The conduct of the landlords during the famine and fever has been much discussed and variously represented.  But many of the Nationalists themselves have declared that the diatribes of their comrades have been thoroughly undeserved.  Absenteeism apart—­for which no excuse need be attempted—­the Irish landlords did their best, gave of their substance, and imperilled their own lives for the sake of the sufferers.  Mr. Richard White of Inchiclogh, near Bantry, fell a victim to the fever.  Two other landlords who gave their lives for others were Mr. Richard Martin, M.P., and Mr. Nolan of Ballinderry.  The conditions of tenure did not admit of lavish financial generosity, but as one of their sharpest critics in later times admitted, the vast majority ’went down with the ship.’

The survivors of this terrible time numbered heroes drawn from all classes of life; and it would have been well if the lesson of universal charity then practically demonstrated had been allowed to sink into all hearts.

Instead I will quote the following extract from John Mitchel’s History of Ireland, a thick, paper-bound volume, which, at the price of eighteenpence, has circulated enormously among the Irish, not only at home, but in Glasgow and America.

On page 243:—­’That million and a half of men, women, and children were carefully, prudently, and peacefully slain’ [the italics are those of Mitchel] ’by the English Government.  They died of hunger in the midst of abundance which their own hands created; and it is quite immaterial to distinguish those who perished in the agonies of famine itself from those who died by typhus fever, which in Ireland is always caused by famine.

’Further, this was strictly an artificial famine—­that is to say, it was a famine which desolated a rich and fertile island that produced every year abundance and superabundance to sustain all her people and many more.  The English, indeed, call that famine a dispensation of Providence, and ascribe it entirely to the blight of the potatoes.  But potatoes failed in like manner all over Europe, yet there was no famine save in Ireland.  The British account of the matter, then, is first a fraud; second, a blasphemy.  The Almighty, indeed, sent the potato blight, but the English created the famine.’

Such pestilential perversion of truth is freely circulated and firmly believed, for contradiction never penetrates to those gulled by these lies.  In America the gutter press section of journalism is esteemed at its true worth, and is as harmless as a few squibs.  In Ireland what is seen in bad print is always believed, and is corroborated by the lower class of priest.  When I say so much I am simply indicating a national sore, but it needs a wiser physician than myself to apply a successful remedy.

Perhaps with the spread of education may arise the same power to discriminate between the true and false published in the papers that is a characteristic of both the English and Scottish.  As it is, the Irishman believes whatever he reads in print; and in most cases the solitary paper that he reads is one full of treason and untruths.