"A long, hard, severe winter, and a round of typhus fever, which carried off two children, finished him. John Bodger was beaten, and obliged to sell his bit of land. He had borrowed money on it from the lawyer; while laid up with fever he had silently allowed his wife to run up a bill at 'The Shop.' When strong enough for work there was no work to be had. Lobbit saw his opportunity, and took it. John Bodger wanted to buy a cow, he wanted seed, he wanted to pay the doctor, and to give his boys clothes to enable them to go to service. He sold his land for what he thought would do all this and leave a few pounds in hand. He attended to sign the deed and receive money; when instead of the balance of twenty-five pounds he had expected, he received one pound ten shillings, and a long lawyer's billreceipted."He did not say much; for poor countrymen don't know how to talk to lawyers, but he went toward home like a drunken man; and, not hearing the clatter of a horse behind him that had run away, was knocked down, run over, and picked up with his collar-bone and two ribs broken."The next day he was delirious; in the course of a fortnight he came to his senses, lying on a workhouse bed. Before he could rise from the workhouse bed, not a stick or stone had been left to tell where the cottage of his fathers had stood for more than two hundred years, and Mr. Joseph Lobbit had obtained, in auctioneering phrase, a magnificent estate of five hundred acres within a ring fence."John Bodger stood up at length a ruined, desperate, dangerous man, pale, and weak, and even humble. He said nothing; the fever seemed to have tamed every limb—every feature—except his eyes, which glittered like an adder's when Mr. Lobbit came to talk to him. Lobbit saw it and trembled in his inmost heart, yet was ashamed of being afraid of apauper!"About this time Swing fires made their appearance in the country, and the principal insurance companies refused to insure farming stock, to the consternation of Mr. Lobbit; for he had lately begun to suspect that among Mr. Swing's friends he was not very popular, yet he had some thousand pounds of corn-stacks in his own yards and those of his customers.
"A long, hard, severe winter, and a round of typhus fever, which carried off two children, finished him. John Bodger was beaten, and obliged to sell his bit of land. He had borrowed money on it from the lawyer; while laid up with fever he had silently allowed his wife to run up a bill at 'The Shop.' When strong enough for work there was no work to be had. Lobbit saw his opportunity, and took it. John Bodger wanted to buy a cow, he wanted seed, he wanted to pay the doctor, and to give his boys clothes to enable them to go to service. He sold his land for what he thought would do all this and leave a few pounds in hand. He attended to sign the deed and receive money; when instead of the balance of twenty-five pounds he had expected, he received one pound ten shillings, and a long lawyer's billreceipted.
"He did not say much; for poor countrymen don't know how to talk to lawyers, but he went toward home like a drunken man; and, not hearing the clatter of a horse behind him that had run away, was knocked down, run over, and picked up with his collar-bone and two ribs broken.
"The next day he was delirious; in the course of a fortnight he came to his senses, lying on a workhouse bed. Before he could rise from the workhouse bed, not a stick or stone had been left to tell where the cottage of his fathers had stood for more than two hundred years, and Mr. Joseph Lobbit had obtained, in auctioneering phrase, a magnificent estate of five hundred acres within a ring fence.
"John Bodger stood up at length a ruined, desperate, dangerous man, pale, and weak, and even humble. He said nothing; the fever seemed to have tamed every limb—every feature—except his eyes, which glittered like an adder's when Mr. Lobbit came to talk to him. Lobbit saw it and trembled in his inmost heart, yet was ashamed of being afraid of apauper!
"About this time Swing fires made their appearance in the country, and the principal insurance companies refused to insure farming stock, to the consternation of Mr. Lobbit; for he had lately begun to suspect that among Mr. Swing's friends he was not very popular, yet he had some thousand pounds of corn-stacks in his own yards and those of his customers.
"John Bodger, almost convalescent, was anxious to leave the poorhouse, while the master, the doctor, and every official, seemed in a league to keep him there and make him comfortable, although a short time previously the feeling had been quite different. But the old rector of Duxmoor having died at the early age of sixty-six, in spite of his care for his health, had been succeeded by a man who was not content to leave his duties to deputies; all the parish affairs underwent a keen criticism, and John and his large family came under investigation. His story came out. The new rector pitied and tried to comfort him; but his soothing words fell on deaf ears. The only answer he could get from John was, 'A hard life while it lasts, sir, and a pauper's grave, a pauper widow, pauper children; Parson, while this is all you can offer John Bodger, preaching to him is of no use.'"With the wife the clergyman was more successful. Hope and belief are planted more easily in the hearts of women than of men, for adversity softens the one and hardens the other. The rector was not content with exhorting the poor; he applied to the rich Joseph Lobbit on behalf of John Bodger's family, and as the rector was not only a truly Christian priest, but a gentleman of good family and fortune, the parochial ruler was obliged to hear and to heed."Bland and smooth, almost pathetic, was Joseph Lobbit: he was 'heartily sorry for the poor man and his large family; should be happy to offer him and his wife permanent employment on his Hill farm, as well as two of the boys and one of the girls.'"The eldest son and daughter, the first twins, had been for some time in respectable service. John would have nothing to do with Mr. Lobbit."While this discussion was pending, the news of a ship at Plymouth waiting for emigrants, reached Duxmoor."The parson and the great shopkeeper were observed in a long warm conference in the rectory garden, which ended in their shaking hands, and the rector proceeding with rapid strides to the poorhouse."The same day the lately established girls' school was set to work sowing garments of all sizes, as well as the females of therector's family. A week afterward there was a stir in the village; a wagon moved slowly away, laden with a father, mother, and large family, and a couple of pauper orphan girls. Yes, it was true; John and Carry Bodger were going to 'furrin parts,' 'to be made slaves on.' The women cried, and so did the children from imitation. The men stared. As the emigrants passed the Red Lion there was an attempt at a cheer from two tinkers; but it was a failure; no one joined in. So staring and staring, the men stood until the wagon crept round the turn of the lane and over the bridge, out of sight; then bidding the 'wives' go home and be hanged to 'em, their lords, that had twopence, went in to spend it at the Red Lion, and those who had not, went in to see the others drink, and talk over John Bodger's 'bouldness,' and abuse Muster Lobbit quietly, so that no one in top-boots should hear them;—for they were poor ignorant people in Duxmoor—they had no one to teach them, or to care for them, and after the fever, and a long hard winter, they cared little for their own flesh and blood, still less for their neighbours. So John Bodger was forgotten almost before he was out of sight."By the road-wagon which the Bodgers joined when they reached the highway, it was a three days' journey to Plymouth."But, although they were gone, Mr. Lobbit did not feel quite satisfied; he felt afraid lest John should return and do him some secret mischief. He wished to see him on board ship, and fairly under sail. Besides his negotiation with Emigration Brokers had opened up ideas of a new way of getting rid, not only of dangerous fellows like John Bodger, but of all kinds of useless paupers. These ideas he afterward matured, and although important changes have taken place in our emigrating system, even in 1851, a visit to government ships, will present many specimens of parish inmates converted, by dexterous diplomacy, into independent labourers."Thus it was, that contrary to all precedent, Mr. Lobbit left his shopman to settle the difficult case of credit with his Christmas customers, and with best horse made his way to Plymouth; and now for the first time in his life floated on salt water."With many grunts and groans he climbed the ship's side; notbeing as great a man at Plymouth as at Duxmoor, no chair was lowered to receive his portly person. The mere fact of having to climb up a rope-ladder from a rocking boat on a breezy, freezing day, was not calculated to give comfort or confident feelings to an elderly gentleman. With some difficulty, not without broken shins, amid the sarcastic remarks of groups of wild Irishmen, and the squeaks of barefooted children—who not knowing his awful parochial character, tumbled about Mr. Lobbit's legs in a most impertinently familiar manner—he made his way to the captain's cabin, and there transacted some mysterious business with the Emigration Agent over a prime piece of mess beef and a glass of Madeira. The Madeira warmed Mr. Lobbit. The captain assured him positively that the ship would sail with the evening tide. That assurance removed a heavy load from his breast: he felt like a man who had been performing a good action, and also cheated himself into believing that he had been spendinghis ownmoney in charity; so, at the end of the second bottle, he willingly chimed in with the broker's proposal to go down below and see how the emigrants were stowed, and have a last look at his 'lot.'"Down the steep ladder they stumbled into the misery of a 'bounty' ship. A long, dark gallery, on each side of which were ranged the berths; narrow shelves open to every prying eye; where, for four months, the inmates were to be packed like herrings in a barrel, without room to move, almost without air to breathe; the mess table, running far aft the whole distance between the masts, left little room for passing, and that little was encumbered with all manner of boxes, packages, and infants, crawling about like rabbits in a warren."The groups of emigrants were characteristically employed. The Irish 'coshering,' or gossiping; for, having little or no baggage to look after, they had little care; but lean and ragged, monopolized almost all the good-humour of the ship. Acute cockneys, a race fit for every change, hammering, whistling, screwing and making all snug in their berths; tidy mothers, turning with despair from alternate and equally vain attempts to collect their numerous children out of danger, and to pack the necessaries of a room into the space of a small cupboard, wept and worked away.Here, a ruined tradesman, with his family, sat at the table, dinnerless, having rejected the coarse, tough salt meat in disgust: there, a half-starved group fed heartily on rations from the same cask, luxuriated over the allowance of grog, and the idea of such a good meal daily. Songs, groans, oaths: crying, laughing, complaining, hammering and fiddling combined to produce a chaos of strange sounds; while thrifty wives, with spectacle on nose, mended their husband's breeches, and unthrifty ones scolded."Amid this confusion, under the authoritative guidance of the second mate, Mr. Lobbit made his way, inwardly calculating how many poachers, pauper refractories, Whiteboys, and Captain Rocks, were about to benefit Australia by their talents, until he reached a party which had taken up its quarters as far as possible from the Irish, in a gloomy corner near the stern. It consisted of a sickly, feeble woman, under forty, but worn, wasted, retaining marks of former beauty in a pair of large, dark, speaking eyes, and a well-carved profile, who was engaged in nursing two chubby infants, evidently twins, while two little things, just able to walk, hung at her skirts; a pale, thin boy, nine or ten years old, was mending a jacket; an elder brother, as brown as a berry, fresh from the fields, was playing dolefully on a hemlock flute. The father, a little, round-shouldered man, was engaged in cutting wooden buttons from a piece of hard wood with his pocket-knife; when he caught sight of Mr. Lobbit he hastily pulled off his coat, threw it into his berth, and, turning his back, worked away vigorously at the stubborn bit of oak he was carving."'Hallo, John Bodger, so here you are at last,' cried Mr. Lobbit; 'I've broken my shins, almost broken my neck, and spoilt my coat with tar and pitch, in finding you out. Well, you're quite at home, I see: twins all well?—both pair of them? How do you find yourself, Missis?'"The pale woman sighed, and cuddled her babies—the little man said nothing, but sneered, and made the chips fly faster."'You're on your way now to a country where twins are no object; your passage is paid, and you've only got now to pray for the good gentlemen that have given you a chance of earning an honest living.'
