"But in his own country he is indolent. All who have compared the habits of hired artisans or of the agricultural labourers in Ireland with those of similar classes in England or Scotland, admit the inferiority of industry of the former. The indolence of the great mass of the people, the occupiers of land, is obvious even to the passing traveller. Even in Ulster, the province in which, as we have already remarked, the peculiarities of the Irish character are least exhibited, not only are the cabins, and even the farm-houses, deformed within and without by accumulations of filth, which the least exertion would remove, but the land itself is suffered to waste a great portion of its productive power. We have ourselves seen field after field in which the weeds covered as much space as the crops. From the time that his crops are sowed and planted until they are reaped the peasant and his family are cowering over the fire, or smoking, or lounging before the door, when an hour or two a day employed in weeding their potatoes, oats, or flax, would perhaps increase the produce by one-third. "The indolence of the Irish artisan is sufficiently accounted for by the combinations which, by prohibiting piece-work, requiring all the workmen to be paid by the day and at the same rate, prohibiting a good workman from exerting himself, have destroyed the motives to industry. 'I consider it,' says Mr. Murray, 'a very hard rule among them, that the worst workman that ever took a tool in his hand, should be paid the same as the best, but that is the rule and regulation of the society; and that there was only a certain quantity of work allowed to be done; so that, if one workman could turn more work out of his hands, he durst not go on with it. There is no such thing as piece-work; and if a bad man is not able to get through his work, a good workman dare not go further than he does.'[98]