much to be wondered at amongst an agricultural population unaided by manu factures; but the poorest of them has at least one cow, and several pigs and poultry, and most of them have more cows than one and a horse. The produce of the farm (including butter, which those who are poorest sell and do not eat) pays the rent and other land charges, supplies the family with potatoes, and feeds the live stock abovementioned. The man and sons not yet married, besides tilling the land and cutting turf for fuel, which is commonly a privilege of their holding, are able to devote some time to labour for others, either in ornamental improvement for their landlord or upon the public roads. The usual rate of wages for country la bour is eightpence a day; and though they cannot always procure employment when they wish for it, even at this small rémuneration, yet they can and do procure enough to enable them to provide themselves and their families with clothes and other indispensable necessaries; and remember. I am now speaking of the very poorest class of farmers.

"It will probably occur to you as a difficulty to imagine how these men pay rent and taxes, if they have so little money amongst them as I have said. I was then speaking of the resources they can command for any purpose of their own -the crop is usually sold for the express purpose of paying the rent, or other charge, just at the time the money is wanted, and it is paid over at once without remaining in the hands of the tenant. I had occasion lately to inquire after the welfare of the family of one of our tenants who had died some time before. How are Peggy Doolan and her children coming on since she lost her husband ? said I to the under-steward. Is it the widow Doolan, that lives yander below on the hill, your honour?' The same.' Troth, thin, plase your honour, I seen them have plenty of elegant pratees, wid eggs galore, an' lashins of milk, an' it's hard if that doesn't sarve them, wid your honour's good word.' Such I can assure you to be much more nearly a true description of the fare of the Irish peasantry in general, than the potatoes and water above recited."

There are few subjects on which the Scotsman is fonder of prosing, than on the moral degradation, the filth, and misery of the Irish. It is not at all times and places very easy to decide what is moral degradation, and what is not ;-nor, although certainly with more ease, can a man always,

without difficulty, distinguish what is
bona fide, and in the real nature of
things, filth and misery. Is there
moral degradation in the Irish fune
In the sudden illumi
ral howl?
nation of the horizon by a thousand
The Reason
twinkling shillelas ?
frowns-but the Fancy smiles-and
while Imagination calls on Mr Moore
that "there is a fight down at the
bridge," that unrivalled Lyrist im
mortalizes it in a National Melody,
over which Beauty weeps, and Bravery
hangs enamoured. So much for the
difficulty attending Moral Degrada
tion. Well then-filth and misery.
For our own parts, we are free to con
fess, that we should rather sleep alone
than with a pig, but if the pig had
no sty, while upon her depended the
existence of ourselves, our wife and
small family of children,-then we
should feel ourselves called upon to do
as it is said they do in Ireland, alike
by parental and conjugal affection.
A pig can make very little perceptible
difference in a bed already occupied
by a man and his wife, say seven off
spring, and perhaps a young travelling
Priest. But, to treat the matter with
the seriousness it deserves, the Irish
are not a filthy people in their persons.
They strip white and well-and have
not nearly so deeply-rooted an antipa-
thy to water as we Scotch-the na-
tion of gentlemen. Saunders, in coun-
try-places, we believe, never dreams of
washing his face, except on Sunday;
but there are so many holidays obser-
ved in Ireland, that Pat gives his as
pect a wipe on an average twice a-week
through the year. We have walked
land, and never saw one young girl
about 3500 miles up and down Ire-
who had reached the age of puberty,
whom it would have been impossible
for a gentleman to shake hands with,
by the mediation of a pair of tongs. In
Scotland, such drabs are of frequent
occurrence, while we do not hesitate
to say, that there are some more dia-
bolically ugly females of the human
species in Scotland than in Ireland,
and some more angelically beautiful
in Ireland than in Scotland. But re-
stricting the argument to filth-it is a
libel to say, that the natives of either
country can be distinguished among
the other natives of Europe by that
attribute. The French are filthier, a
thousand times over; and the truth is,
that the English are the only people

a

entitled to pride themselves on their fingers, as Marcus Tullius saith; in order personal cleanliness. Having thus to see the absurdity of this proposition: summarily disposed of Irish moral We have enough, and more, for the madegradation and filth-let us attend nufacturer and capitalist to do usefully to their misery. Does it consist (we and profitably, without employing him in have an eye chiefly to the men) in grinding wheat or oats for the peasantry. having enormous calfs to their legs?

