Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844
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"No," she said; "it must be now, or not at all. I am stronger than I have been for months to-day. Where was I? – Stealing back day after day to Martha's, a trampled, but not an unhoping spirit; for I still looked forward to his fulfilling his promise. He once more was a visitor at our house. I did not know why – I did not care – he was there, and I was satisfied: I had no eyes for any thing else. But the blow was coming. It fell – it smote us all to dust.
"I was one morning occupied alone in some domestic duty, when I heard Barnard's name pronounced by two female servants of our farm, who were employed in the next apartment. I listened – poor souls! they were merely agreeing 'how natural it was for Mr Barnard to have jilted Miss – (but let my very name be unpronounced) – and taken up with Miss Martha, who had all the fortune.' Was it not a natural remark? So natural, that every being in the country had already made it but her whose heart it broke to hear it. I rushed from the spot, a mist spreading before my eyes as I hastened on. I sought out Barnard; I found him, and alone. I told him of the report I had overheard. He said it was not new to him. I charged him with perfidy – he avowed it. Half-dreaming, I attempted to catch his hand. He coolly withdrew it. I knelt before him – I clasped his knees – I wept, and prayed he would bless me by treading me to death beneath his feet. He extricated himself with a laugh, bid me not be a fool, and left me.
"Before I rose from the spot where I had fallen, a dreadful shadow passed, as it were, suddenly across me, and some black passion I had never known till then took possession of my spirit. It was jealousy. I returned home, and hastened to have an interview with Martha. Hitherto I had been of a quiet, timid disposition – I was now bold from frenzy and betrayed affection. I upbraided my cousin with duplicity, with meanness in receiving the addresses of the man betrothed to her relative. She retorted by drawing comparisons between our attractions, personal as well as pecuniary. At these I smiled – bitterly perhaps, but still I smiled. She scoffed at my pleas that Barnard was my affianced husband, declared her intention of marrying him, and ended by insinuating that I had lost him by the very unguardedness of my affection. I never smiled again.
"I was mad from that day forward. My whole existence changed. I was a dissembler – a liar – for my life was a long lie – and, come near – I am a murderer. I lived blindly on – a day was fixed for their marriage – but, though I knew not how it was to be– I knew another would never stand at the altar as his bride.
"She and I had apparently been reconciled – I saw Barnard no more, save in her presence – I lulled them both into a belief that I was a poor, trodden, and stingless thing.
"The Sunday preceding the wedding-day arrived. It was a lovely evening in summer, and Martha and he and I wandered far away into the fields – they to taste the freshness of nature, I, to wonder the flowers did not wither beneath our tread; for we were all alike evil and abandoned. In our way, we visited a mill that was soon to become the property of Barnard in right of his bride. In passing through the different lofts into which it was divided, we paused in one to admire the immense and complicated machinery connected with the great wheel that worked the manufactory. Martha, ever capricious and perverse, wished to see the engine set in motion. But there was not a servant – not a creature, save ourselves – within a mile of the spot at the moment. Barnard, however, volunteered to go to the mill-dam outside, and, on a signal from us, to undo the wicket that kept back the waters from the wheel. I watched him from the window till he took his station at the spot. Just then Martha, who, with perverse inquisitiveness, had been standing caged within the iron framework of the engines, in hastening to leave it missed her footing, and stumbled backward again within its circle. A streak as of fire flashed through the place. I waved my hand; there was the sudden rush of tumbling water, a faint shriek, and then the roar and thunder of the enormous wheels hurrying on, grinding and tearing her to pieces. And then came the horrorstruck look of Him, crying out to Heaven in his vain impotency, and my own mad laughter, ringing high over it all!
