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least attempt at neatness or embellishment. The land is generally cultivated, but in an unfinished and slovenly manner. The fences are commonly mere banks and ditches, without quick; a pole stuck across a gap serves for a gate. He meets with nothing but rude cars drawn by one starved, miserable looking horse, and driven by a loitering, careless fellow. He finds numerous foot passengers, many of the men and women bare-legged, some of the children quite naked. They seem all belonging to the same class: a frieze great-coat for the men, and a blue cloak for the women, cover, for the most part, very illconditioned and slatternly apparel. He passes few towns, and those few consist of a small nucleus of tolerable houses, surrounded by a filthy suburb of mere huts. If he enter the cabins of the peasantry, he finds that their interior fully corresponds with their external appearance of wretchedness and poverty. They are dark and dirty, filled with smoke, and their furniture scanty, and of the rudest description. He learns that their chief food consists of potatoes, that at many seasons of the year they cannot procure work, and that the wages of labour, which he has been accustomed to consider as the sole resource of the peasantry, are at all times so low as scarcely to maintain a family. The Irish themselves are loud in their complaints of the unhappy condition of their poor. All parties unite in these representations; all dwell upon the miserable state of the peasantry, without work, without clothes, without food, and without habitations better than the wigwams of the Americau savages. It is, indeed, incontestably true, that this melancholy picture is in many particulars correctly drawn; and even those who contend that it is stated too darkly, and that sufficient allowance is not made for the habits of the people, which have not taught them to value comforts, the want of which is deplored as a misfortune, must admit that the state of the great mass of this population is a national evil. No statesman can view without regret that so large an integral part of the British dominions is so backward in wealth and civilisation; and every patriotic minister must desire to hasten the progress of its improvement,

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Idleness and vagrancy are the real impediments which stand in the way of the improvement and prosperity of Ireland. As things are now managed, an enormous proportion of the whole population actually subsists, in a state of perfect idleness, upon the bounty of the remainder, which is seldom more than half employed. Hence it is that the naturally fertile soil of Ireland is but half tilled; and of the produce which land imperfectly cultivated must necessarily yield, a considerable portion is daily wasted upon athletic and unoccupied vagabonds. The idleness thus fostered is the true cause of the misery of the Irish population. This pernicious practice preys upon the vitals of the land; like a worm it secretly eats into the germ of her prosperity, and until the thousands and tens of thousands of huge-limbed and long backed vagabonds, now maintained in idleness, be employed productively, Ireland can never emerge from her poverty. All authorities acquainted with the condition of Ireland concur in stating, that "itinerant mendicity has proceeded to an enormous and lamentable extent:""The number of people supported in Ireland by charity is quite inconceivable. They must be supported either by charity, or by pillage and plunder." But not only are the people of Ireland wretched, not only is the influx of them extending that distress, and diminishing the wages and comforts of the British labourer: the evil is extending itself still farther than this. The higher classes in Ireland, feeling the inconveniences of this general disorder, are driven from their homes and from their country, and by their absence-increase that very evil from which they are flying. "A residence in Ireland is becoming a burden too great to be borne. It is bad enough living in the midst of distress; but, in addition to this, the gentry are in daily apprehension of their houses being attacked, and their families destroyed. We must leave Ireland to police magistrates."

It is but little creditable to the vaunted humanity and wisdom of the age, that no effort has yet been

made to improve the condition of the miserable peasantry of Ireland. The Legislature have wasted session after session in discussing measures of relief for the wealthier classes; but it cannot devote one hour to search for means to remedy the misery in which the mass of the people is steeped. Never was the poor of any other nation, either heathen or Christian, left in so destitute, in so pitiable and forlorn a state, as those of Ireland. In all other countries, some revenues have been set aside for the relief of the impotent pauper; but in Ireland the dreams of the economists have been realized, and the lame, the halt, the blind, the aged, and the orphan poor have been left entirely to the unaided assistance of casual and individual charity. It is, however, perfectly clear, that the condition of the Irish population is a subject which will ere long force itself irresistibly upon the attention of Parliament. If it be not determined that the whole nation should be consigned to permanent barbarity, the adoption of some system for the suppression of vagrancy, and the relief of the impotent poor, will become a matter, not of choice, but of absolute necessity. If no plan for employing the wandering poor of Ireland be arranged and carried into effect, there can be no doubt that they will very rapidly multiply, and that they will continue as felons to purloin, or as unfortunate vagrants to extort, a subsistence from the owners of property. The proprietors of Ireland err egregiously in supposing they can derive any real advantage from neglecting their mendicant poor. The cost of maintaining them in a state of vagrancy must inevitably fall upon the produce of land, and form a deduction from the rent. This horde of mendicants is no doubt, in the first instance, maintained by the renter of land; but this is a drain on his resources, of which he regularly calculates the probable amount, and which, to that extent, diminishes the surplus produce that would other-wise fall to the share of the landlord. Hence it is clear, that it is both the duty and the interest of those who possess property in Ireland to repress the vagrancy and improve the condition of their poor, countrymen. The idle mendicant would by that

means be converted into a productive labourer, and would become the creator of a revenue to the landowners, instead of continuing an idle

consumer.