"John Bodger, almost convalescent, was anxious to leave the poorhouse, while the master, the doctor, and every official, seemed in a league to keep him there and make him comfortable, although a short time previously the feeling had been quite different. But the old rector of Duxmoor having died at the early age of sixty-six, in spite of his care for his health, had been succeeded by a man who was not content to leave his duties to deputies; all the parish affairs underwent a keen criticism, and John and his large family came under investigation. His story came out. The new rector pitied and tried to comfort him; but his soothing words fell on deaf ears. The only answer he could get from John was, 'A hard life while it lasts, sir, and a pauper's grave, a pauper widow, pauper children; Parson, while this is all you can offer John Bodger, preaching to him is of no use.'
"With the wife the clergyman was more successful. Hope and belief are planted more easily in the hearts of women than of men, for adversity softens the one and hardens the other. The rector was not content with exhorting the poor; he applied to the rich Joseph Lobbit on behalf of John Bodger's family, and as the rector was not only a truly Christian priest, but a gentleman of good family and fortune, the parochial ruler was obliged to hear and to heed.
"Bland and smooth, almost pathetic, was Joseph Lobbit: he was 'heartily sorry for the poor man and his large family; should be happy to offer him and his wife permanent employment on his Hill farm, as well as two of the boys and one of the girls.'
"The eldest son and daughter, the first twins, had been for some time in respectable service. John would have nothing to do with Mr. Lobbit.
"While this discussion was pending, the news of a ship at Plymouth waiting for emigrants, reached Duxmoor.
"The parson and the great shopkeeper were observed in a long warm conference in the rectory garden, which ended in their shaking hands, and the rector proceeding with rapid strides to the poorhouse.
"The same day the lately established girls' school was set to work sowing garments of all sizes, as well as the females of therector's family. A week afterward there was a stir in the village; a wagon moved slowly away, laden with a father, mother, and large family, and a couple of pauper orphan girls. Yes, it was true; John and Carry Bodger were going to 'furrin parts,' 'to be made slaves on.' The women cried, and so did the children from imitation. The men stared. As the emigrants passed the Red Lion there was an attempt at a cheer from two tinkers; but it was a failure; no one joined in. So staring and staring, the men stood until the wagon crept round the turn of the lane and over the bridge, out of sight; then bidding the 'wives' go home and be hanged to 'em, their lords, that had twopence, went in to spend it at the Red Lion, and those who had not, went in to see the others drink, and talk over John Bodger's 'bouldness,' and abuse Muster Lobbit quietly, so that no one in top-boots should hear them;—for they were poor ignorant people in Duxmoor—they had no one to teach them, or to care for them, and after the fever, and a long hard winter, they cared little for their own flesh and blood, still less for their neighbours. So John Bodger was forgotten almost before he was out of sight.
"By the road-wagon which the Bodgers joined when they reached the highway, it was a three days' journey to Plymouth.
"But, although they were gone, Mr. Lobbit did not feel quite satisfied; he felt afraid lest John should return and do him some secret mischief. He wished to see him on board ship, and fairly under sail. Besides his negotiation with Emigration Brokers had opened up ideas of a new way of getting rid, not only of dangerous fellows like John Bodger, but of all kinds of useless paupers. These ideas he afterward matured, and although important changes have taken place in our emigrating system, even in 1851, a visit to government ships, will present many specimens of parish inmates converted, by dexterous diplomacy, into independent labourers.
"Thus it was, that contrary to all precedent, Mr. Lobbit left his shopman to settle the difficult case of credit with his Christmas customers, and with best horse made his way to Plymouth; and now for the first time in his life floated on salt water.
"With many grunts and groans he climbed the ship's side; notbeing as great a man at Plymouth as at Duxmoor, no chair was lowered to receive his portly person. The mere fact of having to climb up a rope-ladder from a rocking boat on a breezy, freezing day, was not calculated to give comfort or confident feelings to an elderly gentleman. With some difficulty, not without broken shins, amid the sarcastic remarks of groups of wild Irishmen, and the squeaks of barefooted children—who not knowing his awful parochial character, tumbled about Mr. Lobbit's legs in a most impertinently familiar manner—he made his way to the captain's cabin, and there transacted some mysterious business with the Emigration Agent over a prime piece of mess beef and a glass of Madeira. The Madeira warmed Mr. Lobbit. The captain assured him positively that the ship would sail with the evening tide. That assurance removed a heavy load from his breast: he felt like a man who had been performing a good action, and also cheated himself into believing that he had been spendinghis ownmoney in charity; so, at the end of the second bottle, he willingly chimed in with the broker's proposal to go down below and see how the emigrants were stowed, and have a last look at his 'lot.'
"Down the steep ladder they stumbled into the misery of a 'bounty' ship. A long, dark gallery, on each side of which were ranged the berths; narrow shelves open to every prying eye; where, for four months, the inmates were to be packed like herrings in a barrel, without room to move, almost without air to breathe; the mess table, running far aft the whole distance between the masts, left little room for passing, and that little was encumbered with all manner of boxes, packages, and infants, crawling about like rabbits in a warren.
"The groups of emigrants were characteristically employed. The Irish 'coshering,' or gossiping; for, having little or no baggage to look after, they had little care; but lean and ragged, monopolized almost all the good-humour of the ship. Acute cockneys, a race fit for every change, hammering, whistling, screwing and making all snug in their berths; tidy mothers, turning with despair from alternate and equally vain attempts to collect their numerous children out of danger, and to pack the necessaries of a room into the space of a small cupboard, wept and worked away.Here, a ruined tradesman, with his family, sat at the table, dinnerless, having rejected the coarse, tough salt meat in disgust: there, a half-starved group fed heartily on rations from the same cask, luxuriated over the allowance of grog, and the idea of such a good meal daily. Songs, groans, oaths: crying, laughing, complaining, hammering and fiddling combined to produce a chaos of strange sounds; while thrifty wives, with spectacle on nose, mended their husband's breeches, and unthrifty ones scolded.
