176 PADDY FKOM CORK. 



men, who have not prospered as yet. According to 

 Mr Pass, the south-country Irish are the poorest men 

 that come out do the worst, and are the least contented. 

 As at home, they depend upon grants, and charity when 

 they can get it, more than upon their own industry. 

 Many of them had gone into Maine, thinking to better 

 themselves ; but they found out their mistake, and had 

 all come back worse than they went. 



On the other hand located in a hut at the cross-roads 

 between the Acton and Cork Settlements, weaving, 

 with the aid of his daughters, a home-spun web for one 

 of his neighbours, and, though a professed tee-totaller, 

 not disdaining to make a penny by selling drams I 

 found one of these Cork men, in propria persona, who 

 had a different tale to tell. He had been a schoolmas 

 ter to them, but found it a starving business, as they 

 were all steeped in poverty and debt; and yet they 

 were industrious, he said ; and therefore he inveighed 

 against the mother country for not making railways in 

 the province, and sending out money to employ the 

 people. The management of the Irish is still a problem, 

 when unmixed with other population, in whatever coun 

 try they are. Here was this fellow M Mahon byname 

 unsteady and in debt himself, trying one shift after 

 another, as those who have been unaccustomed to steady 

 labour at home do, industrious after a fashion, but 

 unable to see that it is the persevering industry of the 

 Scottish, English, and Protestant Irish settlers, that 

 makes the luck for which they are envied. This man 

 was a great talker, an encourager and spreader of disaf 

 fection among those who would gladly, as they sat idle, 

 ascribe their misfortunes to any man or thing but to 

 themselves. As at home, they get together in junketing 

 and merry-making, and estimate the happiness of a 

 spree far above the every-day comforts of clean well- 

 furnished houses, and plentiful meals all days of the 



