We are constantly hearing of the immense rise in wages since the famine.  Well, they are nominally higher, but in the old times the labourer could get more for 8 d. or 10 d. than he can now get for 1 s. 6 d. or 2 s.  Fuel is now three times as dear as it was, because the ‘rules of the estate’ will not allow the tenants to sell turf even on the verge of extensive bogs.  Milk, which was formerly abundant and very cheap, is scarcely to be had at all now in the country towns and villages, because the land is devoted to feeding sheep and ’dry cattle.’  Under the old system, the cottiers in the small towns and villages, as well as on the roads in the country, were enabled to keep pigs.  The pig paid the rent, and made manure which was put out on the ground of some neighbouring farmer, hired as ‘conacre.’  The crop of potatoes thus obtained was a great help in the winter months, when employment was rarely to be had.  This practice still prevails in Ulster.  The farmer puts in the crop for the manure, the cottier paying the farmer’s rent—­5 s. to 10 s. a rood, or whatever it may be.  With this help the family get over the winter, and feed the pig, without which help, they say, it would be impossible to exist, even with constant employment at a shilling a day.  But on the estates of improving landlords in the other provinces, the rules forbid the tenant to give the use of any ground for conacre.  He must not, on pain of eviction, take manure for such a purpose, though it would help to enrich his land for the ensuing year.  The evicted cottiers and small farmers are forced to go to towns and villages, shut up in unwholesome rooms.  When they have been thus so far got rid of, the most ingenious devices are resorted to in order to render it impossible for them to live.  By the ‘rules of the estate,’ the supply of necessaries is cut off on every side.  Without fuel, without milk, without potatoes, unless bought at a high rate for ready money, how are they to live?  The strong members of the poor man’s family emigrate or go to service; the weak ones and the young children pine away in a state of semi-starvation, preferring that to the best fare in the hated workhouse.

The people are fully sensible of the causes of these privations.  They know that they have been forced into this condition by the landlords and their improving agents, induced in some cases by the temptation of a few pounds to surrender their little holdings.  The lord lieutenant of the King’s County has thus cleared an immense district, and has himself become a grazier and a cattle-dealer on a monster scale, attending the markets in person, and driving hard bargains with the farmers and jobbers.  By such means the population of that county has been reduced one-third in the last twenty years.  The moral aspect of this new system is worthy of consideration.  It is thus presented by Archdeacon Redmond of Arklow, one of the most moderate and respected parish-priests in Ireland.  When lately presenting an address to Lord Granard from his Wexford tenantry, he said:—­