General vagrancy is the unavoidable result of the want of a system to provide a maintenance for the poor: where no poor laws exist persons unable to work must necessarily be allowed to ask for charity: the affluent are compelled to submit with patience to the inconvenience of being importuned and beset in the streets, on the roads, and at their houses. The poor of England and Scotland are supported either in parish workhouses, or in their own cottages, by a fund levied indiscriminately and equally upon the owners of real property. This is the price which the British public pays for the luxury of being exempt from the distressing scenes of mendicant wretchedness which haunt the traveller in every corner of Ireland; and it is a price, which every one who knows the extent of the evil, where not provided against, pays willingly and cheerfully. It is also obvious, that wherever the support of the indigent is left to private charity, the burden must fall unequally upon the members of the community possessing means to contribute. The benevolent, the feeling, and the religious, are induced to bestow their property and their time, and even endanger their health, in efforts to alleviate the afflictions of their fellow-creatures

but the proud and hard-hearted make no such sacrifices; they continue in the selfish enjoyment of their riches, and their property remains undiminished by the calls of benevolence and by the tears of the wretched. An equal rate for the relief of the poor is therefore the only means of reaching the pockets of this class, and compelling them to bear their fair proportion of the burden of maintaining the poor.

It would appear that both in England and elsewhere much misconception prevails with regard to the laws affecting the poor of Scotland. It seems to be conceived that we have no Poor Laws, and that the indigent inhabitants of this part of the United Kingdom being but few in number, are supported entirely by voluntary contributions. Many wri

ters have taken pains to encourage this opinion, and to hold up the state of Scotland as affording a striking contrast to that of England, in being comparatively exempt from the miseries of pauperism; and this has been attributed to an exemption from any system making a compulsory provision for the poor. The mode of providing for the poor of Scotland is this:-a collection is made for that purpose every Sabbath-day at the kirk; if the necessary demands of the indigent should, as they generally do, exceed the amount thus collected by voluntary contribution, the next step is a meeting of the heritors or landed proprietors of the parish, who in general agree to raise a specified sum, and retire on the understanding that each will contribute to it in proportion to his interest in the parish. The fund thus raised is distributed under the superintendence of the minister, acting under the advice, and with assistance, of the Kirk Session. This is probably the ground on which Mr Malthus and others have ventured to assert that the poor of Scotland are in general supported by voluntary contributions, distributed under the inspection of the minister of the parish, having no claim of right to relief; and the supplies from the mode of their collection being necessarily uncertain, and never abundant, the poor have considered them merely as a last resource, in cases of extreme distress. But a reference to the records of the Scottish parliament will prove that the benevolence of the heritors is not quite so voluntary as its eulogists represent it. These documents, when consulted, will be found to exhibit a striking similarity in the progress and state of the people, and in the measures adopted to suppress vagrancy, both in the northern and southern parts of this island. Nearly at the same time similar acts were passed in Scotland during the reign of James the Sixth, and in England during that of Elizabeth, establishing a compulsory provision for the poor. Various cruel and arbitrary acts passed at previous periods in both countries, having utterly failed to suppress the outrages committed by vagabonds, or to prevent beggary; by an act of the sixth parliament of James the Sixth,

in the year 1579, severe punishments are enacted against all idle vagabonds whom no person will employ, and also upon all jugglers, players at fast and loose, all persons calling themselves Egyptians, and having neither land nor houses, all minstrels and taletellers, and also scholars of universities, not having licenses to beg. This same act likewise provides that the magistrates shall take an inquisition of all the poor, and shall register their names, and that every poor person shall go to his own parish within forty days of notice. If any of them are able to work, employment is to be procured for them. If not, the magistrates are to fix what sum will be necessary for their maintenance, and shall tax all the inhabitants of the parish accordingly, a new term being made every year. In a subsequent act, passed in 1597, to obviate the want of justices, the execution of the act of 1579 was, in county parishes, committed to the Kirk-Session.

It cannot, we think, be denied, that, in principle, the laws affecting the poor of Scotland bear a close resemblance to the poor-laws of England; indeed, the act of 1579, which, with a few amendments subsequently made, forms our code of poorlaws, is almost a literal transcript of an English statute passed seven years before;—in the fourteenth of Élizabeth. It is no doubt true, that, owing to a difference in the state of society, and the fact, that with us the power of levying assessments, and granting relief, is vested in those who are chiefly liable to the support of the poor, the practice of the two countries is to a certain extent different. It must, however, be observed, that in those districts in which the ancient rural system has been broken up, and farms have been consolidated, we are rapidly and unavoidably falling into the English practice. In those parts of Scotland which have for some time been exposed to the influence of this change, it is no longer

contended that the poor rate is not compulsory; but throughout, by substituting the expression heritors (or proprietors) for occupiers, and kirk-session for vestry-meeting, we have an exact description of what takes place in England, and of ceedings which must evidently, in

