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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Disturbed Ireland, by Bernard H. Becker
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Disturbed Ireland
+       Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81.
+
+Author: Bernard H. Becker
+
+Release Date: September 2, 2006 [EBook #19160]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DISTURBED IRELAND ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Jeannie Howse and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    +--------------------------------------------------------------+
+    | Transcriber's Note:                                          |
+    |                                                              |
+    | Inconsistent hyphenation and unusual spelling in the         |
+    | original document has been preserved.                        |
+    |                                                              |
+    | A number of obvious typographical errors have been corrected |
+    | in this text. For a complete list, please see the bottom of  |
+    | this document.                                               |
+    |                                                              |
+    +--------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+DISTURBED IRELAND:
+
+BEING THE LETTERS
+WRITTEN DURING THE WINTER OF 1880-81.
+
+BY
+BERNARD H. BECKER,
+_SPECIAL COMMISSIONER OF THE "DAILY NEWS."_
+
+WITH ROUTE MAPS.
+
+London:
+MACMILLAN AND CO.
+1881.
+
+
+
+
+LONDON:
+R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR,
+BREAD STREET HILL.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+Having been most cordially granted permission to republish these
+letters in a collected form, it is my duty to mention that my mission
+from the _Daily News_ was absolutely unfettered, either by
+instructions or introductions. It was thought that an independent and
+impartial account of the present condition of the disturbed districts
+of Ireland would be best secured by sending thither a writer without
+either Irish politics or Irish friends--in short, one who might occupy
+the stand-point of the too-often-quoted "intelligent foreigner." Hence
+my little book is purely descriptive of the stirring scenes and deeply
+interesting people I have met with on my way through the counties of
+Mayo, Galway, Clare, Limerick, Cork, and Kerry. It is neither a
+political treatise, nor a dissertation on the tenure of land, but a
+plain record of my experience of a strange phase of national life. I
+have simply endeavoured to reflect as accurately as might be the
+salient features of a social and economic upheaval, soon I fervently
+hope, to pass into the domain of history; and in offering my work to
+the public must ask indulgence for the errors of omission and
+commission so difficult to avoid while travelling and writing rapidly
+in a country which, even to its own people, is a complex problem.
+
+           B.H.B.
+
+ARTS' CLUB, _January 6th, 1881._
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+                                                        PAGE
+I.
+AT LOUGH MASK                                              1
+
+II.
+AN AGRARIAN DIFFICULTY                                    18
+
+III.
+LAND MEETINGS                                             26
+
+IV.
+MISS GARDINER AND HER TENANTS                             52
+
+V.
+FROM MAYO TO CONNEMARA                                    70
+
+VI.
+THE RELIEF OF MR. BOYCOTT                                120
+
+VII.
+MR. RICHARD STACPOOLE                                    153
+
+VIII.
+PATRIOTS                                                 160
+
+IX.
+ON THE FERGUS                                            166
+
+X.
+PALLAS AND THE PALLADIANS                                191
+
+XI.
+GOMBEEN                                                  207
+
+XII.
+THE RETAINER                                             215
+
+XIII.
+CROPPED                                                  225
+
+XIV.
+IN KERRY                                                 232
+
+XV.
+THE "BOYCOTTING" OF MR. BENCE JONES                      262
+
+XVI.
+A CRUISE IN A GROWLER                                    279
+
+XVII.
+"BOYCOTTED" AT CHRISTMASTIDE                             307
+
+XVIII.
+CHRISTMAS IN COUNTY CLARE                                328
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+  [Illustration: (foldout Map of Ireland, showing author's route.)]
+
+  [Illustration: (foldout detail map of western Ireland, showing author's route.)]
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+DISTURBED IRELAND.
+
+I.
+
+AT LOUGH MASK.
+
+
+WESTPORT, CO. MAYO, _Oct. 24._
+
+The result of several days' incessant travelling in county Mayo is a
+very considerable modification of the opinion formed at the first
+glance at this, the most disaffected part of Ireland. On reaching
+Claremorris, in the heart of the most disturbed district, I certainly
+felt, and not for the first time, that as one approaches a spot in
+which law and order are supposed to be suspended the sense of alarm
+and insecurity diminishes, to put it mathematically, "as the square of
+the distances." Even after a rapid survey of this part of the West I
+cannot help contrasting the state of public opinion here with that
+prevailing in Dublin. In the capital--outside of "the Castle," where
+moderate counsels prevail--the alarmists appear to have it all their
+own way. I was told gravely that there was no longer any security for
+life or property in the West; that county Mayo was like Tipperary in
+the old time, "only more so;" and that if I would go lurking about
+Lough Mask and Lough Corrib it was impossible to prevent me; but that
+the chances of return were, to say the least, remote. It was in vain
+that I pointed out that every stone wall did not hide an assassin, and
+that strangers and others not connected either directly or indirectly
+with the land were probably as safe, if not safer, on a high road in
+Mayo than in Sackville-street, Dublin. It was admitted that,
+theoretically, I was quite in the right; but that like many other
+theorists I might find my theory break down in practice. I was
+entertained with a full account of the way in which assassinations are
+conducted in the livelier counties of Ireland, and great stress was
+laid upon the fact that the assassins were always well primed with
+"the wine of the country," that is to say whisky, of similar quality
+to that known in New York as "fighting rum," "Jersey lightning," or
+"torchlight procession." It was then impressed upon me that
+half-drunken assassins, specially imported from a distant part of the
+county to shoot a landlord or agent, might easily mistake a stranger
+for the obnoxious person and shoot him accordingly, just as the
+unlucky driver was hit in Kerry the other day instead of the land
+agent. Furthermore, I was taken to a gunsmith's in Dawson-street,
+where I was assured that the sale of firearms had been and was
+remarkably brisk, the chief demand being for full-sized revolvers and
+double-barrelled carbines. The weapon chiefly recommended was one of
+the latter, with a large smooth bore for carrying buck-shot and
+spreading the charge so much as to make the hitting of a man at thirty
+yards almost certain. The barrels were very short, in order that the
+gun might be convenient to carry in carriage or car. This formidable
+weapon was to be carried in the hand so as to be ready when
+opportunity served; a little ostentation as to one's habit of going
+armed being vigorously insisted on as a powerful deterrent.
+
+To any person unacquainted with the humorous side of the Irish
+character a morning spent in such converse as I have endeavoured to
+indicate might have proved disquieting enough; but those who know
+Irishmen and their ways at once enter into the spirit of the thing,
+and enjoy it as much as the untamable jokers themselves. Nothing is
+more amazing to serious people than the light and easy manner in which
+everybody takes everything on this side of the Irish Sea. This is
+perfectly exemplified by the tone in which the Kerry murder is
+discussed. I have heard it talked over by every class of person, from
+a landholding peer to a not very sober car-driver, and the view taken
+is always the same. No horror is expressed at the commission of such a
+crime, or at the state of society which makes it possible. Nothing of
+the kind. A little sympathy is expressed for the poor man who was shot
+by mistake, and then the humour of the situation overrules every other
+consideration. That poor people resenting what they imagine to be
+tyranny should shoot one of their own class instead of the hated agent
+is a fact so irresistibly comic as to provoke a quantity of hilarious
+comment. As laughter dies away, however, another expression of feeling
+takes place, and the slackness of the master in not being ready with
+his pistol, and his want of presence of mind to pursue the murderer
+and avenge his servant's death, are spoken of with the fiercest
+indignation. But nobody appears to care about the general and social
+aspect of the case.
+
+Beneath all this humour and a curious tendency to exaggerate the
+condition of the West, there undeniably lurked very considerable
+uneasiness. It was known that "the Castle" was hard at work, and that,
+before proceeding to coercive measures, Mr. Forster was getting
+together all the trustworthy evidence that could be obtained as to the
+state of the country. As an instance of the absurd rumours flying
+about, I may mention that I was in the presence of two Irish peers
+solemnly assured that a "rising in the West" was imminent, and not
+only imminent, but fixed for the 31st October. Now, who has not heard
+at any time within the memory of man of this expected "rising in the
+West"? It is the _spectre rouge_, or, to be more accurate as to local
+colour, the _spectre vert_ of the Irish alarmist, and a poor, ragged,
+out-at-elbows spectre it is, altogether very much the worse for wear.
+Flesh and blood could not bear the mention of this shabby, worn-out
+old ghost with calmness, and I conveyed to the gentlemen who
+volunteered the information my opinion that the _spectre vert_ was, in
+American language, "played out." Will it be believed that I was the
+only person present who ridiculed the "poor ghost"? I soon perceived
+that my scornful remarks were not at all in accordance with the
+feeling of the company, who did not see anything impossible in a
+"rising in the West," and refused to laugh at the Saxon's remark that
+things did not "rise," but "set" in that direction. County Mayo and
+parts of county Galway were beyond the law, and could only be cured by
+the means successfully employed in Westmeath a few years
+ago--coercion. It was of no avail to say that very few people had been
+shot in the disaffected counties during the last ten years. The answer
+was always the same. The minds of the people were poisoned by
+agitators, and they would pay nobody either rent or any other just
+debt except on compulsion.
+
+Beyond Athlone the tone of public opinion improved very rapidly, and
+in Roscommon, once a disturbed county, I found plenty of people ready
+to laugh with me at the _spectre vert_. There was nothing the matter
+in that county. A fair price had been obtained for sheep and cattle,
+the harvest had been good, everything was going on as well as
+possible. There was some talk, it was true, about disturbances in
+Mayo, but there was a great deal of imagination and exaggeration, and
+the trouble was confined to certain districts of the county, the
+centre of disturbance being somewhere about Claremorris, a market
+town, on the railway to Westport, and not very far from Knock, the
+last new place of pilgrimage. At Claremorris I accordingly halted to
+look about me, and was surprised at the extraordinary activity of the
+little place. Travellers in agricultural England, either Wessex or
+East Anglia, often wonder who drinks all the beer for the distribution
+of which such ample facilities are afforded. A church, a public-house,
+and a blacksmith's shop constitute an English village; but there is
+nobody on the spot either to go to church or drink the beer. At
+Claremorris a similar effect is produced on the visitor's mind. The
+main street is full of shops, corn-dealers, drapers, butchers, bakers,
+and general dealers in everything, from a horse to a hayseed; but out
+of the main track there are no houses--only hovels as wretched as any
+in Connaught. It is quite evident that the poor people who inhabit
+them cannot buy much of anything. Men, women, and children, dogs,
+ducks, and a donkey, are frequently crowded together in these
+miserable cabins, the like of which on any English estate would bring
+down a torrent of indignation on the landlord. They are all of one
+pattern, wretchedly thatched, but with stout stone walls, and are,
+when a big peat fire is burning, hot almost to suffocation. When it is
+possible to distinguish the pattern of the bed-curtains through the
+dirt, they are seen to be of the familiar blue and white checked
+pattern made familiar to London playgoers by Susan's cottage as
+displayed at the St. James's Theatre. The chest of drawers is nearly
+always covered with tea-things and other crockery, generally of the
+cheapest and commonest kind, but in great plenty. House accommodation
+in Claremorris is of the humblest character. At the best inn, called
+ambitiously Hughes's Hotel, I found that I was considered fortunate in
+getting any sort of bedroom to myself. The apartment was very small,
+with a lean-to roof, but then I reigned over it in solitary grandeur,
+while a dozen commercial travellers were packed into the three or four
+other bedrooms in the house. As these gentlemen arrived at odd hours
+of the night and were put into the rooms and beds occupied by their
+friends, sleep at Claremorris was not a function easily performed, and
+it was some foreknowledge of what actually occurred that induced me to
+sit up as late as possible in the eating, dining, reading, and
+commercial room, the only apartment of any size in the house, but full
+of occupants, most of whom were very communicative concerning their
+business. Here were the eagles indeed, but where was the carcass? To
+my amazement I found that Mike this and Tim that, whose shops are very
+small, had been giving large orders, and that the credit of
+Claremorris was in a very healthy condition. Equally curious was it to
+find that the gathering of "commercials" was not an unusual
+occurrence, but that the queer townlet was a genuine centre of
+business activity. We sat up as late as the stench of paraffin from
+the lamps--for there is no gas--would allow us. Lizzie, literally a
+maid of all work, but dressed in a gown tied violently back, brought
+up armful after armful of peat, and built and rebuilt the fire over
+and over again. There was in the corner of the room a huge receptacle,
+like half a hogshead, fastened to the wall for holding peat--or
+"turf," as it is called here--but it never occurred apparently to
+anybody to fill this bin and save the trouble of eternal journeys up
+and down stairs. It may be also mentioned, not out of any
+squeamishness, but purely as a matter of fact, that in the intervals
+of bringing in "arrumfuls" of "torrf" Lizzie folded tablecloths for
+newcomers so as to hide the coffee-stains as much as possible, and
+then proceeded to set their tea for them, after which she went back to
+building the fire again. In the work of waiting she was at uncertain
+intervals assisted by Joe, a shock-headed, black-haired Celt, who,
+when a Sybarite asked at breakfast for toast, repeated "Toast!" in a
+tone that set the table in a roar. It was not said impudently or
+rudely. Far from it. Joe's tone simply expressed honest amazement, as
+if one had asked for a broiled crocodile or any other impossible
+viand.
+
+There are, of course, people who would like separate servants to build
+up peat fires and to cut their bread and butter; but this kind of
+person should not come to county Mayo. To the less fastidious all
+other shortcomings are made up for by the absolutely delightful manner
+of the people, whose kindness, civility, good humour, and, I may add,
+honesty, are remarkable. At Hughes's Hotel the politeness of everybody
+was perfect; and I may add that the proprietor saved me both time and
+money by giving up a long posting job, to his own obvious loss. But if
+a visitor to Mayo wants anything done at once, then and there, he had
+better do it himself. I ventured to remark to Joe that he was a
+civil-spoken boy, but not very prompt in carrying out instructions,
+and asked whether everybody in Connaught conducted himself in the same
+way. He at once admitted that everybody did so. "Divil the bad answer
+ye'll iver get, Sorr," said he. "We just say, 'I will, Sorr,' and thin
+go away, and another gintleman says something, and ye're forgotten.
+Dy'e see, now?" And away he went, and forgot everything. Being at
+Claremorris, I tried to see a "lister," that is, a landowner and agent
+on the "black list." I was obliged to make inquiries concerning his
+whereabouts, and this investigation soon convinced me that there was
+something wrong in Mayo after all; not the _spectre vert_ exactly, but
+yet an unpleasant impalpability. All was well at Claremorris. Trade
+was good "presently now," potatoes were good and cheap, poverty was
+not advancing arm-in-arm with winter. It was cold, for snow was
+already on the Nephin; but turf had been stored during the long, fine,
+warm summer, and nobody was afraid of the frost. But the instant I
+mentioned the name of the gentleman I wanted to find not a soul knew
+anything about him. Farming several hundred acres of land on his own
+account, a resident on Lough Mask for seven years, and agent to Lord
+Erne, he seemed to be a man concerning whose movements the country
+side would probably be well informed. But nobody knew anything at all
+about him. He might be at the Curragh, or he might be in Dublin, and
+then would, one informant thought, slip over to England and get out of
+the trouble, if he were wise. In one of the larger stores I saw that
+the mention of his name drew every eye upon me, and that the
+bystanders were greatly exercised as to my identity and my business.
+In this part of the country everybody knows everybody, and a stranger
+asking for a proscribed man excited native curiosity to a maddening
+pitch. Presently I was taken aside, led round a corner, and there told
+that most assuredly the man I sought had not come home from Dublin
+_viâ_ Claremorris. Having a map of the county with me, I naturally
+suggested that he might have reached Lough Mask by way of Tuam, and,
+moreover, that, having a shrewd notion he would be shot at when
+occasion served, he would most likely try to get home by an unusual
+route on which he would hardly be looked for. "Is it alone ye think
+he'd be going, Sorr?" asked my informant in astonishment. "Divil a fut
+does he stir widout an escort." This was news indeed. "He came here,
+sure, Sorr, wid two constables on the kyar and two mounted men
+following him." I was also recommended to hold my tongue, for that Mr.
+Boycott's friends would certainly not tell whether he was at home or
+not, and his enemies would probably be kept in ignorance or led astray
+altogether. But it was necessary for me to find out his whereabouts.
+To go and see whether he was at Lough Mask involved a ride of forty
+miles, enlivened by the probability of being mistaken for him,
+slipping quietly home, and cheered by the risk of hearing at his house
+that he had gone to England. Telegraphing to him appeared useless, as
+communications were said to be cut off on the five Irish miles between
+Ballinrobe, the telegraph station, and Lough Mask House. As time wore
+on, I learned that he had had cattle at Tuam Fair, but that he had not
+come home that way for certain. In despair I came on to this place,
+where information reached me yesterday morning that, contrary to all
+expectations, he had gone on the other line of railway to Galway, and
+taken the steamboat on Lough Corrib to Cong, after having telegraphed
+to his escort to meet him there.
+
+From Westport to Lough Mask is a long but picturesque drive. I was
+lucky enough to secure an intelligent driver and an excellent horse
+and car. Thirty Irish miles is not in this part of the country
+considered an extravagant distance to drive a horse. I believe,
+indeed, that under other circumstances the unfortunate animal would
+have been compelled to carry me the entire distance; but I remarked
+that when I suggested a change of horses at Ballinrobe I was not only
+accommodated with a fresh horse, but with a fresh car and a fresh
+driver, who declared that the road to Lough Mask was about the safest
+and best that he had ever heard of. Now from Westport to Ballinrobe we
+had met nobody but a very few people going into town either riding on
+an ass or driving one laden with a pair of panniers or "cleaves" of
+turf, for which some fourpence or fivepence would be paid. All seemed
+thinly clad, despite the fearfully cold wind sweeping down from the
+Nephin, the Hest, and other snow-clad mountains. Crossing the long
+dreary peat-moss known as Mún-a-lún, we found the cold intense; but on
+approaching Lough Carra came into bright broad sunshine. At Ballinrobe
+the sun was still hotter, and as I approached Lough Mask the heat was
+almost oppressive. I was not, however, allowed to inspect Lough Mask
+House and the ruins of the adjacent castle in the first place. I had
+but just passed a magnificent field of mangolds, many of which weighed
+from a stone to a stone and a half, when I came upon a sight which
+could not be paralleled in any other civilised country at the present
+moment.
+
+Beyond a turn in the road was a flock of sheep, in front of which
+stood a shepherdess heading them back, while a shepherd, clad in a
+leather shooting-jacket and aided by a bull terrier, was driving them
+through a gate into an adjacent field. Despite her white woollen shawl
+and the work she was engaged upon, it was quite evident, from her
+voice and manner, that the shepherdess was of the educated class, and
+the shepherd, albeit dressed in a leather jacket, carried himself with
+the true military air. Both were obviously amateurs at sheep-driving,
+and the smart, intelligent bull terrier was as much an amateur as
+either of them, for shepherd, shepherdess and dog were only doing what
+a good collie would achieve alone and unaided. Behind the shepherd
+were two tall members of the Royal Irish Constabulary in full uniform
+and with carbines loaded. As the shepherd entered the field the
+constables followed him everywhere at a distance of a few yards. All
+his backings and fillings, turnings and doublings, were followed by
+the armed policemen. This combination of the most proverbially
+peaceful of pursuits with carbines and buckshot was irresistibly
+striking, and the effect of the picture was not diminished by the
+remarks of Mr. and Mrs. Boycott, for the shepherd and shepherdess were
+no other than these. The condition of Mr. Boycott and his family has
+undergone not the slightest amelioration since he last week wrote a
+statement of his case to a daily contemporary. In fact, he is in many
+respects worse off. It will be recollected that about a month ago a
+process-server and his escort retreated on Lough Mask House, followed
+by a mob, and that on the following day all the farm servants were
+ordered to leave Mr. Boycott's employment. I may mention that Mr.
+Boycott is a Norfolk man, the son of a clergyman, and was formerly an
+officer in the 39th Regiment. On his marriage he settled on the Island
+of Achill, near here, and farmed there until he was offered some land
+agencies, which occupied so much of his time, that he, after some
+twenty years' residence in Achill, elected to take a farm on the
+mainland. For seven years he has farmed at Lough Mask, acting also as
+Lord Erne's agent. He has on his own account had a few difficulties
+with his workpeople; but these were tided over by concessions on his
+part, and all went smoothly till the serving of notices upon Lord
+Erne's tenants. All the weight of the tenants' vengeance has fallen
+upon the unfortunate agent, whom the irritated people declare they
+will "hunt out of the country." The position is an extraordinary one.
+During his period of occupation Mr. Boycott has laid out a great deal
+of money on his farm, has improved the roads, and made turnips and
+other root crops to grow where none grew before. But the country side
+has struck against him, and he is now actually in a state of siege.
+Personally attended by an armed escort everywhere, he has a garrison
+of ten constables on his premises, some established in a hut, and the
+rest in that part of Lough Mask House adjacent to the old castle.
+Garrisoned at home and escorted abroad, Mr. Boycott and his family are
+now reduced to one female domestic. Everybody else has gone away,
+protesting sorrow, but alleging that the power brought to bear upon
+them was greater than they could resist. Farm labourers, workmen,
+herds-men, stablemen, all went long ago, leaving the corn standing,
+the horses in the stable, the sheep in the field, the turnips, swedes,
+carrots, and potatoes in the ground, where I saw them yesterday. Last
+Tuesday the laundress refused to wash for the family any longer; the
+baker at Ballinrobe is afraid to supply them with bread, and the
+butcher fears to send them meat. The state of siege is perfect.
+
+When the strike first began Mr. Boycott went bravely to work with his
+family, setting the young ladies to reaping and binding, and looking
+after the beasts and sheep himself. But the struggle is nearly at an
+end now. Mr. Boycott has sold some of his stock; but he can neither
+sell his crop to anybody else, nor, as they say in the North of
+England, "win" it for himself. There remains in the ground at least
+five hundred pounds worth of potatoes and other root crops, and the
+owner has no possible means of doing anything with them. Nor, I am
+assured on trustworthy authority, would any human being buy them at
+any price; nor, if any such person were found, would he be able to
+find any labourer to touch any manner of work on the spot under the
+ban. By an impalpable and invisible power it is decreed that Mr.
+Boycott shall be "hunted out," and it is more than doubtful whether he
+will, under existing circumstances, be able to stand against it. He is
+unquestionably a brave and resolute man, but there is too much reason
+to believe that without his garrison and escort his life would not be
+worth an hour's purchase.
+
+There are few fairer prospects than that from the steps of Lough Mask
+House, a moderately comfortable and unpretending edifice, not quite so
+good as a large farmer's homestead in England. But the potatoes will
+rot in the ground, and the cattle will go astray, for not a soul in
+the Ballinrobe country dare touch a spade for Mr. Boycott. Personally
+he is protected, but no woman in Ballinrobe would dream of washing him
+a cravat or making him a loaf. All the people have to say is that
+they are sorry, but that they "dare not." Hence either Mr. Boycott,
+with an escort armed to the teeth, or his wife without an escort--for
+the people would not harm her--must go to Ballinrobe after putting a
+horse in the shafts themselves, buy what they can, and bring it home.
+Everybody advises them to leave the country; but the answer of the
+besieged agent is simply this: "I can hardly desert Lord Erne, and,
+moreover, my own property is sunk in this place." It is very much like
+asking a man to give up work and go abroad for the benefit of his
+health. He cannot sacrifice his occupation and his property.
+
+There is very little doubt that this unfortunate gentleman has been
+selected as a victim whose fate may strike terror into others. Judging
+from what I hear, there is a sort of general determination to frighten
+the landlords. Only a few nights ago a man went into a store at
+Longford and said openly, "My landlord has processed me for the last
+four or five years; but he hasn't processed me this year, and the
+divil thank him for that same."
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+AN AGRARIAN DIFFICULTY.
+
+
+WESTPORT, CO. MAYO, _Oct. 25th._
+
+"Tiernaur, Sorr, is on the way to Claggan Mountain, where they shot at
+Smith last year, and--if I don't disremember--is just where they shot
+Hunter last August eleven years. Ye'll mind the cross-roads before ye
+come to the chapel. It was there they shot him from behind a
+sod-bank." This was the reply I received in answer to my question as
+to the whereabouts of a public meeting to be held yesterday morning,
+with the patriotic object of striking terror into the hearts of
+landlords and agents. It was delivered without appearance of
+excitement or emotion of any kind, the demeanour of the speaker being
+quite as simple as that of Wessex Hodge when he recommends one to go
+straight on past the Craven Arms, and then bear round by the Dog and
+Duck till the great house comes in sight. Tiernaur, I gathered, was
+about fifteen miles to the north-west along Clew Bay towards
+Ballycroy. It is called Newfield Chapel on the Ordnance map, but is
+always spoken of here by its native name. It is invested with more
+than the mere transient interest attaching to the place of an open-air
+meeting, for it is the centre of a district subject to chronic
+disturbance, and is just now the scene of serious trouble, or what
+would appear serious trouble in any less turbulent part of the
+country. It is necessary to be exact in describing what occurs here,
+as a phrase may easily be construed to imply much more than is
+intended. When it is said that the country between Westport and
+Ballycroy is disturbed, and that law and order are set at defiance, it
+must not be imagined that the roads are unsafe for travellers, or that
+any ordinary person is liable to be shot at, beaten, robbed, or
+insulted. I have no hesitation in stating that a stranger may go
+anywhere in the county, at any hour of the day or night, alone and
+unarmed, and that even in country inns he need take no precautions
+against robbery. Mayo people do not steal, and if they shot a
+stranger, it would only be by mistake for a Scotch farmer or an
+English agent. And I am sure that the accident would be sincerely
+deplored by the warm-hearted natives. I have thought it well to master
+all the details of the Tiernaur difficulty, because it is a perfect
+type of the agrarian troubles which agitate the West. In the first
+place the reader will clearly understand that English and Scotch
+landlords, agents, and farmers, are as a rule abhorred by the Irish
+population. It is perhaps hardly my province to decide who is to
+blame. Difference of manner may go for a great deal, but beyond and
+below the resentment caused by a prompt, decisive, and perhaps
+imperious tone, lies a deeply-rooted sense of wrong--logically or
+illogically arrived at. The evictions of the last third of a century
+and the depopulation of large tracts of country have filled the hearts
+of the people with revenge, and, rightly or wrongly, they not only
+blame the landlord but the occupier of the land. If, they argue, there
+had been no Englishmen and Scotchmen to take large farms, the small
+holders would not have been swept away, and "driven like a wild goose
+on the mountain" to make room for them. Without for the present
+discussing the reasonableness of this plea, I merely record the simple
+fact that an English or Scotch farmer is unpopular from the beginning.
+Here and there such a one as Mr. Simpson may manage to live the
+prejudice down; but that he will have to encounter it on his arrival
+is absolutely certain.
+
+This being the case, it is not to be wondered at that when the late
+Mr. Hunter, a Scotchman, took a large grazing farm at Tiernaur, his
+arrival was at once regarded in a hostile spirit. The land he occupied
+was let to him by two adjoining proprietors, Mr. Gibbings, of Trinity
+College, Dublin, and Mr. Stoney, of Rossturk Castle, near at hand.
+There was a convenient dwelling-house on the part of the farm looking
+over Clew Bay towards Clare Island, and all was apparently smooth and
+pleasant. No sooner, however, was Mr. Hunter established there than a
+difficulty arose. The inhabitants of the surrounding country had been
+in the habit of cutting turf and pulling sedge on parts of the
+mountain and bog included within the limits of Mr. Hunter's farm. It
+is only fair to the memory of the deceased gentleman to state that
+such rights are frequently paid for, and that he had not taken the
+farm subject to any "turbary" rights or local customs. Accordingly he
+demanded payment from the people, who objected that they had always
+cut turf and pulled sedge on the mountain; that they could not live
+without turf for fuel and sedge to serve first as winter bedding for
+their cattle and afterwards as manure; that except on Mr. Hunter's
+mountain neither turf nor sedge could be got within any reasonable
+distance; and, finally, that they had always enjoyed such right. And
+so forth. As this was, as already intimated, not in the bond, Mr.
+Hunter, not very unnaturally, insisted that if the people would not
+pay him his landlord must, and asked Mr. Gibbings to allow him ten
+pounds a year off his rent. The latter offered him, as I am informed,
+five pounds. The matter was referred to an umpire, who awarded Mr.
+Hunter twelve pounds, an assessment which Mr. Gibbings declined to
+take into consideration at all. After some further discussion Mr.
+Hunter warned the people off his farm and declared their supposed
+"turbary" rights at an end. It is of course difficult to arrive at any
+conclusion on the merits of the case. All that is certain is, that the
+people had long enjoyed privileges which Mr. Gibbings declared to be
+simple trespass. Finally he told Mr. Hunter he had his bond and must
+enforce it himself. The unfortunate farmer, thus placed, as it were,
+between the upper and nether millstone, endeavoured to enforce his
+supposed rights. It is almost needless to remark that the people went
+on cutting turf just as if nothing had happened. In an evil hour Mr.
+Hunter determined to see what the law could do to protect him in the
+enjoyment of his farm, and he sued the trespassers accordingly. I will
+not attempt to explain the intricacies of an Irish lawsuit farther
+than to note that, owing to some deficiency in their pleas, the
+trespassers underwent a nonsuit, or some analogous doom, and went
+gloomily away without having even the satisfaction of a fair fight in
+court. At the instance of Mr. Hunter, execution for damages and costs
+was issued against the most solvent of the trespassers, one John
+O'Neill, of Knockmanus--his next-door neighbour, so to speak. On
+Friday the execution was put in, and, on its being found impossible to
+find anybody to act as bailiff, Mr. Hunter himself asked the
+sub-sheriff to put in his name, and he would see himself that the
+crops were not removed. This was done, and on the following Sunday Mr.
+Hunter went with his family to attend Divine service at Newport.
+Leaving Newport in the evening, he had gone not half-way to Tiernaur
+when his horse's shoe came off. This circumstance, ominous enough in
+the disturbed districts of Ireland, was not heeded by Mr. Hunter, who
+put back to Newport and had his horse shod. As he set out for the
+second time, the evening was closing in, and as he reached the road
+turning off from the main track towards his own dwelling he was shot
+from the opposite angle. The assassin must have been a good marksman,
+for there were four persons in the dog-cart--Mr. Hunter, his wife, his
+son, and a servant lad. The doomed man was picked out and shot dead.
+It is obviously unnecessary to add that the assassin escaped, and has
+not been discovered unto this day.
+
+Immediately on the commission of the crime the widow of the murdered
+man was afforded "protection," as it is called, in the manner usual
+during Irish disturbances--that is, four men and a sergeant of the
+constabulary were stationed at her house. In course of time, however,
+Mrs. Hunter felt comparatively safe, and the constables removed to a
+hut about two miles on the Newport road, opposite to some very good
+grouse-shooting. There the five men dwell in their little iron-clad
+house, pierced with loopholes in case of attack--a very improbable
+event. At the moment of writing, four constables are also stationed at
+Mr. Stoney's residence, Rossturk Castle, although it is not quite
+certain what the owner has done to provoke the anger of the people.
+This being the situation, a very short time since Mrs. Hunter elected
+to give up the farm and leave this part of the country. The property
+is therefore on the hands of the landlord, and is "to let." How bright
+the prospect of getting a tenant is may be estimated by the remark
+made to me by a very well-instructed person living close by--"If the
+landlord were to give me that farm for nothing, stock it for me, and
+give me a cash balance to go on with, I would gratefully but firmly
+decline the generous gift. No consideration on earth would induce me
+to occupy Hunter's farm." In the present condition of affairs it would
+certainly require either great courage or profound ignorance on the
+part of a would-be tenant to impel him to occupy any land under ban. A
+rational being would almost as soon think of going to help Mr. Boycott
+to get in his potatoes. For the people of Tiernaur are now face to
+face--only at a safe distance for him--with Mr. Gibbings. The cause of
+the new difficulty is as follows: Mrs. Hunter having given up the
+farm, it was applied for by some of the neighbours, who offered a
+similar rent to that paid by her. Either because the landlord did not
+want the applicants as tenants, or because he thought the land
+improved, he demanded a higher rent. This is the one unpardonable
+crime--an attempt to raise the rent. For his own reasons the landlord
+does not choose to let what is called Hunter's farm to the Tiernaur
+people on the old terms, and the stranger who should venture upon it
+would need be girt with _robur et æs triplex_.
+
+Within the last few days this proprietary deadlock has been enlivened
+by an act which has caused much conversation in this part of Ireland.
+A house on Glendahurk Mountain has been burned down, and the cattle of
+the neighbouring farmers have been turned on to the mountain to
+pasture at the expense of Mr. Gibbings. Moreover the bailiff has been
+warned not to interfere, or attempt to scare the cattle and drive them
+off. Thus the tenant farmers are grazing their cattle for nothing,
+and, what is more, no man dare meddle with them. The sole remedy open
+to Mr. Gibbings is civil process for trespass. Should he adopt this
+course he will probably be safe enough in Dublin, but I am assured
+that the life of his bailiff will not be worth a day's purchase.
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+A LAND MEETING.
+
+
+WESTPORT, CO. MAYO, _Oct. 27th._
+
+The way from this place to Tiernaur is through a country, as a Mayo
+man said to me, "eminently adapted to tourists." Not very far off lies
+Croagh Patrick, the sacred mountain from which St. Patrick cursed the
+snakes and other venomous creatures and drove them from Ireland. I was
+assured by the car-driver that the noxious animals vanished into the
+earth at the touch of the Saint's bell. "He just," said this veracious
+informant, "shlung his bell at 'um, and the bell cum back right into
+his hand. And the mountain is full of holes. And the snakes went into
+'um and ye can hear 'um hissing on clear still days." Be this as it
+may, the line of country towards Newport is delightfully picturesque.
+The great brown cone of Croagh Patrick soars above all, and to right
+and left rise the snow-covered Nephin and Hest. Evidences of careful
+cultivation are frequent on every side. Fairly large potato-fields
+occur at short intervals, and mangolds and turnips are grown for
+feeding stock. Cabbages also are grown for winter feed, and the
+character of the country is infinitely more cheerful than on the
+opposite side of Westport. Inquiring of my driver as to the safety of
+the country, I received the following extraordinary reply, "Ye might
+lie down and sleep anywhere, and divil a soul would molest ye, barring
+the lizards in summer time; and they are dreadful, are lizards. They
+don't bite ye like snakes, or spit at ye like toads; but if ye sleep
+wid ye'r mouth open, they crawl, just crawl down ye'r throat into ye'r
+stommick and kill ye. For they've schales on their bodies, and can't
+get back; and they just scratch, and bite, and claw at your innards
+till ye die." There was nothing to be done with these terrible lizards
+but to drink an unmentionable potion, which, I am assured, is strong
+enough to rout the most determined lizard of them all, and bring him
+to nought. It is, however, noteworthy that stories of persons being
+killed by lizards crawling down their throats are widely distributed.
+There is one of a young Hampshire lady who, the day before she was
+married, went to sleep in her father's garden, and was killed by a
+lizard crawling down her throat. And, my informant said, the lizard is
+carved on her tomb--a fact which makes it appear likely that the story
+was made for the armorial bearings of the lady in question.
+
+By a pleasant road lined with cabbage gardens we came on to Newport--a
+port which, like this, is not one of the "has beens," but one of the
+"would have beens." There is the semblance of a port without ships,
+and warehouses without goods, and quays overgrown with grass. Beyond
+Newport the country grows wilder. There is less cultivation, and
+behind every little shanty rises the great brown shoulder of the
+neighbouring mountain covered with rough, bent grass--or sedge, as it
+is called here. Grey plover and curlew scud across the road, a sign of
+hard weather, and near the rarer homesteads towers the hawk, looking
+for his prey. Now and again come glimpses of the bay, of the great
+island of Innisturk, of Clare Island, and of Innisboffin. Wilder and
+wilder grows the scenery as we approach Grace O'Malley's Castle, a
+small tenement for a Queen of Connaught. It is a lone tower like a
+border "peel," but on the very edge of the sea. The country folk show
+the window through which passed the cable of a mighty war ship to be
+tied round Grace O'Malley's bedpost, whom one concludes to have been,
+in a small way, a kind of pirate queen. As we approach Tiernaur the
+road becomes lively with country folk going to and from chapel, and
+stopping to exchange a jest--always in the tongue of the country--by
+the way. In this part of the wild road the Saxon feels himself,
+indeed, a stranger--in race, in creed, and in language. Now and then
+he sees the Irishman of the stage, clad in the short swallow-tailed
+coat with pocket-flaps, the corduroy breeches, the blue worsted
+stockings and misshapen caubeen, made familiar by a thousand novels
+and plays. These articles of attire are becoming day by day as rare as
+the red petticoats formerly worn by the peasant women. On the latter,
+however, may still be seen, now and then, the great blue cloth cloaks
+which once formed a distinctive article of costume, and a very
+necessary one in this severe climate. Presently jog by a few men on
+horseback, very ill-mounted on sorry beasts, and riding in unison with
+the quality of their animals. Men, women and children are in their
+Sunday best, and to all outward appearance scrupulously clean. I am
+constrained to believe that among the very lowest class--that which
+comes under prison regulations--the preliminary washing is counted as
+the severest part of the punishment; but the evidence of my own
+eyesight is in favour of the strict personal cleanliness of Sunday
+folk in this part of the country. Near Tiernaur I find bands of men
+marching to the gathering, which is a purely local affair, not
+regularly organized by the Land League. But the men themselves appear
+to be very strictly organized, to march well, and to obey their bugler
+promptly. They are all in Sunday clothes, wear green scarves, and
+carry green banners. The latter are inscribed with various mottoes
+proper to the occasion. On the Kilmeena banner appears, "No prison
+cell nor tyrant's claim Can keep us from our glorious aim." The
+Glendahurk men proclaim on another green banner, bearing the harp
+without the crown, that "Those who toil Must own the soil;" and the
+Mulrawny contingent call upon the people to "Hold the Mountain," to
+cry "Down with the Land Grabbers," and "God save Ireland." The musical
+arrangements are of the humblest kind, and not a single man is armed,
+at least outwardly, and not one in twenty carries a stick. All is
+quiet and orderly, and the same tranquil demeanour obtains at
+Tiernaur, or rather at Newfield Chapel, appointed as the
+trysting-place after morning service. In accordance with recent
+regulations there is no ostentatious display of police, but everybody
+knows that a strong detachment is posted in Mrs. Hunter's house, and
+that on any sign of disturbance they will promptly put in an
+appearance. On the side of the Government, as on that of the people,
+there is an obvious desire to avoid any semblance of an appeal to
+force.
+
+The scene at Newfield Chapel is both interesting and beautiful.
+Tiernaur lies between the brown mountains and a sapphire sea, studded
+with islands rising precipitously from its level. In front lies the
+lofty eminence of Clare Island, below which appears to nestle the
+picturesque castle of Rossturk. The bay--which is said to hold as many
+islands as there are days in a year and one over--presents a series
+of magnificent views. One might be assisting at one of the meetings of
+the Covenanters held amid the seas and mountains of Galloway, but with
+the difference that the faith of the meeting is that of the Church of
+Rome, and that the scenery is far grander than that of Wigton and
+Kirkcudbright. It is a natural amphitheatre of sea and mountain,
+perfect in its beauty, but for one dark spot, just visible--the place
+where Hunter was shot. The chapel, modest and unpretending, is a
+simple, whitewashed edifice, surrounded by a white wall, over which
+gleam, in the already declining sun, the red and black plaid shawls of
+the peasant women who have remained after mass to witness the
+proceedings. Not a dozen bonnets are present, and hardly as many hats,
+for nearly all the women and girls wear the shawl pulled over their
+heads, Lancashire fashion. In appearance the people contrast
+favourably with those of the inland towns of county Mayo. The men look
+active and wiry, and the women are well grown and in many cases have
+an air of distinction foreign to the heavy-browed, black-haired Celt
+of the interior. Altogether the picture is well worthy of a master of
+colour, with its masses of black and green, relieved by patches of
+bright red, standing boldly out against the background of brown moor
+and azure sea.
+
+The proceedings are hardly in consonance with the dignity of the
+surroundings. Many marchings to and fro occur before the various
+deputations are duly ushered to their place near the temporary
+hustings erected in front of the chapel. When the meeting--of some two
+thousand people at most--has gathered, there is an unlucky fall of
+rain, advantage of which is taken by a local "omadhaun," or "softy" as
+they call him in Northern England, to mount the stage and make a
+speech, which elicits loud shouts of laughter. Taking little heed of
+the pelting shower the "omadhaun," who wears a red bandanna like a
+shawl, and waves a formidable shillelagh, makes a harangue which, so
+far as I can understand it, has neither head nor tail. Delivered with
+much violent gesticulation, the speech is evidently to the taste of
+the audience, who cheer and applaud more or less ironically. At last
+the rain is over, and the serious business of the day commences. The
+chair is taken by the parish priest of Tiernaur, whose initial oration
+is peculiar in its character. The tone and manner of speaking are
+excellent, but alack for the matter! A more wandering, blundering
+piece of dreary repetition never bemused an audience. In fairness to
+the priest, however, it must be admitted that a Government reporter is
+on the platform, and that the presence of that official may perhaps
+exercise a blighting influence on the budding flowers of rhetoric. All
+that the speaker--a handsome man, with a very fine voice--said,
+amounted to a statement, repeated over and over again with slight
+variations, that the people of Tiernaur were placed by the Almighty on
+the spot intended for them to live upon; that they were between the
+mountains and the sea; that all that the landlords could take from
+them they had taken; "the wonder was they had not taken the salt sea
+itself." This was all the speaker had to say, and he said it over and
+over again. He was succeeded by his curate, who insisted with like
+iteration on the duty of supporting the people imposed upon the land.
+Out of the fatness thereof they should, would, and must be maintained.
+Other sources of profit there were, according to this rev. gentleman,
+absolutely none. The land belonged to the people "on payment of a just
+rent" to the landlords. "Down wid 'em!" yelled an enthusiast, who was
+instantly suppressed. And the people had a right to live, not like the
+beasts of the field, but like decent people. And _da capo_.
+
+Now among many and beautiful and picturesque things Ireland possesses
+some others altogether detestable. The car of the country, for
+instance, is the most abominable of all civilised vehicles. Why the
+numskull who invented the crab-like machine turned it round sidewise
+is as absolutely inconceivable as that since dog-carts have been
+introduced into the West the car should survive. But it does survive
+to the discomfort and fatigue of everybody, and the especial disgust
+of the writer. There is another thing in Connaught which I love not
+to look upon. That is the plate of a diner at a _table d'hôte_, on
+which he has piled a quantity of roast goose with a liberal supply of
+stuffing, together with about a pound of hot boiled beef, and cabbage,
+carrots, turnips, and parsnips in profusion--the honour of a separate
+plate being accorded to the national vegetable alone. It is not
+agreeable to witness the demolition of this "Benjamin's mess" against
+time; and when the feat is being performed by several persons the
+effect thereof is the reverse of appetising. But I would rather be
+driven seventy miles--Irish miles--on a car, and compelled to sit down
+to roast goose commingled with boiled beef and "trimmings," than I
+would listen to a political speech from the curate of Tiernaur. By
+degrees I felt an utter weariness and loathing of life creeping over
+me, and I turned my face towards the sun, setting in golden glory
+behind Clare Island, and lighting up the rich ruddy brown of the
+mountain, behind which lay the invaded pastures of Knockdahurk. By the
+way this invasion of what are elsewhere deemed the rights of property
+was barely alluded to by the reverend speakers, the latter of whom,
+after making all kinds of blunders, finally broke down as he was
+appealing to the "immortal and immutable laws of--of--of"--and here
+some wicked prompter suggested "Nature," a suggestion adopted by the
+unhappy speaker before he had time to recollect himself. After this
+lame and impotent conclusion, a gentleman in a green cap and sash,
+richly adorned with the harp without the crown, infused some vitality
+into the proceedings by declaring that the only creature on God's
+earth worse than a landlord was the despicable wretch who presumed to
+take a farm at an advanced rent. This remark was distinctly to the
+point, and was applauded accordingly. It was indeed a significant, but
+in this part of the country quite unnecessary, intimation that safer,
+if not better, holdings might be found than "Hunter's Farm." As most
+of the persons present had come from a long distance, some as much as
+fifteen or twenty Irish miles, the subsequent proceedings, such as the
+passing of resolutions concerning fixity of tenure and so forth, were
+got through rapidly, and the meeting dispersed as quietly as it
+assembled. The organized bodies marched off the ground in good order,
+without the slightest sign of riot or even of enthusiasm. Men and
+women, the latter especially, were almost sad and gloomy--for Irish
+people. I certainly heard one merry laugh as I was making for my car,
+and it was at my own expense. A raw-boned, black-haired woman, "tall,
+as Joan of France or English Moll," insisted that I should buy some
+singularly ill-favoured apples of her. As I declined for the last time
+she fired a parting shot, "An' why won't ye buy me apples? Sure
+they're big and round and plump like yerself, aghra"--a sally vastly
+to the taste of the bystanders. It struck me, however, that the
+people generally seemed rather tired than excited by the proceedings
+of the day--the most contented man of all being, I take it, Mike
+Gibbons, who had been driving a brisk trade at his "shebeen," the only
+house of business or entertainment for miles around.
+
+As I drove homewards on what had suddenly become a hideously raw
+evening, my driver entertained me with many heartrending and more or
+less truthful stories of evictions. He showed me a vast tract of land
+belonging to the Marquis of Sligo, from which the original inhabitants
+had, according to his story, been driven to make way for one tenant
+who paid less rent for all than they did for a part. One hears of
+course a great deal of this kind of thing from the poorer
+folk,--car-drivers, whose eloquence is proverbial, not excepted. My
+driver had assuredly not been corrupted by reading inflammatory
+articles in newspapers, for, although he speaks English as well as
+Irish, "letter or line knows he never a one" of either, any more than
+did stout William of Deloraine. His statements, however, are strictly
+of that class of travellers' tales told by car-drivers, and must be
+taken with more than the proverbial grain of seasoning. I find him as
+a rule very quiet until I have administered to him a dose of "the wine
+of the country," and then he mourns over the desolation of the land
+and the ravages of the so-called "crowbar brigade" as if they were
+things of yesterday. Whether the local Press reflects the opinion of
+the peasants of Mayo, or the peasants only echo the opinion of the
+Press as reproduced to them by native orators, I am at present hardly
+prepared to decide. One thing, however, is certain. Not only that
+professional "deludher," the car-driver, but tradesmen, farmers, and
+all the less wealthy part of the community still speak sorely of the
+evictions of thirty and forty years ago, and point out the graveyards
+which alone mark the sites of thickly populated hamlets abolished by
+the crowbar. All over this part of the country people complain
+bitterly of loneliness. According to their view, their friends have
+been swept away and the country reduced to a desert in order that it
+might be let in blocks of several square miles each to Englishmen and
+Scotchmen, who employ the land for grazing purposes only, and perhaps
+a score or two of people where once a thousand lived--after a fashion.
+It is of no avail to point out to them that the wretchedly small
+holdings common enough even now in Connaught cannot be made to support
+the farmer, or rather labourer, and his family decently, even in the
+best of years, and that any failure of crop must signify ruin and
+starvation. Any observation of this kind is ill received by the
+people, who cling to their inhospitable mountains as a woman clings to
+a deformed or idiot child. And in this astonishing perversion of
+patriotism they are supported in unreasoning fashion by their
+pastors, who seem to imagine that because a person is born on any
+particular spot he must remain there and insist on its maintaining him
+and his.
+
+Now, it is not inconceivable that a landlord should take a very
+different view of the situation. Whether his estate is encumbered or
+not, he expects to get something out of it for himself. It was
+therefore not unnatural that advantage should have been taken of the
+famine and the Encumbered Estates Act to get the land into such
+condition that it would return some ascertainable sum. The best way of
+effecting this was thought to be the removal of the inhabitants who
+paid rent or not as it suited them, and in place of a few hundred of
+these to secure one responsible tenant, even if he paid much less per
+acre than the native peasant. I draw particular attention to the
+latter fact, as one of the popular grievances sorely and lengthily
+dwelt upon is that the oppressor not only took the land from the
+people, evicted them, and demolished their cabins with crowbars, but
+that he let his property to the hated foreigner for less than the
+natives had paid and were willing to pay, or promised to pay, him. He
+let land by thousands of acres to Englishmen and Scotchmen at a pound
+an acre, whereas he had received twenty-five and thirty shillings from
+the starving peasants of Connaught. This was deliberate cruelty,
+framed to drive the people away who were willing to stay and pay their
+high rents as of old. But the fact unfortunately was that Lord Lucan,
+Lord Sligo, and other great landowners in county Mayo had found it so
+difficult to get rent out of their tenants that they determined to let
+their land to large farmers only, at such a price as they could get,
+but with the certainty that the rent, whatever it was, would be well
+and duly paid, and there would be an end to the matter. This, I hear,
+is the true history of the eviction of the old tenants and the letting
+of great tracts of land to tenants like Mr. Simpson on favourable
+terms. The landlord knew that he would get his rent, and he has got
+it, that is, hitherto.
+
+The story of the great farm, colossal for this part of the country,
+leased by Mr. Simpson from Lord Lucan, and now on that nobleman's
+hands, is a curious one as revealing the real capacity of the soil
+when properly handled. Twenty-two hundred Irish acres at as many
+pounds sterling per annum represent in Mayo an immense transaction.
+The tenant came to his work with capital and ripe experience, farmed
+well, and, I am assured on the best authority, fared well, getting a
+handsome return for his capital. So satisfied was he with his bargain,
+that he offered to renew his agreement with Lord Lucan if he were
+allowed a deduction for the false measurement of the acreage of the
+farm, which had been corrected by a subsequent survey. As I am
+instructed, there were not 2,200 acres, but the tenant was quite
+willing to pay a pound per acre for what was there. Now, an Irish acre
+is so much bigger than an English acre that thirty acres Irish
+measurement make forty-nine English. Lord Lucan consequently thought
+the farm cheaply let, and hesitated to make any allowance. This
+negotiation began last spring, but soon became hopeless. The country
+about Hollymount and Ballinrobe grew disturbed. Proprietors, agents,
+and large farmers required "protection" from the constabulary, and
+there was no longer anything to attract capital to the neighbourhood
+in the face of a deterrent population. Hence one of the largest and
+most popular farmers in Mayo has retired from the field with his
+capital, and has left his landlord to farm the land himself.
+Apparently Lord Lucan can do no better; for it would be difficult to
+find a stranger of sufficient substance to rent and farm twenty-two
+hundred acres of land, endowed with sufficient hardihood to bring his
+money and his life hither under the existing condition of affairs.
+
+The incident just narrated, moreover, appears to prove that one object
+at least of the party of agitation has been achieved. To
+politico-economists it will appear a Pyrrhic victory. Capital is
+effectually scared from this part of Ireland, and those who have
+invested money on mortgage and found themselves at last compelled to
+"take the beast for the debt" are bitterly regretting their ill-judged
+promptitude. A large farm between this and Achill, or near Ballina on
+the north, or in the country extending from the spot where Lord
+Mountmorres was shot, towards Ballinrobe, Hollymount, Claremorris, or
+Castlebar, could hardly be let now at any price, even where the
+neighbours have not actually taken possession, as at Knockdahurk.
+Landlords have apparently the three proverbial courses open to them.
+They cannot sell their land, it is true; but they can let it lie
+waste, they can farm it themselves "if," as a trustworthy informant
+said to me just now, "they dare," or they can let it directly, as of
+old, to small tenants, who will come in at once and perhaps pay what
+they consider a fair rent in good years. It is folly to expect them to
+pay at all when crops are bad. And then there is the inevitable delay
+and uncertainty at all times which has led to the system of
+"middlemen" of which so much has been said and written. The middleman
+is that handy person, to the landlord, who assures him of a certain
+income from his property by buying certain rents at a deduction of 30
+or 40 per cent., and collecting them as best he can. To the landlord
+he is a most useful man of business, thanks to whom he can count upon
+a certain amount of ready money. To the peasant he appears as a
+fiendish oppressor.
+
+Touching this word "peasant," a great deal of misconception concerning
+the condition of the people of the West and their attitude towards
+their landlords will be got rid of by substituting it for the word
+"farmer." It is absurd to compare the tenant of a small holding in
+Mayo with an English farmer--properly so called. The latter is a man
+engaged in a large business, and must possess, or, as I regret to be
+obliged to write, _have been_ possessed of capital. The misuse of the
+word farmer and its application to the little peasant cultivators here
+can only lead to confusion. The proper standard of comparison with the
+so-called Mayo farmer is the English farmer's labourer. In education,
+in knowledge of his trade, in the command of the comforts of life, a
+Mayo cultivator of six, eight or ten acres is the analogue of the
+English labourer at fourteen shillings per week. The latter has nearly
+always a better cottage than the Mayo man, and, taking the whole year
+round, is about as well off as the Irishman. The future of neither is
+very bright. The Wessex hind may jog on into old age and the
+workhouse; the Irishman may be ruined and reduced to a similar
+condition at once by a failure of his harvest. Neither has any
+capital, yet the Irishman obtains an amount of credit which would
+strike Hodge dumb with amazement. He is allowed to owe, frequently one
+year's, sometimes two years' rent. Indeed, I know of one particularly
+tough customer who at this moment owes three years' rent--to wit,
+24l.--and will neither pay anything nor go. Now for an English
+labourer to obtain credit for a five-pound note would be a remarkable
+experience. His cottage and his potato patch cost him from one to two
+shillings per week; but who ever heard of his owing six months', let
+alone three years', rent? But this is the country of credit; and, so
+far as I have seen, nobody is in a violent hurry either to pay or to
+be paid, bating those who have lent money on mortgage. And even they
+are not in a hurry to foreclose just now.
+
+
+CASTLEBAR, _Oct. 28._
+
+The marked--I had almost written ostentatious--absence of weapons at
+the meetings of the last two Sundays has attracted great attention.
+From perfectly trustworthy information I gather that appearances are
+in this matter more than usually deceitful. It is impossible to doubt
+that the large population of this country is armed to the teeth. Since
+the expiration of the Peace Preservation Act the purchase of firearms
+has been incessant. At the stores in Westport, where carbines are
+sold, more have been disposed of in the last five months than in the
+ten previous years, and revolvers are also in great demand. The
+favourite weapon of the peasantry, on account of its low price and
+other good qualities, is the old Enfield rifle bought out of the
+Government stores, shortened and rebored to get rid of the rifling.
+The work of refashioning the superannuated rifles and adapting them
+for slugs and buckshot has, I hear, been performed for the most part
+in America, whence the guns have been re-imported into this country
+in large quantities. It is believed that the suppression of arms on
+the occasion of large gatherings is due to the judgment of popular
+leaders, who are naturally averse to any display which would afford
+the Government a pretext for disarming the inhabitants. There is,
+however, no doubt that the people of this district are more completely
+armed than at any previous period of Irish history. A ten-shilling gun
+license enables any idle person to walk about anywhere with a gun on
+his shoulder, but this privilege is rarely exercised. Two mornings ago
+four men passed in front of the Railway Hotel at Westport with guns on
+their shoulders, but such occurrences are very rare, the only
+individuals who carry weapons ostentatiously being landlords, agents,
+and the Royal Irish Constabulary affording them "protection." This
+protection is always granted when asked for, but many landlords have
+an almost invincible repugnance to go everywhere attended by armed
+police. Lord Ardilaun, I hear, has organised a little bodyguard of his
+own people, in preference to being followed about by the tall dark
+figures now frequent everywhere in county Mayo from Achill to Newport,
+from Ballina to Ballinrobe, and from Claremorris to Westport. Still,
+anything like a "rising in the West" is regarded here as chimerical;
+and the arming of the people as aimed only at the terrifying of
+landlords. No apprehension of any immediate outbreak or collision
+with the authorities is entertained in the very centre of disturbance.
+It may be added that, owing to the firm yet gentle grip of the
+Resident Magistrate, Major A.G. Wyse, late of the 48th Regiment, a
+veteran of the Crimea and of the war of the Indian Mutiny, the
+Government has this district well in hand, and is kept perfectly
+informed as to every occurrence of the slightest importance.
+Meanwhile, the possibility of armed resistance to the serving of
+civil-bill and other processes is averted by the presence of an
+overwhelming body of armed constabulary. Fifty men and a couple of
+sub-inspectors attended the serving of some civil-bill processes
+towards Newport only a few days ago, and a similar body attended to
+witness an abortive attempt at eviction on Miss Gardiner's property
+near Ballina.
+
+From all that I can ascertain, the position of the Lord-Lieutenant of
+the country is by no means enviable. Having succeeded in losing his
+chief tenant and been compelled, in order to farm his own land in
+safety, to ask for "protection," he is now embroiled with a portion at
+least of the Castlebar people, who think, rightly or wrongly, that the
+lord of the soil and collector of tolls and dues has something to do
+with providing the town with a market-place. Into the merits of the
+question it is hardly necessary to enter. Suffice it to say that the
+local Press has taken advantage of the occasion to renew the popular
+outcry against "this old exterminator." Perhaps it does not hurt
+anybody very much to be called an "exterminator," especially when the
+extermination referred to occurred thirty years ago. The instance is
+merely worth citing as showing the undying hatred felt in this part of
+the country towards those who, acting wisely or unwisely, after the
+famine, determined to get rid of a population which the soil had shown
+itself unequal to support. There is no doubt that Lord Lucan brought
+"a conscience to his work" and made a solitude around Castlebar. "On
+the ruins of many a once happy homestead," continues the local scribe,
+"do the lambs frisk and play, a fleecy tribe that has, through
+landlord tyranny, superseded the once happy peasant." It is also urged
+as an additional grievance that the sheep, cattle, and pigs raised by
+"the old exterminator" are sent from the railway station "to appease
+the appetite of John Bull." Thus Lord Lucan and in a minor degree John
+Bull are shown up as the destroyers of the Irish peasant and devourers
+of that produce which should have gone to support him in that
+happiness and plenty which he enjoyed--at some probably apocryphal
+period. Be this, however, as it may, the personal hatred of the
+"exterminator" is a fact to be taken into account in any attempt to
+reflect the public opinion of this part of Ireland.
+
+Those able to look more impartially on the matter than is possible to
+the children of the soil can perceive that the decay only too visible
+in many parts of Mayo is due in great measure to causes far beyond
+the control of exterminators, or even of the arch-devourer John Bull
+himself. In the old time, before the famine and before railroads and
+imported grain, this far western corner of Ireland had a trade of its
+own. I am not prepared to believe that the enormous warehouses of
+Westport were ever filled to overflowing with merchandise, being
+inclined rather to assign their vast size to that tendency towards
+overbuilding which is a permanent characteristic of a generous and
+hopeful people. Perhaps the trade of Westport might have expanded to
+the dimensions of the gaunt warehouses which now look emptily on the
+sea, but for adverse influences. At the period of the old French war
+Westport was undoubtedly a great emporium for grain, especially oats,
+for beef, pork, and military stores, which were shipped thence to our
+army in the Peninsula. But other sources of supply and improved means
+of communication have left the little seaport on the Atlantic, as it
+were, on one side, and such vitality as exists in the coasting trade
+of this part of the country is rather visible at Ballina than at
+Westport. It is quite possible that under the old condition of affairs
+the peasant whose oats were in brisk demand for cavalry stores fared
+better than his son who fell on the evil days of the famine; but there
+can be no doubt that the decline of Mayo as an exporting county can
+hardly be laid to the charge of the depopulators of the land. So far
+as can be descried through the cloud of prejudice which involves the
+entire question, the land was no longer able to feed its inhabitants,
+much less afford any surplus for sale or export.
+
+The Marquis of Sligo, whose agent, Mr. Smith, was shot at--and
+missed--last year, is almost as unpopular as Lord Lucan, for not only
+have most of the people been swept from his country, but the rent was
+raised on the remainder no longer ago than 1876. It is probably this
+nobleman who was in the mind of the humourist who pointed out that the
+shooting of an agent was hardly likely to intimidate that "distant
+Trojan," the landlord. The Lucan and Sligo lands in Mayo have,
+therefore, been managed on nearly parallel lines, and it is curious to
+contrast with them the management of Sir Robert Blosse's estate. This
+is another very large property, and has been conducted on the exactly
+opposite principle to that pursued by Lords Sligo and Lucan. The
+people have been let alone; they retain the holdings their fathers
+tilled, and they have tided over bad times so well that their April
+rents have, to my certain knowledge, been all paid. What will occur in
+November it is unnecessary to predict, but it may be remarked, by the
+way, that the Irish landlord, whose rents do not overlap each other,
+is in an exceptionally fortunate position.
+
+When I was at Ballinrobe the other day I was much struck with the
+unanimity with which everybody had agreed to leave that unfortunate
+gentleman, Mr. Boycott, in the lurch. That his servants should revolt,
+that his labourers should go away, that strangers should be bribed or
+frightened away from taking their place, are things by no means
+unparalleled even in the most manufacturing town in England. But that
+his butcher and baker should strike against their customer was a new
+experience hardly to be explained on any ready-made theory. I confess
+that I was so much astonished that I preferred waiting for facts
+before committing myself to any explanation. At this moment I have no
+hesitation in stating that the tradespeople of the smaller towns in
+the west are neither strong enough to resist the pressure put upon
+them by the popular party nor very much disposed to defend their right
+to buy and sell as they please. On the same principle apparently that
+a great nobleman of the Scottish Lowlands has, since the last
+election, made his sovereign displeasure known to his tenants, have
+the party of agitation made "taboo" any tradesmen who have dared to
+run counter to the current of present opinion. When a baker is told he
+must not do a certain thing he obeys at once, and, with a certain
+quickness and suppleness of intellect, casts about to see how he can
+best represent himself as a martyr. "Pay rint, Sorr," said a
+well-to-do shopkeeper to me two days ago; "and how are thim poor
+divils to pay rint that cannot pay me? And how am I to pay any one
+when I can't get a shillin' ov a soul?"
+
+This little incident will explain how the opportunity of shirking
+responsibility is seized upon by many. To begin with, the advantage is
+with the assailant, for the custom of any one farmer or agent is a
+small matter compared with that of the country side. It is therefore
+manifestly to the interest of the little shopkeeper to curry favour
+with the populace rather than with those set in authority over them.
+Again, the petty trader would fain, after the example laid down by
+Panurge, pray to God for the success of the peasant in order that he
+might "de terre d'aultruy remplir son fossé"--that the till might be
+filled if the agent's book remained empty. As I have previously
+explained, everybody owes to somebody, or is owed by somebody, in this
+island of weeping skies and smiling faces. The peasant owes his
+landlord, who owes the mortgagee or the agent. And the peasant has
+another creditor--the little trader who works on the credit extended
+to him from Dublin or Belfast. Beyond a certain limit the little
+shopkeeper cannot go. So he likes to be threatened, to be made
+"taboo," to be a martyr, and then presses the tenants who have paid no
+rent to the landlord to pay him "as they can afford to, begorra, if
+they hould the harvest." This advice of Mr. Parnell's is keenly
+relished by many, and has gained him, from a poet, whose Hibernian
+extraction speaks in his every line, the incomprehensible title of
+"Young Lion of the Fold."
+
+    Young Lion of the Fold,
+      Says the Shan Van Vocht,
+    Young Lion of the Fold,
+      Says the Shan Van Vocht;
+    Young Lion of the Fold,
+    Bade us the harvest hold--
+    We'll do as he has told,
+      Says the Shan Van Vocht.
+
+    We'll pay no more Rackrents,
+      Says the Shan Van Vocht,
+    We'll pay no more Rackrents,
+      Says the Shan Van Vocht;
+    We'll pay no more Rackrents,
+    To upstart shoneen gents,
+    Whose hearts are hard as flints,
+      Says the Shan Van Vocht.
+
+    Then glory to Parnell,
+      Says the Shan Van Vocht,
+    Then glory to Parnell,
+      Says the Shan Van Vocht,
+    Oh, all glory to Parnell,
+    Whom the people love so well,
+    And his foes may go to ----,
+      Says the Shan Van Vocht.
+
+There is an American humourist who once said that "if the lion ever
+did lie down with the lamb it would be with the lamb inside of him."
+Mayhap this is what the indigenous "pôte" dimly shadows forth from the
+mistland of verse. Or has he mixed up the lion with the eagle in a
+dovecot?
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+MISS GARDINER AND HER TENANTS.
+
+
+WESTPORT, CO. MAYO, _Nov. 1st._
+
+A trip into the northern part of this county, which has occupied me
+for the last three days, has hardly reassured me as to the condition
+of the country around Ballina and Killala. The last-named place is
+famous for its round tower and that invasion of the French in '98,
+which led to "Castlebar Races." Ballina is a town of about six
+thousand inhabitants, situate on the river Moy--an excellent salmon
+stream which debouches into Killala Bay, the most important inlet of
+the sea between Westport and Sligo. Perhaps Ballina is the principal
+town in county Mayo; certainly it seems to be the most improving one.
+It is, however, a considerable distance from the sea. Just now it is
+the seat of a species of internecine war between landlord and tenant,
+waged under conditions which lend it extraordinary interest. Exacting
+"landlordism" and recalcitrant "tenantism" seem here to have said
+their last word. Between a considerable landholder and her tenants a
+fight is being fought out which throws a lurid light on the present
+land agitation in Ireland.
+
+The landholder referred to is the Miss Gardiner whose name is familiar
+in connection with more or less successful attempts at eviction. This
+lady, who many years ago inherited a large property from her father,
+the late Captain Gardiner, has become a by no means _persona grata_ to
+"the Castle," the sub-sheriff, the Royal Irish Constabulary, and her
+tenants. She is doubtless a resolute and determined woman, and
+possessed by a vigorous idea of the rights of property. If not
+descended from the celebrated Grace O'Malley, Queen of Connaught, she
+has at least equally autocratic ideas with that celebrated ruler of
+the West. For years past Miss Gardiner has been famous as a raiser of
+stock, equine and bovine, but unfortunately she has been most
+frequently before the public as the strong assertor of territorial
+rights. She dwells far beyond Killala, near the village of Kilcun, at
+a house called Farmhill. From Westport to Farmhill the country is as
+picturesque as any in the West of Ireland. The snow-clad hills of
+Nephin and Nephin Beg are in sight all the way from Manulla
+Junction--the chief railway centre hereabouts, and the line past
+Loughs Cullen and Conn to Ballina, and the car-drive beyond Ballina,
+reveal a series of magnificent views. There is, however, something
+very "uncanny" to the Saxon eye about Farmhill. The first object
+which comes in sight is a police barrack, with a high wall surrounding
+a sort of "compound," the whole being obviously constructed with a
+view to resisting a possible attack. This stiff staring assertion of
+the power of the law stands out gaunt and grim in the midst of a
+landscape of great beauty. Autumn hues gild the trees, the wide
+pastures are of brilliant green, and on the rough land the reddening
+bent-grass glows richly in the declining sun, which throws its glory
+alike over snowy hills and rosy clouds. The only blot, if a white
+edifice can be thus designated, is the stern, angular police barrack.
+In the front inclosure the sergeant is drilling his men; and those not
+under drill are watching the domain immediately opposite, to the end
+that no unauthorised person may approach it. Like most of the
+dwellings in a country otherwise sparsely supplied with trees,
+Farmhill is nestled in a grove. But the surroundings of the house are
+not those associated in the ordinary mind with a home. The outer gate
+is locked hard and fast, and the little sulky-looking porter's lodge
+is untenanted. Its windows are barred, and all communication with the
+house itself is cut off, except to adventurous persons prepared to
+climb a stone wall. From the lodge onward the private road passes
+through a poor kind of park, and subsides every now and then into a
+quagmire. It is vile walking in this park of Farmhill, and as the
+house is approached there is a barking of dogs. Oxen are seen grazing,
+and peacocks as well as turkeys heave in sight. The house itself is
+barred and barricaded in a remarkable manner. The front door is so
+strongly fastened that it is said not to have been opened for years.
+Massive bars of iron protect the windows, and the solitary servant
+visible is a species of shepherd or odd man, who comes slinking round
+the corner. No stranger gentlewoman's dwelling could be found in the
+three kingdoms. The spot reeks with a dungeon-like atmosphere. It is,
+according to the present state of life in Mayo, simply a "strong
+place," duly fortified and garrisoned against the enemy.
+
+It must be confessed that the proprietress who has a police detachment
+opposite to her gate, and lives in a house defended by iron bars and
+chains, has some reason for her precautions against surprise. She was
+shot at through the window of her own house not very long ago. Now
+this experience of being shot at acts variously on different minds.
+Mr. Smith, the Marquis of Sligo's agent, whose son returned fire and
+killed the intending assassin, took the matter as an incident of
+business in the West, and is not a whit less cheery and happy than
+before the attack at Claggan Mountain. It is also true that Miss
+Gardiner is not an atom less personally brave than Mr. Smith. It is
+said that she carries a revolver in the pocket of her shooting-jacket,
+and only asks for an escort of armed constabulary when she goes into
+Ballina. But she, nevertheless, thinks it well to convert her home
+into a fortress--perhaps the only one of the kind now extant in
+Europe. Here she dwells with a lady-companion, Miss Pringle, far out
+of range of such social life as remains in the county, occupied nearly
+exclusively with the management of her estate; a matter which, far
+from concerning herself alone, entails great vexation, embarrassment,
+and expense upon others. The sending of bodies of constabulary half a
+hundred strong to protect the officers of the law serving writs on
+Miss Gardiner's tenantry is a troublesome and costly business, and has
+the effect of stirring up strife and exciting public opinion to no
+small degree. As her property is widely scattered over Northern Mayo,
+there is generally something going on in her behalf. One day there is
+an ejectment at Ballycastle; the next an abortive attempt to evict at
+Cloontakilla. In the opinion of the poorer peasantry this eccentric
+lady is a malevolent fiend, an "extherminathor," a tyrant striving to
+make the lives of the poor so wretched as to drive them off her
+estate. "A sthrange lady is she, Sorr," cried one of her tenants to
+me. "Och, she's a divil of a woman, entoirely. All she wants is to
+hunt the poor off the face of the wor-r-rold." There are, however, to
+this question, as to every Irish question, two sides--if not more. If
+Miss Gardiner "hunts" her tenants off her estate, Lord Erne's people
+are just now trying their best to perform the same operation upon
+Captain Boycott.
+
+It is not all at once that Farmhill has become a sort of dreary
+edition of Castle Rackrent, oppressing the mind with almost
+inexpressible gloom. The owner's feud with her tenants began long
+before the Land League was known. It is said in Northern Mayo that her
+father was the first of the "exterminators," justly or unjustly so
+called, and that the traditions of the family have been heartily
+carried out by his heiress. There is perhaps very little doubt that
+Miss Gardiner, like Lord Lucan and the Marquis of Sligo, prefers large
+farmers as tenants to a crowd of miserable peasants striving to
+extract a living for an entire family from a paltry patch of five
+acres of poor land; but whatever her wish may be she has undoubtedly a
+large number of small tenants on her estate at the present moment. It
+is therefore probable that she is somewhat less of an exterminatrix
+than the exasperated people represent her to be. In their eyes,
+however, she is guilty of the unpardonable crime of insisting upon her
+rent being paid. Her formula is simple, "Give me my rent, or give me
+my land." In England and in some other countries such a demand would
+be looked upon as perfectly reasonable; but "pay or go" is in this
+part of Ireland looked upon as the option of an exterminator. Miss
+Gardiner merely asks for her own, and judged by an English standard
+would appear to be a strange kind of Lady Bountiful if she allowed
+her tenants to go on quietly living on her property without making any
+show of payment. But this is very much what landlords are expected to
+do in county Mayo, except in very good seasons. The majority of the
+people in the islands of Clew Bay have given up the idea of paying
+rent as a bad job altogether, and these advanced spirits have many
+imitators on the mainland. To the request, "Give me my rent, or give
+me my land," is made one eternal answer, "And how can I pay the rent
+when the corn is washed away and the pitaties rot in the ground? And
+if I give ye the land, hwhere am I to go, and my wife and my eight
+childher?" This answer, long used as an _argumentum ad misericordiam_,
+is now defended by popular orators. No longer ago than yesterday I
+heard it averred that the failure of the crop by the visitation of God
+absolved the tenant from the payment of rent. The assumption of the
+speaker was that landlord and tenant were in a manner partners, and
+that if the joint business venture produced nothing the working
+partner could pay over no share of profit to the sleeping partner.
+Such doctrine is naturally acceptable to the tenant. It signifies that
+in bad years the landlord gets nothing; in good years, what the tenant
+pleases to give him, after buying manure and paying up arrears of debt
+all round. It is, however, hardly surprising that the landlords see
+the question through a differently tinted medium. They entertain an
+idea that the land is their property, and, like any other commodity,
+should be let or sold to a person who can pay for it. Strict and
+downright "landlordism," as it is called, as if it were a disease like
+"Daltonism," does not see things through a medium charged with the
+national colour, and Miss Gardiner is a true type of downright
+landlordism such as would not be complained of in England, but in
+Ireland is viewed with absolute abhorrence.
+
+As a proof how utterly an exacting landlord puts himself, if not
+outside of the law, yet beyond any claim to public sympathy, I may
+cite the conduct of Mr. James C. MacDonnell, the sub-sheriff of this
+county. I have the story from an intimate friend of that gentleman, on
+whose veracity I can implicitly rely. I say this because I did not in
+the first place pay much attention to the story, but have since been
+enabled to verify it in every particular. Last spring Mr. MacDonnell,
+in his capacity as sub-sheriff, was required by Miss Gardiner to serve
+notices of ejectment against about a score of her tenants who had not
+paid up. There was great excitement when it became known that twenty
+families would be evicted from their holdings, and a breach of the
+peace appeared very probable. In England the public voice would
+possibly be in favour of executing the law at all hazards. Some of the
+tenants owed two years' rent. The patience of the landlord was
+exhausted. The tenants would neither pay nor take themselves off.
+There was no option but to evict them; the sub-sheriff must do his
+duty, backed by as large a body of constabulary as might be necessary.
+Law and order must be enforced. This would be the view taken in any
+other place but this, but in Ireland the matter appeared in a totally
+different light. To begin with, the idea of blood being shed in order
+that Miss Gardiner might get in her rents appeared utterly
+preposterous. Secondly, the two past crops had completely failed in
+Mayo. Thirdly, the bad crops of 1878 and 1879 in England had prevented
+the Mayo men from earning the English harvest money on which they
+entirely depend for their rent, and much more than their rent.
+Finally, the sub-sheriff himself, who, despite his being at once a
+proprietor, a middleman, and an officer of the law, has won popularity
+by sheer weight of character, felt a natural reluctance to enforce his
+authority. Compelled to execute the law, he determined to make a
+personal appeal to the tenants before evicting them. Accordingly, he
+adjured them to get together a little money to show that they really
+meant to act well and honestly, and that he would then help them
+himself. The matter ended in his advancing them about 140l. out of his
+own pocket, on their notes of hand, and paying Miss Gardiner, who
+observed that "he had done well for her tenants, but not so well for
+her." To the credit of the tenants helped by Mr. MacDonnell it must be
+added that all have met their notes save two or three, who among them
+owe but 15l. This little story is entirely typical of the kindliness
+and honesty of Mayo men, and of their peculiar ideas of right and
+justice. Miss Gardiner's tenants would not pay her a shilling; they
+were prepared to resist eviction by force, and would have been backed
+by the whole country side, but they paid the sub-sheriff with the
+first money they got. He had stood their friend, and they could not
+act meanly towards him.
+
+As a contrast to this pleasant picture I am compelled to draw one not
+altogether so agreeable. I mentioned in a previous letter a
+particularly "tough customer" who, owing £24 for three years' rent,
+would part neither with a single shilling nor with the land. I thought
+this champion of the irreconcilables must be worth a visit, and
+foregoing the diversion of a call on Tom Molloy, a noted character in
+the Ballina district, I drove out in the direction of Cloontakilla. On
+the way to that dismal spot by a diabolical road I passed a homestead,
+so neat and trim, standing on the hillside clear of trees, that I at
+once asked if it were not owned by a Scotchman, and was answered that
+Mr. Petrie was indeed a Scot and a considerable tenant farmer. On one
+side of his farm was a knot of dismantled houses, telling their story
+plainly and pathetically enough, and on the further side stood a row
+of hovels, only one of which was uninhabited. The locked-up cabin had
+a brace of bullet-holes in the door, those which caused a great deal
+of trouble some time since. A Mr. Joynt it seems, in a wild freak,
+fired his gun through the door of the cabin occupied by Mistress
+Murphy, who with her children is now about to join her husband in
+America. Instead of being frightened the courageous matron opened the
+door, issued therefrom armed with a fire-shovel and administered to
+the delinquent "the greatest batin' begorra" my informant had ever
+heard of. Afterwards the law was invoked against Mr. Joynt, who was
+esteemed very lucky in escaping punishment on account of his
+ill-health. A little further on, still to the right of the road,
+branched off suddenly a narrow bridle-path, or "boreen," as it is
+called in this part of the country. It was my car-driver, a
+teetotaller, opined on this "boreen," that the irreconcilable tenant,
+one Thomas Browne, dwelt. There were doubts in his mind; but,
+nevertheless, we turned on to the wretched track, and tried to get the
+car over the stones and mud-lakes which formed it. It could not be
+strictly called a road of any kind, but was rather a space left
+between two deep ditches of black peat-oozings from the bog. Finding
+progress almost impossible, we at last forsook the car. I can quite
+imagine an impatient reader asking why we did not get out and walk at
+first; but the option was hardly a simple one. By walking the horse
+and letting the car swing and jolt along one experienced the combined
+agonies of sea-sickness and rheumatism, with the additional chance of
+being shot headlong into the inky ditch on either side. By taking to
+what the driver called "our own hind legs," we accepted an ankle-deep
+plod through filth indescribable and treacherous boulders, which
+turned over when trust and sixteen stone were reposed on them. It was
+at this part of the journey that I saw for the first time the Mountain
+Sylph. Some women and children, who looked very frightened, cleared
+away towards their wretched dwellings, and the place would presently
+have been deserted had not my driver roared at the top of his voice,
+"Hullo, the gyurl!" Presently, out of the crowd of frightened people
+sprang a "colleen" of about twelve years, as thinly and scantily clad
+as is consistent with that decency and modesty for which Irishwomen of
+the poorer classes are so justly celebrated. Her legs and feet were
+bare, as a matter of course; a faded red petticoat, or rather kilt,
+and a "body" of some indescribable hue, in which dirt largely
+predominated, formed all her visible raiment and adornment, except a
+mass of fair hair, which fluttered wildly in the cutting wind.
+Skipping from stone to stone she neared us swiftly, and stood still at
+last perched on a huge boulder--an artist's study of native grace and
+beauty--with every rag instinct with "wild civility." An inquiry
+whether "Misther Browne" was at home was met by the polite answer that
+he was from home "just thin," almost instantly supplemented by "Oi
+know hwhere he is, and will fetch him to ye, sorr." And away went the
+Sylph dancing from spot to spot like the will-o'-the-wisp of her
+native bog. She had also indicated the dwelling of Thomas Browne, and
+I pushed on in that direction through a maze of mud. At last I came to
+a turning into a path several degrees worse in quality than the
+"boreen," and concluded that, as it was nearly impassable, it must
+lead to the home of the Irreconcilable. As a change it was pleasant to
+step from deep slippery mud and slime on to stones placed with their
+acutest angles upwards, but a final encounter with these landed me
+literally at Mr. Browne's homestead.
+
+It has been my lot at various times to witness the institution known
+as "home" in a state of denudation, as my scientific friends would
+call it. It is not necessary to go far from the site of Whitechapel
+Church to find dwellings unutterably wretched. Two years ago I saw
+people reduced to one "family" pair of boots in Sheffield, and without
+food, or fire to cook it with if they had had it; and I have seen a
+Cornish woman making turnip pie. But for general misery I think the
+home of the Browne family at Cloontakilla equals, and more than equals
+anything I have seen during a long experience of painful sights. The
+road to it as already described, is a quagmire, and the dwelling, when
+arrived at, exceeds the wildest of nightmares. Part of the stone wall
+has fallen in, and the two rooms which remain have the ground for a
+carpet and miserable starved-looking thatch for a roof. The horses and
+cattle of every gentleman in England, and especially Mr. Tankerville
+Chamberlayne's Berkshire pigs, are a thousand times better lodged than
+the family of the irreconcilable Browne. The chimney, if ever there
+were one, has long since "caved in" and vanished, and the smoke from a
+few lumps of turf burning on the hearth finds its way through the sore
+places in the thatch. In a bed in the corner of the room lies a sick
+woman, coughing badly; near her sits another woman, huddled over the
+fire. Now, I have been quite long enough in the world to be
+suspicious, and had it been possible for these poor people to have
+known of my coming I should certainly have been inclined to suspect a
+prepared scene. But this was impossible, for even my car-driver did
+not know where he was going till he started. And as we could not find
+the house without the Mountain Sylph, the inference must be in favour
+of all being genuine. There are no indications of cooking going on,
+and, bating an iron pot, a three-legged stool, a bench, half a dozen
+willow-pattern dishes, and a few ropes of straw suspended from the
+roof with the evident object of supporting something which is not
+there, no signs of property are visible. And this is the outcome of a
+farm of five acres--Irish acres, be it well understood. There is
+nothing at all to feed man, wife, sister-in-law, son, and daughter
+during the winter, and the snow is already lying deep on Nephin.
