text:  We are gravely told in well-rounded and high-sounding sentences that "in Ireland famine urges men to take land at any price--they must have it or die;" and that "when a piece of ground falls out of lease it becomes a bone of contention amongst some twenty or thirty miserable competitors who outbid each other to the great delight and profit of the ruthless and exulting landlord and to their own utter ruin