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Show Depopulation of Ireland. It is largelv as a result of the unprecedented un-precedented loss oWhalf its population in half a century tint the present condition con-dition of rural Irellul is so interesting a study, savs Plunlner F. Jones in the j American Monthl- Review of Reviews, j The depopulation of Ireland has largely chanced the life of the people, and the Ireland of todUy lacks much of being the Ireland of sixtv years aeo. Owing to lack of labor, the former intensive cultivation of the soil has ceased. Tillage has been superseded by pasturage. Thousands of acres that in former years were teeming with laborers la-borers planting and working potatoes and turnips, and harvesting wheat and oats, are now-turned out -in grassland the song of the laboreis and the whetting whet-ting of scythes have been .hushed, and in their place can be heard the lowing of cattle and the tinkling of sheep bells. - , Tn all parts of the middle, south and west of Ireland 'one sees evidences of this remarkable change more remarkable remark-able since the signs of former possessions posses-sions and cultivation are still so. evident. evi-dent. For sixty years , the young and vigorous farm hands have been dropping drop-ping the hoe and spade and emigrating to America, leaving behind them to at-r tempt their work their infirm old parents par-ents and their little brothers and sisters. sis-ters. The children dream through their boyhood and girlhood of the time when they in turn can go down to Queenstown and sail on the big ship for New York or Boston. Whole villages have thus been robbed of their voung people, and vast country sections tnat once teemed with vigorous farm laborers now contain con-tain but a handful of men who are really capable of hard labor. Indeed, one of the most striking and at the same time most melancholy sights in rural Ireland today is the unusually i large number of despondent-looking old men and women who move absent-mindedly absent-mindedly about the roadways of the countryside or the alleys of the hundreds hun-dreds of semi-deserted villages. Their sons and daughters have grown up and gone to seek their fortunes in the west. Not one in a hundred of them will ever return to hoe and spade the rocky, old Irish - fields again The Leader. j |