of plaid of six colours, a colour on every shuttle, With the help of his wife, who assisted in winding, he was able to earn only 8 s. a week by very diligent work from early morning till night.  There is a general complaint of the depression of trade at present.  Agents, chiefly from Glasgow houses, living in the town, supply the yarn and pay the wages.  I was struck with the number of public-houses in all the leading streets.  How far they are supported by the weavers I cannot say, but whether or not they can dispense with the glass, they must have their tobacco, and when this luxury is deducted, and a shilling a week for the rent of the cottage, it is hard to understand how a family of six or eight can be supported on the weekly wages.  The trade of muslin embroidery once flourished here, and in the pretty little neighbouring town of Comber; but it has so fallen off that now the best hands, plying the needle unceasingly during the long, long day, can earn only three or four shillings a week.  Before the invention of machinery for flax-spinning, the manufacture of fine thread by hand-labour was a most profitable employment.  Wonders were wrought in this way by female fingers.  The author of ‘Our Staple Manufactures’ states that in 1799, out of a pound and a half of flax, costing 10 s., a woman produced yarn of the value of 5 l. 2 s. 6 d.  Miss M’Quillan, of Comber, spun 94 hanks out of one pound of flax, splitting the fibre with her needles to give this degree of fineness.

  But alas! what a change to the cottage hearth! 
  The song of the wheel’s no more—­
  The song that gladdened with guileless mirth
  The hearths and homes of the poor!

But here, and in all the small towns about, they have still the weaving, and it is carried on to a considerable extent by persons who hold a few acres of land, throwing aside the shuttle while putting in the crops and doing the harvest work.  Thus combining the two pursuits, these poor people are able, by extraordinary industry, to earn their daily bread; but they can do little more.  The weavers, as a class, appear to be feeble and faded specimens of humanity, remarkably quiet, intelligent, and well-disposed—­a law-abiding people, who shrink from violence and outrage, no matter what may be their grievances.  It is cruel to load them too heavily with the burdens of life, and yet I am afraid it is sometimes done, even in this county, unnecessarily and wantonly.  What I have said of the Downshire and Londonderry estates, holds good with respect to the estates of the other large proprietors, such as Lord Roden, the kindest of landlords, almost idolised, even by his Catholic tenants; Lord Annesley; the trustees of Lord Kilmurray; Sir Thomas Bateson, and others.  But I am sorry to learn that even the great county Down has a share of the two classes which supply the worst species of Irish landlords—­absentees who live extravagantly in England, and merchants who have purchased estates to make as large a percentage