annuity for life. The third provides, that the child of a Papist, on
conforming, shall at once receive an annuity from his father; and that
the chancellor shall compel the father to discover, upon oath, the
full value of his estate, real and personal, and thereupon make an
order for the support of such conforming child or children, and for
securing such a share of the property, after the father's death, as
the court shall think fit. The fourteenth and fifteenth clauses secure
jointures to Popish wives who shall conform. The sixteenth prohibits
a Papist from teaching, even as assistant to a Protestant master. The
eighteenth gives a salary of 30 l. per annum to Popish priests who
shall conform. The twentieth provides rewards for the discovery of
Popish prelates, priests, and teachers, according to the
following whimsical scale:--For discovering an archbishop, bishop,
vicar-general, or other person, exercising any foreign ecclesiastical
jurisdiction, 50 l.; for discovering each regular clergyman, and each
secular clergyman, not registered, 20 l.; and for discovering each
Popish schoolmaster or usher, 10 l.

In judging the Irish peasantry, we should try to estimate the effects
of such a system on any people for more than a century. It will
account for the farmer's habit of concealing his prosperity, and
keeping up the appearance of poverty, even if he had not reason for it
in the felonious spirit of appropriation still subsisting under legal
sanction. We are too apt to place to the account of race or religion
the results of malignant or blundering legislation. We are not without
examples of such results in England itself.

In the winter of 1831-2, a very startling state of things was
presented. In a period of great general prosperity, that portion of
England in which the poor laws had their most extensive operation, and