famine, in a lonely part of the west, when the coachman pointed me to a corner around the wall, and remarked, "When I passed this place to-day, a man lay dead there who had been killed some hours before by one of the tenants living upon the land here." "Why did he do the shocking deed?" I inquired. "A good deed, by dad," was the answer. "Why lady, he was the greatest blackguard that ever walked the airth; he was agent to a gentleman, and he showed no mercy to a poor man that was toilin' for the potato; but as soon as the famine was sore on the craturs, he drove every one into the blake staurm that could not give the rent, and many's the poor bein' that died with the starvation, without the shelter; and wouldn't ye think that such a hard-hearted villain better be dead, than to live and kill so many poor women and helpless children, as would be wanderin' in the black mountains this winter, if he should live to drive 'em there." Now, this is certainly unchristian logic, but it is resentful nature's logic, and in accordance with all the principles of national killing. In vain I preached and held up a better principle—"A great good had been done to all the parish, and all the parish should be glad that so many lives had been saved by this one which had been taken."
It was night, and I felt a little relief when a policeman ascended the coach, who was going in quest of a coroner; a sad deed, he added, but the murdered man was hard-hearted, and no doubt that it was some of the tenants on the land of which he was agent who did the
