"The effect of these measures was very remarkable. Awkward as the people were, they were not stupid, and learned to work with unexpected rapidity. More wonderful was the change in their manners, appearances and the very expression of their countenances. Cheerfulness and gratitude replaced the gloom of misery and the sullenness of despair. Their hearts were softened; they were most grateful to their benefactor for themselves, still more for their children. These worked with their parents, forming little industrial groups, whose affection excited the interest of every visitor. Parents were happy in the industry and growing intelligence of their children, and the children were proud of their own achievements. "The great experiment was a complete and triumphant success. When Count Rumford wrote his account of it, it had been five years in operation; it was, financially, a paying speculation, and had not only banished beggary, but had wrought an entire change in the manners, habits, and very appearance of the most abandoned and degraded people in the kingdom."--("Count Rumford," pages 18-24.) "Are the poor ungrateful? Count Rumford did not find them so. When, from the exhaustion of his great labours, he fell dangerously ill, these poor people whom he had rescued from lives of shame and misery, spontaneously assembled, formed a procession, and went in a body to the Cathedral to offer their united prayers for his recovery. When he was absent in Italy, and supposed to be dangerously ill in Naples, they set apart a certain time every day, after work hours, to pray for their benefactor. After an absence of fifteen months, Count Rumford returned with renewed health to Munich--a city where there was work for everyone, and not one person whose wants were not provided for. When he visited the military workhouse, the reception given him by these poor people drew tears from the eyes of all present. A few days after he entertained eighteen hundred of them in the English garden--a festival at which 30,000 of the citizens of Munich assisted." ("Count Rumford," pages 24-25.) THE CO-OPERATIVE EXPERIMENT AT RALAHINE, "The outrages of the 'Whitefeet,' 'Lady Clare Boys,' and 'Terry Alts' (labourers) far exceeded those of recent occurrence; yet no remedy but force was attempted, except by one Irish landlord, Mr. John Scott Vandeleur, of Ralahine, county Clare, late high sheriff of his county. Early in 1831 his family had been obliged to take flight, in charge of an armed police force, and his steward had been murdered by one of the labourers, having been chosen by lot at a meeting held to decide who should perpetrate the deed. Mr. Vandeleur came to England to seek someone who would aid him in organising the labourers into an agricultural and manufacturing association, to be conducted on co-operative principles, and he was recommended to Mr. Craig, who, at great sacrifice of his position and prospects, consented to give his services.