And I put it in me pocket when I’m going away to buy anything. I pay the cash for it.

Fox Horses1

I bought seven or eight fox horses one night. Wait now. I’ll. tell you where I bought them. I bought three from the Campbell boys in Belle River. And what’s that place that’s alongside of where Jack Gillis was married? An old fella used to live there. I bought two from him the same night.

My God, eh? When you come to think of it. Lord knows what kind of a man I was, buying animals and stuff. My God. Wonder I’m living. I was tough. Yeah, but I done hellish good on them horses Ibought. Two or three I didn’t fox at all. ‘

Anyhow, [this] lovely, big yella mare; I had her sold to Angus Nicholson in the Point, and she slipped on the road at Charlie Nicholson’ s, and broke her hip. We had to shoot her there. And who the hell towed her home? Her hide was pretty near all off her.

Well, I’ll tell you, I came home here at night with three or four fox horses. And you know what I used to do? My Jesus, there’s no other man on the Island —I used to skin them that night and load them in the sleigh in the morning.

And you know how I used to take the hide off them? Well, I’ll tell you. I started with a knife just around here. I’d get a swinging trace and hook on to it. Pull it right off. And then cut him up in four quarters. Shove them in the sleigh. And oh, Jesus, you’d get 50 and 60 dollars for an old fox horse. And we were buying them for 10 and 15.

Rosses bought a lot of [fox horses] in Lower Montague. And there’s another fella up there at Victoria Cross. He used to put it in cold storage. I sold him a lot of them. My God, it’s awful. Risdon [Gillis]”< used to buy all kinds of them too.

You wouldn’t get too much for [the hide]. My God, ain’t it awful when a fella comes to think what he went through. Freezing his hands skinning. I left home here in the morning, look, with horse and sleighs. You could hear [the sleighs] when you were at Eldon, in the frost. My God, it’s four o’clock in the morning. My Jesus, they don’t know what hardship was.

1. Horses whose condition was only suitable for rendering into feed for foxes.

________________________—— 66 BELFAST PEOPLE