custom throughout the rest of Europe, but every family has its own
separate cottage, and there are long streets of neat brick, two-story,
five-room houses very similar to those that you find in Philadelphia,
only the rents are very much lower there. For ten dollars a month a
Belfast mechanic can get a neat and comfortable six-room dwelling, 20
feet front and 36 feet deep, with a garden 100 feet in depth. For five
dollars and seven dollars and fifty cents a month he can get four or
five roomed cottages that are equally comfortable. And the mechanics
there take a great deal more interest in their homes than those in the
rest of Ireland. If you will look through the windows as you pass
through the streets you will see them draped with neat Nottingham lace
curtains and linen shades. There are shelves of books and pictures, neat
carpets and center-tables with a family Bible and photograph album and
religious newspapers and periodicals. There are often books on
theology,--more than anything else,--commentaries on the Bible and other
denominational works, for the well-to-do Belfast mechanic is a
Presbyterian and always prepared to defend the doctrines of that faith.
The manufacturers, the merchants, and the middle classes generally are
Presbyterians. The land owners, the professional men, the nobility, and
the aristocracy are nearly all members of the Church of Ireland, while
the common laborers are Roman Catholics.
[Illustration: Queen's College, Belfast]
When the Scotch "planters" came to the north of Ireland they brought
their love of learning and their scholarship with their religion, and
Belfast has always been an educational as well as a denominational
center, more noted than any other city in Ireland for the excellence
of its schools. Queen's College, founded nearly sixty years ago by Queen
Victoria as a state institution, is at the head of the system and will
soon be a university. Queen's is one of the "godless" colleges that we
hear so much about in ecclesiastical circles, because there is no
chapel, no religious exercises or instruction. But the atmosphere of the
institution is thoroughly Presbyterian, and Rev. Dr. Hamilton, the
president, who will also be president of the proposed university, is one
of the most eminent ministers in that denomination. The buildings of
Queen's College, six hundred feet long, are imposing in appearance and
of solid construction, after the Tudor school of architecture, with a
central tower and two wings, inclosing quadrangular courts. There is a
school of law and a school of medicine, with more than four hundred
students, and one of the most important in Ireland.
Just behind Queen's College is the General Assembly's Theological
Seminary, founded in 1853 to train men for the Presbyterian pulpit. It
occupies a massive building of red sandstone that is simple and severe.
Across the way from Queen's is a Methodist college with two hundred and
fifty students, the building being after the same general plan as
Queen's. These three institutions are entirely in sympathy and are
working together, although they have no legal or official relation.
The City Hall of Belfast is an imposing building, which cost a million
and a half of dollars, and is very ornate for its purpose. It stands in
the center of a large square, admirably located so that its fine
proportions may be admired from all sides. The interior is very
ornamental, the walls and stairways being of Carrara marble elaborately
carved. On either side are handsome monuments. The building is 300 feet
long and 240 feet deep; the façade is of the same design on each of the
four sides, and there is a dome 175 feet high. There is a great hall for
official ceremonies and public assemblies that will seat a thousand
people, and several other state apartments handsomely decorated.
In front of the City Hall is a recent statue of Queen Victoria in
marble, and a very good one it is. On another side the late Lord
Dufferin is represented in bronze wearing the robes of a Knight of St.
Patrick, while Sir Edward J. Harland, founder of the great shipyards at
Belfast, is honored in a similar manner. Not far away is the Albert
Memorial, a clock tower, 143 feet high, of Gothic design, which was
erected to the memory of the Prince Consort in 1870. There are several
other statues of local dignitaries in different parts of the city and a
soul-stirring memorial to the members of the Royal Irish Rifles who died
in the Boer war.
The business architecture of Belfast is unusually fine and in striking
contrast to the rest of Ireland, where there has been very little
building for a century. Belfast, however, is a distinctively modern city
and up-to-date. There are no skyscrapers, and the limit of height seems
to be six stories, but there is considerable architectural display; and
the shopping streets are entirely modern, with large and attractive show
windows.
You hear a great deal about the weather of Ireland, and I have already
quoted an old and common joke that it never rains on the 31st of
February. People never go out without an umbrella or a mackintosh,
because it is always safer to carry them. It rains in the most
unexpected way. The clouds gather very suddenly and the predictions of
the weather bureau cannot be taken seriously. But the natives don't seem
to mind it. They are so used to getting soaked that it is a matter of no
consequence, and over in the shipyards and elsewhere we saw men working
on through a pouring rain without taking the slightest notice of it.
Women who are compelled to weather the storms frequently line their
skirts with rubber cloth or leather so as to keep their underclothing
dry, and every man carries his mackintosh over his arm when he leaves
home in the morning.
