Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1891-07-27
LETTER FROM SCOTLAND.
Paisley, Scotland, July 5, 1891.

and not above 0O degrees any or Une
time, except the last two days, which
were quite warm. | wore three coats
most of the time to keep warm. We
passed an iceberg the second day OUT
off the coast of Newfoundland, and
the sea was so rough that about all on
board were seasick, so much so that
we did not have Divine worship that
day, which was Sunday. 1t was
the first time 1 ever saw my birth
place. and I must say that prefer a
life in good old Vermont to "a life on
the ocean wave," and especially on
the banks of Newfoundland with its
fogs and cold, rough weather. Here
we fell in with the fishing ships and
boats, large numbers of which fire.
quent this wild region of the sea, cast
ing their hooks for cod and other val
liable fish. Fish are caught here at
great depths. Sometimes when we
caught sight of a fisherman through
the fog he would be in the act of haul
ing in his fish, and he would be still
pulling and hauling at his line when
he disappeared behind the ship in the
fog. Of course we saw some boatmen
just in the act of pulling in their fish. 1t
must be very hard life, cold, wet and
rainy, and the small boats bouncing
around in a manner enough to make
landsmen think they were about to
turn bottom side up. And then a fog
is liable to come down upon them on
very few moments warning, and they
are liable to lose sight of their ship,
get lost, and never get ashore. 1t is
disagreeable enough for me to be on
a good steamer in midocean, so I'll not
turn fisherman. The view on the
north coast of Ireland is very fine.
The sun came out bright at three
O'Clock in the morning, when we first
saw land. The rugged shore with the
lighthouse, and all the whitewashed
cottages, made a very pretty picture
indeed, with the beautiful green hills
in the distance and the dark rugged
rocks hundreds of feet high along the
shore. The ride from Liverpool to
Paisley gave US an idea of farming in
England. 1t is, we might say, just
beautiful garden all fenced in with
hedge or stone wall for miles and
miles. All burrows, where they are
done with plow, are as straight as
though laid out with line have
not seen one crooked furrow in hun
dreds of miles travel.
We are stopping in this quaint old
town Paisley. 1t is a town of about
seventyfive thousand inhabitants.
About all the buildings are of stone,
and some of them are about as fine
buildings as l ever saw. 1t looks very
strange to me to see on the main
street some little one story buildings
thatched with straw, and some of
them the straw is quite new, but the
rest of the buildings are very old. The
principal business here is making
thread, ]. P. Coats & Co. and Clark
Coats employs six thousand and Clark
three thousand hands. The wages of
the women are about forty-e eight cts.
per day and they work fifty six hours
per week. Their working hours seem
odd to me. They go to their work at
6 o'clock in the morning; go out at
for breakfast and in at 10; out at two
for dinner, in at 8 and out at o'clock.
I much prefer our way.
This town is run much as St. Johns
bury is. The Coats and Clarks are
putting up fine churches, town halls,
etc., all over the town. J. P. Coats &
Co. are now putting up the hand
soonest church 1 ever saw; it would
cost a million dollars in Vermont, [
think. The people in Paisley have
great reason to thank both thread
companies for their public buildings,
churches, etc. The buildings are
mostly of stone, about the color of our
granite, but it is soft like our sand
stone, and works easily. When they
need to split a block to size, even if
two feet through, they take a tool
much like our common pickax and
chop a groove in it about two inches
deep, and they will cut two feet in
length in about five minutes; then
they take blunt wedges and drive in
four or five and break it off in the
time it takes to strike five or six blows
with hammer. About the first ques-
tlon put to us is ''What do you think
of the Mckinley bill?n They are very
free to express their opinion that
we are standing in our own light, and
shall lose the outside trade of the
world, ETC.; that we are only making
it harder for the laboring man, and
making the rich richer. have but
little to say, as I don't care to ruffie
the people [ come in contact with,
but tell them the Yankees are sharp
to make a dollar, and if the duty gives
any business large margin for profit
there will be enough to go into the
business, so that sharp competition
will soon bring the prices down, as
seen in the wire nail business. They
feel quite badly for us, but I can not
help feeling that the main reason is a
little deeper than their hearts, and
really reaches down into their pockets,
for find the thread business is very
dull, so much so that the Clark mills
are running only half time, and the
others, l am told, are not overrun
with orders. They do quite number
of ways to keep their help in the city
in dull times; one is to give their girls
breakfast for one penny; but if they
are on half time, they get meal for
one cent; l presume dinner at about
| the same rate. 1t seems strange to
have such long days. We arrived
here June %, and could see to read
the MONITOR at 1O:3O at night, and it