+
+While my inspection of the Browne domicile has been going on, the
+Mountain Sylph has vanished, never more to be seen. Whether she
+disappeared in the peat-smoke or sank gracefully into the parent bog
+it is impossible to decide; but it is quite certain that she has faded
+out of sight. Poor Mountain Sylph! When she grows older, and goes out
+to earn money as a work-girl in Ballina, she will no longer appear
+picturesque, but ridiculous. She will wear a cheap gown, but of the
+latest fashion, and a knowing-looking hat flung on at a killing angle;
+and she will don smart boots while she is in Ballina, and will take
+them off before she is far on her way to Cloontakilla, and trudge
+along the road as barefooted as of old. But she will never more be a
+Mountain Sylph--only a young woman proudly wearing a bonnet and mantle
+at which Whitechapel would turn up its nose in disdain. But the Sylph
+has gone, and in her place stands the Irreconcilable himself--a
+grey-haired man with bent shoulders and well-cut features, which
+account for the good looks of the Sylph. He is a sorrowful man; but,
+like all Irishmen, especially when in trouble, is not wanting in
+loquacity. He shows me his "far-r-rum," as he calls it, and it is a
+poor place. He has had a good harvest enough; but what does it all
+amount to? An acre (English) of oats, mayhap a couple of acres of
+potatoes and cabbages, and the rest pasture, except a little patch on
+which, he tells me, he grew vetches in summer for sale as green feed
+for cattle. Of beasts he has none, except dogs of some breed unknown
+either to dog-fanciers or naturalists, and an ass--the unfortunate
+creature who is made to drink the dregs of any sorrow falling upon
+Western Ireland. Put to work when not more than a year old, the poor
+animal becomes a stunted, withered phantasm of the curled darlings of
+the London costermongers which excited the kindly feelings of Lord
+Shaftesbury and the Baroness Burdett-Coutts.
+
+A Mayo donkey is a wretched creature, and Mr. Browne has a very poor
+specimen of an under-fed, overworked race. But there is a cow browsing
+in the field, and the tenant hastens to explain that she is not his
+own, but the absolute property of his sister-in-law. I must confess
+that I cool somewhat after this--inwardly that is--towards the
+Irreconcilable in battered corduroys who amuses me with a string of
+stories more or less veracious. I am required to believe that "bating
+the ass," no living beast on the five-acre farm belongs to the tenant.
+The turkeys belong to a neighbour, as do the geese, and there is
+neither hen nor egg left on the premises. "And where is everything?" I
+naturally ask.
+
+"And the neighbours is good to me, sorr, and they reaped my oats for
+me in a day, and carried 'um in a night. And my pitaties they dug for
+me, and carried all clane away before the sheriff could come. And when
+Mr. MacDonnell did come my wife was sick in bed, and the house was
+full of people, and all he could do was to consult the doctor and go
+away."
+
+Now, as the basis for a burlesque or Christmas pantomime, in which the
+Good Fairy warns the tenant to remove his crops lest the Demon
+Landlord should seize upon them--the tenant being of course transmuted
+into Harlequin and the landlord into Clown--this would be funny
+enough; but it is difficult to see how the everyday business of life
+could be carried on under such conditions. The case of Miss Gardiner
+against Thomas Browne is one purely of hide and seek. When he owed two
+years' rent he begged for time on account of two bad crops. When he
+was threatened with eviction he begged time to get in his crop. It was
+given to him. It is quite easy to understand that a tenant who has
+been thirty years on a little holding thinks himself entitled to great
+lenity, especially if his rent has been raised during that period,
+and, as this man asserts, his "turbary" rights restricted, and every
+kind of privilege reduced. But it has been said by a great literary
+and social authority that there are such things as limits. Now this
+man, Browne, feeling that he had an execution hanging over him,
+contrived to temporise until his grain and potatoes were secured, and
+then, aided by the accident of a sick wife, defied the law. The house
+was full of people, a doctor said that the woman could not be removed,
+and the sub-sheriff, backed by fifty policemen, could make nothing of
+the business without incurring the odium of tearing a sick woman from
+her bed. He offered the irreconcilable Browne the offer of accepting
+the ejectment and remaining in the house as "caretaker," but the
+tenant was staunch and would make no terms. The consequence is that
+when Miss Gardiner again attempts to evict him she must incur the
+considerable cost of a new writ. The condition of affairs now is that
+a tenant owing three years' rent, and not having paid a shilling on
+account, simply defies the landlord and remains in his wretched
+holding, having possibly--for the Irish are an intelligent as well as
+good-humoured people--the proceeds of his miserable little harvest to
+live upon through the winter months. Mr. Browne is, I doubt me, not
+very rigid as to his duties, and takes but an imperfect view of
+financial obligations; but he is horribly poor, nevertheless, and is
+as much a type of his class as Miss Gardiner of hers.
+
+
+
+
+V.
+
+FROM MAYO TO CONNEMARA.
+
+
+LEENANE, _Tuesday, Nov 2._
+
+The meeting which took place on Sheehane Hill was only remarkable as
+affording an additional proof of the extraordinary faculty of
+selection possessed by Western Irishmen. Whether they intend to shoot
+a landlord or merely to hold a meeting to bring him to his bearings,
+they choose their ground with equal discrimination. In the former case
+a spot is selected at the descent or ascent of a hill, so that the
+carriage of the victim cannot be going at a sufficient pace to defeat
+the marksman's aim, and a conveniently protected angle, with
+facilities for escape, is occupied by the ambuscade. In the latter,
+either a natural amphitheatre or a conspicuous hill is pitched upon
+for the gathering. To the picturesque Mayo mind a park meeting on a
+dead flat would be the most uninteresting affair possible unless
+vitality were infused into the proceedings by a conflict with the
+police, which would naturally atone for many shortcomings. The
+meeting at Tiernaur was held in the midst of magnificent scenery, and
+that on Sheehane was equally well selected. From the top of the hill,
+which is crowned by a large tumulus, the country around for many miles
+lay spread like a map; and, what was of more immediate importance, the
+small additional hill afforded a convenient spot for posting the
+orators and displaying the banners of the various organizations
+represented at the meeting. The demonstration, however, could hardly
+be represented as successful--not more than a thousand persons being
+present. It was weary waiting until the proceedings commenced, the
+only diversion being provided by a hare which got up in an adjacent
+field. In a moment greyhounds, bull-dogs, terriers, and mongrels were
+in pursuit, followed by the assembled people. The hare, however,
+completely distanced both dogs and spectators, and was in comparative
+safety several fields away from the foremost greyhound, when she
+doubled back in an unaccountable manner, and ran into the midst of the
+crowd, who set upon her with sticks, and killed her in the most
+unsportsmanlike manner. A man next held poor puss over his head as if
+she were a fox, and a voice went up "That's the way to serve the
+landlords." This ebullition was followed by shouts of "Down wid 'em!"
+and the meeting on Sheehane became more cheerful. It was recollected
+that O'Connell once held a meeting on the same spot, and that the
+hare and the meetings were both mentioned by the prophet Columbkill.
+
+Of the speeches it need only be said that what they lacked in elegance
+was made up in violence. The speeches made in the North were oddly
+designated "seditious," and every kind of reprisal was hinted at in
+the event of Mr. Parnell being arrested. If he were seized, not a
+landlord in Ireland would be safe except in Dublin Castle. This kind
+of thing, accompanied by shouts of "Down wid 'em!" at every mention of
+the abhorred landlords, became very tedious, especially in a high wind
+and drifting rain. The meeting gradually became thinner and thinner,
+and finally faded out altogether. It is quite true that such
+gatherings may have a powerful effect upon the vivacious Celt, but if
+so, it is quite beneath the surface, for the people seemed to take
+little interest in the proceedings. To all outward show the oratory at
+Sheehane produced no more serious impression than that at Tiernaur on
+the preceding Sunday. Yet there is something in the air, for the first
+thing I heard on returning to Westport was that Mr. Barbour's
+herdsman, who lives at Erriff Bridge, had been warned to leave his
+master's service. The "herd" (as he is called here, as well as on the
+Scottish border) is in great alarm. He cannot afford to leave his
+place, for it is his sole means of subsistence, and if turned out in
+the world the poor fellow might starve. Now it is a disagreeable thing
+to think you will starve if you leave, and be shot if you remain at
+your work; but I hear that the "herd" has asked for protection and
+will try to weather it out. His master, Mr. Barbour, and Mr. Mitchell
+hold each about half of the great farm formerly held of Lord Sligo by
+Captain Houstoun, the husband of the well-known authoress. Large
+numbers of black-faced sheep and polled Galloways are raised by Mr.
+Barbour, who lives at Dhulough, in the house formerly occupied by
+Captain Houstoun.
+
+I have just come from Westport to this place, the mountain scenery
+around which is magnificent. On the lofty heights of "the Devil's
+Mother," a famous mountain of this country, the sheep are seen feeding
+almost on the same level as the haunt of the golden eagles who breed
+here regularly. I believe that the valley of the Erriff was once well
+populated, but that after the famine the people were cleared off
+nearly 20 square miles of land to make way for the great grazing farm
+now divided between two occupants. As I have stated in previous
+letters, the resentment of the surrounding inhabitants at this
+depopulation of a vast tract of country is ineradicable. In the
+wretched huts which appear at wide intervals on the sea-shore the
+miserable people sit over the fire and talk of the old times when they
+might go from Clifden to Westport and find friends nearly everywhere
+on the road, while now from the last-named place to this--a distance
+of 18 Irish miles--the country is simply wild mountain, moor, and
+bog, bating the little Ulster Protestant village, not far from
+Westport (a curious relic of '98), a few herds-men's huts, and the
+police-station at Erriff Bridge. To those who, like myself, love
+animals, the drive is by no means uninteresting. As the car jolts
+along past "Hag's Valley," a dozen curlews take wing, and a little
+further on the shrill cry of the redshank strikes on the ear. Now and
+then a hare will start among the bent-grass, while aloft the falcon
+rests poised on her mighty wing. But saving these wild animals, the
+beautiful blackfaced sheep, and black Galloway calves, the country has
+no inhabitants. What little was once cultivated has reverted to rough
+pasture, covered with bent or sedge and a little grass, or to bog
+impassable to man or any creature heavier than the light-footed fox,
+who attains among these mountains to extraordinary size and beauty.
+But hares and grouse, and even stray pheasants from Mr. Mitchell
+Henry's woods at Kylemore, will not convince the fragment of
+population around the great grazing farms that things are better now
+than of yore; and there is some reason for believing that disturbance
+is to be apprehended in this part of the country. The warning to Mr.
+Barbour's unfortunate herd can hardly be a separate and solitary act
+of intimidation and oppression. The work of one herd is of no great
+matter. But the distinct warning given to the poor man at Erriff
+Bridge to give up his livelihood on the first instant is possibly part
+of a settled scheme to reduce great grazing farmers to the same
+condition as landlords. They are to be frightened away, in order that
+squatters may pasture their cattle on "the Devil's Mother," as the
+Tiernaur people have done theirs on Knockdahurk. Nothing would
+surprise me less than a strike against anybody in this neighbourhood.
+
+If one may judge by the language used yesterday at Westport Fair, at
+which I was glad to discover more outward evidence of prosperity than
+had yet come under my observation in this part of Ireland, the
+landlords and their agents are determined to make another effort to
+get in their rents in January. Their view of the case is that the law
+must assist them: but whatever abstract idea of the majesty of the law
+may exist elsewhere is obviously foreign to those parts of Connaught
+which I have visited. It is urged day after day upon me by high as
+well as low, that if Sir Robert Blosse and Lord De Clifford can get in
+their rents without "all the king's horses and all the king's men,"
+other landlords must try to do the same. To prevent misconception, I
+will aver, even at the risk that I may seem to "protest too much,"
+that this argument is not thrust upon me by the Land League, but by
+persons who are proprietors themselves. It is held ridiculous, in this
+section of the country, that enormous expense should be thrown upon
+the county in order that the rents of certain landlords may be
+collected. There is, it must be admitted, a rational indisposition in
+the West to ascribe any particularly sacred character to rent as
+distinguished from any other debt. This is an agreeable feature in the
+Irish character. In some other countries there prevails a preposterous
+notion that rent must be paid above and before all things, as a
+species of solemn obligation. Until the other day there prevailed in
+Scotland the almost insane law of hypothec, which allowed a landlord
+to pursue his tenant's goods even into the hands of an "innocent
+holder." But there is no argument in favour of the landlord which any
+other creditor might not advance with equally good reason. The
+butcher, the baker, the clothier, as well as the farmer, the dealer in
+feeding-cake and manure, have claims quite as good as that of the
+landlord, and, as they think, a great deal better. Tradesmen who have
+fed and clothed people, and others who have helped them to fatten
+their land and their cattle, think their claims paramount. It is of
+the nature of every creditor to think he has the right to be paid
+before anybody else. But the landlord, probably because landlords made
+the law, such as it is, has a claim which he can enforce, or rather
+just now seeks to enforce, by the aid of armed intervention. The civil
+bill creditor can only levy execution where anything exists to levy
+upon; but the landlord can turn his tenants out of doors and put the
+key in his pocket--that is, theoretically. But, it is argued, if this
+cannot be done without the aid of an army, it would be better for the
+majority of peaceable inhabitants if it were left alone. It is not
+easy to predict the state of popular feeling here in January next; but
+it is quite certain that attempts to evict, if made now, would be met
+by armed resistance. I have already stated that Mayo is armed to the
+teeth, and I have good reason for believing county Galway to be in a
+similar condition. This being fairly well known on the spot, it is
+quite easy to understand how any resolution to commence a landlords'
+crusade is received by the public.
+
+
+LETTERFRACK, CONNEMARA, _Wednesday._
+
+At this pretty village, in the most beautiful part of the West of
+Ireland, I hear that the disinclination to pay rent and the desire to
+"hunt" grazing farmers out of the country have spread to the once
+peaceful region of Connemara. Three years ago crime and police were
+alike unknown. The people were poor, and preserved the sense of having
+been wronged. But theft and violence, saving a broken head now and
+then, were unknown.
+
+Within the last two years a great change has come over this remote
+corner of Ireland. Police barracks have made their appearance, and
+outrages of the agrarian class have become disagreeably frequent.
+Formerly cattle and sheep were as safe on the mountain as oats in the
+stackyard. Now nobody of the grazing farmer class is entirely free
+from alarm. At any moment his animals may be driven into the sea or
+his ricks fired. The population, if not so fully armed as that of
+Mayo, is arming rapidly. To my certain knowledge revolvers and
+carbines are being distributed among the peasantry of Connemara
+proper. This district--which including within its limits the pretty
+village I write from, as well as Clifden and Ballynahinch, lies mainly
+between the seashore and a line drawn from Leenane to Carna--has,
+during the last twelve months become disturbed in such wise that it is
+impossible to shut one's eyes to the fact that here, as in Mayo, a
+sort of dead set is being made against grazing farmers. It is true
+that life is not taken, and, it may be added, not even threatened in
+Connemara proper, but outrages of a cowardly and destructive kind are
+common. During last winter an epidemic of destruction broke out, the
+effect of which may be seen in the large amount added to the county
+cess to give compensation to the injured persons. The grand jury has
+levied altogether between seven and eight hundred pounds more than
+usual. So ignorant or reckless are the destroyers, that they take no
+heed of what is well understood in other places; to wit, that the
+amount of the damage done is levied upon the adjacent townlands. Thus
+the addition to the county cess in Lettermore is 10s. 11½d. in the
+1l.; in Carna, 8s. 9½d.; and in Derryinver, 8s. 7½d.--a cruel
+additional burden on the ratepayer. Some of the items are very large.
+To George J. Robinson was awarded 181l. for seventy-six sheep and two
+rams "maliciously taken away, killed, maimed, and destroyed." To
+Hamilton C. Smith three separate awards were made--28l. for four head
+of cattle driven or carried out to sea and drowned; 21l. for fourteen
+sheep maliciously driven off and removed; and again 17l. 10s. for
+fourteen sheep similarly treated. Houses and boats have been burned,
+and even turf-ricks destroyed. The object in all cases seems to have
+been to "hunt" the injured persons out of the country in order that
+the neighbours might turn their cattle on to his grazing land, as has
+been done in Mayo. In one conspicuous case these tactics have proved
+successful. Michael O'Neil was awarded 120l. "to compensate him for
+ninety-six sheep, his property, maliciously taken or carried away and
+destroyed, at Tonadooravaun, in the parish of Ballynakill." This sum
+is levied off the fourteen adjacent townlands, among which is the
+unlucky Lettermore, just quoted as paying an enormous addition to the
+county cess. Michael O'Neil, who appears to have been a respectable
+man, not otherwise objectionable than as the tenant of more grazing
+land than was considered his share by his neighbours, has received his
+120l., and is so far reimbursed; but he thought it better to obey the
+popular will than to attempt to stand against it, and gave up his farm
+accordingly. Such deeds as the frightening of "decent people" out of
+Connemara by maiming cattle and burning houses, which must be paid for
+by the offending districts, speak more distinctly than any words could
+do of the ignorance of this part of the wild West. So wild is it that
+although the Roman Catholic clergy of Connemara adhere to the
+elsewhere-obsolete practice of holding "stations" for confession,
+there are many dwellers on the mountain who have never received any
+religious instruction. Chapels are few and remote from each other, and
+even the "stations" kept for the purpose of getting at the scattered
+population only attract those dwelling within reasonable distances.
+The poor mountaineers in the neighbourhood of the Recess Valley and
+away over the hills seldom go far enough from home to rub shoulders
+with civilisation. Many of them have never seen bigger places than
+Letterfrack and Leenane, and those perhaps not fifty times in their
+lives.
+
+The islanders of Clew Bay are almost as difficult to assist and to
+improve as the highlanders of Joyce's country, Southern Mayo, and
+Great and Little Connemara; but for an opposite reason. The latter are
+thinly scattered on the fringe of the grazing farms, while the former
+are crowded together on islands inadequate to support them. This
+question of space assumes a curious importance in Ireland owing to
+the want of other industry than such as is intimately connected with
+the land. With the exception of a few manufacturing districts in
+Ulster, which is altogether another country from Connaught, there are
+no industries in Ireland independent of the produce of arable land and
+pasture. What is to be enjoyed by the people must be got out of the
+land, and this in a country where nobody will turn to and work hard as
+a cultivator so long as he can graze, "finish," or "job" cattle,
+sheep, or horses. I was citing to a Mayo-man this defect of the
+so-called farmer, and was at once met by a prompt reply. The tendency
+to graze cattle, which is not hard work, and to "gad" about to cattle
+fairs, which are esteemed the greatest diversion the country affords,
+is an indication of the distinct superiority of the quick-witted Celt
+to the dull Saxon hind. An Irish peasant cultivator is a being of
+greater faculty of expansion than Wessex Hodge. He is profoundly
+ignorant and absurdly superstitious, but he is naturally keen-witted,
+and his innate gifts are brightened by contact with his fellow man. He
+is not a ploughman, for he often cultivates with the spade alone, and
+he has, besides his oats, his potatoes, his cabbages, and mayhap a few
+turnips, and a variety of animals, all of which he understands--or
+misunderstands. If a holder of twenty or thirty, or, still better,
+forty acres, he will have a horse, a cow, a beast or two, a few sheep,
+and some turkeys and geese. It is possible to have all these on
+fifteen acres or less of fairly good land, and then the Western
+peasant cultivator becomes a many-sided man by dint of buying and
+selling stock--that is, he acquires the sort of intelligence possessed
+by a smart huckster. This is held to be cleverness in these parts, and
+undoubtedly gives its possessor a greater "faculty of expansion" than
+the career of an Essex or Wessex ploughman or carter. But what is
+peculiarly pertinent to the burning question of peasant cultivators
+and proprietors is the tendency, perpetually visible in the Western
+Irishman, to fly off at a tangent from agriculture to grazing.
+According to an ancient and indurated belief in all this section of
+the country, animals ought to get fat on the pasture provided by
+nature. I am told that thirty years ago there was not a plough in
+existence from Westport to Dhulough, and that the turnip was an
+unknown vegetable in Connemara. The notion of growing turnips and
+mangolds in a country made for root crops was at first not well
+received. "Bastes" had done hitherto on the rough mountain pasture
+"well enough;" which signified that no properly fatted animal had ever
+been seen around the Twelve Pins.
+
+Now that the Connemara man here and there has been taught to grow root
+crops for cattle he begins to yield, and feeds his beasts, sometimes,
+on roots instead of sedge. Thus far he has become a cultivator; but I
+have my doubts whether the hard work of tillage suits him well. To get
+good crops off a little farm is an undertaking which requires
+"sticking to work." It is not so pleasant by a great deal as looking
+at cattle and taking them to market. Hence the tilled part of an Irish
+farm in the West nearly always bears a very small proportion to that
+under pasture. It is only quite recently that artificial feeding for
+cattle has been resorted to, and compelled the farmer to grow root
+crops. Perhaps, in the present condition of the market for beasts and
+grain the nimble-minded Celt is hitting the right nail on the head,
+and cattle and dairy farms are the future of the agriculturist, who
+will compete against American meat with English produce fed upon
+English grass and roots, and upon maize imported from the New World. I
+prefer, however, to leave this possibility for the discussion of Mr.
+Caird and Mr. Clare Read, and to confine myself to the fact that the
+Western cultivator is far less a farmer than a cattle-jobber or
+gambler in four-legged stock.
+
+The poor inhabitants of the islands between this place and Achill
+Point cannot certainly be accused of a tendency to gad about. Almost
+everybody blames their dull determination to remain at home. They are,
+I doubt, neither good fishermen nor good farmers--at least, I know
+that they neither catch fish nor pay their rent. Neither on Clare
+Island, Innishark, Innisbofin, nor Innisturk is there any alacrity in
+making the slightest attempt to satisfy the landlord. That these
+little tenants are only removed by a hairsbreadth from starvation at
+the best of times will be gathered from the facts that Clare Island
+with 4,000 acres, some of which is let at 10s. per acre, with common
+grazing rights "thrown in," is called upon to support nearly seven
+hundred souls. A glance at the picturesque outline of the island will
+tell of the proportion of "mountain," that is moor and bog, upon it,
+and it is at once seen that unless there is either good fishing or
+some other source of supply the land cannot keep the people. No better
+proof can be given than that of the greatest tenant, who pays 55l. a
+year for some five hundred acres. In Innisbofin and Innishark are at
+least 1,500 individuals, nearly all very small tenants, either on the
+brink of starvation or pretending to be so. It is nearly as impossible
+to extract any rent from them as from the twenty-three families on
+Innisturk, an island belonging to Lord Lucan, whose rents are farmed,
+so far as Innisturk is concerned, by Mr. MacDonnell, the sub-sheriff,
+who is said to have a bad bargain. Lord Lucan, of course, receives his
+150l. yearly from his "middleman," who is left to fight it out with
+the people, and get 230l., the price at which the land is let, out of
+them, if he can. Just now he is getting nothing, and the situation is
+becoming strained. The people pay no rent, the sub-sheriff, is not
+only losing his margin of profit but cannot get 150l. a year out of
+them. They said they liked him well enough but would not pay a
+"middleman's" profit, whereupon he offered to take the exact amount
+he contracts to pay to Lord Lucan, and forego his profit altogether;
+but this proposition, after being received with some amusement, was
+not declined exactly, but, in American language, "let slide." And
+nothing has been or can be done. For if it were attempted to evict the
+Innisturk people the evictors would be accused of hurling an entire
+population into the sea.
+
+The more that is seen of the people of far Western Connaught the more
+distinct becomes the conviction that the present difficulty is rather
+social and economic than political. It is far more a question,
+apparently, of stomach than of brain. The complaints which are poured
+out on every side refer not in the least to politics. Very few in
+Mayo, and hardly anybody at all in Connemara, seem to take any account
+of Home Rule, or of any other rule except that of the Land League. The
+possibility of a Parliament on College-green affects the people of the
+West far less than the remotest chance of securing some share of the
+land. If ever popular disaffection were purely agrarian, it is now, so
+far as this part of Ireland is concerned. Orators and politicians from
+O'Connell until now have spoken of Repeal and Reform; but it is more
+than probable that the Connaught peasant always understood that he was
+to be emancipated from some of his burdens. All his ideas are
+dominated by the single one of land. He knows and cares for very
+little else. He is superstitious to an astounding degree, and his
+ignorance passes all understanding--that is, on every subject but the
+single one of land. And the land he knows of is that in his own
+county, or home section of a county. But his knowledge of this is
+singularly and curiously exact. Either by his own experience or by
+tradition he is perfectly acquainted with the topography of his own
+locality and with the history of its present and former proprietors
+and occupants. With perfect precision he will point out a certain
+tract of country and tell how, in the old, old time, it was, "reigned
+over" by the O'Flahertys, and then was owned by the Blakes, who
+disposed of part of their country to the present possessors. He knows
+perfectly well how the great Martin country came first into the hands
+of the Law Life Insurance Company, and then into those of Mr.
+Berridge, and how the latter gentleman came down to Ballynahinch, of
+the traditional avenue, extending for forty miles to Galway. More than
+this, he knows how an island was bought by its present owner with so
+much on it due to the above-named society. Moreover, he knows the site
+and size of the villages depopulated by famine, emigration, or the
+"exterminator," and in many cases the very names of the former
+tenants. He is a man of one idea--that the country was once prosperous
+and is now wretched, not in consequence of natural causes but of
+oppression and mismanagement. When he shouted in favour of Repeal he
+meant Land. When he applauded Disestablishment and Denominational
+Schools he meant Land, Land, nothing but Land. At last his dominant
+feeling is candidly expressed when he cries out against landlords,
+"Down wid 'em!"
+
+In one of those neat remarks, distracting attention from the real
+point at issue, for which Lord Beaconsfield is justly famous, he
+expressed an opinion that "the Irish people are discontented because
+they have no amusements." Like all such sayings, it is true as far as
+it goes. Despite dramatists, novelists and humorists, Ireland is
+singularly barren of diversion. In a former letter I pointed out that
+the only relaxation from dreary toil enjoyed in Mayo is found at the
+cattle-fairs, and little country races to which they give rise. There
+are no amusements at all at Connemara. One ballad-singer and one
+broken-legged piper are the only ministers to public hilarity that I
+have yet seen. Nothing more dreary can be imagined than the existence
+of the inhabitants. When by rare good luck a peasant secures road-work
+or other employment from a proprietor at once sufficiently solvent and
+public-spirited to undertake any enterprise for the improvement of the
+country, he will walk for a couple or three hours to his work and then
+go on with it till dinner-time. But it is painfully significant that
+the word "dinner" is never used in this connection. The foreman does
+not say that the dinner hour has arrived, but "Now, boys, it is time
+to eat your bit o' bread." The expression is painfully exact; for the
+repast consists of a bit of bread and perhaps a bottle of milk. Indian
+corn meal is the material of the bit of bread, a heavy square block
+unskilfully made, and so unattractive in appearance that no human
+being who could get anything else would touch it. Then the man works
+on till it is time to trudge over the mountain to the miserable cabin
+he imagines to be a home, and meet his poor wife, weary with carrying
+turf from a distant bog, and his half-clad and more than half-starved
+children. Luckily the year has been a good one for drying peat, and
+one necessity for supporting human life is supplied. What the
+condition of the people must be when fuel is scarce is too terrible to
+think of.
+
+I esteem myself fortunate in being enabled to describe what the life
+of the Connemara peasant is under favourable circumstances. His abject
+misery in years of famine and persistent rain, when crops fail and
+peat cannot be dried, may be left to the imagination. Potatoes raised
+from the "champion" seed introduced during the distress last year are,
+if not plentiful, yet sufficient, perhaps, for the present, in the
+localities to which a good supply of seed was sent; but I should not
+like to speculate on the probable condition of affairs in March next.
+I have also spoken of such a peasant as has been fortunate enough to
+obtain work at nine shillings a week, esteemed a fair rate
+hereabouts. But in truth there is very little work to be had; for the
+curse of absenteeism sits heavily on the West. Four great landed
+proprietors, who together have drawn for several years past about
+70,000l. from their estates in Mayo, Galway, and Clare, have not, I am
+assured, ever spent 10,000l. a year in this country. As with the land
+itself, crop after crop has been gathered and no fertiliser has been
+put in. The peasant is now aware of as many of such facts as apply to
+his own locality, and this knowledge, coupled with hard work and
+hunger, has aroused a discontent not to be easily appeased. To him his
+forefathers appear to have led happy lives. It would be beyond my
+purpose to discuss whether the good old times ever existed, either
+here or anywhere else. My object just now is simply to reflect the
+peasant's mind, after having endeavoured, so far as is possible in
+this place, to verify the facts adduced by him, and I may add
+generally admitted by others.
+
+The peasant looks lovingly on the tradition of the old time when the
+native proprietors dwelt among their people, without reflecting that
+it was the almost insane recklessness and extravagance of the
+hereditary lords of the soil which led to the breaking up of their
+estates among purchasers who had no kind of sympathy with the
+inhabitants. But good or bad, as they may have been, the names of the
+Martins, the O'Flahertys, the Joyces, and the Lynches are still held
+in honour, although their descendants may have disappeared altogether,
+or remained on a tenth or twentieth part of the vast possessions once
+held by their family. Some of the present representatives, however,
+are unpopular from no fault of their own. To cite a typical case.
+There is a large estate between this place and Clifden, the present
+holders of which should hardly be held responsible for the faults of
+their ancestors. A very large part of it has been sold outright and is
+in good hands. The remainder is strictly settled on a minor, and is
+mortgaged, in the language of the country, "up to the mast-head."
+Naturally the guardians of the minor are unwilling that the estate
+should be sold up, all possibility of improvement and recovery
+sacrificed, and themselves erased from the list of the county gentry.
+Landlords have as much objection to eviction and compulsory emigration
+as tenants, and are as much inclined to cling to their land, hoping
+for better things. Thus arises a state of affairs against which the
+peasant at last shows signs of revolt. Physically and mentally
+neglected for centuries by his masters, he has found within the last
+fifty years neglect exchanged for extortion and oppression. To prevent
+the sale of the property, the owners or trustees must pay the interest
+on the encumbrances. Moreover, they, being only human, think
+themselves entitled to a modest subsistence out of the proceeds of the
+property. To pay the interest and secure this "margin" for themselves
+there are only two ways--to wring the last shilling out of the
+wretched tenants, to first deprive them of their ancient privileges,
+and then charge them extra dues for exercising them, or to let every
+available inch of mountain pasture to a cattle-farmer, whose herds
+take very good care that the cottier's cow does not get "the run of
+the mountain" at their master's expense.
+
+This "run of the mountain" appears to have been the old Irish analogue
+of the various kinds of rights of common in England, which have for
+the most part been lost to the poorer folk, not always without a
+struggle with the neighbouring landlord or lord of the manor. I hear
+from almost every place a complaint that within thirty or forty years
+the "run of the mountain" has been taken from the people and let to
+graziers. On the legal merits of the case I cannot at this moment
+pretend to decide, but inasmuch as this addition to an ordinary
+holding survives on some estates, there appears strong ground for
+believing that the practice was general. Where the cattle-run remains
+it is mapped out as a "reserve" for a certain townland, and is greatly
+prized by the peasants. It may therefore be imagined that those from
+whom it has been taken by the strong hand are bitterly resentful, and
+even where the change was made so long as twenty-five or thirty years
+ago nourish a deeply-rooted sense of wrong. It is absurd to suppose
+that when the act of spoliation took place village Hampdens could
+spring up on every hill-side in Connemara. Owing to the neglect of
+those who were responsible for their condition, they were the most
+ignorant and superstitious people in the British Islands. Landlords
+were not yet awakened to a sense that their tenants should at least be
+taught to read; and Connemara was esteemed, I am told, as a kind of
+penal settlement for priests who had not proved shining lights in more
+civilised communities. The latter reproach can no longer be brought,
+for the zeal and activity of the local clergy are conspicuous; and
+where the children are within any reasonable distance of a school they
+come readily to it, and prove bright and apt scholars. But when the
+"run of the mountain" was seized upon by many proprietors, the people
+were mentally, if not bodily, in a swinish condition. The idea of any
+right which a landlord was bound to respect had not dawned upon them,
+and, if it had, prompt vengeance would have descended on the village
+Hampden in the shape of a notice to quit, and he whose conception of
+the world was limited to his native mountains would have been turned
+out upon them with his wife and children to die.
+
+I hear on very good authority that the purchaser of part of one of the
+old estates has acquired an unpleasant notoriety in his management of
+the land. I am compelled to believe that in the old period the
+peasants enjoyed their little holdings at a very low rent. Moreover
+these holdings were not all "measured on 'um," as one of my informants
+phrased it, but were often composed of two or more patches, bits of
+productive land, taken here and there on the rough mountain. Doubtless
+this arrangement had its inconveniences, but the people were
+accustomed to it, and also set great store by the run of the mountain,
+which they had, it seems, enjoyed without let or hindrance from time
+immemorial. The first act of the new management was to "sthripe the
+land on 'um," that is to mark it out into five-pound holdings, each in
+one "sthripe" or block. This arrangement, which to the ordinary mind
+hardly appears unreasonable, was considered oppressive by the tenants,
+who submitted, however, as was then the manner of their kind. They had
+still the mountain, and could graze their cow or two, or their
+half-dozen sheep upon it, and they naturally regarded this privilege
+as the most valuable part of their holding, inasmuch as it paid their
+rent, clothed them, and supplied them with milk to drink with their
+potatoes. In these days of alimentary science it is needless to remind
+readers that, humble as it appears, a dinner of abundant potatoes and
+milk is a perfect meal, containing all the constituents of human
+food--fat, starch, acids, and so forth.
+
+Thus many of the tenants were, as they call it, "snug." Satisfied
+with little, they rubbed on contentedly enough, only the more
+adventurous spirits going to England for the harvesting. Then came
+serious changes. The rent of the five-pound holdings was raised to
+seven pounds, and the mountain was taken away. The poor people
+protested that they had nothing to feed their few animals upon on the
+paltry holdings of which a couple of acres might be available for
+tillage, a couple more for grass, and the remaining two or three good
+for hardly anything. An answer was given to them. If they must have
+the mountain they must pay for it--practically another rise in the
+rent. To this they agreed perforce, and even to the extraordinary
+condition that during a month or six weeks of the breeding season for
+grouse they should drive their tiny flocks or herds off the mountain
+and on to their holdings, in order that the game might not be
+disturbed at a critical period. I hear that for the last year rents
+have fallen into arrear, and that the beasts of those who have not
+paid up have just been driven off the mountain.
+
+I have cited this case as one of the proofs in my hands that the
+country is not overpopulated, as has been so frequently stated. I
+drove over part of the estate mentioned, and questioned some of the
+people as to the accuracy of the story already told to me, and the
+agreement was so general that I am obliged to give credence to it. To
+talk of over-population in a country with perhaps half-a-dozen houses
+per square mile, is absurd. What is called over-population would be
+more accurately described as local congestion of population. The
+people who in their little way were graziers and raisers of stock have
+been deprived of their cattle run, and having no ground to raise
+turnips upon, cannot resort to artificial feeding. What was originally
+intended to serve as a little homestead to raise food on for
+themselves is all they have left, and it is now said that they are
+crowded together. It would be more correct to say that they have been
+driven together like rats in the corner of a pit. As one steps out of
+one of their cabins the eye ranges over a vast extent of hill, valley,
+and lake--as fair a prospect as could be gazed upon. Yet the few
+wretched inhabitants are cooped within their petty holdings, and
+allowed to do no more than look upon the immense space before them.
+Where there is so much room to breathe they are stifled.
+
+
+GALWAY, _Tuesday, Nov. 9th._
+
+On the long dreary road from Clifden to this place, the greater part
+of which is included in the vaunted "avenue" to Ballynahinch, there is
+visible at ordinary times very little but mountain, bog, and sky. Of
+stones and water, and of air marvellously bright and pure, there is no
+lack, and some of the scenery is of surpassing grandeur, especially on
+a day like yesterday, so fair and still that mountain and cloud alike
+were mirrored on the surface of a legion of lakes. It was only when
+one reached the clump of trees which in these wild districts denotes
+the presence of a house of the better sort that any symptoms of
+disturbance were seen. All was calm and bright on Glendalough itself,
+but no sooner had I entered the grounds of the hotel than I became
+aware of the presence of an armed escort. Presently Mr. Robinson, the
+agent for Mr. Berridge, the purchaser of the "Martin property" from
+the Law Life Insurance Company, came out, jumped on his car with his
+driver, and was immediately followed by the usual escort of two men
+armed with double-barrelled carbines. A few minutes later I heard that
+Mr. Thompson's "herd" over at Moyrus, near the sea-coast, had been
+badly beaten on Sunday night, or rather early yesterday morning; and
+there were disquieting rumours of trouble impending at Lough Mask. If
+the Moyrus story be true, it is noteworthy as marking a new line of
+departure in Connemara. Hitherto actual outrages have been confined to
+property; persons have only been threatened, and few but agents go in
+downright bodily fear. I have not heard why Mr. Thompson is unpopular;
+but can easily understand that Mr. Robinson has become so. The
+management of 180,000 acres of poor country, in some parts utterly
+desolate, in others afflicted with congested population, can hardly
+be carried on without making some enemies. Moreover, I have no reason
+to believe that the vast "Law Life" property has, since it passed out
+of the hands of its ancient insolvent owners, been either more wisely
+or liberally administered than in the wild, wicked days when the
+Martins "reigned" at Ballynahinch, and boasted that the King's writs
+did not run "in their country."
+
+Before leaving Connemara I resolved to give a detailed account of the
+condition of the peasants of the sea-coast at the conclusion of a
+phenomenally good season followed by a fair harvest, thinking that a
+better impression would be obtained now than in periods of distress. I
+regret to say that the effect of several excursions from Letterfrack
+and Clifden has been almost to make me despair of the Connemara man of
+the sea-coast. I hesitate to employ the word "down-trodden," because
+it has been absurdly misused and ignorantly applied to the whole
+population of Ireland. I may be pardoned for observing in this place,
+once for all, that my remarks are always particularly confined to the
+place described, and by no means intended to apply to districts I have
+not yet visited, still less to Ireland generally--if a country with
+four if not five distinct populations should ever by thoughtful
+persons be spoken of "generally." What I say of the inhabitants of the
+sea-coast of Connemara does not, I hope most sincerely, apply to any
+other people in the British Islands. They are emphatically
+"down-trodden"--bodily, mentally, and in a certain direction morally.
+They do not commit either murder, adultery, or theft, but they are
+fearfully addicted to lying--the vice of slaves. Their prevarication
+and procrastination are at times almost maddening. I have seen men and
+women actually fencing with questions put to them by the excellent
+priest who dwells at Letterfrack, Father McAndrew, who was obliged to
+exercise all his authority to obtain a straight answer concerning the
+potato crop grown on a patch of conacre land. Did they have any
+"champion" seed given to them at the various distributions of that
+precious boon? "Was it champions thin?" was the reply. "'Deed, they
+had the name o' champions." The woman who said this in my hearing only
+confessed under very vigorous cross-examination that "the name o'
+champions" signified four stone weight of the invaluable seed which
+has resisted disease in its very stronghold. Now in very poor ground
+the yield of this quantity should have been twelvefold, or about 5
+cwt. of potatoes. "'Deed, and it wasn't the half of it. The champions
+was planted too thick, sure; and two halves of 'um was lost." Taken
+only mathematically this statement would not hold water, but it was
+not till after a stern allocution that the fact was elicited that
+much champion seed had been wasted by over-thick planting--a habit
+acquired by the people during successive bad years. As these poor
+people prevaricate, so do they procrastinate. The saddened man who
+said, in his wrath, all men are liars, would have found ample
+justification for his stern judgment on the Connemara sea-coast at the
+present moment; but the Roman centurion immortalised in Holy Writ
+would make a novel experience. He might say "Go," but he would have to
+wait a while before the man went, and if he cried "Come" would need to
+possess his soul with patience. Yet the people are not dull. In fact
+the dull Saxon is worth a hundred of them in doing what he is told,
+and in doing it at once. This simple fact goes far to explain the
+unpopularity of English land-agents. Prepared to obey their own chief,
+Englishmen, especially if they have served in the army, expect instant
+obedience from others. Now that is just what they will not get in
+Clifden or elsewhere in the neighbourhood. Almost everybody is as
+fearfully deliberate in action as in untruth, and the Saxon who
+expects instant attention and a straightforward answer, and is apt to
+storm at procrastinators and shufflers, appears to the poor native as
+an imperious tyrant. Now the native is always as civil as he is
+deceptive. About the middle of my journey yesterday, I discovered that
+the pair of horses who were to bring me twenty-six Irish miles from
+Clifden to Oughterard had been driven ten miles before they began
+that long pull. Of course the poor creatures dwindled to a walk at
+last, and I sank into passive endurance lest the driver might inflict
+heartless punishment upon them. My remarks on arriving at Oughterard,
+where an excellent team awaited me, were vigorous in the extreme; but
+I am bound to admit that they were accepted in a thoroughly Christian
+spirit.
+
+My long car-drives from Letterfrack and Clifden were directed mainly
+towards the spots mentioned in a former letter as of specially evil
+reputation for agrarian crime, and as being heavily amerced by the
+grand jury. A very slight acquaintance with them excites amazement
+that cess, rent, or anything else can be extracted from the utterly
+wretched cabins looking on the broad Atlantic. A large number of these
+are built on the slope of a lofty peninsula rising to 1,172 feet from
+the sea-level, and marked on the maps as Rinvyle Mountain. It is
+better known to the natives as Lettermore Hill, and forms part of the
+Rinvyle estate, one of the encumbered properties alluded to in my last
+letter. The hill-folk, who appear, on the best evidence procurable, to
+have had hard measure dealt to them by the Mr. Graham who bought part
+of the old Lynch property, declaim against the "new man," as others
+ascribe every evil to the middleman; but others again hold that the
+old proprietors, who remain on the land, fighting against
+encumbrances, are the "hardest of all," and that the whips of cupidity
+cannot compare with the scorpions of poverty. Be this as it may, the
+present holder of Rinvyle is by no means personally unpopular, and has
+helped the district lately in getting subscriptions and a Government
+grant for building a pier, extremely useful both as a protection to
+fisher-folk, and as providing labour for the still poorer people. It
+is also only fair to state that much of the local congestion of
+inhabitants at Rinvyle is due to the kelp-manufacture. The kelp-trade
+was at one time very prosperous, and employed a large number of people
+in collecting, drying, and burning seaweed. At that period it was the
+object of proprietors on the seaboard to attract population to their
+domains, on account of the royalty levied on kelp, which exceeded by
+far the rent asked for a little holding. While some proprietors were
+wiping off the map great villages, containing hundreds of families,
+like that of Aughadrinagh, near Castlebar, the holders of the
+sea-coast encouraged people to settle on their estates. No reasonable
+person can blame them for doing so. The proprietor was poor, and saw
+that a large accession to his means might be secured by attracting
+kelp-burners. He made a good thing of it. The people paid about 3l. or
+a little more a year for their cottage and little, very little,
+paddock, not bigger than a garden; about 11s. a year for the "right to
+gather seaweed," and one-third of the proceeds of the kelp they made
+as "royalty" to the landlord. It should be added that the owners of
+Rinvyle were not themselves dealers in kelp, like some middlemen along
+the coast, and that their "people,"--save the mark!--could sell to
+whom they pleased, but the lords of the seashore took their third of
+the proceeds. Within comparatively recent times kelp has been worth
+6l. and 7l. per ton. Putting the "royalty" at 2l. per ton, and the
+production of each family at a couple of tons per annum, we arrive at
+the position that the landlord drew, in rent and royalty, about half
+his tenants' summer earnings. The tenants obtained about 8l. clear per
+family for the summer's laborious work in collecting, drying, and
+burning seaweed. The rest of their living was made either out of a
+conacre potato patch, for which they were charged a tremendous rent,
+or eked out by the excursion of one member of the family to England
+for the reaping season. It was not a prosperous life, except in
+comparison with that which has succeeded it. For the last few years
+kelp has been almost thrown out of the market, and such small prices
+are obtainable that it is not worth while to collect it. But the
+population originally attracted by kelp remains to starve on the rocks
+of Rinvyle.
+
+Lettermore Hill, rising directly from the sea level, is a magnificent
+object glittering in the sun. It is "backed" rather like a whale than
+a weasel, and includes some good rough mountain pasture, as well as
+green fields near its base. As one approaches it a ring of villages is
+seen delightfully situated, high for the most part above the sea and
+the green fields, and lying back against the huge mountain. It is
+natural to suppose that here resides a race of marine mountaineers
+seeking their living on the deep while their flocks and herds pasture
+on the hill. But no supposition could be wider of the actual fact.
+Neither the fields beneath nor the mountain above belong in any way to
+the villages which form a belt of pain and sorrow half-way up its
+side, drooping at Derryinver to the sea. One of these villages,
+Coshleen, surely as wretched a place as any in the world, is
+unapproachable by a wheeled vehicle. The pasture land in front is
+walled off, and, together with the mountain behind, down almost to the
+roof of the cabins, is reserved to the use of a great grazier living
+far away. Below, near the sea, stands Rinvyle Castle--whence the name
+Coshleen, the village by the castle--the ruined stronghold of the
+O'Flahertys who ruled this country long ago, either better or worse
+than the Blakes, who have held it for some generations, and under
+whose care it has become a reproach to the empire. There is a little
+arable land farther down Lettermore Hill, which, being also called
+Rinvyle Mountain, might well receive the third name of Mount Misery.
+This bit of arable land is let to the surrounding tenants on the
+conacre principle--that is, the holders are not even yearly tenants,
+but have the land let to them for the crop, the season while their
+potatoes or oats are on the ground. By letting this conacre land in
+little patches, a high rent is secured, which the tenants have no
+option but to promise to pay. Apparently it is these wretched people
+who, maddened by the sight of a stranger's flocks and herds pasturing
+above and below them, have risen at times and driven his animals into
+the sea. All the notice he has taken of the matter is to make the
+county pay his loss, and leave the county to get the amount out of the
+offending townlands if it can. He is not to be scared, for he lives
+far away, and apparently his herds are not much afraid either--at
+present, that is. How any compensation money is to be got from the
+hundreds of miserable people who inhabit Coshleen and Derryinver I
+cannot conceive. They have, it is true, potatoes to eat just now, and
+may have enough till February; but their pale cheeks, high
+cheek-bones, and hollow eyes tell a sorry tale, not of sudden want but
+of a long course of insufficient food, varied by occasional fever.
+With the full breath of the Atlantic blowing upon them, they look as
+sickly as if they had just come out of a slum in St. Giles's. There is
+something strangely appalling in the pallid looks of people who live
+mainly in the open air, and the finest air in the world. Doubtless
+they tell a good story without, as I have already said, any very
+severe adherence to truth; but there can be no falsehood in their
+gaunt, famished faces, no fabrication in their own rags and the
+nakedness of their children. I doubt me Mr. Ruskin would designate the
+condition of Mount Misery, otherwise Lettermore Hill, as "altogether
+devilish."
+
+The cabins of Connemara have been so frequently described that there
+is no necessity for telling the English public that in the villages I
+have named anything approaching the character of a bed is very rare. A
+heap of rags flung on some dirty straw, or the four posts of what was
+once a bedstead filled in with straw, with a blanket spread over it,
+form the sleeping-place. Everybody knows that one compartment serves
+in these seaside hovels for the entire family, including the pig (if
+any), ducks, chickens, or geese. Few people hereabouts own an ass,
+much less a horse or a cow, and boats are few in proportion to the
+population. Such a cabin as I have rather indicated than described is
+occupied by the wife of one John Connolly, of Derryinver. When I
+called the husband was away at some work over the hill, and the two
+elder boys with him, the wife and seven younger children remaining at
+home. I had hardly put my foot inside the cabin when a "bonniva," or
+very little pig, quietly made up to me and began to eat the
+upper-leather of my boot, doubtless because he could find nothing else
+to eat, poor little beast. Besides the "bonniva," who looked very
+thin, the property of the entire family consisted of a dozen fowls
+and ducks, some potatoes, a little stack of poor oats, not much taller
+than a man, and a still smaller stack of rough hay. An experienced
+hand in such matters, who accompanied me, valued the stacks at 2l.
+15s. together. This was all they had at John Connolly's to face the
+winter withal, and I was curious to know what rent they paid for their
+little cabin and the field attached. An acre was quite as much as they
+appeared to have, and for this they were "set," as it is called here,
+at 3l. per annum, and, in addition, were charged 2s. 6d. for the
+privilege of cutting turf, and 5s. 6d. for the seaweed. This toll for
+cutting seaweed is a regular impost in these parts, sometimes rising
+for "red weed" and "black weed" to 11s. The latter is used only for
+manuring the potato fields, the former being the proper kelp weed, and
+must be paid for whether it is used or not. As a matter of fact, Mrs.
+Connolly's place assigned for cutting red-weed is the island of
+Innisbroon, some four or five miles out at sea, and as her husband has
+never been worth a boat she has paid her dues for nine years for
+nothing. The seaweed dues in fact have for several years past
+represented merely an increase of rental. It should not, however, be
+forgotten that when kelp was valuable the lords of the soil took their
+third part of it when it was burnt, in addition to the first tax for
+collecting the weed, a most laborious and tedious operation.
+
+It may be asked, and with some appearance of reason, why, if people
+are hungry, they do not eat what is nearest to hand. That one owning a
+dozen fowls and ducks and a stack of oats, be the same never so small,
+should be hungry, seems at a superficial glance ridiculous. But the
+fact is that this is just the flood time of harvest, the oats are
+stacked and the potatoes stored, but there is a long winter to face;
+and, what is more depressing to hear, these people who rear fowls
+would as soon think of eating one as of flying. They do not even eat
+the eggs, but sell them to an "eggler," and invest the money in Indian
+corn meal, a stone of which goes much farther than a dozen or a dozen
+and a half of eggs. Those, and they are greatly in the majority, who
+have no cow are obliged to buy milk for their children, and find it
+difficult and costly to get enough for them.
+
+In equally poor case with the cottiers is the woman who keeps the
+village shop at Derryinver. Those who know the village shops of England
+and the mingled odour of flour, bacon, cheese, and plenty which
+pervades them, would shudder at Mrs. Stanton's store at Derryinver. It
+is a shop almost without a window; in fact, a cabin like those occupied
+by her customers. The shopkeeper's stock is very low just now. She
+could do a roaring trade on credit, but unfortunately her own is
+exhausted. Like the little traders during English and Welsh strikes,
+her sympathies are all with her customers, but she can get no credit
+for herself. She has a matter of 40l. standing out; she owes 21l.; she
+has sold her cow and calf to keep up her credit at Clifden, and she is
+doing no business. When I looked in on her she was engaged in combing
+the hair of one of her fair-skinned children, an operation not common
+in these parts, where the back hair of even grown women in such centres
+of commercial activity as Clifden has a curious knack of coming down.
+It is part of the tumble-downishness of the neglected West. At some
+remote period things must have been new, but bating Casson's Hotel, at
+Letterfrack, there is nothing in good order between Mr.
+Mitchell-Henry's well-managed estate at Kylemore and Galway. At Clifden
+and all through the surrounding country things appear to be decaying or
+decayed. The doors will not shut, and the windows cannot be opened; the
+bells have no handles, and if they had would not ring; the wall-paper
+and the carpets, the houses, the land and the people seem to be all
+very much the worse for wear. The dirt and slovenliness are
+unspeakable. I tried to write on the table of the general room of a
+well-known inn, or so-called hotel, the other day, and my arm actually
+stuck to the table, so adhesive was the all-pervading filth. The white
+flannel cloaks and deep red petticoats of Connemara women are
+picturesque enough on market-day in Clifden, but, like Eastern cities,
+they should be seen from afar. I have a shrewd suspicion that the
+blight has gone beyond the potato, and it is not very difficult to see
+how it strode onward. The little towns of the West depend entirely upon
+the surrounding country for their subsistence, and, when the peasantry
+are poor, gradually undergo commercial atrophy. Just at this moment
+they are in a livelier condition than usual, somewhat because the
+comparatively well-to-do among the peasants have taken advantage in
+many places of the popular cry to pay no rent, and have, therefore, for
+the moment a little ready money. But there is no escaping the saddening
+influence of a general aspect of dirt and decay.
+
+It is a significant feature of the present agitation in Ireland that
+all parties are nearly agreed so far as the Connaught peasant
+cultivator is concerned. That anything approaching agreement on any
+part of the complex Irish problem should be arrived at is so
+remarkable that I am inclined to hearken to the popular voice.
+Whatever may be done for the benefit of other parts of the country,
+something must, it is thought, be attempted for the counties of Mayo
+and Galway. So far as I have been able to arrive at facts and
+opinions, it is not altogether a question of rent. A general remission
+of rent in these two counties would merely have the effect of
+enriching those farmers who are already "snug," but would leave the
+peasant cultivators exactly as they are at present. It is quite true
+that in some of the most wretched places I have seen the rent is
+extravagantly high; but while exclaiming against attempted extortion,
+I cannot shut my eyes to the fact that for the last two years the
+attempt has been in the main abortive. Everybody is not so deep in his
+landlord's books as the irreconcileable Thomas Browne, of
+Cloontakilla; but a vast number of poor tenants owe one and a half and
+two years' rent. I speak of those whose holdings are "set" from 3l. to
+8l. per annum. The rent has not impoverished them this year at any
+rate; they have had a fair harvest, their beast or few sheep have
+fetched good prices, and yet they are miserably poor. It is quite true
+that two very bad years preceded the good one, but allowing for all
+this there is no room for hope that under their present conditions of
+existence they will ever be better off than they are now--when they
+are practically living rent free.
+
+Letting for the moment bygones be bygones between landlord and tenant,
+what is to occur in the future? Hunger is an evil counsellor, and
+there would apparently always be hunger and consequent discontent
+among the little cultivators of Connaught, even if the land were given
+to them outright. The fact is that, despite the assertions of
+demagogues, the holdings on which the people now live cannot support
+them, and, in fact, never have supported them. It is, as I remarked in
+one of my previous letters, the harvest money from England and the
+labourers' wages brought from Scotland which have kept body and soul
+together after a poor fashion. The annual migration of reapers and
+labourers has been a matter not of enterprise, but of necessity; for
+on the summer savings, varying from 10l. to 15l., the family entirely
+depend. It is, therefore, an absolute mistake to speak of the Mayo and
+Galway men as peasant cultivators living on the produce of the soil
+they cultivate. It cannot be done. I have talked to scores of these
+people, and have invariably found that a decent cabin with properly
+clad inhabitants depended upon something beyond the food produced on
+the spot. Either the father went to England for the harvest, or the
+boys were working in a shipyard on the Clyde, or the girls were in
+America and sent home money. On the seashore, among the wretched
+people who send their children out on the coast to pick shell-fish
+worth fourpence per stone, I found here and there a household such as
+I have described really depending on money earned far away. I have
+thought it well to put the case somewhat strongly because it is sheer
+absurdity to expect that a living for a family can be extracted from
+five Irish acres of land in Connaught. In very good years, and when
+credit is abundant, not so unusual an occurrence as might be supposed,
+it is just possible for the peasant to struggle on; but he can never
+be said to live. His land is exhausted by the old Mayo rotation of
+"potatoes, oats, burn," and he has no manure but guano and seaweed.
+
+It is like inhaling fresh air to turn aside from poorly nourished
+people and land to look, from the window of Casson's hotel at
+Letterfrack, on two bright green oases rising amid a brown desert of
+bog. Turnips and mangolds are growing in great forty-acre squares.
+Dark-ribbed fields of similar size show where the potatoes have been
+dug, and men are dotted here and there busily engaged with work of
+various kinds. The green oases at the mouth of the magnificent pass of
+Kylemore are the work of Mr. Mitchell-Henry, M.P. for the county of
+Galway. When Mr. Henry first went salmon-fishing in the river Dowris,
+which flows from Kylemore Lake into the sea at Ballynakill Harbour,
+Kylemore was a mountain pass and nothing more. Now it not only boasts
+a castle, but is the centre of extraordinary activity, the first
+fruits of which are seen in the villages of Currywongoan and
+Greenmount already alluded to as forming conspicuous objects in a
+landscape of strange grandeur. Mr. Henry, who was an eminent surgeon
+before he became a great landowner, has gone about the work of
+reclamation with scientific knowledge as well as vigorous will, and
+now has a great area in the various stages of conversion from bog into
+productive land. When he began to reclaim land at Kylemore the
+neighbouring gentry smiled good-humouredly, plunged their hands into
+their (mostly empty) pockets, and wished him joy of his bargain. Now
+the Kylemore improvements are the wonder of Connemara. The long
+unknown mangold is seen to flourish on spots which once nourished
+about a snipe to an acre. Root crops are very largely grown, and it is
+to these that the climate and reclaimed bog of Connemara are more
+particularly favourable; but there is abundance of grain at
+Currywongoan, at Greenmount, and at the home-farm at Dowris.
+Neighbouring proprietors are thinking the matter over, and are
+wondering whether an Irish landlord ought, like an English one, to do
+something to employ and encourage his poor tenants, and help on with
+improvements those inclined to help themselves. Even the tenants
+themselves on the Kylemore Estate are beginning to wake up under the
+care of a resident landlord inclined to set them in the way of
+improving their condition. With the run of the mountain in addition to
+holdings varying from twelve to forty and fifty acres in extent, Mr.
+Mitchell Henry's people are learning by example, are breaking up land,
+and every year increasing the area under the plough. It would thus
+seem that the Connemara peasant is not unteachable, if only some
+patience be shown and fair breathing space allotted to him.
+
+Mr. Mitchell Henry's idea of reclamation was purely scientific at
+first, and has only by degrees been developed into a large enterprise.
+He was struck by the fact that the bog lies directly on the
+limestone, as coal, ironstone, and limestone lie in parts of
+Staffordshire, only awaiting the hand of man to turn them to practical
+account. Draining and liming are all that bog-land requires to yield
+immediate crops. The main difficulty is of course to get rid of the
+water, which keeps down the temperature of the land until it produces
+nothing but the humblest kind of vegetation. All the steps of the
+reclaiming process may be seen at Kylemore. The first thing to be done
+is to cut a big deep drain right through the bog to the gravel between
+it and the limestone. Then the secondary drains are also cut down to
+the gravel, and are supplemented by "sheep" or surface drains about
+twenty inches deep and twenty inches wide at top, narrowing to six
+inches at the bottom. This process may be called "tapping the bog,"
+which begins to shrink visibly. The puffy rounded surface gradually
+sinks as the water runs off, and the earth gains in solidity. When
+this process is sufficiently advanced the drains are cleared and
+deepened, and a wedge-shaped sod, too wide to reach the bottom, is
+rammed in so as to leave below it a permanent tubular covered drain,
+which is thus made without tiles or other costly material. Then the
+surface is dressed with lime, which, as the people say, "boils the
+bog" instead of burning it in the old-fashioned Irish manner. On such
+newly broken-up ground I saw numerous potato ridges, the large area
+of turnips and mangolds already spoken of, grasses and rape for
+sheep-feed. The celery grown on the reclaimed bog is superb, even
+finer than that grown on Chat Moss, which gave Manchester its
+reputation for celery-growing.
+
+It is not pretended that all the bogs in Ireland are susceptible of
+similar treatment, nor is it by any means necessary that they should
+be. For there is plenty of bog-land less than four feet in depth, and
+this alone is worth draining and liming at present. According to Mr.
+Mitchell Henry's calculation he can drain and lime the land, take a
+first crop off it, and then afford to let it at fifteen shillings per
+acre. This is thirteen shillings more than it is worth now, and would
+return interest for the necessary outlay at five per cent. per annum.
+It is well known that Mr. Mitchell Henry has pursued his work at
+Kylemore in the spirit of a pioneer, and that he looks to the
+employment of the poor Connemara folk on reclamations as the loophole
+of escape from their present miserable condition. But, while anxious
+for the people, he is not unjust to the landlords who, whatever their
+wish may be, are too poor to attempt any extensive improvement of
+their estates. With the exception of Mr. Berridge and Lord Sligo,
+nobody has much money in these parts besides Mr. Henry, whose example
+is followed slowly, because proprietors lack the means to undertake
+anything on a grand scale. His impression is, that to effect any good
+the matter must be made Imperial. The suggestion is, that suitable
+tracts of the best waste lands should be acquired by the Government;
+that the work of reclamation should be carried on by labourers who
+would be paid weekly wages and lodged in huts close to their work; and
+that when the land had been properly fertilised it should be divided
+into farms of forty acres and the men who have worked at reclaiming it
+settled upon it with their families, and instructors appointed to
+teach them farming. It is no part of the scheme that the land should
+be given to the people. On the contrary, a rent should be charged
+them, calculated upon the basis of a percentage on the original outlay
+in the purchase of the estate and of the amount paid in wages,
+together with a small sum to pay off the capital in the course of a
+term of years. The occupant would thus in time become a freeholder,
+and as much interested in maintaining the law as any other proprietor.
+Meanwhile he would, like the Donegal folk mentioned by Mr. Tuke, live
+on hopefully under the rule, for the time being, of the Kingdom, as
+landlord.
+
+I am far from inclined to detract in any way from the merit of Mr.
+Mitchell Henry's project for Imperial reclamation any more than from
+his scheme for draining and for improving the internal navigation of
+Ireland. Although born in Lancashire he is a thorough-bred Irishman,
+and naturally hopeful of his country. But, although I am most
+painfully impressed by the fearful degradation into which a part of
+the Western people has fallen, I cannot on that account shut my eyes
+to their failings any more than to their poverty. Mr. Henry's scheme,
+if it deferred actual proprietorship in fee simple till the next
+generation, would I hope prove of incalculable benefit to Mayo and
+Galway, especially if his excellent idea of appointing agricultural
+instructors were carried out faithfully. But I fear from what I have
+actually seen and heard from the most trustworthy informants of all
+classes, that the forty-acre farmer of this generation would require a
+firm hand to guide him. This is no insolent Saxon assumption of
+superiority, but is said, after due consideration, sadly and
+seriously. The poor people of the West have been brought very low, so
+low that even their very virtues have become perverted into faults.
+They are affectionate to their kith and kin; but this amiable quality
+leads to their huddling together in a curiously gregarious way, and in
+some cases has been made the means of extorting money from them. It is
+this tendency to live together and thus divide and subdivide whatever
+little property they may have, which will require to be most
+strenuously guarded against.
+
+It is of no use assigning to a man forty acres of land to get a living
+out of, if he immediately sublets some of it to a less fortunate
+friend, or takes all his remotest relations into partnership. It
+requires no prophet's eye to discern that the instant the tenant's son
+got married he would bring his wife home to his father's roof, and
+that if the energies of the united family did not suffice to cultivate
+the whole of the forty acres, part would be let at "conacre," that is,
+for the period of one harvest, to a man with or without a holding of
+his own. The tendency to bring several families together in one cabin
+is almost irresistible, and has, as mentioned above, not been wisely
+and firmly met by proprietors, but taken a mean advantage of to wring
+money out of tenants.
+
+Subdivision of holdings has in many cases been, not sternly forbidden
+on pain of eviction, but made the occasion of inflicting a fine. This
+shabby and extortionate kind of protest against subdivision has long
+obtained on certain estates. If one may believe evidence given on oath
+in a court of justice, as reported in a local newspaper, there was
+within the last twenty years on at least one estate a custom of
+exacting a fine from tenants who married without leave. Probably this
+originated in some clumsy attempt to prevent the subdivision of
+holdings and the accumulation of population in certain places--in
+itself a laudable and necessary precaution. Whatever shape any attempt
+to settle the unfortunate peasants on fresh holdings may take, the
+tendency to subdivide and sublet must be sternly resisted--and
+prevented. A thousand excuses will be made for taking partners, for
+subletting on the "conacre" and other systems. "Sure I was sick, your
+honour, and the farrum was gettin' desthroyed;" or, "I was too poor to
+buy seed for the whole of it, and let some at conacre to Thady
+O'Flaherty, that's a good man, your honour, as any in Galway!" or "Wad
+ye have me tur-r-r-n my own childther out like geese on the mountain?"
+are a few of the replies which would, I am assured by a native, be
+made to any inquiry or reproof concerning the subletting of land or
+the accumulation of people. But if any attempt be made to help the
+West, nothing of the kind must be listened to. The young bees must
+depart from the parent hive and begin life on their own account. This
+may appear the harsh judgment of a half-informed traveller. It is, on
+the contrary, the mere reflection of native opinion.
+
+
+
+
+VI.
+
+THE RELIEF OF MR. BOYCOTT.
+
+
+BALLINROBE, CO. MAYO,
+_Wednesday, Nov. 10th._
+
+Finding that despite all the influence brought to bear upon it the
+Boycott Brigade was actually going to invade Lough Mask, I came from
+Galway to-day by the route preferred by Mr. Boycott himself, just
+before I met him and Mrs. Boycott herding sheep more than a fortnight
+ago. The steam packet _Lady Eglinton_ conveyed an oddly assorted
+freight. Among the passengers were Mrs. Burke, the wife of Lord
+Ardilaun's agent, two commercial travellers, the representative of the
+_Daily News_, and thirty-two of the Royal Irish Constabulary, who had
+been summoned from Galway to the scene of action. From every side
+soldiers and constabulary--soldiers in everything but name--converge
+upon Ballinrobe and Claremorris, townlets, which, if one could quite
+believe their artless inhabitants, are Arcadian in their simplicity,
+prosperous to every degree short of the payment of rent, and
+absolutely safe as to life and property.
+
+When the good ship _Lady Eglinton_ had puffed and scraped her way
+through the tortuous shallows of Lough Corrib to Cong, she was
+received by a large meeting of the country folk assembled on the pier.
+Fortunately I had secured a car from Ballinrobe to await my arrival,
+and the driver, a perfect "gem of the sea," received me with high good
+humour. "To Ballinrobe, your honour?" he said, and drove off like a
+true son of Nimshi. As soon as he was fairly on the way, I said that I
+should like to drive to Ballinrobe by Lough Mask House. "It's not on
+our way, your honour," was the first and civil objection. I then
+observed that I wished to go that way in order to call on Mr. Boycott.
+"Sure it's a different way altogether, your honour," was the answer.
+"A long way round, your honour." Then I said, after the brutal Saxon
+fashion, "Go that way, nevertheless." No answer, but the speed of the
+car relaxed until two other cars came up. Then a particularly wild
+Irish conversation was kept up among the drivers, and I observed a
+pleasant commercial gentleman who was bound for the village, as
+distinguished from the landing-place of Cong, laughing consumedly as
+his car branched off and left me to pursue my way in the twilight.
+Then my car-driver, evidently backed by a brother car-driver, put his
+case plainly. He had been engaged to drive a gentleman from Cong to
+Ballinrobe, and would do what he had engaged to do cheerfully, but he
+had not engaged himself to go to Lough Mask House. It was not, as a
+notorious claimant said, "in the contract." I hinted that a mile or
+two out of the way, even Irish miles, could not matter; that at
+complete sundown there would be a moon; that increased pay would be
+given. Not the slightest effect was produced.
+
+My driver would go to Ballinrobe and nowhere else. He had not engaged
+to go to Lough Mask House, and he would not go. I confess that for an
+instant I asked myself should I threaten my man and make him take me
+to Lough Mask whether he liked it or not; but an instant's reflection
+convinced me that any such attempt would be worse than futile. The
+horse would go lame or fall down within a quarter of a mile, and I
+should never arrive anywhere. So I tried coaxing, much against the
+grain, but it was of no use. To Lough Mask House the car-driver would
+not go. He would drive me to Galway or to Newport, "bedad," but "divil
+a fut" would he stir towards the accursed spot. He was good enough to
+say that he would not interfere with me. If I liked to walk, I was
+welcome to do it. Now a walk of seven Irish miles at sundown in a
+steady rain, over a line of road watched at every turn by disaffected
+peasants, was not attractive; so I made a last appeal to my
+car-driver's personal courage--Was he afraid? "Begorra, he was not
+afraid of anything, but would my honour want to set the whole country
+against him?" This is what it all came to. He durst not for his life
+drive anybody to Mr. Boycott's with or without escort. He was
+compelled to form part of the strike.
+
+Here in Ballinrobe we are in a state of siege. About 600 soldiers came
+in last night, who, together with the resident garrison, make a rough
+total of 750 military. Claremorris, I hear, is also strongly occupied
+to-night. In Ballinrobe are now stationed, under Colonel Bedingfeld,
+R.A., commanding the district, two squadrons of the 19th Hussars, or
+123 sabres, commanded by Major Coghill. The Royal Dragoons, under the
+command of Captain Tomkinson, number sixty sabres, and with the
+Hussars will probably perform the main work of convoy to-morrow. The
+Royal Engineers are also represented, and 400 men of the 84th Regiment
+from the Curragh, under Lieut.-Colonel Wilson, have reinforced the
+resident detachment of the 76th Regiment, commanded by Captain Talbot.
+Moreover, there are nearly two hundred Royal Irish Constabulary in the
+town, and the sub-inspector, Mr. McArdle, has his work cut out for
+to-morrow. A great part of the troops are now under canvas, and last
+night were in even worse condition.
+
+As one trudges across the slushy road over Ballinrobe Fair Green, the
+illuminated tents light up the foreground pleasantly, while the moon
+tinges the tree-tops and the river Robe with silver. All is beautiful
+enough were it not for the persistent rattle of the sabre and the
+jingle of the spur. So far as can be ascertained at present the Ulster
+contingent will consist of no more than fifty men, who will probably
+arrive by train at Claremorris about three o'clock to-morrow
+afternoon. Early in the forenoon a hundred infantry and sixty sabres
+of the Royal Dragoons will occupy Lough Mask House and the surrounding
+fields, and about four hundred infantry, a strong detachment of
+police, and the two squadrons of the 19th Hussars will receive the
+harvesters at Claremorris and escort them to Lough Mask House.
+
+It has been suggested that if sufficient cars can be requisitioned the
+Boycott Brigade might be mounted upon them and sent through guarded by
+the cavalry alone. The pace at which this evolution could be performed
+is its greatest recommendation. Any encounter with the people of the
+country side, who are sure to assemble in large numbers, would be
+completely prevented, and, what is of greater importance, the reapers
+would reach their destination before sundown. The long distance from
+Claremorris would be certain to prolong a foot march into the night,
+when all kinds of complication might occur. At the moment of writing
+the streets are dotted with little knots of people, and the excitement
+concerning the morrow is intense.
+
+
+BALLINROBE, CO. MAYO, _Thursday, Nov. 11th._
+
+Hearing that the march of the Ulster men upon Lough Mask House would
+not commence till nearly nightfall, I drove over early this morning to
+Mr. Boycott's in a private carriage, hired cars being, for the reasons
+stated yesterday, quite unattainable. "Did your honour wish to set the
+country on me?" is the only reply vouchsafed by car-drivers since one
+of their body was cruelly beaten, presumably for the unpardonable sin
+of driving a policeman to the house under taboo.
+
+The drive through the warm soft morning air was much pleasanter than
+that of yesterday evening; nor did people start up in an uncomfortable
+way from behind the stone wall, as they did last night. At intervals
+the sun shone out on the reddened foliage, greatly changed in hue
+since my first visit to Lough Mask. The half-dozen persons I met
+appeared to be going about their daily work like good citizens; and a
+casual visitor might, if he could have persuaded anybody to drive him
+along the road to Lough Mask, have gone away convinced that the whole
+story of wrong and outrage was the work of a distempered brain. The
+isolated dwelling itself was by far the most gloomy object in the
+landscape--grey and prison-like as most of the Irish houses of its
+class.
+
+Mr. Boycott's habitation has thoroughly the look of a place in which
+crimes have been, or, as a native of these parts suggested, "ought to
+be committed." Two dark figures of the Royal Irish Constabulary occupy
+the front-door step, and others of the same keep watch and ward over
+stables and ground. Nearly three weeks of painful excitement had made
+but slight change in Mr. Boycott's family. His wife and daughter live
+under circumstances which would drive many people mad, and the
+combative land-agent and farmer himself maintains a belligerent
+attitude, the grey head and slight spare figure bowed, but by no means
+in submission. On the contrary, never was Mr. Boycott's attitude more
+defiant. It is only by skilful subterfuge that he can get a shirt
+washed for his outer, or a loaf of bread made for his inner man. The
+underground routes which existed a fortnight ago are closed. In fact
+"every earth is stopped," and the hunted man is driven to the open.
+Not a soul will sell him sixpence-worth of anything. He cannot even
+get a glass for his watch, for the watch-maker no more than anybody
+else dare serve him. Every feature of his extraordinary situation
+depicted in my first letter on "Disturbed Ireland" is exaggerated
+almost to distortion.
+
+Last evening the following letter was handed to him by the tenants of
+Lord Erne:--"Kilmore. Nov. 10, 1880. C.C. Boycott, Esq. Sir,--In
+accordance with the decision made in Lord Erne's last letter to us, we
+want you to appoint a day to receive the rents.--THE TENANTS. A reply
+requested."
+
+Mr. Boycott's reply was that he was ready to receive the rents at ten
+o'clock this morning, an hour after which time he received the
+following notice:--"The tenants request an answer to the following
+before they pay you the rent:--1st. Don't you wish you may get it?
+2nd. When do you expect the Orangemen, and how are they to come? 3rd.
+When are you going to hook it? Let us know, so that we may see you
+off. 4th. Are you any way comfortable? Don't be uneasy in your mind:
+we'll take care of you. Down with the landlords and agents. God save
+Ireland." Such communications as this are agreeable and amusing enough
+when addressed to a distant friend, but are hardly so diverting when
+directed to one's self. It is also disquieting to hear people say, as
+one passes, "He will not hear the birds sing in spring."
+
+Next to open and secret enemies, indiscreet friends are, perhaps, the
+most disagreeable of created beings. Unfortunate Mr. Boycott, who
+wanted a score, at most, of Northern men to get in his crop, has been
+threatened with an invasion from Ulster. The opposition of the
+Government to such "Ulsterior" measures, as a Galway man called them
+to-day, has at least had the effect of moderating the rancour of the
+relief expedition. Only fifty, with baggage and implements, are
+announced as on the march, but even this number is a hideous
+infliction on Mr. Boycott. He has nowhere to lodge them but in a
+barn, and has assuredly not the wherewithal to feed them, so that
+their help and sympathy are somewhat overwhelming. Three hundred men
+of the 76th Regiment have been sent over from Castlebar to Claremorris
+to keep order, with Captain Webster's squadron of the 19th Hussars to
+furnish escort to Hollymount, where a troop of the Royals, under
+Lieutenant Rutledge, and 200 men of the 84th Regiment meet them. To
+Lough Mask House itself a squadron of the 19th Hussars and 100
+infantry have been despatched to occupy the ground inspected and
+selected this morning by Colonel Bedingfeld and Captain Tomkinson
+during my visit to Mr. Boycott.
+
+
+BALLINROBE, CO. MAYO, _Friday Night, Nov. 12th._
+
+The march of the Ulster contingent last evening commenced smoothly
+enough at Claremorris. The dismal little country station was lined
+with troops, and perhaps made a more brilliant show than at any other
+period during its existence. After the manner of this part of the
+country the train due at 2.41 arrived at 3.30 P.M., and it was almost
+twilight before the well-guarded procession commenced. Perhaps two
+thousand persons assembled at dreary Claremorris, but the small
+representation of the country side made up for the paucity of its
+numbers by the loudness of its voice. The groans which announced the
+arrival of the train were repeated again and again as the sixty-three
+officers and men of the Ulster contingent made their way towards the
+cars engaged for them. At the cars, however, some difficulty occurred;
+for the drivers absolutely refused to carry anybody but police. They
+were not bound, they said, to carry Orangemen, and would not carry
+them. This difficulty occasioned some little hustling, but the upshot
+was that the Ulster men, a well-grown, powerful set of fellows, were
+compelled to walk all the way from Claremorris to the infantry
+barracks at Ballinrobe.
+
+The march was inexpressibly dreary. When any sound was heard it was a
+yell, and these expressions of disapprobation were repeated at
+Hollymount, and with increased vigour at Ballinrobe, where the streets
+were full of people. The Boycott Brigade was last night kept strictly
+within barracks, not a soul being allowed to venture out of the gate.
+
+The general aspect of everybody and everything in Ballinrobe this
+morning expressed fatigue. The Ulster contingent, who call themselves
+"workmen," were terribly knocked up by their walk of about thirteen
+miles from Claremorris, a fact which hardly speaks well for their
+thews and sinews, but in fairness it must be admitted that they were
+obliged to undertake their march after a long and fatiguing railway
+journey, at sundown, on a muddy road, and in alternate light and heavy
+rain. They were also poorly fed, for their carts and implements
+generally only came in here this afternoon, escorted by the Royal
+Dragoons, under Captain Tomkinson, during part of the distance, and
+for the remainder by a troop of the 19th Hussars; wherefore the Ulster
+"workmen" hardly appeared to advantage this morning until breakfast
+had been supplied them in the infantry barracks. Then they
+straightened their backs and stood squarely enough to make a very old
+soldier exclaim with delight, "Foine men, sorr, they'd be with me to
+dhrill 'um for a couple o' weeks."
+
+Poorly fed as the Orangemen were, their case was not nearly so hard as
+that of the military. It is all very well to send "the fut and the
+dhragoons in squadhrons and plathoons" to the fore, but it is not
+clever to send them to Ballinrobe or elsewhere without tents, baggage,
+or food. That furious Ulster Tories, "spoiling for a fight," should
+leave everything but repeating rifles and revolving pistols behind
+when rushing to possible fray is quite conceivable; but that the
+Control Department should always blunder when troops are moved rapidly
+is not quite so easy to understand.
+
+By what appears almost persistent clumsiness the troops sent hither
+were allowed to arrive many hours before their tents, baggage, and
+provisions. Suddenly ordered to leave Dublin, two squadrons of the
+19th Hussars, a not very huge or unmanageable army of a hundred and
+twenty men, came away without being allowed to bring rations with
+them. The effect of this blundering is that the Hussars have been
+pursued by their food and tents, and on the night of their arrival
+were utterly without any accommodation whatever. The cooking pots have
+only just arrived here. Why it should take three days to convey a
+cooking pot over the distance a man travels in less than ten hours it
+is difficult to imagine; but the fact is absolutely true,
+nevertheless. The officer commanding the unlucky Hussars has more
+cause to complain than any of his men, for, owing to an accident to
+his own charger on the railway platform, he was obliged to ride a
+fresh horse, which, startled by the crowd, yesterday reared suddenly,
+and fell backwards upon Major Coghill, who is now confined to his
+room. It is hoped that no bones are broken, but this is not yet
+accurately ascertained, so great is the swelling and inflammation.
+
+The hour of starting was late, by reason of everybody being tired with
+the hard, dull, wet work of yesterday, unrelieved by the slightest
+approach to a breach of the peace. Fatigue and disappointment had done
+their work, and only a few of the more ardent and sanguine spirits
+looked cheerfully forward to the march to Lough Mask House. The
+Orangemen, however, had not lost all hope, and one stalwart fellow,
+who told me he was a steward, and not an agricultural labourer,
+rejoiced in carrying a perfect arsenal, including a double-barrelled
+gun of his own, a "repeater" of Mr. Maxwell's, and several full-sized
+revolvers. This honest fellow confessed that digging potatoes and
+pulling mangolds were not his regular occupations, but that he had
+come "for the fun of the thing," and to show them there were still
+"loyal men left in Ireland." This is hardly the place in which to
+discuss the loyalty which goes on an amateur potato-digging excursion
+armed with Remington rifles and navy revolvers and escorted by an army
+of horse, foot, and police.
+
+The quality of loyalty, like that of mercy, is not strained, but it
+has fallen upon Mayo unlike the "gentle dew from heaven." The people
+here are undoubtedly cowed by the overwhelming display of military
+force, but they vow revenge for the affront put upon the soil of the
+county by the Northern invaders. Against the soldiers no animosity is
+felt, but the hatred against the cause of their presence is bitter and
+profound. Mayo has its back up, and only waits for an opportunity of
+vengeance.
+
+At eleven o'clock the march from the barracks to Lough Mask commenced.
+First came a strong detachment of constabulary, then a squadron of the
+19th Hussars, commanded by Captain Webster, and next two hundred men
+of the 84th and 76th Regiments, who completely surrounded and enclosed
+the so-called "workmen" and their leaders, Mr. Somerset Maxwell, who
+contested Cavan at the last election in the Conservative interest,
+and Mr. Goddard, a solicitor of Monaghan, who led the men of that
+county, with whom was the Mr. Manning to whose letters in the _Daily
+Express_, a Dublin newspaper, the Orange movement is attributed in
+this part of the country. In the rear came the men and waggons of the
+Army Service Corps.
+
+To the astonishment of most of those who formed part of the procession
+the number of persons assembled to witness it was almost ridiculously
+small, and popular indignation roared as gently as a sucking-dove. In
+their own opinion the most law-abiding of Her Majesty's subjects, the
+Ballinrobe folk indulged but very slightly in groaning or hissing, and
+when the little army got clear of the town its sole followers were a
+couple of cars, a market cart, and a private gig driven by a lady, the
+tag-rag and bobtail being made up of a dozen bare-legged girls, whose
+scoffs and jeers never went beyond the inquiry, "Wad ye dig auld
+Boycott's pitaties, thin?" There was no wit or humour racy of the
+soil, no flashes of bitter sarcasm, no pungent observations: everybody
+felt that the thing was going off like a damp firework, and that,
+bating the "Dead March" from _Saul_, it was very like a funeral.
+Still, those who ought to know declared that the absence of any
+demonstration was in itself a bad sign. Hardly any men were seen on
+the line of march, but it was said that scouts were on every hill, and
+that pains were being taken to identify the Orangemen. It was also
+heard on the best authority that Mr. Ruttledge's herds had been
+threatened and ordered to quit his service by the mysterious agency
+which rules the rural mind of Mayo.
+
+Silently, except for an occasional laugh or two from a colleen
+standing by the wayside, we kept the line of march towards Lough Mask.
+At the village, standing on two townlands, a few more spectators hove
+in sight, but at no point could more than a dozen be counted. As the
+sun now shone through the western sky it revealed a picturesque as
+well as interesting scene.
+
+Like a huge red serpent with black head and tail, the convoy wound
+gradually up a slight hill, the scarlet thrown into relief by the long
+line of grey walls on either side, beyond which lay green fields and
+clumps of trees dyed with the myriad hues of autumn, the distance
+being filled in by the purple mountains beyond Lough Mask. Presently
+came the angle which marks the extremity of Captain Boycott's land.
