Nor has his condition been one of perpetual servitude.

With all his poverty, he has been, to a considerable extent, his own master.

Half-starved, or satisfying his appetite on light and innutritious fare,--far worse housed and clad than the poorest English labourer, often, indeed, almost half-naked,--oppressed by middle-men, exactors of rack-rent; with all this the Irish cottier has been, from father to son, and from generation to generation, _a tenant, and not merely a day labourer_.'[1] [Footnote 1: 'Essays for the Times, on Ecclesiastical and Social Subjects,' by James H.Rigg, D.D.London, 1866.].