While it was being made it supplied work to a great
many. Rail communication with the rest of the country must be a benefit
to the town and the surrounding country.
The hopes nourished by the Land League prevent the people from sinking
into despair or rousing to desperation. "Have the laboring class any
garden ground to their homes?" I asked. "No. You would not like to see
their homes. They are not fit for anyone to go into," was the answer. It
is good sometimes to look at what others are obliged to endure.
Having provided myself with infinitesimal parcels of tea and sugar for
the very aged or the helplessly sick, I set out with the clergyman and
went up unexpected lanes and twisted round unlikely corners, dived into
low tenements and climbed up unreliable stairs into high ones. One home,
without a window, no floor but the ground, not a chair or table, dark
with smoke, and so small that we, standing on the floor, took up all the
available room, paid a rent of $16 per year, paid weekly. The husband
was out of work, the wife kept a stall on market days, and sold sweets
and cakes on commission.
Another hovel, divided into two apartments like stalls in a horse
stable, a ladder leading up to a loft where an old gate and some
indescribably filthy boards separated it into another two apartments,
accommodated four families. The rent of the whole was $52 per year, paid
weekly. One of the inmates of this tenement, an old, old man, whose
clothing was shreds and patches, excused himself from going into the
workhouse by declaring that there were bad car-ack-ters in there, while
he and his father before him were ever particular about their company.
Children, like the field daisy, abound everywhere. In one hovel a brand
new baby lay in a box, and another scarcely able to walk toddled about,
and a lot more, like a flock of chickens, were scattered here and there.
In one of these homes a small child was making a vigorous attempt to
sweep the floor. On asking for her mother, the little mite said, "She is
away looking for her share." This is the popular way of putting a name
on begging.
One inhabitant made heather brooms, or besoms, as they are called here.
He goes to the mountain, cuts heather, draws it home on his back, makes
the besoms, and sells them for a halfpenny apiece.
In one hovel a little boy lay dying of consumption - another name for
cold and hunger - his bed a few rags, a bit of sacking and a tattered
coat the only bed-clothes. "I am very bad entirely, father," was the
little fellow's complaint. I stood back while the father talked to him,
and it was easy to see that he had well practised how to be a son of
consolation.
