"The decline of the population has been greatest in Connaught;

now the Commissioners tell us that in 1847 the maximum rate of

mortality in the workhouses of that province was 43.6 per week

in a thousand persons, so that in about 23 weeks at this rate

the whole 1000 would be dead. The maximum rate of mortality in

all the workhouses in that year was 25 per 1000 weekly, or the

whole 1000 would die in something more than 39 weeks. That was

surely a very frightful mortality. It took place among that part

of the population for which room was found in the workhouses;

and among the population out of the workhouses perishing by the

wayside, the mortality must have been still more frightful. We

are happy to believe, on the assurance of the commissioners, that

matters are now improved, that workhouse accommodation is to

be had—with one exception, Kilrush—for all who need it; that

the expense of keeping the poor is diminished; that contagious

disorders are less frequent, and that the rate of mortality has

much declined. But the statement that such improvements have

taken place, implies the greatness of the past sufferings. There

can be no doubt, therefore, that the decay of the population

has partly arisen from increased mortality on the one hand, and

from decreasing marriages and decreasing births on the other.

Now that the Irish have a poor-law fairly administered, we may

expect that, in future, such terrible scenes as were witnessed

in 1847-49 will not again occur. But the state which authorized

the landlords, by a law, to clear their estates of the peasantry,

as if they were vermin, destroying, as we have seen, 268,153

dwellings, without having previously imposed on those landlords

the obligation of providing for the people, did a great wrong,

and the decay of the people now testifies against it.

"With reference to emigration—the least objectionable mode

of getting rid of a population—there are no correct returns

kept of the number of Irish who emigrate, because a great part

of them go from Liverpool, and are set down in the returns as

emigrants from England. It is supposed by those best acquainted

with the subject, that more than nine-tenths of the emigrants

from Liverpool are Irish. Taking that proportion, therefore, and

adding it to the emigrants who proceed direct from Ireland, the

number of Irish emigrants from 1842 to the present year was—

1843 39,549 │ 1847 214,970

1844 55,910 │ 1848 177,720

1845 76,523 │ 1849 208,759

1846 106,767 │ 1850 207,853

— │ —

Total, 4 years, 278,749 │ Total, 4 years, 809,302

Total, 8 years 1,088,051.

"If we add 70,000 for the two first years of the decennial period

not included in the return, we shall have 1,158,051 as the total

emigration of the ten years. It was probably more than that—it

could not well have been less. To this we must add the number of

Irish who came to England and Scotland, of whom no account is

kept. If we put them down at 30,000 a year, we shall have for

the ten years 300,000; or the total expatriation of the Irish in

the ten years may be assumed at 1,458,000, or say 1,500,000. At

first sight this appears a somewhat soothing explanation of the

decline of the Irish population; but, on being closely examined,

it diminishes the evil very little in one sense, and threatens to

enhance it in another.

"So far as national strength is concerned, it is of no

consequence whether the population die out or emigrate to another

state, except that, if the other state be a rival or an enemy, it

may be worse for the parent state that the population emigrate

than be annihilated. In truth, the Irish population in the United

States, driven away formerly by persecution, have imbittered the

feelings of the public there against England. Emigration is only

very beneficial, therefore, when it makes room for one at home

for every one removed. Such is the emigration from England to her

colonies or to the United States, with which she has intimate

trade relations; but such is not the case with the emigration

from Ireland, for there we find a frightful void. No one fills

the emigrant's place. He flies from the country because he cannot

live in it; and being comparatively energetic, we may infer

that few others can. In the ordinary course, had the 1,500,000

expatriated people remained, nearly one-third of them would have

died in the ten years; they would have increased the terrible

mortality, and, without much adding to the present number of the

people, would have added to the long black catalogue of death.

"For the emigrants themselves removal is a great evil, a mere

flying from destruction. The Poor-law Commissioners state that

the number of pauper emigrants sent from Ireland in 1850 was

about 1800, or less than one per cent. of the whole emigration;

the bulk of the emigrants were not paupers, but persons of some

means as well as of some energy. They were among the best of the

population, and they carried off capital with them—leaving the

decrepit, the worn-out, and the feeble behind them; the mature

and the vigorous, the seed of future generations, went out of

the land, and took with them the means of future increase. We

doubt, therefore, whether such an emigration as that from Ireland

within the last four years will not be more fatal to its future

prosperity than had the emigrants swelled the mortality at

home. All the circumstances now enumerated tend to establish the

conclusion, that, for the state, and for the people who remain

behind, it is of very little consequence whether a loss of

population, such as that in Ireland, be caused by an excessive

mortality or excessive emigration.

"To the emigrants themselves, after they have braved the pain of

the separation and the difficulties of the voyage, and after they

are established in a better home, the difference is very great;

but it may happen that, to Ireland as a state, their success

abroad will be rather dangerous than beneficial. On the whole,

emigration does not account for the decrease of people; and if it

did account for it, would not afford us the least consolation."

In the above article, the Kilrush Union is mentioned as an exception

to the general improvement in Ireland, in respect to workhouse

accommodation. Mr. Sidney Godolphin Osborne, the able and humane

correspondent of the London Times, can enlighten us in regard to the

treatment of the poor of Kilrush in 1851.

"I am sorry to be compelled again to call public attention to

the state of things in the above ill-fated union. I do not

dispute the interest which must attach to the transactions of the

Encumbered Estates Court, the question of the so-called Godless

Colleges, the campaign now commencing against the national

schools, and the storm very naturally arising against the Papal

Aggression Bill, in a country so Catholic as Ireland. But I must

claim some interest upon the part of the British public on the

question of life and death now cruelly working out in the West of

Ireland.

"The accommodation for paupers in the Kilrush union-houses was,

in the three weeks ending the 8th, 15th, and 22d of this month,

calculated for 4654; in the week ending the 8th of March there

were 5005 inmates, 56 deaths!—in the week ending the 15th of

March, 4980 inmates, 68 deaths!—in the week ending the 22d of

March, 4868 inmates, 79 deaths! That is to say, _there were 203

deaths in 21 days_. I last week called your attention to the

fact of the over-crowding and the improper feeding of the poor

creatures in these houses, as proved by a report made by the

medical officer on the 1st of February, repeated on the 22d,

and, at the time of my letter, evidently unheeded. Behold the

result—79 deaths in a population of under 5000 in one week! I

have, I regret to say, besides these returns, a large mass of

returns of deaths outside the house, evidently the result of

starvation; on some, coroners' juries have admitted it to be so.

"Eye-witnesses of the highest respectability, as well as my own

paid agent, report to me the state of the town and neighbourhood

of the workhouse on the admission-days in characters quite

horrifying: between 100 and 200 poor, half-starved, almost naked

creatures may be seen by the roadside, under the market-house—in

short, wherever the famished, the houseless, and the cold can get

for a night's shelter. Many have come twelve Irish miles to seek

relief, and then have been refused, though their sunken eyes and

projecting bones write the words 'destitute' and 'starving' in

language even the most callous believers in pauper cunning could

not misunderstand. I will defy contradiction to the fact, that

the business of the admission-days is conducted in a way which

forbids common justice to the applicants; it is a mere mockery

to call the scene of indecent hurry and noisy strife between

guardians, officers, and paupers, which occupies the few hours

weekly given to this work, a hearing of applicants.

"I have before me some particulars of a visit of inspection paid

to these houses a short time since by a gentleman whose position

and whose motives are above all cavil for respectability and

integrity; I have a mass of evidence, voluntarily given me, from

sources on which I can place implicit confidence, all tending

to one and the same point. The mortality so fast increasing can

only be ascribed to the insufficiency of the out-relief given to

the destitute, and the crowding and improper diet of the in-door

paupers. From the published statement of the half-year ending

September 29, 1850, signed 'C. M. Vandeleur, chairman,' I find

there were 1014 deaths in that said half-year. Average weekly

cost per head—food, 11¼_d._; clothing, 2_d._ I shall look

with anxiety for the return of the half-year just ended; it will

be a curious document, as emanating from a board the chairman

of which has just trumpeted in your columns with regard to this

union, 'that the lands, with little exception, are well occupied,

and a spirit of industry visible among all classes.' It will at

least prove a more than usual occupation of burying-land, and a

spirit of increased energy in the grave-digging class.

"With regard to the diet of the old and infirm, I can conceive it

possible that since the publication of my last letter there may

be some improvement, though I am not yet aware of it. I am now

prepared to challenge all contradiction to the fact that the diet

has been not only short of what it ought to be by the prescribed

dietary, but, in the case of the bread, it has frequently been

unfit for human food—such as very old or very young people could

only touch under the pressure of famine, and could not, under any

circumstances, sustain health upon.

"Let the authorities investigate the deaths of the last six

weeks, taking the cause of death from the medical officers, and

how soon after admission each individual died; they will then,

with me, cease to wonder that the poor creatures who come in

starving should so soon sink, when the sanatory condition of the

law's asylum is just that which would tell most severely even

on the most healthy. I admit, sir, that Kilrush market may be

well supplied with cheap food, but the evicted peasantry have

no money, and vendors do not give. I admit that the season for

the growth of nettles, and cornkale, and other weeds, the of

late years normal food of these poor creatures, has not yet set

in, and this I do not deny is all against them. I leave to the

British public the forming any conclusion they like from this

admission.

