, when a "city" is to be started, the first thing is to divide
up the land into town-lots and then sell these lots to whoever will buy.
This is a very modern scheme. But in Ireland whole villages belong to one
man, and every one in the place pays tribute. Then villages are passed
down from generation to generation, and sometimes sold outright, but
there is no wish to dispose of corner lots. For when a man lives in your
house and you can put him out at any time, he is, of course, much more
likely to be civil than if he owns the place.

But it has happened many times that the inhabitants of Irish villages
have all packed up and deserted the place, leaving no one but the village
squire and that nice man, the landlord's agent. The cottages then are
turned into sheep-pens or hay-barns. They may be pulled down, or, if they
are left standing, the weather looks after that. And these are common
sights to the tourist.

Now the landlord, who owned every rood of the village of Lissoy, lived in
London. He lived well. He gambled a little, and as the cards did not run
his way he got into debt. So he wrote to his agent in Lissoy to raise
the rents. He did so, threatened, applied the screws, and--the
inhabitants packed up and let the landlord have his village all to
himself. Let Goldsmith tell:

"Sweet smiling village, loveliest of the lawn,
Thy sports are fled, and all thy charms withdrawn:
Amidst thy bowers the tyrant's hand is seen,
And desolation saddens all thy green;
One only master grasps the whole domain,
And half a tillage stints thy smiling plain.
No more thy glassy brook reflects the day,
But choked with sedges, works its weedy way;
Along thy glades, a solitary guest,
The hollow-sounding bittern guards its nest;
Amidst thy desert walks the lapwing flies,
And tires their echoes with unvaried cries.
Sunk are thy bowers in shapeless ruin all,
And the long grass overtops the moldering wall;
And, trembling, shrinking from the spoiler's hand,
Far, far away, thy children leave the land."

A titled gentleman by the name of Napier was the owner of the estate at
that time, and as his tenantry had left, he in wrath pulled down their
rows of pretty white cottages, demolished the schoolhouse, blew up the
mill, and took all the material and built a splendid mansion on the
hillside.

The cards had evidently turned in his direction, but anyway, he owned
several other v