ABSTRACT

AS the town continued to grow, the separate groups formerly distinct elements of the local population tended to merge into one. The colliers mixed more with those who worked in other industries, though the Irish for long remained anathema to them ; the immigrant Catholics intermarried with the local Catholic population, though here again deep-seated prejudices had to be broken down ; the glassmakers became an integral part of the town as their occupation became less nomadic. Gradually, the different sections of the community came to ignore, if not to forget, their own individual backgrounds and developed a new outlook dictated by conditions then prevailing in the town rather than by prejudices inherited from the past. As new generations grew up, this broader outlook became generally accepted.