• IRISH WRETCHEDNESS AND IRISH LANDLORDS.
Trams—The accounts from Ireland are distressing. • The people in some parts of the South are described to be in such destitution, that fears were entertained within these few days for the pitovision stores at Clon- mei : and. troops were called out to intimidate the wretched multitude. Now we had been aware of the existence of considerable suffering in re- mote districts of Ireland, and for its unabated continuance in such quar- ters there may have been some excuse, because of the forlorn state of the country, from the scanty number of resident inhabitants above the condi- tion of paupers : but what shall we say to the unrelieved famine at Clonmel, the chief town of one of the wealthiest counties in Ireland,— itself a place of great and increasing traffic, full of-rich tradesmen, mer- chant; and retired persons of independent means,—in the midst of a country, moreover, thickly planted with residences of noblemen and gentlemen, sportsmen, fashionable men, politicians, jobbers, wealthy graziers, with their thousands of high-fed cattle, while their fellow Chris- tians are wholly without food ?—what shall we say to this Tipperary Baby- lon, for leaving the poorer brethren of its mercantile and landed potentates no alternative but that of perishing by hunger, the sword, or the gallows ? Is it not among the most dreadful facts in history, that the lords of the soil of Ireland should for ages have witnessed this degraded condition of their serfs, without (we do not say a wish, but) a serious and systematic effort, at any period of the last two centuries, to amend it ? We really do feel that Mr. Martin's act, for " punishing cruelty to animals," would be the species of retribution most applicable to the conduct of a large proportion of Irish landlords towards their poorer tenants, if even their physical treatment be kept in view. But we lose our time ; the ofFenders are too numerous to be shamed into virtue, and as yet too powerful to be compelled.
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