Of  course,  if  you  take  a  peasant  of  forty  years  of  age,  and
make  him  suddenly  a  proprietor,  although  he  may  emigrate,  he
cannot  readily  betake  himself  to  any  other  pursuit.  But  his
sons  will  not  remain  on  that  farm.  The  latest  agrarian  crime
that  I  saw  mentioned  in  the  newspapers  was  the  murder  of  a
man  with  a  Celtic  name.  He  was  stated  to  have  been  the
owner  in  fee  of  forty  acres  of  land,  which  he  set  to  four  or  five
tenants,  and  went  away  to  earn  his  bread  elsewhere.  He
returned,  having  become  entitled  on  his  discharge  from  some
public  employment  to  a  pension  of  about  ^^14  a  year.  He
took  back  some  of  the  land  from  the  tenants  to  reside  on  it
himself,  forgiving  them  a  year  and  a  halfs  rent  in  exchange.
He  was  brutally  murdered.
In  the  sales  in  the  Landed  Estates  Court  it  may  be
observed  as  a  matter  of  constant  occurrence  that  a  man  with
an  estate  that  would  be  the  size  of  a  single  small  farm  does


30  SYSTEMS    OF    LAND    TENURE  [Longfield.
not  hold  it  all  in  his  own  hands,  but  sets  the  greater  part  of  it
to  several  small  tenants,  not  keeping  more  in  his  own  hands
than  is  necessary  for  the  supply  of  his  house.
The  possession  of  a  small  fee-simple  estate  can  have  little
tendency  to  prevent  emigration.  The  price  would  furnish
the  means  of  a  prosperous  emigration.  The  owner  of  an  estate
of  forty  acres  in  Ireland  may  become  the  owner  of  several
hundred  acres  in  Australia  or  America.
