province of Ulster land
fetches at least one-third more rent than in either of the other
provinces, although the quality of the soil is by no means so good.
Yet what is the condition of the people? what their habits? what the
appearance of the country in this less favoured district? We shall let
an authority often quoted by Mr O'Connell answer our question.

Mr Kohl[11] tells us, that "the main root of Irish misery is to be
sought in the indolence, levity, extravagance, and want of energy of
the national character." And again, in passing from that portion of
the country where the majority of the inhabitants profess the Roman
Catholic religion, to that in which the great bulk of the population
are Protestants, or Presbyterians, the same writer says--"On the other
side of these miserable hills, whose inhabitants are years before they
can afford to get the holes mended in their potato-kettles--the most
indispensable and important article of furniture in an Irish
cabin--the territory of Leinster ends, and that of Ulster begins. The
coach rattled over the boundary line, and all at once we seemed to
have entered a new world. I am not in the slightest degree
exaggerating when I say, that every thing was as suddenly changed as
if by an enchanter's wand. The dirty cabins by the road-side were
succeeded by neat, pretty, cheerful-looking cottages; regular
plantations, well cultivated fields, pleasant little cottage-gardens,
and shady lines of trees, met the eye on every side. At first I could
scarcely believe my own eyes, and thought that at all events the
change must be merely local and temporary, caused by the better
management of that particular estate. No counter change, however,
appeared; the improvement lasted the whole way to Newry; and, from
Newry to Belfast, every thing continued to show me that I had entered
the country of a totally different people--namely, the district of the
Scottish settlers, the active and industrious Presbyterians."

Nor can we be surprised at the condition of this unhappy country when
we see the Executive looking quietly on, when the public press has
become the apologist of crime, and public sympathy is enlisted on the
side of the evil-doers.

_Four murders_ have, within the last month, been perpetrated in
Tipperary, which were all but justified by the local papers, _because_
they were supposed to have been the acts of tenants dispossessed _for
non-payment of rent_. _They_ excited no horror. A