X PREFACE. 
Literary Society in 1881; that on ‘Progress’ 
at the inauguration of Renton Mechanics’ Insti 
tution in 1882 ; and that ‘ On the Acquisition 
of Property by the Working Classes’ as a 
lecture in the ordinary course of said Institute 
in 1883. 
Renton, of classical memory, as the birth 
place of Tobias Smollett, is a village of about 
5,000 inhabitants, some of whom find employ 
ment in the ship-building yards of the neigh 
bouring town of Dumbarton, but the great 
majority in the Turkey red dyeing and 
printing works belonging to the firm of which 
the writer is the resident partner, who has 
thus had special facilities, greater than in a 
larger and more widely-scattered community, 
for studying intimately the industrial and 
domestic life of a mixed manufacturing popu 
lation, about two-fifths of whom are Irish. 
The treatise is specially concerning the 
manufacturing classes who now form the great 
majority of our workers, but the general 
principles enunciated are applicable to all.