The American poorhouse, however, is of quite a different description,
and the promptitude and unanimity of the public mind regarding the
necessity of a law to provide for the support of the poor are among the
most laudable traits in the American character. In America, the
patrimony of the poor was never wrested from the church, to which God
committed their care; the charities and bequests of ages were not
plundered and squandered by the vilest of the human race, as in Britain;
hospitals, churches, abbeys, monasteries, convents, and other endowed
provisions for the poor, were not robbed and confiscated by the
sectarians of the new world, (probably because they did not exist
there;) and hence the essential difference between the English and
American poorhouse. There is no part of the Scripture the reformation
people so rigidly adhered to, or now pretend to adhere to, as the
advice of Judas, "Let this be sold and given to the poor." They made the
sale, but the poor they left unprovided for, till their numbers
increased so as to threaten the ill-gotten goods of the plunderers, who
at length passed laws compelling the poor to support the poor. And this
was the origin of poorhouses--a true Protestant creation.




CHAPTER V.

THE O'CLERYS.


The O'Clery family was an ancient and honored one in Ireland. Princes,
chieftains, and warriors of the name were renowned before Charlemagne or
Alfred ascended the throne, or before any of the petty princes of the