TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 93 
example of this institution has been generally followed, and cars innumerable leave 
the interior for the principal towns in the south of Ireland, which bring parties to and 
from markets at an enormous saving of time, and in many instances cheaper than they 
could walk it. This establishment has now been in existence twenty-eight years, 
travelling with its mails at all hours of the day and night, and never met any inter- 
ruption in the performance of its arduous duties. Much surprise has often been ex- 
pressed at the high order of men connected with it, and at its popularity; but parties 
thus expressing themselves forget to look at Irish society with sufficient grasp. For 
my part, I cannot better compare it than to a man emerging into convalescence from 
a serious attack of malignant fever, and requiring generous and nutritive diet in place 
of medical treatment. Thus I act with my drivers, who are taken from the lowest 
grade of the establishment, and who are progressively advanced according to their 
respective merits, as opportunity offers, and who know that nothing can deprive them 
of this reward, and a superannuated allowance of their full wages in old age, and under 
accident, unless their wilful and improper conduct; and as to its popularity, I never 
yet attempted to do an act of generosity or common justice, publicly or privately, that 
I was not repaid tenfold. 

On the Statistics of the Parish of Kilmurry, a rural district in the Barony of 
West Muskerry, in the County of Cork, from materials supplied by the 
Rev. Wo. KELEHER. 
The paper was read by Dr. D. Bullen, and exhibited a striking improvement in the 
physical and moral condition of the people, arising chiefly from the temperance move- 
ment and the great advance made in education. 

Mr. Biggs read a specimen of an inquiry into the sanatory condition of certain 
parts of the county of Cork. 
Description of the Blackwater River. By Mr. O’FLANAGAN. 

On the Infant Industrial Schools of Tuscany. 
By Signor Enrico Mayer of Milan. 
The first infant schools, or, as they are there called, asylums, established in Tus- 
cany, were opened simultaneously in Leghorn and Pisa in 1833. A third was soon 
after opened in Florence, and the example then was generally followed. They are 
supported wholly by voluntary contributions, and consequently their increase soon 
reached its furthest limit. There are now twenty of those infant schools, with 2000 
children. The annual expenditure comes to about 1l. sterling a child, house rent, 
servants’ wages, teachers’ salary, and soup, being all included. ‘The management 
of these schools generally rests with committees of ladies, who take by turn the duty 
of inspection ; the remarks written in the inspectors’ book become the subject of de- 
liberation at the monthly meetings of the committee. The infant asylums of Tuscany 
are intended for the poor, and are entirely gratuitous. They are generally divided 
into two classes, having each a separate room, and a separate mistress. The first 
class contains children from eighteen months or two years to four or five years old. 
The second class contains children from four or five to seven or eight. A play-ground 
is attached to every asylum, and the children perform easy gymnastic exercises, which, 
however, do not interfere with their own choice of amusements. The introduction of 
manual works in the infant asylums in Italy constitutes one of the chief differences 
between them and similar institutions in France or England, and experiments are 
now making to continue the habits of early industry thus acquired, by procuring some 
work in the primary schools. A committee of tradesmen and artisans forms part of 
the society for infant schools at Florence, and they are to provide the children with 
some easy work, and facilitate afterwards their being employed in the exercise of 
different arts and trades. Linear drawing and the rudiments of geometry and me- 
_ chanics are taught in the superior classes, but confining the instruction to that which 
can be of use in the exercise of every mechanical profession, without taking any one 
particularly in view. It is anxiously desired that the manual work of the children 
