ate--A Small Dose of Flattery--A Brace of
Blessings--Darby has Notions of becoming a Convert--Hints to a Trusty
Bailiff, with a Bit of Mystery--Drum Dhu, and the Comforts of Christmas
Eve--An Extermination.

One of the greatest curses attending absenteeism is the facility
with which a dishonest and oppressive agent can maintain a system of
misrepresentation and falsehood, either to screen his own delinquency or
to destroy the reputation of those whom he hates or fears. An absentee
landlord has no guarantee beyond the honor and integrity of the man to
whom he entrusts the management of his property, and consequently he
ought to know that his very residence abroad presents strong temptations
to persons, who, in too many instances, are not possessed of any
principle strong enough to compete with their rapacity or cruelty.
Valentine M'Clutchy was one of those fellows in whom the heart was
naturally so hard and selfish that he loved both wealth and the
infliction of oppression, simply on account of the pleasure which they
afforded him. To such a man, and they formed too numerous a class, the
estate of an absentee landlord presented an appropriate, and generally
a safe field for action. The great principle of his life was, in every
transaction that occurred, to make the interest of the landlord on one
hand, and of the tenant on the other, subservient to his own. This was
their rule, and the cunning and adroitness necessary to carry it into
practical effect, were sometimes scarcely deemed worth concealment, so
strong was their sense of impunity, and their disregard of what seldom
took place--retribution. Indeed, the absence of the landlord gave
them necessarily, as matters were managed, an unlimited power over the
people, and gratified that malignant vigilance which ever attends upon
suspicion and conscious guilt. Many of the tenants, for instance,
when driven to the uttermost depths of distress and misery, have been
desperate enough to appeal to the head landlords, and almost in every
case the agent himself was enabled to show them their own letters, which
the absentee had in the meantime transmitted to the identical party
whose tyranny had occasioned them.

The appointment of Phil to the under agency was felt even more strongly
than the removal of Mr. Hickman or Val's succession to that gentleman;
for there was about honest Val something which the people could not
absolutely despise. His talents for business, however, prost