The population is so large, the number able and willing to work so great, that, after the first pressure of want was over, it was found necessary to exclude the boys, and limit it to those who were without any other means of subsistence. Instances were then known, of boys standing on stones and sods of turf, to obviate any objection to their age from the lowness of their stature. The truth appears to be this. Both men and women willingly engage in any kind of labour for which they are sure of being paid; but they are naturally discouraged from venturing on any speculations, the failure of which involves them in hopeless ruin.

Unfortunately, they have this year met with another of those disappointments, which have so often and so cruelly checked the spirit of industry and improvement in Ireland. Owing to delays in the remittances from government, payment on the roads was deferred from day to day. Many a long week they were kept in lingering expectation, till at length when they received the money it was no longer their own. The whole, or nearly the whole, was engaged to pay for the potatoes on which they had been subsisting through the winter, and which they had of course purchased at a disadvantage. This, I am persuaded, is the reason of their reluctance to

engage in the contracts by which it is intended to continue the road making, instead of allowing them to work by the day. The promises at first held out of regular employment and certain pay fell so short in their accomplishment, that it might surely make them look with suspicion on a change which appeared still more like a return to the old system. By the old system, I would have you understand, that of the tenantry working for their landlords, as a set-off against their rent; or, what is worse and worse, doing duty work as one of the conditions stipulated in their leases. You may conceive how dif ferent an effect this must produce, from the easy independence and security of the English labourer, who, generally speaking, finds his work ready to his hands; and who, on the Saturday night, receives as his wages the ready money which is to provide for himself and his family during the ensuing week.

I might further mention, as a proof of their capa. bility of exertion, that a gentleman in this neighbourhood, being desirous the other day of making a road to his newly opened quarry for marble, easily mustered between seven or eight hundred men, not only among his own tenantry, but likewise from the surrounding villages, who voluntarily engaged them. selves, on the promise of being supplied with their

daily provisions, without any further recompence; and one mile and a quarter of deep bog was actually cut through, drained, and gravelled in the course of one week.

LETTER XI.

FEBRUARY.

You inquire what use we have made of the £50 received, three months ago, from the London Tavern Committee, for the encouragement of the woollen trade in this part of the country. It would, I assure you, be a delightful reward of their benevolence, could they witness the benefits which have already resulted from this liberal and timely aid. It has enabled us to offer employment to our female peasantry, and though the profit which they make is very trifling, yet has it proved a sufficient stimulus to their industry. The women, whom we now pass at their cabin doors, or meet on the road, are busily engaged in knitting; and even when they have business at "the big house", they no longer sit in patient idleness, till their hour of audience comes round, but, with a stocking in their hand, industriously employ that time which they have now learned to value.

This capital might equally have been turned to

the encouragement of the flannel manufacture, both the spinning and weaving being carried on in the cabins, were it not for the present depressed state of the market, which renders a loss inevitable, unless the labours of the wheel and the loom be repaid in a very inadequate measure. The common flannel of the country, which, when thickened and dyed, forms the dress both of the male and female peasants, sells at the present moment from 8d. to 11d. the yard.

You will say no one then ought to be in rags, but, remember, that the family of an Irish peasant, without wages or employment, living on the produce of their few potatoe beds, must needs find as much difficulty in scraping together a few tenpennies, as your English labourer, who receives his wages every Saturday night, would find in collecting as many pounds. The money that the poor women gain by their knitting, which, with those who devote most time to it, does not exceed 1s. per week, is required for many different uses. The mother looks with longing eye upon the articles of English clothing which are hung around our hall of audience-but she is held in suspense by the roll of flannel so much needed by her half-naked little ones or perhaps denying herself both the one and the other she car

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