ty set the law
at defiance. The Catholic, degraded as he was, durst not complain; but
the establishment of the petty sessions courts, and the agitation which
preceded emancipation, altered the matter altogether. The Catholic
Association employed active and intelligent attorneys. Those men were
everywhere: the petty sessions courts were regularly attended by them;
for the slightest transgression of the law the magistrate was hauled up;
and the poor man was shown that he had only to bring his case fairly
before the tribunals to obtain justice. While the Association existed,
he was fully protected at its expense: by the time it was dissolved, he
had acquired a thorough knowledge of his own rights; and he had ready
agents in the country attorneys, who were always at hand, and always but
too happy, for their own interest, to undertake any cause in which they
anticipated success. This, so far as the administration of justice was
concerned, the publicity of their proceedings, and the unwillingness of
men to expose themselves to actions for the misconduct of some members
of their body, effectually checked magisterial delinquency: where any
violation of the law did occur, there could be no doubt as to the
punishment.

Had the conduct of the Irish proprietors (in their character of
landlords) been taken to task at the same period, no question they were
deeply to be condemned. _Then_, and always before, the practice of the
landlord was--to lease large tracts at an easy rent to the most solvent
person he could find, or to set in copartnership, (that is, by creating
a joint tenancy in all the inhabitants of any particular town-land,
making the rich accountable for the debt of the poor.) His only object
was to secure his income; so that was accomplished, he cared little for
the welfare of the inhabitants, or the cultivation of the estate. The
peace came--prices fell,--the middlemen not occupying, were in most
cases unable to pay their rents when they could not enforce them from
those in possession, whom they had ruined by their extortion; the
consequence was, they were too happy to abandon their interests, and
leave the landlord to deal with the paupers they had created. In a few
years after the peace, the middleman system had ceased to exist; the
owner of the soil, coming into immediate contact with the tenantry, saw
the monstrous injustice and the destructive tendencies of the
copartnership plan--and it was discontinued. Yet such i