"What I now contend for is this—that in a particular part of

Great Britain there are certain workhouses, asylums for the

destitute, supervised by salaried inspectors, directly under the

cognizance of the Government, in which the crowding of the sick

is most shameful, the diet equally so. The mortality for the

weeks ending January 25 to March 22—484, upon a population which

in those weeks never exceeded 5200 souls! I believe these to be

facts which cannot be disputed, and I claim on them the immediate

interference of the Government, and the more especially as the

chairman of this union makes a public favourable comparison

between it and the union of Ennistymon, in the same county. I

am myself prepared, on very short notice, to go over at my own

expense with any person of respectability from this country,

appointed by Government, and I have no doubt we shall prove that

I have, if any thing, understated matters; if so, am I wrong,

sir, in saying, that such a state of things, within a twenty

hours' journey from London, is in a sad and shameful contrast

to the expected doings of the 'World's Fair' on English ground?

_When, the other day, I looked on the Crystal Palace, and thought

of Kilrush workhouse, as I have seen it and now know it to be,

I confess I felt, as a Christian and the subject of a Christian

Government, utter disgust._ Again, sir, I thank you from my heart

for your indulgence to these my cries for justice for Ireland."

Alas! poor country, where each hour teems with a new grievance; where

tyranny is so much a custom that the very institutions which have

charity written upon their front are turned to dangerous pest-houses,

slaving shops, or tombs; where to toil even to extremity is to be

rewarded with semi-starvation in styes, and, perhaps, by sudden

eviction, and a grave by the wayside; where to entertain certain

religious convictions is to invite the whips of persecution, and

the particular tyranny of the landlord who adheres to the Church of

England; where to speak the faith of the heart, the opinions of the

mind, is to sacrifice the food doled out by the serf-holders; where to

live is to be considered a glorious mercy—to hope, something unfit for

common men.

The struggles and achievements of Con McNale, as related in "Household

Words," give us a tolerably truthful representation of the milder

features of Irish peasant life. Con had better luck than most of his

class, and knew better how to improve it. Yet the circumstances of his

existence were certainly not those of a freeman:—

"My father," said he, "lived under ould Squire Kilkelly, an'

for awhile tinded his cattle; but the Squire's gone out iv this

part iv the counthry, to Australia or some furrin part, an' the

mentioned house (mansion-house) an' the fine property was sould,

so it was, for little or nothin', for the fightin' was over in

furrin parts; Boney was put down, an' there was no price for corn

or cattle, an' a jontleman from Scotland came an' bought the

istate. We were warned by the new man to go, for he tuk in his

own hand all the in-land about the domain, bein' a grate farmer.

He put nobody in our little place, but pulled it down, an' he guv

father a five-guinea note, but my father was ould an' not able to

face the world agin, an' he went to the town an' tuk a room—a

poor, dirty, choky place it was for him, myself, and sisther to

live in. The neighbours were very kind an' good though. Sister

Bridget got a place wid a farmer hereabouts, an' I tuk the world

on my own showlders. I had nothin' at all but the rags I stud up

in, an' they were bad enuf. Poor Biddy got a shillin' advanced iv

her wages that her masther was to giv her. She guv it me, for I

was bent on goin' toward Belfast to look for work. All along the

road I axed at every place; they could giv it me, but to no good;

except when I axed, they'd giv me a bowl iv broth, or a piece iv

bacon, or an oaten bannock, so that I had my shillin' to the fore

when I got to Belfast.

"Here the heart was near lavin' me all out intirely. I went

wandtherin' down to the quay among the ships, and what should

there be but a ship goin' to Scotland that very night wid pigs.

In throth it was fun to see the sailors at cross-purposes wid

'em, for they didn't know the natur iv the bastes. I did. I

knew how to coax 'em. I set to an' I deludhered an' coaxed the

pigs, an' by pullin' them by the tail, knowing that if they took

a fancy I wished to pull 'em back out of the ship they'd run

might an' main into her, and so they did. Well, the sailors were

mightily divarted, an' when the pigs was aboord I wint down to

the place; an' the short iv it is that in three days I was in

Glasgow town, an' the captain an' the sailors subscribed up tin

shillins an' guv it into my hand. Well, I bought a raping-hook,

an' away I trudged till I got quite an' clane into the counthry,

an' the corn was here and there fit to cut. At last I goes an' ax

a farmer for work. He thought I was too wake to be paid by the

day, but one field havin' one corner fit to cut, an' the next

not ready, 'Paddy,' says he, 'you may begin in that corner, an'

I'll pay yees by the work yees do,' an' he guv me my breakfast

an' a pint of beer. Well, I never quit that masther the whole

harvest, an' when the raping was over I had four goolden guineas

to carry home, besides that I was as sthrong as a lion. Yees

would wonder how glad the sailors was to see me back agin, an'

ne'er a farthin' would they take back iv their money, but tuk me

over agin to Belfast, givin' me the hoighth of good thratemint of

all kinds. I did not stay an hour in Belfast, but tuk to the road

to look afther the ould man an' little Biddy. Well, sorrows the

tidins I got. The ould man had died, an' the grief an' disthress

of poor little Biddy had even touched her head a little. The

dacent people where she was, may the Lord reward 'em, though they

found little use in her, kep her, hoping I would be able to come

home an' keep her myself, an' so I was. I brought her away wid

me, an' the sight iv me put new life in her. I was set upon not

being idle, an' I'll tell yees what I did next.

"When I was little _bouchaleen_ iv a boy I used to be ahead on

the mountain face, an' 'twas often I sheltered myself behind

them gray rocks that's at the gable iv my house; an' somehow it

came into my head that the new Squire, being a grate man for

improvin' might let me try to brake in a bit iv land there; an'

so I goes off to him, an' one iv the sarvints bein' a sort iv

cousin iv mine, I got to spake to the Squire, an' behould yees

he guv me lave at onst. Well, there's no time like the prisint,

an' as I passed out iv the back yard of the mentioned (mansion)

house, I sees the sawyers cutting some Norway firs that had been

blown down by the storm, an' I tells the sawyers that I had got

lave to brake in a bit iv land in the mountains, an' what would

some pieces iv fir cost. They says they must see what kind of

pieces they was that I wished for; an' no sooner had I set about

looking 'em through than the Squire himself comes ridin' out of

the stable-yard, an' says he at onst, 'McNale,' says he, 'you may

have a load iv cuttins to build your cabin, or two if you need

it.' 'The Heavens be your honour's bed,' says I, an' I wint off

to the room where I an' Biddy lived, not knowin' if I was on my

head or my heels. Next day, before sunrise, I was up here, five

miles up the face of Slieve-dan, with a spade in my fist, an'

I looked roun' for the most shiltered spot I could sit my eyes

an. Here I saw, where the house an' yard are stan'in', a plot

iv about an acre to the south iv that tall ridge of rocks, well

sheltered from the blast from the north an' from the aste, an'

it was about sunrise an' a fine morning in October that I tuk

up the first spadeful. There was a spring then drippin' down

the face iv the rocks, an' I saw at once that it would make

the cabin completely damp, an' the land about mighty sour an'

water-_slain_; so I determined to do what I saw done in Scotland.

I sunk a deep drain right under the rock to run all along the

back iv the cabin, an' workin' that day all alone by myself, I

did a grate dale iv it. At night it was close upon dark when I

started to go home, so I hid my spade in the heath an' trudged

off. The next morning I bargained with a farmer to bring me up a

load iv fir cuttins from the Squire's, an' by the evenin' they

were thrown down within a quarter iv a mile iv my place, for

there was no road to it then, an' I had to carry 'em myself for

the remainder of the way. This occupied me till near nightfall;

but I remained that night till I placed two upright posts of fir,

one at each corner iv the front iv the cabin.

"I was detarmined to get the cabin finished as quickly as

possible, that I might be able to live upon the spot, for much

time was lost in goin' and comin'. The next day I was up betimes,

an' finding a track iv stiff blue clay, I cut a multitude of

thick square sods iv it, an' having set up two more posts at

the remainin' two corners iv the cabin, I laid four rows iv one

gable, rising it about three feet high. Havin' laid the rows, I

sharpind three or four straight pine branches, an' druv them down

through the sods into the earth, to pin the wall in its place.

Next day I had a whole gable up, each three rows iv sods pinned

through to the three benathe. In about eight days I had put up

the four walls, makin' a door an' two windows; an' now my outlay

began, for I had to pay a thatcher to put on the sthraw an' to

assist me in risin' the rafthers. In another week it was covered

in, an' it was a pride to see it with the new thatch an' a wicker

chimbly daubed with clay, like a pallis undernathe the rock. I

now got some turf that those who had cut 'em had not removed, an'

they sould 'em for a thrifle, an' I made a grate fire an' slept

on the flure of my own house that night. Next day I got another

load iv fir brought to make the partitions in the winter, an' in

a day or two after I had got the inside so dhry that I was able

to bring poor Biddy to live there for good and all. The Heavens

be praised, there was not a shower iv rain fell from the time I

began the cabin till I ended it, an' when the rain did fall, not

a drop came through—all was carried off by my dhrain into the

little river before yees.

