STROKESTOWN. 297 



late, that the geefe are plucked, and upon en- 

 quiry, that every goofe yielded three farthings 

 or a halfpenny in feathers per annum. They 

 make a dreadful ragged figure. The poor live up- 

 on potatoes and milk, it is their regular diet, ve- 

 ry little oat bread being ufed, and no fleih-meat 

 at all, except on an Eafter Sunday, or Chrift- 

 mas-day. Their potatoes laft them through 

 the year j all winter long only potatoes and fait. 

 Firing cofts them 30s. a year for labour in the 

 bogs. Building a mud cabbin, 4I. Ditto of 

 {tone and lime, 37 feet by 15, 17I. Another, 

 40 feet by 14, III Thefe are the meafures of 

 two, which Mr. Newcomen has built at that 

 expenfe. The linen manufacture fpreads through 

 Longford. It has encreafed confiderably, from 

 a remarkable circumftance which happened 

 three years ago, which was a gentleman un- 

 known, giving 500I. to be dillributed to poor 

 weavers, in loans of 5I. each, to be repaid, at 

 25s. a quarter, to enable them to carry on their 

 bufinefs with more eafe. This had great effects. 

 There are three bleach greens in the county ; 

 the weaving increafes ; fpinning is univerfal 

 throughout all the cabbins, and likewife through 

 all the county of Leitrim, but there is not fo 

 much weaving as in Longford. 



■ Auguft 21ft, to Strokeftown, the feat of Tho- 

 mas Mahon, Efq; Patted through Longford, a 

 chearlefs country, over an amazing quantity of 

 bo^, and all improveable; a great one in parti- 

 cular, on the banks of the Shannon, two miles 

 over, and I found it reached many miles beyond 



Lanefbro'. 



