I have heard of one old woman who sat up of nights last year knitting socks to send up to London, to pay the Christmas dues to the Father,--six shillings' worth." "And are these stuffs here in the hotel made for the agency you speak of ?" "Oh no; these are just made by women that know the hotel, and Mr.
Robinson here, he kindly takes in the stuffs.

You see the name of every woman on every one of them that made it, and the price.

If a stranger buys some, he pays the money to Mr.Robinson, and so it goes to the women, and no commission charged." The "stuffs" are certainly excellent, very evenly woven; and the patterns, all devised, I am told, by the women themselves, very simple and tasteful.

The only dyes used are got by the women also from the sea-weeds and the kelp, which must be counted among the resources of the place.

The browns and ochres thus produced are both soft and vivid; while nothing can be better than a peculiar warm grey, produced by a skilful mingling of the undyed wools.
"What, then, causes the distress for which the name of Gweedore is a synonym ?" I asked.
"It doesn't exist," responded my Galwegian; "that is, there is no such distress in Gweedore as you find in Connemara, for instance;[14] but what distress there is in Gweedore is due much more to the habits the people have been getting into of late years, and to the idleness of them, than to any pressure of the rents you hear about, or even to the poverty of the soil.