heir worth respectively, expressed
in whole numbers, without fractions, for more clearness of
apprehension:----

"Rate. Ports. Proportion Rate. Ports Proportion
per cent. per cent.
1 Dublin 40 { Drogheda 3
2 Cork 10 5 { Londonderry 3
{ Waterford 7 { Carrickfergus 3
3 { Galway 7 { Ross 1
{ Limerick 5 { Wexford 1
4 { Kinsale 5 6 { Dundalk 1
{ Youghal 5 { Baltimore 1
{ Sligo 1"

"Killybeg, Dungarvan, Donaghadee, Strangford, Coleraine, and Dingle, are
mentioned as "under rate."

The linen trade had been encouraged, and, indeed, mainly established in
Ireland, by the Duke of Ormonde. An English writer[526] says that
200,000 pounds of yarn were sent annually to Manchester, a supply which
seemed immense in that age; and yet, in the present day, would hardly
keep the hands employed for forty-eight hours. A political economist of
the age gives the "unsettledness of the country" as the first of a
series of reasons why trade did not flourish in Ireland, and, amongst
other remedies, suggests sumptuary laws and a tax upon celibacy, the
latter to weigh quite equally on each sex.[527] Sir William Petty does
not mention the trade but he does mention the enormous amount of
tobacco[528] consumed by the natives. It is still a disputed question
whether the so-called "Danes' pipes," of which I give an illustration,
were made before the introduction of tobacco by Sir Walter Raleigh, or
whether any other narcotizing indigenous plant may have been used. Until
one, at least, of these pipes shall have been found in a position which
will indicate that they must have been left there at an earlier period
than the Elizabethan age, the presumption remains in favour of their
modern use.

[Illustration: "DANES' PIPES," FROM THE COLLECTION OF THE R.I.A.]

I shall now give some brief account of the domestic life of our
ancestors 200 years ago, and of the general state of society, both in
the upper and lower classes. Petty estimates the population of Ireland
at 1,100,000, or 200,000 families. Of the latter he states that 160,000
have no fixed hearths; these, of course, were the very