Well, This Man Since The Famine,
Has No Stock But One Ass And A Few Hens.
He cut and saved his rye-grass
himself, sold it for L3 10s, sold his oats for L3 4s 6d; had nothing
more to sell; had remaining for his wife and two little ones a little
meal and potatoes.
He is a year and a half behind in his rent, and
likely, after all his toil and struggle, to be set on the roadside with
the rest. He has no bog near, there is none nearer than over five miles,
except some belonging to Miss Gardiner. Of course that mild and sober
spinster that will not oblige her own tenants has nothing in the way of
favor for outsiders. It took him twelve days last year to make
sufficient turf to keep the hearth warm. He went to the bog in the
morning on his breakfast of dry stirabout, with a bit of cold stirabout
in his pocket to keep off the hungry grass, as the peasant calls
famished pains, and walked home to his dry stirabout at night, having
walked going and coming eleven Irish miles over and above his day's
work. He drew home seventy ass loads of turf at the rate of two loads
per day - twenty-two Irish miles of a walk. Let Christians imagine this
man at his toil in his thin clothing, poor diet and bed of straw with
scanty coverlet, toiling early and late to pay an unjust rent.
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