now lies upon our table; it is entitled "The English Settler's Guide to Ireland."* From such a work we naturally expected a large amount of information useful to the English settler; but we have seldom been more disappointed after the perusal of any book. It is printed in the form of a dialogue between an English gentleman and an Irish clergyman, and is, substantially, written in advocacy of the National Education Board;† the small portion of the work really dedicated to the consideration of the nature of the soil and climate, and the other particulars connected with the physical condition of the land, being only secondary. It is "respectfully dedicated, as an humble tribute of sincere and ardent admiration of his administration and government of Ireland," in a fulsome panegyric, to the Lord Lieutenant, and contains, moreover, many other passages evidently laboured to give gratification to the Archbishop of Dublin and others in power; and, if we are not greatly mistaken, contains internal evidence of the identity of the writer. We have read the "English Settler's Guide" carefully, from cover to cover, and we regret very much that we have been unable to discover a single new fact likely to give information to a stranger, or a single passage worthy of being extracted, from the beginning to the end of the book. An English

settler who bought this work would fail to derive the least practical advantage from it, and would find, to his cost, that he had been allured by false colours. The conduct of a party who makes use of a popular title either to promulgate doctrines at variance with that title, or to advance his own particular views or worldly interests, cannot be too highly deprecated.

Very different, in style and matter, from the above is a small, unpretending tract that also lies upon our library table, entitled "Woman's Work and Woman's Worth." It treats of Connaught-Ireland's poorest and most uncivilized province. Its concern is not with its scenery, however sublime or beautifully fair, but with the condition of its interesting people, especially its females, and more especially still its young females. "The Belfast Ladies' Relief Association for Connaught" was constituted in the famine year of 1846, and it consists of ladies of different religious persuasions. Episcopalians, Presbyterians, members of the Society of Friends, Independents, Methodists "all cordially united in effecting temporal and immortal good by industrial Scriptural education."

"Our association arose in the year of the famine, and many a wretched creature it kept from dying of hunger. Then came 1847, the year of pestilence,

it was untrue:

and our labour of love was continued among the sick and dying, sad survivors, whom the scourge of God had spared.

A time of mercantile ruin came in 1848; and, as if to close the grave upon our energies and hopes, 1849 brought the cholera. Yet, through all, our lives and means of usefulness have been preserved; and now, in times of unwonted prosperity, we are bound, in gratitude, to prove that the blessings continued, and the lessons of wisdom taught, have not been vain. Our principles and objects are before the public. We establish schools of female industry, under the patronage of influential ladies in Connaught; we send suitable teachers from Ulster; we qualify our pupils for earning a livelihood; and a main object in our system being to imbue their minds with the truth and spirit of the Gospel, we teach those to read the Bible who could not read, and we occupy a portion of the school hours of every day with devotional reading of the Word of God. We give them not food, as at first, when they were dying of hunger-eaten bread is soon forgotten-but the means of providing for themselves; we foster a spirit of independence: we help them to help themselves; we give them what no mere charity could give-industrious habits, the knowledge of an industrial art, which they can give to their neighbours, and which, as a rich inheritance, will heap blessings on their children's children."

We intend to confine the few observations to which our limited space restricts us altogether to the portion of this work that treats of the progress made in the industrial education of the young persons under the care of this excellent society; not that we underrate the importance of the religious branch of the subject, but because such considerations would be foreign to the scope of this paper, and also because its great moment would demand an amount of space and attention which we are not at present in a position to bestow upon it.

Forty-four female teachers, selected for their exemplary conduct, industry, and activity in doing good, have been sent by the society to different districts, and their efforts are directed and encouraged under the influence of ladies of rank and property residing in the different localities, whose unwearied attention to the poor is above all praise. They instruct them in plain knitting, and particularly in the sewed muslin trade. "We train

hands; manufacturers supply work and wages. This work has long held its ground with increasing prosperity, and its varying patterns furnishing constant gratification to taste, secure constant demand." One of the greatest difficulties against which they had to contend was the uncleanliness in the houses and habits of the people. The dark, smoky cabin, shared equally between the peasant and his pig, and cow too, and ass, if he were possessed of such animals, marred industry; but the muddy torrent passed by, and now the stream is peaceful and clear. The gentle maids of Connemara who erst carried dung upon their backs like beasts of burden, and lived in ignorance and filth, are now elevated to an equality with their fellow-creatures, and prove by their intelligence and industry, that if they were idle, it was because "no man had hired them." The total number in the schools are two thousand.

