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Untitled Article
nant , that he paid the pike himself . Walter Scott , when he hearcl the story , quietly remarked , * It is a good story , but the only difficulty I find is , in accounting for the circumstance of an Irishman possessing- so much spare coin as would clear a turnpike . ' 6- This clause is cooperation versus competition , which latter
quality has by necessity been forced upon human beings , in order to selfpreservation , while human understanding has been suffering an eclipse , from which it is slowly emerging . Cooperation is badly understood at present , and perhaps it is least understood by those who make the greatest use of the name , but the time is coming , when people will wonder at the darkness in which they have been so long dwelling , while the valley of light was close at hand .
7 . This , taken literally , is a most horrible clause , and dreadful indeed must have been the exasperating causes , which could have given rise to such atrocious words . In the words , i land-jobbers and tithe-jobbers , ' the cause may be found . The people are starving , and they believe that the removal of the above-named agents will give them bread . The
words can scarcely be intended literally ; all human beings , save entire savages , must pity pain , when inflicted on young children . The phrase must be held to mean , that the oath-takers will not be turned back from their purpose , even though the pursuit of that purpose should involve the death of the children of their adversaries ; and this
is precisely what kings and conquerors threaten , and put in practice , when they declare war , and march their troops , and go through the usual routine of the tender mercies of fire and sword . Nothing but the misery and ignorance under which the Irish labour , could prevent them from seeing that the cause of their misery is not in the tithejobber or land-jobber , but in the disproportionate increase of their
own numbers , which leads them to compete with each other , and to offer enormous prices for land . The land-jobber assuredly does not force them to take the land ; that is entirely their own doing . Were their numbers fewer , their necessities would be less , and , instead of tenants outbidding each other for land , landlords would underlet each other , for the sake of procuring tenants .
8 . This surely is a clause which does honour to the Whitefeet . They will sacrifice their property to save their brother , to * make up money for him / This also carries a sting with it ; for it is assumed , as a matter past question , that law in Ireland is so venal , that a man with money may , as a matter of certainty , be respited from that punishment , which he must undergo , if without money . It may be
presumed , as a matter of course , that no personal exertions are spared . Now , how many societies can be found in England , meeting together for various purposes , whose members would be thus faithful to each other ? How many amongst the ' nobility and gentry ?' Colonel Napier has made a proverb of the 4 cold shade of aristocracv . '
9 . Is not this self-denial , the hardest of all virtues , carried to extremity to relieve a brother ' s wants ? Yet see how the national poverty still shows through all . A man with 4 two coats , two shirts , and two pairs of stockings , * is held to be comparatively rich , and able to bestow charity on his poorer neighbours . To have a shirt to change , is a luxury . I once heard an English labourer , who got
Untitled Article
The Whitefoot Oath , 367
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1833, page 357, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2614/page/69/
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