herd together. Every town has its named or unnamed quarter, notorious like the Seven Dials in London, the Cowgate in Edinburgh, and the Five Points in New York. A police magistrate, trying an assault case last summer in Manchester, took occasion to remark that the worst cases of the kind were those in which the Irish were concerned, and added that something should be done to bring them into a state of civilization. These remarks drew out much protest from the Manchester Irish, who affirmed that the worst classes of crime are those with which Englishmen are concerned. This may be true; but it would be pushing patriotism to the verge of folly to deny that there is much in the condition of the Irish, in the great towns of England and Scotland, to cause sadness of heart. Intemperance is the chief bane and curse of the Irish labourers. The increase of wages obtained for work in England brings temptation. Adult men seldom change their habits and ordinary cost of living. A labourer who in Ireland made three shillings a day and lived on it, gets four shillings in England and lives on three. What does he do with the odd shilling? Very few put it by for a rainy day. It is spent in drink; and when a colony of Irishmen, in a street or court, spend their surplus earnings in drink, there is a scene of violence and madness which brings trouble and disgrace, poverty and disease. One of the Irish

journalists commenting on the Manchester magistrate's charge in that assault case, gives wholesome advice to his countrymen. "Of all races that ever existed, the Irish is the one which ought most carefully to avoid heating with stimulants an already too mercurial temperament. To the Irishman at home, drink is a curse; to the Irishman abroad, drink is absolute ruin. Go to America, to England, to Scotland, to any part of the world, you will find there two classes of Irishmen-one is the sober Irishman, happy and prosperous, an honour to the land of his birth, an ornament and prop to the land of his adoption; the other is the drunken Irishman, a pest and a disgrace. If the emigrating Irishman had one grain of sense he would, as the hills of his native land fade on the distant horizon, fall upon his knees and swear never to taste drink again. But for this one horrible vice the Irish would be among the purest and noblest peoples of the world. But intemperance obliterates their good qualities, and turns their virtues into vices; converting generosity into folly, courage into combativeness, and high spirit into insane absurdity."

The emigrants who go to America, and pass on beyond the great seaboard cities, are far more protected from this temptation, for the habits of the working classes in the United States are not so sottish as in England. In New York and some other large

towns there is plenty of intemperance; but the majority of emigrants are fit for agricultural work, and get to situations where they soon attain a comfort and prosperity undreamed of at home. The large sums of money transmitted to Ireland to fetch out their relatives and friends is a pleasing and practical attestation of this. They get free education for their children also, and many of them become prosperous American citizens, They become so prosperous that the priests hasten after them in increasing numbers. It used to be said that half the Irish who settled in the States were lost to the Church of Rome. It is not so now, so much the worse for them, as they are more sharply followed and "shepherded" by the wellorganized Popish agencies.

CHAPTER V.

ABSENTEEISM.

Edgeworthstown-Statistics of Absenteeism-The Times on
Absenteeism.

ABSENTEEISM has always been one of the stock

grievances of Ireland. Dean Swift used to inveigh against the evil, asserting that a full third of the rental of Ireland was transmitted to landlords resident in England, besides large sums carried out of the country by other Irishmen of the upper classes. From the time of Sir William Petty to that of Arthur Young, Absenteeism was always prominent in every report of "the condition of Ireland." In the year 1730 a list of absentees was published, giving the yearly value of their estates and incomes spent out of the country. Other lists, both general and local, were from time to time published. While the penal laws were in force, and while the country continued in chronic disorder and disturbance, there was much excuse for English proprietors, who declined to risk their own lives and the lives of those dear to them by residing on their Irish estates.

That these fears were often groundless, the experience of such landlords as Richard Lovell Edgeworth demonstrated. . A touching memorial of this is given by Maria Edgeworth in her memoir of her father, in which she describes the results of his life at Edgworthstown. When Mr. Edgeworth closed his own too brief autobiography, his accomplished daughter thus commenced her portion of the memoir : "With the manuscript of my father's memoirs I found, on the next page to that where his narrative broke off, in his handwriting, the following memorandum: ‘In the year 1782 I returned to Ireland, with a firm determination to dedicate the remainder of my life to the improvement of my estate, and to the education of my children; and further, with the sincere hope of contributing to the melioration of the inhabitants of the country from which I drew my subsistence."" In the thirty-five years that remained of his life Mr. Edgeworth had many difficulties to meet, and witnessed perilous times, but his patriotic spirit and lofty sense of duty found ample reward in the end. "As he advanced in years," says Miss Edgeworth, "my father had the very great satisfaction of seeing himself surrounded by a respectable, independent, attached, grateful tenantry. He endeavoured to be of use not only to his tenantry, but to all within his influence as a country gentleman; not merely relieving the wants