ART. VIII.-FATHER MATHEW.

Ir has long been felt that no very extensive and permanent improvement could be effected in the moral and physical condition of Ireland, unless Capital were attracted abundantly to that country, whilst unfortunately the reckless and violent habits of the people have hitherto opposed an almost insurmountable obstacle to its introduction. The only class from whom a good deal might have been expected, the landholders, have unfortunately done but little. Capital might with comparatively little chance of loss have been employed in the improvement and more systematic cultivation of the land; but unfortunately most of the great Irish landlords, being at the same time English proprietors, have looked to their Irish estates as a source of revenue only, and, where they have employed any portion of their surplus means productively, have preferred their English property as a more convenient field for investment; whilst the smaller class of Irish proprietors have rarely found that their revenue was more than adequate to the expenses of their hospitable but profuse mode of living.

The consequence of this state of things has been most deplorable. The land has been cultivated in small plots by an almost countless multitude of small tenants, possessing but little skill or knowledge, and even if they had possessed these qualities, utterly unable from want of capital to make them available. From the irregular nature of their occupation, their mode of life has been the very opposite to one of quiet uniform industry, while their pecuniary reward has been reduced by competition to the very lowest point compatible with the bare support of animal life. It was scarcely possible that these circumstances should not have engendered habits of recklessness and intemperance. Shut out from all domestic comforts, and occasionally in danger of wanting the bare necessaries of life, the Irish peasant has obtained a temporary relief from the wretchedness of his condition by indulgence in physical stimulants; while frequent and unavoidable want of occupation, by multiplying the opportunities, has necessarily tended to strengthen the habit of intemperance. His frequent acts of violence may, with few exceptions, be traced either to intemperance, or to the fear of being driven by the urgent claims of his competitors for land into a state of absolute starvation.

Any direct attempt to increase the means of profitable employment in the various arts of civilized life, amongst a people

who for so long a period have been confirmed in habits of intemperance and violence, can only be very partially successful. The first step must necessarily be to effect a change in their moral habits, and those who have devoted themselves to this task are entitled to the highest praise; for if their efforts should be successful even on a single point, a first step will thereby be gained, from which all the succeeding ones must ultimately follow in a gradually accelerated progression. The smallest change for the better in the habits of the people gives some additional confidence to the possessor of capital, whilst the smallest addition to the productive capital, raises the condition of some portion of the people, and tends to strengthen and extend any moral improvement which may already have been effected among them.

No one who has attended to the course of events in Ireland, for some years past, can have failed to observe, that on two points, and those of great importance, some progress has been made; on one, the improvement has been slow, but it is likely to be permanent; on the other it has been more rapid, but perhaps (until we can speak from a longer experience) there is less certainty of its permanence.

All the peculiar evils of Ireland had for centuries been very seriously aggravated by a lax and partial administration of justice. Of late years the Government of Ireland has certainly not been obnoxious to that charge. The law has been, on the whole, fairly and impartially administered without any systematic leaning to this or that political party, to this or that religious creed. The people have thus been enabled to make one step in the first great lesson of civilized life, (a lesson, which if it be not taught them by their rulers, they can never learn at all,) to respect the law; and great and deserved honour will be given to those who, for an object of such paramount importance to the welfare of the people they were called upon to govern, have patiently submitted to much personal obloquy and misrepresentation. Without this first great preliminary step it seems a matter of doubt whether any attempt of a more direct kind could be successful.

The second great step has been gained for the people of Ireland by the efforts of an individual, who has effected his noble purpose without any aid from station, rank, or wealth. The success of Father Mathew in reclaiming the Irish peasantry from the immoderate use of ardent spirits, (the worst of their vices, because it is the principal source of all the others,) proves in a very striking manner how much may be accomplished by energetic perseverance in some one simple object of great and recognized utility. This now celebrated Parish Priest is a man of

simple habits and unassuming manners, entirely devoid of all merely personal ambition, and possessing no very remarkable talents; and even his oratorical powers, which are considerable, derive their chief force less from any previous cultivation, than from an earnest conviction of the importance and excellence of the work in which he his engaged.

We shall make no apology to our readers, for laying before them a very short account of the labours of this great and good man; the subject cannot fail to be of interest to those who sympathize with the great mass of their Irish fellow subjects.