"The moment I was settled in the house I comminced dhraining

about an acre iv bog in front, an' the very first winter I sowed

a shillin's worth of cabbidge seed, an' sold in the spring a

pound's worth of little cabbidge plants for the gardins in the

town below. When spring came, noticin' how the early-planted

praties did the best, I planted my cabbidge ground with praties,

an' I had a noble crap, while the ground was next year fit for

the corn. In the mane time, every winther I tuk in more and more

ground, an' in summer I cut my turf for fewel, where the cuttins

could answer in winther for a dhrain; an' findin' how good the

turf were, I got a little powney an' carried 'em to the town to

sell, when I was able to buy lime in exchange an' put it on my

bog, so as to make it produce double. As things went on I got

assistance, an' when I marrid, my wife had two cows that guv me a

grate lift.

"I was always thought to be a handy boy, an' I could do a turn

of mason-work with any man not riglarly bred to it; so I took

one of my loads of lime, an' instead of puttin' it on the land,

I made it into morthar—and indeed the stones being no ways

scarce, I set to an' built a little kiln, like as I had seen down

the counthry. I could then burn my own lime, an' the limestone

were near to my hand, too many iv 'em. While all this was goin'

on, I had riz an' sould a good dale iv oats and praties, an'

every summer I found ready sale for my turf in the town from one

jontleman that I always charged at an even rate, year by year.

I got the help of a stout boy, a cousin iv my own, who was glad

iv a shilter; an' when the childher were ould enough, I got some

young cattle that could graze upon the mountain in places where

no other use could be made iv the land, and set the gossoons to

herd 'em.

"There was one bit iv ground nigh han' to the cabin that puzzled

me intirely. It was very poor and sandy, an' little better than

a rabbit burrow; an' telling the Squire's Scotch steward iv it,

he bade me thry some flax; an' sure enuf, so I did, an' a fine

crap iv flax I had as you might wish to see; an' the stame-mills

being beginnin' in the counthry at that time, I sould my flax

for a very good price, my wife having dhried it, beetled it, an'

scutched it with her own two hands.

"I should have said before that the Squire himself came up here

with a lot iv fine ladies and jontlemen to see what I had done;

an' you never in your life seed a man so well plased as he was,

an' a mimber of Parlimint from Scotland was with him, an' he

tould me I was a credit to ould Ireland; an' sure didn't Father

Connor read upon the papers, how he tould the whole story in

the Parlimint house before all the lords an' quality. But faix,

he didn't forgit me; for a month or two after he was here, an'

it coming on the winter, comes word for me an' the powney to go

down to the mentioned (mansion) house, for the steward wanted

me. So away I wint, an' there, shure enuf, was an illigant

Scotch plough, every inch of iron, an' a lot of young Norroway

pines—the same you see shiltering the house an' yard—an' all

was a free prisint for me from the Scotch jontleman that was the

mimber of Parlimint. 'Twas that plough that did the meracles iv

work hereabouts; for I often lint it to any that I knew to be

a careful hand, an' it was the manes iv havin' the farmers all

round send an' buy 'em. At last I was able to build a brave snug

house; and, praised be Providence, I have never had an hour's ill

health nor a moment's grief, but when poor Biddy, the cratur,

died from us. It is thirty years since that morning that I tuk up

the first spadeful from the wild mountain side; an' twelve acres

are good labour land, an' fifteen drained an' good grazin'. I

have been payin' rint twinty years, an' am still, thank God, able

to take my own part iv any day's work—plough, spade, or flail."

"Have you got a lease?" said I.

"No, indeed, nor a schrape of a pin; nor I never axed it. Have I

not my _tinnant-rite_?"

At any moment the labours of poor Con might have been rendered of no

benefit to him. He held the wretched hovel and the ground he tilled

merely by the permission of the landlord, who could have desolated all

by the common process of eviction; and Con would then have been driven

to new exertions or to the workhouse. The rugged ballad of "Patrick

Fitzpatrick's Farewell," presents a case more common than that of Con

McNale:—

"Those three long years I've labour'd hard as any on Erin's isle,

And still was scarcely able my family to keep;

My tender wife and children three, under the lash of misery,

Unknown to friends and neighbours, I've often seen to weep.

Sad grief it seized her tender heart, when forced her only cow

to part,

And canted[94] was before her face, the poor-rates for to pay;

Cut down in all her youthful bloom, she's gone into her

silent tomb;

Forlorn I will mourn her loss when in America."

In the same ballad we have an expression of the comparative paradise

the Irish expect to find—and do find, by the way—in that land which

excites so much the pity of the philanthropic aristocracy:—

"Let Erin's sons and daughters fair now for the promised

land prepare,

America, that beauteous soil, will soon your toil repay;

_Employment, it is plenty there, on beef and mutton you can fare,

From five to six dollars is your wages every day_.

Now see what money has come o'er these three years from

Columbia's shore;

But for it numbers now were laid all in their silent clay;

California's golden mines, my boys, are open now to crown our joys,

So all our hardships we'll dispute when in America."

As an illustration of the manner in which eviction is sometimes

effected by heartless landlords in Ireland, and the treatment which the

lowly of Great Britain generally receive from those who become their

masters, we may quote "Two Scenes in the Life of John Bodger," from

"Dickens's Household Words." The characters in this sketch are English;

but the incidents are such as frequently occur in Ireland:—

"In the year 1832, on the 24th of December, one of those clear

bright days that sometimes supersede the regular snowy, sleety

Christmas weather, a large ship lay off Plymouth; the Blue Peter

flying from her masthead, quarters of beef hanging from her

mizzen-booms, and strings of cabbages from her stern rails;

her decks crowded with coarsely-clad blue-nosed passengers, and

lumbered with boxes, barrels, hen-coops, spars, and chain-cables.

The wind was rising with a hollow, dreary sound. Boats were

hurrying to and fro, between the vessel and the beach, where

stood excited groups of old people and young children. The

hoarse, impatient voices of officers issuing their commands, were

mingled with the shrill wailing of women on the deck and the

shore.

"It was the emigrant ship 'Cassandra,' bound for Australia

during the period of the 'Bounty' system, when emigration

recruiters, stimulated by patriotism and a handsome percentage,

rushed frantically up and down the country, earnestly entreating

'healthy married couples,' and single souls of either sex,

to accept a free passage to 'a land of plenty.' The English

labourers had not then discovered that Australia was a country

where masters were many and servants scarce. In spite of

poverty and poorhouse fare, few of the John Bull family could

be induced to give heed to flaming placards they could not

read, or inspiring harangues they could not understand. The

admirable education which in 1832, at intervals of seven days,

was distributed in homœopathic doses among the agricultural

olive-branches of England, did not include modern geography, even

when reading and writing were imparted. If a stray Sunday-school

scholar did acquire a faint notion of the locality of Canaan, he

was never permitted to travel as far as the British Colonies.

"To the ploughman out of employ, Canaan, Canada, and Australia

were all '_furrin parts_;' he did not know the way to them; but

he knew the way to the poorhouse, so took care to keep within

reach of it.

"Thus it came to pass that the charterers of the good ship

'Cassandra' were grievously out in their calculations; and

failing to fill with English, were obliged to make up their

complement with Irish; who, having nothing to fall upon, but

the charity of the poor to the poorer, are always ready to go

anywhere for a daily meal.

"The steamers from Cork had transferred their ragged, weeping,

laughing, fighting cargoes; the last stray groups of English

had been collected from the western counties; the Government

officers had cleared and passed the ship. With the afternoon

tide two hundred helpless, ignorant, destitute souls were to

bid farewell to their native land. The delays consequent on

miscalculating the emigrating taste of England had retarded until

midwinter, a voyage which should have been commenced in autumn.

"In one of the shore-boats, sat a portly man—evidently neither

an emigrant nor a sailor—wrapped in a great coat and comforters;

his broad-brimmed beaver secured from the freezing blast by a

coloured bandanna tied under the chin of a fat, whiskerless face.

This portly personage was Mr. Joseph Lobbit, proprietor of 'The

Shop,' farmer, miller, and chairman of the vestry of the rich

rural parish of Duxmoor.

"At Duxmoor, the chief estate was in Chancery, the manor-house in

ruins, the lord of it an outlaw, and the other landed proprietors

absentees, or in debt; a curate preached, buried, married, and

baptized, for the health of the rector compelled him to pass the

summer in Switzerland, and the winter in Italy; so Mr. Lobbit was

almost the greatest, as he was certainly the richest, man in the

parish.

"Except that he did not care for any one but himself, and did not

respect any one who had not plenty of money, he was not a bad

sort of man. He had a jolly hearty way of talking and shaking

hands, and slapping people on the back; and until you began to

count money with him, he seemed a very pleasant, liberal fellow.

He was fond of money, but more fond of importance; and therefore

worked as zealously at parish-business as he did at his own farm,

shop, and mill. He centred the whole powers of the vestry in one

person, and would have been beadle, too, if it had been possible.

He appointed the master and matron of the workhouse, who were

relations of his wife; supplied all the rations and clothing for

'the house,' and fixed the prices in full vestry (viz. himself,

and the clerk, his cousin,) assembled. He settled all the

questions of out-door relief, and tried hard, more than once, to

settle the rate of wages too.

