human
Naturally the guardians of the minor are unwilling that the estate should be sold up, all possibility of improvement and recovery sacrificed, and themselves erased from the list of the county gentry. Landlords have as much objection to eviction and compulsory emigration as tenants, and are as much inclined to cling to their land, hoping for better things. Thus arises a state of affairs against which the peasant at last shows signs of revolt. Physically and mentally neglected for centuries by his masters, he has found within the last fifty years neglect exchanged for extortion and oppression. To prevent the sale of the property, the owners or trustees must pay the interest on the encumbrances. Moreover, they, being only human, think themselves entitled to a modest subsistence out of the proceeds of the property. To pay the interest and secure this
gpt
for themselves there are only two ways--to wring the last shilling out of the wretched tenants, to first deprive them of their ancient privileges, and then charge them extra dues for exercising them, or to let every available inch of mountain pasture to a cattle-farmer, whose herds take very good care that the cottier's cow does not get
human
appears to have been the old Irish analogue of the various kinds of rights of common in England, which have for the most part been lost to the poorer folk, not always without a struggle with the neighbouring landlord or lord of the manor. I hear from almost every place a complaint that within thirty or forty years the
gpt
has been taken from the people and let to graziers. On the legal merits of the case I cannot at this moment pretend to decide, but inasmuch as this addition to an ordinary holding survives on some estates, there appears strong ground for believing that the practice was general. Where the cattle-run remains it is mapped out as a
human
for a certain townland, and is greatly prized by the peasants. It may therefore be imagined that those from whom it has been taken by the strong hand are bitterly resentful, and even where the change was made so long as twenty-five or thirty years ago nourish a deeply-rooted sense of wrong. It is absurd to suppose that when the act of spoliation took place village Hampdens could spring up on every hill-side in Connemara. Owing to the neglect of those who were responsible for their condition, they were the most ignorant and superstitious people in the British Islands. Landlords were not yet awakened to a sense that their tenants should at least be taught to read; and Connemara was esteemed, I am told, as a kind of penal settlement for priests who had not proved shining lights in more civilised communities. The latter reproach can no longer be brought, for the zeal and activity of the local clergy are conspicuous; and where the children are within any reasonable distance of a school they come readily to it, and prove bright and apt scholars. But when the