The weekly Placer herald., 1853-01-01

HId1y pdFtS, SUCH DIS uOeS not attract mucn
attention, but such, nevertheless, is great
revolution. In an English paper before
US, we see it stated that the county of
Mayo is in transition from the cottier
state of society, in which the land was
thickly peopIed, and held by tenants in
very small holdings, at very high rents,
to the grazing system, in which it is oc-
cuped merely by very few herds and
retakers, and held either by the land
lord himself or by one or two great capi-
taist tenants. The change is from being
stocked with men, women and children,
to being stocked with sheep and cattle.
A writer in the London Times, drawing
the picture of the change says:
"The whole population of district
many miles in extent are simply turned
out into the roads to 60 where they please,
and live or die as they can. Of course,
there are among them many old people
hardly able to get along, many sick per-
sons, many little children, many women
in an advanced state of pregnancy-out
they all 90 together. There seems to be
in the ejecting landlords a very happy
state of Indifference to the question, what
becomes Of there people? But confess
my weakness. | have not yet attained
this Indifference. inquired anxiously
where the people were gone, who, few
months ago, inhabited one Of these dis
trIcts, lately thickly peopIed, and now a
sheep walk. | was tod by a gentleman,
an agent, who stoutly defended, upon the
plea ofnecessity, the proceedings in ques-
ton, that some of them, who had some
little property, We're gone to America;
that many were in the Union workhouse;
that some were in the lower parts of the
great towns of England, Scot and, and
Ireland. but that, in his opinion, the great
er part of them were dead.'
few years ago men, women and chill
dren were the most profitable stock which
a landlord in this county could encourage
upon his property; they lived upon the
worst and least quantity of food, and paid
rents which considering the quality of
the land and the total absense of any ex-
lpenditure on the part Of the landlord,
either for fencing, draining, or the erec-
tion of tenements,) would in any country
be considered exorbitant. When, how
ever, the potatoe failed, the human animal
ceased to be profitable rent paying stock;
and as the Poor Laws had been imposed
nearly at the same time it became an ex-
pensive one. Here we have in one word
the rationale of the change.
The most noble Lord Marquis of Sligo
seems to be the great operator i'm this
changing the habitations of men to the
haunts ofcattIe. This writer in the Times,
whence we quote, says:
ifNrar WcSIpOrL for several miles, the
most noble the Lord Marquis of S go is
at this moment clearing away the whole
population. A few are already removed
in other cases their fortune is standing
outside the cottage door, and the whole
family are evidently ON the point of plung
ing, homeless, into the world. Mean
while, new and well built wal is rising
between the road and the land, which is
still the home of many lately happy fami-
lies. 1t is sad to see that this very wall,
not yet completed, (for there are breaches
in many places, through which the tenants
have to remove their all,) is built of the
materials of demolished houses The OBJ
servant eye will see stones still stained
with SCOT, which once formed the chimney
of many a cottage.
"Beyond Westport the wall is complete,
and the people are gone. The most
noble marquis, conceive, will see and
hear no more of them, in this world, at
least. The remains of the cottages are
here quite enclosed within the encircIing
wall. The district was cleared few
months ago.
GAS the traveller goes on he enters the
territory of Sir Roger Palmer, and then
that of the Right Hon. the Earl of Lucan
Here things are more advanced. A great
part of the land is already in large grass
fields, fed by sheep; fine crops Of turnips
are in Others, and in some you may see
the young grass among the fresh stubble
All will very soon bear the appearance of
district which man has never peopIed
"I can exactly state the extent Of the
district operated upon. 1t began three
or four miles from Westport, and extends
| Qhough not without some considerable
intervals Of land belonging to other pro-
prietors,) almost to the town of BaIlinrobe
distance of perhaps 25 miles. On both
sides of the road it stretches as far as the
eye can reach | was informed and be-
lieve, (although cannot state it of my
own knowledse,) that the Earl of Lucan
alone has already laid down on grass
about 10000 acres of densIy inhabited
land"
What mournful picture! What a
frightful picture it must be! But it is
from the country,-wbere this misery, if
not this oppression exists that we hear
the loudest reproaches of our African
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