s the soldier immediately sank down in
his former position, and unbroken sleep reigned throughout the cave."
The influence on the warm imaginations of an ignorant people, of such
fictions concocted by vagrant mendicants, is very pernicious. They fill
their minds with the most palpable absurdities, and, what is worse, with
opinions, which, besides being injurious to those who receive them, in
every instance insure for those who propagate them a cordial and kind
reception.

These mendicants consequently pander, for their own selfish ends, to the
prejudices of the ignorant, which they nourish and draw out in a
manner that has in no slight degree been subversive of the peace of the
country. Scarcely any political circumstance occurs which they do not
immediately seize upon and twist to their own purposes, or, in other
words, to the opinions of those from whom they derive their support.
When our present police first appeared in their uniforms and black
belts, another prophecy, forsooth, was fulfilled. Immediately before the
downfall of heresy, a body of "Black Militia" was to appear; the police,
then, are the black militia, and the people consider themselves another
step nearer the consummation of their vague speculations.

In the year Ninety-eight, the Irish mendicants were active agents,
clever spies, and expert messengers on the part of the people; and to
this day they carry falsehood, and the materials of outrage in its worst
shape, into the bosom of peaceable families, who would, otherwise, never
become connected with a system which is calculated to bring ruin and
destruction upon those who permit themselves to join it.

This evil, and it is no trifling one, would, by the introduction of
poor-laws, be utterly abolished, the people would not only be more
easily improved, but education, when received, would not be corrupted
by the infusion into it of such ingredients as the above. In many other
points of view, the confirmed and hackneyed mendicants of Ireland are a
great evil to the morals of the people. We could easily detail them, but
such not being our object at present, we will now dismiss the subject of
poor-laws, and resume our narrative.

Far--far different from this description of impostors, were Owen
M'Carthy and his family. Their misfortunes were not the consequences
of negligence or misconduct on their own part. They struggled long but
unavailingly against high rents and low markets; against neglect on the