XVITHE THRIVING CITY OF BELFAST

Rosstrevor House, near Belfast, the Residence of Sir John Ross of Bladensburg

The Ross family have erected an obelisk to the memory of their famous ancestor upon a promontory above the sea at Rosstrevor, and have inscribed upon it the following epitaph:

The Officers of a Grateful Army,Which, Under the Command of the Lamented

MAJOR GENERAL ROBERT ROSS,

Attacked and Defeated the American Forcesat Bladensburg on the 24th of August, 1814,And on the Same DayVictoriously Entered Washington,The Capital of the United States,Inscribe Upon This TabletTheir Admiration of His Professional SkillAnd Their Esteem for His AmiablePrivate Character.

There are three other inscriptions of similar purport, one on each face of the pedestal. General Ross, it appears, is buried in Halifax.

Belfast is the center of a great manufacturing district. Each factory is surrounded by groups of neat two-story brick cottages, with gardens, churches, schoolhouses, and shops, which are very different from the rest of Ireland, and are similar to those in the suburbs of Philadelphia. Belfast ranks high among the manufacturing cities of the world. It is proud of the title of “The Chicago of Ireland.” The people are as boastful of their progress, their wealth, and their prosperity as those of its namesake. But for the strong Scotch accent one might imagine himself in Kansas City, Seattle, or Los Angeles because of their civic pride. Every man you meet tells you that a hundred years ago Belfast had only fifteen thousand population, while to-day it has nearly four hundred thousand; that its wealth has doubled six times in the last twenty-five years; that it has the largest shipyards, the largest tobacco factory, the largest spinning mills, and the largest rope walk in the world. When they take you up on the side of a high mountain and show you a view of the city spread out on both sides of the River Lagan, they defy you to count the chimneys and the church spires, which are as numerous as the domes of Moscow. Belfast is the mostprosperous place in Ireland and an example of matchless concentration of power, industry, and ability.

The people have good ground for their vanity, and while their claims are somewhat exaggerated, few cities have so much to boast of. One of the shipyards has produced more than four hundred ocean steamers, another built the first turbine that ever floated on the ocean, and together they employ fifteen thousand hands. The machine shops of Belfast are also famous. They provide spinning and weaving machines for all the linen mills in the world, and ship them even to the United States. The engines, boilers, and other machinery that is turned out from the shops of Belfast are shipped to every corner of the world, and the product of the linen factories’ trade now amounts to more than sixty million dollars a year. The largest mill covers five acres, with 60,000 spindles, 1,000 looms, and more than 4,000 hands. A single tobacco firm pays $4,000,000 in taxes every year and a distillery has an annual output of $7,500,000.

Belfast has sixteen factories for the production of ginger ale, lemonade, soda, and other aërated waters, which are famous the world over. It manufactures agricultural implements and machinery for every kind of industry, and much of the machinery is the invention of its own citizens.

Belfast is no relation to the rest of Ireland. It is a Scottish town, and most of the people are of Scotch ancestry—all except the lowest class of labor, which has drifted in from the neighboring counties. The city lies at the head of a bay, or lough, as they call it there, nine miles long. The headlands at the mouth of the bay are only eighteen miles from the shores of Scotland, which may be seen very plainly on a clear morning.

The shortest distance between Ireland and Scotland is only twelve and three-quarter miles—between Torrhead and the Mull of Kintyre. The shortest practicable crossing, between Larne, a few miles north of Belfast, and Stranraer, Scotland, is thirty-nine miles, and is made in two hours by steamer. The crossing from Belfast is sixty-four miles, and it is five hoursto Glasgow. There are steamers several times a day—in the morning, afternoon, and at night—and the largest part of the business as well as the sympathies of the people are with the Scots. Since the tunnel under the Hudson River has been completed between New York and Hoboken, the plan for an “under sea railway” between Larne and Port Patrick has been revived. The engineers have reported that they can make a tunnel from Ireland to Scotland, less than forty-five miles, one hundred and fifty feet below the sea level, at a cost of $60,000,000, and some day, perhaps, it will be possible to cross by train under the Irish Channel, rather than by boat over it.

The racial, religious, and political antagonisms between the north and south of Ireland are well known, and can never be removed. Three-fourths of the population in this section of the island are Protestants, mostly Calvinists of the sternest kind, and the portraits of John Knox and Oliver Cromwell hang on the walls of the houses rather than those of the popes. The religious feeling, however, is not so intense as formerly. A generation ago, the 12th of July (the anniversary of the battle of the Boyne, in which the Protestant army of William of Orange overcame and dispersed the Roman Catholic forces under James II.) never used to pass without a riot and many broken heads, but of recent years there have been very few collisions. Formerly, the Roman Catholics used to lie in wait at a certain bridge to attack the procession of Orange societies as it passed over, with shillalahs and stones. The Orangemen, who are mostly mechanics from the shipyards and machine-shops, always armed themselves with iron bolts and nuts for the fray, and missiles flew freely, leaving many unconscious and sometimes dead men on the ground. And on other holidays, whenever the representatives of either religious faith came out in force, the other usually attempted to interfere with them. But those days have passed. The rival religionists glare at and taunt each other now, but do not strike.

One cannot blame the Roman Catholics for their bitterness. In the middle of the sixteenth century, in consequence of the rebellion of the earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnell, the heads of the great clans of O’Neill and O’Donnell, against the authority of Queen Elizabeth, the territory belonging to them and their followers was confiscated by the crown and sold to Protestants, chiefly from Scotland, just as the southern counties were distributed among the “undertakers” from England, but with a difference. The “undertakers” who were granted the estates of the rebellious earls in southern Ireland were mostly adventurers and speculators. Many of them never came to Ireland at all. Few of them settled permanently upon their grants, while nearly all of those who undertook to carry out the contract of colonization were indifferent to the class of settlers they brought in. In Ulster Province, however, which is the northern third of Ireland, after the “flight of the earls,” their confiscated lands were taken up in small parcels by actual settlers from Scotland, whose descendants have occupied them until this day—a sturdy, thrifty, industrious, and prosperous race, and the children of these “Scotch-Irish” Protestants have borne as important a part in the settlement and development of the United States as the children of the Pilgrims have done.

