of six cows," as the case may be.

It is curious that the most distinct ancient rules concerning the
excessive extortion of rent are, as has been shown by Sir Henry Maine,
to be found in the "Senchus Mor." Under its regulations three rents are
enumerated--namely, the _rack rent_ to be extorted from one of a strange
tribe; the _fair_ rent from one of the same tribe; and the _stipulated_
rent to be paid equally to either. The Irish clan or sept was a very
loose, and in many cases irregular, structure, embracing even those who
were practically undistinguishable from slaves, yet from none of these
could any but _fair_ or customary rent be demanded. It was only when
those who by no fiction could be supposed to belong to the clan sought
for land that the best price attainable might be extorted and
insisted upon.

In so primitive a state of society such persons were almost sure to be
outcasts, thrown upon the world either by the breaking up of other clans
or by their own misdoings. A man of this class was generally what was
known as a "Fuidhar" or "broken man," and answered in some respects to
the slave or the serf of the early English village community. Like him
he seems to have been his lord's or chief's chattel, and if killed or
injured the fine or "eric" was paid not to his own family, but to his
master. Such men were usually settled by the chief upon the
unappropriated tribal lands over which his own authority tended to
increase. This Fuidhar class from the first seem to have been very
numerous, and depending as they did absolutely upon the chief, there
grew up by degrees that class of armed retainers--kerns and
galloglasses, they were called in later times--who surrounded every
important chief, whether of English or Irish descent, and were by them
quartered forcibly in war time upon others, and so there grew up that
system of "coyne and livery," or forced entertainment for horse and men,
which is to be met with again and again throughout Irish history, and
which undoubtedly was one of the greatest curses of the country, tending
more perhaps than any other single cause to keep its people at the
lowest possible condition of starvation and misery.

No system of representation seems ever to have prevailed in Ireland.
That idea is, in fact, almost purely Teutonic, and seems never to have
sprung up spontaneously amongst any Celtic people. The family was the
real root. Every head of a family ruled his own household, and submi