after the morning sweeping and airing. They
are curious places; long rooms, with an aisle
or gangway along the middle, left by
platforms on either hand, about ten inches high.
On each platform lies a row of bundles, each
bundle being a bed for one person—unless a
pressure of numbers compels crowding. The
mattress is tied in the form of an arch; and
resting upon it is a smaller arch, composed
of the rug and blankets neatly folded and set
up in that form. The beauty of the platform
is that it can be kept perfectly and constantly
clean, which is more, I believe, than can be
said of any bedstead whatever, liable to promiscuous
use. The beds being lifted away, the
platform can be swept and scoured like a
floor, and it everywhere looks like a new deal
table. In three hours' time the people below
will come up in detachments, be told off into
their wards, untie each his or her bedding,
and go into a bed as clean as in a gentleman's
house. Ah! how unlike the sleeping
accommodation I have seen in many a better cabin
than these people came from—bedsteads standing
in a slough of mud, with potatoes stowed
away underneath, the turf-stack within reach,
the hens perched on the tattered counterpane,
and little pigs rubbing their snouts against
the ricketty head-board!

As we are about to leave the room, somebody
bursts in, crying, "Give me a halfpenny!"
and is instantly turned out. Nobody—not
even the crazy girl—is allowed to enter the
dormitories after they have been locked for
the day. To divert the girl's attention, we
ask her the way to the womens' work-room;
which she shews, saying the same thing the
whole time, even in the midst of the whirr of
the spinning-wheels, and the clack of the
looms, where women are singing at their
work.

What do I spy on one post of the
loom? A horse-shoe nailed on. I saw the
same thing on the sink, when we passed
through the kitchens. The matron is deaf
when I ask what it means; then she says it
means nothing; and, finally, that she does
not know. I am told, aside, that she knows
as well as anybody. The horse-shoe is there
for luck—to keep away evil beings. The
matron says, also, that she does not know why
so many of the girls and women wear rings—
of zinc, apparently, and, for the most part, on
the middle finger of the right hand: but it is
believed that the matron knows that the girls
would part with anything rather than these
rings, because they have been blessed by the
priest. Some of these rings will be worn in
places very far away. These girls are
petitioning the guardians—tens and twenties
of petitioners at a time—to enable them to
emigrate. There is nothing to stay for here;
for a workhouse is not a home for life, for
anybody who can get a better; and in
Australia they are so pressingly wanted—both to
spread comfort through existing homes, and
to make new homes. The thing will be done.
All difficulties will disappear in time, before
the reasonableness of the petition.

Before departing, we go to the Board-room,
where the guardians meet. It is in the
entrance building, over the hall. Here was
planned that strange proceeding, the clearing
of the workhouse of the able-bodied, or a
certain number of them, without distinction
of sex, whereby upwards of twenty girls were
thrust out into the world without protection
or resource. And here were received the
indignant rebukes of a nobleman and a clergyman
who did not at all approve of such a
method of lowering the rates. As if by
mutual agreement, the guardians of several
unions did this; and all have been visited
with such censure from the Poor Law
Commissioners, as well as their neighbours, that
such a piece of profligate tyranny is not likely
to occur again. We look at the very instructive
documents which stud the walls of this
solemn room, where the fates of so many
human beings are decided; we receive the
statistical memoranda we petitioned for, and
in return write our names, addresses, and a
remark or two in the Visitors' Book.

As we go away, we stop a minute to see the
boys at work in the sloping fallow which
descends to the meadow. That bit of ground—
somewhere about two acres—has been all dug
by the boys, and now they are trenching it, in
a style of thoroughness which one would like
to see throughout their country. They are
regularly taught by a qualified agricultural
instructor; and certainly that field of turnips,
and the mangold wurzel beyond, clean and
strong, do credit to his teaching. It is
incredible that the agriculture of Ireland can
long remain in its present disgraceful state,
when thousands of boys like these go out into
the world as able-bodied labourers; and it is
incredible that the many thousands of orphan
girls who are brought up in habits of cleanliness,
thrift, and industry in these refuges,
should not produce some effect upon the
comfort and household virtue of the next generation.
They may not be having the best possible
education, but they are receiving one which is
wonderfully good for their original position
and circumstances. The impression on my
own mind is, that those boys are Ireland's
best guarantee against famine, and those girls
against fever, in the next generation. If any
reader stares at such a saying, let him tell us
what better security against these woes he can
point out, than a generation of men able and
inclined to produce a variety of foods; and of
women trained to make the cheapest abode
in the land the cleanest and wholesomest. If
there is something going on even better
than this, we shall be delighted to hear
of it. The training is about external things,
we grant; but the evils we speak of—
famine and fever—are external, in the same
degree.

So, this is not a very bad kind of Union
that we have visited; and perhaps another