This communication determined Hycy to forego his intention for the present, and he consequently allowed the summer and autumn to pass without keeping up much intercourse with either Teddy Phats or the Hogans.  The truth is, that Burke, although apparently frank and candid, was constitutionally cautious, and inclined a good deal to suspicion.  He feared that no project, the knowledge of which was held in common with Finigan, could be long kept a secret; and for that reason he make up his mind to postpone the matter, and allow it to die away out of the schoolmaster’s mind ere he bestowed any further attention upon it.  In the meantime, the state of the country was gradually assuming a worse and more depressing character.  The season was unfavorable; and although we do not assert that many died of immediate famine, yet we know that hundreds—­nay, thousands—­died from the consequences of scarcity and destitution—­or, in plainer words, from fever and other diseases induced by bad and insufficient food, and an absence of the necessary comforts of life.  Indeed, at the period of our narrative, the position of Ireland was very gloomy; but when, we may ask, has it been otherwise, within the memory of man, or the records of history?  Placed as the country was, emigration went forward on an extensive scale,—­emigration, too, of that peculiar description which every day enfeebles and impoverishes the country, by depriving her of all that approaches to anything like a comfortable and independent yeomanry.  This, indeed, is a kind of depletion which no country can bear long; and, as it is, at the moment we are writing this, progressing at a rate beyond all precedent, it will not, we trust, be altogether uninteresting to inquire into some of the causes that have occasioned it.  Let not our readers apprehend, however, that we are about to turn our fictitious narrative into a dissertation on political economy.  Of course the principle cause of emigration is the poverty and depressed state of the country; and it follows naturally, that whatever occasions our poverty will necessarily occasion emigration.  The first cause of our poverty then, is Absenteeism, which, by drawing six or seven millions out of the country, deprives our people of employment and means of life to that amount.  The next is the general inattention of Irish landlords to the state and condition of their own property, and an inexcusable want of sympathy with their tenantry, which, indeed, is only a corollary from the former; for it can hardly be expected that those who wilfully neglect themselves will feel a warm interest in others.  The next is the evil of subletting, by which property becomes overloaded with human beings, who, for the most part, are bound by no ties whatsoever to the owner of the soil.  He is not their landlord, nor are they his tenants; and so far from their interests being in any way reciprocal, they are actually adversative.  It is his interest to have them removed, and, as circumstances unfortunately stand, it is theirs to remain, inasmuch as their alternative is ruin since they have no place of shelter to receive them.