pro

the long run, lead to the same results, to similar good or similar evil. "In very populous places," says Mr F. T. Kennedy, " and in the Border counties, a practice has arisen not very dissimilar to the practice of England, namely, that a legal and compulsory relief has been established; but, in the county of Ayr there cannot be said to be a compulsory relief for the poor; at the same time it should be considered, that on many occasions the proprietors of land come forward in a very liberal manner with a voluntary contribution, in order to avoid what would be the consequence, if refused, that measures would be taken to compel them to give extensive relief to the poor." Whatever difference of opinion may prevail with regard to the policy of establishing a system for the employment of the vagrant and ablebodied poor, there can be none as to the necessity of providing for the sick and the impotent. The evils to which, in seasons of distress and sickness, the wretched poor of Ireland are exposed, from the absence of all means of relieving them, are too dreadful to be longer endured. In times of distress and sickness, it is found indispensable to station constables on the highways, to drive away the unfortunate beggars, and prevent them from entering the towns. We are informed by Dr Cheyne, in his Report on the State of the Province of Ulster in 1809, that "when any individual of a family was affected with fever, the rich were sometimes so much impressed with the danger of contagion, that they had him removed to a barn or an outhouse, (where they had prepared a bed, and broken a hole in the wall to admit of their handing in medicines and drink,) and locked the door, which was not unlocked till sometime after the disease was over. But when a stranger, or a labourer, who had no cabin of his own, took the disease, it was quite customary to prepare a shed for him by the way side: This was

done by inclining some spars against a wall, or bank of a ditch, and covering them with straw. Under these sheds, which the rain penetrated, the patients lay on a little straw."

One observation we must be permitted to make in parting with this subject. The improvement of Ireland must originate in exertions of the proprietors and occupiers of its own soil. Much has been said about the transfer of English capital into that part of the united kingdom, to be laid out either in establishing manufactures, or in improving the cultivation of land. It is difficult to believe, that this resource will, under any circumstances, prove available to any great extent; few instances occur in history, in which capital has been thus transferred from one country for the improvement of another. Every country must derive its wealth from its own resources and industry, and from these alone; as private wealth consists merely in the savings effected by an individual, so public wealth is the aggregate of such savings. Ireland, like every other country, must become the architect of its own fortune: Its improvement can arise only from the industry of its own population, and its wealth only from their savings. If means be adopted to call this industry into full operation, a foundation will be laid for a superstructure of national wealth and prosperity. The national resources of Ireland are ample and inexhaustible; and to produce both wealth and happiness, it is only necessary that means should be adopted to give a proper direction to the industry of its population-to repress idleness and mendicity-and in every case to render labour a condition to be fulfilled, before subsistence shall be administered to an able-bodied workman. If the landlords of Ireland neglect, as they have hitherto neglected, the execution of this duty, the population of that Island never can emerge from its poverty and misery.

A GREEK PASTORAL.

BY THE ETTRICK SHEPHERD.

WHERE proud Olympus rears his head,
As white as the pall of the sheeted dead,
And mingling with the clouds that sail
On heaven's pure bosom, softly pale,
Till men believe that the hoary cloud
Is part of the mountain's mighty shroud,
While far below, in lovely guise,
The enchanted vale of Tempe lies,
There sat a virgin of peerless fame,—
Thessalia, sweetest, comeliest dame !-
Gazing upon the silver stream,

As if in a rapt Elysian dream.
Far far below her glowing eye,

Standing on an inverted sky,

Where clouds and mountains seem'd to swingle, And Ossa with Olympus mingle,

She saw a youth of manly hue,

In robes of green and azure blue,
Of grape, of orange, and of rose,
And every dye the rainbow knows;
The nodding plumes his temples graced,
His sword was girded to his waist:
And much that maiden's wonder grew,
At a vision so comely and so new;
And, in her simplicity of heart,
She ween'd it all the enchanter's art.

As straining her eyes adown the steep,
At this loved phantom of the deep,
She conjured him to ascend, and bless
With look of love his shepherdess.
And when she beheld him mount the tide,
With eagle eye and stately stride,
She spread her arms and her bavaroy,
And scream'd with terror and with joy.
The comely shade, approaching still
To the surface of the silent rill,
Beckon'd the maid with courteous grace,
And look'd her fondly in the face-
Till even that look she could not bear,
It was so witching and so dear.

She turn'd her eyes back from the flood,
And there a Scottish warrior stood,

Of noble rank and noble mien,
And glittering in his tartans sheen.

She neither fainted, scream'd, nor fled,

But there she sat astonished;

Her eyes o'er his form and features ran,-
She turn'd to the shadow, then the man,
Till at last she fix'd a look serene

Upon the stranger's manly mien ;

Her ruby lips fell wide apart,

High beat her young and guileless heart,
Which of itself reveal'd the tale,
By the quiverings of its snowy veil;
A living statue feminine,

A model cast in mould divine

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