“ It is contended, however, that potaIn being able, one man with ano

toes are a lower, that is, a worse species ther, to eat half-a-bushel of potatoes, of food than human beings had heretoand drink a gallon of potheen at a

fore been satisfied with, and that if the sitting? In making love to Sheelah, quantity of sustenance be increased, the and in the calm of the evening sitting quality is proportionably, or more than at the mouth of a cabin among the proportionably, diminished. I think this mountains of Wicklow, with an enor

is altogether untrue. On the Continent, mous organ of philoprogenitiveness at

I know, the lower orders eat scarcely any the back of your head, and your body desh, and in part of the north of England murmuring with children, like a tree cheese, and onions; they'very rarely get

and Wales the peasantry live on bread, with leaves? Moral degradation, filth, any

butcher meat. I am not sufficiently and misery being thus all swept away well acquainted with their condition in the -what should be said about igno other parts to be able to say whether they rance, superstition, and intellectual fare more sumptuously, but I can affirm, bondage?' At present this much- let of my own knowledge, that the corres Mr Wakefield or Mr M'Culloch chale sponding class in Ireland, who live on po. lenge the Roman Catholic peasantry, tatoes with salt and sour milk, would as Mr Pope lately challenged the Ro- think it a very great hardship to be obli. man Catholic Priesthood, to argue the ged to exchange this diet of theirs for great Potatoe question, and a cham- the English bread and cheese, and not pion will leap out of the first bog to without reason. I have tried the expegive both Economists the squabash. riment of living on potatoes and butter

Talking of potatoes, our sentiments milk myself, and found it to succeed adof that root are congenial with those mirably. I never enjoyed better health of our worthy pamphleteer:

or spirits than whilst rigidly adhering to “ There is a strong outcry against po- this diet, though I am not apt, thank tatoes, as if they were the bane of Ire. God, to be at any time deficient in either land; in my opinion nothing can be particular. Five or six pounds of hot more absurd. Political economists all potatoes impart a genial warmth to a agree in this, (if, indeed, they agree in man's inside of a winter's day, a thousand anything,) that the man who invents some times more comfortable than cold stale new machine whereby a great deal of bread, even though garnished with such animal labour is saved, confers a benefit delectable condiment as onions or a moon his country and on mankind. Now, dicum of cheese; and, in fact, when we I have no difficulty in concluding, a for- attempted to introduce the bread and tiori, that the introduction of a new kind broth system into our prisons, the rogues of food, which enables us, with a given mutinied for potatoes, and swore we quantity of land and labour, to produce a meant to starve them. I remember to greater quantity of wholesome nutriment have read somewhere, that when pota. for human beings than we could do be- toes were first introduced at the tables of fore, is still more beneficial, inasmuch as the great, they were denied to the young, this is accomplishing immediately that on the same principle as we now refuse which the other but remotely tends them ragouts and high-seasoned dishes, to. Some, indeed, have been found to because physicians pronounced them say, that the use of bread food is advan- heating and provocative. Has this, think tageous to a country, because bread is you, anything to do with the solution of made of flour, and flour requires a mill. the problem of our seven millions ? It is er, and the miller a carpenter and smith, an idle objection, that cooking the potaand that so a whole train of arts and toes takes up a great deal of time of the artizans is introduced; but this remark woman of the house. Sorry am I to say, scarcely needs confutation at this time of that that time could be turned to very day, and we have only to ask whether or little account were it entirely at her comnot it would be more desirable that the mand; and, at all events, her time must, agriculturist could cause his corn to be in any case, be less valuable than that of come bread by simple volition, “ digito the miller and his men who should grind rum percussione," by the snapping of his the corn; but, besides, the Irish who, from their habit of eating potatoes, have trines is a minor evil, to the heaviness learned how to boil them, never allow of their style, which is enough to that process to occupy more than forty break the back of a common reader-minutes; and, as they eat but two meals has, we believe, greatly increased the a-day, the time devoted even to cookery number of diseases in the spine, and does not very much exceed that requisite we have reason to know, proved fain an English cottage, especially if the tal indeed in several cases, during English woman make, as she should do, the discussion on the Corn Question. a mess of pottage of her bread and cheese Which of them all could express himand onions. Mr Cobbett has, I fear, had self so easily and earnestly, as our some success in prejudicing the minds of friend does in the following passage? the vulgar in England against this our