"In eighteen of our schools, contain ing 1,243 pupils, there are only 115 Protestants. It is, therefore, for our poor Roman Catholic females that we would wake up Protestant sympathy. In the spirit of Christian love, we seek out the poor Roman Catholic girl away beyond the dark bogs and mountains of the wild West, and try to do her good. By far the greater number of our scholars,' says a patroness, are paupers, without any means of subsistence; six are orphans, and of eleven, their fathers are dead, their mothers either in the workhouse or begging."

The hosiery manufactured at these schools in Connemara commands the highest price in England and Scotland, and specimens are to be seen at the great Exhibition. Samples shown in Manchester to one of the first houses there were declared to be too good for that market, and suitable only to London or Edinburgh; and an eminent hosier in the latter city stated, that although he had been all his life in the trade, he had never seen such specimens. The black lace veil manufacture has also been introduced, and is in a healthy condition; and the sum total of the wages at present paid for the sewing of muslin in Connaught exceeds £5,000 annually, which is rapidly increasing a sum of money, the impor tance of which, in Connemara, it is difficult to estimate too highly, when we remember that money was seldom

seen in that district, and that labour may be hired at from twopence to threepence per diem.

It is difficult to describe the pleasure we have derived from the perusal of the modest tract from which we have culled this information. The social and moral improvement effected in so short a time in the dreary mountain homes of the West is truly delightful, where benevolence and industry advance together, hand in hand, and triumph over the barriers of ignorance that have for ages past opposed the progress of civilization; and where filth, and rags, and idleness are put away by those who once wandered at the road-side almost naked, but now are clad in modest apparel, adorned with shamefacedness and sobriety. The tract abounds in little trifles like the following-mere trifles, but smacking too much of nature to be read with indifference :

-:

"Two little girls, the eldest only eleven, have earned enough this last month to pay their mother's rent, and to buy each a pair of shoes; another has helped to support her sick father.

Two little girls gave two of their brothers a suit of clothes.

"I have a little savings' bank, and they give me some of their earnings to lay by for them. One drew out her little savings to buy a pair of shoes for her mother; and they are constantly doing similar things.

"One girl supports her mother, and a sister almost blind; another, with but little help, supports her mother and three little ones; another, herself and a little brother."

Space does not permit us to multiply examples; but how many ennobled families, amidst all the haughty pride of wealth, and power, and hereditary descent, would look back upon their ancestors with more feelings of real satisfaction if they could find, in their days, even one such motto; and how many trophies and emblazoned escutch

eons adorn the fretted vaults of our sacred abbeys that should rather commemorate things like these, were monuments erected to the merit and not to the splendour of actions!

We cannot conclude our notice of this most interesting tract without one more quotation :

"A number of humble, retiring females, in the province of Ulster, have made a noble commencement; and while

young men were sitting carelessly at home, and Churches were paralysed, unprotected young women, farmers' daughters from the counties of Antrim and Down, who had never been ten miles from home, were setting out fearlessly to the wild West; fearlessly, while famine and pestilence were raging; and, afterwards, when rebellion was filling stout hearts with fear; and in the wild fastnesses, and the lowly glen, were gathering starving orphans round them in tenderness and love, amid scenes of desolation, where the fox and lapwing could hardly find a home, and over which the monarch eagle soared heedless and high, for no living thing there tempted him to stoop for his prey."

The natural aptitude and mechanical genius of our countrymen and women appear to destine Ireland, at no very distant period, for a great manufacturing country. Where have efforts, persevering efforts, been made to improve the people, and failed? Where have endeavours been made to advance education, to spread civilization, to improve morals, to make the Irishman useful, hopeful, and happy, and have received opposition from the poor man? The apostle of moral and social order has seldom preached in this island, even for a little while, and preached in vain; he has seldom pointed out to them the ways of industry, and awoke in their desponding hearts new hopes and prospects, with out feeling that the blessings of those who were ready to perish came upon him, and that he had caused the widow's heart to sing for joy !

