never done regular work. Their
usual form is to plant their bit of ground and then to sit down till
the crops come up, on which they live till next season. A failure of
crops means starvation. This was their normal condition. They enjoyed
what Mr. Gladstone would call a "chronic plethora" of hunger. The
liverish tourist who adventured himself into these barbarous regions
in hopeless quest of appetite for his breakfast, would see the
Connemarans in hopeless quest of breakfast for their appetites. The
region is healthy enough. As Justice Shallow would say, "Beggars all,
beggars all. Marry, good air."

The first thing you see is a twenty-thousand-pound bridge across the
Corrib, not very far from the salmon weir, where are more fish than
you can count splashing up the salmon stairs, which are arranged to
save the salmon the effort of a long jump. Then the line running along
the Corrib Valley on a high embankment, past the ruins of what was
first a convent, then a whiskey distillery, now a timekeeper's office.
An entire field is being dug up and carted away, the soil being
excavated to a depth of eight or ten feet, over an area of several
acres required for sidings and railway buildings. A strolling Galway
man of Home Rule tendencies imparts information. He is eminently
discontented, and thinks the way in which the work is conducted
another injustice to Ireland. "The people are working and getting
wages, but what wages! Thirteen and sixpence a week! Would English
navvies work for that? You are getting the labour at starvation
prices, and even then you bully the men. They work in gangs, each with
a ganger swearing at them in the most offensive and outrageous way.
See that gang over there. You can hear the ganger shouting and
swearing even at this distance. The poor men are treated like dogs,
and even then they can hardly keep body and soul together. They have
to come miles and miles to the work, and some live so far away that
they can only return home once a week. So they have to camp out in
hovels. You are going down the line? Then you will be shocked at the
slave-driving you'll see. It reminds me of Legree in 'Uncle Tom's
Cabin.' I am surprised that the men do not drop dead over the work.
Not a moment's rest or relaxation. Work, work, work from morning to
night, for next to nothing. It ought not to be allowed in a civilised
country. And on the top of all this slavery we are expected to be very
much obliged for the opportun