Page:Life of William Shelburne (vol 2).djvu/403

Rh length of the tenure in one case induces them to take the easiest method of securing a profit with little trouble, by letting it out in small parcels to poor cottiers, who disgrace the land and impoverish it. Again if by accident a tenant occupies such an estate without being checked by his lease, whenever a life gets old, he is sure to prepare for the expiration exactly by the same methods as a tenant for years: in truth he goes further, for there is scarce an instance where a life holds out to an unexpected old age, where the tenant is not so afraid of not cheating you and the ground, that he cheats himself, for fear of 'not being up with you,' as he calls it. I have had applications made to me from Ireland, in the most impertinent manner, for abatements of rent or leases for lives; and when I have come upon the spot, the man has refused to give up his farm, and has asked that I should pay 400l. a year clear annuity for the lives of his three sons; without being able to prove or even to assert that he had ever laid out 50l. on the farm; nor had he then any improvement in contemplation or any intention of residing upon the farm. Such is my experience of the management of property in Ireland."