The Irish gentleman is held up to public disapprobation because he has
a lawless and pauper tenantry; and if he attempt to improve their
moral and social condition, by removing the worst conducted, and
enlarging the holdings of the others, so as to enable them to live in
comfort, his conduct is considered still more odious, even though he
send the dispossessed at his own expense to those colonies to which
thousands of the best disposed of the people voluntarily emigrate.
What, in God's name, is he to do? While all remain, it is an absolute
impossibility that good can be effected for any. The evil is
sedulously pointed out, and the only practicable remedy is resisted by
the same persons--the friends, "par excellence," of the people!

This moral disorganization, and the total disrespect for the rights of
property by which it is accompanied, creates other evils as its
necessary consequences; it produces hostility and ill feeling between
the higher and the lower classes, augments absenteeism, and deprives
the peasantry of the personal superintendence of those who would
really have their interests at heart, and by whose example they would
be benefited. Nor can we be surprised that any person whose
circumstances enables him to do so should reside out of Ireland; when
we see every man of rank and fortune who relinquishes the pleasures of
the capital, and the enjoyments of society, for the purpose of
settling on his estates, and performing his duties, subjected to the
abuse of every scurrilous priest, and the insults of every penniless
agitator. Landlords naturally wish to reside at home where their
possessions, in a wholesome state of society, would secure them local
influence and respect; but unless the Irish gentleman bows to the
dictates of every local representative of the "august leader," he is
deprived of both, and risks his personal safety into the bargain. No
men profess to lament absenteeism more than the priests and agitators.
But how do they act? They declare against the non-residence of the
proprietors; but their sole object in doing so is to rouse the
feelings of their auditors, and thus prepare them for the performance
of what they wish them to effect. What encouragement do they or their
creatures afford to such as do return? We like facts. The Marquis of
Waterford, a bold and daring sportsman, boundless in his charities,
frank and cordial in his manners, not obnoxious on account of his
politics, and admitted on