The “planters,” who came over from Scotland, brought with them their morals and their religion, and most of them were Presbyterians. In 1637 the surveyor-general of the Ulster plantations reported to the king that there were forty Scots to one English, and fifteen Presbyterians to one of all the other sects combined. And the Presbyterians have ever since been the leading religious body in the north of Ireland. They are a stern, stolid, conservative race, stubborn of opinion, persistent of purpose, and fully conscious of their own rectitude. When William, Prince of Orange, invaded Ireland in 1689, after James II. abdicated his throne and fled from England, he landed at the little town of Carrickfergus, about six miles below Belfast, where he was received with great rejoicing. Here he unfurled his flag and displayed his motto, “The Protestant Religion and the Liberties of England I will maintain,” and the people of Belfast have endeavored to maintain them with vigor ever since. The term “Orangemen” has ever since been applied to organizations of Protestants of a political character, and they have received more or less support from the church. Most of them are semi-benevolent, like the Hibernian societies among the Catholic population of southern Ireland, and they are found in every town and village in the province of Ulster. There are Orange halls in every parish of Belfast and the surrounding country. They embrace in their membership representatives of all the Protestant denominations, the Church of Ireland and the Methodists as well as the Presbyterians—but the latter are most numerous and in some districts you will find none but Presbyterians.

The O’Neills were kings of Ulster in ancient times and their coat of arms was a red hand, whereby hangs a startling tale. According to tradition, the original O’Neill came over from Scotland with a party of invaders, among whom it was agreed that he should be king whose hand first touched the soil of Ireland. The boats were all stranded on the beach, and the captains and the crews were striving desperately to make the shore, when “The O’Neill,” with the nerve that has always distinguished his clan, drew his sword, chopped off his own left hand at the wrist, threw it upon the beach and claimed the throne, which was accorded him. Hence a red hand or “Lamh dearg” is on the coat of arms of Ulster, being placed upon a small shield in the center of a large shield, upon which appears the red cross of St. George, thus signifying England’s domination over Ulster.

Neill of the Nine Hostages, who reigned fromA.D.379 to 405, was the most warlike and adventurous of all the pagan kings, and, with two exceptions, all the overkings of Ireland, from the time that Red O’Neill tossed his amputated hand upon the shore, to the accession of Brian Boru, belonged to this illustrious family. And they gave England a great deal of trouble. In 1551, Conn O’Neill was created Earl of Tyrone, and Mathew, who claimed to be his son, was giventhe right of succession. “Shane, the Proud,” the legitimate son and heir, was a mere boy at that time, but when he grew to manhood he disputed his half-brother’s parentage and apologized for his father’s conduct with the remark that, “Being a gentleman, he never refused a child that any woman named to be his.”

After the death of Henry VIII. Shane O’Neill inaugurated a rebellion which cost England more men and more money than any struggle that has ever occurred in Ireland; an expenditure equal to $10,000,000 of our present money, besides tens of thousands of lives and millions of private property destroyed. After peace was restored in 1558, Shane was elected “The O’Neill,” in accordance with the ancient Irish custom, and in 1561 he accepted the olive branch from Queen Elizabeth and went to London at her invitation, followed by his gallowglasses in their strange native attire—loose, wide-sleeved, saffron-colored tunics, reaching to their knees, with shaggy mantles of sheepskin over their shoulders, their heads bare, their long hair curling down on their shoulders and clipped short in front, just above the eyes.

The last of the earls of Tyrone was Hugh O’Neill, a son of Shane, who organized another rebellion in 1584, and, being defeated, fled to his castle in the dense woods of Glenconkeine, and there awaited anxiously for Philip of Spain or Clement VIII., the reigning pope, to succor him. One by one O’Neill was deserted by all the Irish chieftains except Rory O’Donnell, Earl of Tyrconnell, and as they saw no hope of relief they made peace with England. Several years later, in 1607, being accused of a plot, they fled from the shores of Ireland with a party of ninety-four kinsfolk and retainers. They finally found their way to Rome, where Paul V., the reigning pontiff, gave them shelter and expressed his deep sympathy with the Irish exiles. The following year Rory O’Donnell, Earl of Tyrconnell, died of Roman fever, and in 1616 the last of the Irish kings bearing the name of O’Neill was laid to rest in the Church of San Pietro on the Janiculum, the same which claims the dust of St. Peter.

Shane’s Castle, near Belfast, the Ancient Stronghold of the O’Neills, Kings of Ulster

The misfortunes which always followed Hugh O’Neill’s footsteps continued to pursue his sons. Henry, the eldest, died in command of an Irish regiment in the Netherlands; John, his next brother, succeeded him and died in battle in Catalonia; Bernard was assassinated when but seventeen years old; Hugh died of Roman fever, and Conn, the youngest, who, for some unaccountable reason, was left in Ireland in the hurry of his father’s flight, was arrested, taken to London, and imprisoned in the Tower, where he was lost sight of, and the male line of the O’Neills became extinct. The living representative of the family, Baron Edward O’Neill of Shane’s Castle, Antrim, is descended in the female line. His name was Chichester until he was created baron in 1868, when he assumed that of his ancestors. He lives in the old castle, about fourteen miles north of Belfast.

The lord of the county, however, is the young Earl of Shaftesbury, grandson of the famous philanthropist, who inherits many of his grandfather’s traits and takes an active part in religious, philanthropic, political, and municipal affairs. He is very public-spirited, is always willing to do his part in charitable movements, has served as alderman and lord mayor of Belfast with great credit, and has held several other important positions. He was educated at Eton and Sandhurst Military School, was elected alderman in Belfast in 1905 and lord mayor in 1907. In 1899 he married Lady Constance Grosvenor, granddaughter of the late Duke of Westminster. He inherited Belfast Castle, the former seat of the Donegal family, which they have occupied ever since. It is about three miles from Belfast, and entirely modern. The state apartments and picture galleries on the main floor are very fine. A short distance from the castle is a beautiful little private mortuary chapel erected by the late Marquis of Donegal, as a burial place for the family.

On the opposite side of Belfast Lough is the seat of the late Lord Dufferin and Ava, one of the ablest and most useful men in the British empire for many years. His figure in bronze under a marble canopy in the City Hall Park remindsthe people of Belfast of his ability, his patriotism, and his public services. He was Viceroy of India, Governor-General of Canada, ambassador to France, Italy, and Turkey, and held other important positions and received unusual honors, but he died here in 1902 broken hearted because his reputation had been used by a swindler, named Wright, in promoting an enterprise that seemed to him proper and promising, but turned out to be the worst kind of a fraud. His situation was similar to that of General Grant after the Grant-Ward failure in New York. Lord Dufferin gave up all his property as restitution to the victims of the scheme and retired to the seclusion of his ancestral home here. Wright was convicted and sentenced to twenty years in prison, but committed suicide before he was sent to the penitentiary. The dowager marchioness still occupies the family mansion with her younger children and is actively engaged in charitable work.

The young earl occupies an important position in the foreign office at London. He was born in 1866, and in 1903 married an American girl, Miss Florence Davis, daughter of John H. Davis, 24 Washington Square, New York City.

Upon the loftiest eminence overlooking Belfast Lough is a tall, round structure known as Ellen’s Tower, which the late marquis erected in memory of his late mother, Ellen Sheridan, a granddaughter of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, the dramatist. She was a woman of great ability and exercised a wide influence. She wrote books and poetry and songs and was the author of the old-fashioned ballad that was very popular in your grandmother’s time: “I’m Sitting on the Stile, Mary.”

