xxv RALAHINE AND ITS TEACHINGS 457 



the Saxon." He lodged in a poor cottage, which was 

 sometimes in the middle of the night surrounded by a 

 howling mob, which kept him in expectation of violence or 

 death . Once he was warned to return home after dark by 

 a different route from that he was following, and once a 

 stone was thrown at him from behind and struck him on 

 the head. In addition to his other troubles, the proprie- 

 tor's family and most of the gentry around were entirely 

 opposed to the new system he was preparing to introduce, 

 and their servants made jests upon him to his face, and 

 still further prejudiced the people against him. 



Mr. Vandeleur, who had been struck by the example of 

 co-operation he had seen at New Lanark under Robert 

 Owen, had already made some preparations for the scheme 

 by building several cottages, sheds, and a large building 

 suitable for a dining hall, with a lecture or reading room 

 above, as well as a store-room and some dormitories, and 

 Mr. Craig was at first engaged in superintending the com- 

 pletion of these, getting in necessary stores, and making 

 the acquaintance and endeavouring to gain the confidence 

 of such of the mechanics and labourers as could 

 speak English. He also arranged with Mr. Vandeleur the 

 terms on which the farm, buildings, implements and stock 

 should be taken, and drew up the rules and regulations 

 which seemed to him most suitable for the success of the 

 undertaking. The people who had been hitherto working 

 on the farm lived scattered about the country, some of 

 them three or four miles away, so that a long walk was 

 added to their daily labour. But so wedded are the Irish 

 peasantry to their homes that it was difficult to get them 

 to come to live on the farm in the new houses, and still 

 more difficult for them to agree to take their meals to- 

 gether. But when at length the more intelligent among 

 them were satisfied that under the new plan they would 

 have all surplus profits to divide among themselves, they 

 saw that to live together and to have their meals in com- 

 mon would be a great saving, and would enable them to 

 give more work to the farm ; and as the benefit of all 

 economies of this kind would not as heretofore go to the 

 landlord but be really all their own, they soon persuaded 



