go into the house. The large class of roaming
beggars, accustomed to whiskey, tobacco,
gossip, and idleness, could not bear the
confinement to a settled home, where there was
work to do, and no pipe or grog; and they
cursed the system which drew off so much
charity as to compel them to work for their
whiskey and tobacco, if they must have them.
One such personage would tell a Poor Law
Commissioner that he would not know what
to do for business but for such as she; but
that she would have nothing to say to his
big house. And another would declare that
he would never enter those doors on any
persuasion;—he would work first. Some were
sure they could not live upon any diet but
potatoes; and all shrank from the necessity
of being washed on entering the place. The
bath was the grand horror. It was a warm
bath; pleasant and comfortable, one would
think; but the inmates said—and say to this
hour—that the washing is like stripping
them of a skin, or a suit of clothes; the feel
of the air directly meeting their skins is so
new and strange!

All balancing between begging and the
workhouse was, however, put an end to when
the potatoes failed. In one district, where the
workhouse was either unfinished or not large
enough for the pressure, there stands a large
and lofty mansion near the sea-shore. It is
in a part of Ireland where two or three
ancient families have lived in feudal pride,
for centuries. The mansion belonged to the
representative of one of those ancient families.
Encumbered before, this gentleman could not
pay the rates required from him in famine
time. He offered his mansion for a
workhouse. It was hired for the purpose; and it
is an auxiliary workhouse still. He could
not touch the rent, for it was the due of his
creditors.

He petitioned to be made the master of the
workhouse and the office was given to him, and
in that capacity he presided in that old family
mansion. No one can wonder that he died
very soon; and it is a sort of relief that his
widow and daughters are not now in the
house. I saw a crowd of boys' faces at the
windows, and a son of his was there; but I
saw also a cottage—a common labourer's
cottage—where his widow and daughters live.
They have the rent of the house, and some
earnings of their own; and, humble as is their
home, it is a comfort to think that they have
one to themselves. In such a state of things,
it is evident that the Irish workhouses are
not a depôt for an outcast class, but a home
for those who have been stripped of
everything by a calamity which has swept over
the length and breadth of their country.

Everywhere in Ireland there are landmarks
of different kinds which notify to the
traveller what kind of neighbourhood he is in.
In one place, he sees a mast with its tackle
on a hill, and he knows that he shall presently
encounter the coast-guard station and the men
—some cleaning their arms, some looking out
to sea, and some busy about the boats on the
beach. Elsewhere, in the wildest places, on
the moorlands, beside some little lake—or on
a knoll in a valley—glittering white amidst
the landscape, is the police-barrack; and
there may be seen some of the constabulary
looking out from behind the grating of the
windows; and others lolling over the walls,
gossipping, or eating, or smoking—and others,
again, stalking about, with their soldierly
bearing, as if to show their broad chests and
flat backs, and how well they can hold up
their heads. When the traveller sees a palace
of grey stone, which might be a college, or a
national museum—with an edifice in front,
and another at hand or behind, of the same
stone, connected with the larger building by
walls—he knows that he is not far from a
town; for this is a Union Workhouse. He
feels some wish to explore the interior of this
vast mansion; and he probably employs his
first leisure hour—if he is stopping at the
town—in walking up to it. At least, I did;
and, finding a ready and ever eager admission
everywhere, I inspected a good many, and
found each more interesting than the last.

What a pleasant flower-garden this is!
gay and bright with flowers. Everybody in
the house has access to this garden; and it
is plain that nobody does any harm. Ring
the bell. The porter opens to us; and when
we ask whether we can see the house, replies
eagerly, "O yes, to be sure!" He takes our
cards to the Master, but intimates that we
are welcome any way; and that perhaps we
will write our names in the Visitors' Book
before we leave. On one side of the entrance-
hall is a room where applicants are received
and first spoken to; and on the other, is the
room where the surgeon examines them, to
ascertain their state of health; and especially,
whether they have any infectious disease. If
they are healthy, they have only to cleanse
themselves thoroughly in the warm bath in
the next room, and put on the dress of the
house; and then they are ready for admission.
Their clothes are seldom worth preserving—
being mere strings or bundles of tatters,
hung upon them in some incomprehensible
way. They could not be taken off and put
on in the ordinary way; hence the puzzle
about how the poor Irish get into their
clothes. The fact is, they are not taken off
at all—day nor night. Being off now, they
will never be on any shoulders again. They
are too flimsy and too filthy to be done
anything with even as rags; so they are burnt in
the yard. If really garments, and not mere
tatters, they are cleansed and laid by, to be
claimed by the owner on leaving the house.
If he be in any way diseased, he goes no
further at present, but is lodged in a ward at
hand, which opens into an airy yard; and
there he stays till he is well.

The Master appearing, we exchange greetings
and ask him how he is satisfied with