THE OLD IRISH FOR -SHILLINGERS.
Limerick, 2604 Fetruary 1851. Sra—Lord John Russell's answer to Mr. Locke Xing, speaking of the forty- shilling freeholders disfranchised in Ireland in 1829, speaks of them, as has often been done before, as a body similar to the existing English one bearing the same name ; although.,I believe the latter are almost altogether small proprietors in fee. The forty-shilling freeholders in this country were merely very small tenants, holding a house and some two or three acres of land at a rackrent, for a lease of lives ; the latter being generally purposely selected by the landlord, shortly previous to an election, out of the most ailing patriarchs of his neighbourhood. Though they swore to a "tilling and grazing" profit of forty shillings a year, they were, as a class, pauperized and utterly un- educated; and, where their religion was not concerned, abjectly dependent upon their landlords' orders in electioneering matters.
When the franchise was abolished, I was a child ; but existing rights were preserved, and I have consequently myself seen reregistered, within the last six years, many of the old " forty-shdlingers," who fully deserved the character I have given of them above. I am, Sir, your faithful servant, X.
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