thing
to remember. A very good time it was, cattle selling higher than of
yore. The men were queerly, quaintly dressed, speaking Irish, getting
extremely drunk on vilest whiskey, leaving the town in twos and
threes, tumbling in groups by the roadside, reeking heaps of imbruted
humanity. The women were numerous, tall, decent, and modest. All wore
the shawl as a hood, the shawls of strange pattern unknown in England.
All tucked up the dress nearly to the waist, showing the invariable
red kirtle. All, or nearly all, were shod with serviceable shoes, such
as would astonish the Parisian makers of bottines. But these shoes
were only for show. The ladies walked painfully about in the
unaccustomed leather. They seemed to have innumerable corns, to
wrestle with bunions huge and dire, to suffer from unknown pedal
infirmities. Outside the town the ladies put on their shoes. Outside
the town, after the fair, they took them off again, sitting on the
roadside, stripping their shapely feet, bundling the obnoxious,
crippling abominations into Isabella-colour handkerchiefs, which they
tucked under their arms as they bounded away like deer. It was
pleasant to watch their joy, their freedom, their long springy step as
their feet once more struck their native heath. They do not spare
their shoes by reason of economy, but because they walk better without
them. Donned for propriety, doffed for convenience. The young lady who
is "on the market" is expected to wear leather on high days and
holidays, and she submits--another martyr to fashion. Yet even as the
hart panteth for the water-brooks, so longeth her sole after her
native turf.

It was at Athenry that I first obtained a precise legal definition of
the term Congested District, to the effect that wherever the land
valuation amounts to less than 30s. per head of the population the
district is held to be congested, and may receive assistance under the
Act of 1891. The chief item of the Board's income is the sum of
L41,250 a year, being interest at 2-3/4 per cent. per annum on the sum
of L1,500,000 referred to in the Act as the Church Surplus Grant. The
Board may, under certain conditions, use the principal, if needful.
Two other smaller sums are also available, and the unexpended balance
of the Irish Distress Fund has been applied to the completion of the
Bealdangan Causeway in Connemara. This was Mr. Balfour's suggestion.
There is a widespread idea that only the sea-board is touched, and