in some instances, for paying off the compensation claims of his outgoing tenant. All these loans, securities, repayments, and annuities are to be under the direction of the Irish Board of Works at Dublin.

The legal machinery for carrying these and subsequent clauses of the bill into effect will consist of two classes of courts. One of arbitration, consisting of appointees of the parties interested, whose decision shall have all the force of law, and from which there shall be no appeal. The other will be a regular court of law, with very extensive equity jurisdiction, composed, in the first instance, of a civil bill court, presided over by an assistant barrister of sessions; an appeal court, composed of two judges of assize, who may reserve important cases for trial before the court for land cess in Dublin. Taking into consideration the relative wealth and personal influence of the parties litigant, we might hope for a less expensive and complicated mode of procedure; but as the law's delays are still as proverbial on the other side of the Atlantic as on this, it is perhaps the least objectionable plan that could be devised. Much certainly will depend on the independence and humanity of the courts; for while they will be bound by the principles laid down in the bill, it is authorized—

"On hearing of any dispute between landlord and tenant in respect of compensation under this act, either party may make any claim, urge any objection to the claims of the other, or plead any set-off such party may see fit, and the court shall take into consideration any such claim, objection, or set-off, and also any such default or unreasonable conduct of either party as may appear to the court to affect any matter in dispute between the parties," etc., and give judgment on the equities of the same.

The bill then proceeds to secure and define the tenure of all holders of agricultural land, dividing them

into four classes: holders by the cus tom of Ulster, by customs analogous to that of Ulster in the other provinces tenants from year to year and at will and lease-holders generally.

The custom of Ulster, derive strangely enough from the terms of James I.'s charter to the undertaker in 1613,* as well as from traditiona usage, consists mainly of the right of the outgoing tenant to compensation from his landlord for all permanen improvements he may have made of the land, or that he has actually paid for to his predecessor, whether with o without the consent of his landlord or the tenant may elect to sell the same with his good-will of the farm to the best purchaser. This custom covering about a moiety of the 3,400,000 acres of Ulster, is to be for mally recognized as law only in that portion of the country, and in each individual case where it now actually exists. But when "the landlord has, by a deliberate and formal arrange ment with an occupier, bought up the Ulster tenant right, it shall not be pleaded against him;" and where the tenant has so sold to the landlord or to the incoming tenant his right, he shall be debarred from all other compensation under the act. The value of this custom, though heretofore only partially recognized, will be perceived from the fact that, though Ulster is by no means the most fertile section, the average annual value of its lands is from four to four and a half dollars per acre greater than the other portions of the country. Why this custom, so manifestly beneficial to ali classes, should only be made genera in Ulster, but not throughout the is land, it is difficult to determine.

There are also customs in other

The said undertakers shall not devise or lease any part of their lands at will, but shall make certain estates for years, for life, in tail or in fee simple.-Art. 12th, charter of A.D. 1613.

parts of the country which have become traditional, and are said to resemble somewhat that of Ulster; but to what extent they prevail, or of their exact nature, we are not informed. They are commonly supposed to include the right of compensation for improvements of a certain sort, and the sale of the good-will by the outgoing tenant. These, however, are not regarded with the same degree of fairness; for they can only be pleaded when the landlord by his own act severs the relation between himself and tenant; and when pleaded, all arrears of rent or damages to the farm may be claimed as an off-set; they are forfeited by ejectment for nonpayment of rent, or by sub-letting or subdividing the holding, and are extinguished by the acceptance of a lease of thirty-one years or upward. This is the first attempt we notice in the bill to induce the landlords to grant leases, and we regret to find that throughout its entire length, with the exception of one clause, there is nothing at all prohibitory in its provisions. What good reason can exist for the preservation of the custom of Ulster under a lease, while those of the other three sections are bartered away for that privilege? Is this not another evidence of the partiality of

prived not only of their sole means of livelihood, but of whatever benefits they may have conferred on their little holdings by their hard labor and well-earned money. It is useless now to dwell on the horrible calamities which have resulted from the wholesale evictions of these unfortunate people, or on what famine, pestilence, death, and too frequently agrarian crime, have year after year flowed from the uncontrolled barbarities practised on them by Irish landlords, armed with the terrors of law. The wailings and maledictions of the homeless and expatriated have so long resounded through both hemispheres, that their very echoes have startled the ears of their persecutors into something like attention. "We have," says Mr. Gladstone from his place in the House of Commons, "simplified the law against him, [the tenant,] and made ejectment cheap and easy.” * large class, therefore, if not receiving that adequate protection to which they are justly entitled, will, under the operation of the proposed act, have their interests placed beyond jeopardy in such a manner as, compared