"Amid this confusion, under the authoritative guidance of the second mate, Mr. Lobbit made his way, inwardly calculating how many poachers, pauper refractories, Whiteboys, and Captain Rocks, were about to benefit Australia by their talents, until he reached a party which had taken up its quarters as far as possible from the Irish, in a gloomy corner near the stern. It consisted of a sickly, feeble woman, under forty, but worn, wasted, retaining marks of former beauty in a pair of large, dark, speaking eyes, and a well-carved profile, who was engaged in nursing two chubby infants, evidently twins, while two little things, just able to walk, hung at her skirts; a pale, thin boy, nine or ten years old, was mending a jacket; an elder brother, as brown as a berry, fresh from the fields, was playing dolefully on a hemlock flute. The father, a little, round-shouldered man, was engaged in cutting wooden buttons from a piece of hard wood with his pocket-knife; when he caught sight of Mr. Lobbit he hastily pulled off his coat, threw it into his berth, and, turning his back, worked away vigorously at the stubborn bit of oak he was carving.
"'Hallo, John Bodger, so here you are at last,' cried Mr. Lobbit; 'I've broken my shins, almost broken my neck, and spoilt my coat with tar and pitch, in finding you out. Well, you're quite at home, I see: twins all well?—both pair of them? How do you find yourself, Missis?'
"The pale woman sighed, and cuddled her babies—the little man said nothing, but sneered, and made the chips fly faster.
"'You're on your way now to a country where twins are no object; your passage is paid, and you've only got now to pray for the good gentlemen that have given you a chance of earning an honest living.'
"No answer."'I see them all here except Mary, the young lady of the family. Pray, has she taken rue, and determined to stay in England, after all; I expected as much'——"As he spoke, a young girl, in the neat dress of a parlour servant, came out of the shade."'Oh! you are there, are you, Miss Mary? So you have made up your mind to leave your place and Old England, to try your luck in Australia; plenty of husbands there: ha, ha!'"The girl blushed, and sat down to sew at some little garments. Fresh, rosy, neat, she was as great a contrast to her brother, the brown, ragged ploughboy, as he was to the rest of the family, with their flabby, bleached complexions."There was a pause. The mate, having done his duty by finding the parochial dignitary'sprotegés, had slipped away to more important business; a chorus of sailors 'yo heave ho-ing' at a chain cable had ceased, and for a few moments, by common consent, silence seemed to have taken possession of the long, dark gallery of the hold."Mr. Lobbit was rather put out by the silence, and no answers; he did not feel so confident as when crowing on his own dunghill, in Duxmoor; he had a vague idea that some one might steal behind him in the dark, knock his hat over his eyes, and pay off old scores with a hearty kick: but parochial dignity prevailed, and, clearing his throat with a 'hem,' he began again—"'John Bodger, where's your coat?—what are you shivering there for, in your sleeves?—what have you done with the excellent coat generously presented to you by the parish—a coat that cost, as per contract, fourteen shillings and fourpence—you have not dared to sell it, I hope?'"'Well, Master Lobbit, and if I did, the coat was my own, I suppose?'"'What, sir?'"The little man quailed; he had tried to pluck up his spirit, but the blood did not flow fast enough. He went to his berth and brought out the coat."It was certainly a curious colour, a sort of yellow brown, thecloth shrunk and cockled up, and the metal buttons turned a dingy black."Mr. Lobbit raved; 'a new coat entirely spoiled, what had he done to it?' and as he raved he warmed, and felt himself at home again, deputy acting chairman of the Duxmoor Vestry. But the little man, instead of being frightened, grew red, lost his humble mien, stood up, and at length, when his tormentor paused for breath, looked him full in the face, and cried, 'Hang your coat!—hang you!—hang all the parochials of Duxmoor! What have I done with your coat? Why, I've dyed it; I've dipped it in a tan-yard; I was not going to carry your livery with me. I mean to have the buttons off before I'm an hour older. Gratitude you talk of;—thanks you want, you old hypocrite, for sending me away. I'll tell you what sent me,—it was that poor wench and her twins, and a letter from the office, saying they would not insure your ricks, while lucifer matches are so cheap. Ay, you may stare—you wonder who told me that; but I can tell you more. Who is it writes so like his father the bank can't tell the difference?'"Mr. Lobbit turned pale."'Be off!' said the little man; 'plague us no more. You have eaten me up with your usury; you've got my cottage and my bit of land; you've made paupers of us all, except that dear lass, and the one lad, and you'd wellnigh made a convict of me. But never mind. This will be a cold, drear Christmas to us, and a merry, fat one to you; but, perhaps, the Christmas may come when Master Joseph Lobbit would be glad to change places with poor, ruined John Bodger. I am going where I am told that sons and daughters like mine are better than "silver, yea, than fine gold." I leave you rich on the poor man's inheritance, and poor man's flesh and blood. You have a son and daughter that will revenge me. "Cursed are they that remove landmarks, and devour the substance of the poor!"'"While this, one of the longest speeches that John Bodger was ever known to make, was being delivered, a little crowd had collected, who, without exactly understanding the merits of the case, had no hesitation in taking side with their fellow-passenger,the poor man with the large family. The Irish began to inquire if the stout gentleman was a tithe-proctor or a driver? Murmurs of a suspicious character arose, in the midst of which, in a very hasty, undignified manner, Mr. Lobbit backed out, climbed up to the deck with extraordinary agility, and, without waiting to make any complaints to the officers of the ship, slipped down the side into a boat, and never felt himself safe, until called to his senses by an attempt on the part of the boatman to exact four times the regular fare."But a good dinner at the Globe (at parochial expense) and a report from the agent that the ship had sailed, restored Mr. Lobbit's equanimity; and by the time that, snugly packed in the mail, he was rattling along toward home by a moonlight Christmas, he began to think himself a martyr to a tender heart, and to console himself by calculating the value of the odd corner of Bodger's acres, cut up into lots for his labourers' cottages. The result—fifty per cent.—proved a balm to his wounded feelings."I wish I could say that at the same hour John Bodger was comforting his wife and little ones; sorry am I to report that he left them to weep and complain, while he went forward and smoked his pipe, and sang, and drank grog with a jolly party in the forecastle—for John's heart was hardened, and he cared little for God or man."This old, fond love for his wife and children seemed to have died away. He left them, through the most part of the voyage, to shift for themselves—sitting forward, sullenly smoking, looking into vacancy, and wearying the sailors with asking, 'How many knots to-day, Jack? When do you think we shall see land?' So that the women passengers took a mortal dislike to him; and it being gossiped about that when his wife was in the hospital he never went to see her for two days, they called him a brute. So 'Bodger the Brute' he was called until the end of the voyage. Then they were all dispersed, and such stories driven out of mind by new scenes."John was hired to go into the far interior, where it was difficult to get free servants at all; so his master put up with the dead-weight encumbrance of the babies, in consideration of theclever wife and string of likely lads. Thus, in a new country, he began life again in a blue jersey and ragged corduroys, but with the largest money income he had ever known."
"No answer.
"'I see them all here except Mary, the young lady of the family. Pray, has she taken rue, and determined to stay in England, after all; I expected as much'——
"As he spoke, a young girl, in the neat dress of a parlour servant, came out of the shade.
"'Oh! you are there, are you, Miss Mary? So you have made up your mind to leave your place and Old England, to try your luck in Australia; plenty of husbands there: ha, ha!'
"The girl blushed, and sat down to sew at some little garments. Fresh, rosy, neat, she was as great a contrast to her brother, the brown, ragged ploughboy, as he was to the rest of the family, with their flabby, bleached complexions.
"There was a pause. The mate, having done his duty by finding the parochial dignitary'sprotegés, had slipped away to more important business; a chorus of sailors 'yo heave ho-ing' at a chain cable had ceased, and for a few moments, by common consent, silence seemed to have taken possession of the long, dark gallery of the hold.
"Mr. Lobbit was rather put out by the silence, and no answers; he did not feel so confident as when crowing on his own dunghill, in Duxmoor; he had a vague idea that some one might steal behind him in the dark, knock his hat over his eyes, and pay off old scores with a hearty kick: but parochial dignity prevailed, and, clearing his throat with a 'hem,' he began again—
"'John Bodger, where's your coat?—what are you shivering there for, in your sleeves?—what have you done with the excellent coat generously presented to you by the parish—a coat that cost, as per contract, fourteen shillings and fourpence—you have not dared to sell it, I hope?'
"'Well, Master Lobbit, and if I did, the coat was my own, I suppose?'
"'What, sir?'
"The little man quailed; he had tried to pluck up his spirit, but the blood did not flow fast enough. He went to his berth and brought out the coat.
"It was certainly a curious colour, a sort of yellow brown, thecloth shrunk and cockled up, and the metal buttons turned a dingy black.
