Semi-weekly herald., 1908-08-24
TOWN OF KILLARNEY
MECCA FOR TOURIST
By William E. Curtis, Correspondent
OF Chicago Record-Herald.

KILLARNEY, Ireland, July 31.-The
village of Killarney is unattractive
and untidy, but it is a busy place,
One doesn't understand why in coun-
try where there is so much room to
spare, the villages should not be made
up of detached cottages with gardens
and lawns, hedges and shade trees,
instead of sections of solid blocks that
look as If they had been cut out of
the tenement house districts of crowd
ed cities. Killarney is solid mass
of brick and mortar, with succeed
fronts, painted dingy yellow, with
out the slightest thing to relieve the
monotony Until you suddenly pass the
last house and the green fields begin
This is great tourist center, and
there are dozen hotels and boarding
houses of different pretensions and
prices. There are licensed house" and
unlicensed house, and some of them
are licensed for seven days In week
which ineduS tudt luc piopi iS.o' hA'
permission to sell whisky and beer
from to o'clock on the Sabbath day.
Cooks excursion parties come in
like swarms of bees, buzzing around
the hotels and shops where iaccs and
other curiosities are for sale and carry
off loads of queer things as souvenirs,
They breakfast at z o'clock In the
morning and are piled into great four
horse coaches by and start off on
| excursions with their luncheons in
| baskets under the seats. They return
at sunset completely tired out, but
! the next morning are off for Dublin
Or Glengariff. 1t is about as hard
; work to travel with an excursion party
as anything know of as every mo-
ment must be economical and every
body feels under obligations to see
everything. Al--t a.lu-4
Killarney is quite an educational
center also. There are several popu-
lar schools here and several monaster-
les. The Franciscans conduct a theo-
logical seminary and the Christian
brothers have a college In connection
with the cathedral There are two or
| three converts where young ladies
are educated, and large institution
| In which 210 girls are being taught
by the nuns to make lace, which is one
of the most profitable occupation an
Irish woman can engage in.
| And they nave mere school OF
housewifery, conducted by the British
1 government under. the supervision Of
| the minister of agriculture at Dublin
| Paternalism is carried farther in Ire.
land than in Switzerland. Germany or
any other place know Of, as you will
admit when you hear that twenty-three
| rpsy-cheeked. blue-eyed mavourneens
are being educated at the expense OF
the tax~ryers as domestic servants
| They are rescued from the filthy cab
ms in the mountains, washed and
clothed in neat liveries, natty little
| muslin caps are pinned to their raven
tresses, frilled muslin aprons are fast
ened to their frocks, and they are
taught how to wash dishes and cook
and make beds and do plain sewing,
and dust the bric-a-brac in the drawing
room and say "Yes, me lady" and
'Yes, me lord" and courtesy when they
are spoken to. They learn to mend
and embroider, to do up hair, to fasten
dresses and other duties pertaining to
the jurisdiction Of a lady's maid, and,
after year or SO of this training, they
are found positions in the households
of the nobility. where they Will spend
their lives as servants and marry
footman or gamekeeper, as will their
children and grandchildren genera.
tion to come after them, because do
mestic service is a profession in Great
Britain. and is followed by families
who are trained for their work.
This school is great thing for the
Irish girls in the mountain cabins,
whose lives might otherwise be hope
lessly sunk In squalor and Nth that
seem to be inseparable from the peas.
ant population. I have never been
able to find anybody to explain why
an Irish farmer piles his manure in
front Of the only door to his cabin.
1t is a habitual subject os witticism,
1ust'as 1t is in Switzerland. where sim.
ilar customs prevail. but with thou.
sands of acres of bare ground all
around the cabin. 1t would seem that
some other place might be found.
1t occurred to me. too. as I was
going through the school Of housewif- |
cry that our government might do ]
worse than follow the example II that