fuel. In some places the bogs are
likely to be exhausted, but in others there is plenty of turf (turf, O
Saxon, is not the grass on which you play cricket or croquet, but is the
Hibernian for peat). Indeed, there is ample for all the needs of Ireland
for a hundred years to come, but it should not be used in the shamefully
wasteful way so often noticeable. It is no excuse that the heat it
contains is not so great as in coal.

If coal were to run out in England, to what a premium would turf rise in
Ireland!

Formerly turf could be picked up free, and even now it is very cheap,
the chief expense to the consumer being the cost of transport from the
bog to the turf rick behind the cabin.

The mineral rights of Ireland are most deceptive. There are plenty of
indications of minerals, but they are of too poor a nature to warrant
working.

Personally, I tried working coal-pits near Castleisland for three
months, and silver lead was worked for six months near Tralee by a
company which was more successful in working its own way with the
bankruptcy court. I firmly believe the reputed mineral wealth of Ireland
to be greatly exaggerated, and should never advise any one to invest
money in a syndicate for its discovery. Smelting was largely perpetrated
in olden times in Ireland, which entailed cutting down the oak forests,
that then crossed the country, to obtain fuel, the ore being brought
from England. But the introduction of the coke process in the north of
England settled that industry, which was one of the earliest Irish ones
doomed to extinction.

An Irish industry which as yet shows no sign of losing its commercial
importance is the blessed institution of matrimony, a holy thing which
in Ireland is particularly beneficial to the pockets of the priest, who
pronounces the blessing, and to the distiller, who sells the whisky, in
which the future of the happy pair is pledged.

The matrimonial arrangements of Irish farmers in Kerry may sound queer
to an English reader, but are the outcome of an innate, though
unwritten, law that the whole family have a vested interest in the
affair.

For example, when the family is growing up, the farm is handed over to
the eldest son, who gives the parents a small allowance during their
lives, while the fortune that he gets with his wife goes, not to
himself, but to provide for his younger brothers and sisters.

Hence, if the eldest son were to marry the Venus de Medici with ten
pounds l