uable. It would not be possible for hand labour to supply the
amount of linen now turned out by the aid of machinery. It would
require three times the entire population of Ireland to spin and weave,
by the old spinning-wheel and hand-loom methods, the amount of linen
cloth now annually manufactured by the operatives of Belfast alone.
There are now forty large spinning-mills in Belfast and the
neighbourhood, which furnish employment to a very large number of
working people.[20]

In the course of my visit to Belfast, I inspected the works of the York
Street flax-spinning mills, founded in 1830 by the Messrs. Mulholland,
which now give employment, directly or indirectly, to many thousand
persons. I visited also, with my young Italian friend, the admirable
printing establishment of Marcus Ward and Co., the works of the Belfast
Rope-work Company, and the shipbuilding works of Harland and Wolff.
There we passed through the roar of the iron forge, the clang of the
Nasmyth hammer, and the intermittent glare of the furnaces--all telling
of the novel appliances of modern shipbuilding, and the power of the
modern steam-engine. I prefer to give a brief account of this latter
undertaking, as it exhibits one of the newest and most important
industries of Belfast. It also shows, on the part of its proprietors,
a brave encounter with difficulties, and sets before the friends of
Ireland the truest and surest method of not only giving employment to
its people, but of building up on the surest foundations the prosperity
of the country.

The first occasion on which I visited Belfast--the reader will excuse
the introduction of myself--was in 1840; about forty-four years ago. I
went thither on the invitation of the late Wm. Sharman Crawford, Esq.,
M.P., the first prominent advocate of tenant-right, to attend a public
meeting of the Ulster Association, and to spend a few days with him at
his residence at Crawfordsburn, near Bangor. Belfast was then a town
of comparatively little importance, though it had already made a fair
start in commerce and industry. As our steamer approached the head of
the Lough, a large number of labourers were observed--with barrows,
picks, and spades--scooping out and wheeling up the slob and mud of the
estuary, for the purpose of forming what is now known as Queen's
Island, on the eastern side of the river Lagan. The work was conducted
by William Dargan, the famous Irish contractor; and its object was to