"His consternation and despair – his wild attempts to stay the progress of the crashing machinery – his wrath at my exultation – only raised me to a higher state of frenzy – that frenzy of heart and brain that never went from me more. I hollowed in his ear how I had done it – and when he flung himself on the ground in a passion of remorse and grief, I danced round him, proclaiming my hate and guilt, and summoning him to give me up to justice. It was now his turn to quiver under the lash of conscience. He accused himself of the ruin I had wrought – acknowledged his falsehood – cried aloud for mercy – and still I exulted with a fiercer laughter, with a louder demand that he would give me to the gibbet. He endeavored to fly from the spot. I pursued him. I never left him again. There was a long illness – a blot upon my memory. I cannot tell you any thing of its duration. Her remains were found – there was an enquiry – he was the only witness – he kept our secret. On my recovery, I found he had sold his property, and departed to some distant quarter in the north of England. I tracked him there. I had vowed to haunt his soul with the memory of my crime, until he surrendered me to justice. He sought to shun me, by changing his name and removing from one place of residence to another; but in vain. My revenge was as hard and cruel as his own look on the morning, in his orchard, when he spurned me fainting from his feet. Go where he would, I pursued. At last he settled near London – in that place where you first beheld us. You know the rest of our career. If guilt can be atoned for by human suffering – the wrath of years – the raging wind – the scorching sun – ruined youth – premature age – privation, misery, madness, and hate, have well atoned for ours. You shake your head. It is not so? Well, you were the first to teach me to vent my burning thoughts in prayer. Pray with me now. I seem to have lived all my evil passions over again in this last hour. Do not leave me yet, but – pray!"
Such was the disastrous tale imparted to me in almost the last interview I had with its hapless narrator. Either the recollections she had lived through, as she said, in so short a space, or the exertions caused by its recital, were too much for her enfeebled intellect. Delirium shortly after returned, and continued to within a few hours of her dissolution, which occurred on the evening of the following day. I was present when she expired. She instructed me where to find the agent, who paid her a small stipend derived from a distant relative, (to whom, by her uncle's will, his property descended,) that I might apprise him of her death. She was quite sensible at the awful moment; and there is still a hope mingled with the melancholy remembrance that her last entreaty to me was – to "pray!"
INJURED IRELAND
The miseries of the Irish people, and the oppressions under which they groan, form the topics of conversation in every quarter of the globe – you hear of them at Rome and at Constantinople – they are discussed on the prairies of Texas and in the wilds of the Oregon – in Paris and at Vienna you are bored by their constant repetition. The "smart" American contributes his dollars, and the "pious Belgian"2 his prayers, to effect their redress; and they have fairly driven from the field of compassion all sympathy for the plundered Jews and persecuted Poles. The restless Frenchman speculates on them as the certain means by which England may be humiliated; and impatiently awaits the moment when, under the guidance of the young De Joinville, fifty thousand of "les braves" may be thrown on the coast of Ireland, and take advantage of the national disaffection, for the double purpose of mortally wounding his ancient enemy, and of giving, as a boon to its oppressed inhabitants, that liberty of which he talks so much and knows so little. Doubtless the sufferings of this patient people have, before now, drawn tears from the sensitive eyes of "the brother of the sun;" and the "sagacious and enlightened Lin" has already suggested to his celestial master the propriety of dispatching some of his invincible war-junks to effect the liberation of the degraded slaves of the "red and blue devils" who have so cruelly annoyed him. Every one has heard, and every one talks, of Irish grievances; but no one seems to know exactly what those grievances are: their existence appears to be so unquestionable, that to dispute it is not only useless but almost disreputable; and yet if one venture to enquire of those who declaim most loudly against them wherein they consist, they limit themselves to generalities, and quote the admitted state of the country as proof positive of English injustice and Saxon misrule.
