, together with the cause
that produced them, are at this moment well known to thousands as
expressions whose general occurrence on such, occasions has almost fixed
them into proverb. Will our English neighbors believe this? That we know
not, but we can assure them that they may.

There were other groups farther down in the scale of distress, where
embarrassment and struggle told a yet more painful tale; those who came
with their rent, in full to be sure, but literally racked up from their
own private destitution--who were obliged to sell the meal, or oats, or
wheat, at a ruinous loss, in order to meet the inexorable demands of the
merciless and tyrannical agent. Here were all the' external evidences
of their condition legible by a single look at their persons; they also
herded together, ill clad, ill fed, timid, broken down, heartless. All
these, however, had their rents--had them full and complete in amount;
now the reader may well say, this picture is, indeed, very painful, and
I am glad it is closed at last. Closed! oh, no, kind reader, it is not
closed, nor could it be closed by any writer acquainted either with
the subject or the country. What are we to say of those who had not the
rent, and who came there only to make that melancholy statement, and to
pray for mercy? Here was raggedness, shivering--not merely with the
cold assault of the elements--but from the dreaded apprehension of
the terrible agent--downcast looks that spoke of keen and cutting
misery--eyes that were dead and hopeless in expression--and
occasionally, a hasty wringing of the hands, accompanied by an
expression so dejected and lamentable, as makes us, when we cast our
eye in imagination upon such men as Valentine M'Clutchy, cry out aloud,
"where are the lightnings of the Almighty, and why are his
thunderbolts asleep?" There was there the poor gray-haired old man--the
grandfather--accompanied, perhaps, by his promising young grandsons,
left fatherless and motherless to his care, and brought now in order
that the agent might see with his eyes how soon he will have their aid
to cultivate their little farm, and consequently, to make it pay better,
he hopes. Then the widow, tremulous with the excess of many feelings,
many cares, and many bitter and indignant apprehensions. If handsome
herself, or if the mother of daughters old enough, and sufficiently
attractive, for the purposes of debauchery, oh! what has she to contend
with? Poor, helpless, frien