There was a single laborer working before the castle raking up the gravel walk, I think. "I would he were fatter!" If he were only in as good condition as the beautiful dogs of superior breed which we saw in the castle yard; but the dogs are fed at the expense of the proprietor of this fair domain, the thin laborer at his own. We returned by another way. After we left the grounds we noticed with sad eyes the miserable cabins and barren fields at his gates. People of the upper, middle and comfortable classes are so used to horrible cabins, thin laborers, old women, barefoot, toothless, ragged and wretched, begging by the wayside to keep out of the dreaded workhouse, that the sight makes not the slightest impression. People tell me over and over again that they deserve their poverty, for it is the result of extravagance and drunkenness. This assertion makes one stare and then consider whose faces show the greater evidence of the action of different liquors. It would be an easy matter in a national gathering to pick out the class and the strata of society that is the support of the liquor traffic in Ireland. XXXV. WORKHOUSES--THE POOR LAW--A REASONABLE SUSPECT. Returning from Rappa Castle we must pass the Ballina workhouse. My friend had business there. As it was Board day, and I had about an hour to spare, I thought I would look in and see what I thought of it in the light of a possible refuge for many evicted ones. There were some wretched looking people, applicants for out-door relief, waiting about the entrance when we went in. I have been informed and have seen it confirmed in newspaper reports of the proceedings of Boards of Guardians, that it is a rule of universal application by every means possible to discourage out-door relief in every form. "Let the poor come into the union altogether," is the spirit that actuates the Boards of Guardians, so it was pointed out to me that these applicants for out- door relief had small chance of success. It was a Board day, and the master of the house, a polite little man, apologized profusely for not accompanying me over the building. He deputed the schoolmaster of the establishment to show me through in his place. I followed the Ballina Schoolmaster of the Union from the entrance along the gravel walk bordered with flowers to the house proper, and into the refectory or eating room. One does not want in every workhouse to look at the same things, when they see they are the same as in the last. I noticed the set of printed rules hung up on a card and lifting it down sat down to read the rules contained on it. They were very strict, and conceived in such a spirit that a naturally tyrannical man could make a pauper's life a very miserable burden to him.