That the inhabitants of distant countries should believe what they hear so constantly asserted, cannot be a matter of much surprise; nor that the enemies of England and of order should credit what it suits their inclinations to believe; but that those who live close to the scene of such grievous inflictions – that those who are the fellow-subjects of the oppressed, and who may be said to be the instruments whereby those enormities are perpetrated – should take for granted all they hear stated, without endeavouring to discover the truth of those assertions or the extent of their own culpability, does seem to us almost incredible. Yet so it is. Irish grievances are now in fashion. The most glaring fabrications are swallowed with anxiety if they only profess to be recitals of Irish sufferings; and the British people seem ready to yield to the clamours of mendacious and designing demagogues, measures not only detrimental to the interests of the country for whose welfare they profess so much anxiety, but absolutely ruinous to the glory and the power of their own.
We will not stop here to discuss the benefits which we are told would accrue to the Irish nation from the success of a measure which never can be carried while Ireland holds loyal subjects, or Britain has an arm to wield; but we shall at once proceed to ascertain if those glaring injustices, which make us the world's table-talk, really exist, and if the admitted misery of the Irish people can, with truth, be attributed to the unjust or partial legislation of the British Parliament.
We do not seek to deny, that the interests of Ireland have not been neglected or unfairly dealt by, in former times. With that we have nothing now to do; we take the existing state of things, and we maintain, and will, we trust, convince our readers, that instead of being oppressed or wronged by legislative enactments, Ireland is (as matters are at present managed) greatly favoured, and that instead of complaining of injustice, her inhabitants should be most grateful for the exemptions which are granted them, and for the fostering care which a Conservative government has extended, and is still anxious to extend to them.
In supporting our view of the case, we shall appeal to facts – facts which, if untrue, can easily be refuted; and first, we shall apply ourselves to the amount of taxation imposed on Ireland by the Imperial Parliament. The Irish people are exempt from every species of direct taxation! and their indirect taxes are not more than those to which the inhabitants of England and Scotland are subject. Thus, while the English and Scotch gentleman is taxed for his servants, his carriages, his horses, his dogs, and his armorial bearings – and, in addition, pays, in common with the trading and operative classes, his window-tax – the Irish gentleman and tradesman are totally free from all such imposts. And though, at first sight, this exemption would seem to benefit only the wealthier classes, still when we find, as is certainly the case, that it enables the Irish gentry to keep much larger establishments than men of similar fortune could attempt to do in this country; that consequently more persons are employed as servants; that it enhances the value of horses by increasing the demand for them; that it also greatly adds to the number of carriages used, and, of course, to the employment of the artisan – we must admit that it has no slight influence on the condition both of the tradesman and the agriculturist.
Ireland pays no income-tax! (at least no Irishman need pay it if he choose to reside at home;) for the Minister and the Parliament, so hostile to Irish interests, have only subjected the absentees to its operation; and we find, that in the year ending the 10th October 1844 —
While under those two heads, "injured, persecuted Ireland" paid not one shilling!
Thus we see, that a sum of over nine millions is annually levied from off the inhabitants of the "favoured" portions of the British empire, towards which "oppressed Ireland" is not called upon to contribute sixpence!
It may be said, those taxes only affect the wealthy, and it is not their grievances which call so loudly for redress; it is the burdens imposed on the poor landholders which demand our attention.
