ized the necessity of taking the whole matter into its own
hands. They were responsible for the preservation of the people, and
they acknowledged their responsibility.

And then two great rules seemed to get themselves laid down--not by
general consent, for there were many who greatly contested their
wisdom--but by some force strong enough to make itself dominant.
The first was, that the food to be provided should be earned and
not given away. And the second was, that the providing of that
food should be left to private competition, and not in any way be
undertaken by the Government. I make bold to say that both these
rules were wise and good.

But how should the people work? That Government should supply
the wages was of course an understood necessity; and it was also
necessary that on all such work the amount of wages should be
regulated by the price at which provisions might fix themselves.
These points produced questions which were hotly debated by the
Relief Committees of the different districts; but at last it got
itself decided, again by the hands of Government, that all hills
along the country roads should be cut away, and that the people
should be employed on this work. They were so employed,--very little
to the advantage of the roads for that or some following years.

"So you have begun, my men," said Herbert to a gang of labourers whom
he found collected at a certain point on Ballydahan Hill, which lay
on his road from Castle Richmond to Gortnaclough. In saying this
he had certainly paid them an unmerited compliment, for they had
hitherto begun nothing. Some thirty or forty wretched-looking men
were clustered together in the dirt and slop and mud, on the brow
of the hill, armed with such various tools as each was able to
find--with tools, for the most part, which would go but a little
way in making Ballydahan Hill level or accessible. This question of
tools also came to a sort of understood settlement before long; and
within three months of the time of which I am writing legions of
wheelbarrows were to be seen lying near every hill; wheelbarrows in
hundreds and thousands. The fate of those myriads of wheelbarrows has
always been a mystery to me.

"So you have begun, my men," said Herbert, addressing them in a
kindly voice. There was a couple of gangsmen with them, men a
little above the others in appearance, but apparently incapable
of commencing the work in hand, for they also were standing idle,
leani