than by patient and persevering industry.

We need scarcely say how much the sympathy expressed for his situation,
and the abuse heaped on his landlord, tend to confirm the Irish peasant
in his bad habits. Articles from the English press, and not extracts
from the gospel, form the texts of the sermons which are delivered for
his instruction: the object of the preacher is not to remove his
prejudices, or to eradicate his faults; but to excite his animosities,
and to extract his shillings: when peace and mercy are inculcated, it is
not because they are commanded, but because they may be expedient.

In those parts in which there are no resident gentry to employ them, to
set them an example, and to enforce a respect for the laws, the
peasantry indulge in idleness, and engage in politics. They work at home
only when it suits their convenience or inclination, and from others
they can only procure work (at prices for which they will work) in the
harvest and spring. In summer, after they have planted their crops, and
made their turf, and set the milk of their cow, (if they have one,) they
shut up their houses, send their wives and their families to beg, and
betake themselves to England or Scotland to reap the harvest. There,
until of late years, they earned the almost incredible sums of L16,
sometimes of L20--latterly, competition and other causes have reduced
the amount to, on the average, between L4 and L5. Out of this, on their
return, they pay the rent of the con-acre which they have taken, while a
third of their own holding is waste. With the balance and their oats
they pay the landlord, in those cases in which he is so fortunate as to
get any rent; and having secured an abundance of potatoes, they sit down
to enjoy themselves for the winter. During the night they play cards for
geese, turkeys, and herrings; attend dances, where they are enrolled and
sworn into secret societies; and devote some hours to the wrecking of
the houses, or the castigation of the persons, of those who are
obnoxious to them. In the daytime, you find them at the places of public
resort or amusement, or lazily and listlessly strolling about those
miserable abodes--in whose floors you frequently find stepping-stones to
carry you from the entrance to the space occupied by the fire, and
before whose doors are those stagnant pools and heaps of filth, so
disgusting to every traveller. Could they not remove those? Is it the
landlord's fault that they don'