CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE. 



Lawrence, " plucking stinking carrion out of a 

 ditch, black and rotten, and been credibly informed 

 that they digged corpses out of the grave to eat." 

 By twenty-four acts,' says Mr M'Lennan, ' passed 

 between the seventh year of his (William III.) 

 reign and the 29th of George II. the penal code 

 (i.e. against the Catholics) reached the fulness of 

 its hideousness. The papist was withdrawn from 

 the charge and education of his family ; he could 

 educate his children neither at home nor abroad. 

 Popish schools were prohibited, and special dis- 

 abilities attached to papists bred abroad. A pre- 

 mium was set on the breach of filial duty and family 

 affections. . . . The exercise of his religion was 

 forbidden ; its chapels were shut up ; its priests 

 banished and hanged if they returned home.' The 

 breaking out of the American war extorted some 

 concession to Ireland from the British government ; 

 and the French Revolution extorted further con- 

 cession. In 1792, the Catholics were granted 

 the right of education, admitted to the bar, and 

 allowed to intermarry with Protestants. This, which 

 may fairly be called the beginning of justice to 

 Ireland, was followed by the political enfranchise- 

 ment of the Catholic population in 1793, by the 

 Union in 1800, and by the completion of Catholic 

 emancipation in 1829 ; but all came too late to 

 restore tranquillity to the distracted and unhappy 

 country. In 1832 its condition was fearful. The 

 Association that had carried Catholic emancipa- 

 tion was looking forward to repeal of the Union ; 

 and Catholic and Protestant fanaticism were alike 

 in a blaze. The condition of the people was 

 deplorable. The landlords were for the most part 

 tyrants or absentees, or both, by means of ' mid- 

 dlemen' between them and the tenants. Most of 

 the estates were in Chancery, and had been there 

 for about half a century. There were the old diffi- 

 culties regarding the land. The peasantry were 

 sunk in destitution and squalor. There were 

 ever new political combinations, such as ' Rib- 

 bonism,' forming among them, to secure their 

 interests by outrage and disorder. There were 

 the difficulties of tithe collection. There was 

 O'Connell agitating ; and there was the opposition 

 agitation of the Orange Society, with its secret 

 meetings and armed members. 'Agrarian crimes, 

 faction fights,' says Mr M'Lennan, ' occasional 

 insurrections, perpetual agitations in connection 

 with land, politics, or religion, were the symp- 

 toms of the universal discontent and inquietude.' 

 Happily, in our own day, we have seen the volun- 

 tary completion by England of those measures 

 of justice to Ireland which in former times were 

 only partly conceded to political necessity. That 

 these measures should be at once fully successful, 

 is, of course, not to be expected. The effect of 

 centuries of oppression and misgovernment can- 

 not be expected to disappear the instant that the 

 cause is withdrawn the sea, long vexed by 

 tempest, continues to rage for some time after the 

 winds have ceased. But there is every reason to 

 hope that a new and a happier era has at length 

 dawned on Ireland ; and that the next generation 

 may see her people prosperous and contented, as 

 they are generous and brave. 



No one, probably, had ever a keener apprecia- 

 tion of Irish character its drollery, its wit and 

 humour amid rags and disorder, its swagger 

 under poverty and debt, its generosity, and 

 its ferocity than Thackeray. ' What a his- 



260 



tory,' he writes in his Irish Sketch-book, ' of 

 poverty, and barbarity and crime, and evert 

 kindness, was that by which we passed ! What 

 a chapter might a philosopher write on them \ 

 Look yonder, at those two hundred raggedi 

 fellow-subjects of yours they are kind, good,, 

 pious, brutal, starving. If the priest tells them, 

 there is scarce any penance they will not perform ; 

 there is scarcely any pitch of misery which they 

 have not been known to endure, nor any degree of 

 generosity of which they are not capable ; but if 

 a man comes among these people, and can afford 

 to take land over their heads, or if he invents- 

 a machine which can work more economically 

 than their labour, they will shoot the man down, 

 without mercy, murder him, or put him to horrible 

 tortures, and glory almost in what they do. ... 

 They are as fond of their mother and children as 

 we are ; their gratitude for small kindnesses 

 shewn to them is extraordinary ; they are Chris- 

 tians as we are ; but interfere with their interests,, 

 and they will murder you without pity. It is not 

 revenge so much which these poor fellows take, as- 

 a brutal justice of their own.' As descriptive of 

 the disorderly habits of the lower classes of the 

 Irish, take the following : ' But of all the wonder- 

 ful things to be seen in Skibbereen, Dan's pantry 

 is the most wonderful ; every article within is 

 a make-shift, and has been ingeniously per- 

 verted from its original destination. Here lie 



1 bread, blacking, fresh butter, tallow-candles, dirty 



, knives all in the same cigar-box with snuff, 

 milk, cold bacon, brown sugar, broken tea-cups, 

 and bits of soap. No pen can describe that 

 establishment, no English imagination could have 



| conceived it ! ' On the other hand, he continues :. 



I ' I have met more gentlemen here (i.e. in Ireland) 

 than in any place I ever saw gentlemen of high, 

 and low ranks ; that is to say, men shrewd and 

 delicate of perception, observant of society, enter- 

 ing into the feelings of others, and anxious to 

 set them at ease or to gratify them ; of course 

 exaggerating their professions of kindness, and in. 

 so far insincere ; but the very exaggeration seems 

 to be a proof of a kindly nature, and I wish irv 

 England we were a little more complimentary.' 



The following was the population of Ireland,, 

 according to the census returns at decennial 

 periods, from 1821 : (1821) 6,801,827 ; (1831) 

 7,767,401; (1841) 8,196,597; (1851) 6,574,278?- 

 (1861) 5>798,967; (1871) 5,412,377 ', (1881) 5,159,839- 

 Between 1841 and 1851, the population decreased 

 19-79 per cent; from 1851 to 1861, 11-79 P er 

 cent.; from 1861 to 1871, 6-83 per cent.; from 

 1871 to 1881, 4-7 per cent. 



Emigration. In the decennial period ending 

 with 1 88 1, 622,686 Irish-born persons emigrated 

 from Ireland ; and in the ten years from April 

 i, 1861, to March 31, 1871, 819,903 Irish-born 

 persons emigrated from different ports in the 

 United Kingdom. 'To emigration,' says the 

 Census Report quoted by the above authority, 

 ' may chiefly be attributed the decrease of the 

 population during a period when the country was 

 remarkably free from any outbreak of pestilence, 

 scarcity of food, or of the other social calamities 

 which have occasionally retarded the growth of 

 population in this and other countries. It must 

 also be remembered that some of the remote 

 effects of the disastrous period of famine, pesti- 

 lence, and panic, which commenced with the 



