ggles and
improvements, were, by his advice, multiplying their little capital as
fast as himself. The two boys, who had now shot up into the stature of
young men, were at work as laboring servants in the neighborhood. The
daughters were also engaged as servants with the adjoining farmers. The
boys bought each a pair of two-year old heifers, and the daughter one.
These they sent to graze up in the mountains at a trifling charge, for
the first year or two: when they became springers, they put them to rich
infield grass for a few months, until they got a marketable appearance,
after which their father brought them to the neighboring fairs, where
they usually sold to great advantage, in consequence of the small outlay
required in rearing them.

In fact, the principle of industry ran through the family. There was
none of them idle; none of them a burthen or a check upon the profits
made by the laborer. On the contrary, "they laid their shoulders
together," as the phrase is, and proved to the world, that when the
proper disposition is followed up by suitable energy and perseverance,
it must generally reward him who possesses it.

It is certainly true that Owen's situation in life now was essentially
different from that which it had been during the latter years of his
struggles an a farmer. It was much more favorable, and far better
calculated to develop successful exertion. If there be a class of men
deserving public sympathy, it is that of the small farmers of Ireland.
Their circumstances are fraught with all that is calculated to depress
and ruin them; rents far above their ability, increasing poverty, and
bad markets. The land which, during the last war, might have enabled the
renter to pay three pounds per acre, and yet still maintain himself with
tolerable comfort, could not now pay more than one pound, or, at the
most, one pound ten; and yet, such is the infatuation of landlords,
that, in most instances, the terms of leases taken out then are
rigorously exacted. Neither can the remission of yearly arrears be said
to strike at the root of the evils under which they suffer. The fact
of the disproportionate rent hanging over them is a disheartening
circumstance, that paralyzes their exertion, and sinks their spirits. If
a landlord remit the rent for one term, he deals more harshly with the
tenant at the next; whatever surplus, if any, his former indulgence
leaves in the tenant's hands, instead of being expended upon his