ULSTER TENANT-RIGHT. 173 



for a tour in the counties of Tyrone and Fermanagh, 

 to see what was going on there among his pupils, I 

 remember at one place we went to visit one of Mr. 

 Blacker's transplanted tenants, and found he had 

 given up all the good ways in which he had been 

 instructed, and had relapsed into barbarous native 

 habits. 



Whilst Blacker was reproving his erring sheep, 

 an old neighbouring tenant, who had joined himself 

 to us in our walk, as the way is in Ireland, came up 

 to his landlord and me, and said, "Whisha, your 

 honour, ye brought that fellow to be a parable to us, 

 and sure he is as bad as any of us." It was too true. 



It will thus be seen that though the looms were 

 then in almost every house in a large part of Ulster, 

 Tenant-right did not save the country from the com- 

 mon troubles of Irish bad farming and subdividing 

 land, nor raise the condition of the people. It never 

 could do so. Still less can it do so in the other pro- 

 vinces, where very few are able to pay large sums to 

 get possession of farms but shopkeepers who have 

 made money in business. What is the gain from 

 such men as farmers ? A great trade in Ulster for 

 many generations has enriched many of the people, 

 and Scotch blood and habits have helped to make 

 Ulster more prosperous. That is all. After the 

 Land Act passed in 1870 we had several very pros- 

 perous years for farmers. The prices paid for Ten- 

 ant-right rose higher and higher; and the years 