"Ill-natured people did say that those who would not work on

Master Lobbit's farm, at _his_ wages, stood a very bad chance

if they wanted any thing from the parish, or came for the doles

of blankets, coals, bread, and linsey-woolsey petticoats,

which, under the provisions of the tablets in Duxmoor church,

are distributed every Christmas. Of course, Mr. Lobbit supplied

these gifts, as chief shopkeeper, and dispensed them, as senior

and perpetual churchwarden. Lobbit gave capital dinners; plenty

smoked on his board, and pipes of negro-head with jorums of gin

punch followed, without stint.

"The two attorneys dined with him—and were glad to come, for

he had always money to lend, on good security, and his gin was

unexceptionable. So did two or three bullfrog farmers, very rich

and very ignorant. The doctor and curate came occasionally; they

were poor, and in his debt at 'The Shop,' therefore bound to

laugh at his jokes—which were not so bad, for he was no fool—so

that, altogether, Mr. Lobbit had reason to believe himself a very

popular man.

"But there was—where is there not?—a black drop in his

overflowing cup of prosperity.

"He had a son whom he intended to make a gentleman; whom he

hoped to see married to some lady of good family, installed in

the manor-house of Duxmoor, (if it should be sold cheap, at the

end of the Chancery suit,) and established as the squire of the

parish. Robert Lobbit had no taste for learning, and a strong

taste for drinking, which his father's customers did their best

to encourage. Old Lobbit was decent in his private habits; but,

as he made money wherever he could to advantage, he was always

surrounded by a levee of scamps, of all degrees—some agents and

assistants, some borrowers, and would-be borrowers. Young Lobbit

found it easier to follow the example of his father's companions

than to follow his father's advice. He was as selfish and greedy

as his father, without being so agreeable or hospitable. In the

school-room he was a dunce, in the play-ground a tyrant and

bully; no one liked him; but, as he had plenty of money, many

courted him.

"As a last resource his father sent him to Oxford; whence, after

a short residence, he was expelled. He arrived home drunk, and in

debt; without having lost one bad habit, or made one respectable

friend. From that period he lived a sot, a village rake, the

king of the taproom, and the patron of a crowd of blackguards,

who drank his beer and his health; hated him for his insolence,

and cheated him of his money.

"Yet Joseph Lobbit loved his son, and tried not to believe the

stories good-natured friends told of him.

"Another trouble fell upon the prosperous churchwarden. On

the north side of the parish, just outside the boundaries of

Duxmoor Manor, there had been, in the time of the Great Civil

Wars, a large number of small freehold farmers: each with from

forty to five acres of land; the smaller, fathers had divided

among their progeny; the larger had descended to eldest sons

by force of primogeniture. Joseph Lobbit's father had been one

of these small freeholders. A right of pasture on an adjacent

common was attached to these little freeholds; so, what with

geese and sheep, and a cow or so, even the poorest proprietor,

with the assistance of harvest work, managed to make a living,

up to the time of the last war. War prices made land valuable,

and the common was enclosed; though a share went to the little

freeholders, and sons and daughters were hired, at good wages,

while the enclosure was going on, the loss of the pasture for

stock, and the fall of prices at the peace, sealed their fate.

John Lobbit, our portly friend's father, succeeded to his little

estate, of twenty acres, by the death of his elder brother, in

the time of best war prices, after he had passed some years as a

shopman in a great seaport. His first use of it was to sell it,

and set up a shop in Duxmoor, to the great scandal of his farmer

neighbours. When John slept with his fathers, Joseph, having

succeeded to the shop and savings, began to buy land and lend

money. Between shop credit to the five-acred and mortgages to

the forty-acred men, with a little luck in the way of the useful

sons of the freeholders being constantly enlisted for soldiers,

impressed for sailors, or convicted for poaching offences, in

the course of years Joseph Lobbit became possessed, not only of

his paternal freehold, but, acre by acre, of all his neighbours'

holdings, to the extent of something like five hundred acres.

The original owners vanished; the stout and young departed, and

were seen no more; the old and decrepit were received and kindly

housed in the workhouse. Of course it could not have been part

of Mr. Lobbit's bargain to find them board and lodging for the

rest of their days at the parish expense. A few are said to have

drunk themselves to death; but this is improbable, for the cider

in that part of the country is extremely sour, so that it is more

likely they died of colic.

"There was, however, in the very centre of the cluster of

freeholds which the parochial dignitary had so successfully

acquired, a small barren plot of five acres with a right of road

through the rest of the property. The possessor of this was a

sturdy fellow, John Bodger by name, who was neither to be coaxed

nor bullied into parting with his patrimony.

"John Bodger was an only son, a smart little fellow, a capital

thatcher, a good hand at cobhouse building—in fact a handy man.

Unfortunately, he was as fond of pleasure as his betters. He sang

a comic song till peoples' eyes ran over, and they rolled on

their seats: he handled a singlestick very tidily; and, among the

light weights, was not to be despised as a wrestler. He always

knew where a hare was to be found; and, when the fox-hounds were

out, to hear his view-halloo did your heart good. These tastes

were expensive; so that when he came into his little property,

although he worked with tolerable industry, and earned good wages

for that part of the country, he never had a shilling to the

fore, as the Irish say. If he had been a prudent man, he might

have laid by something very snug, and defied Mr. Lobbit to the

end of his days.

"It would take too long to tell all Joseph Lobbit's ingenious

devices—after plain, plump offers—to buy Bodger's acres had

been refused. John Bodger declined a loan to buy a cart and

horse; he refused to take credit or a new hat, umbrella, and

waistcoat, after losing his money at Bidecot Fair. He went on

steadily slaving at his bit of land, doing all the best thatching

and building jobs in the neighbourhood, spending his money, and

enjoying himself without getting into any scrapes; until Mr.

Joseph Lobbit, completely foiled, began to look on John Bodger as

a personal enemy.

"Just when John and his neighbours were rejoicing over the defeat

of the last attempt of the jolly parochial, an accident occurred

which upset all John's prudent calculations. He fell in love. He

might have married Dorothy Paulson, the blacksmith's daughter—an

only child, with better than two hundred pounds in the bank, and

a good business—a virtuous, good girl, too, except that she was

as thin as a hurdle, with a skin like a nutmeg-grater, and rather

a bad temper. But instead of that, to the surprise of every

one, he went and married Carry Hutchins, the daughter of Widow

Hutchins, one of the little freeholders bought out by Mr. Lobbit,

who died, poor old soul, the day after she was carried into the

workhouse, leaving Carry and her brother Tom destitute—that is

to say, destitute of goods, money, or credit, but not of common

sense, good health, good looks, and power of earning wages.

"Carry was nearly a head taller than John, with a face like a

ripe pear. He had to buy her wedding gown, and every thing else.

He bought them at Lobbit's shop. Tom Hutchins—he was fifteen

years old—a tall, spry lad, accepted five shillings from his

brother-in-law, hung a small bundle on his bird's-nesting stick,

and set off to walk to Bristol, to be a sailor. He was never

heard of any more at Duxmoor.

"At first all went well. John left off going to wakes and fairs,

except on business; stuck to his trades; brought his garden

into good order, and worked early and late, when he could spare

time, at his two fields, while his wife helped him famously. If

they had had a few pounds in hand, they would have had 'land and

beeves.'

"But the first year twins came—a boy and girl; and the next

another girl, and then twins again, and so on. Before Mrs. Bodger

was thirty she had nine hearty, healthy children, with a fair

prospect of plenty more; while John was a broken man, soured,

discontented, hopeless. No longer did he stride forth eagerly to

his work, after kissing mother and babies; no longer did he hurry

home to put a finishing-stroke to the potato-patch, or broadcast

his oat crop; no longer did he sit whistling and telling stories

of bygone feats at the fireside, while mending some wooden

implement of his own, or making one for a neighbour. Languid and

moody, he lounged to his task with round shoulders and slouching

gait; spoke seldom—when he did, seldom kindly. His children,

except the youngest, feared him, and his wife scarcely opened her

lips, except to answer.

"A long, hard, severe winter, and a round of typhus fever, which

carried off two children, finished him. John Bodger was beaten,

and obliged to sell his bit of land. He had borrowed money on it

from the lawyer; while laid up with fever he had silently allowed

his wife to run up a bill at 'The Shop.' When strong enough for

work there was no work to be had. Lobbit saw his opportunity,

and took it. John Bodger wanted to buy a cow, he wanted seed, he

wanted to pay the doctor, and to give his boys clothes to enable

them to go to service. He sold his land for what he thought

would do all this and leave a few pounds in hand. He attended to

sign the deed and receive money; when instead of the balance of

twenty-five pounds he had expected, he received one pound ten

shillings, and a long lawyer's bill _receipted_.

"He did not say much; for poor countrymen don't know how to talk

to lawyers, but he went toward home like a drunken man; and, not

hearing the clatter of a horse behind him that had run away, was

knocked down, run over, and picked up with his collar-bone and

two ribs broken.

"The next day he was delirious; in the course of a fortnight he

came to his senses, lying on a workhouse bed. Before he could

rise from the workhouse bed, not a stick or stone had been left

to tell where the cottage of his fathers had stood for more

than two hundred years, and Mr. Joseph Lobbit had obtained, in

auctioneering phrase, a magnificent estate of five hundred acres

within a ring fence.