We have, in a former Number of this Magazine, see Vol. lv. p. 638, shown that the rents paid for land in Ireland are at least one-third less than the rents paid in England; (but were it even otherwise, the right to dispose of property to the best advantage could not be by law interfered with.) In that article we stated, that in addition to his rent, the English occupier is subject by law to the payment of tithes, which in many instances amount to more than the entire rent imposed on the Irish tenant; and that by recent enactments, the payment of the Protestant church has been transferred from the Irish tenantry to the landlords, nine-tenths of whom are Protestants; that the English tenant pays all the poor-rates, while the Irish tenant is only called on to pay the half; and that while the former is subject to county and parochial rates, in addition to turnpikes, which are a heavy burden, the latter pays only the county cess, the amount of which depends very much on his own conduct. We cannot, then, discover that the Irish peasantry are subject to any pecuniary grievances which legislation has inflicted, or could remove; neither can we perceive any neglect of their interests evinced by the British Minister or the Saxon Parliament; but, on the contrary, we see that they have been specially protected by particular enactments against the payment of charges to which the occupiers of the other portions of the United Kingdom are still subject. If the Irish farmers set their faces against the commission of crime, instead of tacitly, if not openly, affording protection to the greatest delinquents, it is clear that the amount of the county cess, the only tax the tenant pays, might be greatly diminished; the constabulary force might be, under more favourable circumstances, reduced from nine thousand men (its present strength) to half that number; and if the people abstained from houghing the cattle or burning the houses of those who are obnoxious to them, the county rates would not amount to more than one-third of the sum at present levied. Thus, then, the amount of the only direct tax the peasantry have to pay, is mainly dependent on the peaceable condition of the country: if the people be orderly and obedient to the laws, its amount is reduced; if otherwise, and they have heavy assessments to pay, to reimburse those they have injured, no one is to blame for it but themselves. We would, then, ask any candid man, if it would be possible for any government to act more leniently towards Ireland as regards taxation? She is exempt from her proportion of the nine millions levied from the other portions of the United Kingdom; and many of the local assessments to which her inhabitants are subject, were, by special enactments, removed from the shoulders of the occupiers of the soil, and placed on those of the proprietors.
Thus, then, under the head of taxation, no injustice can be said to be committed.
The extent of the Irish representation, and the laws regulating the elective franchise, both in the cities and counties, form a prominent portion of Irish grievances; yet if the efficiency of the representation is to be judged by the influence which it exercises on the councils of the empire, or the registration laws be tested by the results which they have produced, the Irish have little reason to complain of either. The very exemption from taxation to the amount we have already stated, proves one of two things – either that the British minister and British representation are peculiarly partial to the interests of Ireland, (which would destroy the favourite doctrine of "English hatred and Saxon oppression;") or that the Irish representation is powerful enough not only to protect their constituents from injustice, but to secure them peculiar advantages. That the amount of representation already enjoyed by Ireland is at least sufficient for all constitutional purposes, cannot be doubted; for every one knows that by the Radical portion of it alone, an administration odious to the people of Great Britain, and rejected by their representatives, was for years kept in office, and that through its instrumentality both Whig and Tory ministers have been compelled to abandon measures which they believed to be beneficial, and which they brought forward in a spirit of good feeling, and with a desire to promote the best interests of the country.
In the first Parliament elected under the Reform Bill, and after the system of registration now complained of came into operation, the Irish representation consisted of
Liberals, 74
Conservatives, 31
Now, when it is borne in mind, that beyond all question at least nine-tenths of the landed property of Ireland is possessed by the Conservative party, and that that party was able to secure to itself little more than a fourth of the representation, it must be admitted that numbers told, and that the mass was represented in a ratio beyond what the constitution contemplates. So far, then, as relates to the laws regulating the elective franchise, if they are to be judged of by the results which they produced, the Liberal party have nothing to complain of, and the Roman Catholics still less; of the Radical majority, they numbered thirty-five, or nearly one-half; and if eligible men could be had of their body, or if their leaders wished it, undoubtedly persons of their profession might have been returned in every instance in which liberal Protestants were seated. They had the power to effect this: if they abstained from using it, influenced either by good taste or motives of prudence, they still have no reason to complain of the law – it placed the power in their hands; their own discretion alone restrained its exercise.
