rable, the wife being far above the Irish average. The
living room, about ten feet square, was paved with irregularly-shaped
stones of all sizes, not particularly flat, but in places decidedly
humpy; the interstices were of earth, the whole swept fairly clean, but
certainly not scrubbed. The rafters, of rough wood, were painted black,
and a rough ladder-like stair, open at the sides, led to the upper
regions. To have an upstairs is to be an aristocrat. The standard of
luxury is much lower than in England, for almost any English
agricultural labourer would have better furniture than that possessed
by this well-to-do but discontented farmer. An oak cupboard like a
wardrobe, a round deal table, and four rough rush-bottomed chairs of
unstained wood comprised the paraphernalia. The kitchen dresser, that
indispensable requisite of English farm kitchens, with its rows of
plates and dishes, was nowhere to be seen. The turf fire on the hearth
needed no stove nor grate, nor was there any in the house. A second
room on the ground floor, used as a bed room, had a boarded floor, and
although to English notions bare and bald, having no carpet, pictures,
dressing table, or washstand, it was clean and inoffensive. The
churning and dairy operations are carried on in the room first
described, where also the ducks and hens do feed. The farmer holds
fifty acres of good land, for which he pays fifty pounds a year. His
father, who died thirty years ago, paid twenty-four pounds, which he
thinks a fair rent to-day. Has not made application to the Court,
although he _might_ benefit by twenty-five to thirty-five per cent. Is
aware that the Judicial Rent is sometimes fixed at a sum above what the
tenant had been paying, and admits that this might happen to him. "Yes,
the land round the house is very good, very good indeed, but what can
be seen from here is by far the best of it. That is always the way in
this world, the best at the front."

From this and other remarks of like tendency I gather that the noble
landlord is in the habit of placing all the best land of his estate
along the high read, concealing the boggy, rocky portions in the
remote interior, fraudulently imposing on the public, and alienating
sympathy from the tenant, thereby inflicting another injustice on
Ireland.

"The English laws are right enough, as far as they go," said the
farmer, "but the English will not do the right thing about the land.
Now we know that an Irish Parlia