20 



to state that the almost infant establishment at Belleek forms one 

 of the brightest spots in the history of Irish manufacture and 

 progress which that history has hitherto furnished. 



The sight of the "hands" here engaged in this manufacture is 

 really one of the most pleasant and hopeful imaginable. There is 

 none of the squalor, ill-health, and pallor, unhappily so often 

 witnessed in English, and even Irish, centres of industry. Fine, 

 intelligent, and healthy lasses and lads are here, all hard at work, 

 and all well-contented, well-clothed, and evidently well-fed. Some 

 of the higher class workmen, designers and others, earn so much 

 as jQ$ per week ; boys who were recently apprentices, and were 

 paid originally 2s. 6d. per week, now earn so much as j£i, and 

 even up to 35 s. 



The healthy locality, the fine water-power, supplied by the falls 

 of the Erne ; the energy, encouragement, and kindness of the 

 employers, and the splendid results of the original experiments, all 

 point to the Belleek potteries as likely, we may rather say certain, 

 to take rank among the most successful efforts of the day wherein 

 we live, to raise our country in the scale of manufacturing 

 enterprise. 



Again taking the train at 2-50, the party arrived at Bundoran at 

 3.16, and proceeded at once to Mrs. Hamilton's hotel. At first 

 the proprietress was appalled at the number she was thus suddenly 

 called on to accommodate, but with good humour and good 

 management on the part of the hostess and her visitors, the latter 

 were soon comfortably provided for, and at four o'clock the whole 

 party sat down to a good substantial dinner, served up in a style 

 that would do credit to any establishment. Bundoran, so quiet 

 and lonely in the Winter, was now alive with visitors from every 

 direction. The rocks, the beach, and cliffs, were thronged with 

 gay groups of pleasure-seekers, and crowds of bathers disported 

 themselves amid the foam of the breakers, or in the quiet rock 

 pools, from morning till night ; and flocks of country folk seemed 

 to revel in the luxury of a bath, and male or female in joyous 

 merriment went bounding to the sea. Soon after dinner, the 

 naturalists set out on an exploring expedition, and the Car- 