[Illustration: Albert Memorial, Belfast]
The official reports show that in the year 1907 rain fell on 232 out of
the 365 days, and in 1906 there were 237 rainy days. In October, 1907,
there were twenty-nine rainy days; in December, twenty-seven; in May,
twenty-two; but in September there were only nine rainy days, which
might be called a drought. In 1906 January had twenty-nine rainy days,
August twenty-four, April twenty-three, and November and December
twenty-two each. The average annual rainfall for the last forty years
has been 33,523 inches.
The highest temperature in 1907 was 79.8 degrees in the shade, and
lowest, on the 30th of December, was 19 above zero.
Belfast is a very healthy city, however, the death rate averaging about
twenty per one thousand. It has been very much reduced during the last
fifteen or twenty years by the improvement of the water supply and
sewerage. The birth rate is very high and has sometimes run up to
thirty-seven per one thousand of population. Last year it was thirty-one
per one thousand.
On Saturday and Sunday nights we saw a good many drunken men upon the
streets. But I am told that there is a great improvement in this respect
in recent years. The Orange associations of Protestants and the
Hibernian and other friendly societies of Roman Catholics are both
taking an active part in temperance work, from economical as well as
moral motives, because they realize how much misfortune, poverty,
sickness, and death--all of which increase their assessments--are due to
drink.
I have not been able to find out how much money is spent for whisky in
the Protestant counties. There is no way to ascertain or estimate it
accurately, but the sum must be very large. But everybody agrees that it
is diminishing. There is a less number of saloons by twenty-five or
thirty per cent than there was ten years ago, and a corresponding
decrease in the amount of drunkenness. The number of arrests for
drunkenness and disorder have fallen off noticeably during the last few
years. This has given a great deal of encouragement to the temperance
advocates.
There is a much higher degree of intelligence and mechanical skill among
the working people in Belfast than in any other part of Ireland, and
the ratio of illiteracy is much lower in County Down and County Antrim
than in any other part of the island. The highest degree of skilled
labor is required in the machine shops and shipyards and commands the
best wages that are paid to any artisans in Ireland. The women work in
linen mills and shirt and collar factories.
A technical school for the specialized training of boys for mechanics
was established here in 1902, evening instruction in the applied
sciences, drawing, sketching, and the other arts, and in mathematics,
mechanical, electrical, and civil engineering, having been given for
several years in classes maintained by voluntary subscriptions from
citizens. Five such institutions were in existence at that time, having
between seven and eight hundred students on their rolls. An act of
parliament passed in 1899 authorized the consolidation of these schools,
and a beautiful building in the very center of the city, admirably
adapted to the purpose, was erected and equipped at the expense of
$750,000. The school now has a stated income of $96,000 from regular
taxation. In 1902 classes were opened with the total of 3,381 students.
At present this number has been increased to 5,064 men, women, and
children between fifteen and sixty-five years of age, representing all
classes and castes, who are studying everything in the way of useful
arts and trades. Thirty teachers are exclusively employed, with one
hundred and thirty experts from different factories and machine shops,
who give evening instruction or have special classes on certain days.
Nothing is free. Everybody who enjoys the benefits of the institution is
required to pay a fee ranging from one dollar a term upward to sixty
dollars, according to the amount of attention required. The largest
classes are in engineering, drawing, electricity, and the commercial
occupations, but nearly every trade is taught in connection with the
ordinary rudiments of English, mathematics, and geography in the evening
classes to those whose early education was neglected.
The municipality owns the building and supports the school. Sir James
Henderson, editor of the _Daily News-Letter_, who was lord mayor of
Belfast at the time that the school was established, is the chairman of
the committee in charge, and is to be congratulated upon a great
success. The attitude of the labor unions, which at first regarded the
enterprise with distrust, is becoming more friendly, and they permit
their members to avail themselves of the facilities provided by the
school. The education of apprentices to trades without limitations is
still a question of controversy. The attitude of the employers is more
favorable, because nearly all of them recognized increased efficiency
among their journeymen who have attended the school, and many of them
are paying a part or the whole of the fees of all their workmen who will
attend regularly the classes in their respective trades. The investment
is, therefore, a good one for the city of Belfast. The technical school
will certainly result in the improvement of the efficiency of the
mechanics of the city.
Belfast has quite a number of municipal utilities. The city owns the gas
works, the electric lighting plant, and all the street car lines, as
well as the water supply. The gas works have proven to be a very
profitable undertaking, and gas is furnished for sixty-seven cents a
cubic foot, with a fair profit to the city. A municipal electric plant
lights the streets and furnishes power for the street railway lines and
also pays a profit. The street railway line, however, is not a
profitable investment and is running behind under municipal management
for several reasons.
