A Family of Eleven Persons in one Cabin. 251 



pence. The tithe of agistment was abolished 

 by a vote of the Irish Commons. It would have 

 been a happy circumstance if, at the same 

 time, all tithes had been extinguished on a 

 fair and liberal principle. The cabin was 

 divided into three apartments ; a sitting room, 

 one for sleeping in, and a third for lumber. 

 The family, consisting of eleven persons, had 

 three beds only for the accommodation of them 

 all several of the children were grown up. 

 This spectacle presented a melancholy instance 

 of the misery consequent on a redundant popu- 

 lation ; two thirds of this family were super- 

 numeraries, consuming the productive labor of 

 the rest. Few services, or situations, are to be 

 found for the unmarried of either sex, and what 

 can be procured are to be had only in towns ; 

 the labour of the country being no more than 

 can be performed by the married cottiers. 

 From this circumstance the attention of the 

 sexes, from the first dawn of maturity, is 

 directed to the acquiring a settlement for them- 

 selves. A cabin is to be raised and roofed ; 

 the bog affords them space for this purpose 

 and that of their potatoe ground ; or else they 

 climb the mountain, where, in several instances, 

 by counting the ascending range of cabins, a 

 tolerably correct computation might be formed 