On the north side of the Bay of Belfast, about six miles below the city, is the ancient town of Carrickfergus, which is of peculiar interest to Americans, because the father of Andrew Jackson was born there and from there emigrated in 1765 and found a farm in the wilderness of North Carolina.

It was there also that John Paul Jones, with theRanger, fought theDrake, a British sloop of war, April 24, 1778. TheDrakewas in the harbor near the Castle of Carrickfergus,when theRangercame in sight, and coaxed her out for an engagement, which occurred promptly in midchannel, and for a while there was very lively action on both sides. TheDrakecarried twenty 4-pound guns and 142 seamen. TheRangercarried eighteen 6-pound guns and 155 seamen, several of whom were Irishmen from Belfast and one from Carrickfergus. TheDrakewas the larger vessel, but was not handled as easily as theRanger. The fight lasted an hour and fifteen minutes when theDrakestruck her colors. Her captain, Burder, by name, was killed; Lieutenant Dobbs, the next in command, was mortally wounded, and her deck was covered with the dead and the dying. TheRangerhad only three killed and five wounded. Captain Jones remained in the bay for several days, making repairs, and sent all the wounded ashore to Carrickfergus. Lieutenant Dobbs died the morning after the battle and is buried in the churchyard of the little village of Lisburn near by, where he lies beside the great and good Jeremy Taylor, Bishop of Armagh, who died in 1667.

It was on the day before the battle that Captain Jones made his raid upon the castle of Lord Selkirk at Kirkcudbright, Scotland, across the Irish Channel, and carried away with him the family plate, which was surrendered by Lady Selkirk to avoid a mutiny among the crew. But Captain Jones, after five years of persistent work, recovered the entire collection and restored it safely to its original owners, even paying for its carriage to Scotland. Captain Stockton, the American military attaché at London, sent to the Navy Department at Washington, copies of several characteristic letters written by John Paul Jones to Lady Selkirk and to Lord Selkirk, concerning the matter.

Belfast has had many distinguished sons in addition to those whom I have already named, but none more eminent and useful than James Bryce, British ambassador to Washington, who was born there May 10, 1838, and shares with Lord Kelvin the honor of being the most famous of all Belfasters. He went from there a young man to the Universityof Glasgow and there developed his extraordinary mental and physical energy. From Glasgow he went to Oxford, where he took his degree in 1862, and then to Heidelberg to perfect himself in German, of which he is a thorough scholar. We next find him studying law in London where he was called to the Bar in 1867 and immediately was recognized for his legal ability and learning. Only three years later he was invited to accept the Regius professorship of law at Oxford, which he held from 1870 to 1893. In the meantime he was the busiest man in England and engaged in the greatest variety of activities. He was writing history, exploring Iceland, climbing Mount Ararat, making records in the Alpine Club, studying Ireland, running for parliament, serving as parliamentary secretary for foreign affairs, and afterward as chief secretary for Ireland in the British cabinet and chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.

And all this time, when he was not doing anything else, he was writing books, and almost all of his works are regarded as the best books ever written upon the subjects of which they treat. “The American Commonwealth” is acknowledged to be the best account of our institutions ever penned by a foreigner. “The Holy Roman Empire” is a model of historical literature, while Mr. Bryce’s other books, on a variety of subjects, are of equal rank in scholarship and in literary merit.

The late Rev. Dr. John Hall, in his day the most eminent Presbyterian divine in America, was born at Armagh, where Cardinal Logue, the Roman Catholic Primate of Ireland, presides over the ancient see of St. Patrick. Dr. Hall was born in 1829, entered Belfast College when he was only thirteen years old, and although the youngest in his class, ranked first in scholarship and took the largest number of prizes. He studied theology at the Presbyterian Seminary here, and when he was only twenty-two years old became pastor of the First Church at Armagh, his native town. In 1856 he was called to Dublin as pastor of the Rutland Presbyterian Church, and was appointed commissioner of education for Ireland. In1867 he was sent to the United States as a delegate to the general assembly, and created such a favorable impression that he immediately received a call to the pulpit of the Fifth Avenue Church, Presbyterian, of New York, which he accepted and occupied the rest of his life.

Belfast has a population of 380,000, according to the most reliable estimates. The latest enumeration, in 1901, showed a population of 349,180, which is just double that returned by the census of 1871. Of this population 120,269 are Presbyterians, 102,991 are Episcopalians, 84,992 are Roman Catholics, 21,506 Methodists, and the remainder are divided among a dozen different religious denominations. It is distinctively a theological town.

You hear workingmen discussing theology in the street cars instead of politics, comparing the eloquence of their ministers and their soundness in the faith.

There is a remarkably large attendance at church. All the churches are crowded every Sunday. There is a difference of terms, however, with the several denominations. Catholics go to “mass” where a priest officiates; members of the Church of Ireland attend “service” which is performed by a parson; while the Presbyterians and other nonconformists go to “meeting” and hear the gospel expounded by a minister. The Presbyterian services are very long and heavy. They begin at 11 o’clock on Sunday morning and last till 1:30, and the Sunday school continues two hours. The congregation is never satisfied with a sermon less than an hour long, while an hour and a quarter is preferred, and they insist that their ministers shall expound doctrinal texts to their satisfaction or they criticise them freely and fiercely.

The Irish are the most old-fashioned kind of Presbyterians, being stricter than the Scotch. Few churches allow musical instruments or hymns that rhyme, and the congregations follow a precentor with a tuning fork in chanting Rouse’s version of the Psalms of David.

The people remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy only until afternoon. There are no railway trains or street cars running in the morning, and you cannot find a cab or a jaunting car on the street. No boats arrive or depart from the docks on Sunday, and when I took a walk along the river front one Sunday I found the men who were accustomed to work there all sitting around eating “willicks,” or periwinkles—a sort of water snails which are picked up on the beach of the bay and are peddled about by old women and small boys like chestnuts. You can buy half a pint of them for a penny. The peddler has a paper of long pins in his basket and gives one to each purchaser to pry the snails out of their shells. That seems to be the Sunday morning occupation. But Sunday afternoon everybody comes out for a good time, the streets fill up with promenaders and the cars are crowded with excursionists.

The Belfast directory gives a list of sixty orthodox Presbyterian churches, and they are numbered from the First Presbyterian Church consecutively to the Fifty-eighth Presbyterian Church, with two extras, called the Strand Presbyterian Church and Albert Hall Presbyterian Church. In addition to these are five “nonsubscribing” Presbyterian churches whose members have refused to subscribe to some article of the confession of faith, but are otherwise orthodox and are numbered with the elect; four “Reformed Presbyterian churches,” one “Original Secession Church Presbyterian,” one “East Reformed Presbyterian Church,” and one “United Free Presbyterian Church,” making altogether seventy-two Presbyterian churches in a city of three hundred and eighty thousand inhabitants, an average of one Presbyterian church for every five thousand inhabitants.

