It has lately been proved by indisputable evidence, that the present
condition of the peasantry of Ireland is much superior, to that of the
population of the same island some centuries ago, when the number of
people did not exceed one million. Spenser describes them as inhabiting
"sties rather than houses, which is the chiefest cause of the farmer's
so beastly manner of living and savage condition, lying and living
together with his beast, in one house, in one room, in one bed, that is
clean straw, or rather a foul dunghill."
In 1712, Dobbs, a man particularly conversant with the general condition
of Ireland, estimated that its population had increased 200,000. He
states that "the common people are very poorly clothed, go barelegged
half the year, and very rarely taste of that flesh meat with which we so
much abound, but are pinched in every article of life."
In 1762, Sir William Petty computed that the inhabitants of Ireland
amounted to about one million three hundred thousand. Their habitations,
he says, "are lamentable wretched cabins, such as themselves could make
in three or four days, not worth five shillings the building, and filthy
and disgusting to a degree, which renders it necessary for us to refrain
from quoting his description. Out of the 200,000 houses of Ireland,"
says he, "160,000 are wretched cabins, without chimney, window, or door
shut, even worse than those of the savages of America." Their food at
the same period, consisted "of cakes, whereof a penny serves for each a
week; potatoes from August till May; mussels, cockles, and oysters, near
the sea; eggs and butter made very rancid by keeping in bogs; as for
flesh they seldom eat it; they can content themselves with potatoes."
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