"Mr. Lobbit raved; 'a new coat entirely spoiled, what had he done to it?' and as he raved he warmed, and felt himself at home again, deputy acting chairman of the Duxmoor Vestry. But the little man, instead of being frightened, grew red, lost his humble mien, stood up, and at length, when his tormentor paused for breath, looked him full in the face, and cried, 'Hang your coat!—hang you!—hang all the parochials of Duxmoor! What have I done with your coat? Why, I've dyed it; I've dipped it in a tan-yard; I was not going to carry your livery with me. I mean to have the buttons off before I'm an hour older. Gratitude you talk of;—thanks you want, you old hypocrite, for sending me away. I'll tell you what sent me,—it was that poor wench and her twins, and a letter from the office, saying they would not insure your ricks, while lucifer matches are so cheap. Ay, you may stare—you wonder who told me that; but I can tell you more. Who is it writes so like his father the bank can't tell the difference?'
"Mr. Lobbit turned pale.
"'Be off!' said the little man; 'plague us no more. You have eaten me up with your usury; you've got my cottage and my bit of land; you've made paupers of us all, except that dear lass, and the one lad, and you'd wellnigh made a convict of me. But never mind. This will be a cold, drear Christmas to us, and a merry, fat one to you; but, perhaps, the Christmas may come when Master Joseph Lobbit would be glad to change places with poor, ruined John Bodger. I am going where I am told that sons and daughters like mine are better than "silver, yea, than fine gold." I leave you rich on the poor man's inheritance, and poor man's flesh and blood. You have a son and daughter that will revenge me. "Cursed are they that remove landmarks, and devour the substance of the poor!"'
"While this, one of the longest speeches that John Bodger was ever known to make, was being delivered, a little crowd had collected, who, without exactly understanding the merits of the case, had no hesitation in taking side with their fellow-passenger,the poor man with the large family. The Irish began to inquire if the stout gentleman was a tithe-proctor or a driver? Murmurs of a suspicious character arose, in the midst of which, in a very hasty, undignified manner, Mr. Lobbit backed out, climbed up to the deck with extraordinary agility, and, without waiting to make any complaints to the officers of the ship, slipped down the side into a boat, and never felt himself safe, until called to his senses by an attempt on the part of the boatman to exact four times the regular fare.
"But a good dinner at the Globe (at parochial expense) and a report from the agent that the ship had sailed, restored Mr. Lobbit's equanimity; and by the time that, snugly packed in the mail, he was rattling along toward home by a moonlight Christmas, he began to think himself a martyr to a tender heart, and to console himself by calculating the value of the odd corner of Bodger's acres, cut up into lots for his labourers' cottages. The result—fifty per cent.—proved a balm to his wounded feelings.
"I wish I could say that at the same hour John Bodger was comforting his wife and little ones; sorry am I to report that he left them to weep and complain, while he went forward and smoked his pipe, and sang, and drank grog with a jolly party in the forecastle—for John's heart was hardened, and he cared little for God or man.
"This old, fond love for his wife and children seemed to have died away. He left them, through the most part of the voyage, to shift for themselves—sitting forward, sullenly smoking, looking into vacancy, and wearying the sailors with asking, 'How many knots to-day, Jack? When do you think we shall see land?' So that the women passengers took a mortal dislike to him; and it being gossiped about that when his wife was in the hospital he never went to see her for two days, they called him a brute. So 'Bodger the Brute' he was called until the end of the voyage. Then they were all dispersed, and such stories driven out of mind by new scenes.
"John was hired to go into the far interior, where it was difficult to get free servants at all; so his master put up with the dead-weight encumbrance of the babies, in consideration of theclever wife and string of likely lads. Thus, in a new country, he began life again in a blue jersey and ragged corduroys, but with the largest money income he had ever known."
The second scene is a picture of John Bodger's prosperity in Australia, where eviction and workhouses are forgotten. If Australia had not been open to John as a refuge, most probably he would have become a criminal, or a worthless vagrant. Here is the second scene:—
"In 1842, my friend Mrs. C. made one of her marches through the bush with an army of emigrants. These consisted of parents with long families, rough, country-bred single girls, with here and there a white-handed, useless young lady—the rejected ones of the Sydney hirers. In these marches she had to depend for the rations of her ragged regiment on the hospitality of the settlers on her route, and was never disappointed, although it often happened that a day's journey was commenced without any distinct idea of who would furnish the next dinner and breakfast."On one of these foraging excursions—starting at day-dawn on horseback, followed by her man Friday, an oldlag, (prisoner,) in a light cart, to carry the provender—she went forth to look for the flour, milk, and mullet, for the breakfast of a party whose English appetites had been sharpened by travelling at the pace of the drays all day, and sleeping in the open air all night."The welcome smoke of the expected station was found; the light cart, with the complements and empty sack despatched; when musing, at a foot-pace, perhaps on the future fortune of the half-dozen girls hired out the previous day, Mrs. C. came upon a small party which had also been encamping on the other side of the hills."It consisted of two gawky lads, in docked smock frocks, woolly hats, rosy, sleepy countenances—fresh arrivals, living monuments of the care bestowed in developing the intelligenceof the agricultural mind in England. They were hard at work on broiled mutton. A regular, hard-dried bushman had just driven up a pair of blood mares from their night's feed, and a white-headed, brisk kind of young old man, the master of the party, was sitting by the fire, trying to feed an infant with some sort of mess compounded with sugar. A dray, heavily laden, with a bullock-team ready harnessed, stood ready to start under the charge of a bullock-watchman."The case was clear to a colonial eye; the white-headed man had been down to the port from his bush-farm to sell his stuff, and was returning with two blood mares purchased, and two emigrant lads hired; but what was the meaning of the baby? We see strange things in the bush, but a man-nurse is strange even there."Although they had never met before, the white-headed man almost immediately recognised Mrs. C.,—for who did not know her, or of her, in the bush?—so was more communicative than he otherwise might have been; so he said—"'You see, ma'am, my lady, I have only got on my own place these three years; having a long family, we found it best to disperse about where the best wages was to be got. We began saving the first year, and my daughters have married pretty well, and my boys got to know the ways of the country. There's three of them married, thanks to your ladyship; so we thought we could set up for ourselves. And we've done pretty tidy. So, as they were all busy at home, I went down for the first time to get a couple of mares, and see about hiring some lads out of the ships to help us. You see I have picked up two newish ones; I have docked their frocks to a useful length, and I think they'll do after a bit; they can't read, neither of them—no more could I when I first came—but our teacher (she's one my missis had from you) will soon fettle them; and I've got a power of things on the dray; I wish you could be there at unloading; for it being my first visit, I wanted something for all of them. But about this babby is a curious job. When I went aboard the ship to hire my shepherds, I looked out for some of my own country; and while I was asking, I heard of a poor woman whose husbandhad been drowned in a drunken fit on the voyage, that was lying very ill, with a young babby, and not likely to live."'Something made me go to see her; she had no friends on board, she knew no one in the colony. She started, like, at my voice; one word brought on another, when it came out she was the wife of the son of my greatest enemy."'She had been his father's servant, and married the son secretly. When it was found out, he had to leave the country; thinking that once in Australia, the father would be reconciled, and the business that put her husband in danger might be settled. For this son was a wild, wicked man, worse than the father, but with those looks and ways that take the hearts of poor lasses. Well, as we talked, and I questioned her—for she did not seem so ill as they had told me—she began to ask me who I was, and I did not want to tell; when I hesitated, she guessed, and cried out, 'What, John Bodger, is it thee!'—and with that she screamed, and screamed, and went off quite light-headed, and never came to her senses until she died."'So, as there was no one to care for the poor little babby, and as we had such a lot at home, what with my own children and my grandchildren, I thought one more would make no odds, so the gentleman let me take it, after I'd seen the mother decently buried."'You see this feeding's a very awkward job, ma'am—and I've been five days on the road. But I think my missis will be pleased as much as with the gown I've brought her.'"'What,' said Mrs. C., 'are you the John Bodger that came over in the 'Cassandra,'—the John B.?'"'Yes, ma'am.'"'John, the Brute?'"'Yes, ma'am. But I'm altered, sure-ly.'"'Well,' continued John, 'the poor woman was old Joseph Lobbit's daughter-in-law. Her husband had been forging, or something, and would have been lagged if he'd staid in England. I don't know but I might have been as bad if I had not got out of the country when I did. But there's something here in always getting on; and not such a struggling and striving that softens apoor man's heart. And I trust what I've done for this poor babby and its mother may excuse my brutish behaviour. I could not help thinking when I was burying poor Jenny Lobbit, (I mind her well, a nice little lass, about ten years old,) I could not help thinking as she lay in a nice, cloth-covered coffin, and a beautiful stone cut with her name and age, and a text on her grave, how different it is even for poor people to be buried here. Oh, ma'am! a man like me, with a long family, can make ahead here, and do a bit of good for others worse off. We live while we live; when we die we are buried with decency. I remember, when my wife's mother died, the parish officers were so cross, and the boards of the coffin barely stuck together, and it was terrible cold weather, too. My Carry used to cry about it uncommonly all the winter. The swells may say what they like about it, but I'll be blessed if it be'ent worth all the voyage to die in it.'"Not many days afterward, Mrs. C. saw John at home, surrounded by an army of sons and daughters; a patriarch, and yet not sixty years old; the grandchild of his greatest enemy the greatest pet of the family."In my mind's eye there are sometimes two pictures. John Bodger in the workhouse, thinking of murder and fire-raising in the presence of his prosperous enemy; and John Bodger, in his happy bush-home, nursing little Nancy Lobbit."At Duxmoor the shop has passed into other hands. The ex-shopkeeper has bought and rebuilt the manor-house. He is the squire, now, wealthier than ever he dreamed; on one estate a mine has been found; a railway has crossed and doubled the value of another; but his son is dead; his daughter has left him, and lives, he knows not where, a life of shame. Childless and friendless, the future is, to him, cheerless and without hope."
