wood at the nearest village, and, by hard work and stimulated by the certainty of owning a home at the end of six years, managed to meet their payments.

'The first year was the hardest; and the first winter, which was the hardest of all, an agent on the property was instructed to lend a helping hand and supply provisions whenever there was actual necessity.

'At the expiration of the six years, out of several hundred contracts there have been only two failures.

'The men, from wild, turbulent fellows, have become quiet, sober, and law-abiding citizens.

'Many indeed are the examples that could be cited of Irishmen who from small beginnings have become landholders in this country.

'All the instances present the same features.

'May not some of the discontent that has been ripening in the minds of Irishmen (since the great exodus in 1848) towards British institutions and the system of land tenure in Ireland be partially traced to the easy acquisition of real estate in the United States?'

:—

Again, Mr. Dennis Donoghue, reporting in 1872, describes another interesting case: The son of a tenant of four acres upon the estate of a nobleman in Ireland emigrated to the United States about the year 1848. At first he worked as a labourer in an iron foundry. In 1852 he was a working gardener on wages of 6l. per month. In 1870 he transmitted to Ireland enough money to purchase his landlord's castle, then for sale, and at the same time owned in the United States a sugar plantation upon which he had spent about 40,000l.; also a very fine farm and valuable fancy stock, as well as a handsome town residence. He came very nearly being elected United States Senator."

The population of Ireland, notwithstanding a natural increase as reckoned by the excess of births over deaths,

total of 1,855,779, being in the proportion of 64'5 per cent.; whereas of Germans (including Prussians) there were only 605,926 out of a total of 1,690,410, being in the proportion of 36 per cent.; of Dutch, only 231 per cent. of the whole were found in those States; of Swiss, only 22 per cent.; of Swedes, only 10 per cent; and of Norwegians, only 1 per cent. Again, in the eight chief towns of those States-namely, New York, Philadelphia, Brooklyn, Baltimore, Boston, Buffalo, Washington, and Jersey City-there were 480,682 native-born Irish, whereas there were only 313,131 natives of the whole of Germany and Prussia. Further, in the fifty chief towns of the United States there were, at the period of the census, 1870, 826,388 native Irish; whereas there were only 664,687 from the whole of Germany and Prussia. Moreover, there were, at the same period, considerably more native Irish than native Germans and Prussians in the United States, the figures being, respectively, 1,855,779 and 1,690,410; and it may also be noted that the natives of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland found in the United States, in 1870, were very considerably in excess of the natives of the whole of the remainder of Europe put together, the figures being, respectively, 2,625,923 and 2,308,647.

In the case of the people emigrating from this country, they are, to a large extent, indebted to their friends in America for the means whereby they are enabled to leave their native land; and notably is this the case with the Irish, to whom remittances, in the twenty-one years from 1848 to 1868 inclusive, amounted to 14,967,5681, at the least; for the Emigration Commissioners state that this return is unavoidably imperfect, and that the sums actually sent home are probably much larger. No one in this country has, therefore, any right to congratulate us upon the fact that the world is being, to such an extent, populated by the British stock; for when we

regard the circumstances, being those of poverty and destitution, in which, for the most part, the people leave their native shores, it is apparent enough that the country receiving such crowds cannot be benefited in any degree comparable to what it might be were the emigrants not so miserably necessitous. The evil of such a state of things is recognised and lamented; but it may be satisfactory to think that the Government of the United States has at least as yet made no movement towards placing any obstacle in the way of unlimited immigration.

Mr. Edward Thornton, the British Ambassador to the United States, writes, under date Washington, November 26, 1869, thus:- With regard to the Irish who arrive in this country, it is the result of every-day observation that the majority remain in the larger towns, where, with rare exceptions, they do little good for themselves, are unthrifty, quarrelsome, and intemperate; but where single families devote themselves to agriculture, and are able to purchase the land which they cultivate, they at once take so great an interest in what they can call their own, that their character is entirely changed, and they become thrifty, orderly, and useful citizens, and acquire a great respect for the rights of property.' And, again, Consul-General Archibald reports from New York, in 1873-As to the destination of the immigrants recently arriving, it is ascertained that where one German goes to the eastern or manufacturing region, there go thirteen Irish; but where one Irishman goes to the agricultural regions of the middle, western, and West Mississippi States, he is accompanied by three Germans.'

We must now turn our attention to Scotland, whose history has been highly chequered, where, at an early period, civilization and progress were, as in Italy, well advanced; and, later on, the constant desolation of war produced retrogression, misery, and comparative barbarism.

The same dissociation of the people from the soil has proceeded in Scotland as in England and Ireland, though this operation has taken place at very different periods and in very various ways.

Probably, the great proportion of the agricultural population in the southern lowlands became free labourers at an early period, before the destructive wars with England had driven the country back from its former condition of wealth and enlightenment. In the north, however, the majority were probably emancipated only on the settlement of the country in the middle of last century, when men of wealth and enterprise purchased many of the estates, and introduced capital and agricultural machinery and improvements. Until that period, the miners and salt-workers in the middle of the country were also serfs. In the Highlands, however, the transformation was effected with the greatest amount of hardship; for, as in England, and to a greater degree, in all likelihood, the retainers of the chiefs were unaccustomed to labour. They despised every occupation of a nonmilitary character, and could not, therefore, at once become tillers of the ground. The result was, that the supernumerary population was driven off the soil with great hardships, the remaining numbers becoming tenants or labourers.

In no country in the world has the phenomenon of mighty landed properties become so striking, and in none has the amount of suffering experienced by the poorer classes of labourers been greater. It has, however, been a happy thing for them, and for their country, that so many have been able to emigrate to lands where the boldness, hardihood, and self-reliance of the mountaineer have been amply rewarded by better fields for the exercise of these characteristics. Had there been no such outlet for the dispossessed population, the result would have