“ Driving for the first time through alfavourite species of food. This clever most any part of England is quite a treat; person writes about all things with an but here, instead of the rich verdure, planappearance of minute particularity, which tation on plantation, and hedge-row upon naturally has an amazingly imposing ef- hedge-row, you had been accustomed fect on the uninformed populace ; but the everywhere to meet with, the general fact is, that he is grossly ignorant on this surface of the soil looks arid and sad-coas well as many other topics, (such as loured; plantations are but thinly scatpolitics and the planting of trees,) on tered, generally young, and not unfrewhich he yet adventures his crude though quently have a stunted appearance, as if very positive opinions to the public. As half neglected; the lands seem divided sneering and ridicule operate more power into a prodigious number of compartfully than reasoning on the class of per- ments, and that too in most cases not by sons who are likely to be influenced by hedges, but ditches or bleak-looking Mr Cobbett's writings, I wish to acquaint stone walls. In the country towns the them with the fact, that the lower orders beggars are numerous, noisy, and squalid. of this country, who are infinitely better And instead of the neat comfortableskilled in the arts of ridicule and sneer- looking villages of England, you meet ing than themselves, feel and express quite with thatched cabins, scattered at interas much contempt for John Bull's bread vals along the road, often decaying, and and cheese, as he can do for Paddy's po- always dirty in their external appearance. tatoes. I do not say this in any unkind. This is the aspect of the country geneness, but only to correct a false impres- rally; yet wherever improvements have sion of superiority which the boors dwell- been made, the vivid green of the pas. ing on the east side of the Channel some- ture, and the visible combination of utitimes arrogate to themselves over the lity and ornament in the minor details of farming labourers of Ireland; whilst, in the landscape, abundantly demonstrate reality, they are, in everything requiring that we possess all the same capabilities the exertion of quickness and acuteness of comfort and neatness as our brethren, of intellect, greatly inferior to the least

were they but called into operation by informed class in this country.

the same favourable circumstances which “ The gentry, indeed, of England are, have stimulated exertion and diffused I think, generally speaking, possessed of happiness elsewhere. The soil of Engmore plain sound sense, though not of land is brought to an uniform beauty of more refinement, than the same class in surface that is quite astonishing; that Ireland; and the men of business, from the soil of Ireland is equally capable of the lowest to the highest, perform their such an improvement, and that it would duties better and more becomingly, and amply repay the expenditure of labour are in every way incomparably better and capital requisite to effect the change, fitted for their stations in life than ours is indisputably true. It is really vexayet are ; but in the lowest class, the su.

tious to see field after field look brown periority in point of intelligence and and bare, and hill after bill naked and readiness, and all the minor qualities, rugged, when one certainly knows that which form the excellency of social and the fields might be bright green, and the civilized life, lies entirely with our peo- hills made to wave with stately woods, ple.”

with great and permanent profit to the There is a life and spirit--as well proprietors

. Would that men were wise, as truth in the above passage, which and considered this! Yet we have great may in vain be looked for through all reason to rejoice that they are gradually the heavy pages of the prosing Eco- growing wiser, and that improvement is nomists--the absurdity of whose doc- at this moment advancing with giant

a

strides amongst us. Even the most cau- exchange of money or goods for rich land cious capitalists are beginning to venture and hard labour." upon investments in landed property in Ireland, and could we but succeed in

