I thought as I sat there - silent too - that I would not like to be
that landlord and, in any time of upheaval, lie at the mercy of this
favorite tenant of his.
They talk of agitators moving the people! Agitators could not move them
were it not that they gave voice to what is in the universal heart of
the tenantry.
A gentleman connected with the press said to me to-day: "The fact is
that any outrage, no matter how heart-rending, committed by a landlord
upon his tenantry is taken little notice of - none by Government - but
when a tenant commits an outrage, no matter how great the provocation,
then the whole power of the Government is up to punish."
One great trouble among the people is, they cannot read much, and they
feel intensely; reading matter is too dear, and they are too poor to
educate themselves by reading. What they read is passed from hand to
hand; it is all one-sided, and "who peppers the highest is surest to
please."
The ignorance of one class, consequent upon their poverty, the
insensibility of another class, are the two most dangerous elements that
I notice. It is easy to see how public sympathy runs, in the most
educated classes.