+Taking the road to the right, we approached the house under ban, and
+around which a crowd of peasants had been expected. The only human
+beings in sight were the police guarding the entrance by the lodge,
+and those stationed near the hut on a slight eminence to the right.
+Here the surrounding trees contrasted vividly with the animated and
+highly coloured scenes beneath. Completely enclosed by foliage was an
+encampment of the most picturesque kind.
+
+On the greenest of all possible fields in front of the tents the
+officers commanding the escort, the leaders of the Ulster Brigade, and
+the resident magistrates were received by Mr. Boycott, who appeared in
+a dark shooting-dress and cap, and carried a double-barrelled gun in
+his hand. A little further on stood Mrs. Boycott and her nephew and
+niece, the house itself seeming almost deserted. The workmen, like the
+troopers, formed in line, and appeared to be equally well armed.
+
+Presently the arduous task of stowing the uninvited Northern
+contingent was undertaken. The troops, who had remained on the ground
+all night, and had been reduced to straits by the failure of the
+commissariat, had, after some reflection and the exercise of
+considerable patience, taken care of themselves as best they might.
+Sheep had been slain, and chickens and geese had lent savoury aid to
+the banquet of the warriors, who also, in the absence of other fuel,
+were constrained to make short work of Lord Erne's trees. But they had
+done their work cheerfully in the cold and wet, and had pitched tents
+for the Ulster men. When the belligerent "agriculturists" came to be
+told off into these tents an amusing difficulty, illustrative of the
+light handling necessary to the conduct of affairs in Ireland,
+interrupted the dulness which had hitherto oppressed all present.
+
+Those "agriculturists" who hailed from Cavan insisted that they would
+foregather only with Cavan men, while the men of Monaghan were equally
+indisposed to give a Cavan man "as much space as a lark could stand
+on" in their tents. Moreover some jealousy was exhibited as to the
+situation and furniture of the tents assigned to the two wings of the
+army of relief. At last harmony was restored, and the edifying
+spectacle of Cavan and Monaghan fighting it out then and there, while
+Mayo looked on, was averted, greatly to the sorrow of a Mayo friend of
+mine, whose eyes sparkled and whose mouth watered at the delicious
+prospect.
+
+It seems that Mr. Boycott, fully aware of the feelings of Mayo folk
+after having Orangemen set on them, is about to leave the country, at
+least for a while, after his crop has been got in--probably a rational
+decision on his part. Meanwhile he is having a hard time of it between
+friends and foes. His enemies have spoiled a great part of his crop,
+and what they have left his defenders threaten to devour.
+
+
+BALLINROBE, CO. MAYO, _Nov. 13._
+
+A wild night of wind and rain was borne with unflagging spirit by the
+unlucky troops condemned to the most uncongenial of tasks. The fair
+green of Ballinrobe is now a quagmire, and the men under canvas have
+had the roughest possible night of it. Only two tents were actually
+carried away, but the hurricane made all those in the others
+uncomfortable enough. For ordinary pedestrians, perhaps, the slush of
+this morning was better than the sticky mud of yesterday, in which it
+was impossible to move; but the autumnal charm of Ballinrobe was gone
+for this year.
+
+In the cavalry encampment the leaves lay thick around the unfortunate
+horses exposed to the weather with miserably insufficient covering.
+There was a general air of wetness and wretchedness from the infantry
+to the cavalry barracks, and some misgivings were entertained as to
+the condition of the garrison of Lough Mask House. General opinion has
+set in decidedly against the Ulster contingent: horse and foot, and
+police, magistrates and floating population unite in wishing the
+Ulster Orangemen "five fathoms under the Rialto." In the language of
+those who dwell habitually on the banks of the river the wish is
+epigrammatically expressed, "May the Robe be their winding-sheet."
+
+Originally imagined as a scheme to force the hand of the Government,
+the Ulster invasion has been so far successful. The great actual
+mischief has been already done. According to public opinion in Mayo,
+the Government had no more than the traditional three courses open to
+them--they could have let armed Ulster come in hundreds or thousands,
+an invading force, and civil war would have ensued; they could have
+allowed the small number of labourers really needed by Mr. Boycott to
+arrive by threes and fours, at the risk of not getting alive to Lough
+Mask at all; and they could do as they have done. The probable effect
+of the movement, if any, will be to bring Mr. Somerset-Maxwell to the
+fore at the next contest for the county of Cavan. It may be imagined
+that the picked men of Monaghan are not very pleased at playing second
+fiddle to an electioneering scheme. Concerning Cavan, the hope of a
+fight between the men of the two counties has by no means died away.
+
+To do justice to the Ulster men, they displayed a great deal of
+earnestness at Lough Mask House this morning. In the midst of a
+hurricane a large number of them went bravely out to a potato field
+and worked with a conscience at getting out the national vegetables,
+which ran a risk of being completely spoiled by the rain. The
+potatoes, however, might, as Mr. Boycott opined, have been spoiled if
+they had remained in the ground, and might as well be ruined in one
+way as the other.
+
+The remainder of the Orangemen, when I saw them, were busy in the barn
+with a so-called "Tiny" threshing-machine, threshing Mr. Boycott's
+oats with all the seriousness and solemn purpose befitting their task.
+Nothing could have been more dreary and wretched than the entire
+proceedings. Mr. Boycott himself had discarded his martial array of
+yesterday, and appeared in a herdsman's overcoat of venerable age,
+and, as he grasped a crook instead of a double-barrelled gun, looked
+every inch a patriarch. He exhibits no profuse gratitude towards the
+officious persons who have come to help him, thinking probably that he
+would have been nearly as well without them. Thanks to his obstructive
+assistants, he is almost overwhelmed with sympathisers gifted by
+nature with tremendous appetites. Keen-eyed officers detect the
+mutton-bones which tell of unauthorised ovicide, and "clutches" of
+geese and chickens vanish as if by magic. There will be a fearful bill
+for somebody to pay when the whole business is over, whenever that may
+be.
+
+From every quarter I hear acts of the so-called "staunchness" of the
+population. When Captain Tomkinson went over to Claremorris yesterday
+with dragoons to convey the carts and other impediments of the Ulster
+division, it happened that one of the cart-horses lost a shoe. Will it
+be believed that it was necessary to delude the only blacksmith who
+could be captured with a story that the animal belonged to the Army
+Service Corps? Simple and artless, the Claremorris blacksmith made the
+shoe: but before he could put it on he was "infawrrumd" that the beast
+he was working for was in an Ulster cart. Down fell the hammer, the
+nails, and the shoe. The blacksmith was immovable. Not a blow more
+would he strike for love or money; nor would any blacksmith for miles
+around this place. At last the shoe was got on to the horse's foot
+among the military and police; but not a soul belonging to this part
+of the country would drive a cart at any price.
+
+All this appears to point to the conclusion that when Mr. Boycott's
+potatoes, turnips, and mangolds are got in, and his oats are threshed
+out, when his sheep are either sold or devoured on the spot by his
+hungry defenders, he will accompany the Orangemen on their return
+march, at least to the nearest railway station. That neither he nor
+his auxiliaries would be safe for a single hour after the departure of
+the military is certain, and the expense of maintaining a huge
+garrison in Ballinrobe will therefore of necessity continue until the
+last potato is dug and the last turnip pulled.[1] If the weather were
+only moderately favourable, the work might be got through in a week or
+ten days; but if it rains as it has done to-day, it is quite
+impossible to say when it will be done. As I was looking at the men
+potato-digging the rain seemed to cut at one's face like a whip, and
+all through the afternoon Ballinrobe has been deluged. In this
+beautiful island everybody disregards ordinary rain, but the downpour
+of the last few days is quite extraordinary. The river is swollen to
+double its usual size, and the slushy misery endured by the military
+under canvas is quite beyond general camp experience. The soldiers
+have only one consolation--that the Orangemen are under canvas too.
+
+
+GALWAY, _Tuesday, Nov. 16th._
+
+"Thim that is snug, your honour, is slower in payin' than thim that is
+poor," said one of my informants a few days ago, just as I was setting
+out for the seat of war in county Mayo. The speaker was a Connemara
+man, and his remark was applied more particularly to his own region;
+but the state of affairs in the neighbouring county illustrates his
+opinion in the most vivid colours.
+
+Ballinrobe is the centre of a by no means unprosperous part of
+Ireland. Pretty homesteads are frequent, and well-furnished stackyards
+refresh the eye wearied with looking upon want and desolation. Between
+Ballinrobe and Hollymount the country is agreeably fertile; toward
+Cong and Cloonbur, where Lord Mountmorres was shot, and in the
+direction of Headford, on the Galway road, there is plenty of evidence
+of prosperity. It is, however, precisely in the rich country lying
+east of Lough Mask that the greatest disinclination to pay rent
+prevails. Nowhere is the disaffected party more completely organized,
+and nowhere is it, rightly or wrongly, thought that some of the
+tenants could more easily pay up if they liked. As contrasted with
+the hovels of the northern part of Mayo and the west of county
+Galway, the houses at Ballinrobe are comfortable, and the people
+apparently naturally well off. Moreover, they have a better idea of
+what comfort is than the inhabitants of the seaboard. I cannot better
+show this than by describing the houses in which I passed part, at
+least, of the last two Sundays.
+
+When I arrived at Ballinrobe on Wednesday last it was almost
+impossible to obtain quarters either for love or money. I had
+telegraphed beforehand to that most civil and obliging of
+hotel-keepers, Mr. Valkenburgh, of Ballinrobe, to secure rooms for me
+and send a car to Cong. The car came, and the driver with whom I had
+the debate already recorded, but it had been impossible to obtain a
+room for me anywhere. Mr. Valkenburgh's own house was crammed to the
+roof with closely laid strata of guests, from the American reporter
+under the roof to the cavalry officer in the front parlour. There was
+nothing for it but to be bedded out--a severe infliction in some parts
+of Ireland. The polite hotel-keeper finally bethought him that in the
+house of a widow, who had only four officers of Hussars staying with
+her, a stray corner could be found; and I was finally established in
+the widow's drawing-room or best parlour, in which a cot, only a foot
+too short for me, was placed.
+
+The excellent woman, whose house was converted into military
+quarters, is by no means rich. Her late husband was in the office of a
+neighbouring landlord, and would appear to have been just getting on
+in the world when he died. He certainly lived in a house properly so
+called; not a house in the Irish meaning of the word, which includes a
+Connemara cabin. It is only one storey high. The ground floor is
+occupied by two parlours, a kitchen, and offices; the bedrooms being
+upstairs. There are curious signs of better times about the place. My
+bed was far too short, but by the side of it was an old-fashioned
+square pianoforte. There was no carpet on the floor, but the lamp was
+a very good one, and well trimmed. The fire was entirely of turf, but
+of enormous size, and on the mantelpiece were some excellent
+photographs. Hens clucked as they hopped on to the table, and a
+red-headed colleen was perpetually chasing a cat of almost equally
+ruddy hue, but everybody was mightily civil and kindly. The room was
+full of peat-smoke, but the eggs were undeniably fresh; so that there
+were compensations on every side. The widow, her step-daughter, and
+the colleen before mentioned did all the work. They made my bed, what
+there was of it, they tended the fire with unflagging zeal, they
+brought water in very limited quantity for the purposes of ablution,
+they dried my boots and clothes with almost motherly care and
+tenderness when I came in out of the pouring rain. In fact, nobody
+could have been kinder or more attentive, and when Major Coghill was
+laid up by his accident their sympathy was almost overwhelming. Yet I
+believe that we annoyed them and deranged the tenor of their lives by
+our matutinal habits. Perhaps they might have been strong enough to
+resist my desperate efforts to get a cup of tea at some time before
+nine o'clock in the morning, but the officers' servants were too
+strong for them. They came and knocked the house up betimes, and then
+the bustle of the day began.
+
+Now, I have been assured by the Irish priests and people that whatever
+faults your Commissioner may have, prejudice against Ireland and the
+Irish is not one of them. But at the risk of being thought a
+censorious Saxon I must confess that I am quite at issue with Western
+Ireland on the question of early rising. It is impossible to get
+anybody out of bed in the morning except the Boots at an hotel, and
+then the chances are that no hot water is to be obtained.
+
+A housemaid in one of the Mayo hotels on coming up to make a fire
+complained bitterly, not of the toil of coming up stairs, but of the
+early hour of ten, and do what I would I could get nothing done
+earlier. On another occasion I was told that people out West rose late
+because the "day is long enough for hwhat we have got to do." I
+retorted that they did not do it, but fear that my remark was put
+down to prejudice. It is not my function to indulge in sweeping
+assertions, but if I were asked why the Western people do not prosper
+I should be inclined to reply--Because they will not turn out early in
+the morning.
+
+But they are pleasant people in Ballinrobe nevertheless. Our widow
+never complained of our unearthly hours any more than we did of the
+turf smoke which communicated a high flavour to all our habiliments.
+The widow, although not rich, is evidently "snug" in her
+circumstances. She has a farm or two, part of which is underlet of
+course. This is another peculiarity of Irish life very remarkable to
+the stranger. Everybody seems to do work by deputy. A proprietor of a
+landed estate, not worth a thousand pounds a year when interest is
+paid on the various mortgages, would never think of being his own
+agent--that is doing his own work on his own estate. Not at all. He
+employs an agent who, thinking him rather small fry, neglects him or
+hands him over to the bailiff, who again transfers him to his
+"headmen," so that three people are paid for looking on before anybody
+does anything. This practice also may be in part the cause of the
+decay of the wild West.
+
+I have been so far particular in my remarks concerning the Ballinrobe
+widow, in order to compare the inland standard of comfort with that
+prevailing on the sea-coast. Just before the Ulster invasion as it is
+called here, I was induced to go to Omey Island. It is a place of evil
+repute for poverty, but is as healthy as it ought to be, having the
+blue Atlantic for one lung and the brown hills of Connemara for the
+other. It is one of those interesting islands which become peninsulas
+at low tide, a charming natural feature making it a matter of tidal
+calculation whether one can drive on board of them or not. It is not
+as bad as Innishark, which requires a trained gymnast to effect a
+landing, for it only needs nimbleness of brain instead of that of
+limbs.
+
+While that zealous and hard-working young minister of the gospel,
+Father Rhatigan, was saying mass, and visiting that part of his flock
+congregated at Claddaghduff Chapel, I made my way over the
+intermittent isthmus of dry, hard, fine sand. It was an agreeable
+change from the road, which for some distance had lain over a "shaved
+bog"--that is, a locality from which the peat had been cut away down
+to its rocky bed. For some distance nothing was visible but stones, on
+which the rain came plashing down like a cataract. But the aspect and
+situation of Omey Island are such as to suggest to the speculative
+mind another and better Scheveningen without anything between it and
+Labrador. The island is not, however, purely sandbank, as Scheveningen
+appears to be, for it has a nucleus of rock, the sand being a later
+accumulation, every year increasing in volume, after the manner
+observed in Donegal, or as stones are amassed at Dungeness. I had
+heard wild stories of Omey Island, of troglodytes, hungry dwellers in
+rocky seaside caves, and rabbit-people burrowing in the sand. As
+Maundeville observes, "Verilie I have not seen them," but I can quite
+understand how the story was spread.
+
+Over against the inhabited part of the island is what is now a mere
+sandbank. It is now covered with sand, and not a soul dwells thereon.
+But there were people there once who clung to their stone cabins till
+the sand finally covered them; so that they might fairly be described
+as dwellers or burrowers therein. At last their cabins became sanded
+up, and the poor folk moved to their present situation. Now I have
+seen superb potatoes grown literally in the sand at Scheveningen, and
+was not surprised to hear that Omey Island was once so famous for the
+national staff of life that few cared to grow anything else. But there
+are difficulties everywhere, and it is parlous work to break up ground
+at Omey. There is too much fresh air; for it blows so hard that people
+are afraid to disturb the thin covering of herbage which overspreads
+the best part of the island. "If ye break the shkin of 'um, your
+honour, the wind blows the sand away and leaves your pitaties bare.
+And, begorra, there are nights when the pitaties thimselves 'ud be
+blown away."
+
+Statements like this must always be taken at a reduction, but,
+judging from my own experience, Omey is a "grand place for weather
+entirely." Half of the island is rented by a considerable farmer, for
+these parts. He pays a hundred pounds a year for his farm at Omey, and
+a hundred and fifty for another cattle farm up on the hills. When I
+said he "pays," I am not at all sure whether he has paid up this year
+or not, but he has flocks and herds, and of course is a responsible
+tenant. Yet he lives with his family in but a "bettermost" sort of
+cabin. His wife treated me most hospitably; in fact, she paid me too
+much honour, for she insisted that I should not sit round the fire
+with the countryfolk, but occupy the best parlour, a room large
+enough, but blackened with smoke, and unutterably depressing, despite
+the cabinet pianoforte opposite the fireplace. Musical instruments of
+torture appear to be considered a necessary mark of competence in
+Western Ireland, just as a big watch-chain is in certain parts of
+England. Not a soul on Omey Island could play the pianoforte, thank
+heaven; so it remained with its back against the wall, as mute
+evidence of solvency. There was no carpet on the floor, which was of a
+fine dirt-colour, and the chickens, ducks, and geese circulated freely
+about.
+
+Here now was a man paying, or promising to pay, 250l. a year in rent,
+and who yet seemed to have not the faintest idea of comfort. It should
+be recollected that my visit was paid on a Sunday, when his family
+would be seen at their best; but the girls were running about with
+bare feet and dirty faces, and the neighbouring gossips, also
+barefooted and dirty beyond all imagination, were hanging round the
+fire, talking amongst themselves about the stranger, and half mad with
+curiosity concerning him. The farmer lived, it is true, in a wild
+place; but sand is so clean a thing in itself that it is a mystery how
+his tribe of children got so abominably dirty.
+
+The drive homeward past Streamstown was wet enough, but still
+interesting in many ways. In no part of Ireland has the curse of
+middlemen been felt more severely than in Connemara. The middleman is
+specially abhorrent to the people when he is one of themselves. He is
+"not a gentleman, sure," is a deadly reproach in this part of the
+country. Practically he is objectionable because, being one of the
+people, he is aware of their tricks and their ways, and suspects them
+as they hate and suspect him. What would be urbanity on the part of
+the real "masther" is in the middleman viewed as deceit. The sharp
+tone of command endurable in a superior is resented when employed by a
+person of low origin. And it would seem that middlemen are not as a
+race persons of agreeable character. All the old rags of feudalism
+which have hung about Connemara long after their annihilation
+elsewhere, have been saved wherever it was possible by the middleman.
+
+I am not quite certain that any one of these has ever "hung out his
+flag for fish" after the manner of the old proprietors who, when they
+wanted fish for dinner, made their tenants obey their signal and put
+back, whatever might be the chance of the night's catch. This flag
+was, so "men seyn," hung out often by the Bodkins, the ancient owners
+of Omey Island, but how long it is since it was last done is hardly
+worth while to inquire. Far more interesting is the much talked of
+"survival" of feudalism in the shape of what is called "duty work."
+Something analogous to the _corvée_ existed, I believe, in Hungary
+till a comparatively recent period, when it was commuted for rent.
+Within the limits of the English Kingdom, however, stories about "duty
+work" clash oddly on the ear, and yet I am assured that in the lesser
+island of Turk such work has been insisted on and "processed" for
+within twelve or eighteen months. Vexatious processes are not
+undertaken just now for very obvious reasons.
+
+"Duty work," so far as I can gather, is, or was--for no such work will
+be done again in Ireland--a modified, form of the _corvée_. Here and
+there it was enforced in various shapes. At Omey, in Aughrisbeg, at
+Fountainhill, and at the lesser isle of Turk, the conditions varied
+greatly. The general principle appears to have been that besides rent
+in money, fine on entry, and dues analogous to tithes on stock of pigs
+and poultry, a certain number of days in the year were the property
+of the landlord. The usual term was about a week in spring and a week
+at harvest-time. In some places five days only were exacted; in others
+three. In the case concerning which I am best instructed, five days in
+spring and five in harvest-time were demanded, together with any one
+day in the year on which the tenant might be wanted, at a wage of
+sixpence. If the tenant refuse "duty work" he may be sued in
+court--the damage incurred by his default being generally assessed at
+five pounds.
+
+Now it does not require any very clear perception to discover that
+among agriculturists or fishermen "duty work" is an improper mode of
+levying tax. In spring and autumn, and especially in the latter, the
+tenant requires for getting in his own crop precisely the week that
+the landlord is entitled to claim. Yet he must leave his own to assist
+his landlord. On one of the little islands, let to a middleman, all
+the evil features of the _corvée_ are brought into prominence. The
+island produces three kinds of sea-weed, the so-called "red weed," cut
+off the rocks and used for kelp; the "black weed" on the shore, used
+for manure for potato-fields--often the only manure to be got; and the
+drift, or mixed weed.
+
+After spring tides there is a great mass of drift-weed on the rocks,
+half of which is on the territory reserved by the middleman, and the
+other on that half rented by the tenants. The latter must give their
+master his day's work first to get in his weed, and take the chance of
+seeing their own washed away during the night.
+
+From Ballynakill--where the ribs rising in the green grass-land, like
+waves in an emerald sea, tell of extinct cultivation, of depopulated
+villages, and an "exterminated" people--to the supremely wretched
+islands of Bofin and Turk, the record is fearfully consistent. A
+people first neglected, and then crushed by evictions, has sunk quite
+below the level of civilization.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 1: This prediction was literally fulfilled.]
+
+
+
+
+VII.
+
+MR. RICHARD STACPOOLE.
+
+
+ENNIS, CO. CLARE, _Nov. 21st._
+
+At the seat of war by Lough Mask, I was informed that it would be
+sheer waste of time to go to Clare; that all was peaceful in the
+county which Daniel O'Connell formerly represented in Parliament; that
+at Ennis, under the shadow of the Liberator's statue, rebel commotion
+was unknown. All was quiet. It was true that people did not pay their
+rent, but that was all. I should waste my time, and so forth. But no
+sooner had I set foot in Ennis than I found that the _jacquerie_ which
+broke out in Mayo and Galway had reached county Clare, and that at
+least one gentleman living close to the principal town is at war with
+his tenants and the country side.
+
+The condition of affairs at Edenvale is in many respects even more
+curious than that at Lough Mask House. There is none of the pomp and
+circumstance of open war. There is not a soldier or a policeman on the
+premises. All is calm and pastoral. From a lodge so neat and trim
+that it is a pleasure to look upon it, a well-kept road winds through
+a well-wooded and beautiful park, in the centre of which, on the brink
+of a lake, stands a large and handsome country house. All is
+ship-shape, from the gravel on the path to the knocker on the door,
+which is promptly opened, without grating of bolt or rattle of chain,
+by a clean, well-dressed, civil servitor.
+
+All such signs of peace, order, and plenty are very noteworthy after
+one has been four or five weeks in Mayo and Galway, and convey a first
+impression that law, order, and civilization generally are to the fore
+in county Clare. The large and handsome drawing-room strengthens the
+conviction that here at least life and property are secure. It is true
+that several double-barrelled guns are on the hall-table; but country
+gentlemen in Ireland go out shooting as they do elsewhere. Several
+large dogs, too, are running about outside the house; but as Mr.
+Richard Stacpoole is a celebrated sportsman, there is nothing
+wonderful in that.
+
+Mr. Stacpoole, whose appearance and manner are as frank as his welcome
+is hearty, is by no means reticent as to the matters in debate between
+him and the tenants holding from him and other members of his family
+for whom he acts as agent. To the question whether he goes in fear of
+his life, he replies, "Not at all; I take care of that," and out of
+the pocket of his lounging jacket he takes a revolver of very large
+bore. It is a curious picture, this drawing-room at Edenvale. On his
+own hearth-rug, in his own house, with a silky white Maltese lapdog
+and a beautiful terrier nestling at his feet, stands no English or
+Scotch interloper, agent, middleman, or "land-grabber," but the
+representative of one of the oldest, most honourable, and, I may add,
+till recently most honoured families in the county, with his hand on
+the pistol which is never out of his reach by day or night. There was
+once no more popular man in Clare. His steeplechasers win glory for
+Ireland at Liverpool, whether they return a profit to their owner or
+not. He keeps up, with slight assistance from members of the Hunt, a
+pack of harriers, and hunts them himself. His cousin, the late Captain
+Stacpoole, of Ballyalla, was the well-known "silent member" who for
+twenty years represented Ennis in Parliament. Finally, he is spending
+at least 3,000l. a year in household expenses alone; but he never
+leaves his revolver; and he is in the right, for not two hours ago a
+local leader declared to me with pale face and flaming eyes that he
+would "gladly go to the gallows for 'um."
+
+But the local leader does not, or at least has not yet shot at Mr.
+Stacpoole because he "can't get at 'um"--a phrase which requires some
+explanation. I had, with an eye becoming practised in such matters,
+scanned the house and its approaches as I drove up to the door, and
+had discussed with the friend who introduced me to its master the
+chances of "stalking" that gentleman on his own ground. Trees and
+brushwood grew more closely to the house than a military engineer
+would have permitted, and I hazarded the opinion that it would be easy
+to "do him over," as it is called. But on talking to Mr. Stacpoole I
+quickly discover that the real reason why he is now alive is that
+ninety-nine out of a hundred of his enemies are as afraid of him as
+the Glenveagh folk up in Donegal are of Mr. J.G. Adair. Brave and
+resolute to a fault, he has openly declared his dislike for what is
+called "protection." "But," he observes, quietly and simply, "I always
+carry my large-bore revolver, and I never walk alone, even across the
+path to look down at the lake. Whenever I go out, and wherever I go, I
+have a trustworthy man with me carrying a double-barrelled gun. His
+orders are distinct. If anybody fires at me he is not to look at me,
+but let me lie, and kill the man who fired the shot. And I am not sure
+that if he saw an armed man near me in a suspicious attitude that he
+wouldn't shoot first. I most certainly will myself. If I catch any of
+them armed and lurking about here near my house, I will kill them, and
+they know it."
+
+There was no appearance of emotion in the speaker, whose collection of
+threatening letters is large and curious. His position was clearly
+defined. There was no longer any law in Clare. It was everybody for
+himself, and he would take care of himself in his own way. Mr.
+Stacpoole's situation is certainly extraordinary. He is not an
+"exterminator," but perhaps he is a "tyrant," for everybody is
+considered one who tries to exact obedience from any created being in
+the west of Ireland. He has incurred the ill-will of the popular
+party, mainly through his debate with one Welsh, or Walsh, a small
+farmer.
+
+So far as it is possible to understand the matter, this Welsh and two
+other persons held a farm of about fifty acres among them as
+co-tenants, paying each one-third of the rent. Whether Welsh had
+reclaimed bog and increased his store is not clear, but it is certain
+that when the lease fell in he had about half of the farm and the
+other two tenants the other half between them.
+
+Moreover, the land was not "striped" in blocks, but remained in
+awkward patches, so that each man was obliged to cross the other's
+land, and perpetual squabbling occurred. So when the question of a new
+lease arose, Mr. Stacpoole sent a surveyor to divide the holding into
+three equal shares as justly and conveniently as might be with
+reference to the tenants' houses. This was done, the land was
+re-valued at 12s. 6d. per acre, the tenants preferring to hold it
+without a lease. Thus two were pleased and one displeased by the new
+arrangement, and the displeased one, Welsh, or Walsh, was finally
+evicted a short while since, and his house pulled down. Only the other
+day a mob assembled, rebuilt Welsh's house, and reinstated his wife
+and family, who occupy it at this moment. Welsh himself is not with
+them for the reason that Mr. Stacpoole has an attachment out against
+him. However, the family remains, and no process-server would show his
+face at the rebuilt house for fifty pounds. Mr. Stacpoole could, of
+course, go and turn the people out as trespassers, but does not think
+it worth while until he joins issue with all the recalcitrant tenants
+under his control. Some forty of these will neither pay up nor
+surrender their holdings, and Mr. Stacpoole declares that he will get
+Dublin writs against the whole of them, and that if they do not yield
+he will evict them all and compel the authorities to support him.
+There is no concealment about all this, and it is quite certain that
+if Mr. Adair's action in the Derryveagh matter is imitated it will
+only be by aid of the military. The landlord declares he will "have
+his own," and the tenants talk ominously of the "short days and long
+nights" between this and spring.
+
+Meanwhile they carry on the war after their fashion. Only a few days
+ago they levelled the walls of a holding which had not been
+administered to please them by Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald. The week before
+last when Mr. Stacpoole's harriers met there was a crowd assembled of
+men on foot and on horseback, and the huntsman was ordered by the
+fugleman of the mob to go home. Luckily Mr. Stacpoole himself was at
+Liverpool, winning races with Turco, or something serious might have
+happened. As it was, Mr. Healey and Mr. Studdert, well-known
+cross-country riders, and very popular here, being present, as well as
+one lady, the sport of hare-hunting was allowed to go on; but this
+week, although ordered to go out with his hounds, the huntsman thought
+it wiser to stay at home, and a meeting of the Hunt has been called to
+consider what shall be done.
+
+The people can and will prevent Mr. Stacpoole from hunting unless
+members of the Hunt think it worth while to turn out with carbines and
+revolvers, with the possible result of bringing on a civil war.
+Probably the harriers will be taken over by a Committee of the Hunt to
+whom the present owner offers them, as well as the use of his kennels.
+Should his harriers be effectually prevented from hunting he will have
+no farther reason for remaining in the country, and will probably shut
+up his house, dismiss his servants, and leave Ireland; but this he
+will not do until he has "had his own."
+
+
+
+
+VIII.
+
+PATRIOTS.
+
+
+ENNIS, CO. CLARE, _Nov. 22nd._
+
+Ennis, on deliberate inspection, proves to be by far the most
+interesting western town I have yet visited. To paraphrase a familiar
+saying, its politics and its liquor are as strong as they are
+abundant. Ennis is famous for its electioneering fights, for its three
+bridges, for its public square "forenint" O'Connell's statue, said to
+have held thirty thousand people on a space which would not contain a
+fifth of that number, for its numerous banks, for its fine salmon
+river, the Fergus, for its police barrack, once the mansion of the
+Crowe family, and for its long since closed Turkish bath, the ruined
+proprietor whereof is now in the lunatic asylum on the road to
+Ballyalla. Ennis is also proud of its County Club, of its handsome
+drapery stores, of its brand-new waterworks, of its hundred and odd
+whisky-shops, and of its patriots. Of the latter by far the most
+eminent is a certain man named in newspaper reports M.G. Considine,
+Esq., but better known to his fellow-citizens as "Dirty Mick." Mr.
+Considine is a fine specimen of the good old crusted Irish patriot. He
+has pursued patriotism ever since the day of Daniel O'Connell, and it
+redounds greatly to his honour that he is now as poor as when he
+started in that profession.
+
+This Milesian Diogenes is in many respects the most remarkable man in
+county Clare, after, if not before, The O'Gorman Mahon himself. He is
+also the dirtiest. But the grime on Mr. Considine has a romantic
+origin. It is the fakir's robe of filth. When he was only a budding
+patriot the great Liberator once kissed him. Mr. Considine determined
+that the cheek sanctified by the embrace of O'Connell should never
+again be profaned by water, that the kiss should never be washed off.
+Without speculating as to the degree of cleanliness previously
+favoured by Mr. Considine, it must be conceded that it is very
+difficult to wash day by day, or week by week, as the case may be,
+round a certain spot on one cheek which, moreover, would soon get out
+of harmony with the remainder of the countenance. It is easier,
+"wiser, better far," to bring the whole face into harmony with the
+sacred sunny side of it.
+
+This has been done; and the result is a picture worthy of Murillo or
+Zurbaran. From the grimy but handsome well-cut face gleam a pair of
+bright, marvellously bright blue eyes, and the voice which bids
+welcome to the stranger is curiously sweet and sonorous. Mr.
+Considine is quite the best speaker here, and his summons will always
+bring an audience to Ennis. One enthusiast said to me, "Whin he dies,
+may the heaven be his bed, and his statue should be beside O'Connell's
+in Ennis." Now this model patriot, whom every one must perforce
+respect for his perfect honesty and disinterestedness, keeps a
+wretched little shop in a trumpery cabin. His stock-in-trade consists
+of a few newspapers, his pantry holds but potatoes. Yet he is a great
+power in Ennis, and the candidate for that borough who neglected him
+would fare badly. I am not insinuating that any charge of venality can
+attach to him. Quite the contrary. He is admitted to be a perfectly
+disinterested citizen by those most opposed to him socially and
+politically. He is not only one of those who have kept the sacred fire
+of agitation burning since the days of O'Connell, but he is the
+possessor of relics of '98. He owns and dons upon occasion the Vinegar
+Hill uniform, and has '98 flags by him to air on great days. By dint
+of sheer honesty and truthfulness this poor grimy old man has become
+actually one of the chiefs of county Clare.
+
+Another patriot came under my notice in a queer kind of way. I had
+gone to look at the reclamation works on the Fergus river, and there
+encountered a scene odd and peculiar beyond previous experience.
+Shortly before me, had arrived Mr. Charles George Mahon, the nephew
+of The O'Gorman Mahon, and a Mr. Crowe. These two gentlemen being
+neighbours of Mr. Drinkwater, had looked in to see his works, and in a
+friendly way were chatting to one of his foremen, bringing work to a
+standstill, but conducting themselves with the easy affability common
+to the lesser proprietors of county Clare. All was going smoothly
+when, like his predecessors, disregarding the warning that no person
+could be admitted except on business, a strange personage put in an
+appearance. Neither Cruikshank, Daumier, nor Doré ever conceived a
+more grotesque figure than that which entered the Clare Reclamation
+works.
+
+Imagine a singularly small rough-coated donkey stunted by too early and
+too hard work, and on its back a cripple--a _cul-de-jatte_--carrying
+his crutches with him, laid across the withers of the unfortunate
+animal he bestrode. Imagine also a face, very cleanly washed, and of
+that Semitic outline and expression by no means uncommon in Connaught,
+dark flashing eyes, an aquiline nose, and a wide expressive mouth.
+Dismounted from his steed and placed up against the wall, the decently
+dressed and well-spoken man, propped up on his crutches, would have
+been thought rather an object of charitable interest than of distrust,
+if not of fear.
+
+This poor and apparently helpless man is a popular speaker and
+lecturer--one who does not deliver his harangues in high places, but
+rides on his donkey from village to village, spreading the doctrines
+now acceptable to the rural population. By the upper classes he is
+abhorred as a specially obnoxious and pestilent person. He, on the
+other hand, considers himself oppressed. He was a National
+Schoolmaster, but got into a scrape about a threatening letter, which,
+it is fair to state, was not completely brought home to him. However,
+he lost his place. In the hope that he might be reinstated he passed a
+science and art examination, but he fared no better, and then found
+that the trade of a popular agitator was the most congenial one he
+could pursue. He is also an itinerant scribe, writing letters for
+people who cannot write, making aggrieved people aware of the full
+extent of their grievance, and assisting them to send furious letters
+to the smaller local newspapers, concerning which I hesitate to
+express any opinion, lest the readers of the _Daily News_ should think
+they had stumbled upon the Commination Service.
+
+The bright-eyed, flexible-mouthed _cul-de-jatte_ was firmly planted
+against a stone wall, when his eye caught the figures of the two
+gentlemen talking to Mr. Drinkwater's quarrymen. Immediately the eye
+before-mentioned was aflame, and in sonorous tones the owner
+"war-r-r-ned" the foremen and workmen from holding any converse with
+Mr. Charles George Mahon, whom he addressed personally as "a
+rack-renting landlord," and otherwise held up to scorn and derision.
+Perched on his crutches, the cripple defied him, and poured out a
+torrent of eloquence on "the fiery dthragon of hunger" and other
+direful creatures, including landlords, which would have set at
+defiance Canon Dwyer's "exploded shaft of Greek philosophy." The scene
+afforded, at least to many there present, as much amusement as
+astonishment. That a nephew of a county member should be publicly
+attacked before a large number of people and be compelled to hear them
+"war-r-r-ned" not to buy an egg or a pat of butter from his tenants
+would be incredible anywhere else than in Ireland at this moment. But
+people are growing accustomed to strange things in these parts.
+
+The Clare Harriers Hunt Club met on Saturday, when Mr. Richard
+Stacpoole formally made the offer of the hounds, got together by
+himself at great expense, to the members of any Hunt Committee that
+might be found. The offer was declined. Mr. Stacpoole then declared
+his resolution to sell off the pack. He cannot keep them at Edenvale,
+for his "dog-feeder" has been "warned" not to give bite or sup to the
+animals for his life. So the hounds go to England to be sold, and the
+eviction--of landlords--goes merrily on. Such things may appear
+impossible. But it is precisely The Impossible which occurs every day
+in Ireland.
+
+
+
+
+IX.
+
+ON THE FERGUS.
+
+
+ENNIS, CO. CLARE, _Friday, Nov. 26th._
+
+It is noteworthy that the only two persons who are doing much
+reclamation work in the West of Ireland are Manchester men. Mr.
+Mitchell Henry has awakened Connemara, and Mr. Drinkwater has
+performed a similar operation upon county Clare Nothing in connection
+with the Kylemore and Fergus Reclamation works, which have brought to
+and distributed a large sum of money in their respective districts, is
+more remarkable than the apathy of the surrounding proprietors in one
+case and their hostility in the other. Mr. Mitchell Henry could afford
+to wait, and his patience has been attended with success; but Mr.
+Drinkwater was compelled to encounter, not mere passive indifference,
+but active acquisitiveness. For a time stretching beyond the memory of
+man the reclamation of what is called the Clare "slob" has been talked
+about. This talking stage is not unfamiliar in the recent history of
+Ireland.
+
+Everything has been talked about, and some few things have been done
+after a fashion. There remains in Galway a very comfortable and
+well-managed hotel at the railway station, which was originally built
+with a view to the American traffic scheme since become notorious; but
+the Galway people still believe that their ships were wrecked by a
+combination of Liverpool merchants interested in destroying them. The
+Harbour of Foynes, on the Shannon, was once talked about, but never
+grew into a seaport; while the fishing-piers, as they are called, lie
+dotted around the coast in places to which nobody ever goes and from
+which nobody ever comes. But it was seen long ago that something could
+be done with the Fergus "slob" if anybody could be found to do
+anything. Companies were formed and concessions were obtained, but
+nothing was done, although several square miles of magnificent
+alluvial deposit sixteen feet in depth were to be had for the asking.
+
+In 1843 The O'Gorman Mahon himself, as a county member, talked about
+the grand lands to be reclaimed from the Fergus, and the county talked
+about it; but nothing was done. This is the pleasant way of the West.
+All take an interest in any possible or impossible enterprise; but
+when it comes to finding some money and doing something, the scheme is
+relegated to the limbo of things undone.
+
+The principal riparian proprietors were Lords Inchiquin, Leconfield,
+and Conyngham, mostly absentees. Lord Conyngham was naturally
+indifferent, for his estate in Clare was to be sold in Dublin on
+Tuesday, and his interest in the county thus had ceased. Lord
+Leconfield is also an absentee, without even an address in the county.
+Perhaps, as the three noblemen mentioned own between them 85,226 acres
+in county Clare alone, without counting their other possessions, they
+thought that at any rate there was land enough, such as it is, in the
+county. Judging by the Government valuation the land held by them is
+not of the best quality, for it is set down at 38,188l., and probably
+is not let at very much more than that sum; but at the most moderate
+estimate they draw, or rather drew, more than 40,000l. a year from
+county Clare. When they were invited to share in reclaiming the rich
+mud-banks of the Fergus, and thus add 10,000 acres of virgin soil to
+the rateable value of the county, they declined with perfect
+unanimity. They did more than this. When Mr. Drinkwater had bought out
+the concessionees of 1860 and 1873--who had not struck a single stroke
+of work--and was endeavouring to get the necessary Bills through
+Parliament, he found himself confronted by the seignorial and other
+vested rights of these great landowners, who appeared determined, not
+only to do nothing themselves, but to prevent anybody else from doing
+anything--unless he paid handsomely for their permission.
+
+I do not cite this as an act of special iniquity. Their action was
+only part of the general system of taking as much out of Ireland as
+possible and putting nothing into it. A claim of 20,000l. and 5 per
+cent. of the land reclaimed for manorial rights over a mud-bank could
+hardly be overlooked by the Crown; and it is, I believe, not quite
+settled how this large sum of money and valuable land is to be
+divided, if at all. The landowners base their claim on various grants
+and charters and the Crown opposes them on public grounds, while the
+Court of Chancery takes care of the money. Contending against
+"landlordism" and other difficulties Mr. Drinkwater pushed vigorously
+on, almost, as it has turned out, a little too vigorously for his own
+interest. The English public is aware that the Government has at
+various times encouraged Irish landlords to improve their property by
+offering to lend, at different rates of interest, two-thirds of the
+money to be spent, always with the proviso that the Government
+engineer approves of the plan and sees the work well and duly
+performed. Under the old Act of William IV., passed in 1835, the rate
+of interest was fixed at 5 per cent. Under this statute Mr. Drinkwater
+applied for 45,000l. and thanks to his ill-timed energy in urging his
+application, obtained his loan at 5 per cent., just before the Act of
+1879 was brought in for affording somewhat similar help at 1 per cent.
+
+Mr. Drinkwater has thus the satisfaction of knowing that his
+neighbour, Lord Inchiquin, who has commenced improvements on his own
+account, has obtained 8,000l. at 1 per cent., while he pays 5 upon the
+large sum employed on the Clare Slob Reclamation; a state of things
+greatly enjoyed here as turning the laugh against "the Saxon."
+
+Being sceptical about the "slob," I went to see it. When I started the
+moon was shining so brightly that it would have been impossible to
+miss a landlord at forty yards. The sky was as blue and clear as that
+of Como or Lugano; but the wind which swept over Ballyala's sapphire
+lake was of a "nipping and an eager" quality, not commonly encountered
+in Italy. The ground was as hard as steel and as slippery as glass,
+and the first half-mile convinced us that the best thing to be done
+was to get off the car, catch hold of the mare's head, and try to hold
+her on her legs while struggling to keep on our own. It was three
+miles to the nearest blacksmith's, but there was nothing for it but to
+walk to Ennis as well as might be along the slippery road.
+
+This mode of progression was very slow, and it was nearly half-past
+eight when we reached that centre of political and alcoholic
+existence. Leaving the mare to be "sharpened" we strolled through the
+town in contemplative mood. Not a shop was open. Not a blind was
+drawn. Not a soul was stirring excepting the blacksmith, who had been
+knocked up comparatively early by the market folk. There was ample
+time and space to inspect the fierce but sleepy-headed town. In the
+main street I observed six grog-shops, side by side, actually shoulder
+to shoulder, cheek by jowl. Another street appeared to be all
+grog-shops but for the ominous exception of an undertaker. About nine
+o'clock a few people came out of chapel, and shortly afterwards the
+butchers' shops gave signs of life, one opening on each side of the
+main street, and blinking like a bloodshot eye upon the slumbering
+groceries and groggeries, drapery stores, and general drowsiness.
+Ennis was evidently sleeping off the previous day's whisky, and
+preparing to renew the battle with "John Jamieson."
+
+Presently the mare came round to the door of the principal hotel. The
+people there were just stirring, and visions of brooms and unkempt
+back-hair were frequent. At last we were on the road to Clare Castle,
+which might, in the high-flown language of the West, be fitly
+described as the "seaport" of Ennis. The river Fergus flows through
+Ennis, but it is broader and deeper at Clare Castle, a village of
+ordinary Connaught hovels. There is, however, a quay here, a relic of
+"relief-work" in famine time, and affording "convenience" for vessels
+of considerable size. Below the bridge and alongside the quay lies a
+large steam-tug, and lower down the stream is moored a similar vessel.
+A large number of rafts are being laden with stone to be presently
+towed down to the reclamation works. As we steam down the Fergus
+towards its junction with the Shannon at "The Beeves" rock, the stream
+spreads out to a great width, enclosing several islands, green as
+emeralds, of which Smith's Island and Islandavanna are, perhaps, the
+principal.
+
+There is, however, a marked difference between the area of the Fergus
+at high and low water. What at one time is an inland sea, is at the
+other a vast lake of mud rich in the constituents of fertility. As we
+reach this point of the river a mist arises compelling reduced speed,
+and as we pass by the upper station of the Slob Works a low range of
+corrugated iron shedding shines out suddenly through a break in the
+vapour, and, as the sun again pierces through, a long, low, dark line
+is seen stretching from the shore into the water like the extremity of
+some huge saurian of the Silurian period reposing on his native slime
+and ooze. But the lengthy monster lying in a vast curve is not at
+peace, for on the jagged ridge of his mighty back a puffing, snorting,
+smoking plague perpetually runs up and down. The apparent plague,
+however, is really increasing the size of the saurian. Every day
+hundreds of tons of stone are carried over his back-ridge and tipped
+into the water at the end of him, while scores of raftloads are flung
+into the water on the line staked and flagged out by the officials of
+the Government. Within a few weeks the growth of the saurian will not
+cease by day or night, until, as in the case of his kindred ophidian,
+his two extremities are brought together. For Mr. Drinkwater has
+contracted with the British Electric Lighting Company to supply him
+with the electric light. The motive power is all ready, and no sooner
+is the apparatus fixed than county Clare will be astonished by the
+sight of work going on perpetually till it is completed, and amazement
+will reach its highest pitch. The people, gentle and simple, already
+confess themselves astonished at what can and has been done, and those
+who at first laughed are now seeking how they may best imitate.
+
+As the tail of the saurian may be said to stretch into the water high
+above Islandavanna, so may his head be said to project from that
+pretty patch of verdure. Islandavanna is already a peninsula being
+connected with the mainland by a massive stone causeway, traversed
+every half-hour by a locomotive, hauling a train of trucks laden with
+stone, which, passing over the end of the island, runs out into the
+water to the "tip end," as it is called.
+
+So the work is carried on, like modern railway tunnelling, from both
+ends simultaneously, and when head and tail of the saurian meet the
+first 1,500 acres will be reclaimed. The "slob" will be easy to drain,
+and it is tolerably certain that within twelve months the first
+instalment will be ready for cropping. It is a sight to make a
+Dutchman's mouth water--a "polder" of surpassing excellence, but it
+is viewed in a different light by enthusiastic wild duck shooters,
+who, like the owner of a grouse moor, look upon drainage and
+reclamation as the visible work of the devil. I do not think they need
+be alarmed for some time to come, for, without exaggeration, I have
+seen so many duck on the Fergus and the lower Shannon that I hesitate
+to speak of figures and incur the fate of Messer Marco Polo, who, when
+he spoke of the vast population of China, was nick-named by his
+incredulous countrymen "Marco Millione." But when I say that I have
+seen scores of flights a quarter of a mile long, that I have seen
+reaches of water so full of ducks and other water fowl that they
+looked like floating islands, I only give a faint idea of the quantity
+I have beheld between Islandavanna and the abortive ocean steam-packet
+port of Foynes.
+
+Islandavanna is one of three stations of the reclamation works, and is
+occupied by about a third of the four hundred and fifty men now at
+work. In the summer seven hundred were employed, but the present
+season is not so favourable for getting stone and pushing on
+operations.
+
+The electric light, however, will, it is hoped, help matters greatly,
+and redress the balance of the "long nights and short days." By the
+way, I saw at Islandavanna, or rather at the other end of the causeway
+which connects it with the mainland, a man who once employed that
+expression in the menacing manner I have previously alluded to, with
+the effect of causing the foreman of the works to seek occupation in
+another and far distant land. Owing to some disagreement the foreman
+had dismissed or suspended this man, who had already been tried for
+murder and acquitted. Hereat he took his gun to go snipe-shooting as
+he said, walked about lanes and generally hovered about the place in
+such threatening fashion that it was thought well to persuade the
+foreman to go away. At the present moment Mr. Drinkwater and his
+friend Mr. Johnstone, the civil engineer from whose plans the work is
+carried out, are on the best terms with the workpeople; but the
+process by which comfortable relations have been brought about has
+been gradual. It is not pretended that when labour is required, and
+there is money to pay for it, any prejudice is felt against the Saxon
+as an employer. Far from it. A downright, straightforward Saxon, even
+if he be a Protestant, is looked upon by the Irish working folk with
+far less suspicion than one of their own class, and there is little
+fear of their combining against him, for they are far more likely to
+quarrel amongst themselves.
+
+It is hardly possible to convey more than the faintest idea of the
+rancour evolved by the jealousy of the Clare men against the Limerick
+men, of the hatred of both against a Galway man, and of the aversion
+of all three counties for Mayo and Donegal people. The citizens of the
+petty republics of Greece and Italy never abhorred each other more
+fervently. Now on large works with sub-contractors, gangers, artizans,
+and labourers, by piece and by day, it is no easy matter to keep
+matters going smoothly. It is needless to say that skilled artizans,
+such as engine-men and the like, are not picked up in county Clare;
+but no especial spite is felt against them. They are Englishmen, and
+that is sufficient; but if a gang of Clare men be dismissed and one of
+Limerick men taken on, there are signs of trouble in the air. Justice
+must be done to county Clare. Are the children of the soil to want
+bread while strangers eat it? For a Limerick man to the poor
+untravelled folk of Clare Castle, of Kilrush, and of Kilbaha is a
+stranger. Yet the small peasant cultivators on an islet near
+Islandavanna flatly refused to work at the "slob." Smoking a pipe and
+looking at a cow and calf grazing was a more congenial occupation, so
+they preferred staying at home. The slob work was too hard entirely.
+Now, this may appear incredible to those who have only seen the
+awakened Irishmen who do a vast quantity of the hardest and roughest
+kind of work in Great Britain and in the United States. In the latter
+country it is a matter of notoriety, supported in my own case by the
+evidence of my eyesight, that almost all the hard manual labour is
+performed by Irishmen and negroes. But downright steady hard work is
+just what the Western Irishman is not accustomed to at home. He will
+work nobly for a spurt, but when the spurt is over he loves to loiter
+and do as he likes.
+
+It is no easy matter to found such a centre of industry as the works
+on the Fergus, but it is to be sincerely hoped that many such attempts
+will be made despite of discouragement. Experience has shown that the
+neglected and, in many localities, degraded West is abundantly capable
+of improvement. Mr. Drinkwater determined to take the only way
+possible in these parts, that is, to feed and lodge his little army of
+workpeople, to establish a club for them, to give them a reading-room,
+to get porter for them at wholesale price--in short, to afford them
+every inducement to prefer the new settlements on the Fergus to the
+wretched huts and groggeries of Clare Castle and the surrounding
+villages. He insists, moreover, that every man shall have his
+half-pound of meat, either beef, mutton, or bacon, every day but
+Friday.
+
+There is no pretence of philanthropy in all this. It is done on the
+ground that it is foolish to pay a man liberal wages, if he have to
+walk several miles to work and home again, and be allowed to live on a
+scant supply of potatoes and bread, washed down with too much of the
+whisky of the country. An ill-fed man can no more work well than an
+ill-fed horse, and inasmuch as the sooner the work is done the less
+interest will be paid on the Government loan, it is obviously
+important to get the work done as soon as possible. Hence high wages,
+on the condition that a certain proportion shall be spent on food and
+lodging, in a range of labourers' houses admirably built of iron lined
+with wood, perfectly warmed and lighted, and kept wonderfully clean.
+There are a store-house and a refectory, a cooking department and
+dormitories, perfectly ventilated and swept and garnished every day.
+Tea, beer, and other beverages except whisky can be obtained, and
+there is an abundant supply of books and newspapers. Every facility
+and encouragement is given to the priests to visit their people. In
+short, the colony on the Fergus Reclamation Works is one of the most
+extraordinary sights in the West of Ireland. As the entire work will
+hardly be completed under five or six years, the influence of such a
+community of people doing their work steadily and thoroughly ought to
+be very valuable.
+
+Such works, as well as the reclamation of mountain and bog suggested
+and tried by Mr. Mitchell Henry for the benefit of peasant
+cultivators, are absolutely required to quicken the industry of the
+languishing West. The poor people here require to be taught many
+things; notably to obey orders, to mind their own business, to hold
+their tongues, and to wash themselves; but it is impossible to expect
+four such virtues as obedience, industry, silence, and cleanliness to
+be acquired all at once by people who have been neglected for
+centuries. But there can be no radical defect in them, for they work
+hard enough in America, and under strict taskmasters too, for a Yankee
+farmer is like a Yankee skipper, inclined to pay good wages, but to
+insist on the money being earned. So far as discipline is concerned
+there is no better soldier or soldier-servant than a Western Irishman,
+none more patient under difficulty and privation, none so full of
+cheerfulness and resource. Probably the conditions of life are more
+favourable elsewhere, as they may easily be. Here in county Clare
+there seems to a perhaps too-hasty observer a complete want of social
+homogeneity. What lamps of refinement and intellectual culture burn
+here burn for each other only, and serve but to intensify the darkness
+around.
+
+In no part of Ireland that I have seen are class distinctions more
+sharply defined. The landholding gentry are with but two or three
+exceptions Protestants, and, with the exception of Lord Inchiquin, are
+of English, Scotch, or Dutch descent, as such names as Vandeleur,
+Crowe, Stacpoole, and Burton indicate. I am not aware of the landed
+possessions of The O'Gorman Mahon, but I have already stated that his
+nephew holds only a moderate estate, let by the way at about three
+times the Government valuation--but not, I must add, necessarily,
+rack-rented, for Griffiths is, for reasons fully explained by a score
+of writers beside myself, a deceptive guide in grazing counties. The
+gentry of the county, however, are nearly all Protestant, and it is
+curious to note on Sunday at Ennis how the masters and their families
+go to one church and their servants to another. I am not insinuating
+that there is any sectarian squabbling. There is not, for the simple
+reason that the two classes of gentry and tradesfolk are too far apart
+to come into collision. On one side of a broad line stand the lords of
+the soil, of foreign descent, of Protestant religion, of exclusive
+social caste; on the other stand the people, the shop-keepers, the
+greater farmers and the peasants, all of whom are Irish Roman
+Catholics, and bound to each other by the ties of common religion,
+common descent, and often of actual kinship. There is, excepting
+perhaps a dozen professional men, no middle-class at all, through
+which the cultivation of the superior strata could permeate to the
+lower.
+
+Probably no more difficult social condition ever presented itself. To
+show how completely the members of what ought to be a middle-class, I
+mean the large tenant-farmers, are identified with the peasant class,
+I may add that many of them, working with a capital of many thousands
+of pounds, are subscribers to the Land League, and that many are not
+paying their rent. Lord Inchiquin enjoys a good reputation as a
+landlord; but his tenants refuse to pay more than Griffiths's
+valuation, and I hear that other great landlords in the county are not
+much more fortunate. What is most singular of all is that the
+middlemen, who are subletting and subdividing their holdings at
+tremendous rack-rents, are among the most prominent in refusing to pay
+the chief landlord. They see a great immediate advantage to themselves
+in the present movement, for they give but short credit to their
+tenants, while they enjoy the full benefit of a "hanging gale," or
+owing always half a year's rent, according to the custom of this
+county.
+
+
+ENNIS, COUNTY CLARE, _November 28th._
+
+The first news which greeted me on Friday night was, that, at a
+meeting of magistrates on Wednesday morning, Mr. Richard Stacpoole had
+been persuaded to accept police protection, and that two men living at
+Ballygoree, near Ballyalla, had been taken out of their houses on
+Thursday night and severely taken to task for having committed the
+atrocity of paying their rent. The poor fellows urged, in extenuation,
+that they had the money, that they owed it, and that their holdings
+were not "set" at an extravagant price. All this availed them nothing.
+They were compelled to kneel down in the midst of the muddy road, in
+the dead of the night, and to solemnly swear never to behave so
+wickedly again, after which six guns were fired in a volley over their
+heads, and they were allowed to regain their houses.
+
+The event which had drawn me back to Ennis was a meeting of the
+magistrates of Clare, specially called to consider the state of the
+county. A large attendance was looked for, and Saturday being market
+day in Ennis, two more things were certain--the first, that the town
+would be full of people, and the second, that the people would be full
+of whisky. A great crowd assembled to greet the magistrates on their
+arrival, but, owing to the meeting taking place two hours before the
+published time, a grand opportunity of hooting the more unpopular
+justices of the peace was lost, and the "makings of a shindy"
+evaporated in some sporadic groaning. There was a very large
+attendance of magistrates. Lord Inchiquin, the Lord-Lieutenant of the
+county, was present, as well as Mr. Burton, of Carnelly; Mr. T. Crowe,
+of Dromore; Colonel Macdonell; Mr. Hall, of Cluny, who has outlived
+sundry attempts at assassination; Mr. Dawson, of Bunratty; Mr. Hewett;
+and thirty-eight other magistrates. The formal business of the day was
+got through without speechifying, and after some little consultation
+the following resolutions were adopted:--
+
+  First Resolution--That the state of lawlessness and intimidation
+      at present existing in this county is such that the law is
+      utterly unable to cope with it, and urgently demands the
+      attention of her Majesty's Government.
+
+  Second Resolution--That the landowners, having hitherto shown the
+      greatest forbearance, will doubtless now be compelled to take
+      legal proceedings to enforce the payment of rent, in order to
+      meet their own pressing obligations, and as this can only be
+      done at the imminent risk of life we consider that the general
+      peace of the county will very shortly be seriously endangered.
+
+  Third Resolution--That with a view to the maintenance of law and
+      order we respectfully call on her Majesty's Government
+      immediately to summon Parliament, in order to obtain such
+      extraordinary powers as shall enable them to deal effectively
+      with a conspiracy unprecedented in character, which aims at
+      the total disorganization of society.
+
+It is quite possible that these resolutions may produce some
+astonishment in England, especially now that it is well known that
+nothing beyond a special emergency will induce the Government to adopt
+coercive measures. But things said and done in the West of Ireland are
+apt to be somewhat after date. Still the resolutions of the Clare
+magistrates have their value as giving a tolerably clear idea of what
+may be designated the landlord mind. Minute subdivisions set aside,
+there are at least four ways of looking at the subject of the day in
+this part of Ireland. There is the view of a great landlord who,
+because he helped his people with food during the potato famine and
+with money to emigrate with afterwards, and has spent a little money
+here and there out of a huge income, thinks he has amply discharged
+his duty to his tenants. It is true that he began by charging them 4
+and 5 per cent, respectively on building and drainage improvements, a
+tolerably round percentage; but it is fair to admit that for several
+years past he has not charged more than 2½ per cent, for such
+improvements as he has made. The great landlords of this county are
+less attacked than others by popular orators, mainly because their
+rents are not exorbitantly high in the first place. The land is let on
+lease for terms as long sometimes as sixty-four years, and is
+sometimes underlet at greatly increased prices to the ultimate
+tenants, whose precarious condition brings the "head" landlord into
+undeserved odium. The great landholders and their agents maintain that
+to quote Griffiths against a landlord who has spent money in
+improvements since that valuation was made, and let his farms so low
+that other people can relet them at a profit, is a manifest absurdity.
+
+Another practical view of the landlord mind is that it is foolish to
+go on borrowing money under the Act of 1879 during the present
+uncertain condition of tenure and impossibility of getting in rents.
+Hence the Scariff drainage works, for which 34,000l. was to be
+borrowed by the owners of the property affected by the scheme, have
+been suddenly abandoned, and will not be carried any further, at least
+during the present winter. One consequence of this decision will be to
+throw a large number of people out of employ, who must either leave
+Clare or ask for relief.
+
+The first order of the landlord mind, however, is, to do it justice,
+not affected very seriously by the present crisis. The great
+landholders of Clare and Limerick are not in a heavily mortgaged or
+downright insolvent condition. Like the wealthy manufacturer during a
+strike, they do not care either to employ or to threaten harsh
+measures against their tenants. There is time enough for the present
+agitation to subside, as others have subsided, and if the Government
+should wish to acquire their land and disestablish "landlordism," as
+Mr. Parnell suggests, so much the better, especially since it has
+become manifest by the example of the Marquis of Conyngham's estate
+that purchasers, other than tenants, are hardly to be found for Irish
+property. And--as the agent of a great absentee landholder observed to
+me--of what avail would it be to proceed to ulterior measures against
+the tenants? Granted that all the weary delays of the local courts
+were got rid of by a Dublin writ, what would be the consequence? The
+tenant would, unless he chose to spend his own ready money to defend
+his case in Dublin, be swiftly ejected--that is, if sufficient police
+were requisitioned to make any attempt at resistance absurd. The
+landlord would get his own after a fashion; but unless he chose to
+keep a force of police on his farms the dispossessed tenants would be
+reinstated and their houses rebuilt by the mob; and nothing would be
+got in the shape of rent. As no person in the possession of his senses
+would take any farm from which a tenant had been evicted, the landlord
+would have only one course to pursue. He must farm his land himself,
+and then he would be "isolated" or "Boycotted." Nobody would work for
+him; nobody would buy anything from his farms.
+
+Everybody in Ennis knows the case of Littleton, whose farm is now
+under "taboo," and whose oats no man dare buy, and the similar case of
+a draper who had sold some material to a man working on the
+"Boycotted" farm, and was compelled to take it back. "There is nothing
+now," added another informant, "but to touch your hat to tenants, for
+they have left off doing so to you. And it is folly to talk of
+reprisals, or of persevering in hunting and going armed to the meet.
+Suppose an affray occurred and I shot a tenant, I should be most
+assuredly identified, tried, convicted, and severely punished, if not
+hanged. But if a tenant shot me it would be difficult to identify him,
+more difficult to arrest him, and downright impossible to convict him.
+Since Lord O'Hagan's Jury Act it is quite impossible to get
+convictions against the lower orders--witness the memorable instance
+of Mr. Creagh, when the assassin's gun burst and blew his finger off.
+The prisoner and his finger were both in court, there was no manner of
+doubt, and yet the jury acquitted him."
+
+Thus far the greater landowner or his agents. The tone is one of
+patient, if not amused, endurance, mingled, of course, with profound
+contempt for the _personnel_ of the Land League. But the smaller and
+resident landlord is of much more inflammable stuff. A strike against
+rent-paying signifies to him an end of all supplies. Whether he have
+two thousand or five thousand a year in land--for I omit the little
+"squireen" class as of no importance on either side of the
+question--he has almost certainly settlements and probably mortgages
+on his estate. Now, mortgagees in Dublin or London are not at all
+ready to take into account the difficulty of collecting rents in
+Connaught, and insist on being paid.
+
+Even their rancour, however, has moderated slightly just of late, for
+they are as afraid to foreclose on unsaleable property as the
+mortgagor is of losing his claim on it for ever. But the settlements
+must be paid, and as no rents are coming in, dowagers are obdurate,
+and the landlord lives well up to his means, times are hard just now
+in county Clare.
+
+It is not exactly "tyranny" which inclines the lesser landlord to get
+the rent out of his tenant, but his own need, which drives him to
+extreme measures. In bitterness of spirit he bewails his dulness in
+not following the example of some of his peers in getting rid of their
+tenantry and farming their land themselves, like Colonel Barnard in
+King's County. He also envies the lot of Mr. "Tom" Crowe, of Dromore,
+who, without acquiring the name of an "exterminator" or a "tyrant,"
+has succeeded in shaking off the load of teeming population and the
+abomination of "duty work" by degrees, and has now a magnificent farm
+of his own which might bear the inspection of Mr. Clare Read himself,
+and of all Norfolk to boot. Mr. Crowe, too, has not gone through the
+ordeal of being shot at like Colonel Barnard, and if not specially
+loved by the people, has no kind of quarrel with them. Mr. Burton, of
+Carnelly, who owns 9,669 acres in Clare, has been fortunate in getting
+some rent, mainly in consequence of his tact in driving round one day
+to collect it himself and taking his tenants by surprise. But Mr.
+Burton is an exception, both in tact and fortune, to the majority of
+landlords of the second rank. Colonel Vandeleur has been very
+unfortunate, like all landholders encumbered with what would be called
+small farmers in England. The few really large farmers in Clare, as a
+rule, have paid up either openly or privately, and in sentiment are
+quite with the landlord class. The lesser landlords are talking of
+nothing but Dublin writs, and declare that the so-called peace of the
+county is only unbroken because no attempt is made to execute the law.
+
+The farmers are of course peaceful enough so long as they are
+permitted to send a rich harvest to market, to pocket the proceeds,
+and to pay no rent. "But," said a small landholder to me, "is this law
+and order? Because I know it is hopeless at this moment to recover my
+rent, and therefore abstain from proceedings, does it follow that the
+peace would not be broken were I to put the law into operation?" I am
+sorry for this gentleman, for I know that he is what is called in
+commerce a "weak holder," or one who can afford neither to conduct his
+business with a firm hand nor to throw it aside till better times. He
+must go on, for he has mortgages and settlements on his estates; and,
+admitted that his tenants would go away to-morrow without any trouble,
+he could not spare what they owe him, and assuredly would not find new
+tenants for his farms. He of course is for the immediate suspension of
+the Habeas Corpus Act, and declares that to be the most merciful
+solution of the immediate difficulty. To him the "Three F's" appear
+altogether diabolical, and he proposes the substitution of "Three
+D's"--Disarmament, Disfranchisement, and a Dictator, the more military
+the better.
+
+From the medium and smaller farmers, who with the whisky dealers and
+the majority of the other tradespeople form the opposite camp, I hear
+that no measure that the Government can pass before the present
+Parliament will be acceptable to what is called the Irish people. It
+is now averred that the extension of the borough franchise to counties
+must be carried before a Parliament adequate to deal with the Irish
+question is formed. This appears a strong demand, and one likely to
+protract the present distracted state of the country. But I hear, on
+the best authority, that the Land League and the associated farmers
+can wait. They are in no hurry. England can take her own time and they
+will wait patiently, meanwhile of course paying no rent, nor any other
+debts which may prove inconvenient.
+
+Having passed their resolutions, the magistrates drive off quietly
+enough--but by daylight. Within the last three weeks the County Club
+sittings have been earlier than usual, the members thinking it at
+least as well to get home before dark. The valedictory wish expressed
+here just now is of itself ominous. It is not "Good-bye" or
+"Good-night," but "Safe home."
+
+
+
+
+X.
+
+PALLAS AND THE PALLADIANS.
+
+
+LIMERICK.
+
+In a previous letter I hinted that the well-to-do farmers of the West
+were not a whit more prompt in paying their rent than the starveling
+peasants of Mayo and Connemara, who, at the best, are barely able to
+keep body and soul together. Trusting far more to what I see than to
+what I hear, I become aware that in these troubled districts of
+Ireland, it is precisely the most favoured spots which are the most
+mutinous. Ballina, the most prosperous town in Mayo, is a stronghold
+of the anti-landlord party; and the Ballinrobe, Claremorris, and Cong
+country, full of good land and comparatively large farmers, is the
+district which has isolated Mr. Boycott, whose turnips and potatoes
+will probably cost the country and the county at least a guinea a
+piece. In no part of Mayo or Galway is the Land League more perfectly
+organised than in Clare, yet the farmers in that county are
+confessedly well off. There are some of course towards the sea, in
+the direction of Loop Head, who are poorly off, but the great majority
+are by no means in evil case. Ocular demonstration of this fact is
+supplied by the numerous farmhouses of the better class with which the
+country is studded. These are not merely large cabins, but houses,
+some of which are whitewashed. The haggards are full of corn-stacks,
+the rich pastures are full of kine. There is every visible evidence of
+material prosperity. It is true that when one has driven up the
+private road, be the same a mere "boreen" or a "shplendid avenue," the
+bell is found to be broken, the knocker wrenched off, the blinds
+hauled up awry, and the servants hard to be got at; but the
+householder is prosperous nevertheless. His larder is well supplied
+with poultry and wild fowl, his cellar contains "lashings," not only
+of "Parliament and pot," or "John Jamieson" and illicit "potheen," but
+of port and sherry, claret and champagne. His daughters are at the
+costly training schools of the Sacré Coeur, his lads are studying law
+in Dublin. Yet this man is a subscriber to the Land League either by
+sympathy or, as is quite as probable, by terror. Farmers of not quite
+such large acreage live in almost equally luxurious style. Their
+houses, that is the "show" rooms, are solidly if tastelessly
+furnished. Their horses and jaunting cars carry them to chapel; they
+live in the midst of rude plenty. If further demonstration be needed,
+I will point to the groceries and wine stores of Ennis. There are at
+least three of these almost on the scale of Fortnum and Mason's or
+Hedges and Butler's. Now Ennis is what an American traveller might be
+tempted to call a "one-horse" town of some six or seven thousand
+inhabitants, yet its grocery and drapery stores would hardly be beaten
+in York or Chester. Every imaginable eatable or drinkable can be
+obtained always for ready money, and very often on credit, and I am
+informed that all articles of feminine adornment, including cosmetics,
+are also to be had. Passing still farther from the domain of things
+seen to that of things heard of, I am assured on the best authority
+that for years past the banks have not held so much money on deposit
+as at the present moment. Yet nobody pays his rent. The form of
+offering Griffith's valuation is gone through, albeit it is known that
+that calculation is absolutely untrustworthy so far as a pasture
+county like Clare is concerned.
+
+My remarks concerning county Clare will apply, almost with greater
+force, to county Limerick. The city is of course a very different
+place from Ennis; but it is impossible to avoid noticing from the
+window at which I sit writing the crowds of purchasers streaming in
+and out of Cannock and Co.'s store, from late in the morning till
+early in the evening. I use the last words advisedly, for the people
+of the West seem to have accepted Charles Lamb's humorous quibble in
+good faith. If they begin work later than any other civilized people,
+they assuredly leave off earlier. But until evening sets in there is a
+torrent of customers pouring in over the way, and wooing the eye from
+the contemplation of the Shannon at the Thomond Bridge. Of the
+groggeries of Limerick and of the poison vended in them, I will
+forbear to discourse, for my business just now is with the country
+rather than with the town.
+
+Having heard much of the outrages at Pallas on the Tipperary border, I
+determined to drive over and visit the scene of action. For this
+country the journey was a short one; fifteen or sixteen miles out and
+in on an outside car is thought a mere trifle in Limerick. The trip
+occupied the entire day nevertheless. As we drove out of Limerick past
+the great pig-slaughtering and curing houses, we soon became aware
+that an immense convergence of the farming interest on Limerick was
+taking place. Car-load after car-load of well-dressed people passed
+us, and then came horsemen riding in couples or by half-dozens. For
+the most part the cavaliers were very well mounted, and also well and
+warmly dressed in the fashion of the day. Neither Connemara nor
+Claddagh cloaks were seen in the cars, nor were the blue or grey
+frieze swallow-tailed coats of Mayo and Galway seen on the powerful
+horses pounding along townward through the heavy road. All was sleek,
+prosperous, and quite modern, and was as refreshing to look upon after
+the frieze and flannel aforesaid as the green hills of Limerick and
+Clare after the brown mountains of Joyce's country. I naturally asked
+the meaning of such an important meeting of well-to-do folk. It was a
+funeral. An old lady was to be buried, and the whole country-side for
+twenty miles around had turned out to do honour to the deceased, and
+to enjoy a holiday on the principle that "a wake is better than a
+wedding." Not one in a hundred of those who rode by had paid his rent,
+nor was he prepared to pay more than Griffith's valuation, although he
+might have a deposit note for one, two, or more thousands of pounds in
+his cash-box.
+
+Pushing along this lively road we entered a famous part of Ireland,
+the Golden Vale, so called from its great fertility. Great part of the
+land here is composed of alluvial bottoms, a large area of which was
+drained by the Mullkear Cut, through the exertions of Mr. William
+Bredin, of Castlegard, a charming old fortress overgrown with
+creepers, and standing like a sentry over the more modern part of the
+dwelling. As we neared Pallas I was reminded that I was on classic
+ground, and that Old and New Pallas and Pallas Green formed the scene
+of the never-to-be-forgotten feud of the "Three and Four Year Olds,"
+the tradition whereof hath a rich and racy savour. Readers of the
+_Daily News_ will hardly need to be reminded that this historic
+vendetta commenced with a dispute concerning the age of a bull, one
+disputant maintaining that the animal was four, while the other
+insisted he was but three years old. The matter was settled, or was
+rather put on the footing of a "mighty pretty quarrel," by a desperate
+fight, wherein one of the combatants was either slain or grievously
+maimed, whereupon his cause was taken up by his family and friends,
+and a feud inaugurated which lasted many years, and led to the death
+of a considerable number of persons, besides continual "diversion" in
+the way of faction fights. Pallas is in the midst of the Golden Vale,
+a deliciously pastoral country, admirably fitted on such a glorious
+spring-like morning as that of yesterday for the sports of shepherds
+and shepherdesses as Watteau and Lancret loved to limn. But the first
+object which catches the eye in Pallas is not a bower of ribbons and
+roses, but a stiff-looking police barrack. Close at hand is the
+railway station, another unlovely edifice, and lounging about in
+groups are seventy or eighty of the gloomiest and most sullen-looking
+people I have seen in this country. The very little cheerfulness there
+is in Connaught is quite absent from Munster, or at least the
+Tipperary border of county Limerick. I learn that the occasion of this
+general loafing is a "rent-gathering," or rather an attempt to gather
+rent, and that Mr. Sanders, the agent for the Erasmus Smith School
+Trusts, is sitting, but not in receipt of custom. There has been the
+usual talk of Griffith's valuation and the usual result of not a
+shilling being paid; the present fear on the part of landlords of
+fixity of tenure being established being so great that nobody will
+accept payment according to Griffith lest his receipt should be taken
+as permanently settling the value of his land for ever. No money
+passes, as a matter of course, and the tenants mutter among
+themselves, "nor ever will." One neck-or-nothing friend of the people
+assures me that Griffith and rent and the rest of it is all
+"botheration," and that Pallas folk are going to "have their own"
+again, as was once said of a Stuart king, who did not get it
+nevertheless. I am not assuming that the opinion of a farmer anxious
+to get rid of his principal debt is that of all Munster; I merely give
+his observation for what it is worth, and as a sign that the hope of
+concession is gradually enlarging demand.
+
+Driving in the direction of Castlegard, I pass the signs of an
+eviction which took place at least a fortnight ago. The outgone
+tenant's bedsteads and wash-hand-stands are piled up against the wall
+as if crying to Heaven for vengeance against the oppressor. The
+display strikes me as entirely theatrical, for it is well known that
+vengeance is not left to Heaven by Pallas people, but confided to
+Snider bullets. The bailiff's left in charge of the house have been
+attacked, and yesterday an iron hut for lodging four policemen on the
+disputed property was brought to Pallas station. It went no further,
+however, for neither horse nor cart could be got to convey any
+fragment of the accursed fabric to the spot required. It is expected
+that the district will, after this display of "tyranny" on the part of
+the police, "strike" against them and refuse to supply them with food
+or forage. Pursuing the road past Castlegard I meet another crowd of
+tenants and learn that they also have been to a rent gathering, and
+have been offered acceptance of Griffith's valuation if the balance
+between that and the rent be considered as a "reduction" without
+prejudice to further arrangements, and without fixing a standard of
+value. This proposition remains under consideration, and is favourably
+viewed by the tenants. It seems, however, that everybody is afraid, or
+pretends to be afraid, to act without the sanction of the Land League.
+I am vastly inclined to think that in many parts of the country
+farmers pretend to be more scared than they really are, but around
+Castlegard they have evidently some cause for alarm. I called upon a
+farmer who has committed the unpardonable crime of failing to be, as
+Ouidà would say, "true to his order." He has been so lost to all the
+sentiments of manhood and of patriotism as to pay his rent. No sooner
+was it known that he was guilty of this dastardly deed than he was
+spoken of as a marked man, and three nights ago a Snider bullet was
+fired through his front door into the hall of his newly-built house.
+I saw the hole made by the bullet through the door, and also the mark
+where it tore out a piece of the balusters before striking the
+ceiling.
+
+The farmer in question is one of those extraordinary persons who only
+exist in Ireland. He is a sturdy, pleasant-looking man of forty, and
+has made his way despite what would appear intolerable difficulties.
+He has farmed for some considerable time about thirty-three acres of
+good land, and must have worked hard, for during that time he has had
+a large family to maintain. His father died but a short time since,
+and reduced the number by one, but he now supports his mother and his
+aged aunt and uncle, as well as his wife and himself and six children.
+With all these mouths to feed he has built him, well and solidly, a
+thoroughly good house, with extensive outbuildings and other
+improvements, obviously worth many hundreds of pounds. It might be
+thought the people of Pallas and Castlegard would have been proud of
+him; but he has paid his rent, and is marked for "taboo," if for
+nothing worse.
+
+Trudging across some fine pastures, and jumping sundry ditches, we
+regain the main road and our car, and proceed on that instrument of
+torture back to Pallas. Here we find the "threes" and the "fours," not
+at issue with each other, but united like brothers against the common
+enemy. Fearful howls arise from the railway bridge and the railway
+station, both covered with Palladians, male and female. A thoroughly
+good Irish yell of execration acts differently on different persons.
+The blood of those unaccustomed to it is apt to turn cold at the
+savage sound; but, with a little practice, "the ear becomes more Irish
+and less nice," and a good howl acts as a stimulant on the spirits of
+many landlords and agents. All the screeching at Pallas is brought
+about by the departure of Mr. Sanders, who, escorted by the police
+till he is safely off, rentless, but undismayed, slips away in the
+train, leaving the "Threes" and "Fours" to talk the matter over, not
+unaided by the presence, in the spirit, of all-powerful "John
+Jamieson."
+
+
+TIPPERARY, _Tuesday Night._
+
+Another proof has been given that it takes more people to do less in
+Ireland than in any other country in the world. The attitude of the
+combined "Three and Four Year Olds" was yesterday so threatening that
+the authorities decided that the police-hut at Pallas could only be
+erected in the teeth of the Palladians by dint of an overwhelming
+display of force. There is no doubt of the wisdom of this policy. A
+small force, insufficient to overawe the country side, only provokes
+the resistance it is unable to overcome, but a strong detachment of
+redcoats thoroughly cows the adventurous spirits of the most mutinous
+localities. What threatened at one moment to become a civil war in
+Mayo was put down without the loss of a drop of blood by an imposing
+military force, and the lesson so well illustrated at Ballinrobe is
+hardly likely to be lost in other rebellious districts. Yesterday, the
+affair at Pallas came to such a pitch that extraordinary measures were
+resolved upon. A bailiff had been shot because he, in the execution of
+his duty, occupied the dwelling of an evicted farmer, one Burke; hence
+it was decided that a police-hut should be built on the ground lately
+occupied by Burke, but, as readers of the _Daily News_ are aware, the
+Palladians actually struck against the police, and proceeded to
+"Boycott" those "myrmidons" after the most approved manner. Not only
+did Pallas refuse to aid in conveying the materials for a police-hut
+to a short distance from the railway station, but prevented the police
+from doing their work themselves. Yesterday, the whole border-folk of
+county Limerick and county Tipperary turned up at Pallas, and the
+conduct of the crowd was such as to lead persons by no means of an
+alarmist character to expect an ugly morrow. The authorities had
+determined that a police-hut should be erected on the spot chosen, and
+the populace had equally made up their minds that although "the
+makings" of a hut had been brought to Pallas railway station, they
+should remain there, and never be allowed to defile the land of
+Burke's farm. The police, despite their barrack, which looks strong
+enough to bear a siege, were obviously unable to quell the people, and
+it would hardly have been politic to let the latter enjoy a victory;
+consequently it was determined to employ the military to convoy the
+police-hut, or rather its _disjecta membra_, from the railway to its
+proposed site.
+
+It was pitch dark at five o'clock this morning, the hour for parade at
+the fine new barracks at Tipperary. The air, too, was keen, and the
+detachment of the gallant 48th Regiment ordered for service at Pallas
+paraded in no very affectionate spirit towards the Palladians. The
+ill-humour of the 48th is easily accounted for. After twelve years'
+service abroad no regiment would be cheered by the announcement that
+instead of Portsmouth its destination was Queenstown, _en route_ for
+Tipperary. Such, however, has been the fate of the unlucky 48th, from
+whom the mob of Pallas, or any other centre of mutiny, could expect
+but little mercy. Tempers, however, brightened at sunrise, and by the
+time the hundred men under the command of Captain Cartwright and
+Lieutenants Fraser and Maycock arrived at the Tipperary station every
+one was in a good-humoured, contemptuous frame of mind. Everybody knew
+that there was no chance of a row, and that the very presence of all
+the Queen's horses and all the Queen's men would make it certain that
+a blank would be drawn. The whole military plan of campaign had been
+well imagined. While the 48th came on from Tipperary the 9th came on
+also by rail from Limerick, together with a half battery of the Royal
+Artillery. It must not, however, be supposed that cannon was deemed
+necessary to quell the ardent spirits of Pallas. The guns were left at
+Limerick, and only the waggons brought as a means of conveyance for
+the makings of the hut. But the Limerick contingent was imposing
+nevertheless. It consisted of 105 men of the 9th Regiment, of a
+squadron of Hussars, who went by road, and of the artillery
+before-mentioned, who came, like the infantry, by rail. So well was
+the movement timed by Colonel Humphreys, R.A., in command, that the
+trains from Tipperary and Limerick met almost exactly at New Pallas
+station a little before nine o'clock this morning, just as the busbies
+of the Hussars appeared upon the bridge. Pallas was evidently taken by
+surprise, for any movement on a western Irish town before nine in the
+morning may be taken as a night attack. The people of the border of
+county Limerick and county Tipperary are quite ready to "muster in
+their thousands" at a convenient hour, but they are sure to be taken
+at a disadvantage before nine o'clock. The Palladians rubbed their
+eyes to find the classic battle-ground of the "Three Year Olds" and
+"Four Year Olds" occupied by the matutinal redcoats, and horse, foot,
+and artillery already in possession. As Pallas woke up about a
+hundred and fifty or a couple of hundred roughs made up "the name of
+a crowd," but those in command were informed that this poor show of
+resistance was really a feint, and that no sooner would the materials
+for the hateful hut be put in motion than a rush would be made by the
+people collected "in thousands" behind the village, either upon the
+railway station or upon the convoy in motion. I had no opportunity of
+getting round behind the village to review the supposed thousands who
+were to make the ugly rush and overwhelm the redcoats, but I have a
+strong impression that the Palladian army might have been dubbed the
+"Mrs. Harris" brigade. With the respected Mrs. Prigg, I disbelieve in
+its existence absolutely. Two arguments will destroy it. On the one
+hand, it is incredible that thousands of persons were out of their
+beds at ten minutes to nine A.M.; on the other, if they had sat up all
+night in the hope of a fight with the police they would most certainly
+have anticipated that diversion by a preliminary "shindy" among
+themselves, and have broken up in disorder.
