pose, for instance, that in England
and Scotland the great body of the people had for a couple or three
centuries never received an adequate or proper education: in that case,
let us ask what the moral aspect of society in either country would be
to-day? But this is not merely the thing to be considered. The Irishman
was not only not educated, but actually punished for attempting to
acquire knowledge in the first place, and in the second, punished also
for the ignorance created by its absence. In other words, the penal
laws rendered education criminal, and then caused the unhappy people to
suffer for the crimes which proper knowledge would have prevented them
from, committing. It was just like depriving a man of his sight, and
afterwards causing him to be punished for stumbling. It is beyond
all question, that from the time of the wars of Elizabeth and the
introduction of the Reformation, until very recently, there was no fixed
system of wholesome education in the country. The people, possessed
of strong political and religious prejudices, were left in a state of
physical destitution and moral ignorance, such as were calculated to
produce ten times the amount of crime which was committed. Is it any
wonder, then, that in such a condition, social errors and dangerous
theories should be generated, and that neglect, and poverty, and
ignorance combined should give to the country a character for turbulence
and outrage? The same causes will produce the same effects in any
country, and were it not that the standard of personal and domestic
comfort was so low in Ireland, there is no doubt that the historian
would have a much darker catalogue of crime to record than he has. The
Irishman, in fact, was mute and patient under circumstances which would
have driven the better fed and more comfortable Englishman into open
outrage and contempt of all authority. God forbid that I for a moment
should become the apologist of crime, much less the crimes of my
countrymen! but it is beyond all question that the principles upon which
the country was governed have been such as to leave down to the present
day many of their evil consequences behind them. The penal code, to be
sure, is now abolished, but so are not many of its political effects
among the people. Its consequences have not yet departed from the
country, nor has the hereditary hatred of the laws, which unconsciously
descended from father to son, ceased to regulate their conduct and
o