than the neglected tools and forgotten victims of his own ambition.  Or can he be surprised, after hardening them into the iniquity of half a dozen elections, that he finds fellows in their number who would feel no more scruples in putting a bullet into him from behind a hedge, than they would into a dog?  Verily, my dear Simon Spinageberd, the more I look into the political and civil education which the people of Ireland have received, I am only surprised that property in this country rests upon so firm and secure a basis as I find it does.

“On arriving at Drum Dhu, the spectacle which presented itself to us was marked, not merely by the vestiges of inhumanity and bad policy, but by the wanton insolence of sectarian spirit and bitter party feeling.  On some of the doors had been written with chalk or charcoal, “Clear off—­to hell or Connaught!” “Down with Popery!” “M’Clutchy’s cavalry and Ballyhack wreckers for ever!” In accordance with these offensive principles most of all the smaller cottages and cabins had been literally wrecked and left uninhabitable, in the violence of this bad impulse, although at the present moment they are about to be re-erected, to bear out the hollow promises that will be necessary for the forthcoming election.  The village was indeed a miserable and frightful scene.  There it stood, between thirty and forty small and humble habitations, from which, with the exception of about five or six, all the inmates had been dispossessed, without any consideration for age, sex, poverty, or sickness.  Nay, I am assured that a young man was carried out during the agonies of death, and expired in the street, under the fury of a stormy and tempestuous day.  Of those who remained, four who are Protestants, and two whom are Catholics, have promised to vote with M’Clutchy, who is here the great representative of Lord Cumber and his property.  If, indeed, you were now to look upon these two miserable lines of silent and tenantless walls, most of them unroofed, and tumbled into heaps of green ruin, that are fast melting out of shape, for they were mostly composed of mere peat—­you would surely say, as the Eastern Vizier said in the apologue.  ’God prosper Mr. Valentine M’Clutchy!—­for so long as Lord Cumber has him for an agent, he will never want plenty of ruined villages!’ My companion muttered many things to himself, but said nothing intelligible, until he came to one of the ruins pretty near the centre:—­

“‘Ay,’ said he, ’here is the place they said he died—­here before the door—­and in there is where he lay during his long sickness.  The wet thatch and the sods is lying there now.  Many a time I was with him.  Poor Torley!’

“‘Of whom do you speak now, Raymond?’ I asked.

“‘Come away,’ he said, not noticing my question,—­’come till I show you the other place that the neighbors built privately when he was dying—­the father I mean—­ay, and the other wid the white head, him that wouldn’t waken—­come.’