As I was passing under the archway of Queen’s College with a Presbyterian doctor of divinity from Cincinnati he intercepted an old gentleman and inquired the name of the church with the handsome spire across the street.

“That’s the Fifth Presbyterian Church,” was the polite reply.

“And what church is that over yonder, whose spire we see beyond the college?”

“That’s the Twenty-seventh Presbyterian Church.”

“You seem to have an abundance of Presbyterian churches in Belfast; you ought to feel certain of salvation.”

“I’m not so sure of that,” was the reply. “I’m not convinced that a Belfast Presbyterian is any more certain of salvation than the rest of us. We once had here a famous doctor of divinity. He was a great man and a good man, and you will see his statue in bronze down beyond the railway station in the middle of the square—Rev. Dr. Cooke. He was highly respected and revered by the community, but his son was a scapegrace and gave the old gentleman a great deal of trouble and anxiety. One Sunday morning the good doctor found Harry at breakfast and remarked pleasantly:

“‘I hope you are going to meeting this morning, Harry?’

“‘Well, I’m not,’ replied Harry with a grouch.

“‘And why not?’ asked his father.

“‘I’m never going to meeting any more; I never got any good from meetings.’

“‘You’ll find no meetings in hell, sir!’ said the doctor, solemnly.

“‘It’ll not be for the lack of the ministers!’, was Harry’s reply.”

And the genial old gentleman smiled grimly and passed on.

At least two of the public monuments in Belfast have been erected in honor of Presbyterian divines,—Rev. Dr. Cooke, of whom the above story is told, and Rev. Hugh Hanna; and one of the largest and most beautiful buildings in the city is the Presbyterian House, where there is an assembly hall that will seat twenty-five hundred people, smaller halls, and committee rooms, and the offices of the various missionary societies and other organizations belonging to that denomination. It was erected by private subscription and dedicated with great ceremony two years ago. It is the headquarters of Presbyterianism in the north of Ireland and its noble tower can be seen for a long distance.

On the second floor of the building are clubrooms, reading-rooms, and amusement halls, and other attractions for the young men of Presbyterian families, a sort of denominational Y.M.C.A.; and, strange to say, the amusement-room is fitted up with two billiard tables, which I am told are in great demand every evening. The janitor in charge admitted that some of the stricter members of the sect had made urgent objections against this form of entertainment, but the committee “was not willing to let the devil have all the fun.”

The general assembly of the Presbyterian church holds its annual sessions in the big hall of the new Presbyterian building, and all the other denominational gatherings are held there. At the last assembly Rev. Dr. McIlveen, the moderator, reviewed the progress of that denomination during the last forty years. It was true, he said, that its numbers, as reported by the official census, had not increased. In common with other religious denominations, the Presbyterians had lost largely by emigration. Many of their members, especially the young and vigorous, had gone forth to seek homes in the colonies of the empire, or the great republic of the West. In the period to which he was referring the population of Ireland had decreased more than a million, and while in comparison with the other large denominations the Presbyterians had suffered less proportional loss, yet their membership had decreased fifty-five thousand. Yet they had four thousand more families than they had forty years ago and six thousand more contributors to the stipend fund. The givings of the people to various objects had more than doubled. There had been an annual increase of $100,000 in the stipend fund; $75,000 in the ordinary Sabbath offerings, and more than $90,000 annually to missions. During the same time there had been invested more than $5,250,000 in the erection and repair of churches, manses, and other Presbyterian buildings; the Church House at Belfast had been erected at a cost of $400,000, and $5,250,000 had accumulated in the hands of the boards of trustees of different benevolences as capital.

In addition to the seventy-two Presbyterian churches inBelfast, the directory notes thirty-seven under the care of the Church of Ireland, thirty Methodist, eighteen Roman Catholic, seven Congregationalist, six Baptist, two Moravians, one Friends’ meeting-house, one Jewish synagogue and two societies called Plymouth Brethren, who announce “breaking of bread at 11:30A.M.and gospel at 7P.M.”—making a total of one hundred and seventy-six houses of worship.

The working people of Belfast do not live in tenement houses as is the custom throughout the rest of Europe, but every family has its own separate cottage, and there are long streets of neat brick, two-story, five-room houses very similar to those that you find in Philadelphia, only the rents are very much lower there. For ten dollars a month a Belfast mechanic can get a neat and comfortable six-room dwelling, 20 feet front and 36 feet deep, with a garden 100 feet in depth. For five dollars and seven dollars and fifty cents a month he can get four or five roomed cottages that are equally comfortable. And the mechanics there take a great deal more interest in their homes than those in the rest of Ireland. If you will look through the windows as you pass through the streets you will see them draped with neat Nottingham lace curtains and linen shades. There are shelves of books and pictures, neat carpets and center-tables with a family Bible and photograph album and religious newspapers and periodicals. There are often books on theology,—more than anything else,—commentaries on the Bible and other denominational works, for the well-to-do Belfast mechanic is a Presbyterian and always prepared to defend the doctrines of that faith. The manufacturers, the merchants, and the middle classes generally are Presbyterians. The land owners, the professional men, the nobility, and the aristocracy are nearly all members of the Church of Ireland, while the common laborers are Roman Catholics.

Queen’s College, Belfast

When the Scotch “planters” came to the north of Ireland they brought their love of learning and their scholarship with their religion, and Belfast has always been an educational as well as a denominational center, more noted than any othercity in Ireland for the excellence of its schools. Queen’s College, founded nearly sixty years ago by Queen Victoria as a state institution, is at the head of the system and will soon be a university. Queen’s is one of the “godless” colleges that we hear so much about in ecclesiastical circles, because there is no chapel, no religious exercises or instruction. But the atmosphere of the institution is thoroughly Presbyterian, and Rev. Dr. Hamilton, the president, who will also be president of the proposed university, is one of the most eminent ministers in that denomination. The buildings of Queen’s College, six hundred feet long, are imposing in appearance and of solid construction, after the Tudor school of architecture, with a central tower and two wings, inclosing quadrangular courts. There is a school of law and a school of medicine, with more than four hundred students, and one of the most important in Ireland.

Just behind Queen’s College is the General Assembly’s Theological Seminary, founded in 1853 to train men for the Presbyterian pulpit. It occupies a massive building of red sandstone that is simple and severe. Across the way from Queen’s is a Methodist college with two hundred and fifty students, the building being after the same general plan as Queen’s. These three institutions are entirely in sympathy and are working together, although they have no legal or official relation.