+
+But when horse, foot, artillery, and police converge on a disaffected
+spot, it is hardly the province of their commander to disbelieve in
+the existence of an enemy. Colonel Humphreys accordingly made the
+wisest use of his forces. He had at his disposal 200 infantry, a
+squadron of cavalry, a demi-battery of artillery, and 70 armed
+constables--in all about 350 men. His first care was to secure his
+base, the railway station, and this _point d'appui_ was strongly
+garrisoned by the 48th Regiment. Then the road between the station and
+Burke's farm was strongly patrolled--so strongly as to keep up an
+unbroken line of communication between the farm and the railroad. When
+this was established, the procession, bearing the materials of the
+hut, set forth. First went the armed police, then an escort of
+Hussars, and then the Artillery waggons, carrying the pieces of the
+hut, guarded by the soldiers of the 9th Regiment. It is hardly
+necessary to add that no attempt at rushing or crowding the station
+was made by the populace. Father Ryan, the parish priest, behaved in
+the most praiseworthy manner, and exhorted the people to be quiet; but
+my own impression is that they were already completely cowed by the
+sudden appearance of the military from two quarters at once. By no
+means wanting in keenness of perception, they knew that, if ordered to
+do so, the soldiers will fire "at" them, and not vaguely, after the
+manner of the police. So the whole affair passed off quietly, and
+after trebling the ordinary police garrison of Pallas, the military
+returned to their respective quarters. A beginning has been made of
+building the hut, and at the moment of writing (9 P.M.) all is quiet
+at Old and New Pallas, as well as at Pallas Green. Whether the blood
+of the "Threes" and "Fours" will endure the sight of the detested hut
+gradually rising on the farm of the sainted Burke remains to be seen;
+but it it is doubtful whether the "Boys" will attempt a _coup de
+main_. Should such an attempt be made, the police would be compelled
+to make a desperate resistance, and serious consequences would
+certainly ensue. There is a curious contrast between the state of the
+"Three and Four Year Olds" yesterday and to-day--between the bragging
+of the one and the cowed look of the other. There is also something of
+amusement, were not the entire question all too serious, in the sudden
+and contemptuous withdrawal of the troops to-day, after having shown
+the Palladians that, however they felt about the hut, it should be
+built, and law and order maintained "maugre their teeth."
+
+
+
+
+XI.
+
+GOMBEEN.
+
+
+CORK, _December 2nd._
+
+Among the many spectres which haunt the sadly-vexed West and South of
+Ireland, there is one far more grim and real than the _spectre vert_
+who is either buried for ever and aye, or has undergone gradual
+transformation since '98 into Repeal of the Union, Young Ireland,
+Fenianism, Nationalism, and finally perhaps into Anti-Landlordism;
+albeit this latter avatar of an ancient and familiar spirit is by no
+means imbued with the poetic attributes of the original spectre.
+During my stay in Ennis and Limerick I succeeded in holding somewhat
+protracted conversations with three landed proprietors, three of the
+largest land-agents in Ireland, two bank managers, an influential
+lawyer, three leaders of the people, and one probable assassin.
+Through the discourse of all of these--varied and contradictory as
+much of it necessarily was--I could see distinctly one ugly shadow, as
+of an old man filthy of aspect, hungry of eye, and greedy of claw,
+sitting in the rear of a gloomy store looking over papers by the light
+of a miserable tallow dip. From the papers the figure turned to a heap
+as of bank-notes, and there was in the air the chink of money. For the
+name of this grisly and terribly real spectre is _gombeen_; which, in
+the Irish tongue, signifies usury.
+
+To Thackeray's truthful remark that there is never so poor an Irishman
+that he has not a still poorer countryman as a hanger-on, it may be
+added that when an Irishman is not a borrower he is almost certain to
+be a lender--the advice of Polonius being abhorrent to the spirit of a
+free-and-easy, happy-go-lucky people. When a man in these parts gets
+or keeps out of debt himself, he is mostly engaged in encouraging
+others to get into it. Often he has little or nothing himself, but
+acts after the Irish fashion as deputy _gombeen_ man for the pleasure
+of the thing, and also for a commission well and duly paid. This
+determination towards borrowing and lending is not confined to any
+particular class, but is characteristic of all. As the peer, who would
+never have put his hand into his own pocket to pay for improving his
+property, suddenly awakes to the value of drainage when the Government
+offers a million and a half at one per cent., so did the _gombeen_
+man, who would never have dreamed of lending more than a pound at a
+time to a peasant, extend his credit four or five fold when the Land
+Act of 1870 gave him the first instalment of proprietary right in the
+land he occupied. The instalment was a very small one, but it was at
+once discounted by the _gombeen_ man, whose rate of interest enabled
+him to run extraordinary risks. As the poor pay dearly for everything,
+so do they pay an extravagant interest for money. There was once a
+fashionable West-end usurer, who, pretending to know nothing about
+arithmetic, met his clients on the subject of percentage with "I don't
+understand figures, but my terms are a shilling per pound every month.
+It is easy to reckon up without going into sums on slates." This poor
+innocent was charging just 60 per cent., but his terms were lavishly
+liberal as compared with those of the _gombeen_ man. Instead of a
+shilling per month the latter charges a shilling a week for every
+sovereign advanced, and then "Begorra, it's only the name of a
+sovereign," which being interpreted signifies that an advance of one
+pound, less charges, only amounts to 18s. 10d., and that upon this sum
+a shilling interest must be well and duly paid weekly. Any failure
+entails a fine, and a failure to pay off the original sovereign
+borrowed within six months is very heavily fined indeed. I am told
+that the _gombeen_ man actually puts on cent. per cent. for this
+failure of redemption; but, on my principle of believing only a
+percentage of all I hear, and of taking a liberal discount off all I
+see, I doubt this enormity. Concerning the shilling interest per week
+on a pound there is, however, unhappily no room for doubt, and for
+small unsecured loans 260 per cent. per annum is still the ruling
+figure.
+
+This enormous rate of interest, however, is now only exacted on the
+very smallest loans, for the old-fashioned _gombeen_ man has lost his
+customers for larger sums. In old times he was the only means of
+obtaining such little sums as five and ten pounds on personal
+security; but since 1870 the banks have entered into competition with
+him, have undersold him, and, in fact, "run him out of the market,"
+except for sums under four or five pounds. The unfortunates who are
+short of a sovereign or two must look up their old friend in the back
+shop smelling of bacon, tallow, pepper, tea, and whisky, just as their
+social superiors seek the intrepid sixty per cent. man of St. James's,
+whose snuggery is perfumed by the best Havannahs that other people's
+money can buy. But when the soul of Mike rises to the sublime
+conception of a loan of five pounds he dismisses the old-fashioned
+usurer, and hies him to one of the branch banks which abound in every
+petty townlet in Western and Southern Ireland. When I say "abound" I
+mean to be taken literally. What would be thought in England, I
+wonder, of four banks in a town like Ennis, or of two in pettifogging
+places like Kilrush or Ennistynon--mere hamlets of some two thousand
+inhabitants? Yet these three places have eight branch banking
+establishments among them. It must not, however, be supposed that Mike
+gets his paltry four or five pounds on his promissory note without
+further security. Nothing of the kind. Mike must go through as much
+artful financiering to raise his five pounds as the Hon. Algernon
+Deuceace to raise his "monkey." His bill must be well backed by his
+friends, Thady and Tim. Now, Thady's name on the back of a five-pound
+bill is not good for much. He is but a peasant, like Mike, not a
+farmer, properly so called, and even as two blacks will not make a
+white, so will the joint credit of Mike and Thady not rise to the
+height of five one-pound notes. But they have a potent ally in Tim,
+who married Thady's wife's cousin. Tim is a prudent man, has worked
+hard at his farm, and, as a rule, has a matter of twenty or thirty
+pounds on deposit note at the bank, receiving for the same interest at
+the rate of one per cent. per annum. His name at the back of a
+five-pound bill is therefore a tower of strength, and, in fact, floats
+the entire speculation. In commercial phrase, he "stands to be shot
+at" while his own deposit money, on which he receives one per cent.,
+supplies the funds for the bank to lend Mike and Thady, at ten or
+twenty per cent., for there is no pretence made of doing very small
+bills at anything approaching ordinary rates. In fact, the peasant
+cultivator, having acquired under the Land Acts now in force a species
+of proprietory interest in the soil, has a sort of credit which,
+backed by a friendly and innocent depositor, can be made an engine for
+raising ready money in a small way. This help from the banks is so far
+good that it has relieved the decent peasant from his ancient
+bloodsucker, the _gombeen_ man. Admitting that with charges and fine
+for renewal and so forth the loan ultimately costs Mike fifteen or
+twenty per cent, he is vastly better off than he was under the old
+system. He gets money to buy pigs to fatten for sale, or manure for
+his bit of arable land, and if the rate appears high, it is wondrously
+merciful as compared with that to which he was formerly accustomed.
+
+But there is an awkward side even to the business which enables the
+principal Irish banks to pay large dividends. So long as care is taken
+that Mike and Thady do not overdo the accommodation bill system,
+perhaps no very great harm is done in extending the advantage of
+moderate credit to the humblest cultivator; but when competition is
+sharp in a petty townlet between two rival banks, the tendency towards
+a mischievous extension of credit is almost irresistible, and bank
+managers are at last driven to look sharply after their clients on
+market days, lest the ready money which is their due should be
+deflected to other purposes. The provision man, who has supplied bacon
+and other necessaries, is on the alert to secure something on account;
+and if, as is most probable, he has been giving credit somewhat
+recklessly, he is pinched for money, despite the high rate of profit
+he has been charging to cover his risk. For some time past the game of
+credit has been going on gaily; but since the commencement of the
+present agitation both banks and _gombeen_ men have distinctly
+narrowed their operations, and the landlord is now the almost
+universal creditor. The harvest-money has either gone to pay advances
+or to settle accounts with tradesfolk, so that an awkward future is in
+preparation for all but the prosperous tenants, of whom there is no
+lack in counties Clare and Limerick. Whatever the details of the
+forthcoming Land Act may be when it has passed the ordeal of both
+Houses of Parliament, the work of passing it will take time, and at
+least another half-year's rent will accrue before it takes the shape
+of law. Now, with all the talk of Griffith's valuation, there has
+been, except in a few cases, no hint of paying that sum "without
+prejudice" into court or into any bank whatsoever; and the cash held
+by both farmers and peasants runs, in the opinion of many well
+qualified to judge, sore risk of diminution before any comprehensive
+measure can pass through Parliament. Even the well-to-do farmers will
+be called upon to expend their balance in hand in many ways which they
+will find difficult to resist. Not only the provision merchants, but
+the drapers and milliners of Limerick, Ennis, and Galway, will hold
+out allurements to those in possession of ready money. To put the
+case briefly, there is great danger that, without any intentional
+dishonesty on their part, the cultivators, great and small, of Western
+and South-Western Ireland will hardly be in as good a position for the
+discharge of their liabilities six months or a year hence as they are
+at present. The three "F's" will hardly wipe off existing debt, and
+the result of a division of the population into two sharply defined
+classes of debtors and creditors is viewed by many thoughtful people
+with considerable apprehension.
+
+
+
+
+XII.
+
+THE RETAINER.
+
+
+CORK, _December 4th._
+
+In describing the character of the Western and Southern Irishman
+nothing would be more unfair than to leave out of the estimate his
+curious faithfulness to some persons, and the tenderness with which he
+cherishes the traditions of the past. In no country in the world is
+the superstition concerning the "good old times" more fervently
+believed in than in Western and Southern Ireland. And in the opinion
+of the mass of the people the good old times extended down to a recent
+date. One is asked to believe that before the period of the potato
+famine Ireland was the abode of plenty if not of peace, and that
+landlords and tenants blundered on together on the most amicable
+terms. It is hardly necessary to state that the golden age of Ireland,
+like the golden age of every other country, never had any real
+existence. It is like the good old-fashioned servant who from the time
+of Terence to our own has always lived in the imaginary past, but
+never in the real present. The belief in a recent golden age is,
+however, so prevalent in Ireland that I have thought it worth while to
+investigate the grounds on which it is based and the means by which it
+has been kept fresh and green.
+
+The first fact which strikes the observer is that since the potato
+famine the West and South have been going through a period of
+transition still in progress. Under the authority of the Encumbered
+Estates Court a vast area of land has changed hands, and the new
+proprietors have only in rare cases succeeded in securing the
+affection of their tenants and neighbours, who sit "crooning" over the
+fire, extolling the virtues of the "ould masther" and comparing him
+with the new one, very much to the disadvantage of the latter. It is
+not remarkable that such comparisons should be instituted. The people
+have very little to do, and do that in a slovenly, slip-shod way, and
+they have therefore plenty of leisure for gossip. As they are ignorant
+of everything beyond their own county, it is only natural that the new
+proprietor or lessee should be discussed at great length, and all his
+acts and deeds be fully commented upon. And it is not remarkable that
+the judgment should be adverse to the new man. He is generally North
+Irish, Scotch, or English. The two former are hated at once, at a
+venture; but the "domineering Saxon" is given a chance, and with a
+little tact and good temper can secure, if not affection, at least
+toleration.
+
+But it is not easy to get the good word of the people, even when one
+is neither a "tyrant" oneself nor the lessee of an "exterminator"; for
+the ways of the most just and generous of the new men do not suit
+those of the natives like the system, or rather want of system, of the
+old chiefs. Even when a demesne only is leased by a "foreigner," and
+all risk of quarrelling with tenants is thus avoided, it is hard work
+to achieve popularity. As I drove up the avenue of a dwelling thus
+inhabited, I asked the driver what he and the country-side thought of
+the new tenant of the old house. "A good man, your honour," was the
+cold answer; followed by an enthusiastic, "Och, but it was the ould
+masther that was the good man! Sorra the bite or sup any one wanted
+while he was to the fore!" Now, the "ould masther" was, I understand,
+a worthy gentleman, of good old county family, who lived in the midst
+of his tenantry for several months every year, and "kept up his old
+mansion at a bountiful old rate," like a fine old "Celticised Norman,"
+as he was. Like the descendants of the early settlers described by Mr.
+Froude, he and his had retained their popularity by concessions to
+Celtic habits, not in religion or personal conduct be it understood,
+but in letting things go on easily, in a happy-go-lucky way, without
+any superstitions concerning the profuse employment of soap and water
+by their dependents. Probably no lady of the house had for many
+generations entered the kitchen, which apparently served as a focus
+for the country folk. The stone floor was a stranger to hearthstone
+and to water, except such as might be spilt upon it; and was either
+slippery or sticky here and there, according to the nature of the most
+recent deposits. The table and dressers were in such a condition when
+taken over by the "domineering Saxon" that washing was abandoned as
+hopeless, and scraping and planing were perforce resorted to. But
+overhead, firmly fixed in the beams of the ceiling, hung many a goodly
+flitch of bacon, many a plump, well-fed ham. Under the shadow of this
+appetising display might be found at any time during the day about a
+score of persons who had no business there whatever, but found it
+"mighty convanient" to look in about meal times for the bite and sup
+my car-driver so regretfully alluded to, and to sit round the fire
+smoking a pipe and talking for hours afterwards.
+
+It was in the larder attached to this fine old kitchen that I met a
+glorious specimen of the fine Old Irish Retainer, faithful to the
+memory of the "ould masther," who had left him an annuity of eight
+shillings per week, and not unmindful of the virtues of the new one,
+who keeps him on the establishment as an interesting "survival," and
+lodges, feeds, and clothes him, in order that he may not be obliged
+to divert any portion of his income from its natural course towards
+Mary Molony's shebeen, to the purchase of the prosaic necessaries of
+life. The Retainer, who was enjoying the occupation of turning some
+hams and bacon in salt, and inspecting the condition of some pigs'
+heads in highly spiced pickle, was a singularly good-looking man,
+with, well--I will not say "clean"--cut features and a generally
+healthy look, speaking wonders for the vigour of constitution which
+had successfully withstood sixty odd winters and an incalculable
+quantity of the poisonous new whisky of the country. He was interested
+in the subject of obtaining sundry rounds of salt beef for
+Christmastide, holding that roast beef is but a vain thing, good
+enough for Saxons, no doubt, but not to be compared with corned beef
+or bacon and cabbage. The Retainer spoke kindly of his new master, but
+at the mention of the old one at once kindled to fever heat. "Thim was
+times, your honour. Niver a week but we killed two sheep, or a month
+that we didn't kill a baste. And pigs, your honour. If we didn't kill
+a pig every day, as your honour says, we killed a matther of four
+score every sayson. And there was lashings and lavings of mate for
+every one. And the ould masther said, says he, 'As long as it's
+there,' says he, 'all are welcome to a bite and a sup at my house. As
+long as it's there,' says he. And he was the good man, your honour."
+
+This was it. The present tenant's Celticised predecessor, whose glory
+still fills the land, lived the life of an African chief. When ox,
+sheep, or pig was slain, the choice morsels of the animal were perhaps
+reserved for the chieftain's table, and the remainder of the carcase
+was distributed among the tribe assembled in that part of the kraal
+called the kitchen. Odds and ends of food were always on hand; and if
+there was not much to eat at home there was always something to be had
+at the chieftain's tent. Outside of the kitchen door was the stable
+yard, knee deep in the accumulated filth of years, and the garden was
+a wilderness. "But, your honour," said the Retainer, "it was the foine
+gentleman he was, and it tuk three waggons to carry away the empty
+champagne bottles when the new masther came, and long life to him and
+to your honour; and I wish your honour safe home and welcome back."
+
+Thus far the Retainer, who is fairly well cared for, and ought to be
+satisfied whether he is or not; but it is otherwise with the
+surrounding public. As the old order changes and gives place to the
+new, the poorer tenants have seen one privilege depart from them after
+the other. To the new occupant, however much inclined he may be to
+deal liberally, nay, generously with the country folk, it appears
+preposterous that a score or more of loafers should assist his
+servants in "eating up his mutton." The new comer is prepared to deal
+handsomely with the people, who with all their faults have endearing
+qualities almost impossible to resist; but the fact is that he does
+not understand the situation till it is too late. A good Scotch or
+English housewife going into her kitchen and finding it so
+inexpressibly dirty that her feet are literally rooted to the ground,
+is apt to express a very decided opinion, despite the presence of a
+dozen or more of gossips smoking their pipes round the fire; but her
+remarks are hardly likely to be taken in good part, and she is classed
+as a "domineering" person forthwith. And a general misunderstanding
+can only be averted by timely concessions and the prompt dismissal of
+English servants who neither can nor will live with their Irish peers.
+And yet it cannot be fairly said that anybody is to blame. The
+"foreigner" cannot endure to be kept in bed till late in the morning,
+and hence easily acquires the reputation of a "tyrant." And the small
+tenants feel the loss of the African system, under which they never
+actually went short of a meal. As the right of mountain pasture and of
+cutting turf have vanished on some estates, so has the privilege of
+living at free quarters disappeared on others, to be replaced by no
+compensating advantage. This is one of the features of a period of
+transition during which, without ill-will on either side, the gulf
+between rich and poor is becoming perceptibly wider.
+
+Inasmuch as I am just now contradicted by peers in the columns of the
+_Daily News_ itself, and attacked--I must add, in very courteous as
+well as brilliant style--by a leader writer of the _Irish Times_, and
+held up to public opprobrium at Sunday meetings, I thought it well to
+submit the foregoing to a friend, born and bred in Ireland, before
+committing it to print. Where, except so far as the retainer is
+concerned, I was obliged to depend so much on hearsay evidence, I
+thought it just possible that I might have selected an extreme case
+instead of a fair type of what I have ventured to call the African
+system. I am quite reassured. My friend, who is an accomplished and
+experienced Irishman, tainted only by a very few years' residence in
+England, assures me that I have considerably understated the wild,
+wasteful profusion, slothfulness, and dirt of the old-fashioned
+chieftain's kitchen. He assures me that families are now abroad in the
+world without an acre of land or a halfpenny beyond their earnings,
+who, within his recollection, have been "ruined by their
+kitchen,"--literally eaten up by hungry retainers and tenants. He
+mentioned one family in particular, whose income sank from 12,000l. to
+nothing a year under the ancient system which united almost every
+possible defect. The tenants were not, it is true, charged a heavy
+rent in money, because civilisation had not advanced quite so far as
+the commutation of all dues into cash; but "duty work" was as strictly
+exacted on the lord's farm as it is now on some estates when coal is
+to be drawn, and "duty" tribute in kind was levied as well. Thus the
+tenant was obliged not only to cultivate the "ould masther's" land,
+but to give him at Christmas tide a "duty" pig and "duty" geese and
+fowls according to a fixed percentage. My friend, whose position
+places his assertion above all doubt, assures me that in old leases it
+is quite common to find a sum of money specified as the equivalent of
+a "duty" hog; and other tribute of similar kind. The "ould masther,"
+whose bailiffs looked sharply after "duty" of all descriptions,
+himself dispensed the indiscriminate hospitality already described,
+and "masther" and man floundered in the slough of debt and poverty
+together, making light of occasional hardship. All this feudal
+fellowship has gone with the old chieftains, whom the people profess
+to admire, and compare regretfully with the new men who expect to pay
+and be paid. But I am reminded that I have omitted to mention an
+important factor in the older polity of Ireland. The opposite ends of
+the social chain were brought together by that time-honoured ensign
+and instrument of authority, one end of which was in the master's hand
+and the other in the man's ribs or across his shoulders. It was "the
+shtick" which kept things together so far as they were kept so at all.
+The descendants of the masters say little or nothing about the good
+old custom of their forefathers in "laying about them with their
+rattan;" but the Retainer has not forgotten the ungentle practice
+which stimulated him to exertion in his youth. To hear the Retainer
+one would believe that the great smoother of difficulties, stimulant
+to exertion, and pacificator of quarrels was the "shtick." The idea of
+one of the tribe "processing" his chief for assault was never dreamt
+of in the good old times; for the recalcitrant one would have been
+"hunted out" of the county by the indignant population. To the
+Retainer the old time has hardly passed away, for it is not long since
+he actually recommended a "domineering Saxon" on the occasion of a
+domestic disturbance to "take the shtick to 'um, your honour. Sure the
+ould masther always did. And when he had murthered 'um they was as
+saft as silk." It is curious that the wand of the enchanter during the
+Golden Age of "Ould Ireland" should prove to have been the
+all-persuasive, all-powerful "shtick."
+
+
+
+
+XIII.
+
+CROPPED.
+
+
+GORTATLEA, CO. KERRY, _Monday, Dec. 6th._
+
+Having heard agrarian outrages reported one day and denied or
+explained away the next, I thought it worth while to ascertain the
+exact truth concerning the case of Laurence Griffin, of Kilfalliny,
+co. Kerry. It had been reported at Cork that Griffin had been taken
+out of his bed in his own house, that his ears had been slit, and that
+he had been otherwise maltreated by a band of ruffians, on the night
+of Monday last. Then it was roundly asserted that he had never been
+attacked at all, and that he was a malingerer who had slit his own
+ears, or persuaded his wife to slit them for him, with an eye to the
+excitement of sympathy and charity; that winter was coming on; and
+that, after all, the ear is not a very sensitive part of the human
+form. To ascertain the exact truth there seemed to be only one
+method--to see for oneself. Having seen the man, and assisted at the
+application of a fresh dressing to his wounded ear, not _ears_, I must
+confess myself incapable of entertaining any doubt as to his veracity.
+His mutilated ear is not slit, nor is he "ear-marked" like a beast, by
+a notch being cut in that organ. The upper and exterior convolution of
+his left ear is cut clean off, so that its outline, instead off being
+rounded at the top, is straight. The wound is of course still fresh
+and sore, but is already showing signs of healing. The poor man has
+evidently been not only barbarously mutilated, but nearly frightened
+to death. With his pale face and half-grown beard, and his head bound
+up, he is a pitiable object. Obviously he was nearly as much afraid of
+me as of his midnight assailants, and was far too much bewildered by
+the harsh tone of "the Saxon" to tell a smooth and coherent story. Bit
+by bit, amid many interruptions, he told his pitiful narrative, only
+one part of which I consider doubtful. He denied that, either by their
+clothes or any other sign, he could identify any one of the men who
+attacked him. I am obliged to believe that, despite their blackened
+faces, he could have done so, were he not in fear of his life. The
+hand of his enemies is still heavy upon him, for his wife cannot get
+milk from the neighbours for her children. They are either afraid, or
+say that they are, to give or sell to Laurence Griffin, his wife, or
+his children. He is thrown out of employment, and may, so far as the
+anti-landlord party are concerned, starve. The causes which led to
+the outrage on this poor man afford such a curious picture of the
+present state of county Kerry as to be worth narrating.
+
+A man named Sullivan occupied a farm at Kilfalliny, on the little
+river Main, a spot almost equidistant from each of the three railway
+stations of Farranfore, Gortatlea, and Castleisland. When Sullivan
+died several years ago, the farm, for which he paid about 190l. a year
+rent, was divided between his three sons, the man who obtained the
+middle or best section being "set" to pay 5l. more than either of the
+others, as having the best farm. The brothers on the outside sections
+have prospered. One has saved some hundreds of pounds; the other has
+given good, substantial portions to his three daughters. No objection
+was made to the manner in which the land was subdivided by the agent,
+Mr. Hussey, of the firm of Hussey and Townsend, of Cork, Tralee, and
+other places. The Sullivan who inherited the "good will," as it is
+called here, of the "Benjamin's mess" has not succeeded in life so
+well as his brothers. At the October sessions of 1878 an ejectment
+order was obtained against him for one and a half year's rent, equal
+to 100l. 10s. In January, 1879, possession was taken, and the farmer
+formally ejected, but immediately reinstated as "caretaker," a
+convenient practice, when it is borne in mind that in Ireland an
+ejected tenant has six months allowed him for "redemption," during
+which the landlord can only let the farm subject to the risk of the
+late tenant paying up his rent, less whatever has been taken off the
+farm in the meanwhile. Sullivan then was re-established in his farm as
+"caretaker," and there he remained with the consent of the agent until
+last spring, when he was summoned to depart. To this request he has
+declined to pay the slightest attention. When he is summoned for
+trespass and sent to gaol the Land Leaguers pay his fine and restore
+him to his family, who still keep houses on the farm as before. As the
+case at present stands he is indebted to his landlord (deduction being
+made for sums received for grazing and for about 100l. worth of hay
+still stacked on the farm) in the sum of 100l. The agent, anxious to
+settle the matter, persuaded the landlord to offer him a receipt for
+this, and a bonus of 100l. in cash, if he would go away, but this he,
+or the Land League for him, declines to do.
+
+It was obviously necessary at the end of the hay harvest to appoint a
+caretaker to see that the crop was not "lifted," after the manner of
+that of the irreconcilable Tom Browne, of Cloontakilla, county Mayo.
+Hence, Laurence Griffin, a labouring man, with an acre patch of land
+to his house, was given the job of looking after the hay, and
+occasionally summoning Sullivan for trespass. It must be understood
+that Sullivan's family have never been disturbed, and that Griffin
+lives, not like a man in possession of their holding, but in his own
+little house hard by with his own family. The supervision exercised
+was, therefore, of the mildest character, but the summoning for
+trespass was accounted a dire offence by the popular leaders. Hence
+Griffin was first "noticed" to give up the occupation assigned to him
+by his employer, Mr. Hussey, who had given him his house and potato
+patch. The poor fellow was sadly exercised in his mind, but he kept on
+with his duty until a second notice was affixed to his door. Then he
+lost heart, and a fortnight ago gave up his dangerous occupation.
+
+On the Saturday following, however, he happened to go into Tralee, and
+the exponents of the popular will made up their minds that he had not
+given up his employment as he was "noticed" to do, that he was still
+persevering in the nefarious career of a caretaker, and that he had
+actually dared to go in the light of day to Tralee to receive the wage
+of his iniquity. If not actually guilty of this enormity, he had at
+least a guilty look, and it was determined to punish him, and make him
+a warning to other evildoers.
+
+According to the man's account, given in a disjointed manner under
+severe cross-questioning, he had gone to bed on Monday last, when
+somebody tapped at his door and called to him to open. Thinking the
+visit was from the police, who occasionally looked in upon him, he got
+up, and huddling on some clothes as he went, made for the door. As he
+was on the point of opening it, a voice called out to him to "make
+haste," for the speaker was "starved with the cold;" then he knew the
+voice was not that of the policeman, and he would fain have closed the
+just opening door, but a gun was thrust through the opening, the door
+was pushed open, and a dozen men with blackened faces and armed to the
+teeth burst into the room.
+
+The ringleader then proceeded to go through some form akin to a trial,
+and asked his companions what should be done with Laurence Griffin,
+who had disregarded the notices served on him, and persevered in his
+villanous calling. It was suggested that death alone would meet the
+case. "Shoot 'um, says they," said Griffin to me. At this his wife
+sprang out of bed shrieking, and his children collected round him.
+Almost out of his wits with terror, the poor fellow declared that he
+had obeyed the notice, that he had relinquished his office, and that
+he was out of work, and full of trouble in consequence.
+
+After some little consultation the chiefs of the Blackfaces consented
+to swear Griffin as to the truth of his statement, and while guns were
+held to his breast and to each side of his head, he swore solemnly
+that he had obeyed the notice, that he was no longer watching
+Sullivan's farm, and that he would never offend in such wise again.
+
+When an end was made of swearing him, poor Griffin, more dead than
+alive, was marched out alone between his guards into the road, where
+he found himself among a score more of men, all with blackened faces.
+Then, so far as I could understand Griffin, the leader of the men
+outside displayed some dissatisfaction at the way in which things had
+passed off, and expressed his determination that the unhappy caretaker
+should not go scot free.
+
+"What did we come out for to-night?" growled the chief; "did we come
+out for nothing?" Muffled groans followed this appeal, and encouraged
+the spokesman to add, "Shall we go back as we came, boys?" the answer
+to which was a decided negative. Then the unlucky man, Griffin, saw
+something glitter in the chief's hand, and while he was kept steady by
+gun barrels pressing against each side of his head, he felt a sharp
+pain in his left ear, and the blood running down his neck.
+
+As to what followed he was very incoherent; but it seems that the
+Blackfaces departed, leaving him with his wife and children nearly
+frightened to death, and with the top of his ear cut clean off.
+
+I may add, as an indication of the state of Kerry, that a gentleman
+invited to meet me last night postponed the meeting till daylight, on
+the ground that night air is not good for landlords. Not a single
+person directly or indirectly connected with land ventures out unarmed
+even in broad daylight. It is needless to say that no money would hire
+a man to watch Sullivan's farm.
+
+
+
+
+XIV.
+
+IN KERRY.
+
+
+TRALEE, CO. KERRY, _Wednesday, December 8th._
+
+The character of the principal estates in counties Cork and Kerry
+appears to be like that of their bacon and beef--streaky. There are to
+be seen some admirable specimens of skilful and liberal management, as
+well as instances of almost insane blundering on the part of both
+landlord and tenant. From Blarney to the Blaskets the distance is not
+that of a couple of counties, but the gap between Kylemore and Rinvyle
+between civilization and savagery. It would be thought that worse
+degradation than that on Innisturk and Innisbofin would be difficult
+to find; but in poverty, misery, and lawlessness the population of
+those inclement isles is far outdone by the five-and-twenty families
+now in the position of squatters on the Great Blasket. This is an
+island some three miles and three-quarters long, lying off the
+peninsula of Corkaguiny beyond Dunmore Head, on the northern side of
+Dingle Bay, as Bray Head and the island of Valentia lie on its
+southern side. Of old the Greater Blasket, which has some good
+pasturage upon it, was let to a few tenants who made a sort of living
+on this wild spot. They fed their sheep, they grew potatoes, caught
+great store of porpoises, which they converted into bacon, and thus
+kept body and soul together in a rough way. But whatever of rude
+plenty once existed on Great Blasket has vanished before its
+increasing population. The island is now asked to maintain some
+hundred and forty persons, and refuses to respond to the demand.
+
+The tenants can hardly complain of much interference of late years,
+either from Lord Cork, the head landlord, or from Mr. Hussey, who till
+just recently leased the island from him; for they have paid no rent
+for four or five, nor county cess for seven, years. They have never
+paid any poor-rate, and yet hunger after "relief meal." They are
+simply attempting the impossible--to live on a place which might
+perhaps support a score of people, but will not support six times that
+number.
+
+Blarney, for other reasons than its groves and "the stone there, that
+whoever kisses he never misses to grow eloquent," is one of the most
+interesting places in the south of Ireland. It is not only the centre
+of a rich agricultural country and the abode of an improving landlord,
+Sir George St. John Colthurst, of Ardrum, but the seat of an
+important manufacture of woollens, a rare and curious industry in
+Munster. The Blarney mills make a great "turn over" of tweed, and
+employ five hundred and fifty men, women, and girls. I had an
+excellent opportunity of seeing the factory hands, for I went to
+Blarney on pay-day, and was greatly struck by the difference between
+their appearance and that of the people engaged in agriculture alone.
+The number and appearance of the women employed is a good answer to
+those pessimists who maintain that the curse of the poorer Irish is
+the filthiness, laziness, and general slatternliness of the women. In
+dress and general bearing the girls of Blarney would compare
+favourably with those of many English manufacturing towns; and,
+inasmuch as Blarney Mills are successful, their work must be well
+done. One reason of course of the comfortable look of the Blarney folk
+is that all the family work. Perhaps the husband works at agriculture,
+and the wife and daughter at the mill. All work, and hence a good
+income, as at Blackburn and other cotton towns, instead of the
+starvation which attends a useless woman who, with her string of
+helpless children, hangs like a millstone round her husband's neck.
+There are no "useless mouths" at Blarney, where everybody helps to
+maintain the family roof-tree, and to prove that the Irish of the
+south, like those of Connemara, are susceptible of being taught, if
+only pains be taken with them. It must be admitted that Blarney Mills
+are in the second generation, having been founded by Mr. Mahony, the
+father of the late "Father Prout" and of the present proprietor. The
+houses of the workpeople at Blarney are neat and trim, white and
+clean, and a repose to the eyes of beholders, sick of slouching thatch
+and bulging mud walls.
+
+Perhaps, however, the spot of all others in which the sharpest
+contrast occurs between the old life of Ireland and that brought about
+by "improving" landlords and tenants is the hamlet of Millstreet,
+situate on the line of railway between this place and Mallow, once a
+kind of Irish Tunbridge Wells, and famous for the "Rakes of Mallow,"
+whose virtues are immortalised in verse. When Mallow was the farthest
+south-western outpost of civilization it is possible that the "rakes"
+who converged upon that pretty spot from the surrounding country
+"ranted," "roared," and "drank" to the extent that the poet has
+credited them withal. But they are gone now, these rakes, and Mallow
+appears to get on very well without them.
+
+It is remarkable for its pretty villas, and for a comfortable hotel,
+kept by a self-made man, who has risen from the ranks into prosperity
+by sheer industry and foresight. Millstreet is a very different kind
+of place from Mallow. The latter has the beautiful Blackwater river to
+give it beauty; but Millstreet is chiefly remarkable as the _locale_
+of the mill which gives it a name; as the habitation of the Rev.
+Canon Griffin, a Roman Catholic of high culture, who, unlike some of
+the priesthood, abjures the Land League and all its works; and as the
+spot on which "Ould Ireland" and New Ireland meet face to face.
+
+The hamlet is mainly divided between two proprietors. That part known
+as the McCarthy O'Leary property is mainly composed of filthy hovels
+of the worst Irish type--is, in fact, rather a gigantic piggery than a
+dwelling-place for human beings. The houses are not so small as the
+mountain cabins of Mayo or the seaside dens of Connemara, but they are
+small enough, crowded with inhabitants, and filthy beyond the belief
+of those who know not the western half of Ireland. It is hardly
+possible, nor would it be worth while, to inquire into the causes
+which have made one half of Millstreet an opprobrium and the other
+half a model hamlet. I simply record what I see--filth and swinishness
+on the left hand, order, neatness, and cleanliness on the right.
+
+The white houses, the trim streets of the townlet, are on the Wallace
+property, which is at present, and will be for some little time to
+come, in the hands of the Court of Chancery. Skilfully administered
+for several years past, the Wallace property is very well known in
+these parts for the success with which its management has been
+attended. One of the principal tenants of this thriving estate is Mr.
+Jeremiah Hegarty, whose peculiar position towards his landlords
+affords a curious instance of the working of the present land laws of
+Ireland. To begin with Mr. Hegarty holds about eight hundred acres as
+a tenant farmer, without a lease or any guarantee against his being
+turned off by his landlords at any time, except the natural goodwill
+and joint interest of landlord and tenant. He has of course the Act of
+1870 in his favour, but inasmuch as his "improvements" have extended
+over a long term of years, it is almost certain that if a series of
+deaths should bring the property into needy or unscrupulous hands Mr.
+Hegarty might be removed from his farm, or rather farms, at great loss
+to himself, despite the compensation that would be awarded him, and on
+which the landlord would assuredly make a great profit. It may be
+thought hardly likely that any landlord would be mad enough to
+disestablish a tenant of eight hundred acres of land who pays his rent
+with commendable punctuality; but as such things, and things even more
+foolish, have been done during the present year, it is not agreeable
+to think of the risks run by an improving tenant in county Cork, and
+an improving tenant Mr. Hegarty assuredly is.
+
+It is a curious illustration of that difference between English and
+Irish farming which makes the agrarian question so difficult for
+Englishmen to understand, that Mr. Hegarty, who may be accepted as a
+type of the Irish farmer, possessed by advanced ideas, conducts his
+operations successfully and profitably by almost exactly reversing the
+proportions of tillage and pasture existing on Mr. Clare Read's famous
+farm at Honingham Thorpe. On the particular farm of Mr. Read's here
+referred to, the quantity of pasture is about one eighth or ninth of
+the whole. On Mr. Hegarty's farms, for he has more than one to make up
+his total of eight hundred acres, there is exactly one-ninth under
+tillage to eight-ninths of pasture.
+
+This will not at first strike the English eye as any great thing in
+the way of reclamation; but it must be recollected that in this part
+of Ireland it is no small matter to obtain good pasture. One of the
+first sights the eye becomes accustomed to is the long bent or sedge,
+shooting rankly up among the sweeter grass, and telling surely of land
+overcharged with water. There is no escape from the fact that Ireland
+as a country is cursed with defective natural drainage. The fall of
+the greater rivers is so slight that they meander hither and thither
+in "S's," as they say here, and only require a little surplus on the
+average rainfall to overflow the more valuable land. And it is
+astonishing how quickly good land left untilled reverts to its
+primeval condition, or, in the expressive language of the country,
+"goes back to bog." This has been shown in many cases.
+
+There is, for instance, a not small portion of Lord Inchiquin's and
+Lord Kenmare's land, which has been allowed by the tenants to
+gradually go back to sedge, if not to bog, for the want of keeping
+drains clear and putting on lime. A curious instance of the effect of
+not liming the land is supplied on one of the fields newly reclaimed
+by Mr. Hegarty. Owing either to the supply of lime running short, for
+the moment, or to the carelessness of his men, a patch of recently
+drained land was left without lime which was liberally bestowed on the
+rest of the field. The forgotten patch can be seen from afar by the
+tufts of sedge sprouting from it.
+
+Mr. Hegarty's eight hundred acres are, saving one or two little lots,
+divided between the Millstreet farm and the mountain farm of
+Lackadota, for the goodwill whereof the incoming paid the outgoing
+tenants 560l. before he began the work of thorough reclamation. His
+success on this hill-side has been remarkable. This season he has
+taken out potatoes from eight acres at the rate of 20l. per acre, and
+the triumph of his method has been equally great in other crops--to
+wit, oats, mangolds, and turnips.
+
+It is needless to remind agricultural readers that the artificial
+feeding of cattle is still in its infancy in the west and south-west
+of Ireland. The various kinds of cake--oil, cotton, and nut--and
+cattle "spices," made up of fenugreek seed and other condiments, are,
+if not unknown, quite unused by all but a few gentlemen farmers, of
+whom I shall in another letter have more to say. The old-fashioned
+notion was to rear cattle, turn them loose on the mountain, and sell
+them to be finished in the Meaths or elsewhere. On the Millstreet
+farm, however, root-crops are largely used for feeding, and the beasts
+are kept more under cover than is common here. All this means, of
+course, large outlay, and the farmer has expended not less than six
+thousand pounds in building, and in draining and liming four hundred
+acres of the eight hundred he occupies. He was, like Canon Griffin,
+one of the first to recognise the necessity for changing the potato
+seed, and imported "champions" before other people thought of it, and
+while they were growing potatoes not much bigger than marbles, and
+hardly fit to feed pigs upon, he was getting crops of fine tubers. In
+draining the portion of his farm near the river, he has found himself
+obliged to employ stone drains, the attempts previously made with tile
+drains having failed signally; and it may be added that his attempts,
+now shown to be successful, to drain the flat land near the river
+Oughbane were derided by neighbouring agriculturists, who could not
+see that if the land do not slope sufficiently towards the natural
+drainage the artificial drains may be made to do so. His
+farm-buildings, machinery for threshing, &c., are an agreeable sight.
+In building, concrete has been largely used, especially in the
+cow-houses and feeding stalls, and the general effect of this large
+farm in county Cork is that of a well-managed business, every detail
+of which is familiar to its head.
+
+It can hardly be thought extraordinary that farmers like Mr. Hegarty,
+even on a smaller scale, are anxious for a good, sound Land Bill.
+They, with all good feeling toward their present landlords, cannot
+avoid recognising that as the law stands the work of their lives may
+be taken from them by any accident of succession. Despite the Land
+Bill of 1870, they are harassed by a sense of insecurity. Monetary
+payment for the work of their best years would not compensate them for
+the loss of the holdings, the value of which has been created by their
+own intelligent work. In England farmers of this type would assuredly
+have a lease, and their Irish brethren hold that schemes for the
+gradual acquirement of land by tenants should be accompanied by the
+"Three F's," and extended over fifty instead of thirty-five years. The
+latter plan would, they think, be of little use to the present tenant,
+as it would practically raise his rent too far, and thus prevent him
+from doing his best by the land. Great force is given to these
+opinions by evidence in my possession, that, although a great deal of
+land has been reclaimed within the last fifty years, a large
+proportion is running barren for want of means on the farmers' part to
+cultivate it properly.
+
+The panic among all classes connected with "landlordism" is on the
+increase. All who can conveniently leave county Kerry are doing so. If
+I go for a drive with one of those proscribed by the grogshop-keepers
+of Castleisland the muzzle of a double-barrelled carbine peeps
+ominously from the "well" of the car. Meanwhile all enterprise and
+development of the country is arrested. The North Kerry Railway,
+connecting this town with Limerick, will, I believe, be opened next
+week, "despite of foes," but other undertakings are for the moment
+paralysed. This is the more to be regretted, as Tralee is a rising
+place. After a desperate struggle against the inertness of Western
+Ireland on the subject of pure water, the uncongenial element has been
+introduced so skilfully and with so much fall that a jet can be thrown
+over any house in Tralee. The last new idea is a railway to Fenit
+Without, six miles down the bay. Up to the present time vessels have
+been brought to Tralee by a ship canal, but it is now sought to
+construct a railway running on to a pier, the elbow of which should be
+formed by Great Camphire Island. The cost of the railway will be
+45,000l., of which 30,000l. is guaranteed by the county, and a large
+part of the balance taken up by the town. The pier is a far more
+serious business, depending on the Board of Works; but all attention
+is diverted from this and other important subjects by the terrorism
+which has, only just recently, extended to the county of Kerry.
+
+
+KILLARNEY, CO. KERRY, _Thursday, Dec. 9th._
+
+The eviction--of landlords and land-agents--is going on bravely. Mr.
+Hussey, Lord Kenmare's agent, left Kerry a short time ago, and the
+Lord Chamberlain himself left Killarney House yesterday morning, not
+in a paroxysm of indignant "landlordism," but "more in sorrow than in
+anger." Lord Kenmare, who is a downright resident Irish landlord,
+_s'il en fust oncques_, confessedly leaves Ireland with great regret,
+and bade his people "Good-bye, for a long time" with no feigned grief.
+But he finds the country uninhabitable, while indignation meetings are
+held almost at his gates, and the very labourers whom he has done so
+much to employ make common cause with the farmers against him in
+paying no rent. The improvements going on here for some time past are
+stopped, and about 200l. a week of wages lost to the neighbourhood.
+The causes which led to Lord Kenmare's departure have but recently
+sprung into existence. The _jacquerie_ only reached Kerry the other
+day, and already the county is revolutionised. Thanks to The
+O'Donoghue and other Land Leaguers, Kerry is now in as unsettled a
+condition as Mayo, Galway, Clare, and Limerick. The flame was long in
+reaching this remote region; but when it came it fell among
+inflammable stuff, as will be gathered from the almost ridiculous
+circumstance of farmers and labourers combining together against a
+supposed common enemy. Farmers who a fortnight ago talked scornfully
+of those who "held the harvest" have, to my certain knowledge,
+subscribed to the Land League within the last few days, and I am
+informed that those who have hitherto held out will be members before
+another week is gone. It is true that additional allurements are held
+out to them. The three "F's" no longer satisfy the more advanced
+spirits who emulate Mr. Parnell's magnificent vagueness, and declare
+it quite impossible that any measure likely to pass the Houses of
+Parliament as at present constituted will satisfy the people of
+Ireland. Meanwhile terrorism is upheld as a legitimate weapon of
+reform. If it were possible to be surprised at anything taking place
+in Ireland at the present moment, I should have been surprised at a
+farmer to whom I was talking a couple of days ago, and who farms
+between two and three hundred acres under an "improving" landlord. The
+farmer, who was evidently a local luminary on the land question, is
+only a recent convert to Land League principles; but he was
+nevertheless prepared to defend the cowardly kind of general strike
+against an individual, known as "Boycotting." He also talked a great
+deal about fair rents and the compulsion that farmers are under to pay
+anything that their landlords choose to ask. Yet this very man was,
+not long since, offered the profitable farm he now occupies in the
+place of smaller and less convenient holdings. Asked by his landlord
+what he thought he ought to pay, he offered two and a half times
+Griffith's valuation, and on the landlord asking him three times that
+rate, agreed with him to "split the difference," and was, or appeared
+to be, satisfied. But at that moment he had not been made conscious of
+his wrongs, and of his down-trodden, serf-like condition. He is fully
+aware of them now, and, in plain English, is prepared to make the best
+of the present opportunity.
+
+As the possible peasant proprietor of the future is a personage much
+discussed among landlords and others just how, I thought it well to
+consult the farmer as well as the legal and proprietorial minds on
+this important subject. I was at once struck by the "so far and no
+farther" tone, so to speak, of the larger farmers. According to many
+of those I consulted, no greater disaster could occur to Ireland than
+the creation of peasant proprietors. I will endeavour to give, as
+nearly as possible, the exact words of farmers whose ideas concerning
+the claims of their own class are of the most advanced I have heard.
+
+The instant I asked a question concerning the peasant-proprietor
+problem and the future of the "poor devil" cottiers, whose sufferings
+have made an excellent stalking-horse for the farmers, properly
+so-called, I was met with a well-formulated objection to any scheme of
+peasant proprietorship. The cottier _pauvre diable_ appears, I
+apprehend, to the farmers as a labourer, and they therefore look with
+anything but favour upon a scheme for raising the poor peasants above
+the necessity of working for them, by giving the poor a real stake in
+the country. The farmers hold that, unless some stringent regulations
+against subdividing or subletting be adopted and firmly enforced, the
+creation of peasant proprietors on an extensive scale will be the
+greatest misfortune that ever befell Ireland; as in the course of time
+it will create a nation of beggars, which cannot be maintained on the
+land. The farmer mind fails to perceive how any Act of Parliament can
+prevent an owner or peasant proprietor from selling his entire
+interest in his holding. This, they argue, will lead to the creation
+of a race of landlords who will bring more misery and ruin upon the
+country than anything that the present generation is acquainted with;
+as necessarily the class of landlords thus formed will be more
+exacting and severe upon their tenants than the present large
+territorial proprietors.
+
+Thus far the farmer, who so far as the evils of subdivision or
+subletting are concerned is at one with the great landed proprietor,
+who, thanks to the recklessness of his predecessors, sees his efforts
+to improve his property paralysed, and his own personal honour and
+reputation endangered by the acts of the leaseholders or fee-farm,
+renters over whom he has no power whatever. Many large holdings are
+leased to middlemen who have sublet them at extravagant rents, but
+cannot be dispossessed. This is the system which now exists, yet the
+great landholders I have consulted describe it as the result which
+will be brought about by giving the fee-simple of holdings to cottier
+tenants. "And," I am asked on all sides, "is fixity of tenure to
+signify the fixture of little tenants in their present holdings, on
+which they cannot possibly lead a reasonably human existence? Is it
+intended to stereotype disaster, to perpetuate the blundering of the
+past? Or is it intended to give them at great expense to the country,
+larger holdings on partially reclaimed waste lands on the system
+commended by Mr. Mitchell Henry, and perhaps applicable to Connemara,
+if not to other places? And is it intended that when Mike, and Thady,
+and Tim are settled on their new clearings they are to do as they like
+on them, to subdivide, to sublet, to conacre, to settle their numerous
+children and their children's children on the original forty-acre
+farm? And are they, after they have taken possession of it, partly
+reclaimed and brought under plough, to be allowed to cultivate it or
+not cultivate it as they like--to let it all go back first to pasture
+then to sedge, and finally to bog?"
+
+Mainly with a view to elicit further expression of opinion, I hinted
+to the last and most accomplished person who put these queries to me,
+that it would be absurd to give the cottier absolute control over his
+land, and that he should have a conditional lease from the
+Government, the four cardinal conditions being--that he should not
+subdivide; that he should not sublet; that he should not take in a
+partner; that he should cultivate some portion of the land according
+to a prescribed system. I saw the fine Irish "oi" of my friend gleam
+with triumph. "A second Daniel," he almost shouted; "a second Daniel
+come from England. But are you aware, my friend, that you have evolved
+from your own unaided consciousness one of 'Lord Leitrim's
+leases'--the leases, which cost him his life? Bating the fines which
+he injudiciously levied you have exactly the programme for enforcing
+which he was shot, as you would probably be if you attempted anything
+of the kind. It is not at the signing of the leases that any
+difficulty would arise, but in carrying their letter and spirit into
+effect."
+
+In view of the conflicting opinions held by able residents in the
+western and south-western counties, I thought it well to inspect a few
+estates, great and small, and to record such visible and otherwise
+well ascertained facts as might bear on the questions now at issue. My
+first visit in Kerry was to Clashatlea on the hill-side, opposite the
+station of Gortatlea on the railway line to Tralee. This townland is
+the property of Mr. Arthur Blennerhasset, of Ballyseedy, and it has
+fallen into an awful condition through no fault of its present
+proprietor.
+
+Years ago the land was let for electioneering purposes, akin to the
+creation of faggot votes, and a vast number of small holders became
+fixed upon land from which it is impossible to evict them. The
+approach to the small holdings lies along a cross road now in the
+course of construction from the lower road to the mountain road into
+Tralee. The cross road is in its present wet and unfinished condition
+a sore trial to man and beast; but it has a history nevertheless.
+Years ago it was a matter of complaint by the cottiers of Clashatlea
+that to obtain turf they were obliged to make a great detour involving
+the climbing of a severe hill. An attempt was made to lay a road on
+the lines now in progress; but it never grew into more than "the name
+of a road." So the little peasant cultivators whose land abutted on
+the abortive road gradually absorbed it into their possessions, each
+peasant taking his section in turn; a system exactly like that
+followed in bygone days by English landholders, and now attempted by
+the riparian proprietors of the Thames Valley. So far these poor
+people imitated the method of their social superiors; but they were
+not so fortunate as some of these in retaining their plunder. The new
+road was decreed, and Mike, and Thady, and Tim were obliged to
+withdraw within their ancient limits. Along the new road we went,
+bumping and jolting, at the imminent risk of the guns and revolvers in
+the car going off, until we reached the upper road by the glen. In
+parts the wretched houses were separated by a perceptible distance;
+but here and there they had been built side by side to accommodate the
+increasing population on the holdings.
+
+How minute the subdivision has been may be gathered from the fact that
+335 English acres, whereof some 250 are good for anything in their
+present condition, are divided among 40 tenant families, whose numbers
+may be safely put down at 200 souls. The land is therefore divided at
+the rate of one and a quarter English acres per head, and when it is
+mentioned that the most important tenant pays a rent of 17l. 10s., it
+will be seen that some of the holdings are ridiculously small. Many
+range from 4l. to 5l. per annum and are absolutely incapable of
+providing food for a family. It has been found impossible to reduce
+the number of tenants to any sensible degree without incurring the
+hatred of the country side, and the old and infirm whose children are
+dead or have emigrated, still cling to the miserable cabins in which
+their lives have been passed.
+
+On the opposite side of Tralee I witnessed a spectacle of a widely
+different character. A smart drive from Tralee northwards through a
+blinding rain landed me at Ardfert, the village in the centre of Mr.
+W. Crosbie's wonderfully improved estate. Going about his work quietly
+and unostentatiously, the proprietor has, in the course of forty-two
+years, completely altered the conditions of existence on his land.
+When it came into his possession in 1838, it was, as many Irish
+estates are now, suffering from local congestion of population. Mr.
+Crosbie's father had inherited from the Earl of Glendore, who had
+given leases under the old penal laws. At the time only Protestants
+were allowed to hold leases, and in consequence of the small number of
+Protestants compared with the demand for lessees, the leases were
+obtained upon very advantageous terms--a long period, a low rent, and
+few conditions. The result was that the penal law, like other clumsy
+devices of the kind, defeated itself; for there was nothing to prevent
+the lessee from subletting the land. This had been done to an enormous
+extent when Mr. Crosbie came into possession, and the lowland part of
+the estate was greatly over-populated. The upper part was greatly
+under-populated, and in the words of the proprietor, nothing could be
+worse than the way in which the tenants held the land. "No one knew
+from year to year which farm he had to till, and they used to divide
+every field and divide the crops every year." Mr. Crosbie was not
+deterred by the difficulty of the task before him, and undertook the
+redistribution of his tenantry, on the anti-rundale system, and by
+degrees succeeded in planting the surplus population of the lowlands
+upon the higher ground. Moreover he anticipated the ideas of Mr.
+Mitchell Henry and Canon Griffin by putting his tenants under the
+direct control of a skilled agriculturist, under his own supervision.
+Having thus redistributed his people on the land and taught them the
+elements of agricultural science, he commenced the work of building
+them suitable houses and farm buildings.
+
+Mr. Crosbie's estate in Kerry is of 9,913 acres valued by Government
+at 4,638l., with a present rent roll of 8,500l., thanks to the
+expenditure of 40,000l. since 1839. As one approaches Ardfert the
+cabin common in Kerry vanishes to make room for houses well and
+substantially built of concrete, with whale-back roofs also of
+concrete. The merit of originally introducing concrete as a building
+material into this part of Ireland belongs, I believe, to Mr. Mahony,
+of Dromore, who has employed it largely on his own estate; but Mr.
+Crosbie was, at least, one of the first to perceive the advantage of
+using it. With Portland cement and the sand and pebbles of the
+adjacent sea-shore he has made a concrete village, and given his
+farmers houses of a kind previously unknown in his neighbourhood.
+Concrete has several advantages keenly appreciated in Kerry. It is
+dry--an immense advantage in a humid climate, and floors, ceilings,
+partition walls, and roofs, are all made of it, as well as the
+external walls. It also requires very little skilled work, and can be
+built up by ordinary labourers under proper supervision. Another great
+advantage is that it can be moulded to any shape and thickness, and is
+therefore most useful for barns, cowhouses, and feeding stalls.
+
+The houses and farm buildings I have seen certainly seem perfect, and
+have, I am informed, been constructed at about the same price as
+corrugated iron. Those fond of tracing the genius of a nation in its
+constructive faculty will probably be amused at finding that the
+latest work of structural genius in Kerry is a development of that
+mud-hut order of architecture which has existed here from pre-historic
+times. But concrete well employed is a very different thing from the
+dirt-pie or mud-hut idea at the other end of the evolutionary chain.
+
+Mr. Chute, of Chute Hall, is also an improver and architectural
+reformer, his efforts being directed towards the abolition of thatch
+in favour of slate, an idea which has proved more fortunate in his
+case than in that of the great-grandfather of the present Lord
+Kenmare. The great estates of the Lord Chamberlain have curiously
+enough been equally damaged by the care and carelessness of his
+ancestors. His great-grandfather was disgusted at the condition of the
+town of Killarney, and offered any tenant who would build a decent
+house with a slate roof a perpetual lease of the land it stood upon
+and the adjoining garden for a nominal rent of four shillings and
+fourpence per annum, without other important conditions. The result
+has been that Killarney can boast of as filthy lanes as any in London
+or Liverpool. The ordinary process, the same as that which formed the
+hideous slums between Drury-lane and Great Wild-street, now happily
+demolished, has gone on in Killarney. Tenants under no restrictions
+gradually converted their gardens into lanes of hovels, and made money
+thereby, and the result is a concentration in Killarney of filth which
+would be better distributed on the side of a mountain, and which is
+under the nose of a landlord who is powerless to apply a remedy.
+
+Not long ago Lord Kenmare sought to establish what is called here a
+Temperance Hall, for the purpose of giving lecturers and entertainers
+a chance of amusing the people; but the proprietor of the ground,
+after a prolonged negotiation, declined to surrender his property.
+Killarney is in the hands of the dwellers therein, and a very poor
+place it is.
+
+Conversely Lord Kenmare's property suffers severely from the
+recklessness of the ancestor who flourished in the "comet year,"
+famous for hock. That spirited nobleman, averse to the nuisance of
+dealing directly with tenants, leased a large portion of his property
+to middlemen in 1811 for forty-one years or three lives; that is to
+say, for a minimum of forty-one years with expansion to three lives.
+The effect of this fatal policy of giving away all power of
+supervision and management has been made manifest in the past, and is
+yet visible on those portions of the estate the three-life leases of
+which have not yet fallen in. The gross rental of Lord Kenmare's
+estates in Kerry, Cork, and Limerick, amounting altogether to 118,606
+acres, is 37,713l., against Griffith's valuation of 34,473l., but the
+distribution of this sum is very unequal, especially since the rents
+of the yearly tenants were raised in 1876, in some cases to the by no
+means unfair extent of 50 per cent. above the poor-rate valuation.
+
+The 3,300 tenants on Lord Kenmare's property have been mainly put upon
+the land by middlemen who made a great profit out of their three-life
+leases. The lands of Mastergechy, Knockacrea, and Knockacappul are all
+let at an immense reduction on Griffith's valuation, but to middlemen,
+who realise from 200 to 300 per cent. on their investment. Despite
+these drawbacks, Lord Kenmare is an "improving" landlord, and has laid
+out in the last ten months some 7,000l. on his property. The pretty
+tile-roof cottages outside of Killarney are a reproach to the town
+itself, over which Lord Kenmare, after the manner of many other Irish
+landlords, has no kind of control.
+
+
+VALENTIA, CO. KERRY, _Dec. 12th._
+
+In a previous letter I alluded to the length of time it had taken the
+Land League agitation to make itself felt in Kerry, and to the
+swiftness with which, when once ignited, the far south-west of Ireland
+blazed into open disaffection. The causes of this slowness to light
+up, immediately followed by a fierce and sudden flame, are by no means
+obscure. Kerry has always been the last place to follow a popular
+movement, and the last to relinquish it.
+
+As the French Revolution and its effects on Ireland were not heard of
+in Kerry till long after the establishment of the Empire, so was Ross
+Castle, on the lower lake at Killarney, the last stronghold subdued by
+Ludlow; and so also was Kerry the last stronghold of Fenianism.
+Moribund in the other parts of Ireland until Nationalists and Land
+Leaguers were united, by the prosecution of Mr. Parnell, Fenianism
+still lingered and lingers on in Kerry. In the pot-houses of Tralee,
+Castle Island, and Cahirciveen the embers of Fenianism have smouldered
+since the outbreak of 1867. Slow to learn, Kerry has been slow to
+forget, and when once the emissaries of the Land League arrived here
+they found ready to their hand the _cadre_ at least of a formidable
+organisation, and the reign of terrorism at once commenced.
+
+Up to the present moment I have not heard of houses being blown up by
+dynamite after the fashion in Bantry, but the farmers who have already
+not paid their rents decline to do so, or pay in full secretly, while
+openly subscribing to the Land League and denouncing the mean-spirited
+serfs who would pay a farthing above Griffith's valuation.
+
+There is no mistaking the strength of the movement which has at last
+reached this remote island, between which and America, as a native
+said to me yesterday, "There is not as much as the grass of a goat."
+This saying refers to the popular method of measurement, which is not
+by acres, but by the grass of so many cows, according to the richness
+of the pasture. Up to a month ago there was no talk of the Land League
+on Valentia Island. The tenants had for the most part paid their May
+rents, and the situation therefore afforded little scope for
+agitation; but the subtle spirit which spread instantaneously from
+Tralee to Cahirciveen quickly traversed the ferry, and now the
+Valentians are as keen on the subject of their grievances as anybody
+else in the western half of Ireland. At Cahirciveen anti-landlordism
+is as vigorous at this moment as at Tralee, or even at Ennis itself,
+albeit violent personal outrages have not been perpetrated in the
+immediate neighbourhood.
+
+A resolute and influential leader of the people declared to me
+yesterday that the spirit now aroused would never be quelled but by a
+full and generous recognition of the claims of the cultivators. He
+averred that the people are not only awakened to their wrongs and
+determined to have them redressed, but that they possess the power of
+enforcing their will. I hinted that savage threats and deeds of
+violence might produce temporary anarchy, but that the end of all
+would be the crushing of the League with a strong hand. The answer was
+not argument, but defiance. It was impossible, the speaker asserted,
+to crush the combination now existing in Kerry. It could not be
+crushed, for the simple reason that it did not transgress the law.
+This was startling news, and I at once asked what was to be said of
+the dynamite affair at Bantry, the ear-cutting business near Castle
+Island, and the shooting of a bailiff in Tyrone? Only one of those
+things, I was instantly reminded, had occurred in Kerry, and I was
+moreover instructed that personal violence was preached against by the
+Land League priests, and opposed by all lay leaders. The crimes
+alluded to were the accidents of a great upheaval of the people, who
+could attain their objects perfectly well without violence.
+
+To the objection that without occasional violence the terrorism now
+existing would lose all its strength, that threats never carried out
+would become ridiculous, that when violence ceased, tenants as well as
+landlords would set the Land League law aside and, do as they pleased,
+it was replied that the great agrarian movement had passed through the
+period of terrorism as nations pass through the early stage of
+baronial rights, especially that of private war. The present condition
+of the anti-landlord party was not that of a revolt, but of a strike,
+which whether it was wise and according to the laws of political
+economy or not, was clearly lawful. There was no constitutional right
+in any one man to compel another to work for him, and a strike was
+therefore clearly permissible. It was nonsense to cry out against
+combination. It was the only possible method of the weak making good
+their case against the strong, and the landlords might combine, and
+welcome, if they thought it would do them any good. Nobody wanted to
+shoot them any more, for they were "Quite, quite down." The present
+strike was of an unprecedented character. Strikes of workpeople were
+sometimes met and defeated by combinations of masters, because the
+masters held the property and plant, and the men had nothing but their
+heads and hands, and perhaps a little money in savings banks. So the
+masters lasted the longest and won, except when their number included
+a large proportion of needy, speculative manufacturers, who durst not
+stop their mills, and thus became the indirect and unwilling allies of
+the artisan. But where the masters were few and wealthy, the artisans
+had no chance against them.
+
+It was far otherwise with the Irish farmers and cottiers, who not only
+"held the harvest," or rather its monetary result, but held the land
+and were "not going to give it up." The people, the speaker opined,
+had really won the battle already, and it was for them to exercise the
+power they had suddenly become aware of wisely and mercifully. There
+was no further need for violence or threats of violence, but what was
+called the law should not be carried out until the claims of the Irish
+people were fully admitted by the English Government.
+
+How then was this gigantic strike to be carried on without violence or
+threatening life or limb? Quite easily was the reply--by extending the
+process of "Boycotting." This is, it seems, the great constitutional
+weapon on which neither horse, foot, nor artillery can be brought to
+bear. Those who will not join the _Jacquerie_, and aid and abet those
+Irish analogues of Jacques Bonhomme, Mike and Thady and Tim, in their
+resistance to "landlordism" shall be "Boycotted"; and all those who
+refuse to join in "Boycotting" an offender shall be treated in the
+same way.
+
+Already the stoutest hearted are yielding on every side to the dread
+of being "Boycotted," a doom which signifies simply that the victim
+must surrender or leave the country. It means that nobody will buy or
+sell with any member of the family which is declared "taboo"; that the
+farmer may drive his cattle and pigs to market, but will not find a
+purchaser; that he may reap his grain and pull his potatoes, but that
+not a soul in the country will buy them for fear of being "Boycotted"
+himself. It means that the baker will refuse him bread, and the
+butcher meat; that no draper who knows his wife by sight will sell her
+as much as a ribbon; that not a creature will buy her butter and
+eggs, chickens and turkeys, geese and ducks; that she will be unable
+to buy any article of food or luxury for her children, and that they
+will be "sent to Coventry" at school.
+
+There is not an atom of exaggeration in anything here stated. It is
+not a fancy picture, but as genuine as that of Mr. Boycott himself;
+and there is no doubt that the taste for "Boycotting" is spreading
+rapidly, as my informant, who is heartily in favour of it, declares it
+is "clean within any law that could be made, let alone carried out."
+It is impossible to compel any community to have dealings with a
+person whom they dislike, and the anti-landlord party are determined
+to carry their point without, as appears on the notices served on
+farmers, "hurting one hair of their heads." "Isolation" has, in fact,
+been added to the number of the arts which soften manners and forbid
+them to be savage. It is the sprig of shillelagh in a velvet sheath.
+
+
+
+
+XV.
+
+THE "BOYCOTTING" OF MR. BENCE JONES.
+
+
+CORK, _Friday, Dec. 17th._
+
+The present condition of Mr. W. Bence Jones, of Lisselan, whom I
+called upon to-day, illustrates most vividly the advance made in the
+art of "Boycotting" since its invention. Early attempts in any
+artistic direction are apt to be crude, and when "Boycotting" was
+first practised at Lough Mask it put on the guise of a general strike
+of the country side against an individual, but its effect was purely
+local. Since that time great progress has been made in shaping and
+finishing what one of my informants defined as "a strictly
+constitutional weapon." At this moment the arm of the skilful
+"Boycotter" is long. It can stop the sale of the original victim's
+potatoes in a northern town; it can keep Mr. Stacpoole from getting
+rid of his horses in Limerick; and can actually prevent Mr. Bence
+Jones from sending his cattle from Cork to England. The latter
+gentleman is isolated on his estate at Lisselan, a place near
+Ballinascarthy, between Bandon and Clonakilty, in this county, but his
+isolation has not yet gone, in some respects, to the same brutal
+length as that of Mr. Boycott. He is still permitted to receive and to
+despatch his letters; and car-drivers have, perhaps by some oversight
+of the "Boycotters," not yet been warned to avoid his house as if it
+were a lazaretto, and to refuse to carry his visitors within miles of
+his door. Perhaps he is considered by the mysterious persons who alone
+exercise authority in Ireland just now as only a "tyrant" of the
+second or third degree, and not as a first-class malefactor.
+
+But, however this may be, I found none of the difficulty in reaching
+Lisselan which accompanied my second visit to Lough Mask House. When I
+started from Bandon this morning, that thriving town was wrapped in
+slumber, although the sun was shining brightly out of a deep blue sky,
+just flecked at the horizon with pearly-hued clouds. The ground was
+hard and crisp, and the hoofs of the horses rang out merrily as I sped
+in the direction of Clonakilty, through an undulating country mainly
+devoted to pasture, some of which was rough and sedgy. As I approached
+Ballinascarthy the quality of the land was visibly better.
+
+Lisselan House lies in the midst of a charming pastoral scene. Beyond
+the clean-cut lawn flows the silvery flood of the Arrigadeen, its
+opposite bank is clothed with the bright green tops of white turnips
+in the midst of which is penned a flock of sheep (Shropshire Downs),
+and in the distance are green meadows and browsing kine. All would be
+soft, peaceful, and Arcadian, were it not for the helmets of the 3rd
+Dragoon Guards glittering in the sun as the patrol turns the corner of
+the wood, and the tall, dark figures of the Royal Irish Constabulary
+guarding the gate and doorstep. At present the house, the farm, and
+the neighbouring village are occupied by the police, and it has been
+thought necessary to increase the strength of the garrison in order to
+assure the safety of the servants who, to their infinite credit in
+such times as these, remain true to their master.
+
+It is not pretended for an instant that either Mr. W. Bence Jones or
+his son, who are as gigantic of stature as they are resolute of mind,
+need fear personal attack. They are known to be armed to the teeth,
+and the chances are that the weak-minded labourers who have deserted
+them are far more afraid of "the masters" than they are of them. The
+household of Lisselan consists for the time being of the Messrs. Bence
+Jones, father and son. Miss Bence Jones, their English house servants,
+two labourers--whereof one is English and the other Irish--Mr. Law,
+the Scotch bailiff, and an Irish housemaid, who has remained faithful,
+and helps Miss Bence Jones to milk the cows and to attend to the
+dairy. The road is slippery on the high ground hard by, and it is
+debated at Lisselan House whether the farrier of the Dragoon Guards
+shall not be asked to "sharpen" the shoes of the animals employed
+there, for no local workman will touch them.
+
+As I pass by the dairy, one of those in which collectively Mr. Bence
+Jones makes 1,000l. worth of butter yearly, I see the trim housemaid,
+dressed in cotton print, milking a cow, and am presently aware of "the
+master's" son and daughter, who have been up since the dawn feeding
+and penning cattle and sheep, and milking the cows. Since Monday the
+strike among the Irish employed on the house and the farm has, with
+the exceptions already mentioned, been rigidly maintained. The men,
+about forty in number, were "noticed" on Friday; on Saturday they
+announced their intention of working no more for Mr. Bence Jones, and
+on Monday deserted the place as if it were plague-stricken.
+
+On Monday morning Mr. Law stood aghast at the sight of a farm of a
+thousand acres with nobody to work it; but he soon recovered himself,
+and with the help of his own work, that of a couple of labourers left,
+and the co-operation of the master's son and daughter, matters went on
+despite the strike. Mr. Law is, of course, as a good Scotch bailiff
+should be, greatly distressed at the state of his cow-houses,
+feeding-stalls, and stockyard, now ankle-deep in "muck"; but the fine
+shorthorned bull seems none the worse, and the pigs have taken kindly
+to the new and disorderly condition of affairs. But things are not
+brought to a deadlock yet. Of the animals "Boycotted" in Dublin the
+sheep have since been shipped, and it is thought here that at the
+moment of writing the cattle will be on their way to Sir Thomas Dyke
+Acland, to whom they are consigned.
+
+Byron wrote that "nought so much the spirit calms as rum and true
+religion;" but this dictum is hardly confirmed in the case of Mr.
+Bence Jones's assailants, who number among them a minister of
+religion, as well as the irrepressible grogshop-keeper. I am informed
+that last Sunday the mutinous labourers--or, perhaps, it would be more
+correct to say the labourers who have been coerced by threats into
+mutiny--were addressed in the vestry by Father Mulcahy, and that
+either he or some other person assured them that they would receive
+their wages as if they were still employed. However this may be, the
+unfortunate families, about thirty in number, who have struck at the
+bidding of the anti-landlord party, are making a sorry bargain; for
+many of the men are getting on in years, and will have to seek work
+and house-room elsewhere when they are turned out of their cottages to
+make room for the strange hands who are coming to do the work they
+refuse to do. The neat little dwellings of stone and slate that I
+observed to-day on the Lisselan estate are not let to the labourers,
+but are, with as much potato land as they can manure, thrown in with
+their wages, 11s. per week. They must now make way for people who will
+work, and are not afraid of "Rory of the Hills." Offers of help pour
+in upon Mr. Bence Jones, and the first detachment of labourers is
+expected forthwith. One friend offers a phalanx of English navvies;
+but temperate counsels prevail, and it is thought better to get the
+really small number of men required brought in quietly. With police
+everywhere at Lisselan and Ballinascarthy, and cavalry patrols always
+at hand, it is hardly likely that violence will be attempted towards
+the newcomers or the present slender garrison.
+
+There are, as in all such cases, conflicting reports as to the cause
+of the quarrel, if such it can be designated, between landlord and
+labourer at Lisselan. In his forthcoming book, _A Life's Work in
+Ireland, by a Landlord who tried to do his duty_, Mr. Bence Jones will
+doubtless describe with characteristic accuracy the objects he had in
+view, and the means he took to accomplish them. He has also already
+made known his difficulties and disappointments through the medium of
+the Press. He has undoubtedly, had abundant opportunity of weighing
+the possibilities of Irish country life during the long period of his
+residence in Ireland. It is also clear to any unprejudiced person that
+he has striven, not only to do his duty by the land, but by the
+tenants occupying one part of it and the labourers employed on the
+other. In round numbers he owns about 4,000 acres, of which he farms
+1,000 himself. Besides 1,000l. worth of butter annually made, he sells
+1,000l. worth more of cattle, and 1,000l. worth of sheep and wool,
+besides oats and various other produce.
+
+While this one-thousand-acre farm was let to tenants, it yielded its
+proprietor an average rental of 17s. an acre. No person acquainted
+with farming would for an instant assume that a small tenant could
+make nearly as much out of his land as the farmer of a thousand acres;
+but allowing for all this, 14s. 3d. per acre appeared a very low rate
+to the landlord of the farm of fifty-eight acres occupied for the last
+half-century by the Walsh family. I gather that the grandfather of D.
+Walsh held the farm from the grandfather of the present landlord; that
+the original occupant was succeeded by his son; that on the son's
+death his widow retained undisturbed possession until her son was old
+enough to assume the management, and that then the landlord required
+20s. per acre from him. To the landlord it seemed that the Walsh
+family had had a good bargain. He was informed, with what degree of
+accuracy I cannot at this moment ascertain, that the widow had given
+her four daughters respectively 140l., 130l., 130l., and the stock of
+a farm, probably of equal value "to their fortune," and that she had
+also helped one of her sons to make a start in the world on an
+independent farm. From these circumstances he concluded that he was
+entitled to more rent than he had been receiving, and demanded 20s.
+from her son for a lease of thirty-one years.
+
+To the tenant the case assumed a widely-different aspect. His
+grandfather, his father and his mother, had successively occupied the
+fifty-eight acre farm for fifty years. Two generations had been bred,
+if not born, on the holding at Ballinascarthy, just beyond the bridge.
+They had been decent people. They had paid their rent, and if his
+sisters had received good portions it was no more than their due,
+considering the respectability of their family. Was he, after his
+people had held the land for fifty years, to have it "raised on him"
+to nearly double Griffith's valuation? Was it just to increase the
+rent because his father and mother were dead? All these questions
+occurred to the tenant, beyond any matter of improvements and so
+forth. The landlord's position is quite intelligible. The value of
+farm produce had risen so greatly since the original rent was levied,
+and the farmer had prospered so well of late years, that the holding
+was demonstrably worth more rent than had been paid. On the other
+hand, the tenant held that the farm had done well by his people,
+because they had done well by it, and that to "raise the rent on him"
+because his family had behaved honestly and industriously was a
+monstrous exercise of arbitrary power. The upshot of the whole matter
+was a refusal on the part of the whole tenantry to pay the last "gale"
+or six months' rent. It is a noteworthy circumstance that none of the
+tenants are in arrear.
+
+There are other accusations than that of raising the rent brought
+against Mr. Bence Jones. The police barrack at Ballinascarthy was once
+a grogshop, given by the landlord to a dairymaid who had been long in
+his service. No sooner had she a groggery "to her fortune" than her
+hand was sought by a legion of admirers. It is not, I fancy, generally
+known in England that in this romantic country the warmhearted,
+impulsive peasants almost invariably contract _mariages de
+convenance_.
+
+It is said that a young man in the neighbouring city of Kerry was once
+sorely vexed in his mind as to his matrimonial choice. The
+"matchmaker" who arranges such matters had proposed two girls to him,
+one of whom had one cow and the other two cows "to her fortune." Now,
+the "Boy" liked the girl with one cow far better than her rival who
+had two, but the magnitude of the sacrifice he wished to make sat
+heavy on his soul. He consulted a patriarch renowned for his wisdom,
+and laid great stress upon his love for the girl with one cow. The
+oracle spake as follows: "Take the gyurl wid the two cows. There isn't
+the difference of a cow, begorra, betune any two women in the
+wor-r-ld." By similar reasoning a superannuated dairymaid with a
+grogshop is a very different person to the "pretty girl milking her
+cow"--sovereign lady of her presence, but of no groggery beside.
+Consequently the woman got married and died, and her husband having
+proved objectionable was evicted and the grogshop extinguished. This
+was another grievance against Mr. Bence Jones, who is known to oppose
+the indiscriminate licensing which takes place in many parts of
+Ireland. I believe that in the neighbouring townlet of Clonakilty
+there are no less than forty-two whisky shops, a proportion to make
+Lord Aberdare's hair to stand on end. Furthermore it seems that after
+bearing with Mr. Bence Jones for nearly forty years the people have
+dubbed him "tyrant" and "domineering Saxon," epithets certain to be
+applied to any Englishman who tries to do his own work in his own way
+in Ireland. Any insistance on anything being done in the master's way
+instead of the man's is "tyranny." Any curt command is "domineering."
+Irish peasants are accustomed to easier and pleasanter ways, and like
+to be coaxed and petted. It is only just to admit that under this
+treatment they display the utmost goodwill and pliancy. They will do
+anything to serve those who take them rightly, but they hate
+discipline. To the Saxon again it seems hard that he should be called
+upon to waste time in coaxing a mere hewer of wood and drawer of
+water, who, moreover, hews wood very badly, and draws water with
+exasperating deliberation. But a peremptory tone will not answer in
+southern and western Ireland.
+
+It may be urged that it has taken the people a long time to discover
+that Mr. Bence Jones was a tyrant. One thing is certain--they are
+likely soon to be rid of him. By living carefully he has been enabled
+to spend a large proportion of his income in improving his estate. He
+now announces his intention of throwing all his farm into pasture and
+leaving a country which has become uninhabitable.
+
+It is curious, to say the least, that as he was correcting the proofs
+of the volume which embodies his experience, he was called upon to
+rise and welcome the resident magistrate and the officer commanding
+the patrol, considered necessary for the preservation of himself, his
+family, and the few dependants who yet remain steadfast.
+
+
+CORK, _December 20th._
+
+
+It is impossible to exaggerate the panic prevailing among the landed
+proprietors of Cork, Kerry, Tipperary, Limerick, and Clare. Within the
+triangle, which may be roughly described as inclosed by Galway town,
+Waterford, and Valentia Island, a reign of terror paralyses all those
+classes of the population owning any kind of property directly or
+indirectly connected with land.
+
+Perhaps the agents whose calling is menaced with extinction preserve
+the most equable mind under the present arduous circumstances. They
+are to the manner born. They are accustomed to receive threatening
+letters frequently, and to be shot at now and then. Individually,
+therefore, they bear up very well, but it is far otherwise with their
+families, who look forward to St. Stephen's Day and its threatened
+meetings with undisguised apprehension. The men leave home in the
+morning bristling with double-barrelled carbines and revolving
+pistols, and, confiding either in themselves, their police escort, or
+both, keep, in the language of the country, a "good heart"; but it is
+far otherwise with their wives and daughters. As the "master" and the
+"boys" prepare to depart, and guns are being put on the car, together
+with the rugs and macintoshes, the matron's cheek grows pale, and her
+lips quiver as she bids farewell to the beloved ones, whom she may
+never see "safe home" again. This is no picture drawn by the
+imagination, with which flattering critics are pleased to credit me.
+
+Such a scene as I describe was witnessed by me a few days ago, and I
+regret to hear that the brave lady, who bore up well for several weeks
+against ever-present anxiety, has broken down at last, and lies on a
+bed of sickness. In this struggle against a covert mutiny, women, as
+in open warfare, are the chief sufferers. There are many of the men
+who ask for nothing better than to be let loose on some visible mortal
+representatives of their intangible foe. But the general feeling is
+despondent. The unfortunate landowners, house proprietors, and many of
+the merchants, complain bitterly that they are delivered into the
+hands of a "convict," whose ticket of leave enables him to paralyse
+the industry of the country.
+
+To a person unconnected with the landed interest of Ireland it is at
+first a little difficult to understand the almost insane terror of
+nearly all persons endowed with property. To the stranger the country
+is absolutely safe, and unless in the company of landlords or land
+agents he may go safely unarmed in any part of Ireland I have visited;
+but resident proprietors, and the representatives of absentees, are in
+very different case, and the farmers and labourers who have not yet
+joined the Land League are in a still worse position. So skilfully has
+this organisation been carried out that hardly a creature dare do his
+duty or speak his mind except the judges. In Court to-day the man
+O'Halloran, whose being sent up for trial at the Assizes here
+occasioned the riot at Tulla a few days since, was tried for appending
+a threatening notice to a chapel door. It will be recollected that the
+prisoner was brought before the magistrates at Tulla rather than at
+Ennis, in order to avoid a tumult, but that on its being known that he
+was committed for trial an uproar occurred, which ended in the
+bayoneting of three of the rioters by the police. The man was tried
+here to-day, and he will be tried again to-morrow before another
+jury.
