it appears, a dinner of abundant potatoes and
milk is a perfect meal, containing all the constituents of human
food--fat, starch, acids, and so forth.

Thus many of the tenants were, as they call it, "snug." Satisfied
with little, they rubbed on contentedly enough, only the more
adventurous spirits going to England for the harvesting. Then came
serious changes. The rent of the five-pound holdings was raised to
seven pounds, and the mountain was taken away. The poor people
protested that they had nothing to feed their few animals upon on the
paltry holdings of which a couple of acres might be available for
tillage, a couple more for grass, and the remaining two or three good
for hardly anything. An answer was given to them. If they must have
the mountain they must pay for it--practically another rise in the
rent. To this they agreed perforce, and even to the extraordinary
condition that during a month or six weeks of the breeding season for
grouse they should drive their tiny flocks or herds off the mountain
and on to their holdings, in order that the game might not be
disturbed at a critical period. I hear that for the last year rents
have fallen into arrear, and that the beasts of those who have not
paid up have just been driven off the mountain.

I have cited this case as one of the proofs in my hands that the
country is not overpopulated, as has been so frequently stated. I
drove over part of the estate mentioned, and questioned some of the
people as to the accuracy of the story already told to me, and the
agreement was so general that I am obliged to give credence to it. To
talk of over-population in a country with perhaps half-a-dozen houses
per square mile, is absurd. What is called over-population would be
more accurately described as local congestion of population. The
people who in their little way were graziers and raisers of stock have
been deprived of their cattle run, and having no ground to raise
turnips upon, cannot resort to artificial feeding. What was originally
intended to serve as a little homestead to raise food on for
themselves is all they have left, and it is now said that they are
crowded together. It would be more correct to say that they have been
driven together like rats in the corner of a pit. As one steps out of
one of their cabins the eye ranges over a vast extent of hill, valley,
and lake--as fair a prospect as could be gazed upon. Yet the few
wretched inhabitants are cooped within th