as possible out of the investment.  It is chiefly, but not wholly, on the estates of these proprietors that cases of injustice and oppression are found.  In the first class it is the agent that the tenants have to deal with; and whether he be humane or not matters little to them, for, whatever may be his feelings, the utmost penny must be exacted to keep up the expensive establishments of the landlord in England, to meet the cost of a new building, or the debt incurred by gambling on the turf and elsewhere.  Every transaction of the kind brings a fresh demand on the agent, and even if he be not unscrupulous or cruel, he must put on the screw, and get the money at all hazards.  I have been assured that it is quite usual, on such estates, to find the tenantry paying the highest rent compatible with the maintenance of bare life.  There is in the county of Down a great number of small holders thus struggling for existence.  As a specimen let us take the following case:—­A man holds a dozen acres of land, for which he pays 2 l. 10 s. per acre.  He labours as no slave could be made to work, in the summer time from five o’clock in the morning till six in the evening.  He can hardly scrape together a pound beyond the rent and taxes.  If a bad season comes, he is at starvation point:  he falls into arrears with the landlord, and he is forced by the bailiff to sell off his small stock to pay the rent.

Without the excuse of pecuniary difficulties, the merchant landlord is not a whit less exacting, or more merciful.  He looks upon the tenants as he would on so many head of cattle, and his sole consideration is what is the highest penny he can make out of them.  Not far from Belfast lived a farmer who cultivated a few acres.  Sickness and the support of a widowed sister’s family forced him into arrears of rent.  Ejectment proceedings were taken, and one day when he returned to his house, he found his furniture thrown out on the road, the sister and family evicted, and the door locked.  He was offered as much money as would take him to America, but he would not be allowed to sell the tenant-right.  Here is another case illustrative of the manner in which that right is sometimes dealt with:—­A respectable man purchased a farm at 10 l. an acre.  It was very poor land, much of it unfit for cultivation.  Immediately on getting possession a surveyor came and added two acres to the former measurement.  The incoming tenant was at the same time informed that the rent was raised to an extent that caused the possession to be a dead loss.  On threatening to throw up the concern, some reduction was made, which brought the rent as close as possible to the full letting value.