We are gravely told, in well-rounded and high-sounding sentences, that "in Ireland famine urges men to take land at any price--they must have it or die;" and that, "when a piece of ground falls out of lease, it becomes a bone of contention amongst some twenty or thirty miserable competitors, who outbid each other, to the great delight and profit of the ruthless and exulting landlord, and to their own utter ruin." If any one takes time to reflect on what he reads in every day's newspaper, he must at once perceive that this statement can have no foundation in fact; if a landlord remove a tenant for non-payment of rent, he finds it difficult to get another to succeed him, (in the disturbed districts it is almost impossible to get any man to do so.) Such is the dread of taking land, from the occupation of which others have been expelled, even on account of owing the most unreasonable arrears, that farms frequently remain waste for years, without any person daring to bid for them. Now if public opinion, and the dread of the punishment which is sure to follow, operate so powerfully in favour of the really blamable person, as to keep his land untenanted, how much more influence will they possess in restraining any man from seeking to obtain the land of another, if that other be unobjectionable in character, solvent in circumstances, and still in possession? Such a thing is never heard of. The landlord, if he were bad enough, might try to induce men to act so; but he could not effect it. If death pursue the man who undertakes to rent unoccupied ground, as in most instances it does, how much more certain would it be to overtake him whose conduct was the means of driving from his home a solvent and industrious person? If a landlord distrain for rent, he can find no bidders for the crops or cattle; how much more difficult will it be for him to obtain bidders for land? We have frequently heard the bad cultivation of the land in Ireland attributed to the constant shifting of the tenantry: we are quite convinced the result of the enquiry now instituted will show how unfounded this supposition is, and that the shifting or removal of the tenants, will be found to be a matter of much more rare occurrence in Ireland than in England. That scarcity and want are periodically experienced in Ireland, is but too true. Those visitations (which, thank God, are not frequent) arise from the failure of the potato crops, and generally occur in those districts most densely populated, and consequently worst tilled; in fact, they are greatly to be attributed to the neglect of the people themselves; who will not take the trouble of using those precautions against rot, which ought always to be adopted on a moist soil or in a mountainous country: but to talk of persons dying in Ireland of starvation is absurd, and bespeaks an utter ignorance of the national character. There are poor-houses; and besides, in Ireland,