really remarkable and monumental private warehouses which already adorn this Square.  Mr. Robinson, one of the partners of a firm which has just completed one of these warehouses, was good enough to show us over it.  It is built of a warm grey stone, which lends itself easily to the chisel, and it is decorated with a wealth of carving and of architectural ornaments such as the great burghers of Flanders lavished on their public buildings.  The interior arrangements are worthy of the external stateliness of the warehouse.  Pneumatic tubes for the delivery of cash—­a Scottish invention—­electric lights, steam lifts, a kitchen at the top of the lofty edifice heated by steam from the great engine-room in the cellars, and furnishing meals to the employees, attest the energy and enterprise of the firm.  The most delicate of the linen fabrics sold here are made, I was informed, all over the north country.  The looms, three or four of which are kept going here in a great room to show the intricacy and perfection of the processes, are supplied by the firm to the hand-workers on a system which enables them, while earning good wages from week to week, to acquire the eventual ownership of the machines.  The building is crowned by a sort of observatory, from which we enjoyed a noble prospect overlooking the whole city and miles of the beautiful country around.  A haze on the horizon hid the coast of Scotland, which is quite visible under a clear sky.  The Queen’s Bridge over the Lagan, built in 1842 between Antrim and Down, was a conspicuous feature in the panorama.  Its five great arches of hewn granite span the distance formerly traversed by an older bridge of twenty-one arches 840 feet in length, which was begun in 1682, and finished just in time to welcome Schomberg and King William.

The not less imposing warehouse of Richardson and Co., built of a singularly beautiful brown stone, and decorated with equal taste and liberality, adjoins that of Robinson and Cleaver.  The banks, the public offices, the clubs, the city library, the museum, the Presbyterian college, the principal churches, all of them modern, all alike bear witness to the public spirit and pride in their town of the good people of Belfast.  With more time at my disposal I would have been very glad to visit some of the flax-mills called into being by the great impulse which the cotton famine resulting from our Civil War gave to the linen manufactures of Northern Ireland, and the famous shipyards of the Woolfs on Queen’s Island, As things are, it was more to my purpose to see some of the representative men of this great Protestant stronghold.

I passed a very interesting hour with the Rev. Dr. Hanna, who is reputed to be a sort of clerical “Lion of the North,” and whom I found to be in almost all respects a complete antitype of Father M’Fadden of Gweedore.