She was telling me that she could not keep goin' any more, lacking the help of the boys, though she had worked her fingers to the bone.

"Surely it's a crool job, Mr Amos," she says, "that the Goavernment should tak baith my laddies, and I'll maybe never see them again, and let the Irish gang free and tak the bread frae our mouth.

At the gasworks across the road they took on a hundred Irish last week, and every yin o' them as young and well set up as you would ask to see.

And my wee Davie, him that's in Germany, had aye a weak chest, and Jimmy was troubled wi' a bowel complaint.

That's surely no justice!".