JANUARY 157 



the trials England has gone through at various epochs 

 of her history, of a kind which Ireland, through the 

 very nature of circumstances, has escaped, there would 

 be less of that one-sided judgment which inclines to 

 think that all the woes of Ireland are peculiarly her own, 

 yet solely due to the rule of the English. Troubles and 

 difficulties come to all nations alike, and certainly Eng- 

 land herself is in no way exempt. Witness, for in- 

 stance, the terrible misery produced by the introduction 

 of machinery, the cotton famines, and even the legisla- 

 tion of recent days which stopped the importation of 

 rags for fear of the cholera. Let those who care for a 

 vivid picture of such times read an old, forgotten novel 

 by Benjamin Disraeli, written in the early part of this 

 reign and called 'Sybil.' 



During a short excursion into the country by rail, I 

 was shocked to see how the trees, already less plentiful 

 than they ought to be, proclaimed that sure sign of ne- 

 glect they were almost invariably covered with Ivy. 

 This beautiful semi -parasitical plant is very picturesque, 

 and many people have a sentimental love for it from its 

 greenness in winter ; but it destroys the trees, and, 

 though it may hasten the end of very old trees to cut the 

 Ivy down suddenly, it should always be killed on young 

 trees by cutting it through the stem at the base and 

 allowing it to perish and fall away. I am told that one 

 of the curious effects of the last Land Act is that the 

 proprietors of land imagine they have an unlimited 

 right to cut down their trees, without considering the 

 evil effects this will have on the future climate and 

 wealth of their country. As it is, Ireland has been far 

 too much deprived of her forests in the past, and I, with 

 the tyranny of one who imagines that she understands 

 everybody's affairs better than they do themselves, 

 should make the cutting down of trees penal. The wise 



