ference, too often confounded with indolent habits. Sustenance was
enough for him, who, if he earned more, should surrender it; hence the
poor man became chained to his poverty. It was a weight which grew with
his strength; privations might as well be incurred with little labour as
with great; and he sunk down to the condition of a mere drudge, careless
and despondent. "He can only take all I have!" was the cottier's
philosophy; and the maxim suggested a corollary, that the "all" should
be as little as might be.

But there were other grievances flowing from this source. The extent of
these abatements usually depended on the representation of the tenants
themselves, and such evidences as they could produce of their poverty
and destitution. Hence a whole world of falsehood and dissimulation was
fostered. Cabins were suffered to stand half-roofed; children left to
shiver in rags and nakedness; age and infirmity exhibited in attitudes
of afflicting privation; habits of mendicity encouraged;--all, that
they might impose upon the proprietor, and make him believe that any
sum wrung from such as these must be an act of cruelty. If these schemes
were sometimes successful, so in their failure they fell as heavy
penalties upon the really destitute, for whose privations no pity was
felt. Their misery, confounded in the general mass of dissimulation, was
neglected; and for one who prospered in his falsehood, many were visited
in their affliction.

That men in such circumstances as these should listen with greedy
ears to any representation which reflected heavily on their wealthier
neighbours, is little to be wondered at. The triumph of knavery and
falsehood is a bad lesson for any people; but the fruitlessness of
honest industry is, if possible, a worse one. Both were well taught by
this system. And these things took place, not, be it observed, when the
landlord or his agent were cruel and exacting--very far from it.
They were the instances so popularly expatiated on by newspapers and
journals; they were the cases headed--"Example for Landlords!" "Timely
Benevolence!" and paragraphed thus:--"We learn, with the greatest
pleasure, that Mr. Muldrennin, of Kilbally-drennin, has, in
consideration of the failure of the potato-crop, and the severe pressure
of the season, kindly abated five per cent of all his rents. Let this
admirable example be generally followed, and we shall once more see,"
&c. &c. There was no explanatory note to stat