+
+I may not express an opinion on the evidence of the police; it will
+suffice that the jury of to-day did not agree, and that this absence
+of result provoked some severe remarks from the bench. Great blame is
+thrown upon Lord O'Hagan's Act for frequent miscarriage of justice in
+this country, but the truth is that the outside pressure is too strong
+for any but a "packed" jury of independent, that is to say
+non-resident, persons to withstand.
+
+That terrorism has prevailed not only over landlords who are flying
+from the country, and agents who are at least putting their families
+in the few places in which some semblance of order prevails--that is,
+within the shadow of a police barrack or under the wing of a
+garrison--but over merchants, as was proved the other day in the case
+of Mr. Bence Jones's cattle. I hear of a similar occurrence to-day.
+Mr. Richard Stacpoole, of Eden Vale, county Clare, wrote a few days
+since to a firm in Limerick for twelve tons of oilcake, not an
+insignificant order from a responsible person as times go. The answer
+was that the firm in question had not a pound of oilcake in store, but
+that the order could be transferred to a firm in Cork, who would
+direct the cake to some other person than Mr. Stacpoole, "to be left
+till called for" at the Ennis Railway Station, and that if the
+purchaser would send somebody else's carts for it late at night or
+very early in the morning, he would probably get it home safely. It
+may be imagined that Mr. Stacpoole declined to receive oilcake as if
+it were "potheen" or other contraband, and at once closed his account
+with the firm in question.
+
+This instance is quoted out of many to show that the art of
+"Boycotting" is advancing from the proportions of a mere local strike
+to those of an almost national combination against any person who has
+incurred the resentment of the popular party. It is noteworthy that
+strict adherence to the "constitutional weapon" is mainly confined to
+the cases of those whom it is unsafe to attack by more violent means.
+His enemies dare not make an onslaught on Mr. Stacpoole himself, for
+reasons well known and thoroughly appreciated; so they clip the ears
+of wretched hinds who are neither strong nor courageous enough to
+resist their violence, which is just now only employed against the
+defenceless; but such outrages are apparently quite sufficient to make
+the power of the _Jacquerie_ absolute.
+
+I am weary of hearing from panic-stricken interviewers that the "real
+Government of Ireland is that of the Land League;" but the facts
+adduced can hardly be passed over in silence. For the present,
+creditors have only two courses to pursue--to accept Griffith's
+valuation where they can get it, or to do nothing, await the action of
+Parliament, and go without money for their Christmas bills. "Weak
+holders," as they are called in the commercial world, must take what
+they can get, and stronger capitalists may wait for better times; for
+it is impossible to put the existing laws for the recovery of debt
+into effect. Evictions are out of the question. Neither Dublin writs
+nor "civil bills" can be served, except in a large town or its
+immediate neighbourhood, and seizure of goods for a common debt in
+country places is quite out of the question. The principal
+process-server in the town of Tipperary has retired from service, and
+addressed himself to "J.J." for several days past. That matters are
+going from bad to worse is proved by the calibre of the persons who
+are amply capable of paying their rent, but are afraid to do so. More
+than this, those who have paid before they received notices are
+threatened with pains and penalties if they do not join, publicly
+approve of, and subscribe to the popular combination.
+
+Startling cases have just occurred in Tipperary. A farmer paying a
+very large rent even by English measure is leaving the country because
+he is threatened by vengeance if he do not immediately take back a
+labourer whom he dismissed for misconduct. Another large farmer is
+informed that all his labourers will be compelled to leave his
+employment unless he instantly joins the League. His farm includes a
+large percentage of tillage, and he must either undergo heavy
+pecuniary loss or submit, as he probably will do. A smaller tenant,
+who had been discovered to have paid on account a trifle more than
+Griffith's valuation, has been compelled to ask his landlord to give
+him the little balance back and a receipt in full. The request was
+acceded to, for the poor man declared that his life was not safe; that
+nobody would speak to him, and that nobody would work for him until he
+had righted himself with "the only Government which can carry its
+decrees into effect."
+
+The 2nd Battalion Rifle Brigade has just arrived from Gibraltar, under
+the command of Colonel Carr Glyn, and will remain, together with the
+26th Regiment, under Colonel Carr, and three troops of the 3rd Dragoon
+Guards, in Cork. The 37th Regiment leaves to make room for the Rifle
+Brigade; three companies go to Waterford, and the remainder to
+Kilkenny.
+
+
+
+
+XVI.
+
+A CRUISE IN A GROWLER.
+
+
+CORK, _December 21._
+
+Just before starting towards the scene of the last case of Boycotting
+I had returned from a tour in Kerry, undertaken mainly with the object
+of collecting facts and ideas concerning the fiercely-debated question
+of peasant propriety. There are other great estates in Kerry besides
+that of Lord Kenmare, which is twenty-six miles long, and covers
+91,080 acres. There are Lord Lansdowne's still greater estate of
+94,983 acres, and the large property held by Trinity College, both of
+which have given rise to considerable controversy of late.
+
+In many parts of Kerry may be found townlands vying in wretchedness
+with Coshleen and Champolard, with Derryinver, Cleggan, and Omey
+Island while others give abundant evidence of improvement and
+enlightened management. On the north side of Dingle Bay lies the
+estate of Lord Ventry, a popular landlord I am told, for the reason
+that he has not "harassed his tenants" with improvements, nor sought
+to wipe out the effect of the old middleman style of mismanagement by
+reducing their number and forcing them to live in habitations better
+perhaps than they care for. The crowding of people into a few
+villages, brought about partly by the desire of middlemen to make a
+profit, partly by electioneering schemes, and partly by the natural
+gregariousness of the peasants, has been already too fully dwelt upon
+to need repetition. What was done by landlords and middlemen in many
+places has been emulated by squatters wherever they have succeeded in
+occupying free land like the Commons of Ardfert, the condition whereof
+rivals that of Lurgankeale, in Louth, and of the historic townland of
+Tibarney, in common, a map of which hung, if I mistake not, for some
+time in the Library of the House of Commons. This last-named spot
+consisted of 164 statute acres, divided into 222 lots among eleven
+tenants, who cultivated alternate ridges and patches in the same
+field. Whether held by small tenants or landlords or of middlemen or
+by small proprietors, the land was always in the same state of
+confusion.
+
+On portions of the Blennerhasset estate previously spoken of, and on
+the Commons of Ardfert, the effect may be studied of influences
+against which the modern Kerry landlord has been in many cases
+striving for the whole of his lifetime. Half a century ago the advice
+to "neither a borrower nor a lender be," was systematically ignored.
+It is curious to hear that two eminent patriots of the period, Daniel
+O'Connell and the Knight of Kerry, were both middlemen, and in the
+case of Cahirciveen had one of the Blennerhassets as a co-middleman
+under Trinity College, and that the compact was only finally annulled
+by the resolution of the latter to have no more to do with it. The
+great "Liberator" considered as a middleman appears in an odd light,
+but he was a liberal specimen of the genus, and with his partners
+supplied Cahirciveen with previously unheard-of drainage and pavement.
+At the same time the ends of the Island of Valentia were leased by
+Maurice Fitzgerald, Knight of Kerry, the friend of Castlereagh and
+Wellington, to other middlemen, and it seemed that the work of
+confusion could go no further.
+
+The Island of Valentia was, I was informed, a favourable spot on which
+to study the operation of paternal government. Sir Peter Fitzgerald,
+the late Knight of Kerry, had enjoyed unbounded popularity, and had
+employed his personal influence to raise the population under his care
+in the social scale. When he had retaken the lands leased to Sir James
+O'Connell or his ancestor, he found certain lowlands, notably that of
+Bally Hearny, among a number of small holders; but the patches held by
+each tenant were oddly distributed. Three men held farms of thirty
+acres each, made up of detached lots completely separate one from the
+other, and scattered broadcast over the area of the townlands; while
+another man's farm of the same area extended from the sea at one end
+to the top of the mountain at the other, measuring one mile and
+fourteen perches in length, with an average width of twenty perches.
+After some difficulties had been surmounted the fields were "squared,"
+the odds and ends of lands consolidated, and the partnership in
+fields, with its absurd practice of cultivating alternate ridges,
+abolished.
+
+In a speech addressed by the Knight of Kerry to his tenants, he
+distinctly put his foot down on the system of subdivision, to which
+the peasantry of Ireland are almost insanely attached. He determined
+to permit nothing of the kind in the future. To those who had already
+subdivided he offered new mountain farms, leaving the sub-dividers to
+decide who should remain and who should remove. To those removed for
+sub-dividing their small holdings, and to those whose still smaller
+patches made their removal imperative, reclaimed and reclaimable lands
+at Corobeg and Bray Head were offered, with brand new houses; and
+after much discussion and final casting of lots the extruded ones
+resigned themselves to the fearful doom of removal from the spots to
+which they had long clung like limpets.
+
+To reach Valentia Island it is necessary to leave the railway track
+from Mallow to Tralee, and at Killarney commence what in London
+parlance might be called a cruise in a "growler;" for an unmistakable
+"growler," well built and comfortably lined, was the vehicle supplied
+to me as a "carriage," with a pair of excellent horses, by Spillane,
+the sometime guide and present postingmaster of Killarney. The
+postchaise assumes many forms in Ireland, but only once have I met the
+original _coupé_ holding only two persons. It is a long drive to the
+ferry at the extremity of the peninsula between the bays of Kenmare
+and Dingle. Beyond, the Island of Valentia lies like a breakwater
+against the Atlantic, and the scene at nightfall is strange enough,
+with flashing lanterns, shouting ferrymen, and plashing oars. The
+ferryman is far from considering Valentia Harbour as a drawback to the
+island, and, like a fine old discontented retainer as he is, complains
+bitterly of the attempt made years ago by the late Knight of Kerry to
+establish a steam ferry. But ferrymen are always stern sticklers for
+vested rights. Doubtless Charon claimed heavy compensation when the
+Styx Ferry was disestablished. Apart from the ferryman, however, the
+Valentians are by no means enamoured of their insular position. "That
+ould blackgyard of a ferry" is, in fact, just now a serious item of
+discontent.
+
+It is urged by the islanders, nearly three thousand in number,
+including the villagers, the quarrymen, and the staff of
+telegraphists, presided over by the skilful and courteous Mr. Graves,
+that the ferry is the cause of half their troubles. The peasants, who
+sell their stock at the thirteen fairs held yearly at Cahirciveen,
+declare that the cost of the ferry-boat for themselves and their
+beasts is a substantial reason for the reduction of the rent, inasmuch
+as they are put at a disadvantage with the people on the mainland.
+This is not the only grievance of that section transplanted to the
+hill side by Bray Head. They complain that they are afar off--a droll
+objection on an island six miles long--and have given their settlement
+the nickname of "Paris," in allusion to its remoteness from
+Knightstown and the ferry which leads to the grogshops and Fenian
+centres of Cahirciveen. I am told that the duty on the spirits sold in
+that cheerful townlet exceeds the whole annual value of the barony of
+Iveragh, and can bear witness to the convergence of the surrounding
+population on market day.
+
+Beside the grievances already enumerated, and only felt in their full
+poignancy since the establishment of a branch of the Land League at
+Cahirciveen, the Valentians now complain that their land is "set" too
+high.
+
+Amid the mass of conflicting evidence and the diverse methods of
+calculation, it is very difficult to arrive at any conclusion on this
+point. That the land is let above Griffith's valuation is certain, but
+so is much more of the cheapest land in the west and south. Moreover,
+the improvements made by the late Sir Peter Fitzgerald were not only
+considerable in the way of draining and fencing, but are visible to
+the naked eye in the shape of some fifty new houses, well and solidly
+built of stone with slate roofs, sleeping rooms up stairs, properly
+separated after the most approved fashion, a cowhouse, and other
+offices required by the Board of Works. These houses, which contrast
+remarkably with the old structures not yet improved off the face of
+the island, accommodate half of Sir Maurice Fitzgerald's agricultural
+tenants, of whom there are about 100 on his part of the island, as
+well as eighty-eight cottier or labourer tenants, who work for the
+farmers or at the slate quarry, and have little patches of ground
+attached to their cabins. Each new house built out-and-out has cost
+80l., and those put on existing foundations about 60l. It seems to me
+wonderful that anybody should dream of building anything on the site
+of an Irish peasant's hut, but perhaps I am fastidious. So far as I
+make it out, about 6 per cent. has been charged for building and other
+improvements to the tenant, whose rent has thus in one case been
+raised by 2s. 6d., and in others by as much as 3s. 3d. per acre. As
+the entire rent in one case reaches 8s., and in the other 10s. 9d. per
+acre, it does not seem enormous; but it is no business of mine to
+decide on value. I only state facts as distinctly as I can, and
+whether the rent be light or heavy there is no doubt that the tenants
+have paid it with some approach to regularity even up to date, and
+that the local agitation is deprived of much of its effervescence
+owing to this fact. Against this fair side of the picture is the
+awkward truth that during the bad times of last winter the Valentians,
+including the tenants of the Knight of Kerry and those of Trinity
+College, received about 1,200l. worth of relief among a couple of
+thousand souls.
+
+It is equally worthy of remark that those tenants for whom new houses
+have been built are by no means enthusiastic about them, and
+apparently would rather save the rent of them and live in a rough
+stone cabin as of old. I am aware that in making this statement I am
+liable to a charge of prejudice against the ignorant people, of whom I
+can only speak with pity not unmixed with kindness. I may be told that
+pigs were thought to be dirty until people took to keeping them clean,
+and that the animals are known to prefer their last state to their
+first. I may also be told that filth is the outcome of poverty, and
+that the Irish peasantry are filthy in their habits because they are
+poor. Now, to speak out plainly, this is not true; for I have seen
+people with a round sum on deposit at the bank, and in one case paying
+as much as 250l. rent for their farms, living amid almost
+indescribable filth. The dislike of soap and water, except for the
+visible parts of the human body on high days and holidays, appears to
+be part of the general indifference to beauty remarkable in the Irish
+peasant. His cottage is never adorned with flowers. Neither rose,
+honeysuckle, nor jasmine clings around his door. In a climate which
+allows fuchsia hedges to grow and bloom luxuriantly none appear round
+the peasant's garden. Myrtles, laurel, and bay there are in plenty at
+Valentia, but they are grouped near the gigantic fuchsia bush at
+Glanleam, or nestle among the houses of the telegraphic company. It is
+the same in other places. All is unloveliness and squalor, even when
+potatoes are plentiful and butter fetches a high price at Cork.
+
+These thoughts were borne strongly in upon me during a visit to
+"Paris." A drifting rain obscured the Skelligs, and drove me to take
+shelter in a "Parisian" household. The house stood sound and square to
+the wind with its slated roof and thick stone whitewashed walls,
+whitewash being ordained by a Board of Works wildly striving for
+cleanliness and health. The exterior of the house itself was well
+enough, but alack for the approaches and the interior! Plunging
+through mud I reached the door, and, glancing through the window,
+descried the inevitable pig inside the kitchen. The people--to be just
+to them--seemed a little fluttered, if not ashamed, of the plight in
+which I found them. It was quite evident that since the new 80l. house
+was built not a drop of water had been expended on its interior. The
+wooden staircase leading to the bedrooms aloft was in such condition
+that I shuddered to touch its sticky surface, the floor so filthy that
+I instinctively gathered up the skirts of my overcoat, the bedsteads
+filled up with blankets and odds and ends of unimaginable shades of
+dirt colour.
+
+Yet this apparently poverty-stricken home was already subdivided in
+defiance of the conditions of tenancy. The eldest daughter had been
+married some little time without the landlord or bailiff finding it
+out, and there was the bridegroom established in half of the house and
+endowed with half of the farm. He was at home too; a huge black-browed
+fellow, doing nothing at all, after the manner of his kind. And this
+was the outcome of an attempt to distribute the Valentians in holdings
+of respectable size and to make them live in houses instead of hovels.
+Two families were already established in the place of one, and the
+house was already like unto a stye. The inhabitants, however, were
+mighty civil when they recovered from their surprise, and spoke well
+of their landlord and of everybody connected with him, especially of
+the ladies of his family, who had done much to find paying employment
+for the girls by getting them a market for knitted and other
+needlework.
+
+Pursuing my cruise in a Growler round the coast I came past some
+magnificent scenery by Waterville, at the head of Ballinskelligs Bay
+to Derrynane, once the abode of the "Liberator," and now occupied by
+Mr. Daniel O'Connell, his grandson, who gave me a curious instance of
+the profit to be realised on a dairy and grazing farm. He has leased
+the island of Scariff from Lord Dunraven for 60l. per annum, has put a
+dairyman upon it, and sells off of it yearly produce, butter, cattle,
+sheep, wool, and pigs, to the value of 230l., the valuation of the
+island, according to Griffith, being, including the dairyman's house
+27l. 5s. Mr. O'Connell also gave me an odd proof of the retribution
+which appears likely to fall upon the landowners of the barony of
+Iveragh.
+
+When the Government valuation was first made public it was protested
+against by Sir James O'Connell, who succeeded in getting it reduced by
+30 per cent., an unfortunate circumstance for the present proprietors
+if the Land League continue to have it all their own way. The League,
+however, has not yet troubled Derrynane; the tenants, who since 1841
+have been greatly reduced in number by emigration and the
+consolidation of holdings, have paid their rent fairly up to this,
+that is to say fairly according to the usage of that remote part of
+Kerry. They average "the grass of six cows," with the run of the
+mountain, "for rather more" collops or young cows, not yet in milk.
+
+Derrynane rejoices in many memorials of the Liberator, but the relic
+of "Ould Dan" that all visitors, and especially Irishmen, are most
+anxious to see, is in the oblong mahogany box lying on the tall desk
+at which he was wont to stand and write. It is that article of
+furniture without which no Irish gentleman's equipment was more
+complete than his house without an avenue. "My pistols which I shot
+Captain Marker," as poor Rawdon Crawley put it. There reposes
+peacefully enough now by the side of its companion, the weapon with
+which the "Liberator" shot Mr. D'Esterre. It is a flint lock pistol of
+very large bore, and with stock reaching to the muzzle. One
+peculiarity about this pistol is worthy of note. Beneath the trigger
+guard a piece of steel extends curving downwards and outwards towards
+the muzzle, a convenient device, as I find, for steadying the weapon
+by aid of the second finger. On the stock is cut rudely a capital D.,
+for D'Esterre. There are no other marks, although the pistols have a
+pedigree and a story attached to them.
+
+One day an English officer stationed in Ireland found himself in the
+painful position of waiting for remittances. Knowing nobody likely to
+be useful to him he appealed to the most noteworthy Irishman of his
+day, and stating his pressing need, asked him to lend him 50l. until
+his funds came to hand. Daniel O'Connell, who was a keen judge of
+character, lent him the money without hesitation, and was shortly
+repaid, with many expressions of gratitude. About a year afterwards
+the Englishman was ordered on a foreign station, and, unwilling to
+leave Ireland without giving some tangible expression of his
+thankfulness to O'Connell, called upon him and presented him with the
+duelling pistols in question, which were accepted as heartily as the
+money was lent. On taking his leave the Englishman said, "If you
+should ever have occasion to use these pistols you will find them very
+good ones; they have already killed ten men." The first and only time
+"Ould Dan" used them he killed Mr. D'Esterre, to whose family, it must
+be added, he afterwards did all he could to atone for that injury.
+
+Mr. O'Connell also showed me a brass blunderbuss once the property of
+Robert Emmet. It has a revolving chamber, which, instead of turning
+automatically, must be adjusted by hand after every shot, a curious
+forerunner of Colt's invention, adaptation, or revival. Derrynane is
+delightfully situated at a spot called appropriately "White Strand,"
+from the silvery sand washed by the Atlantic waves. Above it stands
+the celebrated circular fort of Staigue, built of dry stone, and with
+an inclined plane inside like those at West Cove and Ballycarbery.
+Opposite is the magnificent rocky peninsula of Lamb Head, the road
+across which much resembles parts of St. Gothard, plus the magnificent
+sea shining in the sun.
+
+The crag of Lamb Head, broken into a thousand jagged slopes, is here
+and there overgrown with short sweet herbage. Wherever grass grows
+there will a Kerry calf or "collop" be found. How the pretty little
+black cattle cling like flies to those dizzy windy heights is
+marvellous; but there they are, night and day, for months at a
+stretch, giving no trouble to anybody, growing into condition ready
+for "finishing" on richer pasture, and giving life and beauty to a
+scene which would, without them, be but grandly desolate. The little
+Kerries are greatly prized as "milkers," and they yield good beef, but
+very little of it--not more than four hundredweight per beast. By the
+side of the superb shorthorns of the Ardfert herd they look like
+goats; but such cattle as Mr. Crosbie's cream-coloured bull are only
+suited to richer pasture than the rocks of Lamb Head. It may also be
+added that for the purpose of dairy-farms the best commercial cows are
+all bred between the rough native cattle and shorthorns, or between
+Devon and Ayrshire, the latter cross being specially liked by Mr.
+Hegarty, of Mill Street, county Cork, referred to in a previous
+letter, and by many other good judges. This fact, however, by no means
+detracts from the value of such a magnificent herd as that of Mr.
+Crosbie. On the contrary it is held by many experts that first-class
+shorthorn bulls are a necessity for preventing the cross-bred animals
+from reverting to the original local type.
+
+The improvement in cattle in Kerry, owing to the importation of
+shorthorns by Mr. Crosbie, and in a smaller degree by other
+proprietors, is very marked; but despite this the thoroughbred Kerry
+still remains and is likely to remain lord of the mountain until
+mayhap he be displaced by the smaller Scotch cattle, as he has already
+been in some localities by the black-faced sheep, who leads an equally
+hardy and independent life until wanted for "finishing."
+
+From Derrynane the road passes along the coast, and through Sneem to
+Derryquin, the estate of that typical landlord, Mr. F.C. Bland, beyond
+whose lands lie those of Mr. Mahony, of Dromore, the apostle of
+concrete and author of a pamphlet which has made a great noise in
+Ireland, and is accepted by "improving" landlords as stating their
+case perfectly. Mr. Bland, whose domain lies on the north side of the
+embouchure of the Kenmare River, owns about thirty-eight square miles
+of territory, and is one of the most popular men in Kerry.
+Extraordinary stories are told of him. "Know 'um, begorra," answered a
+native to my query, "Don't I know 'um; and it is he that's the good
+man, your honour, and every man and baste will do anything for 'um,
+and he has got tame lobsthers that sit up to be fed, and a tame salmon
+that follows 'um about like a dog."
+
+This, to say the least, appeared an ample statement; but I confess the
+temptation to see the man who owned contented tenants and tame fish
+was too strong to be overcome, and I therefore procured an
+introduction to Mr. Bland, who with great modesty promised to show me
+his improvements on condition that I would also look over those of
+that arch improver his neighbour, Mr. Mahony. To appraise the real
+value of the work done by these two gentlemen at Derryquin and
+Dromore--a region of some eighty-five square miles altogether--it must
+be understood that forty years ago this part of Kerry was, with the
+exception of the main track to Cork, absolutely without roads, an
+almost impassable tract of wild mountain and morass cut up by streams,
+which when swollen stopped all communication even for foot passengers.
+Yet it was inhabited by a considerable population paying rent,
+sometimes, for the mountain farms, to which they carried their store
+of meal on their backs.
+
+It is said that the father of Mr. Bland went to his first school in a
+pannier, a stone being put in the opposite one to steady the load on
+the ass's back. This was the "good old-time," when few of the people
+could speak English, none could read or write, all spun their wool and
+made their bread at home, and none dreamed of opposing "the master's
+will." Fortunately they were in good hands, for Mr. Bland went to
+work, at first gently and afterwards more swiftly, at the task of
+making land and people more civilised than had been thought possible
+up to his time. During thirty years he has laid out 7,000l. of his own
+and 10,000l. of Government money in bringing his estate and people
+somewhat into consonance with modern ideas. He has made twenty-three
+miles of road, built thirty stone houses with slated or tiled roofs,
+and three schools. When the estate came into his hands there was not a
+cart upon it except at Derryquin itself. Now two-thirds of the tenants
+have carts and horses. Forty years ago the entire export and import
+trade was done by a carrier who came from Cork once a month and was
+looked for as anxiously as the periodical steamer at a station on the
+West Coast of Africa. Now there are carriers weekly in all directions,
+and steamboats calling regularly in Kenmare Bay. All this work has
+been compassed by the landlord, with the partial assistance of the
+Government, with the exception of one solitary house, which was built
+by the tenant.
+
+The story of Mr. Bland's tame fish, which "sat up, and followed him
+about like a dog," turns out to have had some foundation in fact.
+There is a fine pool of salt water at Derryquin (Ang. "Oakslope")
+Castle, which stands on the edge of Kenmare Bay; and this pool not
+long since held a number of tame fish, which came to be fed when
+anybody approached, just as carp do in many well-known places.
+Unluckily, however, a neighbouring otter found this out, and carried
+away the unfortunate fish at the rate of two every night till not a
+single fish is left. I hear that both salmon and pollock became
+equally tame, but that the former, although eating everything offered
+them, became miserably poor in a comparatively short time. The only
+denizen of the pool that I actually saw was a lobster, who came out
+from under a stone as I approached, in the hope, I was told, that I
+was going to give him a mussel.
+
+Mr. Bland, however, if he has not proved so redoubtable a fishtamer as
+my original informant opined, has proved very successful in oyster
+culture. Having a little salt-water inlet, with a river running into
+it, he conceived the idea of breeding and raising oysters, but found
+the climate bad for "spatting," and now buys his tiny young oysters by
+the ten thousand at the Isle of Rhé, and puts them down in long
+perforated boxes on his oyster beds. When they are between three and
+four years old he consigns them to a correspondent at Ballyvaughan,
+who puts them in, I believe, deep-sea oyster beds for a while and
+converts them into the famous Burren oysters, which, like the Marenne
+oysters, are generally preferred by Englishmen to "Natives," while the
+"spat" of the latter is eagerly sought by the French for development
+into Huitres d'Ostende.
+
+It rained so furiously at Derryquin that I hardly saw so much of Mr.
+Bland's estate as I could have wished, but between the showers I was
+able to form a fair idea of his building and road improvement. It is a
+matter of pride to the proprietor that on a territory once impassable
+by a wheeled vehicle he can now drive to every farm in a carriage and
+pair, and that among tenants averaging "the grass of six cows" apiece;
+men and women at least speak English, and children go to school. The
+barbarous state of the country and inhabitants forty years ago may be
+gathered from the following anecdote. Two gentlemen were out shooting
+on the mountain and were driven by a "Kerry shower"--which is as much
+like a cataract as anything I know of--into a peasant's cabin. The man
+received them with all the dignity and self-possession peculiar to the
+best of his class, and when the storm cleared off invited them to eat
+with him on their return from the hillside. When they came back,
+expecting only potatoes and butter, they were astounded to see their
+host take several pieces of some kind of meat out of the pot and place
+them on the table, for there were no plates before them. It turned out
+that the mysterious meat was that of a newly-born calf whose dam was
+yet lying helpless in a corner of the cabin. The man was quite
+unconscious that there was anything objectionable in the dreadful
+food, and offered it to "the masthers" with perfect grace, and without
+the slightest pang at the costliness of the banquet. He had given the
+best and only meat he had to his guests. Like the Italian gentleman
+with his falcon, or rather the Arab sheik with his horse, who, my
+friend Mr. Browning tells me, is the original of Boccaccio's
+mamby-pamby story, the Kerry mountaineer had fulfilled the rites of
+hospitality at whatever cost. For long after the date of the grim
+repast just recorded, in fact, even till to-day, the peasants on the
+Derryquin estate have been accustomed to refer their almost
+innumerable wrangles and squabbles to the decision of "the masther,"
+who might be figured as a kind of Hibernian St. Louis, sitting under a
+tree, and adjudicating between his subjects. Sometimes it was not very
+easy to arrive at a decision. Not very long ago a man came with a
+complaint that his once-intended son-in-law had behaved shabbily and
+fraudulently. It appeared that the father of the girl had agreed with
+the "boy" that a cow should be killed "to furnish forth the marriage
+table;" that the father should provide the cow for the happy day, and
+that the cost of the animal should be shared between them. The cow had
+been killed, and the bride had been dressed, but the Kerry "county
+Guy" had not been forthcoming, that mercenary youth having married out
+of hand another girl with four more cows to her fortune than the one
+he was engaged to. Hereat the outraged parent demanded, not that he
+should pay damages for breach of promise, but his share of the cost of
+the cow. "And," said the masther, "you had the cow and the daughter
+thrown on your hands?" "Divil a throw, your honour," was the reply;
+"mee daughter got another husband in tin minutes, begorra, and we ate
+the cow, your honour; but Mike is a blackgyard, and should pay his
+half of the cow, your honour." This was a knotty case, but his
+"honour" decided that Mike should pay his share, and, to do that
+fickle bridegroom justice, he paid up with very little demurring. He
+was clearly three cows and a half the better by his bargain, and, I
+believe, lives happily to this day. It is needless to say that he has
+numerous children.
+
+Mr. Bland has under his paternal rule about 300 agricultural tenants
+besides the villagers of Sneem, who mostly have lots lying contiguous
+to, or at some little distance from, their houses. The holdings,
+albeit averaging the grass of six cows, vary very considerably in size
+and quality. Thus one farmer holds 803 acres, or "the grass of
+twenty-four cows," with mountain run attached, at a rent of 35l.,
+while another who has 1,493 acres is only charged 26l. for "the grass
+of seventeen cows," with proportionate mountain. Even on holdings of
+this size, as well as on others of less value, such as 250 acres at a
+rent of 13l. 15s., Mr. Bland has experienced great difficulty in
+inducing the tenants to bear any share of the cost of building and
+other improvements. Of course there are tenants and tenants at
+Derryquin, as elsewhere, but the general feeling has undoubtedly been
+averse to paying an extra percentage for improvements. Mr. Bland has
+done what he could, but has rarely found anybody inclined to pay more
+than 2 per cent., and one irreconcilable actually refused to pay 1l. a
+year extra to have a 70l. house built for him. The "masther" appears
+to take a view of the subject which might have been with great
+advantage more widely distributed among Irish proprietors of the
+improving sort. It is not extravagant to ask a farmer with the nominal
+grass of twenty cows, and a mountain run on which he grazes twice as
+many bullocks, to pay 5 per cent. on 80l. or 100l. as the rent of a
+good and substantial house; but it is preposterous to ask the holder
+of a ten-acre lot to do likewise. Such peasants should, as I observed
+in one of my early letters, not be called farmers at all. Their
+condition is about equal to that of the English farm labourer. When
+the landlord can afford to build better cottages for them than they
+now have, he should certainly not expect more than 1, or at best 2 per
+cent. for his outlay, and carry the balance to his profit and loss
+account, after the manner of English landowners of the best class. The
+Derryquin houses or cottages are very well built and excellently
+planned; they are also very pretty with their whitewashed walls, red
+tile roofs, and doors painted red to match. These patches of bright
+colour give extraordinary cheerfulness to a landscape otherwise of
+green, brown, and grey, looking cold enough under a weeping sky. The
+walls are of stone, "dashed" after the Irish fashion with mortar or
+concrete, and slate roofs have now given place to red tiles in fancy
+patterns. Inside they are divided into two rooms on the ground floor,
+paved with concrete, and two sleeping rooms above, in order, if
+possible, to keep the people from huddling together at night. It is a
+fact, impossible as it may appear, that when the pretty and tasteful
+lodge at the gate of Derryquin was first built, the occupants, four in
+number, all slept together in one room rather than be separated at
+night, and were only induced to occupy the apartments built to prevent
+this habit by the threat of eviction. I might have doubted this
+amazing story had I not seen the condition of a cottage rebuilt
+recently on an old foundation at a cost of 60l., for which a rent of
+1l. is charged. The tenant fought hard against the innovation, and
+yielded to the imposition of 1l. a year, and a clean new house, only
+under fear of being turned off the estate. He and his have only been
+in the new building for a few weeks, but they have made wild work of
+it already. In the room to the left of the door a "bonneva," or
+half-grown pig of the size called a "shote," in the State of Georgia,
+was disporting himself by looking on at a girl spinning wool, a "boy"
+doing nothing, and two dirty youngsters wallowing on the floor. In the
+other brand new room, not long since left sweet and tidy by the
+builders, were piled an immense heap of turf and a great store of
+potatoes, over against which stood a bedstead and a pair of boots.
+There was nothing else in the room, not the slightest fragment of
+table or chair, not a sign of water or washing utensils; in the room
+above were also bedsteads, without anything that could be called
+bedding, and no other stick of furniture. Before the front door was a
+rough stone causeway, already ankle-deep in filth. Close up to the
+rear of the house was a dung-heap of portentous size and savour.
+Evidently this was a case of taking the horse to the water and being
+unable to make him drink, for the people thrust into a clean house
+were obviously doing their best to bring it into harmony with their
+own views. I heard also of a remarkable case of subdivision on the
+part of some labourers on Mr. Bland's estate, higher up on the
+mountain. A couple or three years ago two "boys" received permission
+to occupy a cabin on a little patch of land. This spot has since grown
+into a colony. The "boys" have both got married, and have children.
+Their brothers-in-law also, with wives and children, as a matter of
+course, have built their cabins against the original one given to the
+two bachelors, and the holding has a population of forty-five souls.
+These poor people are surely the most affectionate in the world, and
+the uproar when any one of the colony is ailing is astonishing, and
+bewildering to more civilised and perhaps colder-blooded folk.
+
+Mr. R. Mahony's estate of Dromore (_Anglice_ "Big Ridge") is the
+theatre of even more extensive improvements than those of Derryquin.
+Mr. Mahony has 29,163 acres in Kerry, valued by Griffith at 3,071l.
+In his pamphlet he states:--"In the year 1851 I came into possession
+of my estate. Old rentals in my possession show that for many years
+previous to that date there had been allowances made to tenants at the
+rate of about 1,000l. per annum. Yet when I took up the estate there
+was not one drain made by a tenant, not one slated house, not a perch
+of road, not a yard of sub-soiled land. I then adopted the system of
+making all improvements myself, charging interest of the outlay upon
+the occupier according to the circumstances and increased value of the
+farm. The result has been that in five-and-twenty years I have built
+about eighty houses and offices slated or tiled, made twenty-eight
+miles of road, built nine bridges, made twenty-three miles of fences,
+thoroughly drained about five hundred acres, planted one hundred and
+fifty acres of waste land, and proportionately improved the condition
+and circumstances of the people."
+
+There is abundant evidence of Mr. Mahony's work on his estate, which
+is not only valuable in itself but as an example. The roads are
+admirably laid, and the employment of concrete made of Portland cement
+and the sand and pebbles of the seashore, since followed at Ardfert,
+was initiated at Dromore. Walls, floors, partitions, are all of
+concrete, and the roofs of the houses last built of handsome red
+tiles. The disposition of the apartments in the Dromore cottages
+varies somewhat from that of the neighbouring estate. The principal
+room, or kitchen, has nothing above it but the high-pitched roof,
+lined with wood tastefully disposed. The remaining three apartments
+are two on the ground floor, a tiny parlour and convenient bedroom,
+and one full-sized bedroom above. Separate cow-houses and pigsties are
+also appended to each cottage. So far as can be judged from a hurried
+visit, many of the houses are very well and tidily kept; in fact, so
+treated as not to destroy hope in the future of the Irish peasant
+cultivator, although this trimness is by no means so general as it
+might be. Mr. Mahony has also, by way of showing his people how things
+should be done, a model farm and dairy, of such moderate size as not
+to be beyond the ambition of a successful tenant. The proprietor has
+also, like Mr. Bland and Mr. Butler, of Waterville, a successful
+salmon fishery, great part of the produce whereof goes, at some little
+advance on sixpence per pound, to the agents of a London firm, who
+also get an enormous supply of mushrooms from county Kerry.
+
+There is a greatly-improved property in county Cork, lying west of
+Macroom and south of Mill Street. This is Ballyvourney, one of the
+estates of Sir George St. John Colthurst, of Ardrum, whose father laid
+out an immense sum in reclaiming a portion of the 25,000 acres, which
+bring him in about 5,000l. per annum.
+
+There are other landlords in the counties of Cork and Kerry who, like
+Mr. Bence Jones, have done well by their land; but there is no
+occasion to multiply experiences of a similar character. The purpose
+of my Kerry excursion was to observe the Kerry peasant when he had
+been left to himself, and where he had been looked after, and perhaps
+governed, by a landlord whose interest in him had not been diminished
+by recent legislation. My impression is very much the same as that
+produced by my visit to Connemara, that the peasant requires firm as
+well as gentle handling, and that his emancipation from the control of
+his landlord should be accompanied by some other authority
+representing the State, and interfering to prevent the tendency to
+local congestion of population.
+
+The Kerry peasant's qualities are in the main good, and he is upheld
+under difficulties by hopefulness almost equal to his vanity and habit
+of exaggeration. A Kerry man's boat is a ship, his cabin is a house,
+his shrubs are trees, his "boreen" is an avenue, and, as a native bard
+declares, "all his hens are paycocks." He may be briefly described as
+in morals correct, disposition kindly, manners excellent, customs
+filthy. It is, however, despite his hopefulness, difficult to find any
+trace of that gaiety for which he was formerly famous, whether justly
+or not. His amusements outside the calm of Derrynane, Derryquin, and
+Dromore, appear to be cattle fairs, whisky, and sedition. At times he
+is unconsciously humorous, as in the story of the Duchess of
+Marlborough's Indian meal distributed for the relief of the poor
+during the hard time of last winter. A gentleman, who ought to know
+better, was buying some potheen, or illicit whisky, of the maker.
+"Now, Pat," said he, "I hope this lot is better than the last." "And,
+your honour," was the reply, "the last was but the name of whisky.
+Begorra, it's the Duchess's meal as makes mighty poor potheen." This
+was said quite seriously and with an injured air. For there is no
+merriment in Kerry. The old dances at the cross roads are danced no
+more. The pipe of the piper is played out.
+
+
+
+
+XVII.
+
+"BOYCOTTED" AT CHRISTMASTIDE.
+
+
+KILFINANE, CO. LIMERICK, _Christmas Eve._
+
+The fox-terrier sits blinking on the hearth-rug in the pretty
+drawing-room as nightfall approaches, and a servant appears with a
+message that a woman has come with a big cake from Mrs. O'Blank, a
+sympathising neighbour. There is no mistake about the size and
+condition of the cake; it is a yard and a quarter in circumference; it
+has a shining holiday face, like that of the fabled pigs who ran about
+ready roasted, covered with delicately-browned "crackling," perfumed
+with sage and onions, and carrying huge bowls of apple-sauce in their
+mouths. As the pigs cried, "Come and eat me," so does the cake appeal,
+but in more subtle manner, to the instincts and nostrils of all
+present. It has that pleasant scent with it peculiar to newly-baked
+plumcake. Huge plums, which have worked their way perseveringly to the
+surface, wink invitingly, and, above all, the cake is hot, gloriously
+hot, besides having with it a delicate zest of contraband acquired by
+being smuggled on to the premises under Biddy M'Carthy's shawl.
+
+Biddy has watched the moment when the "boys" on the watch--scowling
+ruffians by the same token--had gone in quest of tea or more potent
+refreshment, and has slipped from the avenue which runs past the house
+instead of up to it, by the lodge gate and up to the door in that
+spirit-like fashion peculiar to this part of Ireland. When they wish
+to do so, the people appear to spring out of the ground. Two minutes
+before the monotony of existence is broken by a fight there will not
+be a soul to be seen, but no sooner is it discovered that some unlucky
+wight is in present receipt of a "big bating" than hundreds appear on
+the spot, and struggle for a "vacancy," like the lame piper who howled
+for the same at the "murthering" of a bailiff.
+
+This ghost-like faculty, however, has served us right well, for I need
+not speculate upon what would have happened to Mrs. M'Carthy (whose
+real name is not given for obvious reasons) if she had been discovered
+carrying a huge cake to a house under ban. She would not have been
+injured bodily; no soul in Kilfinane would have touched the cake, much
+less have eaten the hateful food made and baked and attempted to be
+carried to the stronghold of the "tyrant"; but it would have gone ill
+with the brave little woman nevertheless. Her husband would have been
+compelled to seek elsewhere for a livelihood, for neither farmer nor
+tradesman would dare to employ either him or her. Her elder children
+would have been pointed at as they went to school, and sent to
+Coventry while there; and she would have been refused milk for the
+younger ones. Not a potato nor a pound of meal nor an egg could she
+have bought all through the hamlet; and if people at a distance had
+sold her anything, they would have been intercepted and compelled to
+take it back again. The carriers would not have delivered to or taken
+parcels from her; she would, in fact, have been very much in the
+condition that Eve, according to Lord Byron, thought she could put
+Cain into by cursing him.
+
+Fortunately, however, the cake-bearer has escaped, and we fall with
+keen appetites upon the not very digestible banquet she has provided.
+The blockade has been successfully run, and we celebrate the event
+accordingly. We are not so very badly off after all, and in fact have
+passed a by no means dull time for the last two days. It is not quite
+so easy to frighten our garrison as a pack of sympathising peasants
+who attempt no kind of resistance against the mysterious leaders of
+the _Jacquerie_. The son of the house and his two grown cousins are
+here, the butler and gardener still remain staunch, as well as the
+coachman and a couple of bailiffs living outside, all "Boycotted"
+also. Moreover, we have a cook and housemaid with us, and two members
+of the Royal Constabulary. We have busy times, too. So far as
+turkeys, geese, chickens, and eggs, butter and bacon are concerned, we
+have enough and to spare within protecting range of rifle and
+revolver, but for fresh beef and mutton and flour we must depend upon
+Cork. Now the mysterious agent in Cork who sends us the supplies
+cannot get them carried nearer to the house than the railway station
+at Kilmallock, the interesting little town at which one of the county
+members keeps the inn and "runs" the cars, a fact whereof the citizens
+are not a little proud. When we receive the news, letter or telegram,
+announcing that meat or other stores will arrive by a certain train,
+we drive down to meet it, and without the slightest assistance, for
+not a single gloomy by-stander would do us a hand's turn, we carry it
+off to our own car, and thanks to the awe inspired by army revolvers,
+Winchester rifles, one constable on the car, and those officially at
+the railway station, bring our property away.
+
+A day since there was great excitement concerning the arrival of a
+daughter of the house, who was coming down to keep house for the
+"boys" whose guest I am. Her brother and one of her cousins went down
+on the car to meet her, armed as usual, for although they would be
+comparatively safe with a lady on the car, they ran considerable risk
+until she was actually on board. The train came, but not the young
+lady, and as it was broad daylight her well-armed escort came back
+again. Towards the hour for the arrival of the evening train there was
+more anxiety. It was dark, but it was absolutely necessary to go down
+to Kilmallock again, on the off chance that she might have come later
+than was expected, and had forgotten to telegraph. If she had arrived
+and nobody had been there to meet her, the consequences would have
+been awkward. She would not, it is true, have been exposed to the
+slightest insult, for except in the case of Miss Gardiner, of
+Farmhill, I believe Irishmen have never forgotten their natural
+gallantry so much as to insult, much less shoot at and wound, a lady.
+There would, therefore, have been no fear of violence; but it is very
+doubtful whether anybody would have removed her trunks from the spot
+on which they had been laid down. Most assuredly no cardriver would
+have dared to drive her home, and I question if any house in
+Kilmallock would have afforded her shelter. However, she did not come
+by the train after all, and the "boys" drove back, not without an
+Irish howl to keep them company on the road.
+
+Dinner over, the company being composed of the three "boys" and the
+writer, who among them made short work of a plump turkey and a
+vigorous inroad on a round of beef, besides disposing of soups,
+sweets, and sherry--not a bad _menu_ under "Boycotting" rules--we,
+after seeing that the front door was properly barred, bolted, and
+chained, and the iron-linked shutters, relics of the Fenian time, made
+equally secure, adjourned to the kitchen for a smoke, a common
+practice in this part of Ireland. The kitchen, with its red-tiled
+floor, is a capital smoking room, warm and cosy, and while tobacco is
+leisurely puffed, and that eternal subject, "the state of the
+country," discussed, the eye reposes complacently on the treasures
+suspended from the hooks on the ceiling, plump hams and sides of
+well-fed bacon giving assurance that the garrison is far from being
+reduced to extremities. But there are in the kitchen other objects
+less suggestive of festivity. On the round table by the central column
+supporting the kitchen roof lie sundry revolvers, and nearer one of
+the windows a couple of repeating rifles and the double-barrelled
+carbines of the constabulary. Two members of that well-grown and well
+set-up corps are seated at a corner of the dresser, deeply engrossed
+in the intricacies of the mysterious game of forty-five, before which
+the mind of the dull Saxon remains bewildered in hopeless incapacity.
+Presently the well-thumbed pack is laid aside, and one of the
+constables addresses himself to the task of closing and barring up the
+shutters, thus shutting out all chance of any present being picked off
+by a shot through the window, as was done when Miss Gardiner was
+wounded under somewhat similar circumstances.
+
+There is a great deal of gossip concerning the "Boycotting" of Mr.
+Bence Jones, and that of the most recent victim, The Macgillicuddy of
+the Reeks, whose family is well known to all present; but even the one
+engrossing subject wears itself out at last. One cannot attain any
+wild pitch of hilarity among bolts and bars and Winchester rifles.
+Nobody appears to care for any stories but such as bear upon the
+present troubles and the Fenian affair in 1867. At Kilmallock there is
+no sign of song or dance; no talk of pantomimes, and what jokes are
+made bear grim reference to troubles actually endured and possible
+troubles to come.
+
+By day it is by no means dreary. To begin with, the house is built on
+a charming spot six miles distant from a railway station; in front and
+beyond the lawn is a pretty little lake broken up by islands, making a
+tender foreground for the Galtee and nearer mountains. From the
+opposite side the view is equally delightful, the hills being crowned
+with trees and brushwood, an unusual sight in Ireland. Down the slope
+of the immense saddle-backed range lie fields of the brightest green,
+divided by banks and hedges delightful to look at after the grim stone
+walls of Mayo, Galway, and Clare. From behind these grassy slopes
+peeps the purple crest of the distant mountains, giving grandeur to a
+scene which might otherwise have been deemed tame. The climate,
+although chilled by recent heavy rains, is deliciously soft, and the
+breeze has none of that incisive quality common to the more northern
+hills. It is needless to say that at sunrise there is no chance of
+meeting any watchers of the "Boycotting" brigade. At seven o'clock any
+quantity of cargo might be "run" into the beleaguered citadel; but so
+for that matter can anything one likes be done at noon, under
+sufficient escort. When nothing is to be carried there is not the
+slightest occasion for escort in Kilfinane itself, although the
+attitude of the people is hostile in the extreme. Going for a stroll
+with the nephew of the absent "master," I am recommended to put a
+pistol in my pocket, and, much against the grain, do so.
+
+I must confess that I draw a line at agents. Alone I should not dream
+of going about armed, although "indignation meetings" have been held
+to denounce me for speaking the truth and believing my own eyes, and I
+consider myself quite safe while in the company of many landlords. But
+agents are another matter. There is while with them always the off
+chance of something untoward turning up, and it is, perhaps, as well
+to be prepared for emergencies. Personally I must confess that I am
+favourably disposed towards the much vilified agents. They are in many
+respects the most manly men in Ireland. Nearly always well-bred, they
+excite sympathy by the position they hold between the upper and nether
+millstone of landlord and tenant. Perhaps they have made a good thing
+of it, but if so they have earned it, for their position always
+reminds one of that assigned by Lord Macaulay to the officers of the
+East India Company, such as Olive and Warren Hastings. To these
+founders of our Eastern Empire "John Company" said, "Respect treaties;
+keep faith with native rulers; do not oppress the people; but send us
+money."
+
+This is exactly what easy-going Irish absentee proprietors
+preach--"Don't hurt my tenants; don't make my name to stink in the
+land; above all, let there be no evictions among my people; but send
+me a couple of thousand pounds before Monday, or remit me at least one
+thousand to Nice some time next week.--Yours, The O'Martingale." This,
+I take it, has been the situation for the last quarter of a century,
+since the younger sons of Irish families took to land agency as a
+profession because there seemed nothing else in Ireland for them to
+do. Nevertheless they are hideously unpopular, and I like to be armed
+when I take a stroll with them in a lonely country district.
+
+So we walk down to Kilfinane to look after the progress made in
+arranging quarters for the soldiers presently expected, some fifty odd
+redcoats or rifles as the authorities may decide. It is instructive to
+observe the demeanour of the people towards us. My companion formerly
+lived at Kilfinane, and took his share of the work there, but he was
+the first of his family "Boycotted," and was obliged to take up his
+quarters in his uncle's house. Not a blacksmith could be found to
+shoe his horse, and not a living creature to cook his food; so a forge
+belonging to the mounted division of the Royal Irish Constabulary was
+sent down for the horse, and the master of that interesting animal
+went up to the big house to eat and sleep, and the "Boycotters" were,
+so far, brought to nought. But the good folk of Kilfinane eye us
+terribly askant, or, to be more literally exact, do not eye us at all;
+at least, their eyes betray "no speculation." Had I driven in from
+Charleville alone I might have gossipped with all the idlers of the
+village, but now that I am walking with a "Boycotted" person I seem to
+have become invisible. A few men are on the side walks--a few women at
+their doors--but they either look at us as if we were transparent as
+panes of glass, or suddenly become interested in their boots or finger
+nails, both which would be better for more regular attention. The
+children run away and hide themselves as if a brace of megalosauri or
+other happily extinct monsters had crawled out of the bog and come
+into Kilfinane to look for a meal. It is altogether a strange
+experience. It dawns upon me that the man who has driven me over from
+Charleville might issue from the hotel and ask for my orders, but he
+does not.
+
+The edifice wherein he has established himself, his vehicle and
+horses, is of a bright salmon colour, rejoiceful to the eyes of the
+natives. My driver, on being asked at my arrival, greatly preferred
+the rude freedom and plenty of this pink hostelry to the supposed
+narrow rations of a house under ban. Possibly he loves the ruddy-faced
+village inn on account of its affinity in hue to that of his own
+visage, in which nose and beard contend fiercely for pre-eminence in
+warmth of tone. But be this as it may, he is just now giving warmth
+and colour to the interior of the establishment, instead of trying to
+catch my eye as I go past.
+
+There is absolutely no sign of life or movement in the "Salmon Arms,"
+or "The Rose," or whatever its name may be. Thus we stride down the
+street of Kilfinane in lonely grandeur till we come to the
+schoolmaster's house, to be presently converted with the schools into
+a barrack. Schoolmaster and wife are being temporarily evicted to make
+room for the military, in whose behalf a quantity of work is being
+done, not surely by the "Boycotters," who have already determined to
+"Boycott" the soldiers as far as they can by refusing to let a car
+carry a single article from the railway station. The military when
+they arrive and give that sense of security attached to a redcoat in
+Ireland, will be obliged to bring every kind of vehicle and transport
+animal with them.
+
+In the cabbage garden of the school-house I meet an old acquaintance,
+Sub-Inspector Fraser, of the Royal Irish Constabulary, who seems to
+enjoy a monopoly of posts in which the roughest kind of "constabulary
+duty is to be done." Whether he esteems his "lot a happy one" I do
+not know; but at any rate, he looks hearty and healthy enough upon it,
+and is mightily cheerful withal. He has finished off one tough job,
+for it was Mr. Fraser who was left at Pallas on the great day when
+horse, foot, and artillery smote the combined "Three and four year
+olds," or, rather, would have smitten them if they had been so
+misguided as to show fight. I have already recorded how the Palladians
+on that memorable occasion displayed a keen appreciation of the better
+part of valour, and I also marked my surprise that after it had taken
+"the fut and the dthragoons in shquadrons and plathoons," and "the
+boys who fear no noise" to boot, to bring the "makings" of a police
+hut from the railway station, where they lay "Boycotted," to Bourke's
+farm, twenty-five constables should have been judged a sufficiently
+imposing force to overawe the Palladians and to build the hut. But I
+hear that Mr. Fraser's slender army proved quite sufficient for its
+purpose, and that the hut is not only built, but very well built, and
+likely to vex the souls of the Palladians for some time to come. There
+is plenty of work to do in getting ready for the soldiers. Masons and
+carpenters are hard at work--that is to say, as hard as anybody ever
+works in this part of Ireland.
+
+On the dairy farms, which form the principal "industry"--save the
+mark!--of this rich part of the country, the life of the male kind is
+of the laziest imaginable. Employing girls to milk the cows and make
+the butter, the farmer appears to me to do nothing whatever except go
+to market and drink himself into a disaffected, discontented
+condition. He is rarely visible before ten or eleven o'clock in the
+morning, except on market days, and he appears to smoke and dawdle
+most of his time away. Just now he broods over his wrongs, and
+declares he "will have his own again," whatever that may signify. He
+says he is enormously over-rented. Perhaps he is; but I cannot forget
+that it is not many years since he and his neighbours in the adjacent
+county of Tipperary boasted that they had brought about an equitable
+adjustment of values by an ingenious process invented by
+themselves--that of "shooting down the rents." Have they gone up since
+under maleficent Saxon coercion? Verily, I do not know; for the faith
+I put in estimates and valuations, not excepting "The Book of
+Griffith," is but small.
+
+Information in Ireland depends entirely on the person who
+"infawrrrums" one, and is rarely complete. Almost everybody seems to
+think that an inquirer has some object to serve, and they either tell
+him what they think will amuse him or advance their own interest if it
+be repeated; but there are notable exceptions to this as to all other
+Irish rules.
+
+Chatting easily, we stroll back through Kilfinane, bewailing the
+sternness of military rule, which keeps officers and men together, and
+will not permit of the principal coming warriors being quartered at
+Spa-hill. On one point we are most anxious, and that is, that the
+troops shall be in Kilfinane by Christmas-day, to the end that the
+gaiety proper to the British Army should enliven the "Boycotted"
+establishment at dinner time; while the imposing presence of Thomas
+Atkins should overawe the village mutineers, and bring grist to the
+proprietor of the Couleur de Rose Hotel. As evening gathers in we sit
+down drowsily to listen to the loud ticking of the clock and drink a
+glass of sherry to the health of "all poor and distressed Boycottees"
+within her Majesty's "sometime kingdom of Ireland." Soothed by sherry,
+incipient sleep, and the subtle influence of the season, the little
+garrison of Spa-hill gradually waxes benevolent, until one of its
+number actually suggests that a fat goose should be sent to the
+proximate cause of all its woes, Father Sheehy. Even as a big loaf of
+bread was once thrown into an enemy's camp, at one moment this
+spirited proposition is nearly carried, but it breaks down before the
+remark that the coachman, gardener, and two bailiffs are "Boycotted,"
+bringing up the total number to about thirty-six, and that geese would
+be better distributed among these than flung away on the enemy; and
+the clock goes on to tick, the ticking growing louder and louder, and
+then comes the harsh, grating sound of shooting bolts and the clank
+of the chain on the front door.
+
+There is some pretence on the part of one of my young hosts of going
+into his uncle's office and drawing a lease, until he is reminded that
+he will probably be performing a work of supererogation, that leases
+and feudalism and property are going out of date, and that the land
+agents of the future, if suffered to cumber the earth at all, will be
+elected by the tenants, as the New York magistrates are elected by the
+persons whom they will be called upon to judge. And the clock ticks
+and the fox-terrier whines in his sleep. He is dreaming of rats,
+perhaps. It is pleasant to dream, even if one is a dog.
+
+A sudden start. The long-looked-for telegram has come announcing the
+arrival of the daughter of the house shortly at Kilmallock Station.
+There is another skirmish for rifles, rugs, and revolvers, and a sally
+out of the fortress. No sooner has the brave young lady arrived, who
+with her brother and cousin, and perhaps the representatives of the
+British army, will form the Christmas dinner-party, than she draws up
+a bill of fare, which includes, as well as turkey, ham, and plum
+pudding, lobsters brought from afar, thanks to feminine foresight. The
+retainers will feast on mighty joints of beef and on plum pudding
+galore. And now another telegram--The troops will arrive before the
+bells ring in Christmas-day.
+
+As I approach the end of my letter, it occurs to me that although the
+place, events, and persons described would be recognised by anybody
+living in the counties of Limerick, Cork, or Tipperary, this account
+might appear to English readers rather as an imaginative and
+highly-coloured picture, painted for the Christmas market from a
+number of models, than as a simple sketch in neutral greys as exactly
+and faithfully drawn as is possible to the writer. To prevent any such
+misapprehension, I will observe that the events which I describe as
+occurring before me, have all taken place within forty-eight hours in
+and near the house of Mr. Townsend, of Spa-hill, Kilfinane, county
+Limerick, and are telegraphed from Limerick city to the _Daily News_,
+because there was no nearer or more convenient office from which to
+send so long a message. Mr. Uniacke Townsend is one of a large family
+mostly engaged in land agency, and has incurred the ire of the people
+of Kilfinane, Kilmallock, Charleville, and the surrounding country, in
+consequence of a difficulty with one Murphy, a fairly large farmer
+according to the Irish measure of farming capacity. Murphy's farm is
+known as Lisheen. It includes between 40 and 50 acres, and the rent,
+240l. per annum, has, I am informed, not been changed for forty-six
+years. When Murphy owed a clear year's rent and a balance on a "broken
+gale," he was sued for the whole amount. By May of this year he owed
+another gale of half a year's rent, and he was formally evicted and a
+caretaker put in possession on the 21st June.
+
+It has been explained in a previous letter that after receiving any
+amount of credit an Irish farmer is again allowed six months'
+"redemption" after eviction. After paying up everything, including the
+additional "gale" incurred, less the proceeds of the farm, he
+re-enters on possession at any time within the margin of six months.
+Thus another "gale" fell due in November, and Murphy was still
+unprovided with funds. He did, however, very well without them; for
+the Land League, having become strong in the meanwhile in county
+Limerick, the caretaker was frightened away from the farm and Murphy
+reinstated. Mr. Uniacke Townsend requested him to give up possession,
+and was refused, and it then became known that Murphy might expect
+imprisonment or fine for trespass. Thereat a meeting was held, and Mr.
+Townsend solemnly adjudged worthy of "Boycotting." The lead in these
+disgraceful proceedings was taken by a Father Sheehy.
+
+Whatever the merits of Murphy's case may be, and it seems that members
+of his family have held Lisheen for some considerable time, there is
+no doubt that Father Sheehy made an almost frantic speech against Mr.
+Townsend, the agent, and Mr. Coote, the owner of the property,
+declaring that "the very name of Coote smelt of blood." I am not aware
+of the sanguinary deeds of the Cootes in the past; all I know of them
+is that the present incumbent is a very old man, of somewhat clerical
+exterior, who, like "A fine old Irish gentleman, one of the olden
+time," lives in London, requests his agent to enforce the law against
+his tenants without delay, and, in order to encourage him to do his
+duty, sends down to Spa-hill the very best repeating rifles that money
+can buy.
+
+The upshot of the matter is that Mr. Townsend has been so threatened
+that he has yielded to the entreaties of his family and left Kilfinane
+for a week or two, at any rate. He is, however, like most of his
+profession, a very determined man, and declared that he would come
+home and eat his Christmas dinner in his own house, "despite of foes;"
+but Mrs. Townsend, who, like the lady to whom I referred in a previous
+letter, has borne up nobly under her severe trial, was so scared at
+the thought of her husband's coming among a population banded together
+against him that she set off on Saturday and joined him, as the only
+way of averting some terrible disaster; for there is little doubt that
+the law will be put in force against Murphy now that his six months
+for "redemption" have expired; and nobody can tell what will happen at
+Lisheen any more than at Ennistymon if writs are issued against the
+tenants on the Macnamara estate, or on Mr. Stacpoole's property, if he
+perseveres in his resolution to "Dublin writ" the people with whom he
+has to deal.
+
+So the family at Spa-hill is broken up this Christmas; father and
+mother are both away--where I should hardly divulge, but assuredly
+where their Christmastide will be passed peacefully, if not joyfully.
+
+Another gentleman of these parts is being severely "Boycotted," to wit
+Mr. T. Sanders, of Sanders Park, Charleville, county Cork, just over
+the border from county Limerick; the Mr. Sanders, in fact, whom I saw
+the Palladians roaring and yelling at on the occasion of my first
+visit to the classic battlefield of the "three and four year olds." On
+that occasion he had been vainly trying to get in rents for the
+charitable bequest known as Erasmus Smith's Schools, and Pallas was
+full of noisy and more or less drunken Palladians, who dealt with Mr.
+Sanders in such wise that the police were obliged to see him into a
+railway carriage, and stand by the door till the train moved on. I
+would fain have called upon Mr. Sanders as I drove to Charleville, but
+the civil and obliging landlord of Lincoln's Hotel at that place, who
+supplied me with an excellent carriage and horses, politely apologised
+for his inability to drive me thither. He could not possibly enter
+Sanders Park, nor would any of his men go near that abhorred spot. No
+orders concerning Spa-hill had been issued by the "Real Government" in
+the absence of the hated head of the house, and I might be driven
+there and welcome; but Sanders Park was another matter. I might walk
+out of the town, and across the park if I liked, and my informant
+would ensure that I went and returned in safety, as for that matter I
+knew very well; but not being fond of walking against time through the
+mud, I preferred going whither I could be driven in comfort. Moreover,
+the novelty of the thing is wearing off, and "Boycotting" is now only
+interesting when ingeniously evaded or boldly defied.
+
+So long as a railway station is near him, the "Boycottee," if he have
+only two or three servants to stand firm, can practically bring the
+Boycotters to their wits' end. The railway companies being, I take it,
+common carriers, dare not refuse, like the cowardly shippers of Cork,
+to take the "Boycottee's" beef and plum pudding, wine and whisky, to
+the most convenient railway station, whence he, if well-armed and
+provided with an escort of constabulary, can bring in his supplies
+under the very nose of the infuriated peasants who stand scowling
+around the station gate and roar and "boo" their disgust at being
+foiled. There is not the slightest fear of the "Boycotters" running
+their heads against Winchester rifles and army revolvers, and the
+convoy need apprehend nothing hotter or harder than curses and groans,
+which, "like the idle wind, hurt not the mariner ashore."
+
+This last quotation had the misfortune to displease one of my young
+hosts, who opined that he thought, on the contrary, we were all at
+sea in Ireland just now, and breakers were ahead. Perhaps he is over
+much of an alarmist, but his present situation is hardly calculated to
+inspire confidence in anything but conical bullets and cold steel. As
+we stand together on the doorstep, he remarks that it will be long
+before Christmas _à la_ Boycott is forgotten in Ireland, and then he
+wishes me the compliments of the season. "Good bye," and "Safe
+home"--hateful valediction! I wish him and his a happier new year than
+the old one has been; but it would be a sorry jest to wish a merry
+Christmas to one whose greatest happiness and consolation are that at
+this time of gathered kindred, at the feast which comes but once a
+year for the re-knitting of the ties of domestic affection, the kindly
+voice of the house-mother is not heard beneath her own roof tree; that
+the chair of the house-father stands empty at the Christmas board.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII.
+
+CHRISTMAS IN COUNTY CLARE.
+
+
+ENNIS, _Monday._
+
+In a picture exhibited a few years ago, and since engraved, was
+powerfully and pathetically portrayed a scene of the early life of the
+Pilgrim Fathers of New England. It was winter time, and the day was
+Sunday. Clad in raiment of quaint severity, the head of the house led
+his Puritan family and servants across the snow-clad fields to
+worship. Living in the midst of a hostile population, the little band
+of worshippers was armed to the teeth. The father carried his "plain
+falling band" and steeple-crowned hat with a stiff air, and also
+carried lethal weapons. His prim wife and daughters bare Bibles, and
+his serving men, muskets. "Like a servant of the Lord, With his Bible
+and his sword," the unflinching old soldier of the Commonwealth strode
+manfully from his homestead to his religious duties, not unprepared to
+deal with any foes who might turn up by the way.
+
+As a glimpse of the remote past, as well as a work of art, this
+picture struck me as valuable; but it certainly did not occur to me
+that a similar sight would be seen within a short space in the kingdom
+of Ireland. Nevertheless, it may be witnessed on any Sunday in county
+Clare. Near Tulla, a spot of evil repute just now as the theatre of a
+recent attack upon magistrates returning from doing their duty,
+Colonel O'Callaghan, his wife and son, may be seen on any Sunday
+morning going to church armed with rifle and revolver, and protected
+by an escort of constabulary. The church is a long walk from Lismeehan
+(_Anglice_, Maryfort), and the way is not safe either for Colonel
+O'Callaghan himself, his wife, his child, or anything that is his.
+
+I will not pretend for what are called "sensational" purposes that the
+stranger who ventures within the gates of Maryfort is in any danger so
+long as he remains within them, or that any weightier missiles than
+groans and hisses are launched at him as he goes to and from the house
+under "taboo." It is well known that an attack on Lismeehan would not
+be bloodless, and that the defence would be far fiercer and more
+deadly than that made at the Clare-street Police Barrack at Limerick.
+The little garrison is perfectly armed, and small as it is, would work
+mischief on any attacking mob; but the experience at Tulla the other
+day proves that safety is only purchased at the trouble and
+inconvenience of going everywhere armed to the teeth.
+
+After my experience in the matter of Mr. Sanders, of Sanders Park,
+Charleville, I did not think it worth while to go to a posting-house
+for a carriage and horses to reach Maryfort; but being fortunate
+enough to obtain the loan of a friend's victoria and servant I got a
+horse "sharpened" as to his shoes at Ennis; and drove over the
+frost-bound road to Colonel O'Callaghan's house yesterday afternoon.
+It was a long drive to the most severely "Boycotted" house in Clare.
+It was also a drive of surpassing dreariness. The sun, which had made
+the hoar frost to sparkle on Christmas Day, barely pierced through the
+clouds on the afternoon of St. Stephen's. Leaving trim lawns, a forest
+of box-trees, budding roses and peonies, well-grown early brocoli and
+York cabbages behind, we drove through a country of eternal little
+fields and grey stone walls.
+
+It is needless to say that Maryfort is a long way from Ennis. Every
+place is a long way from everywhere in this western part of Ireland--a
+fact, by the way, not unfrequently forgotten by critics of the
+much-criticised constabulary. Where gentlemen's houses and
+considerable villages are as much as fifteen miles apart, the area of
+country to be watched becomes quite unmanageable. Only those who have
+incurred the fearful loss of time in getting from place to place in
+Connaught can form an adequate idea of it. Despite the discouraging
+remarks of its critics, this well-drilled, well-grown corps of Royal
+Irish Constabulary remains as staunch and loyal as of old, but it is
+absurd to expect impossibilities. Galway to a person sitting
+comfortably in his own library appears to be overwhelmed with
+constables. I believe that there is, in fact, one constable to every
+fifty adult males in that county--an enormous proportion judged
+statistically, but yet slight enough when the vast area of the county
+and the miles of actual desert which separate one partially civilised
+spot from another are considered.
+
+A large percentage of the constabulary is also deflected from general
+to special service in affording downright personal protection, and
+that modified protection known as "looking after" individuals. A
+hundred and twenty persons in Ireland are now receiving "personal
+protection," amounting to the constant attendance of never less than
+two constables, frequently to the residence of four or more on the
+premises or the property. At least eight hundred persons are being
+"looked after;" so that it is no exaggeration to state that twelve or
+thirteen hundred men are detached from the regular force on particular
+duty of the most harassing and vexatious kind. Wherever the person
+under protection chooses to go, at whatever hour, or in whatever
+weather, his "escort" must accompany him; for their orders are "not to
+lose sight of him" outside of his own door. This is a troublesome
+duty, sometimes greatly aggravated by the conduct of the protected
+persons, who take sudden fits and starts, and fly hither and thither
+in the oddest kind of way. The constables get no rest; they are
+perpetually harassed and exposed, and they are quite superior to the
+consolation of a "tip."
+
+I say this deliberately, for on three several occasions I tried to
+give a drenched and half-frozen constable a reward for service
+rendered, not for information to be given, and on each and every
+occasion I met with a dignified refusal, accompanied by one man with a
+friendly caution not to attempt that sort of thing, as some of the men
+might be rough. I say that I did not ask for information, because I
+generally knew more than the constables, for the excellent reason that
+I had wider and better sources to draw upon. From the country folk it
+is absolutely impossible to glean any scrap of information. A question
+immediately shapes their countenances into a look of hopeless
+simplicity and guilelessness bordering upon idiocy. Persons in quest
+of information in the remote parts of Ireland put me in mind of the
+hunter of the Rocky Mountains, who, while he was trying to stalk some
+antelope, became aware that a grizzly bear was stalking him. The
+people find out all about the person seeking for knowledge, but he
+discovers nothing.
+
+After this it is needless to say that the constabulary must of
+necessity be the last people to learn anything from the country folk,
+and that a London detective would be as much out of his element as "a
+salmon on a gravel walk."
+
+Between Ennis and Maryfort we only met two brace of constables on the
+road, but we knew there were others with Mr. Hall, of Cluny, at Tulla,
+and other places within ten miles of Colonel O'Callaghan's house.
+There was a little gathering of people near the chapel at Bearfield,
+but in other respects the road was empty till we neared our
+destination, when a little crowd set up an Irish howl against us,
+followed by a shout of "Long live Parnell." Presently we came to
+Lismeehan gates, opened after a good steady look at us by an ancient
+retainer, in a grey frieze coat. I was told civilly enough that "the
+masther" was at home. Beyond a pretty park, full of well-bred cattle,
+lay the "Boycotted" house, tall and grey and grim, in the waning
+light. There was no sign of life in it. Under a handsome portico was
+the grand entrance, bolted and barred up, with shutters closed. There
+was nothing for it but to tug vigorously at the bell. Nobody came to
+the door, but around each corner of the house stepped an armed
+constable. A moment later a narrow slip of the shutter was moved, and
+we became aware first of a fur cap and then of a youthful face, which
+ultimately proved to be that of Colonel O'Callaghan's eldest son, home
+for the holidays from a great English school, and undergoing the
+"hardening" process of spending Christmas in a state of siege.
+
+Presently came a maidservant, neat and trim, and after some wrestling
+with bolts the outer door was opened a little way, and our names and
+business demanded, after which we entered a great hall, apparently
+used as a refectory. Huge logs blazed on the hearth, and the room
+looked comfortable enough. We were next ushered into the drawing-room
+of Colonel O'Callaghan, who had just come in from herding his cattle
+and sheep, and was still girt with a brace of full-sized revolvers.
+
+No whit dismayed by the attack made on him at Tulla, and holding his
+foes in very slight estimation, Colonel O'Callaghan is yet subjected
+to inconvenience and oppression of an extraordinary kind. The
+proximate cause of his being "Boycotted" was his action is serving
+four processes himself, because neither love nor money nor threats
+would induce a process-server to do his work. The country folk know
+quite well the difference between Land League law and the phantom
+which remains of the law of the land. The former is instantly
+enforced, the latter cannot be carried into effect at all, a fact
+which is telling upon its officers with discouraging effect.
+
+Finding his writs could be served by nobody but himself, Colonel
+O'Callaghan started early one morning, attended by his escort, served
+the four writs himself, and then prepared to hold his own. Pigs were
+killed, barrels of flour and other stores were brought in, and the
+house provisioned to stand a siege. Recollection of old days in the
+Crimea, when Colonel O'Callaghan was in the 62nd Regiment, were
+revived under the provisioning process, which was by no means complete
+when he was formally "Boycotted," and left with 300 cattle and sheep
+upon his hands, with only one man to help him to look after them.
+Thirty odd herds, labourers, and other dependents have left Maryfort.
+Only three maid-servants, the old man at the gate, and another man now
+remain, and even the housemaid, who is Irish and a Roman Catholic,
+must be guarded to and from mass, amid the yells of the natives. It
+must be remembered that Maryfort is a lonely place, three miles from a
+post-office, and three times that distance from a railway station;
+that it is no light matter to send in and out for letters and parcels;
+and the emissary would, if unarmed, assuredly be stopped, if not
+maltreated. This difficulty of getting letters and fresh joints has
+been met in the latter case by falling back upon patriarchal customs.
+As Colonel O'Callaghan can neither sell his sheep nor buy mutton, he
+has taken to consuming his flock, albeit a sheep is a large animal to
+kill in a small family, and but for the winter weather the loss would
+be very great.
+
+There is another annoyance--the risk of valuable cattle being houghed
+or otherwise mutilated; a risk calling for incessant watchfulness.
+That it is not of an imaginary nature is demonstrated by the fact that
+the tails were cut off of two of Mrs. Westropp's cows a few nights
+since, and a threatening letter, savagely coarse and brutal in its
+wording, was sent to that lady. There is no doubt about this, for I
+have seen the letter, in which reference is made to the cows and
+brutal treatment promised to Mrs. Westropp, a widow of small property.
+
+The difficulty concerning letters, which it seems the postmaster at
+Callaghan's Mills is not compelled to deliver at Maryfort, is got over
+in another way. As we are discussing the question of supply, there
+enters to us a lady dressed in walking costume of studied simplicity.
+This is the terrible Mrs. O'Callaghan, of whom I had heard wonderful
+stories in Clare and Limerick; "And begorra," said one informant,
+"it's herself that's a divil of a lady entoirely, and she shoots
+rabbuts wid a rifle at three hundred yards and niver misses, and she
+tould 'um at the village that she'd as soon shoot one of 'um as a
+rabbut, and she is the sisther of Misthress Dick Stacpoole, of
+Edenvale. They was the Miss Westropps, your honour, out of county
+Limerick, and it is thim as makes their husbands the tyrants that they
+are." This account made me wonder at two things--firstly, at the
+astounding power of lying and exaggeration displayed by my
+interlocutor; and secondly, where the old Irish gallantry towards the
+fair sex has gone to. It seems to have gone very far, for one hears
+now of ladies being shot at. But, although not impressed with the
+truth of the information vouchsafed to me, I expected to see at least
+an Irish version of Lady Macbeth, instead of the graceful,
+well-dressed, thorough-bred Irish gentlewoman who had just come from a
+long walk to the post-office and back. Since the boy who used to carry
+the letter bag was frightened away, Mrs. O'Callaghan has taken up his
+duties, and, armed with rifle and revolver, performs them daily.
+
+With the case of Miss Ellard, and other ladies, before my eyes, I
+cannot blame Mrs. O'Callaghan for going about armed, and maintaining a
+defiant attitude towards the people, who really go in bodily fear of
+her. There is, as I have observed, nothing to terrify in the look or
+voice of Mrs. O'Callaghan, but I gradually gather from her
+conversation that it is not all romance about her wonderful shooting.
+If not at three hundred, yet at thirty yards she can hit a rabbit
+cleverly enough, and actually does go out rabbit shooting "for the
+pot" to relieve the monotony of everlasting pig and sheep. Mrs.
+O'Callaghan is also nearly as good a shot with the revolver as her
+husband, and would certainly not hesitate to use that weapon in
+self-defence.
+
+Such is the present _personnel_ of Maryfort at this moment, affording
+a sketch of manners reminding one rather of a Huguenot family in
+southern France just after receiving the news of St. Bartholomew, than
+of any social condition extant in modern Europe.
+
+As we drive out into the darkness and heavily-falling snow there is
+some debate touching the lighting of the carriage lamps. It is thought
+better not to light up, and to keep firearms handy until we get some
+miles from Maryfort.
+
+A howl pierces through the darkness as we pass a clump of houses, and
+I remark that my friend's coachman drives very fast by any house on
+the road; but nothing occurs till we stop at a "shebeen" to light both
+cigars and lamps, for the snowstorm is increasing. Not desiring
+refreshment, I give the woman of the house a shilling for a drink for
+a man who is sitting by the fire. I explain the nature of the
+transaction to him, and wish him a happy new year. The sulky brute
+answers me never a word. Probably he knows or suspects where I have
+been, and if so would let me lie on the ground under a kicking horse
+till an end was made of me rather than stretch forth a hand. He will
+not speak now, and I observe that the woman, who has kept a tight hold
+on the shilling, has not poured out any whisky, although she has had
+the decency to ask me if I wished for any. It is a strange sight, this
+sullen silent savage sitting scowling over the fire; but _on se fait à
+tout_ in Disturbed Ireland.
+
+
+
+LONDON: R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS.
+
+
+MESSRS. MACMILLAN & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS.
+
+NEW BOOKS ON IRELAND.
+
+
+  NEW VIEWS ON IRELAND, OR IRISH LAND GRIEVANCES AND REMEDIES. By
+    CHARLES RUSSELL, Q.C., M.P. Crown 8vo, cloth. 2s. 6d.
+
+  "They should be studied by every one who desires to understand the
+  existing crisis in Ireland."--SPECTATOR.
+
+  "Mr. Russell has undoubtedly done his best by careful observation
+  to arrive at the prevalent evils and their causes, and he has
+  honestly and sincerely propounded his remedial scheme. His work is
+  worthy of careful perusal."--EXAMINER.
+
+
+  THE LIFE'S WORK IN IRELAND OF A LANDLORD WHO TRIED TO DO HIS
+    DUTY. By W. BENCE JONES, of Lisselan. Crown 8vo. 6s.
+
+  "Mr. Bence Jones has written an interesting and instructive book,
+  but not the least enlightening part of it is the preface. This is
+  dated the 12th of December, 1880. He had just been threatened with
+  'Boycotting,' which he now undergoes."--ST. JAMES'S GAZETTE.
+
+  "Mr. Bence Jones, every one must own, has a fair claim to be
+  heard, and no one can be in a position properly to discuss Irish
+  affairs till he has read his really valuable book."--LITERARY
+  WORLD.
+
+
+  THE IRISH LAND LAWS. By ALEXANDER G. RICHEY, Q.C.; LL.D., Deputy
+    Regius Professor of Feudal and English Law in the University of
+    Dublin. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
+
+  "To all who, either as legislators or publicists, are called on to
+  take part in the present controversy, the book will prove
+  invaluable. The relation of the work to the discussions which now
+  occupy so much attention, is well expressed ... It would be
+  difficult to find any series of legislative problems stated with
+  greater clearness, sequence, and precision. We can recommend this
+  little book to all who speak, write, or seriously think upon this
+  question, in or out of Parliament."--TIMES.
+
+  "This book cannot fail to do good ... Mr. Richey writes throughout
+  fairly, and in no partisan or controversial spirit, and his book
+  is a contribution of great value to the discussion in which we now
+  find ourselves involved."--ST. JAMES'S GAZETTE.
+
+
+  THE IRISH CRISIS, being a Narrative of the Measures for the
+    Relief of the Distress caused by the Great Irish Famine of
+    1846--47. By SIR CHARLES TREVELYAN, Bart., K.C.B. 8vo. Price
+    2s. 6d.
+
+  THE LAND-WAR IN IRELAND: A HISTORY FOR THE TIMES. By JAMES GODKIN,
+    Author of "Ireland and Her Churches," late Irish Correspondent
+    of the _Times_. Demy 8vo. 12s.
+
+MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON.
+
+
+
+
+MESSRS. MACMILLAN & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS.
+
+BY THE RIGHT HON. HENRY FAWCETT, M.P.
+
+  THE ECONOMIC POSITION OF THE BRITISH LABOURER. Extra fcap. 8vo.
+    5s.
+
+  SPEECHES ON SOME CURRENT POLITICAL QUESTIONS. 8vo. 10s. 6d.
+
+  CONTENTS:--Indian Finance--The Birmingham League--Nine Hours
+  Bill--Election Expenses--Women's Suffrage--Household Suffrage in
+  Counties--Irish University Education, &c.
+
+  FREE TRADE and PROTECTION. An Inquiry into the Causes which have
+    retarded the general adoption of Free Trade since its
+    Introduction into England. Third Edition. 8vo. 7s. 6d.
+
+
+BY W.T. THORNTON, C.B.
+
+LATE SECRETARY FOR PUBLIC WORKS IN THE INDIA OFFICE.
+
+  A PLEA for PEASANT PROPRIETORS, with the Outlines of a Plan for
+    their Establishment in Ireland. New Edition. Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d.
+
+  ON LABOUR; its Wrongful Claims and Rightful Dues, Actual Present
+    and Possible Future. Second Edition, revised. 8vo. 14s.
+
+  The LAND QUESTION, with Particular Reference to England and
+    Scotland. By JOHN MACDONEL, Barrister-at-Law. 8vo. 10s. 6d.
+
+  LAWRENCE BLOOMFIELD in IRELAND; or, The New Landlord. Cheaper
+    Issue with New Preface. By WILLIAM ALLINGHAM. Fcap. 8vo. 4s. 6d.
+
+  COMMENTARIES on the LIBERTY of the SUBJECT, and the LAWS of
+    ENGLAND RELATING to the SECURITY of the PERSON. By JAMES
+    PATERSON, Barrister-at-Law. Cheaper Issue. Two vols. Crown 8vo.
+    21s.
+
+  The LIBERTY of the PRESS, SPEECH, and PUBLIC WORSHIP. Being
+    Commentaries on the Liberty of the Subject and the Laws of
+    England. By JAMES PATERSON, Barrister-at-Law. Crown 8vo. 12s.
+
+MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+  [Illustration: (foldout Map of Ireland, showing author's route.)]
+
+  [Illustration: (foldout detail map of western Ireland, showing author's route.)]
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    +--------------------------------------------------------------+
+    | Typographical errors corrected in text:                      |
+    |                                                              |
+    | Page  14: escert replaced with escort                        |
+    | Page  24: similiar replaced with similar                     |
+    | Page  44: licence replaced with license                      |
+    | Page  75: 'kings men' replaced with 'king's men'             |
+    | Page 149: posssble replaced with possible                    |
+    | Page 218: 'he split upon it' replaced with                   |
+    |           'be split upon it'                                 |
+    |                                                              |
+    +--------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Disturbed Ireland, by Bernard H. Becker
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Disturbed Ireland, by Bernard H. Becker
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Disturbed Ireland
+       Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81.
