In too
many cases it happens that the rapacity and dishonesty of the agent,
countenanced or stimulated by the necessities and reckless extravagance
of the landlord, fall, like some unwholesome blight, upon that
enterprise and industry which would ultimately, if properly encouraged,
make the country prosperous and her landed proprietors independent men.
We allude to the nefarious and monstrous custom of ejecting tenants who
have made improvements, or, when permitted to remain, making them pay
for the improvements which they have made. A vast proportion of this
crying and oppressive evil must be laid directly to the charge of those
who fill the responsible situation of agents to property in Ireland,
than whom in general there does not exist, a more unscrupulous,
oppressive, arrogant, and dishonest class of men. Exceptions of course
there are, and many, but speaking of them as a body, we unhappily assert
nothing but what the condition of property, and of those who live upon
it, do at this moment and have for many a year testified.
Several months had now elapsed, and although the M'Mahons had waited
upon the agent once or twice since the interview which we have already
described between him and Tom, yet there seemed no corresponding anxiety
on the part of Fethertonge to have the leases prepared or executed.
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