In close connexion with the subject we have been considering, is the unexampled progress of Irish manufacturing industry. Upon this topic, even did our space permit, it is not necessary to say much. Its truth will be admitted by any one possessing even the most superficial information upon Irish statistics; and, moreover, it is probable that the very interesting nature of the subject may, at a future period, call for a paper wholly devoted to its elucidation. By the Report of the Factory Inspectors for 1847, we learn that between 1839 and that year, the increase of persons employed in factory labour was, in Scotland, 13 per cent.; in England, 30 per cent; while in Ireland, it was 52 per cent. Again, the population of Belfast was in 1821, 37,000; in 1831, 53,000; in 1841, 75,000; and if the rough calculations already made of this

year's census are to be depended upon, the population amounts, at present, to 112,000 souls-not a pauper and halfemployed population, but a body of industrious and hard-working people, equal in their efficiency to any English or Scotch operatives. A well-known gentleman, Mr. James Mac Adam, thus spoke, in an address to a late meeting of the Belfast Natural History and Philsophical Society upon this subject:

"It may be a matter of surprise to many, that we can bring the two great materials, coal and iron, to Belfast, and yet compete with our English and Scotch neighbours in this industrial department, so essentially their own. But it is, nevertheless, true that this is one of the most flourishing branches of manufac ture existing in our town. There are five large founderies, and several of smaller size, with machine manufactories, giving constant employment to a considerable number of mechanics. Among the articles that are made we may enumerate steam-engines, both land and marine, iron steam-boats, flax-spinning and flax-scutching machinery, railway work, water-wheels and turbines, and the numerous articles required in the manufacture of linens. And not only do these establishments supply the ma chinery required in the north of Ireland, but many orders have been executed for England and for foreign countries. As examples, may be specified, iron steamboats, with machinery complete, for the Hull and Hamburg trade; machinery for the preparation of flax for Egypt, Germany, Denmark, and France; a number of steam-engines, of very large size, that have been sent to Egypt, and are now erected on the banks of the Nile, for the purpose of pumping water to irrigate the land; iron houses for California; and olive-pressing mills for Spain. And even in ornamental ironwork there are not wanting instances where the skill of our founders has been drawn upon; the iron windows and doors of a new palace, erected near Cairo, by the late Pasha of Egypt, having been made in Belfast."

Nothing can be more encouraging than this. We may also add that the large castings for the great bridge over the Wye, at Chepstow, for the South Wall Railway, have been undertaken in Dublin, as well as (among many other works of great magnitude) the Monasterevan viaduct, the Balbriggan viaduct, the Nore viaduct, the Portumna, and other metal bridges over the Shan

non, the great Liverpool station roof, the Palmhouse and magnificent conser vatories at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, the conservatory at the Glasnevin Gardens, and at the Belfast Botanic Gardens, the Winter Gardens in the Regent's Park, London, and the lattice viaduct across the Royal Canal at Dublin; and we are also informed that all the heavy castings required for the Brighton Railway Company, for their passenger terminus at London Bridge, have been undertaken by one of our Irish companies. The effect of this progress, upon the indus, try of the country may be judged from the annexed paragraph, in a well-in. formed local paper, the Ulster Gazette:

"So brisk at present are that class of our capitalists who are engaged in the manufacture of machinery for flax spinning, that the steam-engines in most of their workshops are running night and day. Hands are not to be had, for love or money, either in Scotland or England. Several new mills are unable to start, partly from want of their machinery, and partly for lack of operatives. About 70,000 spindles more than last year will be at work in a couple of months, every hundred of which will employ seven hands. This alone will circulate about £2,000 weekly in Belfast. The manufacturers of linens, damasks, and sewed muslin, are busy in their preparations for the Great Exhibition; and so numerous are the females employed in the latter class of establishments that, when they turn out at meal hours, a stranger might really suppose that half-a-dozen great factories had been let loose in every street. Other branches of manufacture are equally active."