We began with an intention of eradicating from the less informed minds giving a regular straight - forward of the English manufacturers their deep- abridgment of this pamphlet, but ly rooted prejudice against the Irish, as find that we have adopted another, a wild and savage race, amongst whom perhaps better way, of giving its chief the lives of English Protestants can be contents, by following the order of our but ill secured even by the strictest laws, own thoughts, and turning over its the perfect assimilation of this country to leaves again for selection. Thus, our England would be rapid indeed, and it readers will thank us for treating them would soon come to be looked on as a with an excellent extract, in continuadifferent and very admirable district of tion of the views given above, relative one and the same country. This is a to the character of the Irish peasantry: consummation, in my mind, devoutly to “ The character of the Irish peasantry be wished, and which I shall rejoice in- cannot easily be appreciated or under. deed if my efforts can be at all instru- stood by strangers. It is full of religious mental in accelerating. I am not vain feeling even to overflowing, yet sadly deand foolish enough to imagine, that we ficient in religious principle. It sounds are already so well as to stand in no need paradoxical, and yet it is true in fact, and of being made better, but I am most may be philosophically accounted for in anxious to prove to my countrymen, on theory, to say that the Roman Catholic both the one and the other side of St religion is apt to produce this defect in George's Channel, that we are at least the minds of its unenlightened members, apt and docile scholars, who can reward though perhaps one of its most palpably our teachers with an ample return of unscriptural errors is the supposed meripleasure and of profit to them as well as toriousness of human works. Possibly, to ourselves. That our inferiority is al. however, it would be more just as well teady greatly less than has been com- as more charitable to ascribe much of the monly supposed, and that if there be, as good, and somewhat less of the evil, of undeniably there are, very many things the Irish character to the influence of which we have yet to learn from Eng- their religious faith, than we high Proland, we are willing to profit by the ex. testants are usually disposed to do. Cerample of our elder and wiser sister, and tain it is, that however our people may yet by no means deficient in great and live without God in the world, they do good qualities of our own.

not live without his name ever and anon “ Those who have the candour and in their mouths, and that, not irreverentgood sense to examine with their own ly or lightly, but with all the appearance eyes into our real condition, rather of unaffected piety and earnestness, which than place implicit faith in vague expres. would seem to betoken that they have sions of horror and disgust against our God in all their thoughts. people, uttered with shrugging of the “ If two boatmen pass each other on shoulder and uplifting of the palm, by the Shannon, or on a canal, or two carweak and ill-informed persons, and some- men on a road, whether they know each times by those who find their account in other or not, you are sure to hear in melmisrepresenting us, will find that we are low musical Irish, ' God save you,' from a hardy and intelligent nation, destitute the comer, and 'God speed you,' from neither of the common necessaries of life, the goer. If an Irishman approach the nor of the strong desire to add to our door of a cabin, whether it belong to an comforts and our luxuries which com- acquaintance or stranger, and whatever be monly pervades mankind. If men pos- his business, his first salutation invariably sessed of capital, and common sense to is, God save all here,' and the reply is expend it judiciously, will settle amongst as invariably similar. If he meets with us, instead of a horde of starving and persons working, whatever be their ocnaked savages, ready to plunder and to cupation, he never dreams of passing murder them, they will meet with a po- them without saying, 'God bless your pulation not without whole clothes, and work. When first he sees a neighbour's fed in a manner which they themselve child, or his horse, or his cow, or anything prefer (and perhaps with good reason that is his neighbour's, he is sure to say, too) to that of the English peasant " That's a fine child, God mark it to population, who are willing and able to grace,' – that's a fine cow, God bless co-operate vigorously and well with it.'-The instances are endless, but they any man who will treat them fairly in the sometimes sound ludicrously. If you ask