The City Hall of Belfast is an imposing building, which cost a million and a half of dollars, and is very ornate for its purpose. It stands in the center of a large square, admirably located so that its fine proportions may be admired from all sides. The interior is very ornamental, the walls and stairways being of Carrara marble elaborately carved. On either side are handsome monuments. The building is 300 feet long and 240 feet deep; the façade is of the same design on each of the four sides, and there is a dome 175 feet high. There is a great hall for official ceremonies and public assemblies that will seat a thousand people, and several other state apartments handsomely decorated.

In front of the City Hall is a recent statue of Queen Victoria in marble, and a very good one it is. On another side the late Lord Dufferin is represented in bronze wearing the robes of a Knight of St. Patrick, while Sir Edward J. Harland, founder of the great shipyards at Belfast, is honored in a similar manner. Not far away is the Albert Memorial, a clock tower, 143 feet high, of Gothic design, which was erected to the memory of the Prince Consort in 1870. There are several other statues of local dignitaries in different parts of the city and a soul-stirring memorial to the members of the Royal Irish Rifles who died in the Boer war.

The business architecture of Belfast is unusually fine and in striking contrast to the rest of Ireland, where there has been very little building for a century. Belfast, however, is a distinctively modern city and up-to-date. There are no skyscrapers, and the limit of height seems to be six stories, but there is considerable architectural display; and the shopping streets are entirely modern, with large and attractive show windows.

You hear a great deal about the weather of Ireland, and I have already quoted an old and common joke that it never rains on the 31st of February. People never go out without an umbrella or a mackintosh, because it is always safer to carry them. It rains in the most unexpected way. The clouds gather very suddenly and the predictions of the weather bureau cannot be taken seriously. But the natives don’t seem to mind it. They are so used to getting soaked that it is a matter of no consequence, and over in the shipyards and elsewhere we saw men working on through a pouring rain without taking the slightest notice of it. Women who are compelled to weather the storms frequently line their skirts with rubber cloth or leather so as to keep their underclothing dry, and every man carries his mackintosh over his arm when he leaves home in the morning.

Albert Memorial, Belfast

The official reports show that in the year 1907 rain fell on 232 out of the 365 days, and in 1906 there were 237 rainy days. In October, 1907, there were twenty-nine rainy days;in December, twenty-seven; in May, twenty-two; but in September there were only nine rainy days, which might be called a drought. In 1906 January had twenty-nine rainy days, August twenty-four, April twenty-three, and November and December twenty-two each. The average annual rainfall for the last forty years has been 33,523 inches.

The highest temperature in 1907 was 79.8 degrees in the shade, and lowest, on the 30th of December, was 19 above zero.

Belfast is a very healthy city, however, the death rate averaging about twenty per one thousand. It has been very much reduced during the last fifteen or twenty years by the improvement of the water supply and sewerage. The birth rate is very high and has sometimes run up to thirty-seven per one thousand of population. Last year it was thirty-one per one thousand.

On Saturday and Sunday nights we saw a good many drunken men upon the streets. But I am told that there is a great improvement in this respect in recent years. The Orange associations of Protestants and the Hibernian and other friendly societies of Roman Catholics are both taking an active part in temperance work, from economical as well as moral motives, because they realize how much misfortune, poverty, sickness, and death—all of which increase their assessments—are due to drink.

I have not been able to find out how much money is spent for whisky in the Protestant counties. There is no way to ascertain or estimate it accurately, but the sum must be very large. But everybody agrees that it is diminishing. There is a less number of saloons by twenty-five or thirty per cent than there was ten years ago, and a corresponding decrease in the amount of drunkenness. The number of arrests for drunkenness and disorder have fallen off noticeably during the last few years. This has given a great deal of encouragement to the temperance advocates.

There is a much higher degree of intelligence and mechanical skill among the working people in Belfast than in any otherpart of Ireland, and the ratio of illiteracy is much lower in County Down and County Antrim than in any other part of the island. The highest degree of skilled labor is required in the machine shops and shipyards and commands the best wages that are paid to any artisans in Ireland. The women work in linen mills and shirt and collar factories.

A technical school for the specialized training of boys for mechanics was established here in 1902, evening instruction in the applied sciences, drawing, sketching, and the other arts, and in mathematics, mechanical, electrical, and civil engineering, having been given for several years in classes maintained by voluntary subscriptions from citizens. Five such institutions were in existence at that time, having between seven and eight hundred students on their rolls. An act of parliament passed in 1899 authorized the consolidation of these schools, and a beautiful building in the very center of the city, admirably adapted to the purpose, was erected and equipped at the expense of $750,000. The school now has a stated income of $96,000 from regular taxation. In 1902 classes were opened with the total of 3,381 students. At present this number has been increased to 5,064 men, women, and children between fifteen and sixty-five years of age, representing all classes and castes, who are studying everything in the way of useful arts and trades. Thirty teachers are exclusively employed, with one hundred and thirty experts from different factories and machine shops, who give evening instruction or have special classes on certain days. Nothing is free. Everybody who enjoys the benefits of the institution is required to pay a fee ranging from one dollar a term upward to sixty dollars, according to the amount of attention required. The largest classes are in engineering, drawing, electricity, and the commercial occupations, but nearly every trade is taught in connection with the ordinary rudiments of English, mathematics, and geography in the evening classes to those whose early education was neglected.

The municipality owns the building and supports the school. Sir James Henderson, editor of theDaily News-Letter, whowas lord mayor of Belfast at the time that the school was established, is the chairman of the committee in charge, and is to be congratulated upon a great success. The attitude of the labor unions, which at first regarded the enterprise with distrust, is becoming more friendly, and they permit their members to avail themselves of the facilities provided by the school. The education of apprentices to trades without limitations is still a question of controversy. The attitude of the employers is more favorable, because nearly all of them recognized increased efficiency among their journeymen who have attended the school, and many of them are paying a part or the whole of the fees of all their workmen who will attend regularly the classes in their respective trades. The investment is, therefore, a good one for the city of Belfast. The technical school will certainly result in the improvement of the efficiency of the mechanics of the city.

Belfast has quite a number of municipal utilities. The city owns the gas works, the electric lighting plant, and all the street car lines, as well as the water supply. The gas works have proven to be a very profitable undertaking, and gas is furnished for sixty-seven cents a cubic foot, with a fair profit to the city. A municipal electric plant lights the streets and furnishes power for the street railway lines and also pays a profit. The street railway line, however, is not a profitable investment and is running behind under municipal management for several reasons.