It is scarcely necessary, after the evidence that has been adduced, to furnish more facts confirmatory of what has been stated. We would, however, be guilty of a culpable omission, were we to close this subject without some allusion to the three great branches of industry that have of late engrossed so much public attention the growth and improvement of the cultivation and manufacture of flax, the manufacture of beet-root sugar, and the manufacture of charcoal and other articles from peat.

Nothing can prove more strongly the intimate relationship that exists between agriculture and manufactures, than the great progress made during

the last few years in the growth, as well as in the manufacture, in all its stages, of flax. It was stated at a meeting of the Royal Society for the Promotion and Improvement of the Growth of Flax in Ireland, that the Society's instructors had completed their labours in the superintendence of flax sowing, in the several districts in which they had been located, and they reported that the breadth sown in the districts under their charge was as follows:— Limerick about 1000 Irish acres; Bandon, 600 do.; Louth, 400; Waterford, 200; Carlow, 200; Nenagh, 160; Ros. crea, 160; Sligo, 120; Wexford, 110; Inistiogue, 70; Abbeyleix, 80; Fethard, 60; Galway, 60; Cashel, 30; Westmeath, 30-total, 3,366 Irish, or about 5,000 statute acres. Most of these were new districts, and the return did not comprise the amount sown in parts of the country not under the superintendence of the Society. The general sowing in the provinces of Leinster, Munster, and Connaught, was estimated at 12,000 acres, or about six times the usual breadth. The returns from Ulster, by far the greatest flaxgrowing province, had not been completed; but the sowing in all parts was estimated as much greater than upon any previous year, amounting to a total of about 130,000 acres. The import ance of encouraging the home-growth of flax will be best understood by remembering that we annually import from abroad nearly treble the quantity we produce at home.

The prosperous condition of the growth and manufacture of flax has been produced almost altogether by the indefatigable efforts of the Royal Flax Society of Ireland, whose exertions have been beyond praise. This society was organised in 1841, at which period the Irish flax crop averaged about 80,000 acres annually. In two years afterwards (1843), it had increased to 112,000 acres; and in 1844 to 122,000. Owing to a scarcity in the supply of seed, unprincipled dealers passed off to the growers a great quantity of spurious kinds, causing great disappointment and loss from the failure of the crops. This cause led to a decrease in 1845, the breadth sown being 96,000 acres. The Society ef fectually prevented the recurrence of such malpractices, by bringing actions against the delinquents, and establishing the grower's claim to redress at law,

by procuring them compensation for their losses. The crop of 1846 was one of the worst, either in Ireland or on the Continent. The result was, that, in 1847, the sowing fell to 58,000, and in consequence of the general distressed state of the trade, in which the linen manufacture largely participated, prices fell so much, that farmers were discouraged, and only 53,000 acres of flax were sown in 1848. As trade recovered from its depression, prices improved, and the growth of flax rose in 1849 to 60,000 acres. In 1850 it increased to 70,000, and would have been much greater had there been a supply of seed equal to the demand, every available bushel being sown. This year every effort has been made to procure good seed in abundance, and the Society calculate that a total breadth of 130,000 acres will be under flax in Ireland this year.

The value of Irish flax has generally ranged from £35 to £80 per ton within the last fifteen years, and in some favourable cases £120, £145, and even £180 per ton has been obtained, though such cases have, of course, been extremely rare. The importations from abroad amounted to 62,649 tons in 1840, 67,368 in 1841, 55,713 in 1842; 90,340 in 1849, and 91,097 in 1850; and the advantage of producing it at home is strongly proved by the following statement by Mr. Blacker:

"After the most minute calculation by practical men engaged in the growth of flax, the labour necessary for every acre of flax is computed to be seven days of a man, and fifty-four days of a woman, and four and a quarter days of a horse. Now 55,610 tons weight (which was the import in 1833, when Mr.Blacker wrote), supposing each statute acre to produce four cwts., which is a full average crop, would be the produce of 278,050 acres, which, according to the above estimate, would require in labour an amount equal to the employment of 6,488 men for 300 days in the year, 50,015 women for the same number of days, and 3,939 horses for do., or, of course, double the number for half the period-"

And another gentleman (Mr. Andrews) calculated, that the produce of two acres of flax will, in the course of its manufacture into cambric pockethandkerchiefs, give employment as follows: