text:  Go to the places of public amusement or to the fairs and markets in the busiest and most hurried seasons and how many thousands will you see who have no earthly business there but to meet their friends to laugh and to chat and (before Father Mathew reformed them) to drink and to fight! To suppose as some influential writers here do that there is no alternative between the possession of land and absolute starvation is one of those imaginary fictions often conjured up by those who wish to indulge in what they believe to be powerful and wish to be pathetic appeals to the feelings; but it betrays great ignorance of the subject on which they propound their opinions