“Nothing can exceed the miserable appearance of the cottages in _Donegal_, or the desolate aspect of a cluster of these hovels, always teeming with a crowded population. Yet if you enter their cabins, and converse with them frankly and kindly, you will find the people intelligent and communicative, quick to comprehend, and ready to impart what they know. They admitted that they were too numerous, ‘too thick upon the land,’ and that, as one of them declared, ‘they were eating each other’s heads off,’—but what could they do? There was no employment for the young, nor relief for the aged, nor means nor opportunity for removing their surplus numbers to some more eligible spot. They could only therefore live on, ‘hoping,’ as they said, ‘that times might mend, and that their landlords would sooner or later do something for them.’ To improve the condition of such a people would increase the productive powers of the country, a point well deserving the attention of the great landowners, with whom it mainly rests. But no material or lasting improvement can be effected, so long as the present subdivision of land continues. This practice, wherever it prevails, forces the population down to the lowest level of subsistence—to that point where subdivision is arrested by the dread, or by the actual occurrence of want; and it is alike the duty and the interest of the landowner, so to exercise the right of property as to guard his tenantry from such depression. In the case of Donegal, a two-fold remedy seems to be necessary, that is, emigration, and an extension of cultivation. There is abundant room for the latter, and if undertaken with spirit and intelligence, it will not only ensure an ample return on the capital expended, but also afford employment, and provide suitable locations for a part of the surplus population. If a portion of this surplus were removed by emigration, and another portion placed on new grounds, effectually reclaimed, a consolidation of the present small holdings might be effected. This would be a great point gained, where the average rental of such holdings does not exceed 2_l._, and numbers are under 1_l._ per annum. A poor-law would facilitate this change, so necessary for the landowners, as well as for the great mass of the people of Donegal. The principle of a poor-law is to make the property of a district answerable for the relief of destitution within it; and the application of this principle would serve to connect the several orders of society, and teach them to act together—it would show them that they have reciprocal interests, reciprocal duties—that each is necessary to the other—and that the cordial co-operation of _all_ is necessary to the well-being of the whole. I therefore augur much good from the establishment of a