obedience to their chief, unless in the case of great criminals
placed by their atrocities under the ban of society in former
times, and under the ban of the Church, since the establishment
of the Christian religion among them.

The previous observations give us an insight into the state of
the people in Celtic countries. Since, however, we know that
slavery existed among them, we must consider a moment what kind
of slavery it was, and how soon it disappeared without passing,
as in the rest of Europe, through the ordeal of serfdom.

At the outset, we cannot, as some have done, call slaves the
conquered races and poor Milesians, who, according to the ancient
annals of Ireland, rose in insurrection and established a king of
their own during what is supposed to be the first century of the
Christian era. The _attacotts_, as they were called, were not
slaves, but poor agriculturists obliged to pay heavy rents: their
very name in the Celtic language means "rent-paying tribes or
people." Their oppression never reached the degree of suffering
under which the Irish small farmers of our days are groaning. For,
according to history, they could in three years prepare from their
surplus productions a great feast, to which the monarch and all
his chieftains, with their retinue, were invited, to be treacherously
assassinated at the end of the banquet. The great plain of Magh Cro,
now Moy Cru, near Knockma, in the county of Galway, was required
for such a monster feast; profusion of meats, delicacies, and
drinks was, of course, a necessity for the entertainment of such
a number of high-born and athletic guests, and the feast lasted
nine days. Who can suppose that in our times the free cottiers
of a whole province in Ireland, after supporting their families