Thinking Of The Wife And Baby At The Other House, We Said That Seeing The Wife Wound The Bobbins, Cooked, Kept House, Nursed And Washed For Her Family That She Earned Her Full Share Of The Fifteen Pence.

Would not be surprised to hear that there had been a controversy raging on this very subject before we came in, the man's face became so glum and the woman's so triumphant.

It was an enthusiastic blessing she threw after us when we left.

Visited a great thread factory, where the yarn is made ready that is woven into double damask, and thread for all purposes supplied to all parts. In whatever part of Ireland the tall factory chimney rises up into the air the people have not the look of starvation that is stamped on the poor elsewhere. Still, if we consider a wage of seven to twelve shillings a week - twelve in this factory was the general wages - and subtract from that two shillings a week for the house and three shillings a week for fuel the operators are not likely to lay up large fortunes. As they have no gardens to the houses owned by the factory, nor backyard accommodation of any kind, the cleanliness and tidy appearance of houses and workpeople are a credit to them. But when times grow hard, and the mills run half time, and not even a potato to fall back upon, there must be great suffering behind these walls.

There are large schools, national schools, in this village, and the children over ten years of age, who work in the factory, go to school half time. They are paid at the rate of two-pence halfpenny a day for the work of the other half of the day - that is equivalent to five cents. The teachers of the schools informed me that, when the little ones came in the morning, as they did on alternate weeks, that they learned well, but when they came in the afternoon they were sleepy and listless. On that morning they had to rise at five o'clock.

The schools which I have seen in Ireland, for so far, are conducted on the old plan; children learn their lessons at home, repeat them to the teachers in school, who never travel out of record, are trained in obedience, respect to superiors, and in order, more or less, according to the nature of the teacher. They still adhere to the broad sound of A, which has been so universally abandoned on the other side of the water.

The factories at Gilford are very remunerative; great fortunes, allowing of the purchase of landed estates and the building of more than one castlelike mansion have been made in them. From Tandragee to Portadown, in Armagh, which we travelled in a special car, took us through the same green country waving with crops, and in some places shaded heavily with trees. In the environs of Gilford - as if that very clean manufacturing town set an example that was universally followed - all the houses are clean and white as to the outside, further away the dreadful-looking homes abound.

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