d religious animosity as a strong and prominent
cause of our wretched poverty, and consequently of emigration. The
priest, instead of leaving temporal affairs to temporal men, most
improperly mingles himself in the angry turmoils of politics, to which,
by his interference, he communicates a peculiar and characteristic
bitterness. The landlord, on the other hand, having his own interests to
consult, does not wish to arm a political opponent with such powers as
he knows will most assuredly be turned against himself, and consequently
often refuses to grant a lease unless to those who will pledge
themselves to support him. This state of things, involving, as it does,
much that is wrong on both sides, is, has been, and will be, a present
and permanent curse to the country--a curse, too, which, until there
is more of humanity and justice on the one side, and of education
and liberal feeling on the other, is not likely to disappear from the
country.

Though last, not least, comes the unaccountable and guilty neglect of
our legislature (if we can call it ours) in everything that pertained to
Irish interests. This, together with its almost necessary consequence of
dishonest agitation on the one hand, and well founded dissatisfaction on
the other, nearly completes the series of the causes which have produced
the poverty of the country, and, as a direct result, the emigration of
all that is most comfortable, independent, and moral among us.

This poverty, arising, as it does, from so many causes, has propagated
itself with a rapidity which is startling; for every one knows that
poverty is proverbially prolific. And yet it is a grievous anomaly to
reflect that a country so far steeped in misery and destitution as
to have nearly one-half of its population in a state of most pitiable
pauperism, possesses a soil capable of employing and maintaining three
times the number of its inhabitants. When the causes, however, which we
have just enumerated are seriously looked at and considered, we think
its extraordinary result is, after all, so very natural, that the wonder
would indeed be were the state of Ireland otherwise than it is. As
matters stand at present, and as they are likely to continue, unless
parliament shall interfere by a comprehensive measure of legislation,
we must only rest contented with seeing the industrious, moral, and
respectable portion of our countrymen abandoning the land of their
birth and affections, and nothing