“The occupation of a plot of land has now gotten to be considered, by a great portion of the Irish people, as conferring an almost interminable right of possession. This seems to have arisen in great measure out of the circumstances in which they have been placed; for there being no legal provision for the destitute, and the subdivision of the land into small holdings having destroyed the regular demand for labour, the only protection against actual want, the only means by which a man could procure food for his family, was by getting and retaining possession of a portion of land; for this he has struggled—for this the peasantry have combined and burst through the restraints of law and humanity. So long as this portion of land was kept together, it was possibly sufficient to supply his family with a tolerable degree of comfort; but after a time he would have sons to provide for, and daughters to portion off, and this must all be effected out of the land—until the holding of ten or fifteen acres became divided into holdings of two, three, or five acres. After a time, too, the same process of subdivision is again resorted to, until the minimum of subsistence is reached; and this is now the condition of a large portion of the Irish peasantry. Land is to them the great necessary of life. There is no hiring of servants. A man cannot obtain his living as a day-labourer. He must get possession of a plot of land to raise potatoes, or starve. It need scarcely be said that a man will not starve, so long as the means of sustaining life can be obtained by force or fraud; and hence the scenes of violence and murder which have so frequently occurred in Ireland.
“One of the circumstances that first arrests attention on visiting Ireland, is the prevalence of mendicancy. It is not perhaps the actual amount of misery existing amongst the mendicant class, great as that may be, which is most to be deprecated; but the falsehood and fraud which form a part of their profession, and spread by their example. Mendicancy appeals to our sympathies on behalf of vice, as well as want; and encouragement is often afforded to the one, by the relief intended for the other. To assume the semblance of misery is the business of the mendicant, and his success depends upon the skill with which he exercises deception. A mass of filth, nakedness, and squalor, is thus kept moving about the country, entering every house, addressing itself to every eye, and soliciting from every hand; and much of the filth and indolence observable in the cabins, clothing, and general conduct of the peasantry, may I think be traced to this source, and I doubt even if those above the class of labourers altogether escape the taint. Mendicancy and filth have become too common to be disgraceful.