Fishing is an important occupation with those peasants who live on the sea-shore, and near the rivers or lakes. The making of roads, draining bogs, and improving the land, now employ thousands of poor labourers, who formerly used to be without any occupation.
The Irish dairies are well-managed and are generally extensive; many counties in the south part of the island are occupied almost entirely by dairy farms. As many as thirty or forty cows are kept on some of them, for butter is the chief produce, and this is sent into England, Portugal, and the East and West Indies. Some of the nice butter you eat on your bread and rolls comes from Ireland. Sheep and cattle are fed in great quantities on large pieces of land devoted to the purpose the sheep are large, and have fine wool.
The mud cabin of the Irish peasant is the most miserable cottage you can imagine; the walls are formed of clay, which hardens in the sunshine, the roof is made of sticks and straw, and the floor is the mere damp earth. It has frequently neither door, nor chimney, and consists of only one room; the furniture is rarely more than a stump bedstead, two or three stools, an iron pot, to boil the potatoes in, and a table to eat them from. Generally, there is a small piece of land attached to the dwelling, and in this potatoes are grown; the peasants of Ireland hardly ever eat anything besides potatoes. When they have enough of them to eat, and a little whiskey to drink, the poor people are exceedingly jovial and merry; they laugh, sing, and joke; and go to weddings, fairs, dances, and what are called in Ireland "wakes," which, among the poor, is a kind of laying in state before funerals;—but sometimes the crops of potatoes fail, and then the unfortunate peasants die by hundreds from hunger. The favourite dance of the common people is called a jig.
Dublin, which, I dare say, you know is the capital of Ireland, is an elegant city, with fine houses and good streets. The churches, the castle, the linen hall, exchange, bank, custom-house, and post-office, are all very noble buildings. There are also parks, gardens, theatres, canals, and other ornamental places throughout the city. From Dublin have been sent models of carriages, specimens of metals, slates, and linens, and a model of a house made in granite.
I have now told you, my dear little friends, a great many stories about the industry of all nations, and we have gone through the World's Show together. We have seen nearly all the useful and splendid things sent to the Great Exhibition from all parts of the world. I have told you about Europe, and Asia, Africa, and America; and I must soon leave you. But before I go, we must have another look at the Exhibition, and one more glance at those few things which we have not as yet seen.
We forgot to examine this magnificent chess-board, worth one thousand two hundred guineas. You will doubtless wonder why it is such a dear board, but your surprise will cease when you observe that the "checks," as they are called, are of mother-of-pearl and tortoiseshell, while the rim is of beautifully burnished gold, and the chessmen are of gold and silver, elaborately wrought, and ornamented with the portraits of celebrated historical characters; one of them represents the Emperor, Charles the Fifth. I dare say you would like to play a game with me on this chess-board. As a companion to this beautiful chess-board, is a very elegant colour box, fit for the Queen, or the most noble young lady in the land, to use for painting with. And here is a model of the town of Liverpool, with several thousand little people in the streets; and these figures are so exceedingly small, that a thousand of them would fit into an ordinary sized pill box.
In contrast to this specimen of a great town in a minute space, we have in front of the transept a wonderful clock, which is kept in motion by a set of powerful electro magnets, eight in number, on which is wound a length of twenty-five thousand feet of copper wire. This gigantic time-keeper sets in motion the immense hands on the principal dial, which is twenty-four feet in diameter, besides two smaller ones which are fixed in front of the galleries, at the east and west ends of the building. I am afraid that it would tire you, were I to attempt to tell you exactly what electricity is, and must therefore satisfy your curiosity, for the present, by letting you know that it is caused by the coming in contact of different substances possessing peculiar properties, which cause them to vibrate, when they touch.
There is another very curious clock in the Exhibition, which will go for a hundred years before requiring to be wound up again; and there is one wheel in it which is said would take ten thousand years to go round once.
Next there is a case of stuffed birds, which came from Scotland, and which we cannot help admiring. There are in this case specimens of all the various kinds of birds which are peculiar to Scotland, neatly and carefully stuffed; and really they almost look as if they were alive. Ah, ah! Mister Eagle, you are not so much to be feared now, I think, as you were when you lived in your lofty home in the Highland mountains.