The municipality also owns a large hall that will seat 2,097 persons, and a smaller hall that will seat 330. Each of these halls is rented for concerts, lectures, assemblies, exhibitions, conventions, balls, and for other purposes at a rate of twenty dollars per night for the smaller one and sixty dollars for the larger one, including light, heat, and attendance, and there is a good income from both. It also has a series of organ recitals in the large hall every winter, which are attended by audiences varying from six hundred to two thousand, who pay a nominal price for admission—from six to twelve cents, according to the seat—and thus the entertainments supportthemselves. The city also owns a number of private bathing houses, situated in different parts of the town, for which tickets can be bought for two cents and four cents, according to the accommodations. These are largely patronized by the working people, and are self-supporting. Altogether the municipal management of Belfast is admirable and affords examples which other cities may study with profit.

The advantages of Belfast for the manufacture of linen goods, the very damp climate which softens the thread so that it does not snap in the spindles or the looms and enables the fabric to be woven closer and softer, and the purity of the water for bleaching, were recognized long ago; and, after the revocation of the edict of Nantes in 1685, when six hundred thousand Protestants fled from France, a party of Huguenot refugees under Louis Crommelin were invited to come over and introduce that industry. Crommelin belonged to a family that had woven linen for four hundred years. He was a man of great business ability, common sense, energy, and perseverance, and they called him “Crommelin the Great.” Belfast certainly owes him a heavy debt, and it has not been paid. Although the Irish parliament passed a resolution thanking him for his services in 1707, his grave in the little churchyard at Lisburn, a suburban village, is marked only by an ordinary slab of stone. There is no monument to remind the people of the north of Ireland what they owe to his ability and devotion.

The business grew rapidly for the first century and a half, and as early as 1833 Belfast had eighty mills and was producing $25,000,000 worth of linen fabrics annually. In 1840 there were 250,000 spindles buzzing about this town, but the trade reached its maximum in the ’70s, and has not increased much since. There are in all of Ireland about 35,000 looms and 900,000 spindles, all of them in this immediate vicinity, except two factories at Dublin, one at Cork, and one at Drogheda.

These are divided among about two hundred factories with about one hundred and twenty thousand operatives, of whomtwo-thirds are women. Their wages range from three to four dollars a week, and for men from six to seven dollars a week, the week’s work under normal circumstances being fifty-five hours the year around, beginning at six o’clock in the morning, with an hour off for breakfast from eight to nine; another hour from one to two for lunch, and then they remain at work until six o’clock. An act of parliament does not permit operatives in textile factories to remain in the buildings where they work during the breakfast and lunch hours for any purpose whatever. If they bring their meals with them, they must eat them outside of the factory, for the purpose is to give them a change of air and require them to take a certain amount of exercise. Many of the companies here feed their hands in dining-halls connected with, but apart from, the workrooms.

Even these small wages have been increased from ten to twenty per cent within the last five years, and it is remarkable how people can live and support families upon such limited incomes. The wages are paid on Saturday noon—when a half-holiday is allowed, and the money is given to the hands in tin boxes. Each operative has his own number. As they pass the paymaster’s window they call out their number, receive their box, take out the change, and throw the empty tin into a bin that is placed near the door for that purpose.

There are not less than 78,000 persons employed in the linen trade and its allied industries in the city of Belfast, and not less than 130,000 people are dependent directly or indirectly upon that industry for support. The situation is quite different there from many cities, because the fathers and husbands can find work in the shipyards and foundries, and thus the whole family is able to get employment. The law does not allow children under fourteen years of age to work in the factories, but a large number of boys and girls between fourteen and seventeen are engaged at wages from one dollar to two dollars a week, and much is done in the way of embroidery, hemstitching, and other forms of finishing in thehouseholds. The patterns are stamped on the cloth and the pieces are given out to women and girls to finish in their homes.

The employers exercise personal interest and have a paternal policy for the treatment of their employees, which does not occur often in the United States and other countries. This is largely due to the fact that generations have worked in the same mills for the same companies. Our manufacturing industries are not old enough for such an experience. Labor is not migratory as it is in the United States. It is customary for sons to follow the trades of their fathers, and when the daughters are old enough to go into the mill, the mothers leave it. The workmen there are satisfied with small wages; their standard of living is so much lower than in the United States that they can get along very well, as their fathers and ancestors have done for generations, upon their scanty earnings. Very few of them save any part of their wages. Not five per cent of the wage-earners of Belfast patronize the savings banks. They live from hand to mouth, and, knowing this fact, their employers are compelled to look after them in hard times. If they did not, the operatives who are out of employment would scatter and when work was resumed it would be difficult to fill their places.

The work of the operatives in linen factories is very trying on the health, because the atmosphere of the rooms is kept as damp as possible in order to soften the threads and make them more pliable. Few of the operatives live past middle life unless they have unusually strong constitutions.

More than half of the flax used in Belfast comes from Russia. Only about twelve thousand tons is raised in Ireland, and that entirely in Ulster Province, where fifty-five thousand acres are devoted to its cultivation. An average of forty thousand tons a year is imported from Holland, Belgium, and other countries, as well as Russia. S.S. Knabenshue of Toledo, the American consul, attempted to induce farmers in the Northwest of the United States, who grow flax for the seed, to ship over here the straw they throw away, but he hasnot succeeded in arousing any interest, although they might find a permanent and profitable market.

Until recently the spinning of the flax into thread was done by separate companies and the thread was sold to the weavers, but several years ago a combine was organized and many of the spinning plants went into a trust, which has enabled them to command better prices and be more independent. The linen manufacturers, however, are practically dependent upon the United States. We take more than half the products of Irish linen. The average for the last forty years has been 51.1 per cent sold to the United States, 19.3 to the British possessions, and 29.6 per cent to other foreign countries.

In 1907 the value of the linen shipped to the United States was $14,970,051 out of a total export of $26,895,014. In 1906 our purchases were about $1,000,000 less, but the proportion remains about the same, and American buyers may be always found at the Belfast hotels, although most of the big manufacturers have their agencies in New York.

Belfast has the largest ropewalk in the world, which employs three thousand hands, and for years was under the management of the late W.H. Smiles, a son of Samuel Smiles, author of “Self-Help” and other well-known books. It is a model institution, and among other features the firm maintains a large cookhouse and dining-room, where the employees and their families can obtain wholesome meals much cheaper than they could be supplied at their own homes. Such a benevolence would serve to decrease the drunkenness of Ireland and Scotland more than any other measures that could be adopted. Medical authorities agree that the principal cause of alcoholism is insufficient nourishment and ill-cooked food, which creates a craving for stimulants, and argue that if the working people could have better food they would spend less money for drink.

Belfast is the greatest producer of ginger ale, bottled soda, lemonade, and other aërated waters in the world, and ships them to every corner of the globe. There are sixteen factories engaged in that business. It is asserted there that soda waterwas invented in Belfast. Although there is no positive evidence to that effect, there is no doubt that ginger ale was first made by a druggist named Grattan in 1822, who started a factory here that is still running and has had many imitators. The great advantage found there is in the quality of the water, which is especially adapted to aëration, just as that at Burton-on-Trent is adapted to the manufacture of ale.