The municipality also owns a large hall that will seat 2,097 persons,
and a smaller hall that will seat 330. Each of these halls is rented for
concerts, lectures, assemblies, exhibitions, conventions, balls, and for
other purposes at a rate of twenty dollars per night for the smaller one
and sixty dollars for the larger one, including light, heat, and
attendance, and there is a good income from both. It also has a series
of organ recitals in the large hall every winter, which are attended by
audiences varying from six hundred to two thousand, who pay a nominal
price for admission--from six to twelve cents, according to the
seat--and thus the entertainments support themselves. The city also
owns a number of private bathing houses, situated in different parts of
the town, for which tickets can be bought for two cents and four cents,
according to the accommodations. These are largely patronized by the
working people, and are self-supporting. Altogether the municipal
management of Belfast is admirable and affords examples which other
cities may study with profit.
The advantages of Belfast for the manufacture of linen goods, the very
damp climate which softens the thread so that it does not snap in the
spindles or the looms and enables the fabric to be woven closer and
softer, and the purity of the water for bleaching, were recognized long
ago; and, after the revocation of the edict of Nantes in 1685, when six
hundred thousand Protestants fled from France, a party of Huguenot
refugees under Louis Crommelin were invited to come over and introduce
that industry. Crommelin belonged to a family that had woven linen for
four hundred years. He was a man of great business ability, common
sense, energy, and perseverance, and they called him "Crommelin the
Great." Belfast certainly owes him a heavy debt, and it has not been
paid. Although the Irish parliament passed a resolution thanking him for
his services in 1707, his grave in the little churchyard at Lisburn, a
suburban village, is marked only by an ordinary slab of stone. There is
no monument to remind the people of the north of Ireland what they owe
to his ability and devotion.
The business grew rapidly for the first century and a half, and as early
as 1833 Belfast had eighty mills and was producing $25,000,000 worth of
linen fabrics annually. In 1840 there were 250,000 spindles buzzing
about this town, but the trade reached its maximum in the '70s, and has
not increased much since. There are in all of Ireland about 35,000 looms
and 900,000 spindles, all of them in this immediate vicinity, except two
factories at Dublin, one at Cork, and one at Drogheda.
These are divided among about two hundred factories with about one
hundred and twenty thousand operatives, of whom two-thirds are women.
Their wages range from three to four dollars a week, and for men from
six to seven dollars a week, the week's work under normal circumstances
being fifty-five hours the year around, beginning at six o'clock in the
morning, with an hour off for breakfast from eight to nine; another hour
from one to two for lunch, and then they remain at work until six
o'clock. An act of parliament does not permit operatives in textile
factories to remain in the buildings where they work during the
breakfast and lunch hours for any purpose whatever. If they bring their
meals with them, they must eat them outside of the factory, for the
purpose is to give them a change of air and require them to take a
certain amount of exercise. Many of the companies here feed their hands
in dining-halls connected with, but apart from, the workrooms.
Even these small wages have been increased from ten to twenty per cent
within the last five years, and it is remarkable how people can live and
support families upon such limited incomes. The wages are paid on
Saturday noon--when a half-holiday is allowed, and the money is given to
the hands in tin boxes. Each operative has his own number. As they pass
the paymaster's window they call out their number, receive their box,
take out the change, and throw the empty tin into a bin that is placed
near the door for that purpose.
There are not less than 78,000 persons employed in the linen trade and
its allied industries in the city of Belfast, and not less than 130,000
people are dependent directly or indirectly upon that industry for
support. The situation is quite different there from many cities,
because the fathers and husbands can find work in the shipyards and
foundries, and thus the whole family is able to get employment. The law
does not allow children under fourteen years of age to work in the
factories, but a large number of boys and girls between fourteen and
seventeen are engaged at wages from one dollar to two dollars a week,
and much is done in the way of embroidery, hemstitching, and other forms
of finishing in the households. The patterns are stamped on the cloth
and the pieces are given out to women and girls to finish in their
homes.
The employers exercise personal interest and have a paternal policy for
the treatment of their employees, which does not occur often in the
United States and other countries. This is largely due to the fact that
generations have worked in the same mills for the same companies. Our
manufacturing industries are not old enough for such an experience.
Labor is not migratory as it is in the United States. It is customary
for sons to follow the trades of their fathers, and when the daughters
are old enough to go into the mill, the mothers leave it. The workmen
there are satisfied with small wages; their standard of living is so
much lower than in the United States that they can get along very well,
as their fathers and ancestors have done for generations, upon their
scanty earnings. Very few of them save any part of their wages. Not five
per cent of the wage-earners of Belfast patronize the savings banks.
