were offered to "Pat"
at home, or potatoes and milk, with liberty to frequent the horse-races,
cock-fights, and dances, in his neighbourhood, he would unhesitatingly
accept the latter. This may seem strange to an Englishman; but there is
no accounting for taste. That the potato is coarse food, cannot be
doubted; that it is wholesome, is abundantly proved by the stalwart men
who subsist on it, and by the ruddy health of the chubby, merry urchins
who have, perhaps, never tasted any thing else. Pity it is that the
former should be so negligent of, or so indifferent to, their own
advantage; or that the latter should have been (until lately) suffered
to grow up in that ignorance which almost secures a continuance in the
same courses which proved the bane and misfortune of their fathers. No
peasant in Europe devotes so much of his time to amusement as does the
Irishman. Go to the places of public amusement, or to the fairs and
markets, in the busiest and most hurried seasons, and how many thousands
will you see, who have no earthly business there but to meet their
friends, to laugh and to chat, and (before Father Mathew reformed them)
to drink and to fight!

To suppose, as some influential writers here do, that there is no
alternative between the possession of land and absolute starvation, is
one of those imaginary fictions often conjured up by those who wish to
indulge in what they believe to be powerful, and wish to be pathetic,
appeals to the feelings; but it betrays great ignorance of the subject
on which they propound their opinions. The condition of the rural
labourer, constantly employed by the gentleman or wealthy farmer, is
generally _much_ superior to that of the small landholder. Those men are
bound by agreements which they must fulfill--they work continually; and
although their wages are in some instances nominally very low, and in
all much lower than we could wish, still their allowances--in
house-rent, grazing, and con-acre--enable them not only to live
comfortably, but sometimes to amass considerable sums of money. You
always see good pigs, and very often more than two good cows, at their
doors. It may not be amiss to say, that, in _all_ instances, they get
the feeding of those cows for a rent varying from one guinea per year,
when the nominal wages are low, to three shillings a-year, when tenpence
a-day is given; thus, at the very highest price, getting for three
shillings that accommodation for which Mr Cobd