"John Bodger stood up at length a ruined, desperate, dangerous

man, pale, and weak, and even humble. He said nothing; the fever

seemed to have tamed every limb—every feature—except his eyes,

which glittered like an adder's when Mr. Lobbit came to talk to

him. Lobbit saw it and trembled in his inmost heart, yet was

ashamed of being afraid of a _pauper_!

"About this time Swing fires made their appearance in the

country, and the principal insurance companies refused to insure

farming stock, to the consternation of Mr. Lobbit; for he had

lately begun to suspect that among Mr. Swing's friends he was not

very popular, yet he had some thousand pounds of corn-stacks in

his own yards and those of his customers.

"John Bodger, almost convalescent, was anxious to leave the

poorhouse, while the master, the doctor, and every official,

seemed in a league to keep him there and make him comfortable,

although a short time previously the feeling had been quite

different. But the old rector of Duxmoor having died at the early

age of sixty-six, in spite of his care for his health, had been

succeeded by a man who was not content to leave his duties to

deputies; all the parish affairs underwent a keen criticism, and

John and his large family came under investigation. His story

came out. The new rector pitied and tried to comfort him; but his

soothing words fell on deaf ears. The only answer he could get

from John was, 'A hard life while it lasts, sir, and a pauper's

grave, a pauper widow, pauper children; Parson, while this is all

you can offer John Bodger, preaching to him is of no use.'

"With the wife the clergyman was more successful. Hope and belief

are planted more easily in the hearts of women than of men, for

adversity softens the one and hardens the other. The rector was

not content with exhorting the poor; he applied to the rich

Joseph Lobbit on behalf of John Bodger's family, and as the

rector was not only a truly Christian priest, but a gentleman of

good family and fortune, the parochial ruler was obliged to hear

and to heed.

"Bland and smooth, almost pathetic, was Joseph Lobbit: he was

'heartily sorry for the poor man and his large family; should be

happy to offer him and his wife permanent employment on his Hill

farm, as well as two of the boys and one of the girls.'

"The eldest son and daughter, the first twins, had been for some

time in respectable service. John would have nothing to do with

Mr. Lobbit.

"While this discussion was pending, the news of a ship at

Plymouth waiting for emigrants, reached Duxmoor.

"The parson and the great shopkeeper were observed in a long warm

conference in the rectory garden, which ended in their shaking

hands, and the rector proceeding with rapid strides to the

poorhouse.

"The same day the lately established girls' school was set to

work sowing garments of all sizes, as well as the females of

the rector's family. A week afterward there was a stir in the

village; a wagon moved slowly away, laden with a father, mother,

and large family, and a couple of pauper orphan girls. Yes, it

was true; John and Carry Bodger were going to 'furrin parts,'

'to be made slaves on.' The women cried, and so did the children

from imitation. The men stared. As the emigrants passed the Red

Lion there was an attempt at a cheer from two tinkers; but it

was a failure; no one joined in. So staring and staring, the men

stood until the wagon crept round the turn of the lane and over

the bridge, out of sight; then bidding the 'wives' go home and be

hanged to 'em, their lords, that had twopence, went in to spend

it at the Red Lion, and those who had not, went in to see the

others drink, and talk over John Bodger's 'bouldness,' and abuse

Muster Lobbit quietly, so that no one in top-boots should hear

them;—for they were poor ignorant people in Duxmoor—they had

no one to teach them, or to care for them, and after the fever,

and a long hard winter, they cared little for their own flesh

and blood, still less for their neighbours. So John Bodger was

forgotten almost before he was out of sight.

"By the road-wagon which the Bodgers joined when they reached the

highway, it was a three days' journey to Plymouth.

"But, although they were gone, Mr. Lobbit did not feel quite

satisfied; he felt afraid lest John should return and do him

some secret mischief. He wished to see him on board ship, and

fairly under sail. Besides his negotiation with Emigration

Brokers had opened up ideas of a new way of getting rid, not

only of dangerous fellows like John Bodger, but of all kinds of

useless paupers. These ideas he afterward matured, and although

important changes have taken place in our emigrating system,

even in 1851, a visit to government ships, will present many

specimens of parish inmates converted, by dexterous diplomacy,

into independent labourers.

"Thus it was, that contrary to all precedent, Mr. Lobbit left his

shopman to settle the difficult case of credit with his Christmas

customers, and with best horse made his way to Plymouth; and now

for the first time in his life floated on salt water.

"With many grunts and groans he climbed the ship's side; not

being as great a man at Plymouth as at Duxmoor, no chair was

lowered to receive his portly person. The mere fact of having to

climb up a rope-ladder from a rocking boat on a breezy, freezing

day, was not calculated to give comfort or confident feelings to

an elderly gentleman. With some difficulty, not without broken

shins, amid the sarcastic remarks of groups of wild Irishmen, and

the squeaks of barefooted children—who not knowing his awful

parochial character, tumbled about Mr. Lobbit's legs in a most

impertinently familiar manner—he made his way to the captain's

cabin, and there transacted some mysterious business with the

Emigration Agent over a prime piece of mess beef and a glass of

Madeira. The Madeira warmed Mr. Lobbit. The captain assured him

positively that the ship would sail with the evening tide. That

assurance removed a heavy load from his breast: he felt like

a man who had been performing a good action, and also cheated

himself into believing that he had been spending _his own_ money

in charity; so, at the end of the second bottle, he willingly

chimed in with the broker's proposal to go down below and see how

the emigrants were stowed, and have a last look at his 'lot.'

"Down the steep ladder they stumbled into the misery of a

'bounty' ship. A long, dark gallery, on each side of which were

ranged the berths; narrow shelves open to every prying eye;

where, for four months, the inmates were to be packed like

herrings in a barrel, without room to move, almost without air

to breathe; the mess table, running far aft the whole distance

between the masts, left little room for passing, and that little

was encumbered with all manner of boxes, packages, and infants,

crawling about like rabbits in a warren.

"The groups of emigrants were characteristically employed.

The Irish 'coshering,' or gossiping; for, having little or

no baggage to look after, they had little care; but lean and

ragged, monopolized almost all the good-humour of the ship. Acute

cockneys, a race fit for every change, hammering, whistling,

screwing and making all snug in their berths; tidy mothers,

turning with despair from alternate and equally vain attempts to

collect their numerous children out of danger, and to pack the

necessaries of a room into the space of a small cupboard, wept

and worked away. Here, a ruined tradesman, with his family,

sat at the table, dinnerless, having rejected the coarse, tough

salt meat in disgust: there, a half-starved group fed heartily

on rations from the same cask, luxuriated over the allowance of

grog, and the idea of such a good meal daily. Songs, groans,

oaths: crying, laughing, complaining, hammering and fiddling

combined to produce a chaos of strange sounds; while thrifty

wives, with spectacle on nose, mended their husband's breeches,

and unthrifty ones scolded.

"Amid this confusion, under the authoritative guidance of the

second mate, Mr. Lobbit made his way, inwardly calculating how

many poachers, pauper refractories, Whiteboys, and Captain

Rocks, were about to benefit Australia by their talents, until

he reached a party which had taken up its quarters as far as

possible from the Irish, in a gloomy corner near the stern. It

consisted of a sickly, feeble woman, under forty, but worn,

wasted, retaining marks of former beauty in a pair of large,

dark, speaking eyes, and a well-carved profile, who was engaged

in nursing two chubby infants, evidently twins, while two little

things, just able to walk, hung at her skirts; a pale, thin boy,

nine or ten years old, was mending a jacket; an elder brother, as

brown as a berry, fresh from the fields, was playing dolefully on

a hemlock flute. The father, a little, round-shouldered man, was

engaged in cutting wooden buttons from a piece of hard wood with

his pocket-knife; when he caught sight of Mr. Lobbit he hastily

pulled off his coat, threw it into his berth, and, turning his

back, worked away vigorously at the stubborn bit of oak he was

carving.

"'Hallo, John Bodger, so here you are at last,' cried Mr. Lobbit;

'I've broken my shins, almost broken my neck, and spoilt my coat

with tar and pitch, in finding you out. Well, you're quite at

home, I see: twins all well?—both pair of them? How do you find

yourself, Missis?'

"The pale woman sighed, and cuddled her babies—the little man

said nothing, but sneered, and made the chips fly faster.

"'You're on your way now to a country where twins are no object;

your passage is paid, and you've only got now to pray for the

good gentlemen that have given you a chance of earning an honest

living.'

"No answer.

"'I see them all here except Mary, the young lady of the family.

Pray, has she taken rue, and determined to stay in England, after

all; I expected as much'—

"As he spoke, a young girl, in the neat dress of a parlour

servant, came out of the shade.

"'Oh! you are there, are you, Miss Mary? So you have made up your

mind to leave your place and Old England, to try your luck in

Australia; plenty of husbands there: ha, ha!'

"The girl blushed, and sat down to sew at some little garments.

Fresh, rosy, neat, she was as great a contrast to her brother,

the brown, ragged ploughboy, as he was to the rest of the family,

with their flabby, bleached complexions.

"There was a pause. The mate, having done his duty by finding

the parochial dignitary's _protegés_, had slipped away to more

important business; a chorus of sailors 'yo heave ho-ing' at a

chain cable had ceased, and for a few moments, by common consent,

silence seemed to have taken possession of the long, dark gallery

of the hold.

