e, but shallow theory, and to show--and what a happy thing it
is for us--to show that, not only is our poverty the source of our
greatest prosperity, but that if by any accident we should become
rich, we must inevitably be ruined; and to begin--

Absenteeism is agreed on all hands to be the bane of Ireland. No one,
whatever be his party prejudices, will venture to deny this. The
high-principled and well-informed country gentleman professes this
opinion in common with the illiterate and rabid follower of
O'Connell; I need not, therefore, insist further on a proposition so
universally acknowledged. To proceed--of all people, none are so
naturally absentees as the Irish; in fact, it would seem that one
great feature of our patriotism consists in the desire to display, in
other lands, the ardent attachment we bear our own. How can we tell
Frenchmen, Italians, Germans, Russians, Swedes, and Swiss, how devoted
we are to the country of our birth, if we do not go abroad to do so?
How can we shed tears as exiles, unless we become so? How can we rail
about the wrongs of Ireland and English tyranny, if we do not go among
people, who, being perfectly ignorant of both, may chance to believe
us? These are the patriotic arguments for absenteeism; then come
others, which may be classed under the head of "expediency reasons,"
such as debts, duns, outlawries, &c. Thirdly, the temptations of the
Continent, which, to a certain class of our countrymen, are of the
very strongest description--Corn Exchange politics, vulgar associates,
an air of bully, and a voice of brogue, will not form such obstacles
to success in Paris, as in Dublin. A man can scarcely introduce an
Irish provincialism into his French, and he would be a clever fellow
who could accomplish a bull under a twelvemonth. These, then, form the
social reasons; and from a short revision of all three, it will be
seen that they include a very large proportion of the land--Mr.
O'Connell talks of them as seven millions.

[Illustration]

It being now proved, I hope, to my reader's satisfaction, that the
bent of an Irishman is to go abroad, let us briefly inquire, what is
it that ever prevents him so doing? The answer is an easy one. When
Paddy was told by his priest that whenever he went into a
public-house to drink, his guardian angel stood weeping at the door,
his ready reply was, "that if he had a tester he'd have been in too;"
so it is exactly with absenteeism; it is only poverty