Catholics give nine thousand children gratuitous instruction in the various schools, and the Protestants have done much, their schools being liberally endowed, and probably it would not be exaggeration to say, that in no city in the kingdom of like population would more people among the poorer classes be found who could read, than in Cork. The convents, too, have done nobly in this respect, educating a multitude of children of the poor without any compensation. J. Windell has justly said, that "the great majority of the working class are all literate, and generally acquainted with the elements of knowledge; the middle classes, in intelligence, and in the acquisition of solid as well as graceful information, are entitled to a very distinguished place." The Royal Cork Institution has a library of from five to six thousand volumes, the Cork Library has nine thousand volumes, and the Cork Mechanics' Institute has a small one, beside private libraries of considerable note. It may be doubtful whether it can be said that, as in the one in Belfast, there are in it no works of fiction. The summer of 1848 found the city rallying a little from the fearful effects of the famine; for in a county so large, embracing so much sea-coast, marshy ground, &c, there must be found many poor in the best times in Ireland. The Friends' Society, connected with the Dublin Central Committee, acted with untiring efficiency; and Theobald Mathew labored for months in giving out American donations which were intrusted to him. The nuns, too, had children to a great amount, whom they daily
