IRELAND.
It has lately been proved by indisputable evidence, that the present condition of the peasantry of Ireland is much superior, to that of the population of the same island some centuries ago, when the number of people did not exceed one million. Spenser describes them as inhabiting "sties rather than houses, which is the chiefest cause of the farmer's so beastly manner of living and savage condition, lying and living together with his beast, in one house, in one room, in one bed, that is clean straw, or rather a foul dunghill."
In 1712, Dobbs, a man particularly conversant with the general condition of Ireland, estimated that its population had increased 200,000. He states that "the common people are very poorly clothed, go barelegged half the year, and very rarely taste of that flesh meat with which we so much abound, but are pinched in every article of life."
In 1762, Sir William Petty computed that the inhabitants of Ireland amounted to about one million three hundred thousand. Their habitations, he says, "are lamentable wretched cabins, such as themselves could make in three or four days, not worth five shillings the building, and filthy and disgusting to a degree, which renders it necessary for us to refrain from quoting his description. Out of the 200,000 houses of Ireland," says he, "160,000 are wretched cabins, without chimney, window, or door shut, even worse than those of the savages of America." Their food at the same period, consisted "of cakes, whereof a penny serves for each a week; potatoes from August till May; mussels, cockles, and oysters, near the sea; eggs and butter made very rancid by keeping in bogs; as for flesh they seldom eat it; they can content themselves with potatoes."
SELF KNOWLEDGE.
We often hear people call themselves fools. Now a man ought to know whether he is a fool or not, and he would not say it if he did not believe it; and there is also a degree of wisdom in the discovery that one has been a fool, for thereby it is intimated that the season of folly is over. Whosoever therefore actually says that he was a fool formerly, virtually says that he is not a fool now.—Penelope.