"In 1842, my friend Mrs. C. made one of her marches through the bush with an army of emigrants. These consisted of parents with long families, rough, country-bred single girls, with here and there a white-handed, useless young lady—the rejected ones of the Sydney hirers. In these marches she had to depend for the rations of her ragged regiment on the hospitality of the settlers on her route, and was never disappointed, although it often happened that a day's journey was commenced without any distinct idea of who would furnish the next dinner and breakfast.
"On one of these foraging excursions—starting at day-dawn on horseback, followed by her man Friday, an oldlag, (prisoner,) in a light cart, to carry the provender—she went forth to look for the flour, milk, and mullet, for the breakfast of a party whose English appetites had been sharpened by travelling at the pace of the drays all day, and sleeping in the open air all night.
"The welcome smoke of the expected station was found; the light cart, with the complements and empty sack despatched; when musing, at a foot-pace, perhaps on the future fortune of the half-dozen girls hired out the previous day, Mrs. C. came upon a small party which had also been encamping on the other side of the hills.
"It consisted of two gawky lads, in docked smock frocks, woolly hats, rosy, sleepy countenances—fresh arrivals, living monuments of the care bestowed in developing the intelligenceof the agricultural mind in England. They were hard at work on broiled mutton. A regular, hard-dried bushman had just driven up a pair of blood mares from their night's feed, and a white-headed, brisk kind of young old man, the master of the party, was sitting by the fire, trying to feed an infant with some sort of mess compounded with sugar. A dray, heavily laden, with a bullock-team ready harnessed, stood ready to start under the charge of a bullock-watchman.
"The case was clear to a colonial eye; the white-headed man had been down to the port from his bush-farm to sell his stuff, and was returning with two blood mares purchased, and two emigrant lads hired; but what was the meaning of the baby? We see strange things in the bush, but a man-nurse is strange even there.
"Although they had never met before, the white-headed man almost immediately recognised Mrs. C.,—for who did not know her, or of her, in the bush?—so was more communicative than he otherwise might have been; so he said—
"'You see, ma'am, my lady, I have only got on my own place these three years; having a long family, we found it best to disperse about where the best wages was to be got. We began saving the first year, and my daughters have married pretty well, and my boys got to know the ways of the country. There's three of them married, thanks to your ladyship; so we thought we could set up for ourselves. And we've done pretty tidy. So, as they were all busy at home, I went down for the first time to get a couple of mares, and see about hiring some lads out of the ships to help us. You see I have picked up two newish ones; I have docked their frocks to a useful length, and I think they'll do after a bit; they can't read, neither of them—no more could I when I first came—but our teacher (she's one my missis had from you) will soon fettle them; and I've got a power of things on the dray; I wish you could be there at unloading; for it being my first visit, I wanted something for all of them. But about this babby is a curious job. When I went aboard the ship to hire my shepherds, I looked out for some of my own country; and while I was asking, I heard of a poor woman whose husbandhad been drowned in a drunken fit on the voyage, that was lying very ill, with a young babby, and not likely to live.
"'Something made me go to see her; she had no friends on board, she knew no one in the colony. She started, like, at my voice; one word brought on another, when it came out she was the wife of the son of my greatest enemy.
"'She had been his father's servant, and married the son secretly. When it was found out, he had to leave the country; thinking that once in Australia, the father would be reconciled, and the business that put her husband in danger might be settled. For this son was a wild, wicked man, worse than the father, but with those looks and ways that take the hearts of poor lasses. Well, as we talked, and I questioned her—for she did not seem so ill as they had told me—she began to ask me who I was, and I did not want to tell; when I hesitated, she guessed, and cried out, 'What, John Bodger, is it thee!'—and with that she screamed, and screamed, and went off quite light-headed, and never came to her senses until she died.
"'So, as there was no one to care for the poor little babby, and as we had such a lot at home, what with my own children and my grandchildren, I thought one more would make no odds, so the gentleman let me take it, after I'd seen the mother decently buried.
"'You see this feeding's a very awkward job, ma'am—and I've been five days on the road. But I think my missis will be pleased as much as with the gown I've brought her.'
"'What,' said Mrs. C., 'are you the John Bodger that came over in the 'Cassandra,'—the John B.?'
"'Yes, ma'am.'
"'John, the Brute?'
"'Yes, ma'am. But I'm altered, sure-ly.'
"'Well,' continued John, 'the poor woman was old Joseph Lobbit's daughter-in-law. Her husband had been forging, or something, and would have been lagged if he'd staid in England. I don't know but I might have been as bad if I had not got out of the country when I did. But there's something here in always getting on; and not such a struggling and striving that softens apoor man's heart. And I trust what I've done for this poor babby and its mother may excuse my brutish behaviour. I could not help thinking when I was burying poor Jenny Lobbit, (I mind her well, a nice little lass, about ten years old,) I could not help thinking as she lay in a nice, cloth-covered coffin, and a beautiful stone cut with her name and age, and a text on her grave, how different it is even for poor people to be buried here. Oh, ma'am! a man like me, with a long family, can make ahead here, and do a bit of good for others worse off. We live while we live; when we die we are buried with decency. I remember, when my wife's mother died, the parish officers were so cross, and the boards of the coffin barely stuck together, and it was terrible cold weather, too. My Carry used to cry about it uncommonly all the winter. The swells may say what they like about it, but I'll be blessed if it be'ent worth all the voyage to die in it.'
"Not many days afterward, Mrs. C. saw John at home, surrounded by an army of sons and daughters; a patriarch, and yet not sixty years old; the grandchild of his greatest enemy the greatest pet of the family.
"In my mind's eye there are sometimes two pictures. John Bodger in the workhouse, thinking of murder and fire-raising in the presence of his prosperous enemy; and John Bodger, in his happy bush-home, nursing little Nancy Lobbit.
"At Duxmoor the shop has passed into other hands. The ex-shopkeeper has bought and rebuilt the manor-house. He is the squire, now, wealthier than ever he dreamed; on one estate a mine has been found; a railway has crossed and doubled the value of another; but his son is dead; his daughter has left him, and lives, he knows not where, a life of shame. Childless and friendless, the future is, to him, cheerless and without hope."
