382 WILD SPORTS OF THE WEST. 



Is there for this any remedy ? Cannot modern 

 landlords, acting on what they call enUghtened principles, 

 remove the causes of distress, and restore the peasantry 

 to that scale of comfort they enjoyed under the rude 

 and tyrannical regime of their fathers ? They cannot. 

 They will talk " scholarly " of tithes and local 

 taxation, and vainly attribute the insolvency of their 

 tenants to these and such like causes ; this is vox et 

 prceterea nihil — an unreal and fanciful conceit. The 

 true cause of the misery of the western population is 

 over-population and excessive rents ; and before the 

 peasantry could be tolerably comfortable, the lands 

 must, on the average, be lowered at least one-third. 

 Even then, at present prices, the occupant will be hardly 

 able to manage to pay the rent and live. 



But can the landlords do this ^ Can they afford to 

 equalize their rental to the times, and throw a third 

 portion from their nominal income overboard .' They 

 cannot. The majority of the owners of western estates, 

 from family burdens and national unthriftiness, are 

 heavily and hopelessly encumbered ; and a reduction 

 on such scale as would be necessary to ensure their 

 tenants' comforts, would completely pauperize 

 themselves. Hence, to keep off the evil day, every 

 pretext but the true one will be assigned for local 

 wretchedness — and every reason but the right one 

 offered to the starving tenant, to persuade him that 

 ruinous rents will never occasion want and poverty. 



In personal appearance, the western peasantry are 

 very inferior to those of the other divisions of the 

 kingdom. Generally, they are undersized and by no 

 means so good-looking as their southern neighbours — 

 and I would say, in other points they are equally deficient. 



