238 ON THE STATE OF IRELAND. [BOOK III. 



similar improvements, though not perhaps to so great a 

 profit, might be effected elsewhere ; but that the state of 

 the law prevents partition of bogs held in common without 

 the expensive process of a bill in Chancery. He adds an 

 expression of his belief, that if the proprietors of adjacent 

 town-lands could obtain possession of their several allot- 

 ments of bog by a cheap and short process, a considerable 

 expenditure of capital would take place : the result would 

 be profitable to a certain degree to the owner, and at all 

 events would give immediate relief to numbers of people, 

 by affording them employment, and would enable the po- 

 pulation, superabundant in other places, to obtain settle- 

 ments on the lands reclaimed. ' No person of sane mind/ 

 observes Mr. Rickman, f would desire that the machinery 

 of an English Inclosure Act should be employed through- 

 out Ireland, because it would create interminable delay, 

 and an expense usually estimated at 51. the English acre/ 

 Various bills have at different times been brought forward 

 to facilitate these objects, but no legislative measure has 

 as yet received the sanction of Parliament. 



" When the immense importance of bringing into a 

 productive state five millions of acres now lying waste is 

 considered, it cannot but be a subject of regret and sur- 

 prise that no greater progress in this undertaking has as yet 

 been made. If this work can be accomplished, not only 

 would it afford a transitory but a permanent demand for 

 productive labour, accompanied by a corresponding rise of 

 wages and improvement in the condition of the poor ; op- 

 portunities would also be afforded for the settlement of the 

 peasantry, now superabundant in particular districts, on 

 waste lands which at present scarcely produce the means 

 of sustenance, or are suited for human habitations. This 