This

The most important part of the bill is that which relates to the yearly tenant and tenant at will; for it affects by far the largest and most defenceless class of Irish farmers. Out of six hundred thousand heads of families

"In the number of farms, from one to five acres, the decrease has been 24,147; from five to fifteen acres, 27,379; from fifteen to thirty acres, 4274; while of farms above thirty acres, the increase has been 3670. Seventy thousand occupiers with their families, ed out of the land. In Leinster, the decrease in the number of holdings not exceeding one acre, as compared with the decrease of 1847, was 3749; above one and not exceeding five, was 4026; of five and not exceeding fifteen, was 2546; of fifteen to thirty, 391; making a total of 10,617. In Munster, the decrease in the holdings under thirty acres is stated at 18,814; the increase over thirty acres, 1399. Ulster, the decrease was 1502; the increase, 1134. In Connaught, where the labor of extermination was least, the clearance has been most extensive. There in particular the roots of holders of the soil were never

In

the soil, five hundred and eighty thousand, or nearly ninety-seven per centum of the whole, are of this class, and are liable at any time to be thrown on the charity of the world by the edict of a landlord or his agent, de

were exposed to every exterminator's hand. There were in 1847, 35,634 holders of from one to five acres. In the following year there were less by 9703; there were 76,707 holders of from five to fifteen acres, less. in one year by 12,891; those of from fifteen to thirty acres were reduced by 2121; a total depopulation of 26,499 holders of land, exclusive of their families, was effected in Connaught in one year."-Captain Larcom's report for 1848, as quoted in Mitchel's Last Conquest of Ireland, (Perhaps.) Dublin, 1861.

with their present practical outlawry, will commend Mr. Gladstone to their gratitude. Having no custom to plead, and consequently very little probability of obtaining leases, the landlord can still eject them; but he must do so on a year's notice, duly stamped and dated from the previous gale day, and for proper cause, such as non-payment of rent or the refusal of the tenant to accept another holding equal in value to the one desired by the landlord. If the landlord acts without such cause, the tenant will be entitled to damages against him at the discretion of the court, exclusive of compensation for improvements and reclamation of land. maximum measure of damages for wanton ejectment is set down in the bill as follows:

Holdings valued at £10......

The

.7 years' rent,

In any case the tenant upon ejectment will be entitled to compensation for improvements, from which arrears of rent may be deducted. It is the wise and beneficent intent of the bill to place this helpless class under the special protection of the court, and make it the object of large equity jurisdiction conferred; and it even holds out a release to the landlord of these penalties, providing he gives to his yearly tenant a lease of at least twenty-one years' duration.

The regulation of the tenure of lease-holders generally is most judicious, and the only compulsory one in the bill. In future all leases shall be submitted to, and the terms, as regards rents and covenants, approved by, the court, before their validity will be recognized. Heretofore, Irish leases have been made exclusively for the benefit of one party, and the ingenuity of the lower grade of the legal profession seems to have been taxed to the utmost to devise restrictions on

husbandry. We have copies of several of those instruments of recent execution before us, and they certainly smack more of the pre-magna-charta era than of the present enlightened century. A petition presented to the House of Commons at its last session, from the inhabitants of the parish of Clonard, county of Meath, set forth that tenants there "are charged with a penalty of £5 for every tree, and every perch of hedge cut, injured, or destroyed;" they are to break no land without permission of the landlord, and even then only such land and in such manner as the landlord specified; a fine of £10 is exacted for “each acre or part of acre assigned, let, underlet, or let in con-acre or otherwise, or meadowed without formal written permission;" they are not to remove or cause to be removed any top-dressing, compost, or manure of any sort, nor any hay, straw, corn in the straw, holm, or fodder of any sort, nor any turnips, mangel-wurzel, or other green crop of any kind, under penalty of £5 per load or part of load; and the top-dressing, manure, etc., are to remain on the land at the termination of the tenancy, and are to be the property of the landlord. The Earl of Leitrim, a very large landed proprietor in the north, probably not considering the above restrictions sufficiently onerous, has had inserted in his numerous leases clauses whereby the tenants are required to preserve his fish and game; and without his permission in writing they are not to make any new roads, fences, or drains, nor to build up or alter houses or buildings, nor to grow two white grain crops in succession, nor to have beyond a certain maximum of tillage, nor to break up permanent grass-fields, nor to set potatoes where there has been grass the year before,* nor to cut turf, etc.;

The productiveness of the land when properly tilled is four times greater than when under pasture.