Belfast has two celebrated shipyards which launched 137,369 tons of steamers in 1907 and 150,428 tons in 1906. The firm of Harland & Wolff launched 74,115 tons, and Workman, Clark & Co., 63,254. Harland & Wolff ranked fourth in the order of British shipyards and Workman, Clark & Co. stand ninth in the list.

The latter firm built the first ocean turbine steamers and Harland & Wolff the first ocean greyhound, theOceanic, in 1870, which was the pioneer of fast sailing on the Atlantic and a notable advance in the science of navigation. She was an epoch-making vessel from the point of view of naval architects, because of her general design and construction, being of much greater length in proportion to her beam than any that had ever been built up to that time, and she represented the first attempt to insure the maximum of comfort and luxury in ocean travel by sacrificing freight space to passenger accommodations and locating the saloons and cabins amidship. Since then all of the steamship companies have adopted the same plan, and the comfort and conveniences that are now found upon vessels have no doubt enormously increased the passenger traffic.

Londonderry, usually called Derry, is an ancient burgh, in which much history has been enacted, and is unique in several respects among all the cities of the earth. It does not look like an Irish city at all. It resembles Plymouth, England. If you were dropped down from a balloon you might easily imagine yourself in that driving seaport, which is perfectly natural because everything in Derry is English and there is no sympathy with the rest of Ireland, or relationship either in race, religion, commerce, or customs. And the town is the property of the city of London, which accounts for the name.

It was called Derry in ancient times until King James I., in 1612, for money advanced him by the guilds of the city of London when he was hard up, gave them an area of two hundred thousand acres, confiscated from the O’Dohertys and the O’Neills for disloyalty. The grant includes every inch of land upon which Londonderry stands, “and the liberties thereof,” which means jurisdiction over everything within a radius of two miles around. The aldermen of the city of London, that small but wealthy community which surrounds the Bank of England and the Mansion House in the world’s metropolis, formed what is known as the Honorable Irish Society, composed of representatives of the different guilds, to hold the charter, and they hold it still. The aldermen of the city of London elect the governor of the society, who is now Sir Robert Newton, lord mayor of London, and the deputy governor, who is now a Mr. Gardiner, a resident of Londonderry, as is customary. The lord mayor’s functions are nominal. The deputy governor exercises full authority, assistedby a council of twenty-four members, selected from among the most prominent residents. The municipal expenses are paid by the ordinary forms of taxation and the government is conducted like that of any other city in Ireland, but the Honorable Irish Society collects ground rent from every house within a radius of two miles. It also owns the fisheries in the River Foyle. The money is not devoted to the payment of ordinary municipal expenses, but goes into the treasury of the society in London, and a portion of it is devoted to public objects here. Magee College, the Presbyterian institution, receives a generous grant. Foyle College, a nonconformist institution, and the Roman Catholic college, each gets something, and liberal subscriptions are made for the benefit of hospitals and other charities and the churches of the city. The Irish Society was purely Protestant at the time of its organization, and is Protestant still, but it is impartial in its contributions to the different religious sects. There are two cathedrals, two bishops, one Roman Catholic, and one Church of Ireland, and the latter holds the ancient cathedral which, with an abbey, was founded by St. Columba in the year 546 and still is called by his name. In the pedestal of a group of statuary, known as “the Calvary,” at St. Columba’s Roman Catholic Church, is a famous relic known as St. Columba’s stone, although his name is a misnomer. It is a massive block of gneiss, about six feet square, made with the prints of two feet, left and right, each about ten inches long.

This stone has been improperly associated in some way with St. Columba by the common people, but it has an equally interesting history, having been the crowning stone of the O’Neill clan for centuries. At his installation the newly chosen king was placed upon this stone, his bare feet in the footmarks, a willow wand was put into his hands as an emblem of the pure and gentle sway he should exercise over his people, an oath was administered to him by the chief ecclesiastic that he would preserve inviolable the ancient customs of the clan; that he would administer justice impartially among them, that he would sustain the right and punish the wrong, and that hewould deliver the authority to his successor without resistance at the command of the tribe. Having taken this oath, “The O’Neill” turned his face to the four corners of Ireland to signify that he was ready to meet all foes from whatever quarter they might come; kissed his sword and his spear to signify that he was ready to use them wherever necessary, and then descended from the stone and was hailed with wild acclamations as the chief of the O’Neills, while his knights knelt before him pledging their loyalty and devotion.

At the time of Ireland’s conversion to Christianity by St. Patrick that holy man visited Londonderry, where Owen O’Neill, the King of Ulster, was converted from paganism to the new faith and baptized. And, at the same time, St. Patrick consecrated this stone and blessed it for ever.

The long line of the O’Neill ancestry was terminated in 1607 by the flight of Hugh, Earl of Tyrone, after his unsuccessful rebellion against Queen Elizabeth, and the O’Dohertys, who were not so powerful, were compelled to surrender to the English. They were expelled from their lands, with all the followers of the Earl of Tyrone. All of the county was confiscated and sold or granted to Englishmen and Scotchmen, who came in and took possession and hold it still. Large areas still belong to the guilds of London, to whom it was granted for money loaned by them to King James I. The Tailors’ Guild owns the city of Coleraine, a clean, busy town of seven thousand population, famous for its whisky and linen. It is governed by officials appointed by the Tailors’ Guild in London, which collects ground rents from all the inhabitants and derives a considerable revenue from the salmon fisheries. The Fishmongers’ Guild owns the town of Kilrea, the Drapers’ Guild owns Draperstown, and other ancient organizations of merchants in the city of London own other towns and villages in this country which they obtained in a similar manner.

Londonderry is unique for being the only city in Ireland where the ancient walls and fortifications are preserved in the most careful manner and kept in perfect order with the antique guns mounted as they were at the time of the siege225 years ago. They do not inclose the entire city, but only the ancient part of it, and are about a mile in length, twenty-four feet high and nine feet thick. The top of the walls between the bastions is laid out as a promenade and is the favorite resort of the inhabitants, who may be found there in large numbers every day after the close of business hours. Some of the business houses and residences open upon the top of the walls, as do several popular resorts. The walls are pierced by several monumental gates, which remain precisely as they were in ancient times, and the old guns, which date back to 1635 and 1642, are kept as relics, precious as the Declaration of Independence in Washington. The bastions have been turned into little gardens, and here and there in the angles shrubs and flowers have been planted.

