[Richard Lovell Edgeworth by Richard Lovell Edgeworth]@TWC D-Link book
Richard Lovell Edgeworth

CHAPTER 4
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The modes of living in the houses of the gentry were much the same in Ireland as in England.

This surprised my friend.

He observed, that if there was any difference, it was that people of similar fortune did not restrain themselves equally in both countries to the same prudent economy; but that every gentleman in Ireland, of two or three thousand pounds a year, lived in a certain degree of luxury and show that would be thought presumptuous in persons of the same fortune in England.
'On our journey to my father's house, I had occasion to vote at a contested election in one of the counties through which we passed.

Here a scene of noise, riot, confusion, and drunkenness was exhibited, not superior indeed in depravity and folly, but of a character or manner so different from what my friend had even seen in his own country, that he fell into a profound melancholy.' It was to remedy this wretched state of things in Ireland that Edgeworth resolved in 1782 to devote his energies.
It is curious to read his account of the relations between landlord and tenant in Ireland at this date.

He soon learned that firmness was required in his dealings with his tenants as well as kindness.
'He omitted a variety of old feudal remains of fines and penalties; but there was one clause, which he continued in every lease with a penalty attached to it, called an alienation fine--a fine of so much an acre upon the tenant's reletting any part of the devised land.' He wisely resolved to receive his rents himself, and to avoid the intervention of any agent or driver ('a person who drives and impounds cattle for rent or arrears').


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