and to surrender their leases at any time at six months' notice, or in case any of them be imprisoned by any civil or criminal process for a term exceeding fourteen days! But Edward Henry Cooper, who is supposed sometimes to honor Markie Castle with his presence, requires not only the observance of all the above conditions on the part of his serfs, but binds them to become informers and prosecutors in their own names against any poachers who may be found in the leaseholds; and they are also to procure evidence (how is not stated) against their neighbors who might kill a hare or spear a salmon on their premises. The farmers who have the happiness of living under this philanthropist are required "to submit all disputes and differences touching trespass or measuring to, and abide by the final award of "-Edward Henry Cooper or his agents; a very impartial tribunal, no doubt! The above extracts may be taken as specimens of the restrictions which surround even the most favored class of Irish farmers of the present day, and which, being made with all the forms of law, backed by the certainty of the strict enforcement of the penalties, must have a direct and ruinous tendency to check improvement and limit the scope of improved cultivation of lands.

The term improvements, so frequently met with in the bill, is defined to mean such as are suitable to the character of the holding and add to its letting value, such as buildings, reclaimed land, manures, and tillage, and the old rule of law, which presumed all improvements made by the landlord unless proved to the contrary, is reversed in favor of the tenant. No existing improvement will be paid

for if not made within twenty years previous to the passage of the act, except permanent buildings and reclaimed land, nor where by the terms of a lease the holder agreed to make the improvements at his own expense. In the future no claim will be allowed for improvements made contrary to the terms of the letting, or for such as are not required for the due cultivation of the farm, nor when the landlord agrees to make them and does not neglect to do so, nor where the tenant, as part of the consideration of the lease, agrees to do them at his own charge. But whatever the tenant pays to the out-going tenant for compensation, with the sanction of his landlord, he shall be reimbursed on the termination of his tenancy.

Such, in brief, is an outline of the law under which the farmers of Ireland will have to live for some years to come. Although not all they demand and have a right to expect, it is nevertheless a great improvement on the present system, if system it may be called, under which they have so long tried to exist. Whatever is valuable in the local customs will be substantially preserved and legalized; the tenant will have some remote prospect of becoming a purchaser, and the tenant at will, a leaseholder. Compensation for improvements is guaranteed to every one capable of paying hist rent, and the luxury of evictions, if not destroyed, is made an expensive one for landlords. We cannot expect that this measure, if passed in its best form, will wholly stop agitation in Ireland, but we trust and believe that it will largely conduce to the wealth and industry of her people.

A NEW association has entered the field of charitable labor in this city bearing the modest title at the head of this article. It has been organized and is recommended to the public by ladies whose names are a guarantee of its success. The sphere of its charitable work is among poor children of degraded parents. It is not known, except to the few practical workers among the poor, that there exists in New York a pauper class nearly if not quite as destitute and degraded as that which is found in the great capitals of Europe. There are persons here who are born in this lowest social stratum, and will never rise from it without help. Their lives begin, are passed, and end in what seems to be hopeless degradation. The portions of the city where this class of its population will be found are those bordering on the rivers, on either side, extending as far north as Fifty-ninth street. Children born in this class inherit the vices and diseases of their parents, as well as their póverty. They exhibit a precocity in debauchery which no one can appreciate who has not been brought into contact with them. They inhale with their first respiration a fetid atmosphere. They have an instinct for vice and crime. Many of them escape the penalties of the criminal code simply because they are so young that the law overlooks them. They come into the world with the child's instinct to look to its parent as the source of authority, and a model for imitation. This authority is, for the most part, exerted to compel the commission of offences, and the model is a finished example for the grossest sins. With such influences from with

out, coöperating with natural and inherited tendencies to vice, it is easy to see with what fearful rapidity the child will be driven along in evil courses. If education begins, as is claimed, with the first outcry of the infant, what a training is inaugurated here!

There is another class of our popu lation, not strictly a pauper class, but which is raised but little above it. The persons who compose it earn a scanty living by fitful labor, and are expos ed to all the temptations which beset extreme poverty. They easily fall into vicious habits, squander their earnings, and their children are left without care, to subsist as best they may. These children, equally with those of the class still lower, are in need of every thing which a judicious charity can supply. The section of the city where more of these little outcasts, and their wretched parents, may be found than in any other of equal dimensions, is that bounded by Bank street on the south, Sixteenth or Seventeenth street on the north, the Ninth avenue and the river. Out of this section St. Bernard's parish has been carved, and it was here that, a few months ago, the small beginning was made from which the new organization has sprung. On the seventh day of September last, a few ladies met at St. Bernard's church, to open an industrial school for girls. Notice that the school would be commenced on that day had been given in the church on the Sunday preceding. No children came at the hour named, and the ladies, with one of the priests of the parish, went out into the lanes and alleys to compel them to come in. About twenty-five girls were gathered in the large upper room in the church