One of the guns which bears the name of “Roaring Meg” was presented to the city of Londonderry by the fishmongers of London and is the most precious object in the town, because of its effective work in the siege of 1689, when King James II., with an Irish army, besieged the city for 105 days, but its determined defenders succeeded in preventing his entrance. They suffered famine and pestilence, and were reduced to eating hides, tallow, and the flesh of cats and dogs. During the siege only eight of the defenders were killed by the enemy, but ten thousand persons perished from hunger, disease, and exposure in three and a half months. When the siege was lifted by the appearance of a squadron of ships laden with arms, ammunition, and provisions, King James and his army retired from one of the most important episodes in the history of Ireland. You can still see evidences of that terrible struggle. The cathedral is decorated with relics and trophies, including a bombshell which came over the wall, containing the terms of capitulation offered by King James. The laconic reply of the Rev. George Walker, rector of the Episcopal church, who was in command of the citizens, was “No surrender.”

A statue of Rev. Mr. Walker, whose courage, fortitude, and apostolic influence saved the city, was long ago erected upon the bastion which bore the heaviest fire during the siege.His noble figure stands upon the top of a shaft ninety feet high in the attitude which he is said to have assumed in the most terrible emergency, to revive and sustain the faltering courage of his parishioners. In one hand he grasps a Bible; the other is pointing down the river toward the approaching squadron of deliverance in the distant bay. At another point upon the walls is a Gothic castellated structure erected by public subscription as a clubhouse for the boys and young men of Londonderry. It is known as Apprentices’ Hall, and was erected as a memorial to the courage and foresight of a group of thirteen young apprentices who, during the excitement caused by the approach of the king’s army, had the presence of mind to drop the heavy gate without instruction from their elders, and thus made it possible to defend the city against the assault.

Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Lundy, who was in command of the garrison at the time, was a coward, and insisted upon surrendering the city to the king’s army, but was prevented from doing so by Rev. Mr. Walker, rector of the Episcopal church, and Adam Murray, an elder in the Presbyterian church. Lundy persisted in his purpose, carried on secret negotiations with the enemy, and was preparing to open the gates when his intentions were discovered. He escaped in disguise by climbing down the branches of a pear tree which grew against the wall on the east side.

Twice a year, on the 18th of December and the 12th of August, the dates of the beginning and the end of the siege, the apprentice boys of the city lead a procession of all the Protestant organizations to attend divine service at the Episcopal Cathedral and then pass the rest of the day as we celebrate the Fourth of July. At nightfall an effigy of Colonel Lundy is always burned in a prominent place. These celebrations are deplored by thoughtful people, as keeping alive religious animosities, but of recent years the collisions which used to occur between the Orange societies and the Roman Catholics have been avoided. The population of Londonderry is very largely Protestant.

The cathedral is an ugly old building, but quite interesting because of its historic associations and the relics it contains.

Magee College, the leading Presbyterian institution of Ireland, occupies a beautiful site about fifteen minutes’ walk from the center of the city. It was built and endowed by the widow of Rev. William Magee of Lurgan, was opened in 1865, and is under the care of the general assembly of the Irish Presbyterian Church. There are several departments, a staff of seven professors, and an average of two hundred and fifty students, most of whom are studying for the Presbyterian ministry. Magee is the only college in Ireland which has been founded and supported entirely by private benefactions. It has never received a dollar from the state, although there is an annual grant from the Irish Society, which owns the city of Londonderry. Under a recent act of parliament it is united with Queen’s College, Belfast, on equal terms in the new university bill. There is no religious test for students or professors, although the latter, upon accepting appointment, are required to sign a pledge that they “will not do, write, or say anything which might tend in any way to subvert the Christian religion or the belief of any person therein.” Magee has always taken a high stand for scholarship, and although the building is small it is noble in design, massive in construction, and well equipped for its purpose.

The principal business of Londonderry is to make shirts, collars, and cuffs, which are shipped to Australia, South Africa, India, and other British colonies. There are several large factories which employ about two thousand men to do the heavy work and twenty thousand women who do the stitching and laundering by old-fashioned methods. An American buyer I met in Belfast spoke rather contemptuously of the Londonderry shirt factories, which, he declared, “are not in it for a minute” with those of the United States. He insists that a single factory in Troy makes more shirts and collars than all the factories in Londonderry combined, and that by their modern machinery and processes the Troy factories can make and finish half a dozen shirts while they are making one there.

Londonderry is unique for another reason. The ordinary relations of husband and wife and their domestic responsibilities are reversed here. Many women work in the shirt factories whose husbands stay at home, keep the house, do the cooking and washing and take care of the children, because there is nothing else for them to do. There is a large excess of women in the population. They number two to one man, which is not due to natural causes, but because women are attracted here from the neighboring towns and counties to obtain work in the factories, and the young men have to leave Londonderry and go elsewhere to find employment.

Many of them go to the United States and Canada. Three lines of American steamers touch here every week—the Anchor Line, the Allan Line, and the Dominion Line—which offer low rates of transportation and carry many third-class passengers away.

The Giant’s Causeway, of which much has been written, for it is one of the wonders of the world, lies on the north coast of Ireland, about two hours by rail from Belfast, and there are several trains daily to the nearest town, called Portrush. There is an excellent hotel there, owned by the railway company, which ranks as one of the best in Ireland, and several other smaller hotels, inns, and boarding-houses innumerable for the accommodation of the crowds of people who go there every year as “trippers” and to spend their holidays.

The Giant’s Causeway, about five miles from Portrush, is reached by an electric railroad, which, I am told, was the first ever successfully operated in all the world. It was built in 1883, designed by the late Sir William Siemens, the celebrated electrician, and operated with power generated by the water of the Bush River. It was originally on the third-rail system, but was changed into an ordinary overhead trolley seven or eight years ago. The first trolley railroad was built in Richmond, Va., three years later than this.

The most interesting object at Portrush is an ancient butwell preserved Irishman of the type you see in pictures and formerly on the stage, who stands at the street corner, where the railway tracks take a curve, with a big dinner bell and rings it with almost superhuman energy whenever the cars approach from either direction. This occupation engages him from some unknown hour in the morning until some unknown hour in the night, and if he ever eats or sleeps or rests that fact is not easily ascertained by a stranger. There are no bells on the cars, no alarm can be given for some reason, but nobody ever complained that he was not warned of danger at the crossing by the bell ringer, who seems to have a profound sense of his responsibilities.

It is a delightful ride along rocky cliffs that have been worn into fantastic forms by the incessant pounding of the ocean, and, although many people express their disappointment at the Giant’s Causeway, it is well worth a visit because it is unique in geology. A stream of lava, at the most twenty-six hundred feet wide and about fifteen miles long, was arrested by some means upon the extreme north coast of Ireland, and in cooling took the form of detached columns from six to thirty feet long and from eight to twenty-four inches in diameter. There are more than forty thousand of these columns in three parallel terraces, standing upright and presenting a smooth surface, but they are all separate and no two of them are of the same size or shape. There is said to be only one triangle, only one nonagon, and only one of diamond shape in all the forty thousand. Most of them are pentagons and hexagons and octagons.

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