In fact, under the operation of existing circumstances, they are getting into the way of improving their condition, not so much by sacrifices and savings, as by an insistence on rent being fixed low enough to leave full margin for improved living." "I had a very frank statement on this point," said Mr.Seigne, "not long ago from a Tipperary man.

When I tried to show him that his father had paid a good many years ago the very same rent which he declares himself unable to pay now, he admitted this at once.

But it was a confession and avoidance.

'My father could pay the rent, and did pay the rent,' he said, 'because he was content to live so that he could pay it.

He sat on a boss of straw, and ate out of a bowl.