ACHILL ISLANDERS.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR." j SIE,—Dr. Wynne's letter in the Spectator of July 19th is so admirable and truthful that I would emphatically endorse it. The inhabitants of out-of-the-way parts of Ireland I have always found personally enthusiastic in favour of our late good Queen, and I am convinced that did more " Royalties " reside there, travel there, and mix with the people, Irish troubles would soon dwindle and die of inanition. This was the opinion of my late father-in-law, Canon Hartrick, a well- known and thorough Irishman, which he, in and out of season, never tired of reiterating. Last year I spent the autumn in Achill, a place about the most behind-the-times in the whole of Ireland, but where the sentiments indicated by Dr. Wynne were noticeably present. The poverty at the Dooagh side of the island is great. The people live in huts of beach stones with turf roofs kept in place from the winds, which are very prevalent, by hay bands or ropes, to the end of which heavy stones are tied. A small potato patch around this one-room structuie, with the few pounds won by the breadwinners' harvesting in Scotland or the North of England, constitute in the great majority of cases the whole means of subsistence. They fish some of them, not many, but their fishing gear and rude canvas-covered canoes are most primitive, and so they catch comparatively little of the fish with which their circling sea abounds, and even if they did catch fish in commercial quantities, I do not know what they could do with it, the nearest railway station being fourteen miles distant, and no ice procurable. The squalor in these huts is quite indescribable. I have seen from one small hut issue in the early morning some geese, hens, a cow and calf, a horse and foal, several children, and the man and wife. All had passed the night there, and only one bed was discernible. The clothing of the islanders is chiefly noticeable by its deficiency. Children had often only one scanty garment on, and the climate can never be designated as hot. Our party left behind all the clothes we possibly could spare, and as we are going there again early next month perhaps some of your readers would kindly send us cast., off clothes to take over with us for distribution. Any parcels or boxes sent to J. Harris Stone, 12 Oxford and Cambridge Mansions, Edgware Road ; to Mrs. Wellbeloved, 39 Upper Berkeley Street, W.; or to Philip Gosse, 17 Hanover Terrace, Regent's Park, N.W., will be thankfully received for this good object. The long-drawn-out discussion about the Harris tweed cottager& in the Times, and the descriptions of the squalor in that part, of Scotland, make one smile, and show how unknown is the worse poverty of Achill. This sort of charity is better than money doles ; it has that personal touch which is just suited to the character of the recipients, and I need hardly say that the gifts have even then to be made with tactfulness, for the Achill Islanders possess all those some- what, proud and independent Irish traits which are delightful to notice, and which invariably inspire respect and admire-
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