The Cabinet of Irish Literature, with Biogr. Sketches and Literary Notices by C. A. Read

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1880 edition. Excerpt: ... an expressive phrase, thrown on the road, simply because the landlord wished to get rid of the superabundant population. Many measures, passed by statesmen with a most honest intention of doing good to Ireland, have produced results directly the reverse. This was because they were framed by men who had not the knowledge which can only be acquired by residence among the people, and by a long and intimate acquaintance with the circumstances. The case of the Poor Law was an instance of this, for it ought to have been foreseen that the giving of relief to the poor would lead to the very evil which followed. I will give one instance of what occurred. The matter came into a court of justice because the landlord, fortunately for justice, made some slight mistake in his proceedings. It was the case of an estate in the county of Meath, and there were on it twenty-seven families. It was admitted that their labour made the property rich and profitable, and that they never had been in arrear one half-year's rent during the thirty years that the landlord had been in possession of the estate. The landlord got embarrassed, and he sold the estate to a gentleman, who purchased it on condition that all the tenants should be evicted. The landlord concealed this circumstance from the tenants, and when he served them with notice to quit told them he did not intend to act upon it. Well, a jury of landlords gave to one of the evicted tenants the full value of the fee-simple of the land. Such things, it should be remembered, could not be done in England, for Henry VIII. got his parliament to pass an act that every landlord who pulled down a house should build it up again in six months, and in the reign of Queen Elizabeth another act was passed that gave a legal...