60 A LIFE'S WORK IN IRELAND. 



CHAPTEE VII. 



IRISH DISAFFECTION. 

 SEPTEMBER 1871. 



I AM convinced that a great majority of the Irish 

 people desire quiet and order before all things. 



It is the fact, that never before was there such 

 prosperity of all classes in Ireland. Farmers are 

 especially thriving. Shopkeepers in every small 

 town are carrying on a trade such as was undreamt 

 of twenty years ago. The goods shown to-day in 

 their shop windows include numbers of articles of 

 comfort and even luxury, such as then it would have 

 been thought silly to ask for. Artisans and labourers 

 are getting wages unknown before. 



No doubt it is a natural consequence that when 

 Jeshurun waxes fat, he should kick, yet such 

 kicking partakes more of the nature of capering than 

 of vice. Any way, it is quite different from the 

 kicking caused by want and dire misery. 



Further, there was never a time in the memory 

 of any one living when disaffection and discontent 

 did not prevail among large classes in Ireland. The 



