uch better off than the poor of great English
cities. They have the reputation of being in a state of chronic
famine. This has no foundation in fact. They all have land, one, two,
or three cows, and the sea to draw upon. For their land and houses
they pay nothing, or next to nothing; for good land in some cases is
to be had for a shilling an acre. The lakes also abound with fish.
They glory in their poverty, and hail a partial failure of crops with
delight. They know they will be cared for, and that provisions will be
showered upon them from all sides. They say, 'Please God, we'll have a
famine this year,' and when the contributions pour in they laugh and
sing, and say, 'The distress for ever! Long live the famine!' The word
goes round at stated intervals that they are to 'have a famine.' They
jump at the suggestion, act well together, and carry out the idea
perfectly. The Protestants never have any distress which calls for
charitable aid. They live on the same soil, under the same laws, but
they never beg. They pay their rents, too, much more regularly than
the others, who of late years can hardly be got to pay either rent or
anything else. The Protestants are all strong Unionists. The Catholics
are all strong Home Rulers. Their notions of Home Rule are as
follows:--No rent, no police, a poteen still at every door, and
possession of the land now held by Protestants, which is so much
better than their own because so much more labour has been expended on
it, and for no other reason. Who tells them to 'have a famine'? Why,
the same people who arouse and keep alive their enmity to the
Protestants; the same people who tell them lies about the early
history of the Colony--lies which the tellers know to be lies, such as
the stories of oppression, spoliation, and of how the mission took the
property of the islanders with the strong hand, aided by England, the
home of robbery, tyranny, and heresy. The people would be friendly
enough but for their priests. Yet they have marched in procession
before our houses, blowing defiance by means of a drum and fife band,
because we would not join one or other of their dishonest and illegal
combinations. They opened a man's head with a stone, producing a
dreadful scalp wound, and when Doctor Croly, the greatest favourite in
the whole island, went to dress the wound, five or six of them stopped
his horse, with the object of giving him a 'bating,' which would have
ended nobody knows how. The d