Poor-law guardians are characters held in very low esteem by the Irish serfs, who are not backward in expressing their contempt. The feeling is a natural one, as will appear from considering who those guardians generally are, and how they perform their duties:—
"At the introduction of the poor-law into Ireland, the workhouses were built by means of loans advanced by the Government on the security of the rates. Constructed generally in that style of architecture called 'Elizabethan,' they were the most imposing in the country in elevation and frequency, and, placed usually in the wretched suburbs of towns and villages, formed among the crumbling and moss-grown cottages, a pleasing contrast in the eye of the tourist. They were calculated to accommodate from five hundred to two thousand inmates, according to the area and population of the annexed district; but some of them remained for years altogether closed, or, if open, nearly unoccupied, owing to the ingenious shifts of the 'Guardians,' under the advice of the 'Solicitor of the Board,' Their object was to economize the resources of the Union, to keep the rates down, and in some instances they evaded the making of any rate for years after the support of the destitute was made nominally imperative by the law of the land."As there was a good deal of patronage in a small way placed at the disposal of the 'Guardians,' great anxiety was manifested by those eligible to the office. Most justices of the peace were, indeed,ipso facto, Guardians, but a considerable number had to be elected by the rate-payers, and an active canvass preceded every election. A great deal of activity and conviviality, if not gayety, was the result, and more apparently important affairs were neglected by many a farmer, shopkeeper, and professional man, to insure his being elected a 'Guardian,' while the unsuccessful took pains to prove their indifference, or to vent their ill-humour in various ways, sometimes causing less innocuous effects than the following sally:—"At a certain court of quarter sessions, during the dog-day heat of one of these contests, a burly fellow was arraigned before 'their worships' and the jury, charged with some petty theft; and as he perceived that the proofs were incontestably clear against him, he fell into a very violent trepidation. An attorney of the court, not overburdened with business, and fond of occupying his idle time in playing off practical jokes, perceiving how the case stood, addressed the prisoner in a whisper over the sideof the dock, with a very ominous and commiserating shake of his head:"'Ah, you unfortunate man, ye'll be found guilty; and as sure as ye are, ye'll get worse than hangin' or thransportation. As sure as ever the barristher takes a pinch of snuff, that's his intention; ye'll see him put on the black cap immaydiately. Plaid guilty at once, and I'll tell ye what ye'll say to him afther.'"The acute practitioner knew his man; the poor half-witted culprit fell into the snare; and after a short and serious whispering between them, which was unobserved in the bustle of the court-house usual on such occasions, the prisoner cried out, just as the issue-paper was going up to the jury, 'Me lord, me lord, I plaid guilty; I beg your wortchip's an' their honours' pardon."'Very well,' said the assistant barrister, whose duty it was to advise upon the law of each case, and preside at the bench in judicial costume; 'very well, sir. Crier, call silence.'"Several voices immediately called energetically for silence, impressing the culprit with grave ideas at once of his worship's great importance, and the serious nature of the coming sentence."'Withdraw the plea of not guilty, and take one of guilty to the felony,' continued the assistant barrister, taking a pinch of snuff and turning round to consult his brother magistrates as to the term of intended incarceration."'Don't lose yer time, ye omodhaun!' said the attorney, with an angry look at the prisoner."'Will I be allowed to spake one word, yer wortchips?' said the unfortunate culprit."'What has he to say?' said the assistant barrister with considerable dignity."'Go on, ye fool ye,' urged the attorney."'My lord, yer wortchips, and gintlemin av the jury,' exclaimed the culprit, 'sind me out o' the counthry, or into jail, or breakin' stones, or walkin' on the threadmill, or any thing else in the coorse o' nature, as yer wortchips playses; but for the love o' the Virgin Mary,don't make me a Poor-Law Gargin.'"[95]
"At the introduction of the poor-law into Ireland, the workhouses were built by means of loans advanced by the Government on the security of the rates. Constructed generally in that style of architecture called 'Elizabethan,' they were the most imposing in the country in elevation and frequency, and, placed usually in the wretched suburbs of towns and villages, formed among the crumbling and moss-grown cottages, a pleasing contrast in the eye of the tourist. They were calculated to accommodate from five hundred to two thousand inmates, according to the area and population of the annexed district; but some of them remained for years altogether closed, or, if open, nearly unoccupied, owing to the ingenious shifts of the 'Guardians,' under the advice of the 'Solicitor of the Board,' Their object was to economize the resources of the Union, to keep the rates down, and in some instances they evaded the making of any rate for years after the support of the destitute was made nominally imperative by the law of the land.
"As there was a good deal of patronage in a small way placed at the disposal of the 'Guardians,' great anxiety was manifested by those eligible to the office. Most justices of the peace were, indeed,ipso facto, Guardians, but a considerable number had to be elected by the rate-payers, and an active canvass preceded every election. A great deal of activity and conviviality, if not gayety, was the result, and more apparently important affairs were neglected by many a farmer, shopkeeper, and professional man, to insure his being elected a 'Guardian,' while the unsuccessful took pains to prove their indifference, or to vent their ill-humour in various ways, sometimes causing less innocuous effects than the following sally:—
"At a certain court of quarter sessions, during the dog-day heat of one of these contests, a burly fellow was arraigned before 'their worships' and the jury, charged with some petty theft; and as he perceived that the proofs were incontestably clear against him, he fell into a very violent trepidation. An attorney of the court, not overburdened with business, and fond of occupying his idle time in playing off practical jokes, perceiving how the case stood, addressed the prisoner in a whisper over the sideof the dock, with a very ominous and commiserating shake of his head:
"'Ah, you unfortunate man, ye'll be found guilty; and as sure as ye are, ye'll get worse than hangin' or thransportation. As sure as ever the barristher takes a pinch of snuff, that's his intention; ye'll see him put on the black cap immaydiately. Plaid guilty at once, and I'll tell ye what ye'll say to him afther.'
"The acute practitioner knew his man; the poor half-witted culprit fell into the snare; and after a short and serious whispering between them, which was unobserved in the bustle of the court-house usual on such occasions, the prisoner cried out, just as the issue-paper was going up to the jury, 'Me lord, me lord, I plaid guilty; I beg your wortchip's an' their honours' pardon.
"'Very well,' said the assistant barrister, whose duty it was to advise upon the law of each case, and preside at the bench in judicial costume; 'very well, sir. Crier, call silence.'
"Several voices immediately called energetically for silence, impressing the culprit with grave ideas at once of his worship's great importance, and the serious nature of the coming sentence.
"'Withdraw the plea of not guilty, and take one of guilty to the felony,' continued the assistant barrister, taking a pinch of snuff and turning round to consult his brother magistrates as to the term of intended incarceration.
"'Don't lose yer time, ye omodhaun!' said the attorney, with an angry look at the prisoner.
"'Will I be allowed to spake one word, yer wortchips?' said the unfortunate culprit.
"'What has he to say?' said the assistant barrister with considerable dignity.
"'Go on, ye fool ye,' urged the attorney.
"'My lord, yer wortchips, and gintlemin av the jury,' exclaimed the culprit, 'sind me out o' the counthry, or into jail, or breakin' stones, or walkin' on the threadmill, or any thing else in the coorse o' nature, as yer wortchips playses; but for the love o' the Virgin Mary,don't make me a Poor-Law Gargin.'"[95]
The most recent legislation of the British government in regard to Ireland, the enactment of the Poor-law and the Encumbered Estates Act, has had but one grand tendency—that of diminishing the number of the population, which is, indeed, a strange way to improve the condition of the nation. The country was not too thickly populated; far from it: great tracts of land were entirely uninhabited. The exterminating acts were, therefore, only measures of renewed tyranny. To enslave a people is a crime of sufficient enormity; but to drive them from the homes of their ancestors to seek a refuge in distant and unknown lands, is such an action as only the most monstrous of governments would dare to perform.
We have thus shown that Ireland has long endured, and still endures, a cruel system of slavery, for which we may seek in vain for a parallel. It matters not that the Irish serf may leave his country; while he remains he is a slave to a master who will not call him property, chiefly because it would create the necessity of careful and expensive ownership. If the Irish master took his labourer for his slave in the American sense, he would be compelled to provide for him, work or not work, in sickness and in old age. Thus the master reaps the benefits, and escapes the penalties of slave-holding. He takes the fruits of the labourer's toil without providing for him as the negro slaves of America are provided for; nay, very often he refusesthe poor wretch a home at any price. In no other country does the slaveholder seem so utterly reckless in regard to human life as in Ireland. After draining all possible profit from his labourer's service he turns him forth as a pauper, to get scant food if workhouse officials choose to give it, and if not, to starve by the wayside. The last great famine was the direct result of this accursed system of slavery. It was oppression of the worst kind that reduced the mass of the people to depend for their subsistence upon the success or failure of the potato crop; and the horrors that followed the failure of the crop were as much the results of misgovernment as the crimes of the French Revolution were the consequences of feudal tyranny, too long endured. Can England ever accomplish sufficient penance for her savage treatment of Ireland?
