hed that
number at the beginning of this century. It has since then advanced by
"leaps and bounds," after an almost American fashion, till it has now
become the second, and bids fair at no distant day to become the first,
city in Ireland. Few of the American cities which are its true
contemporaries can be compared with Belfast in beauty. The quarter in
which my host lives was reclaimed from the sea marshes not quite so long
ago, I believe, as was the Commonwealth Avenue quarter of Boston, and
though it does not show so many costly private houses perhaps as that
quarter of the New England capital, its "roads" and "avenues" are on the
whole better built, and there is no public building in Boston so
imposing as the Queen's College, with its Tudor front six hundred feet
in length, and its graceful central tower. The Botanic Gardens near by
are much prettier and much better equipped for the pleasure and
instruction of the people than any public gardens in either Boston or
New York. These American comparisons make themselves, all the conditions
of Belfast being rather of the New World than of the Old. The oldest
building pointed out to me to-day is the whilom mansion of the Marquis
of Donegal, now used as offices, and still called the Castle.

This stands near Donegal Square, a fine site, disfigured by a quadrangle
of commonplace brick buildings, occupied as a sort of Linen Exchange,
concerning which a controversy rages, I am told. They are erected on
land granted by Lord Donegal to encourage the linen trade, and the
buildings used to be leased at a rental of L1 per window. The present
holders receive L10 per window, and are naturally loath to part with so
good a thing, though there is an earnest desire in the city to see these
unsightly structures removed, and their place taken by stately municipal
buildings more in key with the really remarkable and monumental private
warehouses which already adorn this Square. Mr. Robinson, one of the
partners of a firm which has just completed one of these warehouses, was
good enough to show us over it. It is built of a warm grey stone, which
lends itself easily to the chisel, and it is decorated with a wealth of
carving and of architectural ornaments such as the great burghers of
Flanders lavished on their public buildings. The interior arrangements
are worthy of the external stateliness of the warehouse. Pneumatic tubes
for the delivery of cash--a Scottish invention--electric lights, ste