Not far from the castle gate is a pretty church and its companion, an
equally pretty building for the National School. I enquired of several
how this great improvement came about; the answer was always the same,
"The estate passed into the hands of a good man who lived on it, and he
had a godly wife." Passing the pretty little church I heard the sound of
children's voices singing psalms, and was told that the daughter of the
castle was teaching the children to sing; I noticed _In Memoriam_
on a stone in the building, and found that this church was built in
memory of the good lady of the castle, who has departed to a grander
inheritance, leaving a name that lingers like a blessing in the country
side. So the old landlord's loss of an estate has been great gain to
this people.

It is in the country parts, more remote from the public eye, that one
sees the destitution wrought by the depression in the linen trade.
People there are struggling with all their might to live and keep out of
the workhouses. Hand-loom weaving seems doomed to follow hand-spinning
and become a thing of the past. Weavers some time ago had a plot of
ground which brought potatoes and kale to supplement the loom, and on it
could earn twelve shillings a week. But alas! while the webs grew longer
the price grew less and they are in a sad case.

I called, with a friend, on some of these weavers: one, an intelligent
man, with the prevailing Scotch type of face. We found him, accompanied
by a sickly wife, sitting by a scanty fire, ragged enough. This man for
his last web was paid at the rate of twopence a yard for weaving linen
with twenty hundred threads to the inch, but out of this money he had to
buy dressing and light, and have some one, the sickly wife I suppose, to
wind the bobbins for him. He must then pay rent for the poor cabin he
lived in, none too good for a stable, and supply all his wants on the