...adopted was a code of penal laws, " a machine," says Edmund Burke, " of wise and elaborate contrivance, as well fitted for the oppression, impoverishment,...ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of man." This code, with terrible consistency, began its severities with > infancy ; Catholic children could...

...against Ireland from time immemorial. Burke said of them, that they were " an elaborate contrivance, as well fitted for the oppression, impoverishment, and degradation of a people, and for the debasement in them of human nature itself, as ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of...

...which made even the mildest of Fugitive Slave Acts a dead letter. At last, in 1850, after the suhject of Slavery had been agitated in Congress without interruption...and the debasement in them of human nature itself, aa ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of man." 1 1 Letter to n Peer of Ireland on the Penal...

...Statutes,' vol. iii. p. 349. " Ibid. consistency ; well digested and well composed in all its parts. It was a machine of wise and elaborate contrivance, and as...as ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of man.'1 A melancholy illustration of the working of the penal laws is afforded by the fate of Arthur...

...as " A system full of coherence and consistency ; well digested and well composed in all its parts, a machine of wise and elaborate contrivance, and as...for the oppression, impoverishment, and degradation ot a people, and the debasement in them of human nature itself, as ever proceeded from the perverted...

...system, full of coherence and consistency ; well digested and well composed in all its parts. It was a machine of wise and elaborate contrivance; and as...ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of man." This being its character, it is of peculiar interest to discover how the Irish Catholics contrived...

...code — a code which Burke truly described as ' well digested and well disposed in all its parts ; a machine of wise and elaborate contrivance, and as...ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of man.' It was framed by a small minority of the nation for the oppression of the majority who remained faithful...

...well composed in all its parts. It was a machine of wise and elaborate contrivance, and as well f1tted for the oppression, impoverishment, and degradation...ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of man. 21 That the penal codes of the American colonies did not reach the tyrannical perfection noticed by...

...system, full of coherence and consistency, well digested and well composed in all its parts. It was a machine of wise and elaborate contrivance, and as well fitted for the oppression, 2O impoverishment, and degradation of a people, and the debasement, in them, of human nature itself...

...indictment of the penal code "as well fitted for the oppression, impoverishment, and degradation of a feeble people, and the debasement in them of human nature...ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of man." During the last quarter or so of the eighteenth century the condition of the catholics was gradually...