be resumed, with
advantage to the well-disposed workmen, and through them to the
company and the country."

Neither is this a solitary instance. The contractors on the Shannon
improvements and many of the railroads, where the labourers earned 9s.
a-week, were compelled to suspend their operations because those
turbulent people turned out for wages so exorbitant that no contractor
could afford to pay them; and not only stopped working themselves, but
forced those who were anxious to earn a livelihood to give up also. We
are told that the Irish peasantry wish for employment on any terms; yet,
when it is offered them at their very doors, and when they can earn
wages such as never before were paid them, they shoot the stewards, and
compel the abandonment of the undertakings.

Mr Collis, a gentleman who entertains very strong opinions in favour of
the peasantry, is obliged to admit, in his evidence before Lord Devon's
Committee, what is borne testimony to by many others, the existence of a
reign of terror exercised by the labourers over their employers.
Alluding to a visit which he paid to the College estates, and an
interview he had with the people, he says--"I must also mention that I
heard that day from respectable occupying tenants, one in particular in
the lower class of life, and also from his wife when he was absent, that
she was dread of her life; that her husband was in distress, and set
part of his farm, and that he could not with safety take it into his
hands again; that the labourers he employed could not be
controlled--they would work as they pleased; and if a new man was
engaged, he might do well at first, but would soon fall into their ways;
and that if he, or the farmers generally, were to dismiss the parties,
they would be revenged in some way or other."

To show the state of intimacy which subsists between this gentleman and
the peasantry, and how implicitly they confide their feelings and
intentions to him, and how competent he must be to speak to both, and
how unlikely to misrepresent them, we copy the following passage, which
to our countrymen may exhibit a rather extraordinary state of society.
Mr Collis and the neighbours had been discussing the conduct of a
certain gentleman, and the question is put--"Did they say any thing
about the landlord?" "They did; from the statements made _I said
something about his being shot. They said he had been fired at three
times; and when I said I thought