SMALL HOLDINGS. 83 



comfort with the most horrible squalor. In 

 Gal way I saw some of the new cottages, " fit 

 for the priest himself to live in," as one tenant 

 said. They were bright, cheerful, weatherproof, 

 well ventilated. In one a tenant was suffering 

 from rheumatism, a legacy of the old days, and 

 he was grumbling at the infliction. His wife 

 turned on him sharply. " Sure," she said, " you 

 ought to be blessing the Government, you 

 ought, instead of grumbling, now that they 

 have given you a warm roof over your head ! " 

 From these cottages I went only a few miles 

 to sties of the old order, utterly unfit even for 

 animals. One was a tiny hovel divided into 

 two small rooms. The floor was of mud ; the 

 roof of thatch, rotten with the rains. So low 

 was the roof that it was not possible for an 

 adult to stand upright. The smoke of a peat 

 fire escaped through a shaft in the thatch. In 

 this lived a widower and his two daughters, 

 aged fifteen and thirteen. There was a living- 

 room, and one bedroom with a rough couch. 

 It was certainly not fitted for human habitation. 

 But the new cottages are far better than the 

 average of English farm cottages. 



