were, by his advice, multiplying their little capital as fast as himself.  The two boys, who had now shot up into the stature of young men, were at work as laboring servants in the neighborhood.  The daughters were also engaged as servants with the adjoining farmers.  The boys bought each a pair of two-year old heifers, and the daughter one.  These they sent to graze up in the mountains at a trifling charge, for the first year or two:  when they became springers, they put them to rich infield grass for a few months, until they got a marketable appearance, after which their father brought them to the neighboring fairs, where they usually sold to great advantage, in consequence of the small outlay required in rearing them.

In fact, the principle of industry ran through the family.  There was none of them idle; none of them a burthen or a check upon the profits made by the laborer.  On the contrary, “they laid their shoulders together,” as the phrase is, and proved to the world, that when the proper disposition is followed up by suitable energy and perseverance, it must generally reward him who possesses it.

It is certainly true that Owen’s situation in life now was essentially different from that which it had been during the latter years of his struggles an a farmer.  It was much more favorable, and far better calculated to develop successful exertion.  If there be a class of men deserving public sympathy, it is that of the small farmers of Ireland.  Their circumstances are fraught with all that is calculated to depress and ruin them; rents far above their ability, increasing poverty, and bad markets.  The land which, during the last war, might have enabled the renter to pay three pounds per acre, and yet still maintain himself with tolerable comfort, could not now pay more than one pound, or, at the most, one pound ten; and yet, such is the infatuation of landlords, that, in most instances, the terms of leases taken out then are rigorously exacted.  Neither can the remission of yearly arrears be said to strike at the root of the evils under which they suffer.  The fact of the disproportionate rent hanging over them is a disheartening circumstance, that paralyzes their exertion, and sinks their spirits.  If a landlord remit the rent for one term, he deals more harshly with the tenant at the next; whatever surplus, if any, his former indulgence leaves in the tenant’s hands, instead of being expended upon his property as capital, and being permitted to lay the foundation of hope and prosperity, is drawn from him, at next term, and the poor, struggling tenant is thrown back into as much distress, embarrassment, and despondency as ever.  There are, I believe, few tenants in Ireland of the class I allude to, who are not from one gale to three in arrear.  Now, how can it be expected that such men will labor with spirit and earnestness to raise crops which they may never reap? crops which the landlord may seize upon to secure as much of his rent as he can.