able number of labourers, to
each of whom they give an excellent cottage, an acre of land, and
the grass of a cow, with work all the year round at seven shillings
a week. The tenants are most comfortable and most grateful, while the
praise of those landlords is in the mouths of the peasantry all round
the country. But these considerate landlords are in a minority. As a
rule, on the estates where the improvement system is going on, where
farms are being consolidated, and grazing supersedes tillage, an iron
pressure weighs upon the labouring classes, crushing them out of
the country. It is a cold, hard, calculating, far-reaching system of
inhumanity, which makes the peasant afraid to harbour his own flesh
and blood. It compels the grandmother to shut the door in the face of
the poor homeless orphan, lest the improving agent should hear of the
act of sheltering him from the pitiless storm, not more pitiless than
the agent himself. The system of terrorism established by the threats
of eviction de-humanizes a people remarkable for their hospitality to
the poor. Mr. Thomas Crosbie, of Cork, a gentleman whom I believe to
be as truthful and honourable as any agent in Ireland, gives appalling
illustrations of this in his account of 'The Lansdowne Estates,'
published in 1858. Mr. Trench has given the English public several
pretty little romances about these estates; but he omitted some
realities that ought to have impressed themselves upon his memory as
deeply as any of his adventures. Mr. Crosbie found that the 'rules
of the estate,' which were rigidly enforced, forbid tenants to build
houses for their labourers, 'the consequence of which was that men and
women servants, no matter how great the number, must live under one
roof.' The rules forbid marriage without the agent's permission. A
young couple got married, and were chased away to America; and 'the
two fathers-in-law were not merely warned; they were punished for
harbouring their son and daughter, by a fine of a gale of rent.' It
was a rule 'that no stranger be lodged or harboured in any house
upon the estate, lest he should become sick or idle, or in some way
chargeable upon the poor-rates.' 'Several were warned and punished for
giving lodging to a brother-in-law, a daughter,' &c. 'A poor widow got
her daughter married without the necessary permission; she was served
with a notice to quit, which was withdrawn on the payment of three
gales of rent.' Mr. Crosbie gives a numb