where. And more fearful than all, now that the root on which you have fed them for centuries is taken away; famished and naked you drive them into the pitiless storm. Ye withhold from them labor, and then call them "idle;" ye give them work without any just equivalent, and then cry out when the scanty food is blasted, "Improvidence, Improvidence!"—that had these "idlers" put by anything for a "rainy day," they might have had money to have bought bread! That idleness and improvidence, (which are generally companions,) are two great evils of Ireland, must be acknowledged. The rich are idle from a silly pride and long habits of indulgence; and the poor, because no man " hires them."
"Would you have us work," said a shopkeeper's wife, "when we can get scores of girls, glad to do it, for 10s. a quarter?" Here is one of the sources of evil: the "ways of the household," which are specially allotted to the "prudent wife," are made over to the uninterested servant; because this poor servant was "glad" to work for a little more than nothing. The keys of the house are peculiarly the care of the mistress, and with these well pocketed she prevents all inroads into her larder, and the servant may eat her potato at option, for in but few families is she allowed bread and butter or tea. This keeping everything locked, we are told, is to keep servants from theft—the surest method of making them thieves. Their late hours of rising and of meals, necessarily unhinge all that is good in housekeeping; and where all is left to
