hundred houses; and there rose around them the unpopulated hillside,
where a host of people might have lived in health, and where, indeed,
men had once lived, as was witnessed by the roofless gables which here
and there rose among the heather.

It seems to me that in this state of things there is a monstrous
injustice. There is no law to compel these gentlemen to sell land, and
there is no public sentiment that can affect them. They are the
complete despots of the countryside. If a man does not like their
domination, he leaves the district; he knows that it is vain to resist
it. In this way many rural districts are depopulated, or kept
under-populated, simply to gratify the selfish temper of a great
proprietor. It is not as though he lived in the district, and wished
to keep its beauties secret to himself; often enough he visits it so
rarely that his face is not known among his tenants. No; but he must
have everything to himself; he must round off his estate; he must look
from his park on nothing which is not his; for your rural Ahab could
not sleep with a Naboth's little vineyard even a mile away. It is
useless to tell him that the land you want is waste natural land, on
which you propose to confer value; he prefers that it shall be
valueless, rather than that it shall be yours. Before population can
be re-distributed to the advantage of town and country alike, this
difficulty must be overcome. It can only be overcome by drastic
legislation. Compulsory purchase, regulated by an equitable land
court, is the only remedy; and it is hard that Irishmen should have,
and grumble over, privileges which their English brethren would receive
with open arms.

Such were some of the discoveries which I made when I came to the real
business of finding a humble country residence. In my ignorance and