40 LABOURERS. 



bountiful in this country, has placed the very material 

 required for this purpose in the hands of the workmen 

 — a bed of the finest plastic clay (called by the men 

 "California/') having been cut into in the course of 

 the operations. 



As illustrative of the effect of task-work, and the 

 physical ability of the labourers of this district, I quote 

 from the Annual Report for 1848 of Mr S. N. Roberts, 

 C.E. — " The works throughout the entire district have 

 been executed by task, strictly in accordance with the 

 commissioner's instructions ; and I cannot advert too 

 strongly to the necessity there was for the strictest 

 attention to this, for I never witnessed more want of 

 power of exertion than among the labouring classes in 

 this part of the country, when first the works were com- 

 menced. With the exception of a few quarrymen, 

 found in the town of Galway, they were unskilled in 

 every class of public work ; there were many instances 

 where gangs of men did not earn more than threepence 

 per day, although allowed full prices for their work. 

 Generally speaking, however, the men are greatly im- 

 proved in habits of industry, and, of course, in the 

 amounts of their earnings. But the greater portion of 

 them are so perfectly destitute, and so wretchedly fed, 

 that it would be impossible to enable them to realise a 

 rate of wages calculated to support them in a proper 

 manner, without paying prices which the economical 

 execution of the work would not permit." 



Here ended my tour of Mayo, a county containing 

 agricultural resources which may be shortly recapitulated. 

 It is nearly all, except the northern mountainous parts, 