"Mr. Lobbit was rather put out by the silence, and no answers; he

did not feel so confident as when crowing on his own dunghill,

in Duxmoor; he had a vague idea that some one might steal behind

him in the dark, knock his hat over his eyes, and pay off old

scores with a hearty kick: but parochial dignity prevailed, and,

clearing his throat with a 'hem,' he began again—

"'John Bodger, where's your coat?—what are you shivering there

for, in your sleeves?—what have you done with the excellent coat

generously presented to you by the parish—a coat that cost, as

per contract, fourteen shillings and fourpence—you have not

dared to sell it, I hope?'

"'Well, Master Lobbit, and if I did, the coat was my own, I

suppose?'

"'What, sir?'

"The little man quailed; he had tried to pluck up his spirit,

but the blood did not flow fast enough. He went to his berth and

brought out the coat.

"It was certainly a curious colour, a sort of yellow brown, the

cloth shrunk and cockled up, and the metal buttons turned a dingy

black.

"Mr. Lobbit raved; 'a new coat entirely spoiled, what had he

done to it?' and as he raved he warmed, and felt himself at

home again, deputy acting chairman of the Duxmoor Vestry. But

the little man, instead of being frightened, grew red, lost his

humble mien, stood up, and at length, when his tormentor paused

for breath, looked him full in the face, and cried, 'Hang your

coat!—hang you!—hang all the parochials of Duxmoor! What have

I done with your coat? Why, I've dyed it; I've dipped it in a

tan-yard; I was not going to carry your livery with me. I mean

to have the buttons off before I'm an hour older. Gratitude you

talk of;—thanks you want, you old hypocrite, for sending me

away. I'll tell you what sent me,—it was that poor wench and

her twins, and a letter from the office, saying they would not

insure your ricks, while lucifer matches are so cheap. Ay, you

may stare—you wonder who told me that; but I can tell you more.

Who is it writes so like his father the bank can't tell the

difference?'

"Mr. Lobbit turned pale.

"'Be off!' said the little man; 'plague us no more. You have

eaten me up with your usury; you've got my cottage and my bit of

land; you've made paupers of us all, except that dear lass, and

the one lad, and you'd wellnigh made a convict of me. But never

mind. This will be a cold, drear Christmas to us, and a merry,

fat one to you; but, perhaps, the Christmas may come when Master

Joseph Lobbit would be glad to change places with poor, ruined

John Bodger. I am going where I am told that sons and daughters

like mine are better than "silver, yea, than fine gold." I leave

you rich on the poor man's inheritance, and poor man's flesh and

blood. You have a son and daughter that will revenge me. "Cursed

are they that remove landmarks, and devour the substance of the

poor!"'

"While this, one of the longest speeches that John Bodger

was ever known to make, was being delivered, a little crowd

had collected, who, without exactly understanding the merits

of the case, had no hesitation in taking side with their

fellow-passenger, the poor man with the large family. The Irish

began to inquire if the stout gentleman was a tithe-proctor or

a driver? Murmurs of a suspicious character arose, in the midst

of which, in a very hasty, undignified manner, Mr. Lobbit backed

out, climbed up to the deck with extraordinary agility, and,

without waiting to make any complaints to the officers of the

ship, slipped down the side into a boat, and never felt himself

safe, until called to his senses by an attempt on the part of the

boatman to exact four times the regular fare.

"But a good dinner at the Globe (at parochial expense) and a

report from the agent that the ship had sailed, restored Mr.

Lobbit's equanimity; and by the time that, snugly packed in the

mail, he was rattling along toward home by a moonlight Christmas,

he began to think himself a martyr to a tender heart, and to

console himself by calculating the value of the odd corner of

Bodger's acres, cut up into lots for his labourers' cottages. The

result—fifty per cent.—proved a balm to his wounded feelings.

"I wish I could say that at the same hour John Bodger was

comforting his wife and little ones; sorry am I to report that he

left them to weep and complain, while he went forward and smoked

his pipe, and sang, and drank grog with a jolly party in the

forecastle—for John's heart was hardened, and he cared little

for God or man.

"This old, fond love for his wife and children seemed to have

died away. He left them, through the most part of the voyage, to

shift for themselves—sitting forward, sullenly smoking, looking

into vacancy, and wearying the sailors with asking, 'How many

knots to-day, Jack? When do you think we shall see land?' So that

the women passengers took a mortal dislike to him; and it being

gossiped about that when his wife was in the hospital he never

went to see her for two days, they called him a brute. So 'Bodger

the Brute' he was called until the end of the voyage. Then they

were all dispersed, and such stories driven out of mind by new

scenes.

"John was hired to go into the far interior, where it was

difficult to get free servants at all; so his master put up with

the dead-weight encumbrance of the babies, in consideration

of the clever wife and string of likely lads. Thus, in a

new country, he began life again in a blue jersey and ragged

corduroys, but with the largest money income he had ever known."

The second scene is a picture of John Bodger's prosperity in Australia,

where eviction and workhouses are forgotten. If Australia had not

been open to John as a refuge, most probably he would have become a

criminal, or a worthless vagrant. Here is the second scene:—

"In 1842, my friend Mrs. C. made one of her marches through the

bush with an army of emigrants. These consisted of parents with

long families, rough, country-bred single girls, with here and

there a white-handed, useless young lady—the rejected ones of

the Sydney hirers. In these marches she had to depend for the

rations of her ragged regiment on the hospitality of the settlers

on her route, and was never disappointed, although it often

happened that a day's journey was commenced without any distinct

idea of who would furnish the next dinner and breakfast.

"On one of these foraging excursions—starting at day-dawn on

horseback, followed by her man Friday, an old _lag_, (prisoner,)

in a light cart, to carry the provender—she went forth to look

for the flour, milk, and mullet, for the breakfast of a party

whose English appetites had been sharpened by travelling at the

pace of the drays all day, and sleeping in the open air all night.

"The welcome smoke of the expected station was found; the light

cart, with the complements and empty sack despatched; when

musing, at a foot-pace, perhaps on the future fortune of the

half-dozen girls hired out the previous day, Mrs. C. came upon a

small party which had also been encamping on the other side of

the hills.

"It consisted of two gawky lads, in docked smock frocks, woolly

hats, rosy, sleepy countenances—fresh arrivals, living monuments

of the care bestowed in developing the intelligence of the

agricultural mind in England. They were hard at work on broiled

mutton. A regular, hard-dried bushman had just driven up a pair

of blood mares from their night's feed, and a white-headed, brisk

kind of young old man, the master of the party, was sitting

by the fire, trying to feed an infant with some sort of mess

compounded with sugar. A dray, heavily laden, with a bullock-team

ready harnessed, stood ready to start under the charge of a

bullock-watchman.

"The case was clear to a colonial eye; the white-headed man had

been down to the port from his bush-farm to sell his stuff, and

was returning with two blood mares purchased, and two emigrant

lads hired; but what was the meaning of the baby? We see strange

things in the bush, but a man-nurse is strange even there.

"Although they had never met before, the white-headed man almost

immediately recognised Mrs. C.,—for who did not know her, or of

her, in the bush?—so was more communicative than he otherwise

might have been; so he said—

"'You see, ma'am, my lady, I have only got on my own place these

three years; having a long family, we found it best to disperse

about where the best wages was to be got. We began saving the

first year, and my daughters have married pretty well, and my

boys got to know the ways of the country. There's three of them

married, thanks to your ladyship; so we thought we could set up

for ourselves. And we've done pretty tidy. So, as they were all

busy at home, I went down for the first time to get a couple of

mares, and see about hiring some lads out of the ships to help

us. You see I have picked up two newish ones; I have docked

their frocks to a useful length, and I think they'll do after a

bit; they can't read, neither of them—no more could I when I

first came—but our teacher (she's one my missis had from you)

will soon fettle them; and I've got a power of things on the

dray; I wish you could be there at unloading; for it being my

first visit, I wanted something for all of them. But about this

babby is a curious job. When I went aboard the ship to hire my

shepherds, I looked out for some of my own country; and while

I was asking, I heard of a poor woman whose husband had been

drowned in a drunken fit on the voyage, that was lying very ill,

with a young babby, and not likely to live.

"'Something made me go to see her; she had no friends on board,

she knew no one in the colony. She started, like, at my voice;

one word brought on another, when it came out she was the wife of

the son of my greatest enemy.

"'She had been his father's servant, and married the son

secretly. When it was found out, he had to leave the country;

thinking that once in Australia, the father would be reconciled,

and the business that put her husband in danger might be settled.

For this son was a wild, wicked man, worse than the father, but

with those looks and ways that take the hearts of poor lasses.

Well, as we talked, and I questioned her—for she did not seem so

ill as they had told me—she began to ask me who I was, and I did

not want to tell; when I hesitated, she guessed, and cried out,

'What, John Bodger, is it thee!'—and with that she screamed, and

screamed, and went off quite light-headed, and never came to her

senses until she died.

"'So, as there was no one to care for the poor little babby,

and as we had such a lot at home, what with my own children and

my grandchildren, I thought one more would make no odds, so the

gentleman let me take it, after I'd seen the mother decently

buried.

"'You see this feeding's a very awkward job, ma'am—and I've been

five days on the road. But I think my missis will be pleased as

much as with the gown I've brought her.'

