o the benevolence of the guardians.
Neither is it the fault of those who administer it; for the guardians
being almost all thorough-paced patriots, of whom the great majority pay
under ten shillings annually to the tax, never reject applicants, and
frequently solicit persons to become candidates for admission. And when
we consider that those who, we are told, "dwell in ditches and live on
weeds," and to whom "beds and blankets are rare luxuries," have only to
apply for shelter where they can have good beds and better diet than the
commissioners assure us they are even accustomed to at home, we cannot
but express surprise at the taste of our neighbours, who prefer dirt and
starvation to cleanliness and abundance; and our sympathy for persons
who bewail their sufferings, and yet will not accept the proffered
relief, must be greatly diminished.

The truth is, and facts such as those prove it, that though there is
more squalid filth and raggedness in Ireland, (for those are national
tastes,) there is much less of real misery or distress in that country
than exists in England.

To make their coercive policy palatable to their present supporters, the
ministry announce the immediate introduction of a bill to regulate the
arrangements between landlord and tenant, and to secure the latter
adequate compensation for any improvements he may have effected. It is
always better for governments to leave the adjustment of private rights
to the parties concerned in them. But if they are to be guided in their
legislation by _the evidence_ given before the land-commissioners, _and
not by the report which it pleased those gentlemen to adopt_, there
never was a case in which such interference was less called for. We do
not find in the whole mass a solitary well substantiated instance in
which an improving and rent-paying tenant was dispossessed by the
landlord for the purpose of availing himself of the additional value
which had been given to his land. And Mr Stewart, an extensive agent and
land-valuator, declared in his examination, "that he considered
improving tenants had, at the expiration of their tenures, a just claim
upon the consideration of their landlords--_a claim_," he continues,
"_which, in a great number of instances coming under my own observation,
I never yet knew to be disregarded._" Can the government believe that
contingent and trifling rewards for levelling old ditches, and for
building ill-constructed houses, will be su