It was early in the spring of 1838, that a Roman Catholic friar (Father Mathew, as he is usually called,) was prevailed upon by some friends of his, Quakers in the city of Cork, to become a member of a Temperance Society which they had founded there. He had no sooner entered the Society, than he found that its rules were ill adapted to accomplish the purpose for which they had been framed, and with the energy and single-mindedness which are his principal characteristics, he immediately proceeded to remodel it. A new Society was founded on the 10th of April of that year, and the large number of persons who joined it, and the fidelity with which they adhered to their pledge, soon attracted attention in the country surrounding Cork. A report became current amongst the common people that a priest who lived there possessed an infallible cure for drunkenness; their love of the marvellous led them to ascribe his success to supernatural agency, and so rapidly did this belief gain ground, that before the year had elapsed, the high roads leading to Cork from all parts of the country, were daily thronged by people on their pilgrimage (as they called it,) to Father Mathew. For several months, the numbers daily increased, and the distance from which the pilgrims came became greater, until it frequently happened that parties started from a distance of one hundred miles, and came up by regular marches, getting drunk every night as long as their money lasted, which they called taking their farewell of whiskey. The impression which such a journey must have left on the minds of the pilgrims, contributed probably in some degree to the remarkable fidelity with which they adhered to the pledge which was imme-diately afterwards administered to them. In the summer of 1839 the writer of this account was at Limerick, which had furnished a larger number of pilgrims than any other town of Ireland, and was there informed by persons most likely to be acquainted with the facts, (viz. police magistrates, and masters of manufactories,) that only two persons had, up to that period, been known to violate the pledge, and that of these two persons, one had died,

and the other had gone mad shortly afterwards, which circumstances had incalculably strengthened the pre-existing belief in supernatural agency.

Late in 1839, strong representations having been made to him of the benefits he might confer by proceeding in person to different parts of the country, Father Mathew determined upon visiting Limerick. The crowds of people who flocked into the city from all parts of the adjacent country, and their eagerness to get near enough to see or touch him, is described as most remarkable by the military and the police, who were eye-witnesses of the scene; but what is more extraordinary, no accounts followed of violations of a pledge taken in this hasty manner by hundreds and even-thousands at a time. During the remainder of this year Father Mathew visited several other places in the South of Ireland, and in the spring of 1840 he determined to venture upon the great experiment of a visit to the Irish metropolis. The experiment was completely successful; on the last day of the single week that he spent in Dublin, where he had already administered the pledge to no less than 50,000 persons, undiminished numbers were seen pressing forward to the steps of the Custom House, and kneeling down in parties of 1,000 each, bareheaded and in the midst of heavy rain, to listen to the exhortation of the priest, and to repeat after him the words of the promise. Since that period Father Mathew has successively visited almost every place of importance throughout about twothirds of the southern division of Ireland; he has made a second visit to Dublin, in the course of which the pledge was administered to about 80,000 persons; and at the beginning of the present year he estimated at upwards of 3,000,000, the total number of persons by whom from first to last the pledge had been

taken.†

The proofs of the success of the movement, and of its effect on the general habits of the people, are exceedingly striking. In the year 1840, the falling off in the revenue from excise

* The words of the Pledge are as follows: "I promise to abstain from all intoxicating drinks, except used medicinally, and by order of a medical man, and to discountenance the cause and practice of intemperance." The form of kneeling down bareheaded was adopted by Father Mathew principally for convenience sake, and to preserve order among such great numbers, as well as to make the ceremony more impressive.

†The number of persons to whom, on each occasion, the pledge was administered, was estimated by the police or military, who were always employed to keep order, in the following mode, which does not seem to be liable to any great inaccuracy. The greatest number of persons who could be enclosed within a ring, formed by some given number of the policemen or soldiers, was first exactly ascertained by counting. The pledge was administered to successive batches formed in this way, and the ascertained number of the first batch was assumed as true for all the succeeding ones.

duties in Ireland amounted to £500,000, and from this fact it has been inferred by persons most competent to form an opinion on the subject, that the actual decrease in the consumption of ardent spirits in that year is to the extent of about £1,000,000. The effect of increasing temperance on the frequency of crimes of violence is equally remarkable. The following extract from the returns of crime made to the Government, which are as accurate as unceasing care, and an admirable machinery for the purpose can make them, shows the number of cases of intoxication, and of such other offences as may be considered more immediately to originate in intemperance, in each successive year, from a period prior to the commencement of Father Mathew's labours to the present time.

Return of the number of offences, of each of the Classes mentioned below, as reported by the Constabulary and Committee in Ireland during each of the years mentioned.

Return of the undermentioned offences not specially reported by the Constabulary, but summarily disposed of by the Magistrates, or sent by them to trial at Assizes or Quarter Sessions during each of the years mentioned.

With reference to the second Table, it is important to ob

VOL. III. No. 12.-New Series.

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