The agitators proclaim that their number in Parliament has diminished, and that they have lost cities and counties, because the constituency has decreased under the "emaciating influence of the registration law." It is true the Irish constituency has diminished, and that the Destructives have lost many places; but the diminution in the constituency has not been caused by the state of the law – and this they know full well – but by the disinclination of the respectable portion of the people to make themselves any longer their tools! Under the law when first called into operation, the Radicals had an overwhelming majority. The same men who registered and voted in 1832 and in 1837, are generally still in existence – the same tenures under which they registered still continue – the same assistant barristers before whom they registered (or ones more favourable to their interests) still preside; it is clear, therefore, that if the people were inclined to claim the franchise, they have only to take the necessary steps to secure it – but they won't. They were persecuted between the priests and their landlords – they see the hollowness of the agitators, who used them for their own purposes, and then left them to ruin; and, as the surest way to avoid trouble, they don't register at all; the landlords not having any influence over their votes, and not wishing to quarrel with them, don't induce them to do so – and they have hitherto resisted the efforts of the country agents of the Corn Exchange. What man of sense would put himself upon the register, when he well knows that any deviation from the path pointed out to him by the priest, would not only entail curses and persecutions on himself, but insult and outrage on the innocent members of his family? Who would establish his right to vote, when he would be called on to exercise that right with his grave dug before his dwelling, and the death's head and cross-bones affixed to his door!!
The assertions of the agitators, that they have lost ground because the constituencies have been diminished by the operation of the laws regulating the possession of the elective franchise, is of a piece with all their other reckless falsehoods; but fortunately it is more easy of disproof. It does appear by parliamentary returns, that the Irish constituency has decreased, on the whole, in small degree; but it is rather curious and unfortunate for those truth-loving gentlemen, that, in every instance in which they have been beaten, the constituencies have greatly increased, and that they have only diminished in those counties in which their interest is all-powerful.3 For instance, Antrim, in 1832, (when a Liberal was returned,) had on the register 3487 electors; and, in 1837, when a Conservative was seated, 4079.4
Belfast, in 1832, when two Liberals were returned, had 1650; in 1841, when two Conservatives were elected, 4334.
Carlow, in 1832, when two Liberals were returned, had 1246; and in 1841, when the Tories beat O'Connell's own son, 1757.
Down had in 1832, when a Liberal was returned, 3130; and in 1837, when a Tory was substituted, 3305.
Dublin County had in 1832, when two Liberals were returned, 2025; and in 1841, when two Tories displaced them, 2820.
Dublin City had in 1832, when O'Connell was triumphantly returned, 7008; and in 1841, when he was beaten, 12,290.
Longford had in 1832, when two Liberals were returned, 1294; and in 1841, when one of them was displaced by a Tory, 1388.
Queen's County had in 1832, when one Liberal was returned, 1471; and in 1835, when two Conservatives were elected, 1673.
Thus we see, by unquestionable proof, that instead of being benefited by an increase of the constituencies, the cause of the Destructives has invariably suffered by their enlargement; and yet sure we are, that most persons on this side the water believe in the truth of the Liberator's lamentations, and suppose that those patriots who have been rejected by the votes of the most independent electors and largest constituencies in Ireland, have lost their seats solely because the names on the register had been greatly diminished, and the Liberal portion of the people deprived of their rights, by the "emaciating influence" of a bad law.
But if there be defects in the registry laws, who are to blame for their continuance? The "great grievance" connected with them of which Mr O'Connell complained, was, "that from the ambiguous wording of the act, some assistant barristers adopted the solvent tenant test," instead of "the beneficial interest test,"5 which he and those who acted with him thought to be its legitimate construction. This unquestionably would make a vast difference to the claimant; and so thought Sir Robert Peel. He brought in a bill clearly establishing "the beneficial interest test." And to remedy another objection founded on the fact of tenants at will in England having the right to vote, while the Irish law debarred persons similarly circumstanced, he proposed to give the franchise to all occupiers of certain quantities of land, merely from the fact of possession;6 and yet Mr O'Connell was the first to denounce the measure! The agitators complain of defects in the law, and the minister agrees to amend them; the patriots claim for the Irish a full equality in the registration law granted to England, and more is conceded. When headed by their "august leader," they denounce the redress of those injustices of which they complained as "An additional insult," and they raise such a clamour because what they formerly asked for was about to be granted, that the minister was compelled to succumb, and the bill was withdrawn.