“Why, he likes to work, and he does not like to work; he was bred up to do just nothing at all; but he can write a good hand, and is a good weaver enough, but no one wants a clerk looking so ragged and dirty as Jemmy; and no one weaves now in a small way. If he had a loom by himself he could earn a little; that is, if he could have other employment with it; for Jemmy, unlike Irishmen in general, cannot bear to keep all day at one thing.” Mr. Price set down this man’s name, and the ages of his children, desiring Mrs. M’Curdy to proceed to the next shanty. “Next to Jemmy Brady, lives lame David, a poor drunken creature; he has an aged mother, two sisters, a wife and one child. He is a blacksmith, and could get good wages throughout the year if he would only keep sober. His son bids fair to be a decent honest man; but the child, now only fourteen, works beyonds his strength, and his poor mother was telling me the other day that he had dreadful night sweats, and is losing his appetite. I wish you could see this boy, sir, I am sure you would think he is overworked.” “Don’t his employers take notice of it?” “Why, yes, they tell him not to work so hard; but men have not time to attend to such things; if they were to notice the ailings of all their work people they could never get on—no, when poor people get sick they must go home and trust to their family for help. Patrick Conolly is an ill-favoured looking lad; he is red-haired, freckled and bandy-legged; yet for all that he is a very interesting child, at least to his mother, grandmother and aunts, to say nothing of myself. I wish the lad could be sent to school, he has been so decently brought up, that I am sure he would make a good school master to the poor Catholic children.” “Well, Mrs. M’Curdy, your wish shall be gratified; Patrick Conolly shall be sent to a good school for one year; nay, don’t stop to thank me, it will cost me nothing. How do the women, his aunts and mother, maintain themselves?” “They wash for the men at the forge and the quarry; and they pick blackberries in the season, and they go out to day’s work to clean house and so on, and the old woman patches and mends and knits. They are as industrious as possible, but they barely make out to keep life and body together; for money is scarce and women are plenty. If the man only was sober it would do very well, but he is so notorious a drunkard that he can get no work during the few days he is sober.” “And thus the peace and well doing of a whole family are destroyed by the beastliness of one man. Who lives next to lame David?”