Page:Irish Emigration and The Tenure of Land in Ireland.djvu/208

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
174

And, lastly, Loth in respect of climate, in the forcing power of the sun, (without which stolen crops

     beauty, as many come from chalets among the mountains of Neuchatel as from the workshops of Geneva.

    "This affords a clue to the true explanation of the minute partition which has taken place.
    "But although retaining the name and all the privileges of peasants, they gain their living principally as manufacturers."
    Thornton's Peasant Proprietors, pp. 87 and 88.
    "In most parts of the country, particularly in the baronies of Oneilland, Armagh, aud Lower Orior, the condition of the peasantry is better than in any of the inland counties with which I am acquainted."—Edward Tickell, Esq., Assistant Barrister, Dev. Com. Digest, p. 370.
    "Are they weavers in those districts which you speak of as being better?—There is a great number of weavers in those districts. I never saw a more comfortable-looking set of £10. freeholders than appeared before me at the registry, from those portions of the county; they were holding farms from about twelve to twenty English acres of very good land; great numbers of them had orchards on their farms, and they had the appearance of a set of English yeomen."
    Edward Tickell, Esq., Assistant Barrister, Digest, p. 371.
    John Lindsay, Esq., Magistrate and Chairman, Board of Guardians.
    "The small tenantry formerly kept three or four looms going in their houses; and there might be some sons, or what they call dieters, coming in, and they employed them to weave; but the weaving fell, and that reduced their circumstances. The small tenantry of eight or ten acres, would eat all that grew upon their farms, and earn their rent by their trade."

    *****

    "An occupier of three acres, with a trade or occasional occupation as a labourer, I consider (next to those having above twenty-five acres) as most likely to do well."
    Richard C. Brown Clayton, Esq., (land proprietor), Digest, p. 413.