"'What,' said Mrs. C., 'are you the John Bodger that came over in

the 'Cassandra,'—the John B.?'

"'Yes, ma'am.'

"'John, the Brute?'

"'Yes, ma'am. But I'm altered, sure-_ly_.'

"'Well,' continued John, 'the poor woman was old Joseph Lobbit's

daughter-in-law. Her husband had been forging, or something, and

would have been lagged if he'd staid in England. I don't know but

I might have been as bad if I had not got out of the country when

I did. But there's something here in always getting on; and not

such a struggling and striving that softens a poor man's heart.

And I trust what I've done for this poor babby and its mother

may excuse my brutish behaviour. I could not help thinking when

I was burying poor Jenny Lobbit, (I mind her well, a nice little

lass, about ten years old,) I could not help thinking as she lay

in a nice, cloth-covered coffin, and a beautiful stone cut with

her name and age, and a text on her grave, how different it is

even for poor people to be buried here. Oh, ma'am! a man like

me, with a long family, can make ahead here, and do a bit of

good for others worse off. We live while we live; when we die we

are buried with decency. I remember, when my wife's mother died,

the parish officers were so cross, and the boards of the coffin

barely stuck together, and it was terrible cold weather, too. My

Carry used to cry about it uncommonly all the winter. The swells

may say what they like about it, but I'll be blessed if it be'ent

worth all the voyage to die in it.'

"Not many days afterward, Mrs. C. saw John at home, surrounded

by an army of sons and daughters; a patriarch, and yet not sixty

years old; the grandchild of his greatest enemy the greatest pet

of the family.

"In my mind's eye there are sometimes two pictures. John Bodger

in the workhouse, thinking of murder and fire-raising in the

presence of his prosperous enemy; and John Bodger, in his happy

bush-home, nursing little Nancy Lobbit.

"At Duxmoor the shop has passed into other hands. The

ex-shopkeeper has bought and rebuilt the manor-house. He is the

squire, now, wealthier than ever he dreamed; on one estate a

mine has been found; a railway has crossed and doubled the value

of another; but his son is dead; his daughter has left him,

and lives, he knows not where, a life of shame. Childless and

friendless, the future is, to him, cheerless and without hope."

Poor-law guardians are characters held in very low esteem by the Irish

serfs, who are not backward in expressing their contempt. The feeling

is a natural one, as will appear from considering who those guardians

generally are, and how they perform their duties:—

"At the introduction of the poor-law into Ireland, the workhouses

were built by means of loans advanced by the Government on the

security of the rates. Constructed generally in that style of

architecture called 'Elizabethan,' they were the most imposing

in the country in elevation and frequency, and, placed usually

in the wretched suburbs of towns and villages, formed among the

crumbling and moss-grown cottages, a pleasing contrast in the

eye of the tourist. They were calculated to accommodate from

five hundred to two thousand inmates, according to the area and

population of the annexed district; but some of them remained for

years altogether closed, or, if open, nearly unoccupied, owing

to the ingenious shifts of the 'Guardians,' under the advice

of the 'Solicitor of the Board,' Their object was to economize

the resources of the Union, to keep the rates down, and in some

instances they evaded the making of any rate for years after the

support of the destitute was made nominally imperative by the law

of the land.

"As there was a good deal of patronage in a small way placed at

the disposal of the 'Guardians,' great anxiety was manifested

by those eligible to the office. Most justices of the peace

were, indeed, _ipso facto_, Guardians, but a considerable

number had to be elected by the rate-payers, and an active

canvass preceded every election. A great deal of activity and

conviviality, if not gayety, was the result, and more apparently

important affairs were neglected by many a farmer, shopkeeper,

and professional man, to insure his being elected a 'Guardian,'

while the unsuccessful took pains to prove their indifference, or

to vent their ill-humour in various ways, sometimes causing less

innocuous effects than the following sally:—

"At a certain court of quarter sessions, during the dog-day heat

of one of these contests, a burly fellow was arraigned before

'their worships' and the jury, charged with some petty theft; and

as he perceived that the proofs were incontestably clear against

him, he fell into a very violent trepidation. An attorney of the

court, not overburdened with business, and fond of occupying his

idle time in playing off practical jokes, perceiving how the case

stood, addressed the prisoner in a whisper over the side of the

dock, with a very ominous and commiserating shake of his head:

"'Ah, you unfortunate man, ye'll be found guilty; and as sure

as ye are, ye'll get worse than hangin' or thransportation. As

sure as ever the barristher takes a pinch of snuff, that's his

intention; ye'll see him put on the black cap immaydiately. Plaid

guilty at once, and I'll tell ye what ye'll say to him afther.'

"The acute practitioner knew his man; the poor half-witted

culprit fell into the snare; and after a short and serious

whispering between them, which was unobserved in the bustle of

the court-house usual on such occasions, the prisoner cried out,

just as the issue-paper was going up to the jury, 'Me lord, me

lord, I plaid guilty; I beg your wortchip's an' their honours'

pardon.

"'Very well,' said the assistant barrister, whose duty it was to

advise upon the law of each case, and preside at the bench in

judicial costume; 'very well, sir. Crier, call silence.'

"Several voices immediately called energetically for silence,

impressing the culprit with grave ideas at once of his worship's

great importance, and the serious nature of the coming sentence.

"'Withdraw the plea of not guilty, and take one of guilty to the

felony,' continued the assistant barrister, taking a pinch of

snuff and turning round to consult his brother magistrates as to

the term of intended incarceration.

"'Don't lose yer time, ye omodhaun!' said the attorney, with an

angry look at the prisoner.

"'Will I be allowed to spake one word, yer wortchips?' said the

unfortunate culprit.

"'What has he to say?' said the assistant barrister with

considerable dignity.

"'Go on, ye fool ye,' urged the attorney.

"'My lord, yer wortchips, and gintlemin av the jury,' exclaimed

the culprit, 'sind me out o' the counthry, or into jail, or

breakin' stones, or walkin' on the threadmill, or any thing else

in the coorse o' nature, as yer wortchips playses; but for the

love o' the Virgin Mary, _don't make me a Poor-Law Gargin_.'"[95]

The most recent legislation of the British government in regard to

Ireland, the enactment of the Poor-law and the Encumbered Estates Act,

has had but one grand tendency—that of diminishing the number of the

population, which is, indeed, a strange way to improve the condition

of the nation. The country was not too thickly populated; far from it:

great tracts of land were entirely uninhabited. The exterminating acts

were, therefore, only measures of renewed tyranny. To enslave a people

is a crime of sufficient enormity; but to drive them from the homes

of their ancestors to seek a refuge in distant and unknown lands, is

such an action as only the most monstrous of governments would dare to

perform.

We have thus shown that Ireland has long endured, and still endures, a

cruel system of slavery, for which we may seek in vain for a parallel.

It matters not that the Irish serf may leave his country; while he

remains he is a slave to a master who will not call him property,

chiefly because it would create the necessity of careful and expensive

ownership. If the Irish master took his labourer for his slave in the

American sense, he would be compelled to provide for him, work or not

work, in sickness and in old age. Thus the master reaps the benefits,

and escapes the penalties of slave-holding. He takes the fruits of

the labourer's toil without providing for him as the negro slaves of

America are provided for; nay, very often he refuses the poor wretch

a home at any price. In no other country does the slaveholder seem so

utterly reckless in regard to human life as in Ireland. After draining

all possible profit from his labourer's service he turns him forth as

a pauper, to get scant food if workhouse officials choose to give it,

and if not, to starve by the wayside. The last great famine was the

direct result of this accursed system of slavery. It was oppression

of the worst kind that reduced the mass of the people to depend for

their subsistence upon the success or failure of the potato crop; and

the horrors that followed the failure of the crop were as much the

results of misgovernment as the crimes of the French Revolution were

the consequences of feudal tyranny, too long endured. Can England ever

accomplish sufficient penance for her savage treatment of Ireland?

Some English writers admit that the degradation of the Irish and the

wretched condition of the country can scarcely be overdrawn, but

seek for the causes of this state of things in the character of the

people. But why does the Irishman work, prosper, and achieve wealth

and position under every other government but that of Ireland? This

would not hbe the case if there was any thing radically wrong in the

Irish nature. In the following extract from an article in the Edinburgh

Review, we have a forcible sketch of the condition of Ireland, coloured

somewhat to suit English views:—

"It is obvious that the insecurity of a community in which the

bulk of the population form a conspiracy against the law, must

prevent the importation of capital; must occasion much of what is

accumulated there to be exported; and must diminish the motives

and means of accumulation. Who will send his property to a place

where he cannot rely on its being protected? Who will voluntarily

establish himself in a country which to-morrow may be in a state

of disturbance? A state in which, to use the words of Chief

Justice Bushe, 'houses and barns and granaries are levelled,

crops are laid waste, pasture-lands are ploughed, plantations are

torn up, meadows are thrown open to cattle, cattle are maimed,

tortured, killed; persons are visited by parties of banditti,

who inflict cruel torture, mutilate their limbs, or beat them

almost to death. Men who have in any way become obnoxious to the

insurgents, or opposed their system, or refused to participate

in their outrages, are deliberately assassinated in the open

day; and sometimes the unoffending family are indiscriminately

murdered by burning the habitation.'[96] A state in which even

those best able to protect themselves, the gentry, are forced to

build up all their lower windows with stone and mortar; to admit

light only into one sitting-room, and not into all the windows

of that room; to fortify every other inlet by bullet-proof

barricades; to station sentinels around during all the night

and the greater part of the day, and to keep firearms in all

the bedrooms, and even on the side-table at breakfast and

dinner-time.[97] Well might Bishop Doyle exclaim, 'I do not blame

the absentees; I would be an absentee myself if I could.'