+
+Author: Bernard H. Becker
+
+Release Date: September 2, 2006 [EBook #19160]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DISTURBED IRELAND ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Jeannie Howse and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+
+<div class="tr">
+<p class="cen" style="font-weight: bold;">Transcriber's Note:</p>
+<br />
+<p class="noin">Inconsistent hyphenation and unusual spelling in the
+original document has been preserved.</p>
+<p class="noin">A number of obvious typographical errors have been corrected in this text.<br />
+For a complete list, please see the <a href="#TN">end of this document</a>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+
+
+<h1>DISTURBED IRELAND:</h1>
+
+<h3>BEING THE LETTERS<br />
+WRITTEN DURING THE WINTER OF 1880-81.</h3>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h5>BY</h5>
+<h2>BERNARD H. BECKER,</h2>
+<h3><i>SPECIAL COMMISSIONER OF THE "DAILY NEWS."</i></h3>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h4>WITH ROUTE MAPS.</h4>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+
+<h5>London:<br />
+MACMILLAN AND CO.<br />
+1881.</h5>
+
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h5>LONDON:<br />
+<span class="sc">R. Clay, Sons, and Taylor,</span><br />
+BREAD STREET HILL.</h5>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[iv]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>PREFACE.</h3>
+<br />
+
+<p>Having been most cordially granted permission to republish these
+letters in a collected form, it is my duty to mention that my mission
+from the <i>Daily News</i> was absolutely unfettered, either by
+instructions or introductions. It was thought that an independent and
+impartial account of the present condition of the disturbed districts
+of Ireland would be best secured by sending thither a writer without
+either Irish politics or Irish friends&mdash;in short, one who might occupy
+the stand-point of the too-often-quoted "intelligent foreigner." Hence
+my little book is purely descriptive of the stirring scenes and deeply
+interesting people I have met with on my way through the counties of
+Mayo, Galway, Clare, Limerick, Cork, and Kerry. It is neither a
+political treatise, nor a dissertation on the tenure of land, but a
+plain record of my experience of a strange phase of national life. I
+have simply endeavoured <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[v]</a></span>to reflect as accurately as might be the
+salient features of a social and economic upheaval, soon I fervently
+hope, to pass into the domain of history; and in offering my work to
+the public must ask indulgence for the errors of omission and
+commission so difficult to avoid while travelling and writing rapidly
+in a country which, even to its own people, is a complex problem.</p>
+
+<p class="right">B.H.B.</p>
+<p><span class="sc">Arts' Club</span>, <i>January 6th, 1881.</i></p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="toc" id="toc"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[vi]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CONTENTS.</h3>
+<br />
+
+<div class="centered">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" width="60%" summary="Table of Contents">
+  <tr>
+  <td width="10%">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td width="70%">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="tdr" width="20%"><span style="font-size: 90%;">PAGE</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdc">I.</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#I">AT LOUGH MASK</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">1</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdc">II.</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#II">AN AGRARIAN DIFFICULTY</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">18</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdc">III.</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#III">LAND MEETINGS</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">26</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdc">IV.</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#IV">MISS GARDINER AND HER TENANTS</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">52</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdc">V.</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#V">FROM MAYO TO CONNEMARA</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">70</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdc">VI.</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#VI">THE RELIEF OF MR. BOYCOTT</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">120</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdc"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span>VII.</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#VII">MR. RICHARD STACPOOLE</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">153</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdc">VIII.</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#VIII">PATRIOTS</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">160</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdc">IX.</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#IX">ON THE FERGUS</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">166</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdc">X.</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#X">PALLAS AND THE PALLADIANS</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">191</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdc">XI.</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#XI">GOMBEEN</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">207</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdc">XII.</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#XII">THE RETAINER</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">215</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdc">XIII.</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#XIII">CROPPED</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">225</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdc">XIV.</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#XIV">IN KERRY</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">232</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdc"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[viii]</a></span>XV.</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#XV">THE "BOYCOTTING" OF MR. BENCE JONES</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">262</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdc">XVI.</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#XVI">A CRUISE IN A GROWLER</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">279</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdc">XVII.</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#XVII">"BOYCOTTED" AT CHRISTMASTIDE</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">307</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdc">XVIII.</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#XVIII">CHRISTMAS IN COUNTY CLARE</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">328</td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[ix]</a></span><br />
+
+<div class="img">
+<a href="images/map01.png">
+<img border="0" src="images/map01sm.png" width="45%" alt="foldout Map of Ireland" /></a><br />
+<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 90%;">(foldout Map of Ireland, showing author's route.) <br /><span style="color: silver; background-color: inherit;">Click map for larger version (1.2 M.).</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="img">
+<a href="images/map02.png">
+<img border="0" src="images/map02sm.png" width="45%" alt="foldout Map of western Ireland" /></a><br />
+<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 90%;">(foldout detail map of western Ireland, showing author's route.)<br /><span style="color: silver; background-color: inherit;">Click map for larger version (1.9 M.).</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="I" id="I"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span><br />
+
+<h2>DISTURBED IRELAND.</h2>
+
+<h3>I.<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h3>AT LOUGH MASK.</h3>
+<br />
+
+<p class="right"><span class="sc">Westport, Co. Mayo</span>, <i>Oct. 24.</i></p>
+
+<p>The result of several days' incessant travelling in county Mayo is a
+very considerable modification of the opinion formed at the first
+glance at this, the most disaffected part of Ireland. On reaching
+Claremorris, in the heart of the most disturbed district, I certainly
+felt, and not for the first time, that as one approaches a spot in
+which law and order are supposed to be suspended the sense of alarm
+and insecurity diminishes, to put it mathematically, "as the square of
+the distances." Even after a rapid survey of this part of the West I
+cannot help contrasting the state of public opinion here with that
+prevailing in Dublin. In the capital&mdash;outside of "the Castle," where
+moderate counsels prevail&mdash;the alarmists appear to have it all their
+own way. I was told gravely that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span>there was no longer any security for
+life or property in the West; that county Mayo was like Tipperary in
+the old time, "only more so;" and that if I would go lurking about
+Lough Mask and Lough Corrib it was impossible to prevent me; but that
+the chances of return were, to say the least, remote. It was in vain
+that I pointed out that every stone wall did not hide an assassin, and
+that strangers and others not connected either directly or indirectly
+with the land were probably as safe, if not safer, on a high road in
+Mayo than in Sackville-street, Dublin. It was admitted that,
+theoretically, I was quite in the right; but that like many other
+theorists I might find my theory break down in practice. I was
+entertained with a full account of the way in which assassinations are
+conducted in the livelier counties of Ireland, and great stress was
+laid upon the fact that the assassins were always well primed with
+"the wine of the country," that is to say whisky, of similar quality
+to that known in New York as "fighting rum," "Jersey lightning," or
+"torchlight procession." It was then impressed upon me that
+half-drunken assassins, specially imported from a distant part of the
+county to shoot a landlord or agent, might easily mistake a stranger
+for the obnoxious person and shoot him accordingly, just as the
+unlucky driver was hit in Kerry the other day instead of the land
+agent. Furthermore, I was taken to a gunsmith's in Dawson-street,
+where I was assured that the sale of firearms <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span>had been and was
+remarkably brisk, the chief demand being for full-sized revolvers and
+double-barrelled carbines. The weapon chiefly recommended was one of
+the latter, with a large smooth bore for carrying buck-shot and
+spreading the charge so much as to make the hitting of a man at thirty
+yards almost certain. The barrels were very short, in order that the
+gun might be convenient to carry in carriage or car. This formidable
+weapon was to be carried in the hand so as to be ready when
+opportunity served; a little ostentation as to one's habit of going
+armed being vigorously insisted on as a powerful deterrent.</p>
+
+<p>To any person unacquainted with the humorous side of the Irish
+character a morning spent in such converse as I have endeavoured to
+indicate might have proved disquieting enough; but those who know
+Irishmen and their ways at once enter into the spirit of the thing,
+and enjoy it as much as the untamable jokers themselves. Nothing is
+more amazing to serious people than the light and easy manner in which
+everybody takes everything on this side of the Irish Sea. This is
+perfectly exemplified by the tone in which the Kerry murder is
+discussed. I have heard it talked over by every class of person, from
+a landholding peer to a not very sober car-driver, and the view taken
+is always the same. No horror is expressed at the commission of such a
+crime, or at the state of society which <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span>makes it possible. Nothing of
+the kind. A little sympathy is expressed for the poor man who was shot
+by mistake, and then the humour of the situation overrules every other
+consideration. That poor people resenting what they imagine to be
+tyranny should shoot one of their own class instead of the hated agent
+is a fact so irresistibly comic as to provoke a quantity of hilarious
+comment. As laughter dies away, however, another expression of feeling
+takes place, and the slackness of the master in not being ready with
+his pistol, and his want of presence of mind to pursue the murderer
+and avenge his servant's death, are spoken of with the fiercest
+indignation. But nobody appears to care about the general and social
+aspect of the case.</p>
+
+<p>Beneath all this humour and a curious tendency to exaggerate the
+condition of the West, there undeniably lurked very considerable
+uneasiness. It was known that "the Castle" was hard at work, and that,
+before proceeding to coercive measures, Mr. Forster was getting
+together all the trustworthy evidence that could be obtained as to the
+state of the country. As an instance of the absurd rumours flying
+about, I may mention that I was in the presence of two Irish peers
+solemnly assured that a "rising in the West" was imminent, and not
+only imminent, but fixed for the 31st October. Now, who has not heard
+at any time within the memory of man of this expected "rising in the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span>West"? It is the <i>spectre rouge</i>, or, to be more accurate as to local
+colour, the <i>spectre vert</i> of the Irish alarmist, and a poor, ragged,
+out-at-elbows spectre it is, altogether very much the worse for wear.
+Flesh and blood could not bear the mention of this shabby, worn-out
+old ghost with calmness, and I conveyed to the gentlemen who
+volunteered the information my opinion that the <i>spectre vert</i> was, in
+American language, "played out." Will it be believed that I was the
+only person present who ridiculed the "poor ghost"? I soon perceived
+that my scornful remarks were not at all in accordance with the
+feeling of the company, who did not see anything impossible in a
+"rising in the West," and refused to laugh at the Saxon's remark that
+things did not "rise," but "set" in that direction. County Mayo and
+parts of county Galway were beyond the law, and could only be cured by
+the means successfully employed in Westmeath a few years
+ago&mdash;coercion. It was of no avail to say that very few people had been
+shot in the disaffected counties during the last ten years. The answer
+was always the same. The minds of the people were poisoned by
+agitators, and they would pay nobody either rent or any other just
+debt except on compulsion.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond Athlone the tone of public opinion improved very rapidly, and
+in Roscommon, once a disturbed county, I found plenty of people ready
+to laugh with me at the <i>spectre vert</i>. There was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span>nothing the matter
+in that county. A fair price had been obtained for sheep and cattle,
+the harvest had been good, everything was going on as well as
+possible. There was some talk, it was true, about disturbances in
+Mayo, but there was a great deal of imagination and exaggeration, and
+the trouble was confined to certain districts of the county, the
+centre of disturbance being somewhere about Claremorris, a market
+town, on the railway to Westport, and not very far from Knock, the
+last new place of pilgrimage. At Claremorris I accordingly halted to
+look about me, and was surprised at the extraordinary activity of the
+little place. Travellers in agricultural England, either Wessex or
+East Anglia, often wonder who drinks all the beer for the distribution
+of which such ample facilities are afforded. A church, a public-house,
+and a blacksmith's shop constitute an English village; but there is
+nobody on the spot either to go to church or drink the beer. At
+Claremorris a similar effect is produced on the visitor's mind. The
+main street is full of shops, corn-dealers, drapers, butchers, bakers,
+and general dealers in everything, from a horse to a hayseed; but out
+of the main track there are no houses&mdash;only hovels as wretched as any
+in Connaught. It is quite evident that the poor people who inhabit
+them cannot buy much of anything. Men, women, and children, dogs,
+ducks, and a donkey, are frequently crowded together in these
+miserable cabins, the like <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span>of which on any English estate would bring
+down a torrent of indignation on the landlord. They are all of one
+pattern, wretchedly thatched, but with stout stone walls, and are,
+when a big peat fire is burning, hot almost to suffocation. When it is
+possible to distinguish the pattern of the bed-curtains through the
+dirt, they are seen to be of the familiar blue and white checked
+pattern made familiar to London playgoers by Susan's cottage as
+displayed at the St. James's Theatre. The chest of drawers is nearly
+always covered with tea-things and other crockery, generally of the
+cheapest and commonest kind, but in great plenty. House accommodation
+in Claremorris is of the humblest character. At the best inn, called
+ambitiously Hughes's Hotel, I found that I was considered fortunate in
+getting any sort of bedroom to myself. The apartment was very small,
+with a lean-to roof, but then I reigned over it in solitary grandeur,
+while a dozen commercial travellers were packed into the three or four
+other bedrooms in the house. As these gentlemen arrived at odd hours
+of the night and were put into the rooms and beds occupied by their
+friends, sleep at Claremorris was not a function easily performed, and
+it was some foreknowledge of what actually occurred that induced me to
+sit up as late as possible in the eating, dining, reading, and
+commercial room, the only apartment of any size in the house, but full
+of occupants, most of whom were very <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span>communicative concerning their
+business. Here were the eagles indeed, but where was the carcass? To
+my amazement I found that Mike this and Tim that, whose shops are very
+small, had been giving large orders, and that the credit of
+Claremorris was in a very healthy condition. Equally curious was it to
+find that the gathering of "commercials" was not an unusual
+occurrence, but that the queer townlet was a genuine centre of
+business activity. We sat up as late as the stench of paraffin from
+the lamps&mdash;for there is no gas&mdash;would allow us. Lizzie, literally a
+maid of all work, but dressed in a gown tied violently back, brought
+up armful after armful of peat, and built and rebuilt the fire over
+and over again. There was in the corner of the room a huge receptacle,
+like half a hogshead, fastened to the wall for holding peat&mdash;or
+"turf," as it is called here&mdash;but it never occurred apparently to
+anybody to fill this bin and save the trouble of eternal journeys up
+and down stairs. It may be also mentioned, not out of any
+squeamishness, but purely as a matter of fact, that in the intervals
+of bringing in "arrumfuls" of "torrf" Lizzie folded tablecloths for
+newcomers so as to hide the coffee-stains as much as possible, and
+then proceeded to set their tea for them, after which she went back to
+building the fire again. In the work of waiting she was at uncertain
+intervals assisted by Joe, a shock-headed, black-haired Celt, who,
+when a Sybarite asked at breakfast for toast, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span>repeated "Toast!" in a
+tone that set the table in a roar. It was not said impudently or
+rudely. Far from it. Joe's tone simply expressed honest amazement, as
+if one had asked for a broiled crocodile or any other impossible
+viand.</p>
+
+<p>There are, of course, people who would like separate servants to build
+up peat fires and to cut their bread and butter; but this kind of
+person should not come to county Mayo. To the less fastidious all
+other shortcomings are made up for by the absolutely delightful manner
+of the people, whose kindness, civility, good humour, and, I may add,
+honesty, are remarkable. At Hughes's Hotel the politeness of everybody
+was perfect; and I may add that the proprietor saved me both time and
+money by giving up a long posting job, to his own obvious loss. But if
+a visitor to Mayo wants anything done at once, then and there, he had
+better do it himself. I ventured to remark to Joe that he was a
+civil-spoken boy, but not very prompt in carrying out instructions,
+and asked whether everybody in Connaught conducted himself in the same
+way. He at once admitted that everybody did so. "Divil the bad answer
+ye'll iver get, Sorr," said he. "We just say, 'I will, Sorr,' and thin
+go away, and another gintleman says something, and ye're forgotten.
+Dy'e see, now?" And away he went, and forgot everything. Being at
+Claremorris, I tried to see a "lister," that is, a landowner and agent
+on the "black list." I <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span>was obliged to make inquiries concerning his
+whereabouts, and this investigation soon convinced me that there was
+something wrong in Mayo after all; not the <i>spectre vert</i> exactly, but
+yet an unpleasant impalpability. All was well at Claremorris. Trade
+was good "presently now," potatoes were good and cheap, poverty was
+not advancing arm-in-arm with winter. It was cold, for snow was
+already on the Nephin; but turf had been stored during the long, fine,
+warm summer, and nobody was afraid of the frost. But the instant I
+mentioned the name of the gentleman I wanted to find not a soul knew
+anything about him. Farming several hundred acres of land on his own
+account, a resident on Lough Mask for seven years, and agent to Lord
+Erne, he seemed to be a man concerning whose movements the country
+side would probably be well informed. But nobody knew anything at all
+about him. He might be at the Curragh, or he might be in Dublin, and
+then would, one informant thought, slip over to England and get out of
+the trouble, if he were wise. In one of the larger stores I saw that
+the mention of his name drew every eye upon me, and that the
+bystanders were greatly exercised as to my identity and my business.
+In this part of the country everybody knows everybody, and a stranger
+asking for a proscribed man excited native curiosity to a maddening
+pitch. Presently I was taken aside, led round a corner, and there told
+that most assuredly the man <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span>I sought had not come home from Dublin
+<i>vi&acirc;</i> Claremorris. Having a map of the county with me, I naturally
+suggested that he might have reached Lough Mask by way of Tuam, and,
+moreover, that, having a shrewd notion he would be shot at when
+occasion served, he would most likely try to get home by an unusual
+route on which he would hardly be looked for. "Is it alone ye think
+he'd be going, Sorr?" asked my informant in astonishment. "Divil a fut
+does he stir widout an escort." This was news indeed. "He came here,
+sure, Sorr, wid two constables on the kyar and two mounted men
+following him." I was also recommended to hold my tongue, for that Mr.
+Boycott's friends would certainly not tell whether he was at home or
+not, and his enemies would probably be kept in ignorance or led astray
+altogether. But it was necessary for me to find out his whereabouts.
+To go and see whether he was at Lough Mask involved a ride of forty
+miles, enlivened by the probability of being mistaken for him,
+slipping quietly home, and cheered by the risk of hearing at his house
+that he had gone to England. Telegraphing to him appeared useless, as
+communications were said to be cut off on the five Irish miles between
+Ballinrobe, the telegraph station, and Lough Mask House. As time wore
+on, I learned that he had had cattle at Tuam Fair, but that he had not
+come home that way for certain. In despair I came on to this place,
+where information reached me yesterday <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span>morning that, contrary to all
+expectations, he had gone on the other line of railway to Galway, and
+taken the steamboat on Lough Corrib to Cong, after having telegraphed
+to his escort to meet him there.</p>
+
+<p>From Westport to Lough Mask is a long but picturesque drive. I was
+lucky enough to secure an intelligent driver and an excellent horse
+and car. Thirty Irish miles is not in this part of the country
+considered an extravagant distance to drive a horse. I believe,
+indeed, that under other circumstances the unfortunate animal would
+have been compelled to carry me the entire distance; but I remarked
+that when I suggested a change of horses at Ballinrobe I was not only
+accommodated with a fresh horse, but with a fresh car and a fresh
+driver, who declared that the road to Lough Mask was about the safest
+and best that he had ever heard of. Now from Westport to Ballinrobe we
+had met nobody but a very few people going into town either riding on
+an ass or driving one laden with a pair of panniers or "cleaves" of
+turf, for which some fourpence or fivepence would be paid. All seemed
+thinly clad, despite the fearfully cold wind sweeping down from the
+Nephin, the Hest, and other snow-clad mountains. Crossing the long
+dreary peat-moss known as M&uacute;n-a-l&uacute;n, we found the cold intense; but on
+approaching Lough Carra came into bright broad sunshine. At Ballinrobe
+the sun was still hotter, and as I approached Lough Mask the heat was
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span>almost oppressive. I was not, however, allowed to inspect Lough Mask
+House and the ruins of the adjacent castle in the first place. I had
+but just passed a magnificent field of mangolds, many of which weighed
+from a stone to a stone and a half, when I came upon a sight which
+could not be paralleled in any other civilised country at the present
+moment.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond a turn in the road was a flock of sheep, in front of which
+stood a shepherdess heading them back, while a shepherd, clad in a
+leather shooting-jacket and aided by a bull terrier, was driving them
+through a gate into an adjacent field. Despite her white woollen shawl
+and the work she was engaged upon, it was quite evident, from her
+voice and manner, that the shepherdess was of the educated class, and
+the shepherd, albeit dressed in a leather jacket, carried himself with
+the true military air. Both were obviously amateurs at sheep-driving,
+and the smart, intelligent bull terrier was as much an amateur as
+either of them, for shepherd, shepherdess and dog were only doing what
+a good collie would achieve alone and unaided. Behind the shepherd
+were two tall members of the Royal Irish Constabulary in full uniform
+and with carbines loaded. As the shepherd entered the field the
+constables followed him everywhere at a distance of a few yards. All
+his backings and fillings, turnings and doublings, were followed by
+the armed policemen. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span>This combination of the most proverbially
+peaceful of pursuits with carbines and buckshot was irresistibly
+striking, and the effect of the picture was not diminished by the
+remarks of Mr. and Mrs. Boycott, for the shepherd and shepherdess were
+no other than these. The condition of Mr. Boycott and his family has
+undergone not the slightest amelioration since he last week wrote a
+statement of his case to a daily contemporary. In fact, he is in many
+respects worse off. It will be recollected that about a month ago a
+process-server and his escort retreated on Lough Mask House, followed
+by a mob, and that on the following day all the farm servants were
+ordered to leave Mr. Boycott's employment. I may mention that Mr.
+Boycott is a Norfolk man, the son of a clergyman, and was formerly an
+officer in the 39th Regiment. On his marriage he settled on the Island
+of Achill, near here, and farmed there until he was offered some land
+agencies, which occupied so much of his time, that he, after some
+twenty years' residence in Achill, elected to take a farm on the
+mainland. For seven years he has farmed at Lough Mask, acting also as
+Lord Erne's agent. He has on his own account had a few difficulties
+with his workpeople; but these were tided over by concessions on his
+part, and all went smoothly till the serving of notices upon Lord
+Erne's tenants. All the weight of the tenants' vengeance has fallen
+upon the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span>unfortunate agent, whom the irritated people declare they
+will "hunt out of the country." The position is an extraordinary one.
+During his period of occupation Mr. Boycott has laid out a great deal
+of money on his farm, has improved the roads, and made turnips and
+other root crops to grow where none grew before. But the country side
+has struck against him, and he is now actually in a state of siege.
+Personally attended by an armed escort everywhere, he has a garrison
+of ten constables on his premises, some established in a hut, and the
+rest in that part of Lough Mask House adjacent to the old castle.
+Garrisoned at home and escorted abroad, Mr. Boycott and his family are
+now reduced to one female domestic. Everybody else has gone away,
+protesting sorrow, but alleging that the power brought to bear upon
+them was greater than they could resist. Farm labourers, workmen,
+herds-men, stablemen, all went long ago, leaving the corn standing,
+the horses in the stable, the sheep in the field, the turnips, swedes,
+carrots, and potatoes in the ground, where I saw them yesterday. Last
+Tuesday the laundress refused to wash for the family any longer; the
+baker at Ballinrobe is afraid to supply them with bread, and the
+butcher fears to send them meat. The state of siege is perfect.</p>
+
+<p>When the strike first began Mr. Boycott went bravely to work with his
+family, setting the young ladies to reaping and binding, and looking
+after the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>beasts and sheep himself. But the struggle is nearly at an
+end now. Mr. Boycott has sold some of his stock; but he can neither
+sell his crop to anybody else, nor, as they say in the North of
+England, "win" it for himself. There remains in the ground at least
+five hundred pounds worth of potatoes and other root crops, and the
+owner has no possible means of doing anything with them. Nor, I am
+assured on trustworthy authority, would any human being buy them at
+any price; nor, if any such person were found, would he be able to
+find any labourer to touch any manner of work on the spot under the
+ban. By an impalpable and invisible power it is decreed that Mr.
+Boycott shall be "hunted out," and it is more than doubtful whether he
+will, under existing circumstances, be able to stand against it. He is
+unquestionably a brave and resolute man, but there is too much reason
+to believe that without his garrison and escort his life would not be
+worth an hour's purchase.</p>
+
+<p>There are few fairer prospects than that from the steps of Lough Mask
+House, a moderately comfortable and unpretending edifice, not quite so
+good as a large farmer's homestead in England. But the potatoes will
+rot in the ground, and the cattle will go astray, for not a soul in
+the Ballinrobe country dare touch a spade for Mr. Boycott. Personally
+he is protected, but no woman in Ballinrobe would dream of washing him
+a cravat or making him a loaf. All <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span>the people have to say is that
+they are sorry, but that they "dare not." Hence either Mr. Boycott,
+with an escort armed to the teeth, or his wife without an escort&mdash;for
+the people would not harm her&mdash;must go to Ballinrobe after putting a
+horse in the shafts themselves, buy what they can, and bring it home.
+Everybody advises them to leave the country; but the answer of the
+besieged agent is simply this: "I can hardly desert Lord Erne, and,
+moreover, my own property is sunk in this place." It is very much like
+asking a man to give up work and go abroad for the benefit of his
+health. He cannot sacrifice his occupation and his property.</p>
+
+<p>There is very little doubt that this unfortunate gentleman has been
+selected as a victim whose fate may strike terror into others. Judging
+from what I hear, there is a sort of general determination to frighten
+the landlords. Only a few nights ago a man went into a store at
+Longford and said openly, "My landlord has processed me for the last
+four or five years; but he hasn't processed me this year, and the
+divil thank him for that same."</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="II" id="II"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span><br />
+
+
+<h3>II.<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h3>AN AGRARIAN DIFFICULTY.</h3>
+<br />
+
+<p class="right"><span class="sc">Westport, Co. Mayo</span>, <i>Oct. 25th.</i></p>
+
+<p>"Tiernaur, Sorr, is on the way to Claggan Mountain, where they shot at
+Smith last year, and&mdash;if I don't disremember&mdash;is just where they shot
+Hunter last August eleven years. Ye'll mind the cross-roads before ye
+come to the chapel. It was there they shot him from behind a
+sod-bank." This was the reply I received in answer to my question as
+to the whereabouts of a public meeting to be held yesterday morning,
+with the patriotic object of striking terror into the hearts of
+landlords and agents. It was delivered without appearance of
+excitement or emotion of any kind, the demeanour of the speaker being
+quite as simple as that of Wessex Hodge when he recommends one to go
+straight on past the Craven Arms, and then bear round by the Dog and
+Duck till the great house comes in sight. Tiernaur, I gathered, was
+about fifteen miles to the north-west along Clew Bay <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>towards
+Ballycroy. It is called Newfield Chapel on the Ordnance map, but is
+always spoken of here by its native name. It is invested with more
+than the mere transient interest attaching to the place of an open-air
+meeting, for it is the centre of a district subject to chronic
+disturbance, and is just now the scene of serious trouble, or what
+would appear serious trouble in any less turbulent part of the
+country. It is necessary to be exact in describing what occurs here,
+as a phrase may easily be construed to imply much more than is
+intended. When it is said that the country between Westport and
+Ballycroy is disturbed, and that law and order are set at defiance, it
+must not be imagined that the roads are unsafe for travellers, or that
+any ordinary person is liable to be shot at, beaten, robbed, or
+insulted. I have no hesitation in stating that a stranger may go
+anywhere in the county, at any hour of the day or night, alone and
+unarmed, and that even in country inns he need take no precautions
+against robbery. Mayo people do not steal, and if they shot a
+stranger, it would only be by mistake for a Scotch farmer or an
+English agent. And I am sure that the accident would be sincerely
+deplored by the warm-hearted natives. I have thought it well to master
+all the details of the Tiernaur difficulty, because it is a perfect
+type of the agrarian troubles which agitate the West. In the first
+place the reader will clearly understand that English and Scotch
+landlords, agents, and farmers, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span>are as a rule abhorred by the Irish
+population. It is perhaps hardly my province to decide who is to
+blame. Difference of manner may go for a great deal, but beyond and
+below the resentment caused by a prompt, decisive, and perhaps
+imperious tone, lies a deeply-rooted sense of wrong&mdash;logically or
+illogically arrived at. The evictions of the last third of a century
+and the depopulation of large tracts of country have filled the hearts
+of the people with revenge, and, rightly or wrongly, they not only
+blame the landlord but the occupier of the land. If, they argue, there
+had been no Englishmen and Scotchmen to take large farms, the small
+holders would not have been swept away, and "driven like a wild goose
+on the mountain" to make room for them. Without for the present
+discussing the reasonableness of this plea, I merely record the simple
+fact that an English or Scotch farmer is unpopular from the beginning.
+Here and there such a one as Mr. Simpson may manage to live the
+prejudice down; but that he will have to encounter it on his arrival
+is absolutely certain.</p>
+
+<p>This being the case, it is not to be wondered at that when the late
+Mr. Hunter, a Scotchman, took a large grazing farm at Tiernaur, his
+arrival was at once regarded in a hostile spirit. The land he occupied
+was let to him by two adjoining proprietors, Mr. Gibbings, of Trinity
+College, Dublin, and Mr. Stoney, of Rossturk Castle, near at hand.
+There <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span>was a convenient dwelling-house on the part of the farm looking
+over Clew Bay towards Clare Island, and all was apparently smooth and
+pleasant. No sooner, however, was Mr. Hunter established there than a
+difficulty arose. The inhabitants of the surrounding country had been
+in the habit of cutting turf and pulling sedge on parts of the
+mountain and bog included within the limits of Mr. Hunter's farm. It
+is only fair to the memory of the deceased gentleman to state that
+such rights are frequently paid for, and that he had not taken the
+farm subject to any "turbary" rights or local customs. Accordingly he
+demanded payment from the people, who objected that they had always
+cut turf and pulled sedge on the mountain; that they could not live
+without turf for fuel and sedge to serve first as winter bedding for
+their cattle and afterwards as manure; that except on Mr. Hunter's
+mountain neither turf nor sedge could be got within any reasonable
+distance; and, finally, that they had always enjoyed such right. And
+so forth. As this was, as already intimated, not in the bond, Mr.
+Hunter, not very unnaturally, insisted that if the people would not
+pay him his landlord must, and asked Mr. Gibbings to allow him ten
+pounds a year off his rent. The latter offered him, as I am informed,
+five pounds. The matter was referred to an umpire, who awarded Mr.
+Hunter twelve pounds, an assessment which Mr. Gibbings declined to
+take into consideration at <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>all. After some further discussion Mr.
+Hunter warned the people off his farm and declared their supposed
+"turbary" rights at an end. It is of course difficult to arrive at any
+conclusion on the merits of the case. All that is certain is, that the
+people had long enjoyed privileges which Mr. Gibbings declared to be
+simple trespass. Finally he told Mr. Hunter he had his bond and must
+enforce it himself. The unfortunate farmer, thus placed, as it were,
+between the upper and nether millstone, endeavoured to enforce his
+supposed rights. It is almost needless to remark that the people went
+on cutting turf just as if nothing had happened. In an evil hour Mr.
+Hunter determined to see what the law could do to protect him in the
+enjoyment of his farm, and he sued the trespassers accordingly. I will
+not attempt to explain the intricacies of an Irish lawsuit farther
+than to note that, owing to some deficiency in their pleas, the
+trespassers underwent a nonsuit, or some analogous doom, and went
+gloomily away without having even the satisfaction of a fair fight in
+court. At the instance of Mr. Hunter, execution for damages and costs
+was issued against the most solvent of the trespassers, one John
+O'Neill, of Knockmanus&mdash;his next-door neighbour, so to speak. On
+Friday the execution was put in, and, on its being found impossible to
+find anybody to act as bailiff, Mr. Hunter himself asked the
+sub-sheriff to put in his name, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>and he would see himself that the
+crops were not removed. This was done, and on the following Sunday Mr.
+Hunter went with his family to attend Divine service at Newport.
+Leaving Newport in the evening, he had gone not half-way to Tiernaur
+when his horse's shoe came off. This circumstance, ominous enough in
+the disturbed districts of Ireland, was not heeded by Mr. Hunter, who
+put back to Newport and had his horse shod. As he set out for the
+second time, the evening was closing in, and as he reached the road
+turning off from the main track towards his own dwelling he was shot
+from the opposite angle. The assassin must have been a good marksman,
+for there were four persons in the dog-cart&mdash;Mr. Hunter, his wife, his
+son, and a servant lad. The doomed man was picked out and shot dead.
+It is obviously unnecessary to add that the assassin escaped, and has
+not been discovered unto this day.</p>
+
+<p>Immediately on the commission of the crime the widow of the murdered
+man was afforded "protection," as it is called, in the manner usual
+during Irish disturbances&mdash;that is, four men and a sergeant of the
+constabulary were stationed at her house. In course of time, however,
+Mrs. Hunter felt comparatively safe, and the constables removed to a
+hut about two miles on the Newport road, opposite to some very good
+grouse-shooting. There the five men dwell in their little iron-clad
+house, pierced with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span>loopholes in case of attack&mdash;a very improbable
+event. At the moment of writing, four constables are also stationed at
+Mr. Stoney's residence, Rossturk Castle, although it is not quite
+certain what the owner has done to provoke the anger of the people.
+This being the situation, a very short time since Mrs. Hunter elected
+to give up the farm and leave this part of the country. The property
+is therefore on the hands of the landlord, and is "to let." How bright
+the prospect of getting a tenant is may be estimated by the remark
+made to me by a very well-instructed person living close by&mdash;"If the
+landlord were to give me that farm for nothing, stock it for me, and
+give me a cash balance to go on with, I would gratefully but firmly
+decline the generous gift. No consideration on earth would induce me
+to occupy Hunter's farm." In the present condition of affairs it would
+certainly require either great courage or profound ignorance on the
+part of a would-be tenant to impel him to occupy any land under ban. A
+rational being would almost as soon think of going to help Mr. Boycott
+to get in his potatoes. For the people of Tiernaur are now face to
+face&mdash;only at a safe distance for him&mdash;with Mr. Gibbings. The cause of
+the new difficulty is as follows: Mrs. Hunter having given up the
+farm, it was applied for by some of the neighbours, who offered a
+similar rent to that paid by her. Either because the landlord did not
+want the applicants as tenants, or because he thought the land
+improved, he <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>demanded a higher rent. This is the one unpardonable
+crime&mdash;an attempt to raise the rent. For his own reasons the landlord
+does not choose to let what is called Hunter's farm to the Tiernaur
+people on the old terms, and the stranger who should venture upon it
+would need be girt with <i>robur et &aelig;s triplex</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Within the last few days this proprietary deadlock has been enlivened
+by an act which has caused much conversation in this part of Ireland.
+A house on Glendahurk Mountain has been burned down, and the cattle of
+the neighbouring farmers have been turned on to the mountain to
+pasture at the expense of Mr. Gibbings. Moreover the bailiff has been
+warned not to interfere, or attempt to scare the cattle and drive them
+off. Thus the tenant farmers are grazing their cattle for nothing,
+and, what is more, no man dare meddle with them. The sole remedy open
+to Mr. Gibbings is civil process for trespass. Should he adopt this
+course he will probably be safe enough in Dublin, but I am assured
+that the life of his bailiff will not be worth a day's purchase.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="III" id="III"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span><br />
+
+
+<h3>III.<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h3>A LAND MEETING.</h3>
+<br />
+
+<p class="right"><span class="sc">Westport, Co. Mayo</span>, <i>Oct. 27th.</i></p>
+
+<p>The way from this place to Tiernaur is through a country, as a Mayo
+man said to me, "eminently adapted to tourists." Not very far off lies
+Croagh Patrick, the sacred mountain from which St. Patrick cursed the
+snakes and other venomous creatures and drove them from Ireland. I was
+assured by the car-driver that the noxious animals vanished into the
+earth at the touch of the Saint's bell. "He just," said this veracious
+informant, "shlung his bell at 'um, and the bell cum back right into
+his hand. And the mountain is full of holes. And the snakes went into
+'um and ye can hear 'um hissing on clear still days." Be this as it
+may, the line of country towards Newport is delightfully picturesque.
+The great brown cone of Croagh Patrick soars above all, and to right
+and left rise the snow-covered Nephin and Hest. Evidences of careful
+cultivation are frequent on every side. Fairly large potato-fields
+occur <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span>at short intervals, and mangolds and turnips are grown for
+feeding stock. Cabbages also are grown for winter feed, and the
+character of the country is infinitely more cheerful than on the
+opposite side of Westport. Inquiring of my driver as to the safety of
+the country, I received the following extraordinary reply, "Ye might
+lie down and sleep anywhere, and divil a soul would molest ye, barring
+the lizards in summer time; and they are dreadful, are lizards. They
+don't bite ye like snakes, or spit at ye like toads; but if ye sleep
+wid ye'r mouth open, they crawl, just crawl down ye'r throat into ye'r
+stommick and kill ye. For they've schales on their bodies, and can't
+get back; and they just scratch, and bite, and claw at your innards
+till ye die." There was nothing to be done with these terrible lizards
+but to drink an unmentionable potion, which, I am assured, is strong
+enough to rout the most determined lizard of them all, and bring him
+to nought. It is, however, noteworthy that stories of persons being
+killed by lizards crawling down their throats are widely distributed.
+There is one of a young Hampshire lady who, the day before she was
+married, went to sleep in her father's garden, and was killed by a
+lizard crawling down her throat. And, my informant said, the lizard is
+carved on her tomb&mdash;a fact which makes it appear likely that the story
+was made for the armorial bearings of the lady in question.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span>By a pleasant road lined with cabbage gardens we came on to Newport&mdash;a
+port which, like this, is not one of the "has beens," but one of the
+"would have beens." There is the semblance of a port without ships,
+and warehouses without goods, and quays overgrown with grass. Beyond
+Newport the country grows wilder. There is less cultivation, and
+behind every little shanty rises the great brown shoulder of the
+neighbouring mountain covered with rough, bent grass&mdash;or sedge, as it
+is called here. Grey plover and curlew scud across the road, a sign of
+hard weather, and near the rarer homesteads towers the hawk, looking
+for his prey. Now and again come glimpses of the bay, of the great
+island of Innisturk, of Clare Island, and of Innisboffin. Wilder and
+wilder grows the scenery as we approach Grace O'Malley's Castle, a
+small tenement for a Queen of Connaught. It is a lone tower like a
+border "peel," but on the very edge of the sea. The country folk show
+the window through which passed the cable of a mighty war ship to be
+tied round Grace O'Malley's bedpost, whom one concludes to have been,
+in a small way, a kind of pirate queen. As we approach Tiernaur the
+road becomes lively with country folk going to and from chapel, and
+stopping to exchange a jest&mdash;always in the tongue of the country&mdash;by
+the way. In this part of the wild road the Saxon feels himself,
+indeed, a stranger&mdash;in race, in creed, and in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span>language. Now and then
+he sees the Irishman of the stage, clad in the short swallow-tailed
+coat with pocket-flaps, the corduroy breeches, the blue worsted
+stockings and misshapen caubeen, made familiar by a thousand novels
+and plays. These articles of attire are becoming day by day as rare as
+the red petticoats formerly worn by the peasant women. On the latter,
+however, may still be seen, now and then, the great blue cloth cloaks
+which once formed a distinctive article of costume, and a very
+necessary one in this severe climate. Presently jog by a few men on
+horseback, very ill-mounted on sorry beasts, and riding in unison with
+the quality of their animals. Men, women and children are in their
+Sunday best, and to all outward appearance scrupulously clean. I am
+constrained to believe that among the very lowest class&mdash;that which
+comes under prison regulations&mdash;the preliminary washing is counted as
+the severest part of the punishment; but the evidence of my own
+eyesight is in favour of the strict personal cleanliness of Sunday
+folk in this part of the country. Near Tiernaur I find bands of men
+marching to the gathering, which is a purely local affair, not
+regularly organized by the Land League. But the men themselves appear
+to be very strictly organized, to march well, and to obey their bugler
+promptly. They are all in Sunday clothes, wear green scarves, and
+carry green banners. The latter are inscribed with various mottoes
+proper <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span>to the occasion. On the Kilmeena banner appears, "No prison
+cell nor tyrant's claim Can keep us from our glorious aim." The
+Glendahurk men proclaim on another green banner, bearing the harp
+without the crown, that "Those who toil Must own the soil;" and the
+Mulrawny contingent call upon the people to "Hold the Mountain," to
+cry "Down with the Land Grabbers," and "God save Ireland." The musical
+arrangements are of the humblest kind, and not a single man is armed,
+at least outwardly, and not one in twenty carries a stick. All is
+quiet and orderly, and the same tranquil demeanour obtains at
+Tiernaur, or rather at Newfield Chapel, appointed as the
+trysting-place after morning service. In accordance with recent
+regulations there is no ostentatious display of police, but everybody
+knows that a strong detachment is posted in Mrs. Hunter's house, and
+that on any sign of disturbance they will promptly put in an
+appearance. On the side of the Government, as on that of the people,
+there is an obvious desire to avoid any semblance of an appeal to
+force.</p>
+
+<p>The scene at Newfield Chapel is both interesting and beautiful.
+Tiernaur lies between the brown mountains and a sapphire sea, studded
+with islands rising precipitously from its level. In front lies the
+lofty eminence of Clare Island, below which appears to nestle the
+picturesque castle of Rossturk. The bay&mdash;which is said to hold as many
+islands as there <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span>are days in a year and one over&mdash;presents a series
+of magnificent views. One might be assisting at one of the meetings of
+the Covenanters held amid the seas and mountains of Galloway, but with
+the difference that the faith of the meeting is that of the Church of
+Rome, and that the scenery is far grander than that of Wigton and
+Kirkcudbright. It is a natural amphitheatre of sea and mountain,
+perfect in its beauty, but for one dark spot, just visible&mdash;the place
+where Hunter was shot. The chapel, modest and unpretending, is a
+simple, whitewashed edifice, surrounded by a white wall, over which
+gleam, in the already declining sun, the red and black plaid shawls of
+the peasant women who have remained after mass to witness the
+proceedings. Not a dozen bonnets are present, and hardly as many hats,
+for nearly all the women and girls wear the shawl pulled over their
+heads, Lancashire fashion. In appearance the people contrast
+favourably with those of the inland towns of county Mayo. The men look
+active and wiry, and the women are well grown and in many cases have
+an air of distinction foreign to the heavy-browed, black-haired Celt
+of the interior. Altogether the picture is well worthy of a master of
+colour, with its masses of black and green, relieved by patches of
+bright red, standing boldly out against the background of brown moor
+and azure sea.</p>
+
+<p>The proceedings are hardly in consonance with the dignity of the
+surroundings. Many marchings <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>to and fro occur before the various
+deputations are duly ushered to their place near the temporary
+hustings erected in front of the chapel. When the meeting&mdash;of some two
+thousand people at most&mdash;has gathered, there is an unlucky fall of
+rain, advantage of which is taken by a local "omadhaun," or "softy" as
+they call him in Northern England, to mount the stage and make a
+speech, which elicits loud shouts of laughter. Taking little heed of
+the pelting shower the "omadhaun," who wears a red bandanna like a
+shawl, and waves a formidable shillelagh, makes a harangue which, so
+far as I can understand it, has neither head nor tail. Delivered with
+much violent gesticulation, the speech is evidently to the taste of
+the audience, who cheer and applaud more or less ironically. At last
+the rain is over, and the serious business of the day commences. The
+chair is taken by the parish priest of Tiernaur, whose initial oration
+is peculiar in its character. The tone and manner of speaking are
+excellent, but alack for the matter! A more wandering, blundering
+piece of dreary repetition never bemused an audience. In fairness to
+the priest, however, it must be admitted that a Government reporter is
+on the platform, and that the presence of that official may perhaps
+exercise a blighting influence on the budding flowers of rhetoric. All
+that the speaker&mdash;a handsome man, with a very fine voice&mdash;said,
+amounted to a statement, repeated <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span>over and over again with slight
+variations, that the people of Tiernaur were placed by the Almighty on
+the spot intended for them to live upon; that they were between the
+mountains and the sea; that all that the landlords could take from
+them they had taken; "the wonder was they had not taken the salt sea
+itself." This was all the speaker had to say, and he said it over and
+over again. He was succeeded by his curate, who insisted with like
+iteration on the duty of supporting the people imposed upon the land.
+Out of the fatness thereof they should, would, and must be maintained.
+Other sources of profit there were, according to this rev. gentleman,
+absolutely none. The land belonged to the people "on payment of a just
+rent" to the landlords. "Down wid 'em!" yelled an enthusiast, who was
+instantly suppressed. And the people had a right to live, not like the
+beasts of the field, but like decent people. And <i>da capo</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Now among many and beautiful and picturesque things Ireland possesses
+some others altogether detestable. The car of the country, for
+instance, is the most abominable of all civilised vehicles. Why the
+numskull who invented the crab-like machine turned it round sidewise
+is as absolutely inconceivable as that since dog-carts have been
+introduced into the West the car should survive. But it does survive
+to the discomfort and fatigue of everybody, and the especial disgust
+of the writer. There is another <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span>thing in Connaught which I love not
+to look upon. That is the plate of a diner at a <i>table d'h&ocirc;te</i>, on
+which he has piled a quantity of roast goose with a liberal supply of
+stuffing, together with about a pound of hot boiled beef, and cabbage,
+carrots, turnips, and parsnips in profusion&mdash;the honour of a separate
+plate being accorded to the national vegetable alone. It is not
+agreeable to witness the demolition of this "Benjamin's mess" against
+time; and when the feat is being performed by several persons the
+effect thereof is the reverse of appetising. But I would rather be
+driven seventy miles&mdash;Irish miles&mdash;on a car, and compelled to sit down
+to roast goose commingled with boiled beef and "trimmings," than I
+would listen to a political speech from the curate of Tiernaur. By
+degrees I felt an utter weariness and loathing of life creeping over
+me, and I turned my face towards the sun, setting in golden glory
+behind Clare Island, and lighting up the rich ruddy brown of the
+mountain, behind which lay the invaded pastures of Knockdahurk. By the
+way this invasion of what are elsewhere deemed the rights of property
+was barely alluded to by the reverend speakers, the latter of whom,
+after making all kinds of blunders, finally broke down as he was
+appealing to the "immortal and immutable laws of&mdash;of&mdash;of"&mdash;and here
+some wicked prompter suggested "Nature," a suggestion adopted by the
+unhappy speaker before he had time to recollect himself. After this
+lame <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>and impotent conclusion, a gentleman in a green cap and sash,
+richly adorned with the harp without the crown, infused some vitality
+into the proceedings by declaring that the only creature on God's
+earth worse than a landlord was the despicable wretch who presumed to
+take a farm at an advanced rent. This remark was distinctly to the
+point, and was applauded accordingly. It was indeed a significant, but
+in this part of the country quite unnecessary, intimation that safer,
+if not better, holdings might be found than "Hunter's Farm." As most
+of the persons present had come from a long distance, some as much as
+fifteen or twenty Irish miles, the subsequent proceedings, such as the
+passing of resolutions concerning fixity of tenure and so forth, were
+got through rapidly, and the meeting dispersed as quietly as it
+assembled. The organized bodies marched off the ground in good order,
+without the slightest sign of riot or even of enthusiasm. Men and
+women, the latter especially, were almost sad and gloomy&mdash;for Irish
+people. I certainly heard one merry laugh as I was making for my car,
+and it was at my own expense. A raw-boned, black-haired woman, "tall,
+as Joan of France or English Moll," insisted that I should buy some
+singularly ill-favoured apples of her. As I declined for the last time
+she fired a parting shot, "An' why won't ye buy me apples? Sure
+they're big and round and plump like yerself, aghra"&mdash;a sally vastly
+to the taste of the bystanders. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>It struck me, however, that the
+people generally seemed rather tired than excited by the proceedings
+of the day&mdash;the most contented man of all being, I take it, Mike
+Gibbons, who had been driving a brisk trade at his "shebeen," the only
+house of business or entertainment for miles around.</p>
+
+<p>As I drove homewards on what had suddenly become a hideously raw
+evening, my driver entertained me with many heartrending and more or
+less truthful stories of evictions. He showed me a vast tract of land
+belonging to the Marquis of Sligo, from which the original inhabitants
+had, according to his story, been driven to make way for one tenant
+who paid less rent for all than they did for a part. One hears of
+course a great deal of this kind of thing from the poorer
+folk,&mdash;car-drivers, whose eloquence is proverbial, not excepted. My
+driver had assuredly not been corrupted by reading inflammatory
+articles in newspapers, for, although he speaks English as well as
+Irish, "letter or line knows he never a one" of either, any more than
+did stout William of Deloraine. His statements, however, are strictly
+of that class of travellers' tales told by car-drivers, and must be
+taken with more than the proverbial grain of seasoning. I find him as
+a rule very quiet until I have administered to him a dose of "the wine
+of the country," and then he mourns over the desolation of the land
+and the ravages of the so-called "crowbar brigade" as if they were
+things of yesterday. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>Whether the local Press reflects the opinion of
+the peasants of Mayo, or the peasants only echo the opinion of the
+Press as reproduced to them by native orators, I am at present hardly
+prepared to decide. One thing, however, is certain. Not only that
+professional "deludher," the car-driver, but tradesmen, farmers, and
+all the less wealthy part of the community still speak sorely of the
+evictions of thirty and forty years ago, and point out the graveyards
+which alone mark the sites of thickly populated hamlets abolished by
+the crowbar. All over this part of the country people complain
+bitterly of loneliness. According to their view, their friends have
+been swept away and the country reduced to a desert in order that it
+might be let in blocks of several square miles each to Englishmen and
+Scotchmen, who employ the land for grazing purposes only, and perhaps
+a score or two of people where once a thousand lived&mdash;after a fashion.
+It is of no avail to point out to them that the wretchedly small
+holdings common enough even now in Connaught cannot be made to support
+the farmer, or rather labourer, and his family decently, even in the
+best of years, and that any failure of crop must signify ruin and
+starvation. Any observation of this kind is ill received by the
+people, who cling to their inhospitable mountains as a woman clings to
+a deformed or idiot child. And in this astonishing perversion of
+patriotism they are supported in unreasoning fashion by their
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span>pastors, who seem to imagine that because a person is born on any
+particular spot he must remain there and insist on its maintaining him
+and his.</p>
+
+<p>Now, it is not inconceivable that a landlord should take a very
+different view of the situation. Whether his estate is encumbered or
+not, he expects to get something out of it for himself. It was
+therefore not unnatural that advantage should have been taken of the
+famine and the Encumbered Estates Act to get the land into such
+condition that it would return some ascertainable sum. The best way of
+effecting this was thought to be the removal of the inhabitants who
+paid rent or not as it suited them, and in place of a few hundred of
+these to secure one responsible tenant, even if he paid much less per
+acre than the native peasant. I draw particular attention to the
+latter fact, as one of the popular grievances sorely and lengthily
+dwelt upon is that the oppressor not only took the land from the
+people, evicted them, and demolished their cabins with crowbars, but
+that he let his property to the hated foreigner for less than the
+natives had paid and were willing to pay, or promised to pay, him. He
+let land by thousands of acres to Englishmen and Scotchmen at a pound
+an acre, whereas he had received twenty-five and thirty shillings from
+the starving peasants of Connaught. This was deliberate cruelty,
+framed to drive the people away who were willing to stay and pay their
+high rents as of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span>old. But the fact unfortunately was that Lord Lucan,
+Lord Sligo, and other great landowners in county Mayo had found it so
+difficult to get rent out of their tenants that they determined to let
+their land to large farmers only, at such a price as they could get,
+but with the certainty that the rent, whatever it was, would be well
+and duly paid, and there would be an end to the matter. This, I hear,
+is the true history of the eviction of the old tenants and the letting
+of great tracts of land to tenants like Mr. Simpson on favourable
+terms. The landlord knew that he would get his rent, and he has got
+it, that is, hitherto.</p>
+
+<p>The story of the great farm, colossal for this part of the country,
+leased by Mr. Simpson from Lord Lucan, and now on that nobleman's
+hands, is a curious one as revealing the real capacity of the soil
+when properly handled. Twenty-two hundred Irish acres at as many
+pounds sterling per annum represent in Mayo an immense transaction.
+The tenant came to his work with capital and ripe experience, farmed
+well, and, I am assured on the best authority, fared well, getting a
+handsome return for his capital. So satisfied was he with his bargain,
+that he offered to renew his agreement with Lord Lucan if he were
+allowed a deduction for the false measurement of the acreage of the
+farm, which had been corrected by a subsequent survey. As I am
+instructed, there were not 2,200 acres, but the tenant was quite
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>willing to pay a pound per acre for what was there. Now, an Irish acre
+is so much bigger than an English acre that thirty acres Irish
+measurement make forty-nine English. Lord Lucan consequently thought
+the farm cheaply let, and hesitated to make any allowance. This
+negotiation began last spring, but soon became hopeless. The country
+about Hollymount and Ballinrobe grew disturbed. Proprietors, agents,
+and large farmers required "protection" from the constabulary, and
+there was no longer anything to attract capital to the neighbourhood
+in the face of a deterrent population. Hence one of the largest and
+most popular farmers in Mayo has retired from the field with his
+capital, and has left his landlord to farm the land himself.
+Apparently Lord Lucan can do no better; for it would be difficult to
+find a stranger of sufficient substance to rent and farm twenty-two
+hundred acres of land, endowed with sufficient hardihood to bring his
+money and his life hither under the existing condition of affairs.</p>
+
+<p>The incident just narrated, moreover, appears to prove that one object
+at least of the party of agitation has been achieved. To
+politico-economists it will appear a Pyrrhic victory. Capital is
+effectually scared from this part of Ireland, and those who have
+invested money on mortgage and found themselves at last compelled to
+"take the beast for the debt" are bitterly regretting their ill-judged
+promptitude. A large farm between this and Achill, or <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span>near Ballina on
+the north, or in the country extending from the spot where Lord
+Mountmorres was shot, towards Ballinrobe, Hollymount, Claremorris, or
+Castlebar, could hardly be let now at any price, even where the
+neighbours have not actually taken possession, as at Knockdahurk.
+Landlords have apparently the three proverbial courses open to them.
+They cannot sell their land, it is true; but they can let it lie
+waste, they can farm it themselves "if," as a trustworthy informant
+said to me just now, "they dare," or they can let it directly, as of
+old, to small tenants, who will come in at once and perhaps pay what
+they consider a fair rent in good years. It is folly to expect them to
+pay at all when crops are bad. And then there is the inevitable delay
+and uncertainty at all times which has led to the system of
+"middlemen" of which so much has been said and written. The middleman
+is that handy person, to the landlord, who assures him of a certain
+income from his property by buying certain rents at a deduction of 30
+or 40 per cent., and collecting them as best he can. To the landlord
+he is a most useful man of business, thanks to whom he can count upon
+a certain amount of ready money. To the peasant he appears as a
+fiendish oppressor.</p>
+
+<p>Touching this word "peasant," a great deal of misconception concerning
+the condition of the people of the West and their attitude towards
+their landlords will be got rid of by substituting it for the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span>word
+"farmer." It is absurd to compare the tenant of a small holding in
+Mayo with an English farmer&mdash;properly so called. The latter is a man
+engaged in a large business, and must possess, or, as I regret to be
+obliged to write, <i>have been</i> possessed of capital. The misuse of the
+word farmer and its application to the little peasant cultivators here
+can only lead to confusion. The proper standard of comparison with the
+so-called Mayo farmer is the English farmer's labourer. In education,
+in knowledge of his trade, in the command of the comforts of life, a
+Mayo cultivator of six, eight or ten acres is the analogue of the
+English labourer at fourteen shillings per week. The latter has nearly
+always a better cottage than the Mayo man, and, taking the whole year
+round, is about as well off as the Irishman. The future of neither is
+very bright. The Wessex hind may jog on into old age and the
+workhouse; the Irishman may be ruined and reduced to a similar
+condition at once by a failure of his harvest. Neither has any
+capital, yet the Irishman obtains an amount of credit which would
+strike Hodge dumb with amazement. He is allowed to owe, frequently one
+year's, sometimes two years' rent. Indeed, I know of one particularly
+tough customer who at this moment owes three years' rent&mdash;to wit,
+24<i>l.</i>&mdash;and will neither pay anything nor go. Now for an English
+labourer to obtain credit for a five-pound note would be a remarkable
+experience. His cottage <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span>and his potato patch cost him from one to two
+shillings per week; but who ever heard of his owing six months', let
+alone three years', rent? But this is the country of credit; and, so
+far as I have seen, nobody is in a violent hurry either to pay or to
+be paid, bating those who have lent money on mortgage. And even they
+are not in a hurry to foreclose just now.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<p class="right"><span class="sc">Castlebar</span>, <i>Oct. 28.</i></p>
+
+<p>The marked&mdash;I had almost written ostentatious&mdash;absence of weapons at
+the meetings of the last two Sundays has attracted great attention.
+From perfectly trustworthy information I gather that appearances are
+in this matter more than usually deceitful. It is impossible to doubt
+that the large population of this country is armed to the teeth. Since
+the expiration of the Peace Preservation Act the purchase of firearms
+has been incessant. At the stores in Westport, where carbines are
+sold, more have been disposed of in the last five months than in the
+ten previous years, and revolvers are also in great demand. The
+favourite weapon of the peasantry, on account of its low price and
+other good qualities, is the old Enfield rifle bought out of the
+Government stores, shortened and rebored to get rid of the rifling.
+The work of refashioning the superannuated rifles and adapting them
+for slugs and buckshot has, I hear, been performed for the most part
+in America, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>whence the guns have been re-imported into this country
+in large quantities. It is believed that the suppression of arms on
+the occasion of large gatherings is due to the judgment of popular
+leaders, who are naturally averse to any display which would afford
+the Government a pretext for disarming the inhabitants. There is,
+however, no doubt that the people of this district are more completely
+armed than at any previous period of Irish history. A ten-shilling gun
+license enables any idle person to walk about anywhere with a gun on
+his shoulder, but this privilege is rarely exercised. Two mornings ago
+four men passed in front of the Railway Hotel at Westport with guns on
+their shoulders, but such occurrences are very rare, the only
+individuals who carry weapons ostentatiously being landlords, agents,
+and the Royal Irish Constabulary affording them "protection." This
+protection is always granted when asked for, but many landlords have
+an almost invincible repugnance to go everywhere attended by armed
+police. Lord Ardilaun, I hear, has organised a little bodyguard of his
+own people, in preference to being followed about by the tall dark
+figures now frequent everywhere in county Mayo from Achill to Newport,
+from Ballina to Ballinrobe, and from Claremorris to Westport. Still,
+anything like a "rising in the West" is regarded here as chimerical;
+and the arming of the people as aimed only at the terrifying of
+landlords. No apprehension of any immediate <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span>outbreak or collision
+with the authorities is entertained in the very centre of disturbance.
+It may be added that, owing to the firm yet gentle grip of the
+Resident Magistrate, Major A.G. Wyse, late of the 48th Regiment, a
+veteran of the Crimea and of the war of the Indian Mutiny, the
+Government has this district well in hand, and is kept perfectly
+informed as to every occurrence of the slightest importance.
+Meanwhile, the possibility of armed resistance to the serving of
+civil-bill and other processes is averted by the presence of an
+overwhelming body of armed constabulary. Fifty men and a couple of
+sub-inspectors attended the serving of some civil-bill processes
+towards Newport only a few days ago, and a similar body attended to
+witness an abortive attempt at eviction on Miss Gardiner's property
+near Ballina.</p>
+
+<p>From all that I can ascertain, the position of the Lord-Lieutenant of
+the country is by no means enviable. Having succeeded in losing his
+chief tenant and been compelled, in order to farm his own land in
+safety, to ask for "protection," he is now embroiled with a portion at
+least of the Castlebar people, who think, rightly or wrongly, that the
+lord of the soil and collector of tolls and dues has something to do
+with providing the town with a market-place. Into the merits of the
+question it is hardly necessary to enter. Suffice it to say that the
+local Press has taken advantage of the occasion to renew the popular
+outcry against "this old exterminator." <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span>Perhaps it does not hurt
+anybody very much to be called an "exterminator," especially when the
+extermination referred to occurred thirty years ago. The instance is
+merely worth citing as showing the undying hatred felt in this part of
+the country towards those who, acting wisely or unwisely, after the
+famine, determined to get rid of a population which the soil had shown
+itself unequal to support. There is no doubt that Lord Lucan brought
+"a conscience to his work" and made a solitude around Castlebar. "On
+the ruins of many a once happy homestead," continues the local scribe,
+"do the lambs frisk and play, a fleecy tribe that has, through
+landlord tyranny, superseded the once happy peasant." It is also urged
+as an additional grievance that the sheep, cattle, and pigs raised by
+"the old exterminator" are sent from the railway station "to appease
+the appetite of John Bull." Thus Lord Lucan and in a minor degree John
+Bull are shown up as the destroyers of the Irish peasant and devourers
+of that produce which should have gone to support him in that
+happiness and plenty which he enjoyed&mdash;at some probably apocryphal
+period. Be this, however, as it may, the personal hatred of the
+"exterminator" is a fact to be taken into account in any attempt to
+reflect the public opinion of this part of Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>Those able to look more impartially on the matter than is possible to
+the children of the soil can perceive that the decay only too visible
+in many <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span>parts of Mayo is due in great measure to causes far beyond
+the control of exterminators, or even of the arch-devourer John Bull
+himself. In the old time, before the famine and before railroads and
+imported grain, this far western corner of Ireland had a trade of its
+own. I am not prepared to believe that the enormous warehouses of
+Westport were ever filled to overflowing with merchandise, being
+inclined rather to assign their vast size to that tendency towards
+overbuilding which is a permanent characteristic of a generous and
+hopeful people. Perhaps the trade of Westport might have expanded to
+the dimensions of the gaunt warehouses which now look emptily on the
+sea, but for adverse influences. At the period of the old French war
+Westport was undoubtedly a great emporium for grain, especially oats,
+for beef, pork, and military stores, which were shipped thence to our
+army in the Peninsula. But other sources of supply and improved means
+of communication have left the little seaport on the Atlantic, as it
+were, on one side, and such vitality as exists in the coasting trade
+of this part of the country is rather visible at Ballina than at
+Westport. It is quite possible that under the old condition of affairs
+the peasant whose oats were in brisk demand for cavalry stores fared
+better than his son who fell on the evil days of the famine; but there
+can be no doubt that the decline of Mayo as an exporting county can
+hardly be laid to the charge of the depopulators of the land. So far
+as <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span>can be descried through the cloud of prejudice which involves the
+entire question, the land was no longer able to feed its inhabitants,
+much less afford any surplus for sale or export.</p>
+
+<p>The Marquis of Sligo, whose agent, Mr. Smith, was shot at&mdash;and
+missed&mdash;last year, is almost as unpopular as Lord Lucan, for not only
+have most of the people been swept from his country, but the rent was
+raised on the remainder no longer ago than 1876. It is probably this
+nobleman who was in the mind of the humourist who pointed out that the
+shooting of an agent was hardly likely to intimidate that "distant
+Trojan," the landlord. The Lucan and Sligo lands in Mayo have,
+therefore, been managed on nearly parallel lines, and it is curious to
+contrast with them the management of Sir Robert Blosse's estate. This
+is another very large property, and has been conducted on the exactly
+opposite principle to that pursued by Lords Sligo and Lucan. The
+people have been let alone; they retain the holdings their fathers
+tilled, and they have tided over bad times so well that their April
+rents have, to my certain knowledge, been all paid. What will occur in
+November it is unnecessary to predict, but it may be remarked, by the
+way, that the Irish landlord, whose rents do not overlap each other,
+is in an exceptionally fortunate position.</p>
+
+<p>When I was at Ballinrobe the other day I was much struck with the
+unanimity with which <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span>everybody had agreed to leave that unfortunate
+gentleman, Mr. Boycott, in the lurch. That his servants should revolt,
+that his labourers should go away, that strangers should be bribed or
+frightened away from taking their place, are things by no means
+unparalleled even in the most manufacturing town in England. But that
+his butcher and baker should strike against their customer was a new
+experience hardly to be explained on any ready-made theory. I confess
+that I was so much astonished that I preferred waiting for facts
+before committing myself to any explanation. At this moment I have no
+hesitation in stating that the tradespeople of the smaller towns in
+the west are neither strong enough to resist the pressure put upon
+them by the popular party nor very much disposed to defend their right
+to buy and sell as they please. On the same principle apparently that
+a great nobleman of the Scottish Lowlands has, since the last
+election, made his sovereign displeasure known to his tenants, have
+the party of agitation made "taboo" any tradesmen who have dared to
+run counter to the current of present opinion. When a baker is told he
+must not do a certain thing he obeys at once, and, with a certain
+quickness and suppleness of intellect, casts about to see how he can
+best represent himself as a martyr. "Pay rint, Sorr," said a
+well-to-do shopkeeper to me two days ago; "and how are thim poor
+divils to pay rint that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span>cannot pay me? And how am I to pay any one
+when I can't get a shillin' ov a soul?"</p>
+
+<p>This little incident will explain how the opportunity of shirking
+responsibility is seized upon by many. To begin with, the advantage is
+with the assailant, for the custom of any one farmer or agent is a
+small matter compared with that of the country side. It is therefore
+manifestly to the interest of the little shopkeeper to curry favour
+with the populace rather than with those set in authority over them.
+Again, the petty trader would fain, after the example laid down by
+Panurge, pray to God for the success of the peasant in order that he
+might "de terre d'aultruy remplir son foss&eacute;"&mdash;that the till might be
+filled if the agent's book remained empty. As I have previously
+explained, everybody owes to somebody, or is owed by somebody, in this
+island of weeping skies and smiling faces. The peasant owes his
+landlord, who owes the mortgagee or the agent. And the peasant has
+another creditor&mdash;the little trader who works on the credit extended
+to him from Dublin or Belfast. Beyond a certain limit the little
+shopkeeper cannot go. So he likes to be threatened, to be made
+"taboo," to be a martyr, and then presses the tenants who have paid no
+rent to the landlord to pay him "as they can afford to, begorra, if
+they hould the harvest." This advice of Mr. Parnell's is keenly
+relished by many, and has gained him, from <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span>a poet, whose Hibernian
+extraction speaks in his every line, the incomprehensible title of
+"Young Lion of the Fold."</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Young Lion of the Fold,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Says the Shan Van Vocht,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Young Lion of the Fold,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Says the Shan Van Vocht;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Young Lion of the Fold,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bade us the harvest hold&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We'll do as he has told,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Says the Shan Van Vocht.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">We'll pay no more Rackrents,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Says the Shan Van Vocht,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We'll pay no more Rackrents,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Says the Shan Van Vocht;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We'll pay no more Rackrents,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To upstart shoneen gents,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whose hearts are hard as flints,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Says the Shan Van Vocht.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Then glory to Parnell,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Says the Shan Van Vocht,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then glory to Parnell,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Says the Shan Van Vocht,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oh, all glory to Parnell,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whom the people love so well,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And his foes may go to &mdash;&mdash;,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Says the Shan Van Vocht.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>There is an American humourist who once said that "if the lion ever
+did lie down with the lamb it would be with the lamb inside of him."
+Mayhap this is what the indigenous "p&ocirc;te" dimly shadows forth from the
+mistland of verse. Or has he mixed up the lion with the eagle in a
+dovecot?</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="IV" id="IV"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span><br />
+
+
+<h3>IV.<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h3>MISS GARDINER AND HER TENANTS.</h3>
+<br />
+
+<p class="right"><span class="sc">Westport, Co. Mayo</span>, <i>Nov. 1st.</i></p>
+
+<p>A trip into the northern part of this county, which has occupied me
+for the last three days, has hardly reassured me as to the condition
+of the country around Ballina and Killala. The last-named place is
+famous for its round tower and that invasion of the French in '98,
+which led to "Castlebar Races." Ballina is a town of about six
+thousand inhabitants, situate on the river Moy&mdash;an excellent salmon
+stream which debouches into Killala Bay, the most important inlet of
+the sea between Westport and Sligo. Perhaps Ballina is the principal
+town in county Mayo; certainly it seems to be the most improving one.
+It is, however, a considerable distance from the sea. Just now it is
+the seat of a species of internecine war between landlord and tenant,
+waged under conditions which lend it extraordinary interest. Exacting
+"landlordism" and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span>recalcitrant "tenantism" seem here to have said
+their last word. Between a considerable landholder and her tenants a
+fight is being fought out which throws a lurid light on the present
+land agitation in Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>The landholder referred to is the Miss Gardiner whose name is familiar
+in connection with more or less successful attempts at eviction. This
+lady, who many years ago inherited a large property from her father,
+the late Captain Gardiner, has become a by no means <i>persona grata</i> to
+"the Castle," the sub-sheriff, the Royal Irish Constabulary, and her
+tenants. She is doubtless a resolute and determined woman, and
+possessed by a vigorous idea of the rights of property. If not
+descended from the celebrated Grace O'Malley, Queen of Connaught, she
+has at least equally autocratic ideas with that celebrated ruler of
+the West. For years past Miss Gardiner has been famous as a raiser of
+stock, equine and bovine, but unfortunately she has been most
+frequently before the public as the strong assertor of territorial
+rights. She dwells far beyond Killala, near the village of Kilcun, at
+a house called Farmhill. From Westport to Farmhill the country is as
+picturesque as any in the West of Ireland. The snow-clad hills of
+Nephin and Nephin Beg are in sight all the way from Manulla
+Junction&mdash;the chief railway centre hereabouts, and the line past
+Loughs Cullen and Conn to Ballina, and the car-drive beyond Ballina,
+reveal a series of magnificent views. There is, however, something
+very <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span>"uncanny" to the Saxon eye about Farmhill. The first object
+which comes in sight is a police barrack, with a high wall surrounding
+a sort of "compound," the whole being obviously constructed with a
+view to resisting a possible attack. This stiff staring assertion of
+the power of the law stands out gaunt and grim in the midst of a
+landscape of great beauty. Autumn hues gild the trees, the wide
+pastures are of brilliant green, and on the rough land the reddening
+bent-grass glows richly in the declining sun, which throws its glory
+alike over snowy hills and rosy clouds. The only blot, if a white
+edifice can be thus designated, is the stern, angular police barrack.
+In the front inclosure the sergeant is drilling his men; and those not
+under drill are watching the domain immediately opposite, to the end
+that no unauthorised person may approach it. Like most of the
+dwellings in a country otherwise sparsely supplied with trees,
+Farmhill is nestled in a grove. But the surroundings of the house are
+not those associated in the ordinary mind with a home. The outer gate
+is locked hard and fast, and the little sulky-looking porter's lodge
+is untenanted. Its windows are barred, and all communication with the
+house itself is cut off, except to adventurous persons prepared to
+climb a stone wall. From the lodge onward the private road passes
+through a poor kind of park, and subsides every now and then into a
+quagmire. It is vile walking in this park of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span>Farmhill, and as the
+house is approached there is a barking of dogs. Oxen are seen grazing,
+and peacocks as well as turkeys heave in sight. The house itself is
+barred and barricaded in a remarkable manner. The front door is so
+strongly fastened that it is said not to have been opened for years.
+Massive bars of iron protect the windows, and the solitary servant
+visible is a species of shepherd or odd man, who comes slinking round
+the corner. No stranger gentlewoman's dwelling could be found in the
+three kingdoms. The spot reeks with a dungeon-like atmosphere. It is,
+according to the present state of life in Mayo, simply a "strong
+place," duly fortified and garrisoned against the enemy.</p>
+
+<p>It must be confessed that the proprietress who has a police detachment
+opposite to her gate, and lives in a house defended by iron bars and
+chains, has some reason for her precautions against surprise. She was
+shot at through the window of her own house not very long ago. Now
+this experience of being shot at acts variously on different minds.
+Mr. Smith, the Marquis of Sligo's agent, whose son returned fire and
+killed the intending assassin, took the matter as an incident of
+business in the West, and is not a whit less cheery and happy than
+before the attack at Claggan Mountain. It is also true that Miss
+Gardiner is not an atom less personally brave than Mr. Smith. It is
+said that she carries a revolver in the pocket of her shooting-jacket,
+and only asks for an <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>escort of armed constabulary when she goes into
+Ballina. But she, nevertheless, thinks it well to convert her home
+into a fortress&mdash;perhaps the only one of the kind now extant in
+Europe. Here she dwells with a lady-companion, Miss Pringle, far out
+of range of such social life as remains in the county, occupied nearly
+exclusively with the management of her estate; a matter which, far
+from concerning herself alone, entails great vexation, embarrassment,
+and expense upon others. The sending of bodies of constabulary half a
+hundred strong to protect the officers of the law serving writs on
+Miss Gardiner's tenantry is a troublesome and costly business, and has
+the effect of stirring up strife and exciting public opinion to no
+small degree. As her property is widely scattered over Northern Mayo,
+there is generally something going on in her behalf. One day there is
+an ejectment at Ballycastle; the next an abortive attempt to evict at
+Cloontakilla. In the opinion of the poorer peasantry this eccentric
+lady is a malevolent fiend, an "extherminathor," a tyrant striving to
+make the lives of the poor so wretched as to drive them off her
+estate. "A sthrange lady is she, Sorr," cried one of her tenants to
+me. "Och, she's a divil of a woman, entoirely. All she wants is to
+hunt the poor off the face of the wor-r-rold." There are, however, to
+this question, as to every Irish question, two sides&mdash;if not more. If
+Miss Gardiner "hunts" her tenants off her estate, Lord Erne's people
+are just now trying <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span>their best to perform the same operation upon
+Captain Boycott.</p>
+
+<p>It is not all at once that Farmhill has become a sort of dreary
+edition of Castle Rackrent, oppressing the mind with almost
+inexpressible gloom. The owner's feud with her tenants began long
+before the Land League was known. It is said in Northern Mayo that her
+father was the first of the "exterminators," justly or unjustly so
+called, and that the traditions of the family have been heartily
+carried out by his heiress. There is perhaps very little doubt that
+Miss Gardiner, like Lord Lucan and the Marquis of Sligo, prefers large
+farmers as tenants to a crowd of miserable peasants striving to
+extract a living for an entire family from a paltry patch of five
+acres of poor land; but whatever her wish may be she has undoubtedly a
+large number of small tenants on her estate at the present moment. It
+is therefore probable that she is somewhat less of an exterminatrix
+than the exasperated people represent her to be. In their eyes,
+however, she is guilty of the unpardonable crime of insisting upon her
+rent being paid. Her formula is simple, "Give me my rent, or give me
+my land." In England and in some other countries such a demand would
+be looked upon as perfectly reasonable; but "pay or go" is in this
+part of Ireland looked upon as the option of an exterminator. Miss
+Gardiner merely asks for her own, and judged by an English standard
+would appear to be a strange <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span>kind of Lady Bountiful if she allowed
+her tenants to go on quietly living on her property without making any
+show of payment. But this is very much what landlords are expected to
+do in county Mayo, except in very good seasons. The majority of the
+people in the islands of Clew Bay have given up the idea of paying
+rent as a bad job altogether, and these advanced spirits have many
+imitators on the mainland. To the request, "Give me my rent, or give
+me my land," is made one eternal answer, "And how can I pay the rent
+when the corn is washed away and the pitaties rot in the ground? And
+if I give ye the land, hwhere am I to go, and my wife and my eight
+childher?" This answer, long used as an <i>argumentum ad misericordiam</i>,
+is now defended by popular orators. No longer ago than yesterday I
+heard it averred that the failure of the crop by the visitation of God
+absolved the tenant from the payment of rent. The assumption of the
+speaker was that landlord and tenant were in a manner partners, and
+that if the joint business venture produced nothing the working
+partner could pay over no share of profit to the sleeping partner.
+Such doctrine is naturally acceptable to the tenant. It signifies that
+in bad years the landlord gets nothing; in good years, what the tenant
+pleases to give him, after buying manure and paying up arrears of debt
+all round. It is, however, hardly surprising that the landlords see
+the question through a differently tinted medium. They entertain an
+idea <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span>that the land is their property, and, like any other commodity,
+should be let or sold to a person who can pay for it. Strict and
+downright "landlordism," as it is called, as if it were a disease like
+"Daltonism," does not see things through a medium charged with the
+national colour, and Miss Gardiner is a true type of downright
+landlordism such as would not be complained of in England, but in
+Ireland is viewed with absolute abhorrence.</p>
+
+<p>As a proof how utterly an exacting landlord puts himself, if not
+outside of the law, yet beyond any claim to public sympathy, I may
+cite the conduct of Mr. James C. MacDonnell, the sub-sheriff of this
+county. I have the story from an intimate friend of that gentleman, on
+whose veracity I can implicitly rely. I say this because I did not in
+the first place pay much attention to the story, but have since been
+enabled to verify it in every particular. Last spring Mr. MacDonnell,
+in his capacity as sub-sheriff, was required by Miss Gardiner to serve
+notices of ejectment against about a score of her tenants who had not
+paid up. There was great excitement when it became known that twenty
+families would be evicted from their holdings, and a breach of the
+peace appeared very probable. In England the public voice would
+possibly be in favour of executing the law at all hazards. Some of the
+tenants owed two years' rent. The patience of the landlord was
+exhausted. The tenants would neither pay nor take <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span>themselves off.
+There was no option but to evict them; the sub-sheriff must do his
+duty, backed by as large a body of constabulary as might be necessary.
+Law and order must be enforced. This would be the view taken in any
+other place but this, but in Ireland the matter appeared in a totally
+different light. To begin with, the idea of blood being shed in order
+that Miss Gardiner might get in her rents appeared utterly
+preposterous. Secondly, the two past crops had completely failed in
+Mayo. Thirdly, the bad crops of 1878 and 1879 in England had prevented
+the Mayo men from earning the English harvest money on which they
+entirely depend for their rent, and much more than their rent.
+Finally, the sub-sheriff himself, who, despite his being at once a
+proprietor, a middleman, and an officer of the law, has won popularity
+by sheer weight of character, felt a natural reluctance to enforce his
+authority. Compelled to execute the law, he determined to make a
+personal appeal to the tenants before evicting them. Accordingly, he
+adjured them to get together a little money to show that they really
+meant to act well and honestly, and that he would then help them
+himself. The matter ended in his advancing them about 140<i>l.</i> out of
+his own pocket, on their notes of hand, and paying Miss Gardiner, who
+observed that "he had done well for her tenants, but not so well for
+her." To the credit of the tenants helped by Mr. MacDonnell it must be
+added that all have met <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span>their notes save two or three, who among them
+owe but 15<i>l.</i> This little story is entirely typical of the kindliness
+and honesty of Mayo men, and of their peculiar ideas of right and
+justice. Miss Gardiner's tenants would not pay her a shilling; they
+were prepared to resist eviction by force, and would have been backed
+by the whole country side, but they paid the sub-sheriff with the
+first money they got. He had stood their friend, and they could not
+act meanly towards him.</p>
+
+<p>As a contrast to this pleasant picture I am compelled to draw one not
+altogether so agreeable. I mentioned in a previous letter a
+particularly "tough customer" who, owing &pound;24 for three years' rent,
+would part neither with a single shilling nor with the land. I thought
+this champion of the irreconcilables must be worth a visit, and
+foregoing the diversion of a call on Tom Molloy, a noted character in
+the Ballina district, I drove out in the direction of Cloontakilla. On
+the way to that dismal spot by a diabolical road I passed a homestead,
+so neat and trim, standing on the hillside clear of trees, that I at
+once asked if it were not owned by a Scotchman, and was answered that
+Mr. Petrie was indeed a Scot and a considerable tenant farmer. On one
+side of his farm was a knot of dismantled houses, telling their story
+plainly and pathetically enough, and on the further side stood a row
+of hovels, only one of which was uninhabited. The locked-up cabin had
+a brace <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span>of bullet-holes in the door, those which caused a great deal
+of trouble some time since. A Mr. Joynt it seems, in a wild freak,
+fired his gun through the door of the cabin occupied by Mistress
+Murphy, who with her children is now about to join her husband in
+America. Instead of being frightened the courageous matron opened the
+door, issued therefrom armed with a fire-shovel and administered to
+the delinquent "the greatest batin' begorra" my informant had ever
+heard of. Afterwards the law was invoked against Mr. Joynt, who was
+esteemed very lucky in escaping punishment on account of his
+ill-health. A little further on, still to the right of the road,
+branched off suddenly a narrow bridle-path, or "boreen," as it is
+called in this part of the country. It was my car-driver, a
+teetotaller, opined on this "boreen," that the irreconcilable tenant,
+one Thomas Browne, dwelt. There were doubts in his mind; but,
+nevertheless, we turned on to the wretched track, and tried to get the
+car over the stones and mud-lakes which formed it. It could not be
+strictly called a road of any kind, but was rather a space left
+between two deep ditches of black peat-oozings from the bog. Finding
+progress almost impossible, we at last forsook the car. I can quite
+imagine an impatient reader asking why we did not get out and walk at
+first; but the option was hardly a simple one. By walking the horse
+and letting the car swing and jolt along one experienced the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>combined
+agonies of sea-sickness and rheumatism, with the additional chance of
+being shot headlong into the inky ditch on either side. By taking to
+what the driver called "our own hind legs," we accepted an ankle-deep
+plod through filth indescribable and treacherous boulders, which
+turned over when trust and sixteen stone were reposed on them. It was
+at this part of the journey that I saw for the first time the Mountain
+Sylph. Some women and children, who looked very frightened, cleared
+away towards their wretched dwellings, and the place would presently
+have been deserted had not my driver roared at the top of his voice,
+"Hullo, the gyurl!" Presently, out of the crowd of frightened people
+sprang a "colleen" of about twelve years, as thinly and scantily clad
+as is consistent with that decency and modesty for which Irishwomen of
+the poorer classes are so justly celebrated. Her legs and feet were
+bare, as a matter of course; a faded red petticoat, or rather kilt,
+and a "body" of some indescribable hue, in which dirt largely
+predominated, formed all her visible raiment and adornment, except a
+mass of fair hair, which fluttered wildly in the cutting wind.
