BOG VILLAGE, COUNTY ROSCOMMON.
and children do. They knit and sew, every minute of the spare time they have from field work, making thereby from two to three cents a day. This knitting is done for dealers who furnish the material and pay for the work, and to get the material journeys of twenty to forty miles, and the same distance back again to deliver the finished work, have to be performed.
In brief, there is not a moment to be lost, nor an opportunity wasted to make a penny. The penny not earned makes the difference between enough food to sustain life, bare as life is of everything that makes it desirable, and absolute pinching, merciless hunger. No matter at what sacrifice, the penny must be earned and religiously applied either for rent or food. Clothing is always a secondary consideration—a place to stay in and food to keep life in the body, these are the first.
What is the amount paid the drones of England in the form of pensions? How much does the Queen receive? How much do the little Princes and Princesses cost the Nation? How much the Dukes and Dukelings, the Right Honorables and the Generals and Colonels, and the Secretaries and all that? “Look upon this picture and then upon that!” A nobility rioting in extravagance—a whole people starving!
And yet there are those who believe the people of Great Britain have no grievances, but should settle down contentedly and in quiet!