The Cathedral Towns and Intervening Places of England, Ireland and Scotland:: A Description of Cities, Cathedrals, Lakes, Mountains, Ruins, and Watering-places.Silloway, Thomas W. (Thomas William)
History
The Cathedral Towns and Intervening Places of England, Ireland and Scotland:: A Description of Cities, Cathedrals, Lakes, Mountains, Ruins, and Watering-places.
Silloway, Thomas W. (Thomas William)
Great Britain -- Description and travel
There are within the limits of the city over twenty places of worship.
It has many charitable and educational institutions, and much
enterprise and business activity. Save the old and slummish portion,
which is not of very great extent, and is under comparatively good
control, it has a thoroughly English look, or, perhaps we may say,
an old American look. We greatly enjoyed our visit, and were happily
disappointed; for our minds were disabused of opinions we before
erroneously entertained, and supposed to be true, concerning this
famous city.
DUBLIN.
At 1.30 P. M., on Friday, April 26, we left for Dublin, and
after a ride of four hours reached that city. The landscape on the way
was interesting, though not presenting anything very picturesque or
romantic. We were, however, continually impressed with the fact that
Ireland is well named the Emerald Isle; for not a bare acre is to be
seen, and over hill and dale luxuriant vegetation is found.
We could but feel sorry that the laws of primogeniture and entailment
of property yet prevail, and that England thus deprives herself and
poor Ireland, her disconsolate child, of the rich blessings of an
interested and land-loving, as well as soil-working people. The land
is owned by a few lords. Estates must be kept entire, and so handed
down through the male heirs from generation to generation. No absolute
sale is possible, and a homestead can rarely be bought. The farm, be it
little or great, cannot be owned by the tiller, but is held by the lord
of the domain. An estate may not be divided among his descendants, but
must pass to each successive heir in its entirety. It cannot be sold to
those who would use it and improve its value. Without homesteads, with
no prospect of anything but unsatisfying labor, with scarce the surety
of earning a scanty subsistence,--there is, among the common people, a
lack of interest in agricultural efforts. Thousands of laborers leave
this land, the fairest on which God's impartial sun shines; few are
left to care for the soil; and so, as the shortest cut across this
field of deliberately created difficulty, nearly all the land is laid
down to grass. In our ride of more than one hundred miles, hardly one
fruit-tree was seen, or one nice garden. The country suffers for want
of skilled yeomanry, to whom anticipation of ownership of the soil is
"a cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night," to pilot them out of
the bondage they are in. The laws of justice and divine compensation
are, however, at work, and change for the better is at hand; amendment
after amendment, even now foreshadowed, will come, for He who ruleth
over all will "turn and overturn," "till he whose right it is shall
reign."
But to return to the Queen City of Ireland,--its greatest place
socially and commercially speaking.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account