410 



THE lUilïISn ISLES. 



Act of 1870 tenants can no longer be evicted unless tlic landowner is prepared to 

 compensate them for an}- " improvements " they may have made. This does not, 

 however, hold good in cases where tenants are unable or unwilling to pay the rent 

 ao-reed upon, and the evictions recently enforced have led to a renewal of the land 

 agitation, and to a demand for the abolition of landlords, and the creation of 

 peasant proprietors, or at all events for fixity of tenure at a rent considered 

 fair by the occupier. This agitation has unfortunately resulted in agrarian 

 crimes and murders, which it had been hoped were things of the past in Ireland. 

 Yet, comparing the Ireland of 1841 with that of 1880, the great progress in its 

 ao-riculture is undeniable. Since 1851 there has been a wonderful increase in 

 the number of cattle and sheep,* and the supplies forthcoming for the English 

 market are increasing with every year, whilst the sums received in return are 

 divided amongst a smaller number of people. We are not, perhaps, wrong in 

 assuming that the average income of Ireland is now about double what it was in 

 the middle of the century. Erin, in its economical conditions, is, in fact, rapidly 

 being assimilated with Great Britain. 



In both islands, however, there are still thousands who depend upon charity 

 for their means of subsistence. True, Irish towns in which the persons living in the 

 workhouse are more numerous than those who are called upon to maintain them are 

 no longer to be found ; nor, as was the case a generation ago, are there now parishes 

 where 4,000 inhabitants own between them only 10 mattresses and 8 paillasses.f 

 Hunger typhus no longer decimates the population, even though the potatoes 

 should fail for a season ; but the want of proper nourishment and the almost 

 total disregard of sanitary laws nevertheless shorten the lives of entire popula- 

 tions. Wretched mud cabins, filled with the biting smoke of peat, and inhabited 

 by ten or twelve human beings, who sleep on the damp soil bj^ the side of their 

 pigs, are still numerous. Along many parts of the coast the inhabitants eat sea- 

 weed, not by any means as a relish with their salad, as is done by the wealthy 

 citizens of Belfast, but because their gardens and plots of arable land do not yield 

 siifficient to satisfy their wants. Through a strange irony of fate, the poorest 

 Irishmen take most delight in dressing in swallow-tailed coats and breeches, and in 

 wearing black hats. Whole ship- loads of cast-off garments of this description are 

 annually sent across the Channel. The clothing produced in the country itself 

 is coarse, but exhibits in its cut a considerable degree of good taste. 



All the large towns of Ireland lie on the sea-coast. Situated near England 

 and Scotland, and at the western extremity of Europe, Ireland failed to create a 

 great capital in the interior of the island. Her centres of civilisation naturally 



* Live stock : — 



Horses and Mule'i 



Cattle 



Sheep 



Pigs 



t George Hill ; ^Ir. and Mrs. Hall, " Ireland ; " Amédée Pichot, " L'Irlande et le pays des Galles.' 



