To Glenties Mr. Tuke and his companions made their journey through a succession of wild mountain passes, rendered still wilder by the deep snow which covered everything.  They put up at Lord George Hill’s Gweedore hotel, and endorse all they had previously heard about the admirable zeal and enlightened benevolence of that nobleman, who had effected great improvements both in the land and in the condition of the inhabitants of one of the wildest portions of Donegal.  “We started at daybreak,” he writes, “for Glenties, thirty miles distant, over the mountains; and after leaving the improved cottages and farms on the Gweedore estate, soon came upon the domain of an absentee proprietor, the extent of which may be judged by the fact, that our road lay for more than twenty miles through it.  This is the poorest parish in Donegal, and no statement can be too strong with respect to the wretched condition, the positive misery and starvation in which the cottiers and small farmers on this immense domain are found.  We baited at Dungloe.  A more miserable and dilapidated village or town I never saw.  What a contrast did its dirty little inn present to the hotel at Gweedore.”  There was not a single pound of meal, Indian or oat, to be purchased in this miserable place, whilst thousands were depending on it for their supplies.  It was crowded with poor people from the surrounding country and from the island of Arranmore, who were crying with hunger and cold; the next market town was thirty miles from them, and the nearest place where food could be obtained was Lord George Hill’s store at Bunbeg, some twenty miles distant.  Surely this extreme wretchedness and neglect must be, to a great extent, attributed to the want of a resident proprietor.

“Leaving Dungloe,” says Mr. Tuke, “we proceeded to Glenties, still on the same property; and throughout our journey met with the most squalid scenes of misery which the imagination can well conceive.  Whilst thousands of acres of reclaimable land lies entirely neglected and uncultivated, there are thousands of men both willing and anxious to obtain work, but unable to procure it.  On the following morning, William Forster had an interview with the resident magistrate, as well as with the rector of the parish and some other gentlemen, who gave distressing accounts of the poverty existing around them.  Their attention was directed to the necessity for the immediate establishment of soup-kitchens, the employment of women in knitting, and the formation of local committees for their relief, extending over several parishes.  We visited the poorhouse at Glenties, which is in a dreadful state; the people were in fact half starved and only half clothed.  The day before, they had but one meal of oatmeal and water; and at the time of our visit had not sufficient food in the house for the day’s supply.  The people complained bitterly, as well they might, and begged us to give them tickets for work, to enable them to leave the place and work on