+Skipping from stone to stone she neared us swiftly, and stood still at
+last perched on a huge boulder&mdash;an artist's study of native grace and
+beauty&mdash;with every rag instinct with "wild civility." An inquiry
+whether "Misther Browne" was at home was met by the polite answer that
+he was from home "just thin," <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span>almost instantly supplemented by "Oi
+know hwhere he is, and will fetch him to ye, sorr." And away went the
+Sylph dancing from spot to spot like the will-o'-the-wisp of her
+native bog. She had also indicated the dwelling of Thomas Browne, and
+I pushed on in that direction through a maze of mud. At last I came to
+a turning into a path several degrees worse in quality than the
+"boreen," and concluded that, as it was nearly impassable, it must
+lead to the home of the Irreconcilable. As a change it was pleasant to
+step from deep slippery mud and slime on to stones placed with their
+acutest angles upwards, but a final encounter with these landed me
+literally at Mr. Browne's homestead.</p>
+
+<p>It has been my lot at various times to witness the institution known
+as "home" in a state of denudation, as my scientific friends would
+call it. It is not necessary to go far from the site of Whitechapel
+Church to find dwellings unutterably wretched. Two years ago I saw
+people reduced to one "family" pair of boots in Sheffield, and without
+food, or fire to cook it with if they had had it; and I have seen a
+Cornish woman making turnip pie. But for general misery I think the
+home of the Browne family at Cloontakilla equals, and more than equals
+anything I have seen during a long experience of painful sights. The
+road to it as already described, is a quagmire, and the dwelling, when
+arrived at, exceeds the wildest of nightmares. Part of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span>stone wall
+has fallen in, and the two rooms which remain have the ground for a
+carpet and miserable starved-looking thatch for a roof. The horses and
+cattle of every gentleman in England, and especially Mr. Tankerville
+Chamberlayne's Berkshire pigs, are a thousand times better lodged than
+the family of the irreconcilable Browne. The chimney, if ever there
+were one, has long since "caved in" and vanished, and the smoke from a
+few lumps of turf burning on the hearth finds its way through the sore
+places in the thatch. In a bed in the corner of the room lies a sick
+woman, coughing badly; near her sits another woman, huddled over the
+fire. Now, I have been quite long enough in the world to be
+suspicious, and had it been possible for these poor people to have
+known of my coming I should certainly have been inclined to suspect a
+prepared scene. But this was impossible, for even my car-driver did
+not know where he was going till he started. And as we could not find
+the house without the Mountain Sylph, the inference must be in favour
+of all being genuine. There are no indications of cooking going on,
+and, bating an iron pot, a three-legged stool, a bench, half a dozen
+willow-pattern dishes, and a few ropes of straw suspended from the
+roof with the evident object of supporting something which is not
+there, no signs of property are visible. And this is the outcome of a
+farm of five acres&mdash;Irish acres, be <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span>it well understood. There is
+nothing at all to feed man, wife, sister-in-law, son, and daughter
+during the winter, and the snow is already lying deep on Nephin.</p>
+
+<p>While my inspection of the Browne domicile has been going on, the
+Mountain Sylph has vanished, never more to be seen. Whether she
+disappeared in the peat-smoke or sank gracefully into the parent bog
+it is impossible to decide; but it is quite certain that she has faded
+out of sight. Poor Mountain Sylph! When she grows older, and goes out
+to earn money as a work-girl in Ballina, she will no longer appear
+picturesque, but ridiculous. She will wear a cheap gown, but of the
+latest fashion, and a knowing-looking hat flung on at a killing angle;
+and she will don smart boots while she is in Ballina, and will take
+them off before she is far on her way to Cloontakilla, and trudge
+along the road as barefooted as of old. But she will never more be a
+Mountain Sylph&mdash;only a young woman proudly wearing a bonnet and mantle
+at which Whitechapel would turn up its nose in disdain. But the Sylph
+has gone, and in her place stands the Irreconcilable himself&mdash;a
+grey-haired man with bent shoulders and well-cut features, which
+account for the good looks of the Sylph. He is a sorrowful man; but,
+like all Irishmen, especially when in trouble, is not wanting in
+loquacity. He shows me his "far-r-rum," as he calls it, and it is a
+poor place. He has had a good <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span>harvest enough; but what does it all
+amount to? An acre (English) of oats, mayhap a couple of acres of
+potatoes and cabbages, and the rest pasture, except a little patch on
+which, he tells me, he grew vetches in summer for sale as green feed
+for cattle. Of beasts he has none, except dogs of some breed unknown
+either to dog-fanciers or naturalists, and an ass&mdash;the unfortunate
+creature who is made to drink the dregs of any sorrow falling upon
+Western Ireland. Put to work when not more than a year old, the poor
+animal becomes a stunted, withered phantasm of the curled darlings of
+the London costermongers which excited the kindly feelings of Lord
+Shaftesbury and the Baroness Burdett-Coutts.</p>
+
+<p>A Mayo donkey is a wretched creature, and Mr. Browne has a very poor
+specimen of an under-fed, overworked race. But there is a cow browsing
+in the field, and the tenant hastens to explain that she is not his
+own, but the absolute property of his sister-in-law. I must confess
+that I cool somewhat after this&mdash;inwardly that is&mdash;towards the
+Irreconcilable in battered corduroys who amuses me with a string of
+stories more or less veracious. I am required to believe that "bating
+the ass," no living beast on the five-acre farm belongs to the tenant.
+The turkeys belong to a neighbour, as do the geese, and there is
+neither hen nor egg left on the premises. "And where is everything?" I
+naturally ask.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span>"And the neighbours is good to me, sorr, and they reaped my oats for
+me in a day, and carried 'um in a night. And my pitaties they dug for
+me, and carried all clane away before the sheriff could come. And when
+Mr. MacDonnell did come my wife was sick in bed, and the house was
+full of people, and all he could do was to consult the doctor and go
+away."</p>
+
+<p>Now, as the basis for a burlesque or Christmas pantomime, in which the
+Good Fairy warns the tenant to remove his crops lest the Demon
+Landlord should seize upon them&mdash;the tenant being of course transmuted
+into Harlequin and the landlord into Clown&mdash;this would be funny
+enough; but it is difficult to see how the everyday business of life
+could be carried on under such conditions. The case of Miss Gardiner
+against Thomas Browne is one purely of hide and seek. When he owed two
+years' rent he begged for time on account of two bad crops. When he
+was threatened with eviction he begged time to get in his crop. It was
+given to him. It is quite easy to understand that a tenant who has
+been thirty years on a little holding thinks himself entitled to great
+lenity, especially if his rent has been raised during that period,
+and, as this man asserts, his "turbary" rights restricted, and every
+kind of privilege reduced. But it has been said by a great literary
+and social authority that there are such things as limits. Now this
+man, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span>Browne, feeling that he had an execution hanging over him,
+contrived to temporise until his grain and potatoes were secured, and
+then, aided by the accident of a sick wife, defied the law. The house
+was full of people, a doctor said that the woman could not be removed,
+and the sub-sheriff, backed by fifty policemen, could make nothing of
+the business without incurring the odium of tearing a sick woman from
+her bed. He offered the irreconcilable Browne the offer of accepting
+the ejectment and remaining in the house as "caretaker," but the
+tenant was staunch and would make no terms. The consequence is that
+when Miss Gardiner again attempts to evict him she must incur the
+considerable cost of a new writ. The condition of affairs now is that
+a tenant owing three years' rent, and not having paid a shilling on
+account, simply defies the landlord and remains in his wretched
+holding, having possibly&mdash;for the Irish are an intelligent as well as
+good-humoured people&mdash;the proceeds of his miserable little harvest to
+live upon through the winter months. Mr. Browne is, I doubt me, not
+very rigid as to his duties, and takes but an imperfect view of
+financial obligations; but he is horribly poor, nevertheless, and is
+as much a type of his class as Miss Gardiner of hers.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="V" id="V"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span><br />
+
+
+<h3>V.<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h3>FROM MAYO TO CONNEMARA.</h3>
+<br />
+
+<p class="right"><span class="sc">Leenane</span>, <i>Tuesday, Nov 2.</i></p>
+
+<p>The meeting which took place on Sheehane Hill was only remarkable as
+affording an additional proof of the extraordinary faculty of
+selection possessed by Western Irishmen. Whether they intend to shoot
+a landlord or merely to hold a meeting to bring him to his bearings,
+they choose their ground with equal discrimination. In the former case
+a spot is selected at the descent or ascent of a hill, so that the
+carriage of the victim cannot be going at a sufficient pace to defeat
+the marksman's aim, and a conveniently protected angle, with
+facilities for escape, is occupied by the ambuscade. In the latter,
+either a natural amphitheatre or a conspicuous hill is pitched upon
+for the gathering. To the picturesque Mayo mind a park meeting on a
+dead flat would be the most uninteresting affair possible unless
+vitality were infused into the proceedings by a conflict with the
+police, which would naturally atone for many shortcomings. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span>The
+meeting at Tiernaur was held in the midst of magnificent scenery, and
+that on Sheehane was equally well selected. From the top of the hill,
+which is crowned by a large tumulus, the country around for many miles
+lay spread like a map; and, what was of more immediate importance, the
+small additional hill afforded a convenient spot for posting the
+orators and displaying the banners of the various organizations
+represented at the meeting. The demonstration, however, could hardly
+be represented as successful&mdash;not more than a thousand persons being
+present. It was weary waiting until the proceedings commenced, the
+only diversion being provided by a hare which got up in an adjacent
+field. In a moment greyhounds, bull-dogs, terriers, and mongrels were
+in pursuit, followed by the assembled people. The hare, however,
+completely distanced both dogs and spectators, and was in comparative
+safety several fields away from the foremost greyhound, when she
+doubled back in an unaccountable manner, and ran into the midst of the
+crowd, who set upon her with sticks, and killed her in the most
+unsportsmanlike manner. A man next held poor puss over his head as if
+she were a fox, and a voice went up "That's the way to serve the
+landlords." This ebullition was followed by shouts of "Down wid 'em!"
+and the meeting on Sheehane became more cheerful. It was recollected
+that O'Connell once held a meeting on the same spot, and that the
+hare <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span>and the meetings were both mentioned by the prophet Columbkill.</p>
+
+<p>Of the speeches it need only be said that what they lacked in elegance
+was made up in violence. The speeches made in the North were oddly
+designated "seditious," and every kind of reprisal was hinted at in
+the event of Mr. Parnell being arrested. If he were seized, not a
+landlord in Ireland would be safe except in Dublin Castle. This kind
+of thing, accompanied by shouts of "Down wid 'em!" at every mention of
+the abhorred landlords, became very tedious, especially in a high wind
+and drifting rain. The meeting gradually became thinner and thinner,
+and finally faded out altogether. It is quite true that such
+gatherings may have a powerful effect upon the vivacious Celt, but if
+so, it is quite beneath the surface, for the people seemed to take
+little interest in the proceedings. To all outward show the oratory at
+Sheehane produced no more serious impression than that at Tiernaur on
+the preceding Sunday. Yet there is something in the air, for the first
+thing I heard on returning to Westport was that Mr. Barbour's
+herdsman, who lives at Erriff Bridge, had been warned to leave his
+master's service. The "herd" (as he is called here, as well as on the
+Scottish border) is in great alarm. He cannot afford to leave his
+place, for it is his sole means of subsistence, and if turned out in
+the world the poor fellow might starve. Now it is a disagreeable thing
+to think you will starve if you <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span>leave, and be shot if you remain at
+your work; but I hear that the "herd" has asked for protection and
+will try to weather it out. His master, Mr. Barbour, and Mr. Mitchell
+hold each about half of the great farm formerly held of Lord Sligo by
+Captain Houstoun, the husband of the well-known authoress. Large
+numbers of black-faced sheep and polled Galloways are raised by Mr.
+Barbour, who lives at Dhulough, in the house formerly occupied by
+Captain Houstoun.</p>
+
+<p>I have just come from Westport to this place, the mountain scenery
+around which is magnificent. On the lofty heights of "the Devil's
+Mother," a famous mountain of this country, the sheep are seen feeding
+almost on the same level as the haunt of the golden eagles who breed
+here regularly. I believe that the valley of the Erriff was once well
+populated, but that after the famine the people were cleared off
+nearly 20 square miles of land to make way for the great grazing farm
+now divided between two occupants. As I have stated in previous
+letters, the resentment of the surrounding inhabitants at this
+depopulation of a vast tract of country is ineradicable. In the
+wretched huts which appear at wide intervals on the sea-shore the
+miserable people sit over the fire and talk of the old times when they
+might go from Clifden to Westport and find friends nearly everywhere
+on the road, while now from the last-named place to this&mdash;a distance
+of 18 Irish miles&mdash;the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span>country is simply wild mountain, moor, and
+bog, bating the little Ulster Protestant village, not far from
+Westport (a curious relic of '98), a few herds-men's huts, and the
+police-station at Erriff Bridge. To those who, like myself, love
+animals, the drive is by no means uninteresting. As the car jolts
+along past "Hag's Valley," a dozen curlews take wing, and a little
+further on the shrill cry of the redshank strikes on the ear. Now and
+then a hare will start among the bent-grass, while aloft the falcon
+rests poised on her mighty wing. But saving these wild animals, the
+beautiful blackfaced sheep, and black Galloway calves, the country has
+no inhabitants. What little was once cultivated has reverted to rough
+pasture, covered with bent or sedge and a little grass, or to bog
+impassable to man or any creature heavier than the light-footed fox,
+who attains among these mountains to extraordinary size and beauty.
+But hares and grouse, and even stray pheasants from Mr. Mitchell
+Henry's woods at Kylemore, will not convince the fragment of
+population around the great grazing farms that things are better now
+than of yore; and there is some reason for believing that disturbance
+is to be apprehended in this part of the country. The warning to Mr.
+Barbour's unfortunate herd can hardly be a separate and solitary act
+of intimidation and oppression. The work of one herd is of no great
+matter. But the distinct warning given to the poor <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span>man at Erriff
+Bridge to give up his livelihood on the first instant is possibly part
+of a settled scheme to reduce great grazing farmers to the same
+condition as landlords. They are to be frightened away, in order that
+squatters may pasture their cattle on "the Devil's Mother," as the
+Tiernaur people have done theirs on Knockdahurk. Nothing would
+surprise me less than a strike against anybody in this neighbourhood.</p>
+
+<p>If one may judge by the language used yesterday at Westport Fair, at
+which I was glad to discover more outward evidence of prosperity than
+had yet come under my observation in this part of Ireland, the
+landlords and their agents are determined to make another effort to
+get in their rents in January. Their view of the case is that the law
+must assist them: but whatever abstract idea of the majesty of the law
+may exist elsewhere is obviously foreign to those parts of Connaught
+which I have visited. It is urged day after day upon me by high as
+well as low, that if Sir Robert Blosse and Lord De Clifford can get in
+their rents without "all the king's horses and all the king's men,"
+other landlords must try to do the same. To prevent misconception, I
+will aver, even at the risk that I may seem to "protest too much,"
+that this argument is not thrust upon me by the Land League, but by
+persons who are proprietors themselves. It is held ridiculous, in this
+section of the country, that enormous expense should <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span>be thrown upon
+the county in order that the rents of certain landlords may be
+collected. There is, it must be admitted, a rational indisposition in
+the West to ascribe any particularly sacred character to rent as
+distinguished from any other debt. This is an agreeable feature in the
+Irish character. In some other countries there prevails a preposterous
+notion that rent must be paid above and before all things, as a
+species of solemn obligation. Until the other day there prevailed in
+Scotland the almost insane law of hypothec, which allowed a landlord
+to pursue his tenant's goods even into the hands of an "innocent
+holder." But there is no argument in favour of the landlord which any
+other creditor might not advance with equally good reason. The
+butcher, the baker, the clothier, as well as the farmer, the dealer in
+feeding-cake and manure, have claims quite as good as that of the
+landlord, and, as they think, a great deal better. Tradesmen who have
+fed and clothed people, and others who have helped them to fatten
+their land and their cattle, think their claims paramount. It is of
+the nature of every creditor to think he has the right to be paid
+before anybody else. But the landlord, probably because landlords made
+the law, such as it is, has a claim which he can enforce, or rather
+just now seeks to enforce, by the aid of armed intervention. The civil
+bill creditor can only levy execution where anything exists to levy
+upon; but the landlord <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span>can turn his tenants out of doors and put the
+key in his pocket&mdash;that is, theoretically. But, it is argued, if this
+cannot be done without the aid of an army, it would be better for the
+majority of peaceable inhabitants if it were left alone. It is not
+easy to predict the state of popular feeling here in January next; but
+it is quite certain that attempts to evict, if made now, would be met
+by armed resistance. I have already stated that Mayo is armed to the
+teeth, and I have good reason for believing county Galway to be in a
+similar condition. This being fairly well known on the spot, it is
+quite easy to understand how any resolution to commence a landlords'
+crusade is received by the public.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<p class="right"><span class="sc">Letterfrack, Connemara</span>, <i>Wednesday.</i></p>
+
+<p>At this pretty village, in the most beautiful part of the West of
+Ireland, I hear that the disinclination to pay rent and the desire to
+"hunt" grazing farmers out of the country have spread to the once
+peaceful region of Connemara. Three years ago crime and police were
+alike unknown. The people were poor, and preserved the sense of having
+been wronged. But theft and violence, saving a broken head now and
+then, were unknown.</p>
+
+<p>Within the last two years a great change has come over this remote
+corner of Ireland. Police barracks have made their appearance, and
+outrages of the agrarian class have become disagreeably frequent.
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span>Formerly cattle and sheep were as safe on the mountain as oats in the
+stackyard. Now nobody of the grazing farmer class is entirely free
+from alarm. At any moment his animals may be driven into the sea or
+his ricks fired. The population, if not so fully armed as that of
+Mayo, is arming rapidly. To my certain knowledge revolvers and
+carbines are being distributed among the peasantry of Connemara
+proper. This district&mdash;which including within its limits the pretty
+village I write from, as well as Clifden and Ballynahinch, lies mainly
+between the seashore and a line drawn from Leenane to Carna&mdash;has,
+during the last twelve months become disturbed in such wise that it is
+impossible to shut one's eyes to the fact that here, as in Mayo, a
+sort of dead set is being made against grazing farmers. It is true
+that life is not taken, and, it may be added, not even threatened in
+Connemara proper, but outrages of a cowardly and destructive kind are
+common. During last winter an epidemic of destruction broke out, the
+effect of which may be seen in the large amount added to the county
+cess to give compensation to the injured persons. The grand jury has
+levied altogether between seven and eight hundred pounds more than
+usual. So ignorant or reckless are the destroyers, that they take no
+heed of what is well understood in other places; to wit, that the
+amount of the damage done is levied upon the adjacent townlands. Thus
+the addition to the county cess in Lettermore is 10<i>s.</i> <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span>11&frac12;<i>d.</i> in
+the 1<i>l.</i>; in Carna, 8<i>s.</i> 9&frac12;<i>d.</i>; and in Derryinver, 8<i>s.</i>
+7&frac12;<i>d.</i>&mdash;a cruel additional burden on the ratepayer. Some of the
+items are very large. To George J. Robinson was awarded 181<i>l.</i> for
+seventy-six sheep and two rams "maliciously taken away, killed,
+maimed, and destroyed." To Hamilton C. Smith three separate awards
+were made&mdash;28<i>l.</i> for four head of cattle driven or carried out to sea
+and drowned; 21<i>l.</i> for fourteen sheep maliciously driven off and
+removed; and again 17<i>l.</i> 10<i>s.</i> for fourteen sheep similarly treated.
+Houses and boats have been burned, and even turf-ricks destroyed. The
+object in all cases seems to have been to "hunt" the injured persons
+out of the country in order that the neighbours might turn their
+cattle on to his grazing land, as has been done in Mayo. In one
+conspicuous case these tactics have proved successful. Michael O'Neil
+was awarded 120<i>l.</i> "to compensate him for ninety-six sheep, his
+property, maliciously taken or carried away and destroyed, at
+Tonadooravaun, in the parish of Ballynakill." This sum is levied off
+the fourteen adjacent townlands, among which is the unlucky
+Lettermore, just quoted as paying an enormous addition to the county
+cess. Michael O'Neil, who appears to have been a respectable man, not
+otherwise objectionable than as the tenant of more grazing land than
+was considered his share by his neighbours, has received his 120<i>l.</i>,
+and is so far reimbursed; but he thought it <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span>better to obey the
+popular will than to attempt to stand against it, and gave up his farm
+accordingly. Such deeds as the frightening of "decent people" out of
+Connemara by maiming cattle and burning houses, which must be paid for
+by the offending districts, speak more distinctly than any words could
+do of the ignorance of this part of the wild West. So wild is it that
+although the Roman Catholic clergy of Connemara adhere to the
+elsewhere-obsolete practice of holding "stations" for confession,
+there are many dwellers on the mountain who have never received any
+religious instruction. Chapels are few and remote from each other, and
+even the "stations" kept for the purpose of getting at the scattered
+population only attract those dwelling within reasonable distances.
+The poor mountaineers in the neighbourhood of the Recess Valley and
+away over the hills seldom go far enough from home to rub shoulders
+with civilisation. Many of them have never seen bigger places than
+Letterfrack and Leenane, and those perhaps not fifty times in their
+lives.</p>
+
+<p>The islanders of Clew Bay are almost as difficult to assist and to
+improve as the highlanders of Joyce's country, Southern Mayo, and
+Great and Little Connemara; but for an opposite reason. The latter are
+thinly scattered on the fringe of the grazing farms, while the former
+are crowded together on islands inadequate to support them. This
+question of space assumes a curious importance in Ireland owing to
+the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span>want of other industry than such as is intimately connected with
+the land. With the exception of a few manufacturing districts in
+Ulster, which is altogether another country from Connaught, there are
+no industries in Ireland independent of the produce of arable land and
+pasture. What is to be enjoyed by the people must be got out of the
+land, and this in a country where nobody will turn to and work hard as
+a cultivator so long as he can graze, "finish," or "job" cattle,
+sheep, or horses. I was citing to a Mayo-man this defect of the
+so-called farmer, and was at once met by a prompt reply. The tendency
+to graze cattle, which is not hard work, and to "gad" about to cattle
+fairs, which are esteemed the greatest diversion the country affords,
+is an indication of the distinct superiority of the quick-witted Celt
+to the dull Saxon hind. An Irish peasant cultivator is a being of
+greater faculty of expansion than Wessex Hodge. He is profoundly
+ignorant and absurdly superstitious, but he is naturally keen-witted,
+and his innate gifts are brightened by contact with his fellow man. He
+is not a ploughman, for he often cultivates with the spade alone, and
+he has, besides his oats, his potatoes, his cabbages, and mayhap a few
+turnips, and a variety of animals, all of which he understands&mdash;or
+misunderstands. If a holder of twenty or thirty, or, still better,
+forty acres, he will have a horse, a cow, a beast or two, a few sheep,
+and some turkeys and geese. It is possible to have all these on
+fifteen <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span>acres or less of fairly good land, and then the Western
+peasant cultivator becomes a many-sided man by dint of buying and
+selling stock&mdash;that is, he acquires the sort of intelligence possessed
+by a smart huckster. This is held to be cleverness in these parts, and
+undoubtedly gives its possessor a greater "faculty of expansion" than
+the career of an Essex or Wessex ploughman or carter. But what is
+peculiarly pertinent to the burning question of peasant cultivators
+and proprietors is the tendency, perpetually visible in the Western
+Irishman, to fly off at a tangent from agriculture to grazing.
+According to an ancient and indurated belief in all this section of
+the country, animals ought to get fat on the pasture provided by
+nature. I am told that thirty years ago there was not a plough in
+existence from Westport to Dhulough, and that the turnip was an
+unknown vegetable in Connemara. The notion of growing turnips and
+mangolds in a country made for root crops was at first not well
+received. "Bastes" had done hitherto on the rough mountain pasture
+"well enough;" which signified that no properly fatted animal had ever
+been seen around the Twelve Pins.</p>
+
+<p>Now that the Connemara man here and there has been taught to grow root
+crops for cattle he begins to yield, and feeds his beasts, sometimes,
+on roots instead of sedge. Thus far he has become a cultivator; but I
+have my doubts whether the hard work of tillage suits him well. To get
+good crops off a little farm is <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span>an undertaking which requires
+"sticking to work." It is not so pleasant by a great deal as looking
+at cattle and taking them to market. Hence the tilled part of an Irish
+farm in the West nearly always bears a very small proportion to that
+under pasture. It is only quite recently that artificial feeding for
+cattle has been resorted to, and compelled the farmer to grow root
+crops. Perhaps, in the present condition of the market for beasts and
+grain the nimble-minded Celt is hitting the right nail on the head,
+and cattle and dairy farms are the future of the agriculturist, who
+will compete against American meat with English produce fed upon
+English grass and roots, and upon maize imported from the New World. I
+prefer, however, to leave this possibility for the discussion of Mr.
+Caird and Mr. Clare Read, and to confine myself to the fact that the
+Western cultivator is far less a farmer than a cattle-jobber or
+gambler in four-legged stock.</p>
+
+<p>The poor inhabitants of the islands between this place and Achill
+Point cannot certainly be accused of a tendency to gad about. Almost
+everybody blames their dull determination to remain at home. They are,
+I doubt, neither good fishermen nor good farmers&mdash;at least, I know
+that they neither catch fish nor pay their rent. Neither on Clare
+Island, Innishark, Innisbofin, nor Innisturk is there any alacrity in
+making the slightest attempt to satisfy the landlord. That these
+little tenants are only removed by a hairsbreadth from <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span>starvation at
+the best of times will be gathered from the facts that Clare Island
+with 4,000 acres, some of which is let at 10<i>s.</i> per acre, with common
+grazing rights "thrown in," is called upon to support nearly seven
+hundred souls. A glance at the picturesque outline of the island will
+tell of the proportion of "mountain," that is moor and bog, upon it,
+and it is at once seen that unless there is either good fishing or
+some other source of supply the land cannot keep the people. No better
+proof can be given than that of the greatest tenant, who pays 55<i>l.</i> a
+year for some five hundred acres. In Innisbofin and Innishark are at
+least 1,500 individuals, nearly all very small tenants, either on the
+brink of starvation or pretending to be so. It is nearly as impossible
+to extract any rent from them as from the twenty-three families on
+Innisturk, an island belonging to Lord Lucan, whose rents are farmed,
+so far as Innisturk is concerned, by Mr. MacDonnell, the sub-sheriff,
+who is said to have a bad bargain. Lord Lucan, of course, receives his
+150<i>l.</i> yearly from his "middleman," who is left to fight it out with
+the people, and get 230<i>l.</i>, the price at which the land is let, out
+of them, if he can. Just now he is getting nothing, and the situation
+is becoming strained. The people pay no rent, the sub-sheriff, is not
+only losing his margin of profit but cannot get 150<i>l.</i> a year out of
+them. They said they liked him well enough but would not pay a
+"middleman's" profit, whereupon he offered to take the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span>exact amount
+he contracts to pay to Lord Lucan, and forego his profit altogether;
+but this proposition, after being received with some amusement, was
+not declined exactly, but, in American language, "let slide." And
+nothing has been or can be done. For if it were attempted to evict the
+Innisturk people the evictors would be accused of hurling an entire
+population into the sea.</p>
+
+<p>The more that is seen of the people of far Western Connaught the more
+distinct becomes the conviction that the present difficulty is rather
+social and economic than political. It is far more a question,
+apparently, of stomach than of brain. The complaints which are poured
+out on every side refer not in the least to politics. Very few in
+Mayo, and hardly anybody at all in Connemara, seem to take any account
+of Home Rule, or of any other rule except that of the Land League. The
+possibility of a Parliament on College-green affects the people of the
+West far less than the remotest chance of securing some share of the
+land. If ever popular disaffection were purely agrarian, it is now, so
+far as this part of Ireland is concerned. Orators and politicians from
+O'Connell until now have spoken of Repeal and Reform; but it is more
+than probable that the Connaught peasant always understood that he was
+to be emancipated from some of his burdens. All his ideas are
+dominated by the single one of land. He knows and cares for very
+little else. He is <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span>superstitious to an astounding degree, and his
+ignorance passes all understanding&mdash;that is, on every subject but the
+single one of land. And the land he knows of is that in his own
+county, or home section of a county. But his knowledge of this is
+singularly and curiously exact. Either by his own experience or by
+tradition he is perfectly acquainted with the topography of his own
+locality and with the history of its present and former proprietors
+and occupants. With perfect precision he will point out a certain
+tract of country and tell how, in the old, old time, it was, "reigned
+over" by the O'Flahertys, and then was owned by the Blakes, who
+disposed of part of their country to the present possessors. He knows
+perfectly well how the great Martin country came first into the hands
+of the Law Life Insurance Company, and then into those of Mr.
+Berridge, and how the latter gentleman came down to Ballynahinch, of
+the traditional avenue, extending for forty miles to Galway. More than
+this, he knows how an island was bought by its present owner with so
+much on it due to the above-named society. Moreover, he knows the site
+and size of the villages depopulated by famine, emigration, or the
+"exterminator," and in many cases the very names of the former
+tenants. He is a man of one idea&mdash;that the country was once prosperous
+and is now wretched, not in consequence of natural causes but of
+oppression and mismanagement. When he shouted in favour of Repeal he
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span>meant Land. When he applauded Disestablishment and Denominational
+Schools he meant Land, Land, nothing but Land. At last his dominant
+feeling is candidly expressed when he cries out against landlords,
+"Down wid 'em!"</p>
+
+<p>In one of those neat remarks, distracting attention from the real
+point at issue, for which Lord Beaconsfield is justly famous, he
+expressed an opinion that "the Irish people are discontented because
+they have no amusements." Like all such sayings, it is true as far as
+it goes. Despite dramatists, novelists and humorists, Ireland is
+singularly barren of diversion. In a former letter I pointed out that
+the only relaxation from dreary toil enjoyed in Mayo is found at the
+cattle-fairs, and little country races to which they give rise. There
+are no amusements at all at Connemara. One ballad-singer and one
+broken-legged piper are the only ministers to public hilarity that I
+have yet seen. Nothing more dreary can be imagined than the existence
+of the inhabitants. When by rare good luck a peasant secures road-work
+or other employment from a proprietor at once sufficiently solvent and
+public-spirited to undertake any enterprise for the improvement of the
+country, he will walk for a couple or three hours to his work and then
+go on with it till dinner-time. But it is painfully significant that
+the word "dinner" is never used in this connection. The foreman does
+not say that the dinner hour has arrived, but "Now, boys, it is time
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span>to eat your bit o' bread." The expression is painfully exact; for the
+repast consists of a bit of bread and perhaps a bottle of milk. Indian
+corn meal is the material of the bit of bread, a heavy square block
+unskilfully made, and so unattractive in appearance that no human
+being who could get anything else would touch it. Then the man works
+on till it is time to trudge over the mountain to the miserable cabin
+he imagines to be a home, and meet his poor wife, weary with carrying
+turf from a distant bog, and his half-clad and more than half-starved
+children. Luckily the year has been a good one for drying peat, and
+one necessity for supporting human life is supplied. What the
+condition of the people must be when fuel is scarce is too terrible to
+think of.</p>
+
+<p>I esteem myself fortunate in being enabled to describe what the life
+of the Connemara peasant is under favourable circumstances. His abject
+misery in years of famine and persistent rain, when crops fail and
+peat cannot be dried, may be left to the imagination. Potatoes raised
+from the "champion" seed introduced during the distress last year are,
+if not plentiful, yet sufficient, perhaps, for the present, in the
+localities to which a good supply of seed was sent; but I should not
+like to speculate on the probable condition of affairs in March next.
+I have also spoken of such a peasant as has been fortunate enough to
+obtain work at nine shillings a week, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span>esteemed a fair rate
+hereabouts. But in truth there is very little work to be had; for the
+curse of absenteeism sits heavily on the West. Four great landed
+proprietors, who together have drawn for several years past about
+70,000<i>l.</i> from their estates in Mayo, Galway, and Clare, have not, I
+am assured, ever spent 10,000<i>l.</i> a year in this country. As with the
+land itself, crop after crop has been gathered and no fertiliser has
+been put in. The peasant is now aware of as many of such facts as
+apply to his own locality, and this knowledge, coupled with hard work
+and hunger, has aroused a discontent not to be easily appeased. To him
+his forefathers appear to have led happy lives. It would be beyond my
+purpose to discuss whether the good old times ever existed, either
+here or anywhere else. My object just now is simply to reflect the
+peasant's mind, after having endeavoured, so far as is possible in
+this place, to verify the facts adduced by him, and I may add
+generally admitted by others.</p>
+
+<p>The peasant looks lovingly on the tradition of the old time when the
+native proprietors dwelt among their people, without reflecting that
+it was the almost insane recklessness and extravagance of the
+hereditary lords of the soil which led to the breaking up of their
+estates among purchasers who had no kind of sympathy with the
+inhabitants. But good or bad, as they may have been, the names of the
+Martins, the O'Flahertys, the Joyces, and the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span>Lynches are still held
+in honour, although their descendants may have disappeared altogether,
+or remained on a tenth or twentieth part of the vast possessions once
+held by their family. Some of the present representatives, however,
+are unpopular from no fault of their own. To cite a typical case.
+There is a large estate between this place and Clifden, the present
+holders of which should hardly be held responsible for the faults of
+their ancestors. A very large part of it has been sold outright and is
+in good hands. The remainder is strictly settled on a minor, and is
+mortgaged, in the language of the country, "up to the mast-head."
+Naturally the guardians of the minor are unwilling that the estate
+should be sold up, all possibility of improvement and recovery
+sacrificed, and themselves erased from the list of the county gentry.
+Landlords have as much objection to eviction and compulsory emigration
+as tenants, and are as much inclined to cling to their land, hoping
+for better things. Thus arises a state of affairs against which the
+peasant at last shows signs of revolt. Physically and mentally
+neglected for centuries by his masters, he has found within the last
+fifty years neglect exchanged for extortion and oppression. To prevent
+the sale of the property, the owners or trustees must pay the interest
+on the encumbrances. Moreover, they, being only human, think
+themselves entitled to a modest subsistence out of the proceeds of the
+property. To pay the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span>interest and secure this "margin" for themselves
+there are only two ways&mdash;to wring the last shilling out of the
+wretched tenants, to first deprive them of their ancient privileges,
+and then charge them extra dues for exercising them, or to let every
+available inch of mountain pasture to a cattle-farmer, whose herds
+take very good care that the cottier's cow does not get "the run of
+the mountain" at their master's expense.</p>
+
+<p>This "run of the mountain" appears to have been the old Irish analogue
+of the various kinds of rights of common in England, which have for
+the most part been lost to the poorer folk, not always without a
+struggle with the neighbouring landlord or lord of the manor. I hear
+from almost every place a complaint that within thirty or forty years
+the "run of the mountain" has been taken from the people and let to
+graziers. On the legal merits of the case I cannot at this moment
+pretend to decide, but inasmuch as this addition to an ordinary
+holding survives on some estates, there appears strong ground for
+believing that the practice was general. Where the cattle-run remains
+it is mapped out as a "reserve" for a certain townland, and is greatly
+prized by the peasants. It may therefore be imagined that those from
+whom it has been taken by the strong hand are bitterly resentful, and
+even where the change was made so long as twenty-five or thirty years
+ago nourish a deeply-rooted sense of wrong. It is absurd <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span>to suppose
+that when the act of spoliation took place village Hampdens could
+spring up on every hill-side in Connemara. Owing to the neglect of
+those who were responsible for their condition, they were the most
+ignorant and superstitious people in the British Islands. Landlords
+were not yet awakened to a sense that their tenants should at least be
+taught to read; and Connemara was esteemed, I am told, as a kind of
+penal settlement for priests who had not proved shining lights in more
+civilised communities. The latter reproach can no longer be brought,
+for the zeal and activity of the local clergy are conspicuous; and
+where the children are within any reasonable distance of a school they
+come readily to it, and prove bright and apt scholars. But when the
+"run of the mountain" was seized upon by many proprietors, the people
+were mentally, if not bodily, in a swinish condition. The idea of any
+right which a landlord was bound to respect had not dawned upon them,
+and, if it had, prompt vengeance would have descended on the village
+Hampden in the shape of a notice to quit, and he whose conception of
+the world was limited to his native mountains would have been turned
+out upon them with his wife and children to die.</p>
+
+<p>I hear on very good authority that the purchaser of part of one of the
+old estates has acquired an unpleasant notoriety in his management of
+the land. I am compelled to believe that in the old period <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span>the
+peasants enjoyed their little holdings at a very low rent. Moreover
+these holdings were not all "measured on 'um," as one of my informants
+phrased it, but were often composed of two or more patches, bits of
+productive land, taken here and there on the rough mountain. Doubtless
+this arrangement had its inconveniences, but the people were
+accustomed to it, and also set great store by the run of the mountain,
+which they had, it seems, enjoyed without let or hindrance from time
+immemorial. The first act of the new management was to "sthripe the
+land on 'um," that is to mark it out into five-pound holdings, each in
+one "sthripe" or block. This arrangement, which to the ordinary mind
+hardly appears unreasonable, was considered oppressive by the tenants,
+who submitted, however, as was then the manner of their kind. They had
+still the mountain, and could graze their cow or two, or their
+half-dozen sheep upon it, and they naturally regarded this privilege
+as the most valuable part of their holding, inasmuch as it paid their
+rent, clothed them, and supplied them with milk to drink with their
+potatoes. In these days of alimentary science it is needless to remind
+readers that, humble as it appears, a dinner of abundant potatoes and
+milk is a perfect meal, containing all the constituents of human
+food&mdash;fat, starch, acids, and so forth.</p>
+
+<p>Thus many of the tenants were, as they call it, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span>"snug." Satisfied
+with little, they rubbed on contentedly enough, only the more
+adventurous spirits going to England for the harvesting. Then came
+serious changes. The rent of the five-pound holdings was raised to
+seven pounds, and the mountain was taken away. The poor people
+protested that they had nothing to feed their few animals upon on the
+paltry holdings of which a couple of acres might be available for
+tillage, a couple more for grass, and the remaining two or three good
+for hardly anything. An answer was given to them. If they must have
+the mountain they must pay for it&mdash;practically another rise in the
+rent. To this they agreed perforce, and even to the extraordinary
+condition that during a month or six weeks of the breeding season for
+grouse they should drive their tiny flocks or herds off the mountain
+and on to their holdings, in order that the game might not be
+disturbed at a critical period. I hear that for the last year rents
+have fallen into arrear, and that the beasts of those who have not
+paid up have just been driven off the mountain.</p>
+
+<p>I have cited this case as one of the proofs in my hands that the
+country is not overpopulated, as has been so frequently stated. I
+drove over part of the estate mentioned, and questioned some of the
+people as to the accuracy of the story already told to me, and the
+agreement was so general that I am obliged to give credence to it. To
+talk of over-population <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span>in a country with perhaps half-a-dozen houses
+per square mile, is absurd. What is called over-population would be
+more accurately described as local congestion of population. The
+people who in their little way were graziers and raisers of stock have
+been deprived of their cattle run, and having no ground to raise
+turnips upon, cannot resort to artificial feeding. What was originally
+intended to serve as a little homestead to raise food on for
+themselves is all they have left, and it is now said that they are
+crowded together. It would be more correct to say that they have been
+driven together like rats in the corner of a pit. As one steps out of
+one of their cabins the eye ranges over a vast extent of hill, valley,
+and lake&mdash;as fair a prospect as could be gazed upon. Yet the few
+wretched inhabitants are cooped within their petty holdings, and
+allowed to do no more than look upon the immense space before them.
+Where there is so much room to breathe they are stifled.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<p class="right"><span class="sc">Galway</span>, <i>Tuesday, Nov. 9th.</i></p>
+
+<p>On the long dreary road from Clifden to this place, the greater part
+of which is included in the vaunted "avenue" to Ballynahinch, there is
+visible at ordinary times very little but mountain, bog, and sky. Of
+stones and water, and of air marvellously bright and pure, there is no
+lack, and some of the scenery is of surpassing grandeur, especially on
+a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span>day like yesterday, so fair and still that mountain and cloud alike
+were mirrored on the surface of a legion of lakes. It was only when
+one reached the clump of trees which in these wild districts denotes
+the presence of a house of the better sort that any symptoms of
+disturbance were seen. All was calm and bright on Glendalough itself,
+but no sooner had I entered the grounds of the hotel than I became
+aware of the presence of an armed escort. Presently Mr. Robinson, the
+agent for Mr. Berridge, the purchaser of the "Martin property" from
+the Law Life Insurance Company, came out, jumped on his car with his
+driver, and was immediately followed by the usual escort of two men
+armed with double-barrelled carbines. A few minutes later I heard that
+Mr. Thompson's "herd" over at Moyrus, near the sea-coast, had been
+badly beaten on Sunday night, or rather early yesterday morning; and
+there were disquieting rumours of trouble impending at Lough Mask. If
+the Moyrus story be true, it is noteworthy as marking a new line of
+departure in Connemara. Hitherto actual outrages have been confined to
+property; persons have only been threatened, and few but agents go in
+downright bodily fear. I have not heard why Mr. Thompson is unpopular;
+but can easily understand that Mr. Robinson has become so. The
+management of 180,000 acres of poor country, in some parts utterly
+desolate, in others afflicted with congested <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span>population, can hardly
+be carried on without making some enemies. Moreover, I have no reason
+to believe that the vast "Law Life" property has, since it passed out
+of the hands of its ancient insolvent owners, been either more wisely
+or liberally administered than in the wild, wicked days when the
+Martins "reigned" at Ballynahinch, and boasted that the King's writs
+did not run "in their country."</p>
+
+<p>Before leaving Connemara I resolved to give a detailed account of the
+condition of the peasants of the sea-coast at the conclusion of a
+phenomenally good season followed by a fair harvest, thinking that a
+better impression would be obtained now than in periods of distress. I
+regret to say that the effect of several excursions from Letterfrack
+and Clifden has been almost to make me despair of the Connemara man of
+the sea-coast. I hesitate to employ the word "down-trodden," because
+it has been absurdly misused and ignorantly applied to the whole
+population of Ireland. I may be pardoned for observing in this place,
+once for all, that my remarks are always particularly confined to the
+place described, and by no means intended to apply to districts I have
+not yet visited, still less to Ireland generally&mdash;if a country with
+four if not five distinct populations should ever by thoughtful
+persons be spoken of "generally." What I say of the inhabitants of the
+sea-coast of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>Connemara does not, I hope most sincerely, apply to any
+other people in the British Islands. They are emphatically
+"down-trodden"&mdash;bodily, mentally, and in a certain direction morally.
+They do not commit either murder, adultery, or theft, but they are
+fearfully addicted to lying&mdash;the vice of slaves. Their prevarication
+and procrastination are at times almost maddening. I have seen men and
+women actually fencing with questions put to them by the excellent
+priest who dwells at Letterfrack, Father McAndrew, who was obliged to
+exercise all his authority to obtain a straight answer concerning the
+potato crop grown on a patch of conacre land. Did they have any
+"champion" seed given to them at the various distributions of that
+precious boon? "Was it champions thin?" was the reply. "'Deed, they
+had the name o' champions." The woman who said this in my hearing only
+confessed under very vigorous cross-examination that "the name o'
+champions" signified four stone weight of the invaluable seed which
+has resisted disease in its very stronghold. Now in very poor ground
+the yield of this quantity should have been twelvefold, or about 5
+cwt. of potatoes. "'Deed, and it wasn't the half of it. The champions
+was planted too thick, sure; and two halves of 'um was lost." Taken
+only mathematically this statement would not hold water, but it was
+not till after a stern allocution that the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span>fact was elicited that
+much champion seed had been wasted by over-thick planting&mdash;a habit
+acquired by the people during successive bad years. As these poor
+people prevaricate, so do they procrastinate. The saddened man who
+said, in his wrath, all men are liars, would have found ample
+justification for his stern judgment on the Connemara sea-coast at the
+present moment; but the Roman centurion immortalised in Holy Writ
+would make a novel experience. He might say "Go," but he would have to
+wait a while before the man went, and if he cried "Come" would need to
+possess his soul with patience. Yet the people are not dull. In fact
+the dull Saxon is worth a hundred of them in doing what he is told,
+and in doing it at once. This simple fact goes far to explain the
+unpopularity of English land-agents. Prepared to obey their own chief,
+Englishmen, especially if they have served in the army, expect instant
+obedience from others. Now that is just what they will not get in
+Clifden or elsewhere in the neighbourhood. Almost everybody is as
+fearfully deliberate in action as in untruth, and the Saxon who
+expects instant attention and a straightforward answer, and is apt to
+storm at procrastinators and shufflers, appears to the poor native as
+an imperious tyrant. Now the native is always as civil as he is
+deceptive. About the middle of my journey yesterday, I discovered that
+the pair of horses who were to bring me twenty-six Irish miles from
+Clifden <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span>to Oughterard had been driven ten miles before they began
+that long pull. Of course the poor creatures dwindled to a walk at
+last, and I sank into passive endurance lest the driver might inflict
+heartless punishment upon them. My remarks on arriving at Oughterard,
+where an excellent team awaited me, were vigorous in the extreme; but
+I am bound to admit that they were accepted in a thoroughly Christian
+spirit.</p>
+
+<p>My long car-drives from Letterfrack and Clifden were directed mainly
+towards the spots mentioned in a former letter as of specially evil
+reputation for agrarian crime, and as being heavily amerced by the
+grand jury. A very slight acquaintance with them excites amazement
+that cess, rent, or anything else can be extracted from the utterly
+wretched cabins looking on the broad Atlantic. A large number of these
+are built on the slope of a lofty peninsula rising to 1,172 feet from
+the sea-level, and marked on the maps as Rinvyle Mountain. It is
+better known to the natives as Lettermore Hill, and forms part of the
+Rinvyle estate, one of the encumbered properties alluded to in my last
+letter. The hill-folk, who appear, on the best evidence procurable, to
+have had hard measure dealt to them by the Mr. Graham who bought part
+of the old Lynch property, declaim against the "new man," as others
+ascribe every evil to the middleman; but others again hold that the
+old proprietors, who remain on the land, fighting <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>against
+encumbrances, are the "hardest of all," and that the whips of cupidity
+cannot compare with the scorpions of poverty. Be this as it may, the
+present holder of Rinvyle is by no means personally unpopular, and has
+helped the district lately in getting subscriptions and a Government
+grant for building a pier, extremely useful both as a protection to
+fisher-folk, and as providing labour for the still poorer people. It
+is also only fair to state that much of the local congestion of
+inhabitants at Rinvyle is due to the kelp-manufacture. The kelp-trade
+was at one time very prosperous, and employed a large number of people
+in collecting, drying, and burning seaweed. At that period it was the
+object of proprietors on the seaboard to attract population to their
+domains, on account of the royalty levied on kelp, which exceeded by
+far the rent asked for a little holding. While some proprietors were
+wiping off the map great villages, containing hundreds of families,
+like that of Aughadrinagh, near Castlebar, the holders of the
+sea-coast encouraged people to settle on their estates. No reasonable
+person can blame them for doing so. The proprietor was poor, and saw
+that a large accession to his means might be secured by attracting
+kelp-burners. He made a good thing of it. The people paid about 3<i>l.</i>
+or a little more a year for their cottage and little, very little,
+paddock, not bigger than a garden; about 11<i>s.</i> a year for the "right
+to gather seaweed," and one-third of the proceeds of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span>kelp they
+made as "royalty" to the landlord. It should be added that the owners
+of Rinvyle were not themselves dealers in kelp, like some middlemen
+along the coast, and that their "people,"&mdash;save the mark!&mdash;could sell
+to whom they pleased, but the lords of the seashore took their third
+of the proceeds. Within comparatively recent times kelp has been worth
+6<i>l.</i> and 7<i>l.</i> per ton. Putting the "royalty" at 2<i>l.</i> per ton, and
+the production of each family at a couple of tons per annum, we arrive
+at the position that the landlord drew, in rent and royalty, about
+half his tenants' summer earnings. The tenants obtained about 8<i>l.</i>
+clear per family for the summer's laborious work in collecting,
+drying, and burning seaweed. The rest of their living was made either
+out of a conacre potato patch, for which they were charged a
+tremendous rent, or eked out by the excursion of one member of the
+family to England for the reaping season. It was not a prosperous
+life, except in comparison with that which has succeeded it. For the
+last few years kelp has been almost thrown out of the market, and such
+small prices are obtainable that it is not worth while to collect it.
+But the population originally attracted by kelp remains to starve on
+the rocks of Rinvyle.</p>
+
+<p>Lettermore Hill, rising directly from the sea level, is a magnificent
+object glittering in the sun. It is "backed" rather like a whale than
+a weasel, and includes some good rough mountain pasture, as well <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span>as
+green fields near its base. As one approaches it a ring of villages is
+seen delightfully situated, high for the most part above the sea and
+the green fields, and lying back against the huge mountain. It is
+natural to suppose that here resides a race of marine mountaineers
+seeking their living on the deep while their flocks and herds pasture
+on the hill. But no supposition could be wider of the actual fact.
+Neither the fields beneath nor the mountain above belong in any way to
+the villages which form a belt of pain and sorrow half-way up its
+side, drooping at Derryinver to the sea. One of these villages,
+Coshleen, surely as wretched a place as any in the world, is
+unapproachable by a wheeled vehicle. The pasture land in front is
+walled off, and, together with the mountain behind, down almost to the
+roof of the cabins, is reserved to the use of a great grazier living
+far away. Below, near the sea, stands Rinvyle Castle&mdash;whence the name
+Coshleen, the village by the castle&mdash;the ruined stronghold of the
+O'Flahertys who ruled this country long ago, either better or worse
+than the Blakes, who have held it for some generations, and under
+whose care it has become a reproach to the empire. There is a little
+arable land farther down Lettermore Hill, which, being also called
+Rinvyle Mountain, might well receive the third name of Mount Misery.
+This bit of arable land is let to the surrounding tenants on the
+conacre principle&mdash;that is, the holders are not even yearly <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span>tenants,
+but have the land let to them for the crop, the season while their
+potatoes or oats are on the ground. By letting this conacre land in
+little patches, a high rent is secured, which the tenants have no
+option but to promise to pay. Apparently it is these wretched people
+who, maddened by the sight of a stranger's flocks and herds pasturing
+above and below them, have risen at times and driven his animals into
+the sea. All the notice he has taken of the matter is to make the
+county pay his loss, and leave the county to get the amount out of the
+offending townlands if it can. He is not to be scared, for he lives
+far away, and apparently his herds are not much afraid either&mdash;at
+present, that is. How any compensation money is to be got from the
+hundreds of miserable people who inhabit Coshleen and Derryinver I
+cannot conceive. They have, it is true, potatoes to eat just now, and
+may have enough till February; but their pale cheeks, high
+cheek-bones, and hollow eyes tell a sorry tale, not of sudden want but
+of a long course of insufficient food, varied by occasional fever.
+With the full breath of the Atlantic blowing upon them, they look as
+sickly as if they had just come out of a slum in St. Giles's. There is
+something strangely appalling in the pallid looks of people who live
+mainly in the open air, and the finest air in the world. Doubtless
+they tell a good story without, as I have already said, any very
+severe adherence to truth; but there can be no falsehood <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span>in their
+gaunt, famished faces, no fabrication in their own rags and the
+nakedness of their children. I doubt me Mr. Ruskin would designate the
+condition of Mount Misery, otherwise Lettermore Hill, as "altogether
+devilish."</p>
+
+<p>The cabins of Connemara have been so frequently described that there
+is no necessity for telling the English public that in the villages I
+have named anything approaching the character of a bed is very rare. A
+heap of rags flung on some dirty straw, or the four posts of what was
+once a bedstead filled in with straw, with a blanket spread over it,
+form the sleeping-place. Everybody knows that one compartment serves
+in these seaside hovels for the entire family, including the pig (if
+any), ducks, chickens, or geese. Few people hereabouts own an ass,
+much less a horse or a cow, and boats are few in proportion to the
+population. Such a cabin as I have rather indicated than described is
+occupied by the wife of one John Connolly, of Derryinver. When I
+called the husband was away at some work over the hill, and the two
+elder boys with him, the wife and seven younger children remaining at
+home. I had hardly put my foot inside the cabin when a "bonniva," or
+very little pig, quietly made up to me and began to eat the
+upper-leather of my boot, doubtless because he could find nothing else
+to eat, poor little beast. Besides the "bonniva," who looked very
+thin, the property of the entire family <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span>consisted of a dozen fowls
+and ducks, some potatoes, a little stack of poor oats, not much taller
+than a man, and a still smaller stack of rough hay. An experienced
+hand in such matters, who accompanied me, valued the stacks at 2<i>l.</i>
+15<i>s.</i> together. This was all they had at John Connolly's to face the
+winter withal, and I was curious to know what rent they paid for their
+little cabin and the field attached. An acre was quite as much as they
+appeared to have, and for this they were "set," as it is called here,
+at 3<i>l.</i> per annum, and, in addition, were charged 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> for the
+privilege of cutting turf, and 5<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> for the seaweed. This toll
+for cutting seaweed is a regular impost in these parts, sometimes
+rising for "red weed" and "black weed" to 11<i>s.</i> The latter is used
+only for manuring the potato fields, the former being the proper kelp
+weed, and must be paid for whether it is used or not. As a matter of
+fact, Mrs. Connolly's place assigned for cutting red-weed is the
+island of Innisbroon, some four or five miles out at sea, and as her
+husband has never been worth a boat she has paid her dues for nine
+years for nothing. The seaweed dues in fact have for several years
+past represented merely an increase of rental. It should not, however,
+be forgotten that when kelp was valuable the lords of the soil took
+their third part of it when it was burnt, in addition to the first tax
+for collecting the weed, a most laborious and tedious operation.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span>It may be asked, and with some appearance of reason, why, if people
+are hungry, they do not eat what is nearest to hand. That one owning a
+dozen fowls and ducks and a stack of oats, be the same never so small,
+should be hungry, seems at a superficial glance ridiculous. But the
+fact is that this is just the flood time of harvest, the oats are
+stacked and the potatoes stored, but there is a long winter to face;
+and, what is more depressing to hear, these people who rear fowls
+would as soon think of eating one as of flying. They do not even eat
+the eggs, but sell them to an "eggler," and invest the money in Indian
+corn meal, a stone of which goes much farther than a dozen or a dozen
+and a half of eggs. Those, and they are greatly in the majority, who
+have no cow are obliged to buy milk for their children, and find it
+difficult and costly to get enough for them.</p>
+
+<p>In equally poor case with the cottiers is the woman who keeps the
+village shop at Derryinver. Those who know the village shops of
+England and the mingled odour of flour, bacon, cheese, and plenty
+which pervades them, would shudder at Mrs. Stanton's store at
+Derryinver. It is a shop almost without a window; in fact, a cabin
+like those occupied by her customers. The shopkeeper's stock is very
+low just now. She could do a roaring trade on credit, but
+unfortunately her own is exhausted. Like the little traders during
+English and Welsh <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span>strikes, her sympathies are all with her customers,
+but she can get no credit for herself. She has a matter of 40<i>l.</i>
+standing out; she owes 21<i>l.</i>; she has sold her cow and calf to keep
+up her credit at Clifden, and she is doing no business. When I looked
+in on her she was engaged in combing the hair of one of her
+fair-skinned children, an operation not common in these parts, where
+the back hair of even grown women in such centres of commercial
+activity as Clifden has a curious knack of coming down. It is part of
+the tumble-downishness of the neglected West. At some remote period
+things must have been new, but bating Casson's Hotel, at Letterfrack,
+there is nothing in good order between Mr. Mitchell-Henry's
+well-managed estate at Kylemore and Galway. At Clifden and all through
+the surrounding country things appear to be decaying or decayed. The
+doors will not shut, and the windows cannot be opened; the bells have
+no handles, and if they had would not ring; the wall-paper and the
+carpets, the houses, the land and the people seem to be all very much
+the worse for wear. The dirt and slovenliness are unspeakable. I tried
+to write on the table of the general room of a well-known inn, or
+so-called hotel, the other day, and my arm actually stuck to the
+table, so adhesive was the all-pervading filth. The white flannel
+cloaks and deep red petticoats of Connemara women are picturesque
+enough on market-day in Clifden, but, like <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span>Eastern cities, they
+should be seen from afar. I have a shrewd suspicion that the blight
+has gone beyond the potato, and it is not very difficult to see how it
+strode onward. The little towns of the West depend entirely upon the
+surrounding country for their subsistence, and, when the peasantry are
+poor, gradually undergo commercial atrophy. Just at this moment they
+are in a livelier condition than usual, somewhat because the
+comparatively well-to-do among the peasants have taken advantage in
+many places of the popular cry to pay no rent, and have, therefore,
+for the moment a little ready money. But there is no escaping the
+saddening influence of a general aspect of dirt and decay.</p>
+
+<p>It is a significant feature of the present agitation in Ireland that
+all parties are nearly agreed so far as the Connaught peasant
+cultivator is concerned. That anything approaching agreement on any
+part of the complex Irish problem should be arrived at is so
+remarkable that I am inclined to hearken to the popular voice.
+Whatever may be done for the benefit of other parts of the country,
+something must, it is thought, be attempted for the counties of Mayo
+and Galway. So far as I have been able to arrive at facts and
+opinions, it is not altogether a question of rent. A general remission
+of rent in these two counties would merely have the effect of
+enriching those farmers who are already "snug," but would leave the
+peasant cultivators <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span>exactly as they are at present. It is quite true
+that in some of the most wretched places I have seen the rent is
+extravagantly high; but while exclaiming against attempted extortion,
+I cannot shut my eyes to the fact that for the last two years the
+attempt has been in the main abortive. Everybody is not so deep in his
+landlord's books as the irreconcileable Thomas Browne, of
+Cloontakilla; but a vast number of poor tenants owe one and a half and
+two years' rent. I speak of those whose holdings are "set" from 3<i>l.</i>
+to 8<i>l.</i> per annum. The rent has not impoverished them this year at
+any rate; they have had a fair harvest, their beast or few sheep have
+fetched good prices, and yet they are miserably poor. It is quite true
+that two very bad years preceded the good one, but allowing for all
+this there is no room for hope that under their present conditions of
+existence they will ever be better off than they are now&mdash;when they
+are practically living rent free.</p>
+
+<p>Letting for the moment bygones be bygones between landlord and tenant,
+what is to occur in the future? Hunger is an evil counsellor, and
+there would apparently always be hunger and consequent discontent
+among the little cultivators of Connaught, even if the land were given
+to them outright. The fact is that, despite the assertions of
+demagogues, the holdings on which the people now live cannot support
+them, and, in fact, never have supported them. It is, as I remarked in
+one of my previous <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span>letters, the harvest money from England and the
+labourers' wages brought from Scotland which have kept body and soul
+together after a poor fashion. The annual migration of reapers and
+labourers has been a matter not of enterprise, but of necessity; for
+on the summer savings, varying from 10<i>l.</i> to 15<i>l.</i>, the family
+entirely depend. It is, therefore, an absolute mistake to speak of the
+Mayo and Galway men as peasant cultivators living on the produce of
+the soil they cultivate. It cannot be done. I have talked to scores of
+these people, and have invariably found that a decent cabin with
+properly clad inhabitants depended upon something beyond the food
+produced on the spot. Either the father went to England for the
+harvest, or the boys were working in a shipyard on the Clyde, or the
+girls were in America and sent home money. On the seashore, among the
+wretched people who send their children out on the coast to pick
+shell-fish worth fourpence per stone, I found here and there a
+household such as I have described really depending on money earned
+far away. I have thought it well to put the case somewhat strongly
+because it is sheer absurdity to expect that a living for a family can
+be extracted from five Irish acres of land in Connaught. In very good
+years, and when credit is abundant, not so unusual an occurrence as
+might be supposed, it is just possible for the peasant to struggle on;
+but he can never be said to live. His land is exhausted by the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span>old
+Mayo rotation of "potatoes, oats, burn," and he has no manure but
+guano and seaweed.</p>
+
+<p>It is like inhaling fresh air to turn aside from poorly nourished
+people and land to look, from the window of Casson's hotel at
+Letterfrack, on two bright green oases rising amid a brown desert of
+bog. Turnips and mangolds are growing in great forty-acre squares.
+Dark-ribbed fields of similar size show where the potatoes have been
+dug, and men are dotted here and there busily engaged with work of
+various kinds. The green oases at the mouth of the magnificent pass of
+Kylemore are the work of Mr. Mitchell-Henry, M.P. for the county of
+Galway. When Mr. Henry first went salmon-fishing in the river Dowris,
+which flows from Kylemore Lake into the sea at Ballynakill Harbour,
+Kylemore was a mountain pass and nothing more. Now it not only boasts
+a castle, but is the centre of extraordinary activity, the first
+fruits of which are seen in the villages of Currywongoan and
+Greenmount already alluded to as forming conspicuous objects in a
+landscape of strange grandeur. Mr. Henry, who was an eminent surgeon
+before he became a great landowner, has gone about the work of
+reclamation with scientific knowledge as well as vigorous will, and
+now has a great area in the various stages of conversion from bog into
+productive land. When he began to reclaim land at Kylemore the
+neighbouring gentry smiled good-humouredly, plunged their hands into
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span>their (mostly empty) pockets, and wished him joy of his bargain. Now
+the Kylemore improvements are the wonder of Connemara. The long
+unknown mangold is seen to flourish on spots which once nourished
+about a snipe to an acre. Root crops are very largely grown, and it is
+to these that the climate and reclaimed bog of Connemara are more
+particularly favourable; but there is abundance of grain at
+Currywongoan, at Greenmount, and at the home-farm at Dowris.
+Neighbouring proprietors are thinking the matter over, and are
+wondering whether an Irish landlord ought, like an English one, to do
+something to employ and encourage his poor tenants, and help on with
+improvements those inclined to help themselves. Even the tenants
+themselves on the Kylemore Estate are beginning to wake up under the
+care of a resident landlord inclined to set them in the way of
+improving their condition. With the run of the mountain in addition to
+holdings varying from twelve to forty and fifty acres in extent, Mr.
+Mitchell Henry's people are learning by example, are breaking up land,
+and every year increasing the area under the plough. It would thus
+seem that the Connemara peasant is not unteachable, if only some
+patience be shown and fair breathing space allotted to him.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Mitchell Henry's idea of reclamation was purely scientific at
+first, and has only by degrees been developed into a large enterprise.
+He was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span>struck by the fact that the bog lies directly on the
+limestone, as coal, ironstone, and limestone lie in parts of
+Staffordshire, only awaiting the hand of man to turn them to practical
+account. Draining and liming are all that bog-land requires to yield
+immediate crops. The main difficulty is of course to get rid of the
+water, which keeps down the temperature of the land until it produces
+nothing but the humblest kind of vegetation. All the steps of the
+reclaiming process may be seen at Kylemore. The first thing to be done
+is to cut a big deep drain right through the bog to the gravel between
+it and the limestone. Then the secondary drains are also cut down to
+the gravel, and are supplemented by "sheep" or surface drains about
+twenty inches deep and twenty inches wide at top, narrowing to six
+inches at the bottom. This process may be called "tapping the bog,"
+which begins to shrink visibly. The puffy rounded surface gradually
+sinks as the water runs off, and the earth gains in solidity. When
+this process is sufficiently advanced the drains are cleared and
+deepened, and a wedge-shaped sod, too wide to reach the bottom, is
+rammed in so as to leave below it a permanent tubular covered drain,
+which is thus made without tiles or other costly material. Then the
+surface is dressed with lime, which, as the people say, "boils the
+bog" instead of burning it in the old-fashioned Irish manner. On such
+newly broken-up ground I <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span>saw numerous potato ridges, the large area
+of turnips and mangolds already spoken of, grasses and rape for
+sheep-feed. The celery grown on the reclaimed bog is superb, even
+finer than that grown on Chat Moss, which gave Manchester its
+reputation for celery-growing.</p>
+
+<p>It is not pretended that all the bogs in Ireland are susceptible of
+similar treatment, nor is it by any means necessary that they should
+be. For there is plenty of bog-land less than four feet in depth, and
+this alone is worth draining and liming at present. According to Mr.
+Mitchell Henry's calculation he can drain and lime the land, take a
+first crop off it, and then afford to let it at fifteen shillings per
+acre. This is thirteen shillings more than it is worth now, and would
+return interest for the necessary outlay at five per cent. per annum.
+It is well known that Mr. Mitchell Henry has pursued his work at
+Kylemore in the spirit of a pioneer, and that he looks to the
+employment of the poor Connemara folk on reclamations as the loophole
+of escape from their present miserable condition. But, while anxious
+for the people, he is not unjust to the landlords who, whatever their
+wish may be, are too poor to attempt any extensive improvement of
+their estates. With the exception of Mr. Berridge and Lord Sligo,
+nobody has much money in these parts besides Mr. Henry, whose example
+is followed slowly, because proprietors lack the means to undertake
+anything on a grand <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span>scale. His impression is, that to effect any good
+the matter must be made Imperial. The suggestion is, that suitable
+tracts of the best waste lands should be acquired by the Government;
+that the work of reclamation should be carried on by labourers who
+would be paid weekly wages and lodged in huts close to their work; and
+that when the land had been properly fertilised it should be divided
+into farms of forty acres and the men who have worked at reclaiming it
+settled upon it with their families, and instructors appointed to
+teach them farming. It is no part of the scheme that the land should
+be given to the people. On the contrary, a rent should be charged
+them, calculated upon the basis of a percentage on the original outlay
+in the purchase of the estate and of the amount paid in wages,
+together with a small sum to pay off the capital in the course of a
+term of years. The occupant would thus in time become a freeholder,
+and as much interested in maintaining the law as any other proprietor.
+Meanwhile he would, like the Donegal folk mentioned by Mr. Tuke, live
+on hopefully under the rule, for the time being, of the Kingdom, as
+landlord.</p>
+
+<p>I am far from inclined to detract in any way from the merit of Mr.
+Mitchell Henry's project for Imperial reclamation any more than from
+his scheme for draining and for improving the internal navigation of
+Ireland. Although born in Lancashire he is a thorough-bred Irishman,
+and naturally hopeful of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span>his country. But, although I am most
+painfully impressed by the fearful degradation into which a part of
+the Western people has fallen, I cannot on that account shut my eyes
+to their failings any more than to their poverty. Mr. Henry's scheme,
+if it deferred actual proprietorship in fee simple till the next
+generation, would I hope prove of incalculable benefit to Mayo and
+Galway, especially if his excellent idea of appointing agricultural
+instructors were carried out faithfully. But I fear from what I have
+actually seen and heard from the most trustworthy informants of all
+classes, that the forty-acre farmer of this generation would require a
+firm hand to guide him. This is no insolent Saxon assumption of
+superiority, but is said, after due consideration, sadly and
+seriously. The poor people of the West have been brought very low, so
+low that even their very virtues have become perverted into faults.
+They are affectionate to their kith and kin; but this amiable quality
+leads to their huddling together in a curiously gregarious way, and in
+some cases has been made the means of extorting money from them. It is
+this tendency to live together and thus divide and subdivide whatever
+little property they may have, which will require to be most
+strenuously guarded against.</p>
+
+<p>It is of no use assigning to a man forty acres of land to get a living
+out of, if he immediately sublets some of it to a less fortunate
+friend, or takes <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span>all his remotest relations into partnership. It
+requires no prophet's eye to discern that the instant the tenant's son
+got married he would bring his wife home to his father's roof, and
+that if the energies of the united family did not suffice to cultivate
+the whole of the forty acres, part would be let at "conacre," that is,
+for the period of one harvest, to a man with or without a holding of
+his own. The tendency to bring several families together in one cabin
+is almost irresistible, and has, as mentioned above, not been wisely
+and firmly met by proprietors, but taken a mean advantage of to wring
+money out of tenants.</p>
+
+<p>Subdivision of holdings has in many cases been, not sternly forbidden
+on pain of eviction, but made the occasion of inflicting a fine. This
+shabby and extortionate kind of protest against subdivision has long
+obtained on certain estates. If one may believe evidence given on oath
+in a court of justice, as reported in a local newspaper, there was
+within the last twenty years on at least one estate a custom of
+exacting a fine from tenants who married without leave. Probably this
+originated in some clumsy attempt to prevent the subdivision of
+holdings and the accumulation of population in certain places&mdash;in
+itself a laudable and necessary precaution. Whatever shape any attempt
+to settle the unfortunate peasants on fresh holdings may take, the
+tendency to subdivide and sublet must <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span>be sternly resisted&mdash;and
+prevented. A thousand excuses will be made for taking partners, for
+subletting on the "conacre" and other systems. "Sure I was sick, your
+honour, and the farrum was gettin' desthroyed;" or, "I was too poor to
+buy seed for the whole of it, and let some at conacre to Thady
+O'Flaherty, that's a good man, your honour, as any in Galway!" or "Wad
+ye have me tur-r-r-n my own childther out like geese on the mountain?"
+are a few of the replies which would, I am assured by a native, be
+made to any inquiry or reproof concerning the subletting of land or
+the accumulation of people. But if any attempt be made to help the
+West, nothing of the kind must be listened to. The young bees must
+depart from the parent hive and begin life on their own account. This
+may appear the harsh judgment of a half-informed traveller. It is, on
+the contrary, the mere reflection of native opinion.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="VI" id="VI"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span><br />
+
+
+<h3>VI.<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h3>THE RELIEF OF MR. BOYCOTT.</h3>
+<br />
+
+<p class="right">
+<span class="sc">Ballinrobe, Co. Mayo</span>,<br />
+<i>Wednesday, Nov. 10th.</i><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Finding that despite all the influence brought to bear upon it the
+Boycott Brigade was actually going to invade Lough Mask, I came from
+Galway to-day by the route preferred by Mr. Boycott himself, just
+before I met him and Mrs. Boycott herding sheep more than a fortnight
+ago. The steam packet <i>Lady Eglinton</i> conveyed an oddly assorted
+freight. Among the passengers were Mrs. Burke, the wife of Lord
+Ardilaun's agent, two commercial travellers, the representative of the
+<i>Daily News</i>, and thirty-two of the Royal Irish Constabulary, who had
+been summoned from Galway to the scene of action. From every side
+soldiers and constabulary&mdash;soldiers in everything but name&mdash;converge
+upon Ballinrobe and Claremorris, townlets, which, if one could quite
+believe their artless inhabitants, are Arcadian in their simplicity,
+prosperous to every degree short of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span>payment of rent, and
+absolutely safe as to life and property.</p>
+
+<p>When the good ship <i>Lady Eglinton</i> had puffed and scraped her way
+through the tortuous shallows of Lough Corrib to Cong, she was
+received by a large meeting of the country folk assembled on the pier.
+Fortunately I had secured a car from Ballinrobe to await my arrival,
+and the driver, a perfect "gem of the sea," received me with high good
+humour. "To Ballinrobe, your honour?" he said, and drove off like a
+true son of Nimshi. As soon as he was fairly on the way, I said that I
+should like to drive to Ballinrobe by Lough Mask House. "It's not on
+our way, your honour," was the first and civil objection. I then
+observed that I wished to go that way in order to call on Mr. Boycott.
+"Sure it's a different way altogether, your honour," was the answer.
+"A long way round, your honour." Then I said, after the brutal Saxon
+fashion, "Go that way, nevertheless." No answer, but the speed of the
+car relaxed until two other cars came up. Then a particularly wild
+Irish conversation was kept up among the drivers, and I observed a
+pleasant commercial gentleman who was bound for the village, as
+distinguished from the landing-place of Cong, laughing consumedly as
+his car branched off and left me to pursue my way in the twilight.
+Then my car-driver, evidently backed by a brother car-driver, put his
+case plainly. He had been engaged <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span>to drive a gentleman from Cong to
+Ballinrobe, and would do what he had engaged to do cheerfully, but he
+had not engaged himself to go to Lough Mask House. It was not, as a
+notorious claimant said, "in the contract." I hinted that a mile or
+two out of the way, even Irish miles, could not matter; that at
+complete sundown there would be a moon; that increased pay would be
+given. Not the slightest effect was produced.</p>
+
+<p>My driver would go to Ballinrobe and nowhere else. He had not engaged
+to go to Lough Mask House, and he would not go. I confess that for an
+instant I asked myself should I threaten my man and make him take me
+to Lough Mask whether he liked it or not; but an instant's reflection
+convinced me that any such attempt would be worse than futile. The
+horse would go lame or fall down within a quarter of a mile, and I
+should never arrive anywhere. So I tried coaxing, much against the
+grain, but it was of no use. To Lough Mask House the car-driver would
+not go. He would drive me to Galway or to Newport, "bedad," but "divil
+a fut" would he stir towards the accursed spot. He was good enough to
+say that he would not interfere with me. If I liked to walk, I was
+welcome to do it. Now a walk of seven Irish miles at sundown in a
+steady rain, over a line of road watched at every turn by disaffected
+peasants, was not attractive; so I made a last appeal to my
+car-driver's personal <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span>courage&mdash;Was he afraid? "Begorra, he was not
+afraid of anything, but would my honour want to set the whole country
+against him?" This is what it all came to. He durst not for his life
+drive anybody to Mr. Boycott's with or without escort. He was
+compelled to form part of the strike.</p>
+
+<p>Here in Ballinrobe we are in a state of siege. About 600 soldiers came
+in last night, who, together with the resident garrison, make a rough
+total of 750 military. Claremorris, I hear, is also strongly occupied
+to-night. In Ballinrobe are now stationed, under Colonel Bedingfeld,
+R.A., commanding the district, two squadrons of the 19th Hussars, or
+123 sabres, commanded by Major Coghill. The Royal Dragoons, under the
+command of Captain Tomkinson, number sixty sabres, and with the
+Hussars will probably perform the main work of convoy to-morrow. The
+Royal Engineers are also represented, and 400 men of the 84th Regiment
+from the Curragh, under Lieut.-Colonel Wilson, have reinforced the
+resident detachment of the 76th Regiment, commanded by Captain Talbot.
+Moreover, there are nearly two hundred Royal Irish Constabulary in the
+town, and the sub-inspector, Mr. McArdle, has his work cut out for
+to-morrow. A great part of the troops are now under canvas, and last
+night were in even worse condition.</p>
+
+<p>As one trudges across the slushy road over Ballinrobe Fair Green, the
+illuminated tents light up the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span>foreground pleasantly, while the moon
+tinges the tree-tops and the river Robe with silver. All is beautiful
+enough were it not for the persistent rattle of the sabre and the
+jingle of the spur. So far as can be ascertained at present the Ulster
+contingent will consist of no more than fifty men, who will probably
+arrive by train at Claremorris about three o'clock to-morrow
+afternoon. Early in the forenoon a hundred infantry and sixty sabres
+of the Royal Dragoons will occupy Lough Mask House and the surrounding
+fields, and about four hundred infantry, a strong detachment of
+police, and the two squadrons of the 19th Hussars will receive the
+harvesters at Claremorris and escort them to Lough Mask House.</p>
+
+<p>It has been suggested that if sufficient cars can be requisitioned the
+Boycott Brigade might be mounted upon them and sent through guarded by
+the cavalry alone. The pace at which this evolution could be performed
+is its greatest recommendation. Any encounter with the people of the
+country side, who are sure to assemble in large numbers, would be
+completely prevented, and, what is of greater importance, the reapers
+would reach their destination before sundown. The long distance from
+Claremorris would be certain to prolong a foot march into the night,
+when all kinds of complication might occur. At the moment of writing
+the streets are dotted with little knots of people, and the excitement
+concerning the morrow is intense.</p>
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span><br />
+
+<p class="right"><span class="sc">Ballinrobe, Co. Mayo</span>, <i>Thursday, Nov. 11th.</i></p>
+
+<p>Hearing that the march of the Ulster men upon Lough Mask House would
+not commence till nearly nightfall, I drove over early this morning to
+Mr. Boycott's in a private carriage, hired cars being, for the reasons
+stated yesterday, quite unattainable. "Did your honour wish to set the
+country on me?" is the only reply vouchsafed by car-drivers since one
+of their body was cruelly beaten, presumably for the unpardonable sin
+of driving a policeman to the house under taboo.</p>
+
+<p>The drive through the warm soft morning air was much pleasanter than
+that of yesterday evening; nor did people start up in an uncomfortable
+way from behind the stone wall, as they did last night. At intervals
+the sun shone out on the reddened foliage, greatly changed in hue
+since my first visit to Lough Mask. The half-dozen persons I met
+appeared to be going about their daily work like good citizens; and a
+casual visitor might, if he could have persuaded anybody to drive him
+along the road to Lough Mask, have gone away convinced that the whole
+story of wrong and outrage was the work of a distempered brain. The
+isolated dwelling itself was by far the most gloomy object in the
+landscape&mdash;grey and prison-like as most of the Irish houses of its
+class.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Boycott's habitation has thoroughly the look of a place in which
+crimes have been, or, as a native <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span>of these parts suggested, "ought to
+be committed." Two dark figures of the Royal Irish Constabulary occupy
+the front-door step, and others of the same keep watch and ward over
+stables and ground. Nearly three weeks of painful excitement had made
+but slight change in Mr. Boycott's family. His wife and daughter live
+under circumstances which would drive many people mad, and the
+combative land-agent and farmer himself maintains a belligerent
+attitude, the grey head and slight spare figure bowed, but by no means
+in submission. On the contrary, never was Mr. Boycott's attitude more
+defiant. It is only by skilful subterfuge that he can get a shirt
+washed for his outer, or a loaf of bread made for his inner man. The
+underground routes which existed a fortnight ago are closed. In fact
+"every earth is stopped," and the hunted man is driven to the open.
+Not a soul will sell him sixpence-worth of anything. He cannot even
+get a glass for his watch, for the watch-maker no more than anybody
+else dare serve him. Every feature of his extraordinary situation
+depicted in my first letter on "Disturbed Ireland" is exaggerated
+almost to distortion.</p>
+
+<p>Last evening the following letter was handed to him by the tenants of
+Lord Erne:&mdash;"Kilmore. Nov. 10, 1880. C.C. Boycott, Esq. Sir,&mdash;In
+accordance with the decision made in Lord Erne's last letter to us, we
+want you to appoint a day to receive the rents.&mdash;<span class="sc">The Tenants</span>.
+A reply requested."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>Mr. Boycott's reply was that he was ready to receive the rents at ten
+o'clock this morning, an hour after which time he received the
+following notice:&mdash;"The tenants request an answer to the following
+before they pay you the rent:&mdash;1st. Don't you wish you may get it?
+2nd. When do you expect the Orangemen, and how are they to come? 3rd.
+When are you going to hook it? Let us know, so that we may see you
+off. 4th. Are you any way comfortable? Don't be uneasy in your mind:
+we'll take care of you. Down with the landlords and agents. God save
+Ireland." Such communications as this are agreeable and amusing enough
+when addressed to a distant friend, but are hardly so diverting when
+directed to one's self. It is also disquieting to hear people say, as
+one passes, "He will not hear the birds sing in spring."</p>
+
+<p>Next to open and secret enemies, indiscreet friends are, perhaps, the
+most disagreeable of created beings. Unfortunate Mr. Boycott, who
+wanted a score, at most, of Northern men to get in his crop, has been
+threatened with an invasion from Ulster. The opposition of the
+Government to such "Ulsterior" measures, as a Galway man called them
+to-day, has at least had the effect of moderating the rancour of the
+relief expedition. Only fifty, with baggage and implements, are
+announced as on the march, but even this number is a hideous
+infliction on Mr. Boycott. He has nowhere to lodge them but in a
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span>barn, and has assuredly not the wherewithal to feed them, so that
+their help and sympathy are somewhat overwhelming. Three hundred men
+of the 76th Regiment have been sent over from Castlebar to Claremorris
+to keep order, with Captain Webster's squadron of the 19th Hussars to
+furnish escort to Hollymount, where a troop of the Royals, under
+Lieutenant Rutledge, and 200 men of the 84th Regiment meet them. To
+Lough Mask House itself a squadron of the 19th Hussars and 100
+infantry have been despatched to occupy the ground inspected and
+selected this morning by Colonel Bedingfeld and Captain Tomkinson
+during my visit to Mr. Boycott.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<p class="right"><span class="sc">Ballinrobe, Co. Mayo</span>, <i>Friday Night, Nov. 12th.</i></p>
+
+<p>The march of the Ulster contingent last evening commenced smoothly
+enough at Claremorris. The dismal little country station was lined
+with troops, and perhaps made a more brilliant show than at any other
+period during its existence. After the manner of this part of the
+country the train due at 2.41 arrived at 3.30 <span class="sc">P.M.</span>, and it
+was almost twilight before the well-guarded procession commenced.