"The state of society which has been described may be considered

as a proof of the grossest ignorance; for what can be a greater

proof of ignorance than a systematic opposition to law, carried

on at the constant risk of liberty and of life, and producing

where it is most successful, in the rural districts, one level

of hopeless poverty, and in the towns, weeks of high wages and

months without employment—a system in which tremendous risks

and frightful sufferings are the means, and general misery is

the result? The ignorance, however, which marks the greater

part of the population in Ireland, is not merely ignorance of

the moral and political tendency of their conduct—an ignorance

in which the lower orders of many more advanced communities

participate—but ignorance of the businesses which are their

daily occupations. It is ignorance, not as citizens and subjects,

but as cultivators and labourers. They are ignorant of the proper

rotation of crops, of the preservation and use of manure—in a

word, of the means by which the land, for which they are ready

to sacrifice their neighbours' lives, and to risk their own, is

to be made productive. Their manufactures, such as they are, are

rude and imperfect, and the Irish labourer, whether peasant or

artisan, who emigrates to Great Britain, never possesses skill

sufficient to raise him above the lowest ranks in his trade.

"Indolence—the last of the causes to which we have attributed

the existing misery of Ireland—is not so much an independent

source of evil as the result of the combination of all others.

The Irishman does not belong to the races that are by nature

averse from toil. In England, Scotland, or America he can work

hard. He is said, indeed, to require more overlooking than the

natives of any of these countries, and to be less capable, or, to

speak more correctly, to be less willing to surmount difficulties

by patient intellectual exertion; but no danger deters, no

disagreeableness disgusts, no bodily fatigue discourages him.

"But in his own country he is indolent. All who have compared

the habits of hired artisans or of the agricultural labourers in

Ireland with those of similar classes in England or Scotland,

admit the inferiority of industry of the former. The indolence

of the great mass of the people, the occupiers of land, is

obvious even to the passing traveller. Even in Ulster, the

province in which, as we have already remarked, the peculiarities

of the Irish character are least exhibited, not only are the

cabins, and even the farm-houses, deformed within and without by

accumulations of filth, which the least exertion would remove,

but the land itself is suffered to waste a great portion of its

productive power. We have ourselves seen field after field in

which the weeds covered as much space as the crops. From the time

that his crops are sowed and planted until they are reaped the

peasant and his family are cowering over the fire, or smoking, or

lounging before the door, when an hour or two a day employed in

weeding their potatoes, oats, or flax, would perhaps increase the

produce by one-third.

"The indolence of the Irish artisan is sufficiently accounted for

by the combinations which, by prohibiting piece-work, requiring

all the workmen to be paid by the day and at the same rate,

prohibiting a good workman from exerting himself, have destroyed

the motives to industry. 'I consider it,' says Mr. Murray, 'a

very hard rule among them, that the worst workman that ever took

a tool in his hand, should be paid the same as the best, but that

is the rule and regulation of the society; and that there was

only a certain quantity of work allowed to be done; so that, if

one workman could turn more work out of his hands, he durst not

go on with it. There is no such thing as piece-work; and if a bad

man is not able to get through his work, a good workman dare not

go further than he does.'[98]

"The indolence of the agricultural labourer arises, perhaps,

principally from his labour being almost always day-work, and

in a great measure a mere payment of debt—a mere mode of

working out his rent. That of the occupier may be attributed

to a combination of causes. In the first place, a man must be

master of himself to a degree not common even among the educated

classes, before he can be trusted to be his own task-master. Even

among the British manufacturers, confessedly the most industrious

labourers in Europe, those who work in their own houses are

comparatively idle and irregular, and yet they work under the

stimulus of certain and immediate gain. The Irish occupier,

working for a distant object, dependent in some measure on the

seasons, and with no one to control or even to advise him, puts

off till to-morrow what need not necessarily be done to-day—puts

off till next year what need not necessarily be done this year,

and ultimately leaves much totally undone.

"Again, there is no damper so effectual as liability to taxation

proportioned to the means of payment. It is by this instrument

that the Turkish government has destroyed the industry, the

wealth, and ultimately the population of what were once the most

flourishing portions of Asia—perhaps of the world. It is thus

that the _taille_ ruined the agriculture of the most fertile

portions of France. Now, the Irish occupier has long been subject

to this depressive influence, and from various sources. The

competition for land has raised rents to an amount which can be

paid only under favourable circumstances. Any accident throws

the tenant into an arrear, and the arrear is kept a subsisting

charge, to be enforced if he should appear capable of paying it.

If any of the signs of prosperity are detected in his crop, his

cabin, his clothes, or his food, some old demand may be brought

up against him. Again, in many districts a practice prevails of

letting land to several tenants, each of whom is responsible

for the whole rent. It is not merely the consequence, but the

intention, that those who can afford to pay should pay for those

who cannot. Again, it is from taxation, regulated by apparent

property, that all the revenues of the Irish Catholic Church

are drawn. The half-yearly offerings, the fees on marriages and

christenings, and, what is more important, the contributions

to the priests made on those occasions by the friends of the

parties, are all assessed by public opinion, according to the

supposed means of the payer. An example of the mode in which this

works, occurred a few months ago, within our own knowledge. £300

was wanted by a loan fund, in a Catholic district in the North

of Ireland. In the night, one of the farmers, a man apparently

poor, came to his landlord, the principal proprietor in the

neighbourhood, and offered to lend the money, if the circumstance

could be kept from his priest. His motive for concealment was

asked, and he answered, that, if the priest knew he had £300 at

interest, his dues would be doubled. Secrecy was promised, and a

stocking was brought from its hiding-place in the roof, filled

with notes and coin, which had been accumulating for years until

a secret investment could be found. Again, for many years past a

similar taxation has existed for political purposes. The Catholic

rent, the O'Connell tribute, and the Repeal rent, like every

other tax that is unsanctioned by law, must be exacted, to a

larger or smaller amount, from every _cottier_, or farmer, as he

is supposed to be better or worse able to provide for them.

"Who can wonder that the cultivator, who is exposed to these

influences, should want the industry and economy which give

prosperity to the small farmer in Belgium? What motive has he

for industry and economy? It may be said that he has the same

motive in kind, though not in degree, as the inhabitants of a

happier country; since the new demand to which any increase of

his means would expose him probably would not exhaust the whole

of that increase. The same might be said of the subjects of the

Pasha. There are inequalities of fortune among the cultivators

of Egypt, just as there were inequalities in that part of France

which was under the _taille_. No taxation ever exhausted the

whole surplus income of all its victims. But when a man cannot

calculate the extent to which the exaction may go—when all he

knows is, that the more he appears to have the more will be

demanded—when he knows that every additional comfort which he is

seen to enjoy, and every additional productive instrument which

he is found to possess, may be a pretext for a fresh extortion,

he turns careless or sulky—he yields to the strong temptation of

indolence and of immediate excitement and enjoyment—he becomes

less industrious, and therefore produces less—he becomes less

frugal, and therefore, if he saves at all, saves a smaller

portion of that smaller product."

For the turbulence of the Irish people, the general indolence of the

labourers and artisans, and the misery that exists, the writer of the

above sketch has causes worthy of the acuteness of Sir James Graham, or

some other patent political economist of the aristocracy of England.

We need not comment. We have only made the above quotation to show to

what a condition Ireland has been reduced, according to the admissions

of an aristocratic organ of England, leaving the reader acquainted with

the history of English legislation in regard to the unhappy island to

make the most natural inferences.

The ecclesiastical system of Ireland has long been denounced as an

injury and an insult. As an insult it has no parallel in history.

Oppression and robbery in matters connected with religion have been

unhappily frequent; but in all other cases the oppressed and robbed

have been the minority. That one-tenth of the population of a great

country should appropriate to themselves the endowment originally

provided for all their countrymen; that, without even condescending

to inquire whether there were or were not a congregation of their own

persuasion to profit by them, they should seize the revenues of every

benefice, should divert them from their previous application, and

should hand them over to an incumbent of their own, to be wasted as a

sinecure if they were not wanted for the performance of a duty—this is

a treatment of which the contumely stings more sharply even than the

injustice, enormous as that is.[99]

The tax of a tithe for the support of a church in which they have no

faith is a grievance of which Irish Catholics, who compose nine-tenths

of the population of Ireland, complain with the greatest reason.

Of what benefit to them is a church which they despise? The grand

reason for the existence of an established church fails under such

circumstances. The episcopal institutions can communicate no religious

instruction, because the creed which they sustain is treated with

contempt. But where is the use of argument in regard to this point. The

Established Church affords many luxurious places for the scions of the

aristocracy, and there lies the chief purpose of its existence. The

oppressive taxation of Catholics to support a Protestant church will

cease with the aristocracy.