tious meddlings with education; and if a considerable portion of the population do not occupy the soil by the best of all tenures, the fault does not lie with those who legislate for and govern them. That a good understanding between all classes of the community is the result of just laws wisely administered, we may take the conclusive evidence of Dr. Mullock, who thus bears witness to its existence:—
Allow me to say a few words of my experience of the people: I have found them, in all parts of the island, hospitable, generous, and obliging; Catholics and Protestants live together in the greatest harmony, and it is only in print we find anything, except on extraordinary occasions, like disunion among them. I have always, in the most Protestant districts, experienced kindness and consideration—I speak not only of the agents of the mercantile houses, who are remarkable for their hospitality and attention to all visitors, or of magistrates, but the Protestant fishermen were always ready to join Catholics in manning a boat when I required it, and I am happy to say that the Catholics have acted likewise to their clergymen. It is a pleasing reflection that though we are not immaculate, and rum sometimes excites to evil, still, out of a population of over 130,000, we have rarely more than eight or ten prisoners in gaol, and grievous crimes are, happily, most rare, capital offences scarcely heard of.
From a communication which I have received from an eminent citizen of St. John's, to whose kindness I am much indebted, I take the following passage:—
'The Irish girls "to the manner born." are almost extinct in this island, emigration for many years past having almost entirely ceased. But the Irish of native growth are, as a class, intelligent, well-developed, and industrious. Immorality is rare among them, as may be shown by a record of last year's births in St. John's, from which it appears that of 725 births. 12 only were illegitimate, or less than two per cent, of the whole. This, too, is not an exceptional year, but may be taken as a fair criterion of the morality of the Irish girls. The educational labours of the Nuns are doing much to preserve the virtue of the female youth and no where are these holy women more valued than here.
