Laws of the most sanguinary and unconstitutional nature have been
enacted; the country has been disgraced and exasperated by frequent
and bloody executions; and the gibbet, that perpetual resource of
weak and cruel legislators, has groaned under the multitude of
starving criminals; yet, while the cause is suffered to exist, the
effects will ever follow. The amputation of limbs will never
eradicate a prurient humour, which must be sought in its source and
there remedied."

"I wish," continues Mr. Wakefield, "for the sake of humanity and for
the honour of the Irish character, that the gentlemen of that
country would take this matter into their serious consideration.
Let them only for a moment place themselves in the situation of the
half-famished cotter, surrounded by a wretched family clamorous for
food, and judge what his feelings must be when he sees the tenth
part of the produce of his potato garden exposed at harvest time to
public CANT, or if he have given a promissory note for the payment
of a certain sum of money to compensate for such tithe when it
becomes due, to hear the heart-rending cries of his offspring
clinging round him, and lamenting for the milk of which they are
deprived by the cows being driven to the pound to be sold to
discharge the debt. Such accounts are not the creations of fancy;
the facts do exist, and are but too common in Ireland. Were one of
them transferred to canvas by the hand of genius, and exhibited to
English humanity, that heart must be callous indeed that could
refuse its sympathy. I have seen the cow, the favourite cow, driven
away, accompanied by the sighs, the tears, and the imprecations of a
whole family, who were paddling after, through wet and dirt, to take
their last affectionate farewell of this their only friend and
benefactor at the pound gate. I have heard with emotions which I