Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1854 Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XII. JOURNAL--TOUR IN IRELAND. July 5, 1839. In passing from Waterford to Cork, I saw a number of bogs, and many people cutting turf for the year's supply. Some is cut with the spade into oblong pieces, ten or twelve inches by four or six, and laid, like new-moulded bricks, to dry in the sun. The less fibrous parts are mixed, like mortar, with water. I saw women treading the pit, their feet and legs bare to the knees. After mixing, it is moulded by the hand into masses of the same dimensions, and exposed to the sun. Thus prepared, it is a better fuel than in its natural state. The bog is from six to ten feet, and sometimes fifty or sixty feet in thickness. Abundant remains of forests are dug up, and make good fuel. The stumps of the old trees, apparently firs, are many of them very large. The bog land is valuable. The turf is sold in lots to the peasants, who cut, dry, and haul it home at this season. I saw many hundreds so employed. Cultivation along my route, though all the land is tilled, seems to be unskillful--inferior to England and France, and, I think, to New England. The soil is moderately good. The owners of small farms, of fifteen to thirty acres, can not keep good horses. They depend upon borrowing and exchanging. Some are too poor to get manure in sufficient quantities, though, generally, industrious, careful farmers grow rich. It is the laborer who is truly wretched. Such wretched, dirty, comfortless habitations I have nowhere seen. The people are, many of them, barefooted and in rags, and show the effects of coarse, meagre, and innutritious diet in their faces. You meet beggars every where, and they are most ingenious N and importunate. The poor are filthy in their dress and persons, and with thousands of them Sunday brings no change....
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