172 ON THE STATE OF IRELAND. [BOOK II. 



REMARKS. 



We have seen that the widows find, in the feel- 

 ing of maternal love, a motive which leads them to 

 undertake the duties of the head of a family, to keep 

 their children near them, to feed, to take care of 

 and to bring them up, without having without 

 even the prospect of having the necessary means 

 for all this. They are mothers, and God is over 

 them : this is their faith and their trust. But what 

 can an old man do, who has no future before him, 

 no interest beyond that of prolonging his old age, 

 except to live a wandering life, as these Inquiries 

 present him to as, and that at the period of life 

 when men are most tenacious of their long-accus- 

 tomed habits ? 



Here then we see the results of a system, which, 

 whilst it destroys the protectors of society, mul- 

 tiplies the class who have need of protection. Let 

 any one read the deposition of the Protestant 

 Archbishop of Tuam, and the official reports re- 

 lative to his diocese, and he will see that in every 

 hundred inhabitants there are four Protestants. 

 These four are the monopolizers of the property 

 confiscated from the Catholic laity, as he the 

 Archbishop is of the property confiscated from 

 the Catholic clergy. His flocks are therefore 

 the richest. In ten parishes, there is one in 