They live from hand to mouth, and, knowing this fact, their employers
are compelled to look after them in hard times. If they did not, the
operatives who are out of employment would scatter and when work was
resumed it would be difficult to fill their places.
The work of the operatives in linen factories is very trying on the
health, because the atmosphere of the rooms is kept as damp as possible
in order to soften the threads and make them more pliable. Few of the
operatives live past middle life unless they have unusually strong
constitutions.
More than half of the flax used in Belfast comes from Russia. Only about
twelve thousand tons is raised in Ireland, and that entirely in Ulster
Province, where fifty-five thousand acres are devoted to its
cultivation. An average of forty thousand tons a year is imported from
Holland, Belgium, and other countries, as well as Russia. S.S.
Knabenshue of Toledo, the American consul, attempted to induce farmers
in the Northwest of the United States, who grow flax for the seed, to
ship over here the straw they throw away, but he has not succeeded in
arousing any interest, although they might find a permanent and
profitable market.
Until recently the spinning of the flax into thread was done by separate
companies and the thread was sold to the weavers, but several years ago
a combine was organized and many of the spinning plants went into a
trust, which has enabled them to command better prices and be more
independent. The linen manufacturers, however, are practically dependent
upon the United States. We take more than half the products of Irish
linen. The average for the last forty years has been 51.1 per cent sold
to the United States, 19.3 to the British possessions, and 29.6 per cent
to other foreign countries.
In 1907 the value of the linen shipped to the United States was
$14,970,051 out of a total export of $26,895,014. In 1906 our purchases
were about $1,000,000 less, but the proportion remains about the same,
and American buyers may be always found at the Belfast hotels, although
most of the big manufacturers have their agencies in New York.
Belfast has the largest ropewalk in the world, which employs three
thousand hands, and for years was under the management of the late W.H.
Smiles, a son of Samuel Smiles, author of "Self-Help" and other
well-known books. It is a model institution, and among other features
the firm maintains a large cookhouse and dining-room, where the
employees and their families can obtain wholesome meals much cheaper
than they could be supplied at their own homes. Such a benevolence would
serve to decrease the drunkenness of Ireland and Scotland more than any
other measures that could be adopted. Medical authorities agree that the
principal cause of alcoholism is insufficient nourishment and ill-cooked
food, which creates a craving for stimulants, and argue that if the
working people could have better food they would spend less money for
drink.
Belfast is the greatest producer of ginger ale, bottled soda, lemonade,
and other aërated waters in the world, and ships them to every corner of
the globe. There are sixteen factories engaged in that business. It is
asserted there that soda water was invented in Belfast. Although there
is no positive evidence to that effect, there is no doubt that ginger
ale was first made by a druggist named Grattan in 1822, who started a
factory here that is still running and has had many imitators. The great
advantage found there is in the quality of the water, which is
especially adapted to aëration, just as that at Burton-on-Trent is
adapted to the manufacture of ale.
Belfast has two celebrated shipyards which launched 137,369 tons of
steamers in 1907 and 150,428 tons in 1906. The firm of Harland & Wolff
launched 74,115 tons, and Workman, Clark & Co., 63,254. Harland & Wolff
ranked fourth in the order of British shipyards and Workman, Clark & Co.
stand ninth in the list.
The latter firm built the first ocean turbine steamers and Harland &
Wolff the first ocean greyhound, the _Oceanic_, in 1870, which was the
pioneer of fast sailing on the Atlantic and a notable advance in the
science of navigation. She was an epoch-making vessel from the point of
view of naval architects, because of her general design and
construction, being of much greater length in proportion to her beam
than any that had ever been built up to that time, and she represented
the first attempt to insure the maximum of comfort and luxury in ocean
travel by sacrificing freight space to passenger accommodations and
locating the saloons and cabins amidship. Since then all of the
steamship companies have adopted the same plan, and the comfort and
conveniences that are now found upon vessels have no doubt enormously
increased the passenger traffic.
XVII
THE QUAINT OLD TOWN OF DERRY
Londonderry, usually called Derry, is an ancient burgh, in which much
history has been enacted, and is unique in several respects among all
the cities of the earth. It does not look like an Irish city at all. It
resembles Plymouth, England. If you were dropped down from a balloon you
might easily imagine yourself in that driving seaport, which is
perfectly natural because everything in Derry is English and there is no
sympathy with the rest of Ireland, or relationship either in race,
religion, commerce, or customs. And the town is the property of the city
of London, which accounts for the name.