Some English writers admit that the degradation of the Irish and the wretched condition of the country can scarcely be overdrawn, but seek for the causes of this state of things in the character of the people. But why does the Irishman work, prosper, and achieve wealth and position under every other government but that of Ireland? This would not hbe the case if there was any thing radically wrong in the Irish nature. In the following extract from an article in the Edinburgh Review, we have a forcible sketch of the condition of Ireland, coloured somewhat to suit English views:—
"It is obvious that the insecurity of a community in which the bulk of the population form a conspiracy against the law, must prevent the importation of capital; must occasion much of what is accumulated there to be exported; and must diminish the motives and means of accumulation. Who will send his property to a place where he cannot rely on its being protected? Who will voluntarily establish himself in a country which to-morrow may be in a state of disturbance? A state in which, to use the words of Chief Justice Bushe, 'houses and barns and granaries are levelled, crops are laid waste, pasture-lands are ploughed, plantations are torn up, meadows are thrown open to cattle, cattle are maimed, tortured, killed; persons are visited by parties of banditti, who inflict cruel torture, mutilate their limbs, or beat them almost to death. Men who have in any way become obnoxious to the insurgents, or opposed their system, or refused to participate in their outrages, are deliberately assassinated in the open day; and sometimes the unoffending family are indiscriminately murdered by burning the habitation.'[96]A state in which even those best able to protect themselves, the gentry, are forced to build up all their lower windows with stone and mortar; to admit light only into one sitting-room, and not into all the windows of that room; to fortify every other inlet by bullet-proof barricades; to station sentinels around during all the night and the greater part of the day, and to keep firearms in all the bedrooms, and even on the side-table at breakfast and dinner-time.[97]Well might Bishop Doyle exclaim, 'I do not blame the absentees; I would be an absentee myself if I could.'"The state of society which has been described may be considered as a proof of the grossest ignorance; for what can be a greater proof of ignorance than a systematic opposition to law, carried on at the constant risk of liberty and of life, and producingwhere it is most successful, in the rural districts, one level of hopeless poverty, and in the towns, weeks of high wages and months without employment—a system in which tremendous risks and frightful sufferings are the means, and general misery is the result? The ignorance, however, which marks the greater part of the population in Ireland, is not merely ignorance of the moral and political tendency of their conduct—an ignorance in which the lower orders of many more advanced communities participate—but ignorance of the businesses which are their daily occupations. It is ignorance, not as citizens and subjects, but as cultivators and labourers. They are ignorant of the proper rotation of crops, of the preservation and use of manure—in a word, of the means by which the land, for which they are ready to sacrifice their neighbours' lives, and to risk their own, is to be made productive. Their manufactures, such as they are, are rude and imperfect, and the Irish labourer, whether peasant or artisan, who emigrates to Great Britain, never possesses skill sufficient to raise him above the lowest ranks in his trade."Indolence—the last of the causes to which we have attributed the existing misery of Ireland—is not so much an independent source of evil as the result of the combination of all others. The Irishman does not belong to the races that are by nature averse from toil. In England, Scotland, or America he can work hard. He is said, indeed, to require more overlooking than the natives of any of these countries, and to be less capable, or, to speak more correctly, to be less willing to surmount difficulties by patient intellectual exertion; but no danger deters, no disagreeableness disgusts, no bodily fatigue discourages him."But in his own country he is indolent. All who have compared the habits of hired artisans or of the agricultural labourers in Ireland with those of similar classes in England or Scotland, admit the inferiority of industry of the former. The indolence of the great mass of the people, the occupiers of land, is obvious even to the passing traveller. Even in Ulster, the province in which, as we have already remarked, the peculiarities of the Irish character are least exhibited, not only are the cabins, and even the farm-houses, deformed within and without by accumulationsof filth, which the least exertion would remove, but the land itself is suffered to waste a great portion of its productive power. We have ourselves seen field after field in which the weeds covered as much space as the crops. From the time that his crops are sowed and planted until they are reaped the peasant and his family are cowering over the fire, or smoking, or lounging before the door, when an hour or two a day employed in weeding their potatoes, oats, or flax, would perhaps increase the produce by one-third."The indolence of the Irish artisan is sufficiently accounted for by the combinations which, by prohibiting piece-work, requiring all the workmen to be paid by the day and at the same rate, prohibiting a good workman from exerting himself, have destroyed the motives to industry. 'I consider it,' says Mr. Murray, 'a very hard rule among them, that the worst workman that ever took a tool in his hand, should be paid the same as the best, but that is the rule and regulation of the society; and that there was only a certain quantity of work allowed to be done; so that, if one workman could turn more work out of his hands, he durst not go on with it. There is no such thing as piece-work; and if a bad man is not able to get through his work, a good workman dare not go further than he does.'[98]"The indolence of the agricultural labourer arises, perhaps, principally from his labour being almost always day-work, and in a great measure a mere payment of debt—a mere mode of working out his rent. That of the occupier may be attributed to a combination of causes. In the first place, a man must be master of himself to a degree not common even among the educated classes, before he can be trusted to be his own task-master. Even among the British manufacturers, confessedly the most industrious labourers in Europe, those who work in their own houses are comparatively idle and irregular, and yet they work under the stimulus of certain and immediate gain. The Irish occupier, working for a distant object, dependent in somemeasure on the seasons, and with no one to control or even to advise him, puts off till to-morrow what need not necessarily be done to-day—puts off till next year what need not necessarily be done this year, and ultimately leaves much totally undone."Again, there is no damper so effectual as liability to taxation proportioned to the means of payment. It is by this instrument that the Turkish government has destroyed the industry, the wealth, and ultimately the population of what were once the most flourishing portions of Asia—perhaps of the world. It is thus that thetailleruined the agriculture of the most fertile portions of France. Now, the Irish occupier has long been subject to this depressive influence, and from various sources. The competition for land has raised rents to an amount which can be paid only under favourable circumstances. Any accident throws the tenant into an arrear, and the arrear is kept a subsisting charge, to be enforced if he should appear capable of paying it. If any of the signs of prosperity are detected in his crop, his cabin, his clothes, or his food, some old demand may be brought up against him. Again, in many districts a practice prevails of letting land to several tenants, each of whom is responsible for the whole rent. It is not merely the consequence, but the intention, that those who can afford to pay should pay for those who cannot. Again, it is from taxation, regulated by apparent property, that all the revenues of the Irish Catholic Church are drawn. The half-yearly offerings, the fees on marriages and christenings, and, what is more important, the contributions to the priests made on those occasions by the friends of the parties, are all assessed by public opinion, according to the supposed means of the payer. An example of the mode in which this works, occurred a few months ago, within our own knowledge. £300 was wanted by a loan fund, in a Catholic district in the North of Ireland. In the night, one of the farmers, a man apparently poor, came to his landlord, the principal proprietor in the neighbourhood, and offered to lend the money, if the circumstance could be kept from his priest. His motive for concealment was asked, and he answered, that, if the priest knew he had £300 at interest, his dues would be doubled. Secrecy was promised, and a stocking was broughtfrom its hiding-place in the roof, filled with notes and coin, which had been accumulating for years until a secret investment could be found. Again, for many years past a similar taxation has existed for political purposes. The Catholic rent, the O'Connell tribute, and the Repeal rent, like every other tax that is unsanctioned by law, must be exacted, to a larger or smaller amount, from everycottier, or farmer, as he is supposed to be better or worse able to provide for them."Who can wonder that the cultivator, who is exposed to these influences, should want the industry and economy which give prosperity to the small farmer in Belgium? What motive has he for industry and economy? It may be said that he has the same motive in kind, though not in degree, as the inhabitants of a happier country; since the new demand to which any increase of his means would expose him probably would not exhaust the whole of that increase. The same might be said of the subjects of the Pasha. There are inequalities of fortune among the cultivators of Egypt, just as there were inequalities in that part of France which was under thetaille. No taxation ever exhausted the whole surplus income of all its victims. But when a man cannot calculate the extent to which the exaction may go—when all he knows is, that the more he appears to have the more will be demanded—when he knows that every additional comfort which he is seen to enjoy, and every additional productive instrument which he is found to possess, may be a pretext for a fresh extortion, he turns careless or sulky—he yields to the strong temptation of indolence and of immediate excitement and enjoyment—he becomes less industrious, and therefore produces less—he becomes less frugal, and therefore, if he saves at all, saves a smaller portion of that smaller product."
"It is obvious that the insecurity of a community in which the bulk of the population form a conspiracy against the law, must prevent the importation of capital; must occasion much of what is accumulated there to be exported; and must diminish the motives and means of accumulation. Who will send his property to a place where he cannot rely on its being protected? Who will voluntarily establish himself in a country which to-morrow may be in a state of disturbance? A state in which, to use the words of Chief Justice Bushe, 'houses and barns and granaries are levelled, crops are laid waste, pasture-lands are ploughed, plantations are torn up, meadows are thrown open to cattle, cattle are maimed, tortured, killed; persons are visited by parties of banditti, who inflict cruel torture, mutilate their limbs, or beat them almost to death. Men who have in any way become obnoxious to the insurgents, or opposed their system, or refused to participate in their outrages, are deliberately assassinated in the open day; and sometimes the unoffending family are indiscriminately murdered by burning the habitation.'[96]A state in which even those best able to protect themselves, the gentry, are forced to build up all their lower windows with stone and mortar; to admit light only into one sitting-room, and not into all the windows of that room; to fortify every other inlet by bullet-proof barricades; to station sentinels around during all the night and the greater part of the day, and to keep firearms in all the bedrooms, and even on the side-table at breakfast and dinner-time.[97]Well might Bishop Doyle exclaim, 'I do not blame the absentees; I would be an absentee myself if I could.'
