122 A LIFE'S WORK IN IRELAND. 



trast of the patch of Connaught bog versus the corn- 

 fields of Manitoba, is beyond what human nature 

 could bear. A benevolent person could not do a 

 greater kindness than to print large handbills with 

 descriptions of North American corn-lands, and direc- 

 tions how to reach them, to be posted in all parts of 

 Connaught and distributed to every national school 

 child on its way home from school. 



In my district there was no distress last winter 

 beyond others. Not so much as before winter. 

 There is nothing that the poor-law was not more 

 than able to cope with. February 1, there were 

 three more paupers in the union than in 18*79 ; 

 March 1, there were ten more. But nothing is more 

 certain than that where the carcase is, there the 

 eagles will be gathered together. Any amount of 

 relief will be gladly accepted. The feeling is simply 

 universal, " Why should we not get our share of 

 what is going?" I contend, therefore, that the 

 natural way of meeting the Irish difficulty is the 

 true and only sure way that bad tenants should 

 lose their land by the effect of their own faults, and 

 good ones should get it instead of them, and that 

 the artificial course of trying to bolster up bad 

 tenants should be abandoned. A bad tenant may 

 be useful as a labourer, or in some other occupation. 

 If he is not, his children will probably become so. 

 As an emigrant he surely betters his own condition, 

 and gives his children a far better life than at home. 



