The Letters Of
The Letters Of "Norah" On Her Tour Through Ireland By Margaret Dixon Mcdougall - Page 61 of 208 - First - Home

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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. There is great sympathy, publicly expressed, for Captain Boycott and his potatoes; for Miss Bence-Jones, driven to the degrading necessity of milking the cows; but I have watched the papers in vain for one word of sympathy with that pale mother of a family, with her new-born infant in her arms, set upon the roadside the day I was at Carndonagh. Policemen have been known to shed tears executing the law; bailiffs have been known to refuse to do their duty, because the mother's milk was too strong in them; but the public prints express no word of sympathy.

In the papers where sympathy with the people is conspicuous by its absence, there will be paragraph after paragraph about prevention of cruelty to animals. I had the honor of a conversation with a lady of high birth and long descent, and, as I happen to know, of great kindness of heart, a landlady much beloved by a grateful and cared-for tenantry. I remarked to her that justice seemed to me to be rather one-sided: "There is much difference unavoidably between one class and another, but there are three places where all classes should stand on an equality - on a school room floor, in a court of justice, in the house of God." "I would agree with you so far," said the lady, "that they should be on a level when they come before God." I am sure there would be no agitation nor need of coercion if all the landladies and landlords were like this kind-hearted lady in practice.

Another instance of kindly thought on the part of another landlady. The famine left many a poor tenant without any stock at all; every creature was sacrificed to keep in life. This lady bought cows for her tenants who were in this sad plight. She left the cows with them until a calf grew up into a milking cow; then the cow was sold to pay the landlady the money invested. If the cow sold for more than was paid for it the balance was the tenant's, and he had the cow besides. "Thus," said the lady to me, "I benefitted them materially at no expense of money, only a little." This lady, who claims and receives the homage of her tenants for the ould blood and the ould name, has by these acts of inexpensive kindness, chained her tenants to her by their hearts. "It's easy to see," said one to me, "that the ould kindly blood is in her."

There have been many humble petitions for reduction of rent; many have been granted, more have been refused.

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