"The state of society which has been described may be considered as a proof of the grossest ignorance; for what can be a greater proof of ignorance than a systematic opposition to law, carried on at the constant risk of liberty and of life, and producingwhere it is most successful, in the rural districts, one level of hopeless poverty, and in the towns, weeks of high wages and months without employment—a system in which tremendous risks and frightful sufferings are the means, and general misery is the result? The ignorance, however, which marks the greater part of the population in Ireland, is not merely ignorance of the moral and political tendency of their conduct—an ignorance in which the lower orders of many more advanced communities participate—but ignorance of the businesses which are their daily occupations. It is ignorance, not as citizens and subjects, but as cultivators and labourers. They are ignorant of the proper rotation of crops, of the preservation and use of manure—in a word, of the means by which the land, for which they are ready to sacrifice their neighbours' lives, and to risk their own, is to be made productive. Their manufactures, such as they are, are rude and imperfect, and the Irish labourer, whether peasant or artisan, who emigrates to Great Britain, never possesses skill sufficient to raise him above the lowest ranks in his trade.
"Indolence—the last of the causes to which we have attributed the existing misery of Ireland—is not so much an independent source of evil as the result of the combination of all others. The Irishman does not belong to the races that are by nature averse from toil. In England, Scotland, or America he can work hard. He is said, indeed, to require more overlooking than the natives of any of these countries, and to be less capable, or, to speak more correctly, to be less willing to surmount difficulties by patient intellectual exertion; but no danger deters, no disagreeableness disgusts, no bodily fatigue discourages him.
"But in his own country he is indolent. All who have compared the habits of hired artisans or of the agricultural labourers in Ireland with those of similar classes in England or Scotland, admit the inferiority of industry of the former. The indolence of the great mass of the people, the occupiers of land, is obvious even to the passing traveller. Even in Ulster, the province in which, as we have already remarked, the peculiarities of the Irish character are least exhibited, not only are the cabins, and even the farm-houses, deformed within and without by accumulationsof filth, which the least exertion would remove, but the land itself is suffered to waste a great portion of its productive power. We have ourselves seen field after field in which the weeds covered as much space as the crops. From the time that his crops are sowed and planted until they are reaped the peasant and his family are cowering over the fire, or smoking, or lounging before the door, when an hour or two a day employed in weeding their potatoes, oats, or flax, would perhaps increase the produce by one-third.
"The indolence of the Irish artisan is sufficiently accounted for by the combinations which, by prohibiting piece-work, requiring all the workmen to be paid by the day and at the same rate, prohibiting a good workman from exerting himself, have destroyed the motives to industry. 'I consider it,' says Mr. Murray, 'a very hard rule among them, that the worst workman that ever took a tool in his hand, should be paid the same as the best, but that is the rule and regulation of the society; and that there was only a certain quantity of work allowed to be done; so that, if one workman could turn more work out of his hands, he durst not go on with it. There is no such thing as piece-work; and if a bad man is not able to get through his work, a good workman dare not go further than he does.'[98]
"The indolence of the agricultural labourer arises, perhaps, principally from his labour being almost always day-work, and in a great measure a mere payment of debt—a mere mode of working out his rent. That of the occupier may be attributed to a combination of causes. In the first place, a man must be master of himself to a degree not common even among the educated classes, before he can be trusted to be his own task-master. Even among the British manufacturers, confessedly the most industrious labourers in Europe, those who work in their own houses are comparatively idle and irregular, and yet they work under the stimulus of certain and immediate gain. The Irish occupier, working for a distant object, dependent in somemeasure on the seasons, and with no one to control or even to advise him, puts off till to-morrow what need not necessarily be done to-day—puts off till next year what need not necessarily be done this year, and ultimately leaves much totally undone.
"Again, there is no damper so effectual as liability to taxation proportioned to the means of payment. It is by this instrument that the Turkish government has destroyed the industry, the wealth, and ultimately the population of what were once the most flourishing portions of Asia—perhaps of the world. It is thus that thetailleruined the agriculture of the most fertile portions of France. Now, the Irish occupier has long been subject to this depressive influence, and from various sources. The competition for land has raised rents to an amount which can be paid only under favourable circumstances. Any accident throws the tenant into an arrear, and the arrear is kept a subsisting charge, to be enforced if he should appear capable of paying it. If any of the signs of prosperity are detected in his crop, his cabin, his clothes, or his food, some old demand may be brought up against him. Again, in many districts a practice prevails of letting land to several tenants, each of whom is responsible for the whole rent. It is not merely the consequence, but the intention, that those who can afford to pay should pay for those who cannot. Again, it is from taxation, regulated by apparent property, that all the revenues of the Irish Catholic Church are drawn. The half-yearly offerings, the fees on marriages and christenings, and, what is more important, the contributions to the priests made on those occasions by the friends of the parties, are all assessed by public opinion, according to the supposed means of the payer. An example of the mode in which this works, occurred a few months ago, within our own knowledge. £300 was wanted by a loan fund, in a Catholic district in the North of Ireland. In the night, one of the farmers, a man apparently poor, came to his landlord, the principal proprietor in the neighbourhood, and offered to lend the money, if the circumstance could be kept from his priest. His motive for concealment was asked, and he answered, that, if the priest knew he had £300 at interest, his dues would be doubled. Secrecy was promised, and a stocking was broughtfrom its hiding-place in the roof, filled with notes and coin, which had been accumulating for years until a secret investment could be found. Again, for many years past a similar taxation has existed for political purposes. The Catholic rent, the O'Connell tribute, and the Repeal rent, like every other tax that is unsanctioned by law, must be exacted, to a larger or smaller amount, from everycottier, or farmer, as he is supposed to be better or worse able to provide for them.
"Who can wonder that the cultivator, who is exposed to these influences, should want the industry and economy which give prosperity to the small farmer in Belgium? What motive has he for industry and economy? It may be said that he has the same motive in kind, though not in degree, as the inhabitants of a happier country; since the new demand to which any increase of his means would expose him probably would not exhaust the whole of that increase. The same might be said of the subjects of the Pasha. There are inequalities of fortune among the cultivators of Egypt, just as there were inequalities in that part of France which was under thetaille. No taxation ever exhausted the whole surplus income of all its victims. But when a man cannot calculate the extent to which the exaction may go—when all he knows is, that the more he appears to have the more will be demanded—when he knows that every additional comfort which he is seen to enjoy, and every additional productive instrument which he is found to possess, may be a pretext for a fresh extortion, he turns careless or sulky—he yields to the strong temptation of indolence and of immediate excitement and enjoyment—he becomes less industrious, and therefore produces less—he becomes less frugal, and therefore, if he saves at all, saves a smaller portion of that smaller product."
For the turbulence of the Irish people, the general indolence of the labourers and artisans, and the misery that exists, the writer of the above sketch has causes worthy of the acuteness of Sir James Graham, or some other patent political economist of the aristocracy ofEngland. We need not comment. We have only made the above quotation to show to what a condition Ireland has been reduced, according to the admissions of an aristocratic organ of England, leaving the reader acquainted with the history of English legislation in regard to the unhappy island to make the most natural inferences.
The ecclesiastical system of Ireland has long been denounced as an injury and an insult. As an insult it has no parallel in history. Oppression and robbery in matters connected with religion have been unhappily frequent; but in all other cases the oppressed and robbed have been the minority. That one-tenth of the population of a great country should appropriate to themselves the endowment originally provided for all their countrymen; that, without even condescending to inquire whether there were or were not a congregation of their own persuasion to profit by them, they should seize the revenues of every benefice, should divert them from their previous application, and should hand them over to an incumbent of their own, to be wasted as a sinecure if they were not wanted for the performance of a duty—this is a treatment of which the contumely stings more sharply even than the injustice, enormous as that is.[99]
The tax of a tithe for the support of a church inwhich they have no faith is a grievance of which Irish Catholics, who compose nine-tenths of the population of Ireland, complain with the greatest reason. Of what benefit to them is a church which they despise? The grand reason for the existence of an established church fails under such circumstances. The episcopal institutions can communicate no religious instruction, because the creed which they sustain is treated with contempt. But where is the use of argument in regard to this point. The Established Church affords many luxurious places for the scions of the aristocracy, and there lies the chief purpose of its existence. The oppressive taxation of Catholics to support a Protestant church will cease with the aristocracy.