The Irish standard., 1906-03-03

SOL
It stands much in need of modern inn
provemehts, and I am going to do my
best to give them everything that Is
going. / believe much can be done for
the place by the application of modern
methods Of industry and hope to in
stitute a number of radical reforms
which will make for better conditions
generally. And yet, Of. course, l am
loath to take any step that might de-
stroy or in any way mar the ancient
beauty and repose that one sees in
every old house in the village. 1t is a
dreamy old town. Tom Moore loved
it, and the Shannon River in that
neighborhood is q subject of O number
OF his sweetest songs. l would do
nothing that could in any way change
it's general appearance as it stands to-
day and as knew it in my boyhood
and my father and grandfather before
me. There has not been q new house
built in Antrim for generations. Every
thing stands just as it did one, two,
perhaps three hundred years ago.
DO you suppose I would clean up
the ruins of that old castle where l
played marbles when was Il truant
schoolboy, where all truant schoolboys
Of Leitrim have played marbles for
hundreds of years, and where, on
moonlight nights. when they had grown
older, they have walked and whispered
with their sweethearts? No, if l touch
the castle at all it will be to restore
it stone for stone rs it stood more than
IL thousand years ago in the days Of
the Prince of Branffny. l want to in
troduce sanitary plumbing, n modern
sewerage system and electric lights
into the place, but I do not want to
disturb any of dear old Leitrim's
ghosts. The place is full Of them, and
they are as dear to me as they are
today to the small boys and girls who
stand in fear and trembling at the
mention of them and their capers in
the ruins on moonless nights. Whether
] can do both do not know, and I viii
not know until have made the cx-
pertinent"
Mr., O'Connor ana his wife and
daughter expect to take formal pos
session of their feudal town and castle
early in the coming summer.
Robert Hughes story is the very OPP
positc of Michael O'Connor's. Wealthy,
too. he is today, to be sure. wealthy
beyond the dreams of avarice. but,
unlike his brother in good fortune, he
did not earn it. 1t came to him like 9.
windfall from heaven, houses and lands
and three million dollars in cash. 4
poor silk weaver. toiling all day long,
and barely keeping the wolf from the
door these m2nv years past. Robert
Hughes is today one of the landed pro-
prietors of Belfast. For ten years he
has lived with his little family in Il
plain little wooden house in the mill
village of Lodi, near Paterson. N. J.
ono of the finest mansions in the most
aristocratic quarter Of the Irish capital
Until two weeks ago Robert Hughes
never dreamed that he would be other
than hard working silk weaver. The
widest dream he INDUCED IN was that
Of an era which would know no strikes
,tS no vil mill ~,
which he has been earning his liveli-
hood ever since he arrived, which, as
as been stated before, was just three
weeks after Michael O'Connor Of Lett
rim had stepped Off the gang plank. For
Robert Hughes has suffered bitterly
from the privations incident to the fire.
tories Of Paterson.
Hughes fortune he .inherits from a
distant relative. John Hughes. Esq,
merchant, Of Belfast, recently dead
leaving a fortune of 100000 in casl,
ami much valuable real estate in Eel.
fast and the surrounding country.
J1uSAcS 10 tlIIlS .cISul SciES OII-
three years older than Michael O'Con-
nor He learned to weave silk in the
factories of Belfast long before he left
Ireland. He has worked hard all his
life. always at silk weaving. By virtue
Of intelligence and industry he was pro-
NOTED something like five years ago to
the position of foreman. His pay is, or
was. SIS q week. He has Il wife and
two children to support, and by strict
economy he was able to lay by enough,
to buy little house. Two tiny rooms
= downstairs and two upstairs. with q
small porch in the front-that is the
sort of house Robert Hughes has been
living in in Lodi. The Belfast mansion
ne has fallen heir to contains thirty
eight spacious chambers. any one OF
which would almost be larger than the
little house in Lodi. In Lodi Robcr
Hughes had one fire, that which glowet
in the kitchen stove. In Belfast there
are twenty-five great open hearth.
wherein the logs are wont to blaze
all day long.
How does man take the sudder
accession of good fortune? Gossip |!
rife in the Paterson mills these day!
anent Robert Hughes manner of doinl
so Rut better than all their tales 4