to stand upon the top of his toes so long as was agreeable to the
shopkeeper of whom I speak."

"You do not mean to say," replied his companion, who, by the way, had
witnessed the circumstances ten times for Fenton's once, "that such
an outrage upon the right of the subject, and such a contempt for the
administration of law and justice, could actually occur in a Christian
and civilized country?"

"I state to you a fact, sir," replied Fen-ton, "which I have witnessed
with my own eyes; but we have still stranger and worse usages in this
locality."

"What description of gentry and landed proprietors have you in the
neighborhood?"

"Hum! as to that, there are some good, more bad, and many indifferent,
among them. Their great fault in general is, that they are incapable of
sympathizing, as they ought, with their dependents. The pride of class,
and the influence of creed besides, are too frequently impediments, not
only to the progress of their own independence, but to the improvement
of their tenantry. Then, many of them employ servile, plausible, and
unprincipled agents, who, provided they wring the rent, by every species
of severity and oppression, out of the people, are considered by their
employers valuable and honest servants, faithfully devoted to their
interests; whilst the fact on the other side is, that the unfortunate
tenantry are every day so rapidly retrograding from prosperity, that
most of the neglected and oppressed who possess means to leave the
country emigrate to America."