72 THE IRISH AGRARIAN PROBLEM. 



crimes of the worst description.^ The number 

 of these crimes was as follows : — 



1844-50 ... ... ... 7,958 



1851-60 ... .. ... 4,153 



1861-70 ... ... ... .3>i89 



The decrease in number does not denote any 

 real improvement, since the population had sunk 

 from 6,900,000 in 1850 to 5,400,000 in 1870. 

 In the years 1861-70 there occurred no less than 

 294 agrarian crimes of violence," many of which 

 were carried out with frightful brutality. 



Meantime the era of the triumphant de- 

 mocracy had arrived in England, and it con- 

 fronted the Irish landlord and his somewhat 

 dubious contributions to civilization with extreme 

 antipathy. The Manchester school agitated, 

 above all things, against the rigidity of the 

 system of ownership of the soil and the con- 

 sequent monopolization of the land in the hands 

 of a few proprietors ; and through its leader, 

 John Bright, it declared for the creation of a 

 peasant proprietary. The wretched condition 

 of Ireland, with its endless interchange of 

 evictions and agrarian crimes, afforded ample 

 material for the eloquence of the great tribune. 

 There was at this time a political factor which 

 inclined the public opinion of England towards 



^ Barry O'Brien, " Fifty Years of Concession to Ireland," 

 II., p. 249. 



- Thorn's Official Directory, 1903, p. 705. The figures do 

 not include those for the metropolitan police district. 



