early thirty thousand people who live here not ten
thousand have any regular employment or means of livelihood. The
majority pick up a job when they can, but are inevitably idle and
suffering two-thirds of the time. Of course, the Million learn nothing,
have nothing, and come to nothing. They are scarcely in fault, but those
who ought to teach them, counsel them, employ them, until they shall be
qualified to employ themselves, are deplorably culpable. Here are
gentlemen and ladies of education and wealth (dozens where there were
formerly hundreds) who year after year and generation after generation
have lived in luxury on the income wrung from these poor creatures in
the shape of Rent, without ever giving them a helping hand or a kind
word in return--without even suspecting that they were under moral
obligation to do so. Here is a Priesthood, the conscience-keepers and
religious instructors of this fortunate class, who also have fared
sumptuously and amassed wealth out of the tithes wrenched by
law-sanctioned robbery from the products of this same wretched
peasantry, yet never proffered them anything in return but conversion to
the faith of their plunderers--certainly not a tempting proffer under
the circumstances. And here also is a Priesthood beloved, reverenced,
confided in by this peasantry, and loving them in return, who I think
have done far less than they might and should have done to raise them
out of the slough in which generation after generation are sinking
deeper and deeper. I speak plainly on this point, for I feel strongly.
The Catholic Priesthood of Ireland resist the education of the Peasantry
under Protestant auspices and influences, for which we will presume they
have good reason; but, in thus cutting them off from one chance of
improving their social and intellectual condition, they double their own
moral responsibility to secure the Education of the Poor in some manner
not inconsistent with the preservation of their faith. And, seeing what
I have seen and do see of the unequaled power of this Priesthood--a
power immensely greater in Ireland than in Italy, for there the Priests
are generally regarded as the allies of the tyrant and plundering class,
while here they are doubly beloved as its enemies and its victims--I
feel an undoubting conviction that simply an earnest determination of
the Catholic Hierarchy of Ireland that every Catholic child in the
country shall receive a good education would secure