EDUCATION.
Rudimental knowledge is being slowly diffused in Ireland, in spite of the serious impediments interposed by Religious jealousy and bigotry. But this remedy, as now applied, does not reach the seat of the disease. They are mainly the better class of poor children who are educated in the National and other elementary schools; the most depraved, benighted, degraded, are still below their reach. The destitute, hungry, unemployed, unclad, despairing, cannot or do not send their children to school; the wife and mother who must work daily in the turf-bog or potato-field for a few pence per day must keep her older child at home to mind the younger ones in her absence. Education, in its larger, truer meaning, is the great remedy for Ireland's woes; but until the parents have steadier employment and a juster recompense the general education of the children is impracticable.
ENCUMBERED ESTATES.
The act authorizing and requiring the sale of irredeemably Encumbered Estates in Ireland is one of the best which a British Parliament has passed in many years. Under its operation, a large portion of the soil is rapidly passing from the nominal ownership of bankrupts wholly unable and unqualified to improve it into those of new proprietors who, it may fairly be hoped, will generally be able to improve it, giving employment to more labor and increasing the annual product. The benefits of this change, however, can be but slowly realized, and are for the present hardly perceptible.
IRISH MANUFACTURES.
Within the past few months, a very decided interest has been awakened in the minds of enlightened and patriotic Irishmen in Dublin and other places, with regard to the importance and possibility of establishing various branches of Household Manufactures throughout the country. It is manifest that the general cheapness of Labor and Food, the facilities now enjoyed for communication, not only with Great Britain, but with all Europe and America also, and the extraordinary amount of unemployed and undeveloped capacity in Ireland, render the introduction of Manufactures at once eminently desirable and palpably feasible. Even though nothing could be immediately earned thereby, the simple diffusion of industrial skill and efficiency which must ensue from such introduction would be an inestimable gain to the peasantry of Ireland. But allow that all the idle poor of this island could in six months be taught how to earn six pence each per day, the aggregate benefit to the Irish and to mankind would be greater than that of all the gold mines yet discovered. The Poorhouse Unions could be nearly emptied in a year, and this whole population comfortably fed, clad and housed within the next three years. A beginning must be made with the simplest or household manufactures, for want of means to establish the more complex, costly and efficient branches, which require extensive Machinery and aggregation of Laborers; but if the first step be successfully taken, others are certain to follow. With abundant water-power and inexhaustible beds of fuel yet untouched, it is demonstrable that Manufactures of Cotton and Woolen, as well as Linen, might be prosecuted in Ireland even cheaper than in England, though the average recompense of Labor should thereby be doubled.
The first impulse to the Manufacture movement appears to have been given by Mr. Thomas Mooney, a gentleman well known to his countrymen throughout the United States, whence he returned some eighteen months ago. Primarily at his suggestion, a "Parent Board of Irish Manufacture" was organized in Dublin several months since, funds collected by voluntary subscription, an office opened, and a central school established, with a view to the qualification of teachers for the superintendence of auxiliary schools throughout the country. The enterprise was proceeding vigorously and with daily increasing momentum when Dissension, the evil genius of Ireland, broke out among its leading supporters, which has resulted in the division of the original Society into two, one of them sustaining Mr. Mooney and the other claiming to have taken the movement entirely out of his hands. Thus the case stands at present, but thus I trust it will not long remain. The enterprise is one of the most feasible and hopeful of the many that have been undertaken for the benefit of Ireland, and affords ample scope and occupation for all who may see fit to labor for its success. I trust that all differences will speedily be harmonized, and that the friends of the movement, once more united, may urge it forward to a most complete and beneficent triumph.
PEAT MANUFACTURE.
The Peat Bogs of Ireland cover some Three Millions of Acres of its surface, mainly in the heart of the country, though extending into every part of it. Perhaps One Hundred Thousand Acres, chiefly in the north-east, have been brought into cultivation; of the residue, some yields a little sour pasturage, but the greater portion is of no use whatever, save as it supplies a very poor but cheap fuel to the peasantry. These bogs are of all depths from a few inches to thirty or forty feet, though the very shallow have generally been reclaimed. This is effected in some cases by removing the Peat or Turf altogether; but sometimes, where it is quite deep, by ditching and draining it, and then cutting and heaping up some six to twelve inches at the top, so that it can be thoroughly burned, and the ashes spread over the entire surface for a soil. This is not so deep as could be desired, but the climate is so uniformly moist and the skies so rarely unclouded that it suffices to insure very tolerable crops thereafter.
I do not know how the origin of these Bogs is accounted for by the learned, but I presume the land they cover was originally a dense forest, and that the Peat commenced growing as a sort of moss or fungus, carpeting the ground and preventing the germination of any more trees. In the course of ten or fifteen centuries, the forest trees (mainly of Oak or Fir) decayed and fell into the Peat, which, dying at the top, continued to grow at the bottom, while the perpetual moisture of the climate prevented its destruction by fire. Thus the forest gradually disappeared, and the Peat alone remained, gaining a foot in depth in the course of two or three centuries until it slowly reached its present condition.