+Perhaps two thousand persons assembled at dreary Claremorris, but the
+small representation of the country side made up for the paucity of
+its numbers by the loudness of its voice. The groans which announced
+the arrival of the train were <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span>repeated again and again as the
+sixty-three officers and men of the Ulster contingent made their way
+towards the cars engaged for them. At the cars, however, some
+difficulty occurred; for the drivers absolutely refused to carry
+anybody but police. They were not bound, they said, to carry
+Orangemen, and would not carry them. This difficulty occasioned some
+little hustling, but the upshot was that the Ulster men, a well-grown,
+powerful set of fellows, were compelled to walk all the way from
+Claremorris to the infantry barracks at Ballinrobe.</p>
+
+<p>The march was inexpressibly dreary. When any sound was heard it was a
+yell, and these expressions of disapprobation were repeated at
+Hollymount, and with increased vigour at Ballinrobe, where the streets
+were full of people. The Boycott Brigade was last night kept strictly
+within barracks, not a soul being allowed to venture out of the gate.</p>
+
+<p>The general aspect of everybody and everything in Ballinrobe this
+morning expressed fatigue. The Ulster contingent, who call themselves
+"workmen," were terribly knocked up by their walk of about thirteen
+miles from Claremorris, a fact which hardly speaks well for their
+thews and sinews, but in fairness it must be admitted that they were
+obliged to undertake their march after a long and fatiguing railway
+journey, at sundown, on a muddy road, and in alternate light and heavy
+rain. They were also poorly fed, for their carts and implements
+generally <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span>only came in here this afternoon, escorted by the Royal
+Dragoons, under Captain Tomkinson, during part of the distance, and
+for the remainder by a troop of the 19th Hussars; wherefore the Ulster
+"workmen" hardly appeared to advantage this morning until breakfast
+had been supplied them in the infantry barracks. Then they
+straightened their backs and stood squarely enough to make a very old
+soldier exclaim with delight, "Foine men, sorr, they'd be with me to
+dhrill 'um for a couple o' weeks."</p>
+
+<p>Poorly fed as the Orangemen were, their case was not nearly so hard as
+that of the military. It is all very well to send "the fut and the
+dhragoons in squadhrons and plathoons" to the fore, but it is not
+clever to send them to Ballinrobe or elsewhere without tents, baggage,
+or food. That furious Ulster Tories, "spoiling for a fight," should
+leave everything but repeating rifles and revolving pistols behind
+when rushing to possible fray is quite conceivable; but that the
+Control Department should always blunder when troops are moved rapidly
+is not quite so easy to understand.</p>
+
+<p>By what appears almost persistent clumsiness the troops sent hither
+were allowed to arrive many hours before their tents, baggage, and
+provisions. Suddenly ordered to leave Dublin, two squadrons of the
+19th Hussars, a not very huge or unmanageable army of a hundred and
+twenty men, came away <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span>without being allowed to bring rations with
+them. The effect of this blundering is that the Hussars have been
+pursued by their food and tents, and on the night of their arrival
+were utterly without any accommodation whatever. The cooking pots have
+only just arrived here. Why it should take three days to convey a
+cooking pot over the distance a man travels in less than ten hours it
+is difficult to imagine; but the fact is absolutely true,
+nevertheless. The officer commanding the unlucky Hussars has more
+cause to complain than any of his men, for, owing to an accident to
+his own charger on the railway platform, he was obliged to ride a
+fresh horse, which, startled by the crowd, yesterday reared suddenly,
+and fell backwards upon Major Coghill, who is now confined to his
+room. It is hoped that no bones are broken, but this is not yet
+accurately ascertained, so great is the swelling and inflammation.</p>
+
+<p>The hour of starting was late, by reason of everybody being tired with
+the hard, dull, wet work of yesterday, unrelieved by the slightest
+approach to a breach of the peace. Fatigue and disappointment had done
+their work, and only a few of the more ardent and sanguine spirits
+looked cheerfully forward to the march to Lough Mask House. The
+Orangemen, however, had not lost all hope, and one stalwart fellow,
+who told me he was a steward, and not an agricultural labourer,
+rejoiced in carrying a perfect <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span>arsenal, including a double-barrelled
+gun of his own, a "repeater" of Mr. Maxwell's, and several full-sized
+revolvers. This honest fellow confessed that digging potatoes and
+pulling mangolds were not his regular occupations, but that he had
+come "for the fun of the thing," and to show them there were still
+"loyal men left in Ireland." This is hardly the place in which to
+discuss the loyalty which goes on an amateur potato-digging excursion
+armed with Remington rifles and navy revolvers and escorted by an army
+of horse, foot, and police.</p>
+
+<p>The quality of loyalty, like that of mercy, is not strained, but it
+has fallen upon Mayo unlike the "gentle dew from heaven." The people
+here are undoubtedly cowed by the overwhelming display of military
+force, but they vow revenge for the affront put upon the soil of the
+county by the Northern invaders. Against the soldiers no animosity is
+felt, but the hatred against the cause of their presence is bitter and
+profound. Mayo has its back up, and only waits for an opportunity of
+vengeance.</p>
+
+<p>At eleven o'clock the march from the barracks to Lough Mask commenced.
+First came a strong detachment of constabulary, then a squadron of the
+19th Hussars, commanded by Captain Webster, and next two hundred men
+of the 84th and 76th Regiments, who completely surrounded and enclosed
+the so-called "workmen" and their leaders, Mr. Somerset Maxwell, who
+contested Cavan at the last election in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span>the Conservative interest,
+and Mr. Goddard, a solicitor of Monaghan, who led the men of that
+county, with whom was the Mr. Manning to whose letters in the <i>Daily
+Express</i>, a Dublin newspaper, the Orange movement is attributed in
+this part of the country. In the rear came the men and waggons of the
+Army Service Corps.</p>
+
+<p>To the astonishment of most of those who formed part of the procession
+the number of persons assembled to witness it was almost ridiculously
+small, and popular indignation roared as gently as a sucking-dove. In
+their own opinion the most law-abiding of Her Majesty's subjects, the
+Ballinrobe folk indulged but very slightly in groaning or hissing, and
+when the little army got clear of the town its sole followers were a
+couple of cars, a market cart, and a private gig driven by a lady, the
+tag-rag and bobtail being made up of a dozen bare-legged girls, whose
+scoffs and jeers never went beyond the inquiry, "Wad ye dig auld
+Boycott's pitaties, thin?" There was no wit or humour racy of the
+soil, no flashes of bitter sarcasm, no pungent observations: everybody
+felt that the thing was going off like a damp firework, and that,
+bating the "Dead March" from <i>Saul</i>, it was very like a funeral.
+Still, those who ought to know declared that the absence of any
+demonstration was in itself a bad sign. Hardly any men were seen on
+the line of march, but it was said that scouts were on every hill, and
+that pains were being taken to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span>identify the Orangemen. It was also
+heard on the best authority that Mr. Ruttledge's herds had been
+threatened and ordered to quit his service by the mysterious agency
+which rules the rural mind of Mayo.</p>
+
+<p>Silently, except for an occasional laugh or two from a colleen
+standing by the wayside, we kept the line of march towards Lough Mask.
+At the village, standing on two townlands, a few more spectators hove
+in sight, but at no point could more than a dozen be counted. As the
+sun now shone through the western sky it revealed a picturesque as
+well as interesting scene.</p>
+
+<p>Like a huge red serpent with black head and tail, the convoy wound
+gradually up a slight hill, the scarlet thrown into relief by the long
+line of grey walls on either side, beyond which lay green fields and
+clumps of trees dyed with the myriad hues of autumn, the distance
+being filled in by the purple mountains beyond Lough Mask. Presently
+came the angle which marks the extremity of Captain Boycott's land.
+Taking the road to the right, we approached the house under ban, and
+around which a crowd of peasants had been expected. The only human
+beings in sight were the police guarding the entrance by the lodge,
+and those stationed near the hut on a slight eminence to the right.
+Here the surrounding trees contrasted vividly with the animated and
+highly coloured scenes beneath. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span>Completely enclosed by foliage was an
+encampment of the most picturesque kind.</p>
+
+<p>On the greenest of all possible fields in front of the tents the
+officers commanding the escort, the leaders of the Ulster Brigade, and
+the resident magistrates were received by Mr. Boycott, who appeared in
+a dark shooting-dress and cap, and carried a double-barrelled gun in
+his hand. A little further on stood Mrs. Boycott and her nephew and
+niece, the house itself seeming almost deserted. The workmen, like the
+troopers, formed in line, and appeared to be equally well armed.</p>
+
+<p>Presently the arduous task of stowing the uninvited Northern
+contingent was undertaken. The troops, who had remained on the ground
+all night, and had been reduced to straits by the failure of the
+commissariat, had, after some reflection and the exercise of
+considerable patience, taken care of themselves as best they might.
+Sheep had been slain, and chickens and geese had lent savoury aid to
+the banquet of the warriors, who also, in the absence of other fuel,
+were constrained to make short work of Lord Erne's trees. But they had
+done their work cheerfully in the cold and wet, and had pitched tents
+for the Ulster men. When the belligerent "agriculturists" came to be
+told off into these tents an amusing difficulty, illustrative of the
+light handling necessary to the conduct of affairs in Ireland,
+interrupted the dulness which had hitherto oppressed all present.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span>Those "agriculturists" who hailed from Cavan insisted that they would
+foregather only with Cavan men, while the men of Monaghan were equally
+indisposed to give a Cavan man "as much space as a lark could stand
+on" in their tents. Moreover some jealousy was exhibited as to the
+situation and furniture of the tents assigned to the two wings of the
+army of relief. At last harmony was restored, and the edifying
+spectacle of Cavan and Monaghan fighting it out then and there, while
+Mayo looked on, was averted, greatly to the sorrow of a Mayo friend of
+mine, whose eyes sparkled and whose mouth watered at the delicious
+prospect.</p>
+
+<p>It seems that Mr. Boycott, fully aware of the feelings of Mayo folk
+after having Orangemen set on them, is about to leave the country, at
+least for a while, after his crop has been got in&mdash;probably a rational
+decision on his part. Meanwhile he is having a hard time of it between
+friends and foes. His enemies have spoiled a great part of his crop,
+and what they have left his defenders threaten to devour.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<p class="right"><span class="sc">Ballinrobe, Co. Mayo</span>, <i>Nov. 13.</i></p>
+
+<p>A wild night of wind and rain was borne with unflagging spirit by the
+unlucky troops condemned to the most uncongenial of tasks. The fair
+green of Ballinrobe is now a quagmire, and the men under canvas have
+had the roughest possible night of it. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span>Only two tents were actually
+carried away, but the hurricane made all those in the others
+uncomfortable enough. For ordinary pedestrians, perhaps, the slush of
+this morning was better than the sticky mud of yesterday, in which it
+was impossible to move; but the autumnal charm of Ballinrobe was gone
+for this year.</p>
+
+<p>In the cavalry encampment the leaves lay thick around the unfortunate
+horses exposed to the weather with miserably insufficient covering.
+There was a general air of wetness and wretchedness from the infantry
+to the cavalry barracks, and some misgivings were entertained as to
+the condition of the garrison of Lough Mask House. General opinion has
+set in decidedly against the Ulster contingent: horse and foot, and
+police, magistrates and floating population unite in wishing the
+Ulster Orangemen "five fathoms under the Rialto." In the language of
+those who dwell habitually on the banks of the river the wish is
+epigrammatically expressed, "May the Robe be their winding-sheet."</p>
+
+<p>Originally imagined as a scheme to force the hand of the Government,
+the Ulster invasion has been so far successful. The great actual
+mischief has been already done. According to public opinion in Mayo,
+the Government had no more than the traditional three courses open to
+them&mdash;they could have let armed Ulster come in hundreds or thousands,
+an invading force, and civil <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span>war would have ensued; they could have
+allowed the small number of labourers really needed by Mr. Boycott to
+arrive by threes and fours, at the risk of not getting alive to Lough
+Mask at all; and they could do as they have done. The probable effect
+of the movement, if any, will be to bring Mr. Somerset-Maxwell to the
+fore at the next contest for the county of Cavan. It may be imagined
+that the picked men of Monaghan are not very pleased at playing second
+fiddle to an electioneering scheme. Concerning Cavan, the hope of a
+fight between the men of the two counties has by no means died away.</p>
+
+<p>To do justice to the Ulster men, they displayed a great deal of
+earnestness at Lough Mask House this morning. In the midst of a
+hurricane a large number of them went bravely out to a potato field
+and worked with a conscience at getting out the national vegetables,
+which ran a risk of being completely spoiled by the rain. The
+potatoes, however, might, as Mr. Boycott opined, have been spoiled if
+they had remained in the ground, and might as well be ruined in one
+way as the other.</p>
+
+<p>The remainder of the Orangemen, when I saw them, were busy in the barn
+with a so-called "Tiny" threshing-machine, threshing Mr. Boycott's
+oats with all the seriousness and solemn purpose befitting their task.
+Nothing could have been more dreary and wretched than the entire
+proceedings. Mr. Boycott <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span>himself had discarded his martial array of
+yesterday, and appeared in a herdsman's overcoat of venerable age,
+and, as he grasped a crook instead of a double-barrelled gun, looked
+every inch a patriarch. He exhibits no profuse gratitude towards the
+officious persons who have come to help him, thinking probably that he
+would have been nearly as well without them. Thanks to his obstructive
+assistants, he is almost overwhelmed with sympathisers gifted by
+nature with tremendous appetites. Keen-eyed officers detect the
+mutton-bones which tell of unauthorised ovicide, and "clutches" of
+geese and chickens vanish as if by magic. There will be a fearful bill
+for somebody to pay when the whole business is over, whenever that may
+be.</p>
+
+<p>From every quarter I hear acts of the so-called "staunchness" of the
+population. When Captain Tomkinson went over to Claremorris yesterday
+with dragoons to convey the carts and other impediments of the Ulster
+division, it happened that one of the cart-horses lost a shoe. Will it
+be believed that it was necessary to delude the only blacksmith who
+could be captured with a story that the animal belonged to the Army
+Service Corps? Simple and artless, the Claremorris blacksmith made the
+shoe: but before he could put it on he was "infawrrumd" that the beast
+he was working for was in an Ulster cart. Down fell the hammer, the
+nails, and the shoe. The blacksmith was immovable. Not a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span>blow more
+would he strike for love or money; nor would any blacksmith for miles
+around this place. At last the shoe was got on to the horse's foot
+among the military and police; but not a soul belonging to this part
+of the country would drive a cart at any price.</p>
+
+<p>All this appears to point to the conclusion that when Mr. Boycott's
+potatoes, turnips, and mangolds are got in, and his oats are threshed
+out, when his sheep are either sold or devoured on the spot by his
+hungry defenders, he will accompany the Orangemen on their return
+march, at least to the nearest railway station. That neither he nor
+his auxiliaries would be safe for a single hour after the departure of
+the military is certain, and the expense of maintaining a huge
+garrison in Ballinrobe will therefore of necessity continue until the
+last potato is dug and the last turnip pulled.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> If the weather were
+only moderately favourable, the work might be got through in a week or
+ten days; but if it rains as it has done to-day, it is quite
+impossible to say when it will be done. As I was looking at the men
+potato-digging the rain seemed to cut at one's face like a whip, and
+all through the afternoon Ballinrobe has been deluged. In this
+beautiful island everybody disregards ordinary rain, but the downpour
+of the last few days is quite extraordinary. The river is swollen to
+double its usual size, and the slushy <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span>misery endured by the military
+under canvas is quite beyond general camp experience. The soldiers
+have only one consolation&mdash;that the Orangemen are under canvas too.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<p class="right"><span class="sc">Galway</span>, <i>Tuesday, Nov. 16th.</i></p>
+
+<p>"Thim that is snug, your honour, is slower in payin' than thim that is
+poor," said one of my informants a few days ago, just as I was setting
+out for the seat of war in county Mayo. The speaker was a Connemara
+man, and his remark was applied more particularly to his own region;
+but the state of affairs in the neighbouring county illustrates his
+opinion in the most vivid colours.</p>
+
+<p>Ballinrobe is the centre of a by no means unprosperous part of
+Ireland. Pretty homesteads are frequent, and well-furnished stackyards
+refresh the eye wearied with looking upon want and desolation. Between
+Ballinrobe and Hollymount the country is agreeably fertile; toward
+Cong and Cloonbur, where Lord Mountmorres was shot, and in the
+direction of Headford, on the Galway road, there is plenty of evidence
+of prosperity. It is, however, precisely in the rich country lying
+east of Lough Mask that the greatest disinclination to pay rent
+prevails. Nowhere is the disaffected party more completely organized,
+and nowhere is it, rightly or wrongly, thought that some of the
+tenants could more easily pay up if they liked. As contrasted with
+the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span>hovels of the northern part of Mayo and the west of county
+Galway, the houses at Ballinrobe are comfortable, and the people
+apparently naturally well off. Moreover, they have a better idea of
+what comfort is than the inhabitants of the seaboard. I cannot better
+show this than by describing the houses in which I passed part, at
+least, of the last two Sundays.</p>
+
+<p>When I arrived at Ballinrobe on Wednesday last it was almost
+impossible to obtain quarters either for love or money. I had
+telegraphed beforehand to that most civil and obliging of
+hotel-keepers, Mr. Valkenburgh, of Ballinrobe, to secure rooms for me
+and send a car to Cong. The car came, and the driver with whom I had
+the debate already recorded, but it had been impossible to obtain a
+room for me anywhere. Mr. Valkenburgh's own house was crammed to the
+roof with closely laid strata of guests, from the American reporter
+under the roof to the cavalry officer in the front parlour. There was
+nothing for it but to be bedded out&mdash;a severe infliction in some parts
+of Ireland. The polite hotel-keeper finally bethought him that in the
+house of a widow, who had only four officers of Hussars staying with
+her, a stray corner could be found; and I was finally established in
+the widow's drawing-room or best parlour, in which a cot, only a foot
+too short for me, was placed.</p>
+
+<p>The excellent woman, whose house was converted <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span>into military
+quarters, is by no means rich. Her late husband was in the office of a
+neighbouring landlord, and would appear to have been just getting on
+in the world when he died. He certainly lived in a house properly so
+called; not a house in the Irish meaning of the word, which includes a
+Connemara cabin. It is only one storey high. The ground floor is
+occupied by two parlours, a kitchen, and offices; the bedrooms being
+upstairs. There are curious signs of better times about the place. My
+bed was far too short, but by the side of it was an old-fashioned
+square pianoforte. There was no carpet on the floor, but the lamp was
+a very good one, and well trimmed. The fire was entirely of turf, but
+of enormous size, and on the mantelpiece were some excellent
+photographs. Hens clucked as they hopped on to the table, and a
+red-headed colleen was perpetually chasing a cat of almost equally
+ruddy hue, but everybody was mightily civil and kindly. The room was
+full of peat-smoke, but the eggs were undeniably fresh; so that there
+were compensations on every side. The widow, her step-daughter, and
+the colleen before mentioned did all the work. They made my bed, what
+there was of it, they tended the fire with unflagging zeal, they
+brought water in very limited quantity for the purposes of ablution,
+they dried my boots and clothes with almost motherly care and
+tenderness when I came in out of the pouring rain. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span>In fact, nobody
+could have been kinder or more attentive, and when Major Coghill was
+laid up by his accident their sympathy was almost overwhelming. Yet I
+believe that we annoyed them and deranged the tenor of their lives by
+our matutinal habits. Perhaps they might have been strong enough to
+resist my desperate efforts to get a cup of tea at some time before
+nine o'clock in the morning, but the officers' servants were too
+strong for them. They came and knocked the house up betimes, and then
+the bustle of the day began.</p>
+
+<p>Now, I have been assured by the Irish priests and people that whatever
+faults your Commissioner may have, prejudice against Ireland and the
+Irish is not one of them. But at the risk of being thought a
+censorious Saxon I must confess that I am quite at issue with Western
+Ireland on the question of early rising. It is impossible to get
+anybody out of bed in the morning except the Boots at an hotel, and
+then the chances are that no hot water is to be obtained.</p>
+
+<p>A housemaid in one of the Mayo hotels on coming up to make a fire
+complained bitterly, not of the toil of coming up stairs, but of the
+early hour of ten, and do what I would I could get nothing done
+earlier. On another occasion I was told that people out West rose late
+because the "day is long enough for hwhat we have got to do." I
+retorted that they did not do it, but fear that my remark was put
+down <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span>to prejudice. It is not my function to indulge in sweeping
+assertions, but if I were asked why the Western people do not prosper
+I should be inclined to reply&mdash;Because they will not turn out early in
+the morning.</p>
+
+<p>But they are pleasant people in Ballinrobe nevertheless. Our widow
+never complained of our unearthly hours any more than we did of the
+turf smoke which communicated a high flavour to all our habiliments.
+The widow, although not rich, is evidently "snug" in her
+circumstances. She has a farm or two, part of which is underlet of
+course. This is another peculiarity of Irish life very remarkable to
+the stranger. Everybody seems to do work by deputy. A proprietor of a
+landed estate, not worth a thousand pounds a year when interest is
+paid on the various mortgages, would never think of being his own
+agent&mdash;that is doing his own work on his own estate. Not at all. He
+employs an agent who, thinking him rather small fry, neglects him or
+hands him over to the bailiff, who again transfers him to his
+"headmen," so that three people are paid for looking on before anybody
+does anything. This practice also may be in part the cause of the
+decay of the wild West.</p>
+
+<p>I have been so far particular in my remarks concerning the Ballinrobe
+widow, in order to compare the inland standard of comfort with that
+prevailing on the sea-coast. Just before the Ulster invasion as <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span>it is
+called here, I was induced to go to Omey Island. It is a place of evil
+repute for poverty, but is as healthy as it ought to be, having the
+blue Atlantic for one lung and the brown hills of Connemara for the
+other. It is one of those interesting islands which become peninsulas
+at low tide, a charming natural feature making it a matter of tidal
+calculation whether one can drive on board of them or not. It is not
+as bad as Innishark, which requires a trained gymnast to effect a
+landing, for it only needs nimbleness of brain instead of that of
+limbs.</p>
+
+<p>While that zealous and hard-working young minister of the gospel,
+Father Rhatigan, was saying mass, and visiting that part of his flock
+congregated at Claddaghduff Chapel, I made my way over the
+intermittent isthmus of dry, hard, fine sand. It was an agreeable
+change from the road, which for some distance had lain over a "shaved
+bog"&mdash;that is, a locality from which the peat had been cut away down
+to its rocky bed. For some distance nothing was visible but stones, on
+which the rain came plashing down like a cataract. But the aspect and
+situation of Omey Island are such as to suggest to the speculative
+mind another and better Scheveningen without anything between it and
+Labrador. The island is not, however, purely sandbank, as Scheveningen
+appears to be, for it has a nucleus of rock, the sand being a later
+accumulation, every year increasing in volume, after the manner
+observed in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span>Donegal, or as stones are amassed at Dungeness. I had
+heard wild stories of Omey Island, of troglodytes, hungry dwellers in
+rocky seaside caves, and rabbit-people burrowing in the sand. As
+Maundeville observes, "Verilie I have not seen them," but I can quite
+understand how the story was spread.</p>
+
+<p>Over against the inhabited part of the island is what is now a mere
+sandbank. It is now covered with sand, and not a soul dwells thereon.
+But there were people there once who clung to their stone cabins till
+the sand finally covered them; so that they might fairly be described
+as dwellers or burrowers therein. At last their cabins became sanded
+up, and the poor folk moved to their present situation. Now I have
+seen superb potatoes grown literally in the sand at Scheveningen, and
+was not surprised to hear that Omey Island was once so famous for the
+national staff of life that few cared to grow anything else. But there
+are difficulties everywhere, and it is parlous work to break up ground
+at Omey. There is too much fresh air; for it blows so hard that people
+are afraid to disturb the thin covering of herbage which overspreads
+the best part of the island. "If ye break the shkin of 'um, your
+honour, the wind blows the sand away and leaves your pitaties bare.
+And, begorra, there are nights when the pitaties thimselves 'ud be
+blown away."</p>
+
+<p>Statements like this must always be taken at a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span>reduction, but,
+judging from my own experience, Omey is a "grand place for weather
+entirely." Half of the island is rented by a considerable farmer, for
+these parts. He pays a hundred pounds a year for his farm at Omey, and
+a hundred and fifty for another cattle farm up on the hills. When I
+said he "pays," I am not at all sure whether he has paid up this year
+or not, but he has flocks and herds, and of course is a responsible
+tenant. Yet he lives with his family in but a "bettermost" sort of
+cabin. His wife treated me most hospitably; in fact, she paid me too
+much honour, for she insisted that I should not sit round the fire
+with the countryfolk, but occupy the best parlour, a room large
+enough, but blackened with smoke, and unutterably depressing, despite
+the cabinet pianoforte opposite the fireplace. Musical instruments of
+torture appear to be considered a necessary mark of competence in
+Western Ireland, just as a big watch-chain is in certain parts of
+England. Not a soul on Omey Island could play the pianoforte, thank
+heaven; so it remained with its back against the wall, as mute
+evidence of solvency. There was no carpet on the floor, which was of a
+fine dirt-colour, and the chickens, ducks, and geese circulated freely
+about.</p>
+
+<p>Here now was a man paying, or promising to pay, 250<i>l.</i> a year in
+rent, and who yet seemed to have not the faintest idea of comfort. It
+should be recollected that my visit was paid on a Sunday, when his
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span>family would be seen at their best; but the girls were running about
+with bare feet and dirty faces, and the neighbouring gossips, also
+barefooted and dirty beyond all imagination, were hanging round the
+fire, talking amongst themselves about the stranger, and half mad with
+curiosity concerning him. The farmer lived, it is true, in a wild
+place; but sand is so clean a thing in itself that it is a mystery how
+his tribe of children got so abominably dirty.</p>
+
+<p>The drive homeward past Streamstown was wet enough, but still
+interesting in many ways. In no part of Ireland has the curse of
+middlemen been felt more severely than in Connemara. The middleman is
+specially abhorrent to the people when he is one of themselves. He is
+"not a gentleman, sure," is a deadly reproach in this part of the
+country. Practically he is objectionable because, being one of the
+people, he is aware of their tricks and their ways, and suspects them
+as they hate and suspect him. What would be urbanity on the part of
+the real "masther" is in the middleman viewed as deceit. The sharp
+tone of command endurable in a superior is resented when employed by a
+person of low origin. And it would seem that middlemen are not as a
+race persons of agreeable character. All the old rags of feudalism
+which have hung about Connemara long after their annihilation
+elsewhere, have been saved wherever it was possible by the middleman.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span>I am not quite certain that any one of these has ever "hung out his
+flag for fish" after the manner of the old proprietors who, when they
+wanted fish for dinner, made their tenants obey their signal and put
+back, whatever might be the chance of the night's catch. This flag
+was, so "men seyn," hung out often by the Bodkins, the ancient owners
+of Omey Island, but how long it is since it was last done is hardly
+worth while to inquire. Far more interesting is the much talked of
+"survival" of feudalism in the shape of what is called "duty work."
+Something analogous to the <i>corv&eacute;e</i> existed, I believe, in Hungary
+till a comparatively recent period, when it was commuted for rent.
+Within the limits of the English Kingdom, however, stories about "duty
+work" clash oddly on the ear, and yet I am assured that in the lesser
+island of Turk such work has been insisted on and "processed" for
+within twelve or eighteen months. Vexatious processes are not
+undertaken just now for very obvious reasons.</p>
+
+<p>"Duty work," so far as I can gather, is, or was&mdash;for no such work will
+be done again in Ireland&mdash;a modified, form of the <i>corv&eacute;e</i>. Here and
+there it was enforced in various shapes. At Omey, in Aughrisbeg, at
+Fountainhill, and at the lesser isle of Turk, the conditions varied
+greatly. The general principle appears to have been that besides rent
+in money, fine on entry, and dues analogous to tithes on stock of pigs
+and poultry, a certain number of days in the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span>year were the property
+of the landlord. The usual term was about a week in spring and a week
+at harvest-time. In some places five days only were exacted; in others
+three. In the case concerning which I am best instructed, five days in
+spring and five in harvest-time were demanded, together with any one
+day in the year on which the tenant might be wanted, at a wage of
+sixpence. If the tenant refuse "duty work" he may be sued in
+court&mdash;the damage incurred by his default being generally assessed at
+five pounds.</p>
+
+<p>Now it does not require any very clear perception to discover that
+among agriculturists or fishermen "duty work" is an improper mode of
+levying tax. In spring and autumn, and especially in the latter, the
+tenant requires for getting in his own crop precisely the week that
+the landlord is entitled to claim. Yet he must leave his own to assist
+his landlord. On one of the little islands, let to a middleman, all
+the evil features of the <i>corv&eacute;e</i> are brought into prominence. The
+island produces three kinds of sea-weed, the so-called "red weed," cut
+off the rocks and used for kelp; the "black weed" on the shore, used
+for manure for potato-fields&mdash;often the only manure to be got; and the
+drift, or mixed weed.</p>
+
+<p>After spring tides there is a great mass of drift-weed on the rocks,
+half of which is on the territory reserved by the middleman, and the
+other <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span>on that half rented by the tenants. The latter must give their
+master his day's work first to get in his weed, and take the chance of
+seeing their own washed away during the night.</p>
+
+<p>From Ballynakill&mdash;where the ribs rising in the green grass-land, like
+waves in an emerald sea, tell of extinct cultivation, of depopulated
+villages, and an "exterminated" people&mdash;to the supremely wretched
+islands of Bofin and Turk, the record is fearfully consistent. A
+people first neglected, and then crushed by evictions, has sunk quite
+below the level of civilization.</p>
+
+<br />
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> This prediction was literally fulfilled.</p></div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="VII" id="VII"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>VII.<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h3>MR. RICHARD STACPOOLE.</h3>
+<br />
+
+<p class="right"><span class="sc">Ennis, Co. Clare</span>, <i>Nov. 21st.</i></p>
+
+<p>At the seat of war by Lough Mask, I was informed that it would be
+sheer waste of time to go to Clare; that all was peaceful in the
+county which Daniel O'Connell formerly represented in Parliament; that
+at Ennis, under the shadow of the Liberator's statue, rebel commotion
+was unknown. All was quiet. It was true that people did not pay their
+rent, but that was all. I should waste my time, and so forth. But no
+sooner had I set foot in Ennis than I found that the <i>jacquerie</i> which
+broke out in Mayo and Galway had reached county Clare, and that at
+least one gentleman living close to the principal town is at war with
+his tenants and the country side.</p>
+
+<p>The condition of affairs at Edenvale is in many respects even more
+curious than that at Lough Mask House. There is none of the pomp and
+circumstance of open war. There is not a soldier or a policeman on the
+premises. All is calm and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span>pastoral. From a lodge so neat and trim
+that it is a pleasure to look upon it, a well-kept road winds through
+a well-wooded and beautiful park, in the centre of which, on the brink
+of a lake, stands a large and handsome country house. All is
+ship-shape, from the gravel on the path to the knocker on the door,
+which is promptly opened, without grating of bolt or rattle of chain,
+by a clean, well-dressed, civil servitor.</p>
+
+<p>All such signs of peace, order, and plenty are very noteworthy after
+one has been four or five weeks in Mayo and Galway, and convey a first
+impression that law, order, and civilization generally are to the fore
+in county Clare. The large and handsome drawing-room strengthens the
+conviction that here at least life and property are secure. It is true
+that several double-barrelled guns are on the hall-table; but country
+gentlemen in Ireland go out shooting as they do elsewhere. Several
+large dogs, too, are running about outside the house; but as Mr.
+Richard Stacpoole is a celebrated sportsman, there is nothing
+wonderful in that.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Stacpoole, whose appearance and manner are as frank as his welcome
+is hearty, is by no means reticent as to the matters in debate between
+him and the tenants holding from him and other members of his family
+for whom he acts as agent. To the question whether he goes in fear of
+his life, he replies, "Not at all; I take care of that," and out <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span>of
+the pocket of his lounging jacket he takes a revolver of very large
+bore. It is a curious picture, this drawing-room at Edenvale. On his
+own hearth-rug, in his own house, with a silky white Maltese lapdog
+and a beautiful terrier nestling at his feet, stands no English or
+Scotch interloper, agent, middleman, or "land-grabber," but the
+representative of one of the oldest, most honourable, and, I may add,
+till recently most honoured families in the county, with his hand on
+the pistol which is never out of his reach by day or night. There was
+once no more popular man in Clare. His steeplechasers win glory for
+Ireland at Liverpool, whether they return a profit to their owner or
+not. He keeps up, with slight assistance from members of the Hunt, a
+pack of harriers, and hunts them himself. His cousin, the late Captain
+Stacpoole, of Ballyalla, was the well-known "silent member" who for
+twenty years represented Ennis in Parliament. Finally, he is spending
+at least 3,000<i>l.</i> a year in household expenses alone; but he never
+leaves his revolver; and he is in the right, for not two hours ago a
+local leader declared to me with pale face and flaming eyes that he
+would "gladly go to the gallows for 'um."</p>
+
+<p>But the local leader does not, or at least has not yet shot at Mr.
+Stacpoole because he "can't get at 'um"&mdash;a phrase which requires some
+explanation. I had, with an eye becoming practised in such matters,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span>scanned the house and its approaches as I drove up to the door, and
+had discussed with the friend who introduced me to its master the
+chances of "stalking" that gentleman on his own ground. Trees and
+brushwood grew more closely to the house than a military engineer
+would have permitted, and I hazarded the opinion that it would be easy
+to "do him over," as it is called. But on talking to Mr. Stacpoole I
+quickly discover that the real reason why he is now alive is that
+ninety-nine out of a hundred of his enemies are as afraid of him as
+the Glenveagh folk up in Donegal are of Mr. J.G. Adair. Brave and
+resolute to a fault, he has openly declared his dislike for what is
+called "protection." "But," he observes, quietly and simply, "I always
+carry my large-bore revolver, and I never walk alone, even across the
+path to look down at the lake. Whenever I go out, and wherever I go, I
+have a trustworthy man with me carrying a double-barrelled gun. His
+orders are distinct. If anybody fires at me he is not to look at me,
+but let me lie, and kill the man who fired the shot. And I am not sure
+that if he saw an armed man near me in a suspicious attitude that he
+wouldn't shoot first. I most certainly will myself. If I catch any of
+them armed and lurking about here near my house, I will kill them, and
+they know it."</p>
+
+<p>There was no appearance of emotion in the speaker, whose collection of
+threatening letters is large and curious. His position was clearly
+defined. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span>There was no longer any law in Clare. It was everybody for
+himself, and he would take care of himself in his own way. Mr.
+Stacpoole's situation is certainly extraordinary. He is not an
+"exterminator," but perhaps he is a "tyrant," for everybody is
+considered one who tries to exact obedience from any created being in
+the west of Ireland. He has incurred the ill-will of the popular
+party, mainly through his debate with one Welsh, or Walsh, a small
+farmer.</p>
+
+<p>So far as it is possible to understand the matter, this Welsh and two
+other persons held a farm of about fifty acres among them as
+co-tenants, paying each one-third of the rent. Whether Welsh had
+reclaimed bog and increased his store is not clear, but it is certain
+that when the lease fell in he had about half of the farm and the
+other two tenants the other half between them.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, the land was not "striped" in blocks, but remained in
+awkward patches, so that each man was obliged to cross the other's
+land, and perpetual squabbling occurred. So when the question of a new
+lease arose, Mr. Stacpoole sent a surveyor to divide the holding into
+three equal shares as justly and conveniently as might be with
+reference to the tenants' houses. This was done, the land was
+re-valued at 12<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> per acre, the tenants preferring to hold it
+without a lease. Thus two were pleased and one displeased by the new
+arrangement, and the displeased <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span>one, Welsh, or Walsh, was finally
+evicted a short while since, and his house pulled down. Only the other
+day a mob assembled, rebuilt Welsh's house, and reinstated his wife
+and family, who occupy it at this moment. Welsh himself is not with
+them for the reason that Mr. Stacpoole has an attachment out against
+him. However, the family remains, and no process-server would show his
+face at the rebuilt house for fifty pounds. Mr. Stacpoole could, of
+course, go and turn the people out as trespassers, but does not think
+it worth while until he joins issue with all the recalcitrant tenants
+under his control. Some forty of these will neither pay up nor
+surrender their holdings, and Mr. Stacpoole declares that he will get
+Dublin writs against the whole of them, and that if they do not yield
+he will evict them all and compel the authorities to support him.
+There is no concealment about all this, and it is quite certain that
+if Mr. Adair's action in the Derryveagh matter is imitated it will
+only be by aid of the military. The landlord declares he will "have
+his own," and the tenants talk ominously of the "short days and long
+nights" between this and spring.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile they carry on the war after their fashion. Only a few days
+ago they levelled the walls of a holding which had not been
+administered to please them by Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald. The week before
+last when Mr. Stacpoole's harriers met there was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span>a crowd assembled of
+men on foot and on horseback, and the huntsman was ordered by the
+fugleman of the mob to go home. Luckily Mr. Stacpoole himself was at
+Liverpool, winning races with Turco, or something serious might have
+happened. As it was, Mr. Healey and Mr. Studdert, well-known
+cross-country riders, and very popular here, being present, as well as
+one lady, the sport of hare-hunting was allowed to go on; but this
+week, although ordered to go out with his hounds, the huntsman thought
+it wiser to stay at home, and a meeting of the Hunt has been called to
+consider what shall be done.</p>
+
+<p>The people can and will prevent Mr. Stacpoole from hunting unless
+members of the Hunt think it worth while to turn out with carbines and
+revolvers, with the possible result of bringing on a civil war.
+Probably the harriers will be taken over by a Committee of the Hunt to
+whom the present owner offers them, as well as the use of his kennels.
+Should his harriers be effectually prevented from hunting he will have
+no farther reason for remaining in the country, and will probably shut
+up his house, dismiss his servants, and leave Ireland; but this he
+will not do until he has "had his own."</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="VIII" id="VIII"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span><br />
+
+
+<h3>VIII.<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h3>PATRIOTS.</h3>
+<br />
+
+<p class="right"><span class="sc">Ennis, Co. Clare</span>, <i>Nov. 22nd.</i></p>
+
+<p>Ennis, on deliberate inspection, proves to be by far the most
+interesting western town I have yet visited. To paraphrase a familiar
+saying, its politics and its liquor are as strong as they are
+abundant. Ennis is famous for its electioneering fights, for its three
+bridges, for its public square "forenint" O'Connell's statue, said to
+have held thirty thousand people on a space which would not contain a
+fifth of that number, for its numerous banks, for its fine salmon
+river, the Fergus, for its police barrack, once the mansion of the
+Crowe family, and for its long since closed Turkish bath, the ruined
+proprietor whereof is now in the lunatic asylum on the road to
+Ballyalla. Ennis is also proud of its County Club, of its handsome
+drapery stores, of its brand-new waterworks, of its hundred and odd
+whisky-shops, and of its patriots. Of the latter by far the most
+eminent is a certain man named in newspaper reports M.G. Considine,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span>Esq., but better known to his fellow-citizens as "Dirty Mick." Mr.
+Considine is a fine specimen of the good old crusted Irish patriot. He
+has pursued patriotism ever since the day of Daniel O'Connell, and it
+redounds greatly to his honour that he is now as poor as when he
+started in that profession.</p>
+
+<p>This Milesian Diogenes is in many respects the most remarkable man in
+county Clare, after, if not before, The O'Gorman Mahon himself. He is
+also the dirtiest. But the grime on Mr. Considine has a romantic
+origin. It is the fakir's robe of filth. When he was only a budding
+patriot the great Liberator once kissed him. Mr. Considine determined
+that the cheek sanctified by the embrace of O'Connell should never
+again be profaned by water, that the kiss should never be washed off.
+Without speculating as to the degree of cleanliness previously
+favoured by Mr. Considine, it must be conceded that it is very
+difficult to wash day by day, or week by week, as the case may be,
+round a certain spot on one cheek which, moreover, would soon get out
+of harmony with the remainder of the countenance. It is easier,
+"wiser, better far," to bring the whole face into harmony with the
+sacred sunny side of it.</p>
+
+<p>This has been done; and the result is a picture worthy of Murillo or
+Zurbaran. From the grimy but handsome well-cut face gleam a pair of
+bright, marvellously bright blue eyes, and the voice which bids
+welcome to the stranger is curiously sweet and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span>sonorous. Mr.
+Considine is quite the best speaker here, and his summons will always
+bring an audience to Ennis. One enthusiast said to me, "Whin he dies,
+may the heaven be his bed, and his statue should be beside O'Connell's
+in Ennis." Now this model patriot, whom every one must perforce
+respect for his perfect honesty and disinterestedness, keeps a
+wretched little shop in a trumpery cabin. His stock-in-trade consists
+of a few newspapers, his pantry holds but potatoes. Yet he is a great
+power in Ennis, and the candidate for that borough who neglected him
+would fare badly. I am not insinuating that any charge of venality can
+attach to him. Quite the contrary. He is admitted to be a perfectly
+disinterested citizen by those most opposed to him socially and
+politically. He is not only one of those who have kept the sacred fire
+of agitation burning since the days of O'Connell, but he is the
+possessor of relics of '98. He owns and dons upon occasion the Vinegar
+Hill uniform, and has '98 flags by him to air on great days. By dint
+of sheer honesty and truthfulness this poor grimy old man has become
+actually one of the chiefs of county Clare.</p>
+
+<p>Another patriot came under my notice in a queer kind of way. I had
+gone to look at the reclamation works on the Fergus river, and there
+encountered a scene odd and peculiar beyond previous experience.
+Shortly before me, had arrived Mr. Charles George <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span>Mahon, the nephew
+of The O'Gorman Mahon, and a Mr. Crowe. These two gentlemen being
+neighbours of Mr. Drinkwater, had looked in to see his works, and in a
+friendly way were chatting to one of his foremen, bringing work to a
+standstill, but conducting themselves with the easy affability common
+to the lesser proprietors of county Clare. All was going smoothly
+when, like his predecessors, disregarding the warning that no person
+could be admitted except on business, a strange personage put in an
+appearance. Neither Cruikshank, Daumier, nor Dor&eacute; ever conceived a
+more grotesque figure than that which entered the Clare Reclamation
+works.</p>
+
+<p>Imagine a singularly small rough-coated donkey stunted by too early and
+too hard work, and on its back a cripple&mdash;a <i>cul-de-jatte</i>&mdash;carrying
+his crutches with him, laid across the withers of the unfortunate
+animal he bestrode. Imagine also a face, very cleanly washed, and of
+that Semitic outline and expression by no means uncommon in Connaught,
+dark flashing eyes, an aquiline nose, and a wide expressive mouth.
+Dismounted from his steed and placed up against the wall, the decently
+dressed and well-spoken man, propped up on his crutches, would have
+been thought rather an object of charitable interest than of distrust,
+if not of fear.</p>
+
+<p>This poor and apparently helpless man is a popular speaker and
+lecturer&mdash;one who does not deliver his harangues in high places, but
+rides on <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span>his donkey from village to village, spreading the doctrines
+now acceptable to the rural population. By the upper classes he is
+abhorred as a specially obnoxious and pestilent person. He, on the
+other hand, considers himself oppressed. He was a National
+Schoolmaster, but got into a scrape about a threatening letter, which,
+it is fair to state, was not completely brought home to him. However,
+he lost his place. In the hope that he might be reinstated he passed a
+science and art examination, but he fared no better, and then found
+that the trade of a popular agitator was the most congenial one he
+could pursue. He is also an itinerant scribe, writing letters for
+people who cannot write, making aggrieved people aware of the full
+extent of their grievance, and assisting them to send furious letters
+to the smaller local newspapers, concerning which I hesitate to
+express any opinion, lest the readers of the <i>Daily News</i> should think
+they had stumbled upon the Commination Service.</p>
+
+<p>The bright-eyed, flexible-mouthed <i>cul-de-jatte</i> was firmly planted
+against a stone wall, when his eye caught the figures of the two
+gentlemen talking to Mr. Drinkwater's quarrymen. Immediately the eye
+before-mentioned was aflame, and in sonorous tones the owner
+"war-r-r-ned" the foremen and workmen from holding any converse with
+Mr. Charles George Mahon, whom he addressed personally as "a
+rack-renting landlord," and otherwise held up to scorn <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span>and derision.
+Perched on his crutches, the cripple defied him, and poured out a
+torrent of eloquence on "the fiery dthragon of hunger" and other
+direful creatures, including landlords, which would have set at
+defiance Canon Dwyer's "exploded shaft of Greek philosophy." The scene
+afforded, at least to many there present, as much amusement as
+astonishment. That a nephew of a county member should be publicly
+attacked before a large number of people and be compelled to hear them
+"war-r-r-ned" not to buy an egg or a pat of butter from his tenants
+would be incredible anywhere else than in Ireland at this moment. But
+people are growing accustomed to strange things in these parts.</p>
+
+<p>The Clare Harriers Hunt Club met on Saturday, when Mr. Richard
+Stacpoole formally made the offer of the hounds, got together by
+himself at great expense, to the members of any Hunt Committee that
+might be found. The offer was declined. Mr. Stacpoole then declared
+his resolution to sell off the pack. He cannot keep them at Edenvale,
+for his "dog-feeder" has been "warned" not to give bite or sup to the
+animals for his life. So the hounds go to England to be sold, and the
+eviction&mdash;of landlords&mdash;goes merrily on. Such things may appear
+impossible. But it is precisely The Impossible which occurs every day
+in Ireland.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="IX" id="IX"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span><br />
+
+
+<h3>IX.<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h3>ON THE FERGUS.</h3>
+<br />
+
+<p class="right"><span class="sc">Ennis, Co. Clare</span>, <i>Friday, Nov. 26th.</i></p>
+
+<p>It is noteworthy that the only two persons who are doing much
+reclamation work in the West of Ireland are Manchester men. Mr.
+Mitchell Henry has awakened Connemara, and Mr. Drinkwater has
+performed a similar operation upon county Clare Nothing in connection
+with the Kylemore and Fergus Reclamation works, which have brought to
+and distributed a large sum of money in their respective districts, is
+more remarkable than the apathy of the surrounding proprietors in one
+case and their hostility in the other. Mr. Mitchell Henry could afford
+to wait, and his patience has been attended with success; but Mr.
+Drinkwater was compelled to encounter, not mere passive indifference,
+but active acquisitiveness. For a time stretching beyond the memory of
+man the reclamation of what is called the Clare "slob" has been talked
+about. This talking stage is not unfamiliar in the recent history of
+Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>Everything has been talked about, and some few <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span>things have been done
+after a fashion. There remains in Galway a very comfortable and
+well-managed hotel at the railway station, which was originally built
+with a view to the American traffic scheme since become notorious; but
+the Galway people still believe that their ships were wrecked by a
+combination of Liverpool merchants interested in destroying them. The
+Harbour of Foynes, on the Shannon, was once talked about, but never
+grew into a seaport; while the fishing-piers, as they are called, lie
+dotted around the coast in places to which nobody ever goes and from
+which nobody ever comes. But it was seen long ago that something could
+be done with the Fergus "slob" if anybody could be found to do
+anything. Companies were formed and concessions were obtained, but
+nothing was done, although several square miles of magnificent
+alluvial deposit sixteen feet in depth were to be had for the asking.</p>
+
+<p>In 1843 The O'Gorman Mahon himself, as a county member, talked about
+the grand lands to be reclaimed from the Fergus, and the county talked
+about it; but nothing was done. This is the pleasant way of the West.
+All take an interest in any possible or impossible enterprise; but
+when it comes to finding some money and doing something, the scheme is
+relegated to the limbo of things undone.</p>
+
+<p>The principal riparian proprietors were Lords Inchiquin, Leconfield,
+and Conyngham, mostly <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span>absentees. Lord Conyngham was naturally
+indifferent, for his estate in Clare was to be sold in Dublin on
+Tuesday, and his interest in the county thus had ceased. Lord
+Leconfield is also an absentee, without even an address in the county.
+Perhaps, as the three noblemen mentioned own between them 85,226 acres
+in county Clare alone, without counting their other possessions, they
+thought that at any rate there was land enough, such as it is, in the
+county. Judging by the Government valuation the land held by them is
+not of the best quality, for it is set down at 38,188<i>l.</i>, and
+probably is not let at very much more than that sum; but at the most
+moderate estimate they draw, or rather drew, more than 40,000<i>l.</i> a
+year from county Clare. When they were invited to share in reclaiming
+the rich mud-banks of the Fergus, and thus add 10,000 acres of virgin
+soil to the rateable value of the county, they declined with perfect
+unanimity. They did more than this. When Mr. Drinkwater had bought out
+the concessionees of 1860 and 1873&mdash;who had not struck a single stroke
+of work&mdash;and was endeavouring to get the necessary Bills through
+Parliament, he found himself confronted by the seignorial and other
+vested rights of these great landowners, who appeared determined, not
+only to do nothing themselves, but to prevent anybody else from doing
+anything&mdash;unless he paid handsomely for their permission.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span>I do not cite this as an act of special iniquity. Their action was
+only part of the general system of taking as much out of Ireland as
+possible and putting nothing into it. A claim of 20,000<i>l.</i> and 5 per
+cent. of the land reclaimed for manorial rights over a mud-bank could
+hardly be overlooked by the Crown; and it is, I believe, not quite
+settled how this large sum of money and valuable land is to be
+divided, if at all. The landowners base their claim on various grants
+and charters and the Crown opposes them on public grounds, while the
+Court of Chancery takes care of the money. Contending against
+"landlordism" and other difficulties Mr. Drinkwater pushed vigorously
+on, almost, as it has turned out, a little too vigorously for his own
+interest. The English public is aware that the Government has at
+various times encouraged Irish landlords to improve their property by
+offering to lend, at different rates of interest, two-thirds of the
+money to be spent, always with the proviso that the Government
+engineer approves of the plan and sees the work well and duly
+performed. Under the old Act of William IV., passed in 1835, the rate
+of interest was fixed at 5 per cent. Under this statute Mr. Drinkwater
+applied for 45,000<i>l.</i> and thanks to his ill-timed energy in urging
+his application, obtained his loan at 5 per cent., just before the Act
+of 1879 was brought in for affording somewhat similar help at 1 per
+cent.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Drinkwater has thus the satisfaction of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span>knowing that his
+neighbour, Lord Inchiquin, who has commenced improvements on his own
+account, has obtained 8,000<i>l.</i> at 1 per cent., while he pays 5 upon
+the large sum employed on the Clare Slob Reclamation; a state of
+things greatly enjoyed here as turning the laugh against "the Saxon."</p>
+
+<p>Being sceptical about the "slob," I went to see it. When I started the
+moon was shining so brightly that it would have been impossible to
+miss a landlord at forty yards. The sky was as blue and clear as that
+of Como or Lugano; but the wind which swept over Ballyala's sapphire
+lake was of a "nipping and an eager" quality, not commonly encountered
+in Italy. The ground was as hard as steel and as slippery as glass,
+and the first half-mile convinced us that the best thing to be done
+was to get off the car, catch hold of the mare's head, and try to hold
+her on her legs while struggling to keep on our own. It was three
+miles to the nearest blacksmith's, but there was nothing for it but to
+walk to Ennis as well as might be along the slippery road.</p>
+
+<p>This mode of progression was very slow, and it was nearly half-past
+eight when we reached that centre of political and alcoholic
+existence. Leaving the mare to be "sharpened" we strolled through the
+town in contemplative mood. Not a shop was open. Not a blind was
+drawn. Not a soul was stirring excepting the blacksmith, who had been
+knocked up comparatively early by the market folk. There <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span>was ample
+time and space to inspect the fierce but sleepy-headed town. In the
+main street I observed six grog-shops, side by side, actually shoulder
+to shoulder, cheek by jowl. Another street appeared to be all
+grog-shops but for the ominous exception of an undertaker. About nine
+o'clock a few people came out of chapel, and shortly afterwards the
+butchers' shops gave signs of life, one opening on each side of the
+main street, and blinking like a bloodshot eye upon the slumbering
+groceries and groggeries, drapery stores, and general drowsiness.
+Ennis was evidently sleeping off the previous day's whisky, and
+preparing to renew the battle with "John Jamieson."</p>
+
+<p>Presently the mare came round to the door of the principal hotel. The
+people there were just stirring, and visions of brooms and unkempt
+back-hair were frequent. At last we were on the road to Clare Castle,
+which might, in the high-flown language of the West, be fitly
+described as the "seaport" of Ennis. The river Fergus flows through
+Ennis, but it is broader and deeper at Clare Castle, a village of
+ordinary Connaught hovels. There is, however, a quay here, a relic of
+"relief-work" in famine time, and affording "convenience" for vessels
+of considerable size. Below the bridge and alongside the quay lies a
+large steam-tug, and lower down the stream is moored a similar vessel.
+A large number of rafts are being laden with stone to be presently
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span>towed down to the reclamation works. As we steam down the Fergus
+towards its junction with the Shannon at "The Beeves" rock, the stream
+spreads out to a great width, enclosing several islands, green as
+emeralds, of which Smith's Island and Islandavanna are, perhaps, the
+principal.</p>
+
+<p>There is, however, a marked difference between the area of the Fergus
+at high and low water. What at one time is an inland sea, is at the
+other a vast lake of mud rich in the constituents of fertility. As we
+reach this point of the river a mist arises compelling reduced speed,
+and as we pass by the upper station of the Slob Works a low range of
+corrugated iron shedding shines out suddenly through a break in the
+vapour, and, as the sun again pierces through, a long, low, dark line
+is seen stretching from the shore into the water like the extremity of
+some huge saurian of the Silurian period reposing on his native slime
+and ooze. But the lengthy monster lying in a vast curve is not at
+peace, for on the jagged ridge of his mighty back a puffing, snorting,
+smoking plague perpetually runs up and down. The apparent plague,
+however, is really increasing the size of the saurian. Every day
+hundreds of tons of stone are carried over his back-ridge and tipped
+into the water at the end of him, while scores of raftloads are flung
+into the water on the line staked and flagged out by the officials of
+the Government. Within a few weeks the growth of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span>the saurian will not
+cease by day or night, until, as in the case of his kindred ophidian,
+his two extremities are brought together. For Mr. Drinkwater has
+contracted with the British Electric Lighting Company to supply him
+with the electric light. The motive power is all ready, and no sooner
+is the apparatus fixed than county Clare will be astonished by the
+sight of work going on perpetually till it is completed, and amazement
+will reach its highest pitch. The people, gentle and simple, already
+confess themselves astonished at what can and has been done, and those
+who at first laughed are now seeking how they may best imitate.</p>
+
+<p>As the tail of the saurian may be said to stretch into the water high
+above Islandavanna, so may his head be said to project from that
+pretty patch of verdure. Islandavanna is already a peninsula being
+connected with the mainland by a massive stone causeway, traversed
+every half-hour by a locomotive, hauling a train of trucks laden with
+stone, which, passing over the end of the island, runs out into the
+water to the "tip end," as it is called.</p>
+
+<p>So the work is carried on, like modern railway tunnelling, from both
+ends simultaneously, and when head and tail of the saurian meet the
+first 1,500 acres will be reclaimed. The "slob" will be easy to drain,
+and it is tolerably certain that within twelve months the first
+instalment will be ready for cropping. It is a sight to make a
+Dutchman's mouth <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span>water&mdash;a "polder" of surpassing excellence, but it
+is viewed in a different light by enthusiastic wild duck shooters,
+who, like the owner of a grouse moor, look upon drainage and
+reclamation as the visible work of the devil. I do not think they need
+be alarmed for some time to come, for, without exaggeration, I have
+seen so many duck on the Fergus and the lower Shannon that I hesitate
+to speak of figures and incur the fate of Messer Marco Polo, who, when
+he spoke of the vast population of China, was nick-named by his
+incredulous countrymen "Marco Millione." But when I say that I have
+seen scores of flights a quarter of a mile long, that I have seen
+reaches of water so full of ducks and other water fowl that they
+looked like floating islands, I only give a faint idea of the quantity
+I have beheld between Islandavanna and the abortive ocean steam-packet
+port of Foynes.</p>
+
+<p>Islandavanna is one of three stations of the reclamation works, and is
+occupied by about a third of the four hundred and fifty men now at
+work. In the summer seven hundred were employed, but the present
+season is not so favourable for getting stone and pushing on
+operations.</p>
+
+<p>The electric light, however, will, it is hoped, help matters greatly,
+and redress the balance of the "long nights and short days." By the
+way, I saw at Islandavanna, or rather at the other end of the causeway
+which connects it with the mainland, a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span>man who once employed that
+expression in the menacing manner I have previously alluded to, with
+the effect of causing the foreman of the works to seek occupation in
+another and far distant land. Owing to some disagreement the foreman
+had dismissed or suspended this man, who had already been tried for
+murder and acquitted. Hereat he took his gun to go snipe-shooting as
+he said, walked about lanes and generally hovered about the place in
+such threatening fashion that it was thought well to persuade the
+foreman to go away. At the present moment Mr. Drinkwater and his
+friend Mr. Johnstone, the civil engineer from whose plans the work is
+carried out, are on the best terms with the workpeople; but the
+process by which comfortable relations have been brought about has
+been gradual. It is not pretended that when labour is required, and
+there is money to pay for it, any prejudice is felt against the Saxon
+as an employer. Far from it. A downright, straightforward Saxon, even
+if he be a Protestant, is looked upon by the Irish working folk with
+far less suspicion than one of their own class, and there is little
+fear of their combining against him, for they are far more likely to
+quarrel amongst themselves.</p>
+
+<p>It is hardly possible to convey more than the faintest idea of the
+rancour evolved by the jealousy of the Clare men against the Limerick
+men, of the hatred of both against a Galway man, and of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span>aversion
+of all three counties for Mayo and Donegal people. The citizens of the
+petty republics of Greece and Italy never abhorred each other more
+fervently. Now on large works with sub-contractors, gangers, artizans,
+and labourers, by piece and by day, it is no easy matter to keep
+matters going smoothly. It is needless to say that skilled artizans,
+such as engine-men and the like, are not picked up in county Clare;
+but no especial spite is felt against them. They are Englishmen, and
+that is sufficient; but if a gang of Clare men be dismissed and one of
+Limerick men taken on, there are signs of trouble in the air. Justice
+must be done to county Clare. Are the children of the soil to want
+bread while strangers eat it? For a Limerick man to the poor
+untravelled folk of Clare Castle, of Kilrush, and of Kilbaha is a
+stranger. Yet the small peasant cultivators on an islet near
+Islandavanna flatly refused to work at the "slob." Smoking a pipe and
+looking at a cow and calf grazing was a more congenial occupation, so
+they preferred staying at home. The slob work was too hard entirely.
+Now, this may appear incredible to those who have only seen the
+awakened Irishmen who do a vast quantity of the hardest and roughest
+kind of work in Great Britain and in the United States. In the latter
+country it is a matter of notoriety, supported in my own case by the
+evidence of my eyesight, that almost all the hard manual labour is
+performed by Irishmen and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span>negroes. But downright steady hard work is
+just what the Western Irishman is not accustomed to at home. He will
+work nobly for a spurt, but when the spurt is over he loves to loiter
+and do as he likes.</p>
+
+<p>It is no easy matter to found such a centre of industry as the works
+on the Fergus, but it is to be sincerely hoped that many such attempts
+will be made despite of discouragement. Experience has shown that the
+neglected and, in many localities, degraded West is abundantly capable
+of improvement. Mr. Drinkwater determined to take the only way
+possible in these parts, that is, to feed and lodge his little army of
+workpeople, to establish a club for them, to give them a reading-room,
+to get porter for them at wholesale price&mdash;in short, to afford them
+every inducement to prefer the new settlements on the Fergus to the
+wretched huts and groggeries of Clare Castle and the surrounding
+villages. He insists, moreover, that every man shall have his
+half-pound of meat, either beef, mutton, or bacon, every day but
+Friday.</p>
+
+<p>There is no pretence of philanthropy in all this. It is done on the
+ground that it is foolish to pay a man liberal wages, if he have to
+walk several miles to work and home again, and be allowed to live on a
+scant supply of potatoes and bread, washed down with too much of the
+whisky of the country. An ill-fed man can no more work well than an
+ill-fed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span>horse, and inasmuch as the sooner the work is done the less
+interest will be paid on the Government loan, it is obviously
+important to get the work done as soon as possible. Hence high wages,
+on the condition that a certain proportion shall be spent on food and
+lodging, in a range of labourers' houses admirably built of iron lined
+with wood, perfectly warmed and lighted, and kept wonderfully clean.
+There are a store-house and a refectory, a cooking department and
+dormitories, perfectly ventilated and swept and garnished every day.
+Tea, beer, and other beverages except whisky can be obtained, and
+there is an abundant supply of books and newspapers. Every facility
+and encouragement is given to the priests to visit their people. In
+short, the colony on the Fergus Reclamation Works is one of the most
+extraordinary sights in the West of Ireland. As the entire work will
+hardly be completed under five or six years, the influence of such a
+community of people doing their work steadily and thoroughly ought to
+be very valuable.</p>
+
+<p>Such works, as well as the reclamation of mountain and bog suggested
+and tried by Mr. Mitchell Henry for the benefit of peasant
+cultivators, are absolutely required to quicken the industry of the
+languishing West. The poor people here require to be taught many
+things; notably to obey orders, to mind their own business, to hold
+their tongues, and to wash themselves; but it is impossible to expect
+four such <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span>virtues as obedience, industry, silence, and cleanliness to
+be acquired all at once by people who have been neglected for
+centuries. But there can be no radical defect in them, for they work
+hard enough in America, and under strict taskmasters too, for a Yankee
+farmer is like a Yankee skipper, inclined to pay good wages, but to
+insist on the money being earned. So far as discipline is concerned
+there is no better soldier or soldier-servant than a Western Irishman,
+none more patient under difficulty and privation, none so full of
+cheerfulness and resource. Probably the conditions of life are more
+favourable elsewhere, as they may easily be. Here in county Clare
+there seems to a perhaps too-hasty observer a complete want of social
+homogeneity. What lamps of refinement and intellectual culture burn
+here burn for each other only, and serve but to intensify the darkness
+around.</p>
+
+<p>In no part of Ireland that I have seen are class distinctions more
+sharply defined. The landholding gentry are with but two or three
+exceptions Protestants, and, with the exception of Lord Inchiquin, are
+of English, Scotch, or Dutch descent, as such names as Vandeleur,
+Crowe, Stacpoole, and Burton indicate. I am not aware of the landed
+possessions of The O'Gorman Mahon, but I have already stated that his
+nephew holds only a moderate estate, let by the way at about three
+times the Government valuation&mdash;but not, I must add, necessarily,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span>rack-rented, for Griffiths is, for reasons fully explained by a score
+of writers beside myself, a deceptive guide in grazing counties. The
+gentry of the county, however, are nearly all Protestant, and it is
+curious to note on Sunday at Ennis how the masters and their families
+go to one church and their servants to another. I am not insinuating
+that there is any sectarian squabbling. There is not, for the simple
+reason that the two classes of gentry and tradesfolk are too far apart
+to come into collision. On one side of a broad line stand the lords of
+the soil, of foreign descent, of Protestant religion, of exclusive
+social caste; on the other stand the people, the shop-keepers, the
+greater farmers and the peasants, all of whom are Irish Roman
+Catholics, and bound to each other by the ties of common religion,
+common descent, and often of actual kinship. There is, excepting
+perhaps a dozen professional men, no middle-class at all, through
+which the cultivation of the superior strata could permeate to the
+lower.</p>
+
+<p>Probably no more difficult social condition ever presented itself. To
+show how completely the members of what ought to be a middle-class, I
+mean the large tenant-farmers, are identified with the peasant class,
+I may add that many of them, working with a capital of many thousands
+of pounds, are subscribers to the Land League, and that many are not
+paying their rent. Lord Inchiquin enjoys a good reputation as a
+landlord; but his tenants refuse to pay <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span>more than Griffiths's
+valuation, and I hear that other great landlords in the county are not
+much more fortunate. What is most singular of all is that the
+middlemen, who are subletting and subdividing their holdings at
+tremendous rack-rents, are among the most prominent in refusing to pay
+the chief landlord. They see a great immediate advantage to themselves
+in the present movement, for they give but short credit to their
+tenants, while they enjoy the full benefit of a "hanging gale," or
+owing always half a year's rent, according to the custom of this
+county.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<p class="right"><span class="sc">Ennis, County Clare</span>, <i>November 28th.</i></p>
+
+<p>The first news which greeted me on Friday night was, that, at a
+meeting of magistrates on Wednesday morning, Mr. Richard Stacpoole had
+been persuaded to accept police protection, and that two men living at
+Ballygoree, near Ballyalla, had been taken out of their houses on
+Thursday night and severely taken to task for having committed the
+atrocity of paying their rent. The poor fellows urged, in extenuation,
+that they had the money, that they owed it, and that their holdings
+were not "set" at an extravagant price. All this availed them nothing.
+They were compelled to kneel down in the midst of the muddy road, in
+the dead of the night, and to solemnly swear never to behave so
+wickedly again, after which six guns were fired in a volley over their
+heads, and they were allowed to regain their houses.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span>The event which had drawn me back to Ennis was a meeting of the
+magistrates of Clare, specially called to consider the state of the
+county. A large attendance was looked for, and Saturday being market
+day in Ennis, two more things were certain&mdash;the first, that the town
+would be full of people, and the second, that the people would be full
+of whisky. A great crowd assembled to greet the magistrates on their
+arrival, but, owing to the meeting taking place two hours before the
+published time, a grand opportunity of hooting the more unpopular
+justices of the peace was lost, and the "makings of a shindy"
+evaporated in some sporadic groaning. There was a very large
+attendance of magistrates. Lord Inchiquin, the Lord-Lieutenant of the
+county, was present, as well as Mr. Burton, of Carnelly; Mr. T. Crowe,
+of Dromore; Colonel Macdonell; Mr. Hall, of Cluny, who has outlived
+sundry attempts at assassination; Mr. Dawson, of Bunratty; Mr. Hewett;
+and thirty-eight other magistrates. The formal business of the day was
+got through without speechifying, and after some little consultation
+the following resolutions were adopted:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="block2"><p class="hang">First Resolution&mdash;That the state of lawlessness and intimidation
+at present existing in this county is such that the law is
+utterly unable to cope with it, and urgently demands the
+attention of her Majesty's Government.</p>
+
+<p class="hang">Second Resolution&mdash;That the landowners, having hitherto shown the
+greatest forbearance, will doubtless now be compelled to take
+legal proceedings to enforce the payment of rent, in order to
+meet their own pressing obligations, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span>as this can only be
+done at the imminent risk of life we consider that the general
+peace of the county will very shortly be seriously endangered.</p>
+
+<p class="hang">Third Resolution&mdash;That with a view to the maintenance of law and
+order we respectfully call on her Majesty's Government
+immediately to summon Parliament, in order to obtain such
+extraordinary powers as shall enable them to deal effectively
+with a conspiracy unprecedented in character, which aims at
+the total disorganization of society.</p></div>
+
+<p>It is quite possible that these resolutions may produce some
+astonishment in England, especially now that it is well known that
+nothing beyond a special emergency will induce the Government to adopt
+coercive measures. But things said and done in the West of Ireland are
+apt to be somewhat after date. Still the resolutions of the Clare
+magistrates have their value as giving a tolerably clear idea of what
+may be designated the landlord mind. Minute subdivisions set aside,
+there are at least four ways of looking at the subject of the day in
+this part of Ireland. There is the view of a great landlord who,
+because he helped his people with food during the potato famine and
+with money to emigrate with afterwards, and has spent a little money
+here and there out of a huge income, thinks he has amply discharged
+his duty to his tenants. It is true that he began by charging them 4
+and 5 per cent, respectively on building and drainage improvements, a
+tolerably round percentage; but it is fair to admit that for several
+years past he has not charged more <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span>than 2&frac12; per cent, for such
+improvements as he has made. The great landlords of this county are
+less attacked than others by popular orators, mainly because their
+rents are not exorbitantly high in the first place. The land is let on
+lease for terms as long sometimes as sixty-four years, and is
+sometimes underlet at greatly increased prices to the ultimate
+tenants, whose precarious condition brings the "head" landlord into
+undeserved odium. The great landholders and their agents maintain that
+to quote Griffiths against a landlord who has spent money in
+improvements since that valuation was made, and let his farms so low
+that other people can relet them at a profit, is a manifest absurdity.</p>
+
+<p>Another practical view of the landlord mind is that it is foolish to
+go on borrowing money under the Act of 1879 during the present
+uncertain condition of tenure and impossibility of getting in rents.
+Hence the Scariff drainage works, for which 34,000<i>l.</i> was to be
+borrowed by the owners of the property affected by the scheme, have
+been suddenly abandoned, and will not be carried any further, at least
+during the present winter. One consequence of this decision will be to
+throw a large number of people out of employ, who must either leave
+Clare or ask for relief.</p>
+
+<p>The first order of the landlord mind, however, is, to do it justice,
+not affected very seriously by the present crisis. The great
+landholders of Clare and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span>Limerick are not in a heavily mortgaged or
+downright insolvent condition. Like the wealthy manufacturer during a
+strike, they do not care either to employ or to threaten harsh
+measures against their tenants. There is time enough for the present
+agitation to subside, as others have subsided, and if the Government
+should wish to acquire their land and disestablish "landlordism," as
+Mr. Parnell suggests, so much the better, especially since it has
+become manifest by the example of the Marquis of Conyngham's estate
+that purchasers, other than tenants, are hardly to be found for Irish
+property. And&mdash;as the agent of a great absentee landholder observed to
+me&mdash;of what avail would it be to proceed to ulterior measures against
+the tenants? Granted that all the weary delays of the local courts
+were got rid of by a Dublin writ, what would be the consequence? The
+tenant would, unless he chose to spend his own ready money to defend
+his case in Dublin, be swiftly ejected&mdash;that is, if sufficient police
+were requisitioned to make any attempt at resistance absurd. The
+landlord would get his own after a fashion; but unless he chose to
+keep a force of police on his farms the dispossessed tenants would be
+reinstated and their houses rebuilt by the mob; and nothing would be
+got in the shape of rent. As no person in the possession of his senses
+would take any farm from which a tenant had been evicted, the landlord
+would have only one course to pursue. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span>He must farm his land himself,
+and then he would be "isolated" or "Boycotted." Nobody would work for
+him; nobody would buy anything from his farms.</p>
+
+<p>Everybody in Ennis knows the case of Littleton, whose farm is now
+under "taboo," and whose oats no man dare buy, and the similar case of
+a draper who had sold some material to a man working on the
+"Boycotted" farm, and was compelled to take it back. "There is nothing
+now," added another informant, "but to touch your hat to tenants, for
+they have left off doing so to you. And it is folly to talk of
+reprisals, or of persevering in hunting and going armed to the meet.
+Suppose an affray occurred and I shot a tenant, I should be most
+assuredly identified, tried, convicted, and severely punished, if not
+hanged. But if a tenant shot me it would be difficult to identify him,
+more difficult to arrest him, and downright impossible to convict him.
+Since Lord O'Hagan's Jury Act it is quite impossible to get
+convictions against the lower orders&mdash;witness the memorable instance
+of Mr. Creagh, when the assassin's gun burst and blew his finger off.
+The prisoner and his finger were both in court, there was no manner of
+doubt, and yet the jury acquitted him."</p>
+
+<p>Thus far the greater landowner or his agents. The tone is one of
+patient, if not amused, endurance, mingled, of course, with profound
+contempt for the <i>personnel</i> of the Land League. But the smaller and
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span>resident landlord is of much more inflammable stuff. A strike against
+rent-paying signifies to him an end of all supplies. Whether he have
+two thousand or five thousand a year in land&mdash;for I omit the little
+"squireen" class as of no importance on either side of the
+question&mdash;he has almost certainly settlements and probably mortgages
+on his estate. Now, mortgagees in Dublin or London are not at all
+ready to take into account the difficulty of collecting rents in
+Connaught, and insist on being paid.</p>
+
+<p>Even their rancour, however, has moderated slightly just of late, for
+they are as afraid to foreclose on unsaleable property as the
+mortgagor is of losing his claim on it for ever. But the settlements
+must be paid, and as no rents are coming in, dowagers are obdurate,
+and the landlord lives well up to his means, times are hard just now
+in county Clare.</p>
+
+<p>It is not exactly "tyranny" which inclines the lesser landlord to get
+the rent out of his tenant, but his own need, which drives him to
+extreme measures. In bitterness of spirit he bewails his dulness in
+not following the example of some of his peers in getting rid of their
+tenantry and farming their land themselves, like Colonel Barnard in
+King's County. He also envies the lot of Mr. "Tom" Crowe, of Dromore,
+who, without acquiring the name of an "exterminator" or a "tyrant,"
+has succeeded in shaking off the load of teeming population and the
+abomination <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span>of "duty work" by degrees, and has now a magnificent farm
+of his own which might bear the inspection of Mr. Clare Read himself,
+and of all Norfolk to boot. Mr. Crowe, too, has not gone through the
+ordeal of being shot at like Colonel Barnard, and if not specially
+loved by the people, has no kind of quarrel with them. Mr. Burton, of
+Carnelly, who owns 9,669 acres in Clare, has been fortunate in getting
+some rent, mainly in consequence of his tact in driving round one day
+to collect it himself and taking his tenants by surprise. But Mr.
+Burton is an exception, both in tact and fortune, to the majority of
+landlords of the second rank. Colonel Vandeleur has been very
+unfortunate, like all landholders encumbered with what would be called
+small farmers in England. The few really large farmers in Clare, as a
+rule, have paid up either openly or privately, and in sentiment are
+quite with the landlord class. The lesser landlords are talking of
+nothing but Dublin writs, and declare that the so-called peace of the
+county is only unbroken because no attempt is made to execute the law.</p>
+
+<p>The farmers are of course peaceful enough so long as they are
+permitted to send a rich harvest to market, to pocket the proceeds,
+and to pay no rent. "But," said a small landholder to me, "is this law
+and order? Because I know it is hopeless at this moment to recover my
+rent, and therefore abstain from proceedings, does it follow that the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span>peace would not be broken were I to put the law into operation?" I am
+sorry for this gentleman, for I know that he is what is called in
+commerce a "weak holder," or one who can afford neither to conduct his
+business with a firm hand nor to throw it aside till better times. He
+must go on, for he has mortgages and settlements on his estates; and,
+admitted that his tenants would go away to-morrow without any trouble,
+he could not spare what they owe him, and assuredly would not find new
+tenants for his farms. He of course is for the immediate suspension of
+the Habeas Corpus Act, and declares that to be the most merciful
+solution of the immediate difficulty. To him the "Three F's" appear
+altogether diabolical, and he proposes the substitution of "Three
+D's"&mdash;Disarmament, Disfranchisement, and a Dictator, the more military
+the better.</p>
+
+<p>From the medium and smaller farmers, who with the whisky dealers and
+the majority of the other tradespeople form the opposite camp, I hear
+that no measure that the Government can pass before the present
+Parliament will be acceptable to what is called the Irish people. It
+is now averred that the extension of the borough franchise to counties
+must be carried before a Parliament adequate to deal with the Irish
+question is formed. This appears a strong demand, and one likely to
+protract the present distracted state of the country. But I hear, on
+the best authority, that the Land League and the associated <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span>farmers
+can wait. They are in no hurry. England can take her own time and they
+will wait patiently, meanwhile of course paying no rent, nor any other
+debts which may prove inconvenient.</p>
+
+<p>Having passed their resolutions, the magistrates drive off quietly
+enough&mdash;but by daylight. Within the last three weeks the County Club
+sittings have been earlier than usual, the members thinking it at
+least as well to get home before dark. The valedictory wish expressed
+here just now is of itself ominous. It is not "Good-bye" or
+"Good-night," but "Safe home."</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="X" id="X"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span><br />
+
+
+<h3>X.<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h3>PALLAS AND THE PALLADIANS.</h3>
+<br />
+
+<p class="right"><span class="sc">Limerick.</span></p>
+
+<p>In a previous letter I hinted that the well-to-do farmers of the West
+were not a whit more prompt in paying their rent than the starveling
+peasants of Mayo and Connemara, who, at the best, are barely able to
+keep body and soul together. Trusting far more to what I see than to
+what I hear, I become aware that in these troubled districts of
+Ireland, it is precisely the most favoured spots which are the most
+mutinous. Ballina, the most prosperous town in Mayo, is a stronghold
+of the anti-landlord party; and the Ballinrobe, Claremorris, and Cong
+country, full of good land and comparatively large farmers, is the
+district which has isolated Mr. Boycott, whose turnips and potatoes
+will probably cost the country and the county at least a guinea a
+piece. In no part of Mayo or Galway is the Land League more perfectly
+organised than in Clare, yet the farmers in that county are
+confessedly well off. There are some of course <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span>towards the sea, in
+the direction of Loop Head, who are poorly off, but the great majority
+are by no means in evil case. Ocular demonstration of this fact is
+supplied by the numerous farmhouses of the better class with which the
+country is studded. These are not merely large cabins, but houses,
+some of which are whitewashed. The haggards are full of corn-stacks,
+the rich pastures are full of kine. There is every visible evidence of
+material prosperity. It is true that when one has driven up the
+private road, be the same a mere "boreen" or a "shplendid avenue," the
+bell is found to be broken, the knocker wrenched off, the blinds
+hauled up awry, and the servants hard to be got at; but the
+householder is prosperous nevertheless. His larder is well supplied
+with poultry and wild fowl, his cellar contains "lashings," not only
+of "Parliament and pot," or "John Jamieson" and illicit "potheen," but
+of port and sherry, claret and champagne. His daughters are at the
+costly training schools of the Sacr&eacute; C&oelig;ur, his lads are studying
+law in Dublin. Yet this man is a subscriber to the Land League either
+by sympathy or, as is quite as probable, by terror. Farmers of not
+quite such large acreage live in almost equally luxurious style. Their
+houses, that is the "show" rooms, are solidly if tastelessly
+furnished. Their horses and jaunting cars carry them to chapel; they
+live in the midst of rude plenty. If further demonstration be needed,
+I <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span>will point to the groceries and wine stores of Ennis. There are at
+least three of these almost on the scale of Fortnum and Mason's or
+Hedges and Butler's. Now Ennis is what an American traveller might be
+tempted to call a "one-horse" town of some six or seven thousand
+inhabitants, yet its grocery and drapery stores would hardly be beaten
+in York or Chester. Every imaginable eatable or drinkable can be
+obtained always for ready money, and very often on credit, and I am
+informed that all articles of feminine adornment, including cosmetics,
+are also to be had. Passing still farther from the domain of things
+seen to that of things heard of, I am assured on the best authority
+that for years past the banks have not held so much money on deposit
+as at the present moment. Yet nobody pays his rent. The form of
+offering Griffith's valuation is gone through, albeit it is known that
+that calculation is absolutely untrustworthy so far as a pasture
+county like Clare is concerned.</p>
+
+<p>My remarks concerning county Clare will apply, almost with greater
+force, to county Limerick. The city is of course a very different
+place from Ennis; but it is impossible to avoid noticing from the
+window at which I sit writing the crowds of purchasers streaming in
+and out of Cannock and Co.'s store, from late in the morning till
+early in the evening. I use the last words advisedly, for the people
+of the West seem to have accepted Charles <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span>Lamb's humorous quibble in
+good faith. If they begin work later than any other civilized people,
+they assuredly leave off earlier. But until evening sets in there is a
+torrent of customers pouring in over the way, and wooing the eye from
+the contemplation of the Shannon at the Thomond Bridge. Of the
+groggeries of Limerick and of the poison vended in them, I will
+forbear to discourse, for my business just now is with the country
+rather than with the town.</p>
+
+<p>Having heard much of the outrages at Pallas on the Tipperary border, I
+determined to drive over and visit the scene of action. For this
+country the journey was a short one; fifteen or sixteen miles out and
+in on an outside car is thought a mere trifle in Limerick. The trip
+occupied the entire day nevertheless. As we drove out of Limerick past
+the great pig-slaughtering and curing houses, we soon became aware
+that an immense convergence of the farming interest on Limerick was
+taking place. Car-load after car-load of well-dressed people passed
+us, and then came horsemen riding in couples or by half-dozens. For
+the most part the cavaliers were very well mounted, and also well and
+warmly dressed in the fashion of the day. Neither Connemara nor
+Claddagh cloaks were seen in the cars, nor were the blue or grey
+frieze swallow-tailed coats of Mayo and Galway seen on the powerful
+horses pounding along townward through the heavy road. All was sleek,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span>prosperous, and quite modern, and was as refreshing to look upon after
+the frieze and flannel aforesaid as the green hills of Limerick and
+Clare after the brown mountains of Joyce's country. I naturally asked
+the meaning of such an important meeting of well-to-do folk. It was a
+funeral. An old lady was to be buried, and the whole country-side for
+twenty miles around had turned out to do honour to the deceased, and
+to enjoy a holiday on the principle that "a wake is better than a
+wedding." Not one in a hundred of those who rode by had paid his rent,
+nor was he prepared to pay more than Griffith's valuation, although he
+might have a deposit note for one, two, or more thousands of pounds in
+his cash-box.</p>
+
+<p>Pushing along this lively road we entered a famous part of Ireland,
+the Golden Vale, so called from its great fertility. Great part of the
+land here is composed of alluvial bottoms, a large area of which was
+drained by the Mullkear Cut, through the exertions of Mr. William
+Bredin, of Castlegard, a charming old fortress overgrown with
+creepers, and standing like a sentry over the more modern part of the
+dwelling. As we neared Pallas I was reminded that I was on classic
+ground, and that Old and New Pallas and Pallas Green formed the scene
+of the never-to-be-forgotten feud of the "Three and Four Year Olds,"
+the tradition whereof hath a rich and racy savour. Readers of the
+<i>Daily News</i> will hardly need to be <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span>reminded that this historic
+vendetta commenced with a dispute concerning the age of a bull, one
+disputant maintaining that the animal was four, while the other
+insisted he was but three years old. The matter was settled, or was
+rather put on the footing of a "mighty pretty quarrel," by a desperate
+fight, wherein one of the combatants was either slain or grievously
+maimed, whereupon his cause was taken up by his family and friends,
+and a feud inaugurated which lasted many years, and led to the death
+of a considerable number of persons, besides continual "diversion" in
+the way of faction fights. Pallas is in the midst of the Golden Vale,
+a deliciously pastoral country, admirably fitted on such a glorious
+spring-like morning as that of yesterday for the sports of shepherds
+and shepherdesses as Watteau and Lancret loved to limn. But the first
+object which catches the eye in Pallas is not a bower of ribbons and
+roses, but a stiff-looking police barrack. Close at hand is the
+railway station, another unlovely edifice, and lounging about in
+groups are seventy or eighty of the gloomiest and most sullen-looking
+people I have seen in this country. The very little cheerfulness there
+is in Connaught is quite absent from Munster, or at least the
+Tipperary border of county Limerick. I learn that the occasion of this
+general loafing is a "rent-gathering," or rather an attempt to gather
+rent, and that Mr. Sanders, the agent for the Erasmus Smith School
+Trusts, is sitting, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span>but not in receipt of custom. There has been the
+usual talk of Griffith's valuation and the usual result of not a
+shilling being paid; the present fear on the part of landlords of
+fixity of tenure being established being so great that nobody will
+accept payment according to Griffith lest his receipt should be taken
+as permanently settling the value of his land for ever. No money
+passes, as a matter of course, and the tenants mutter among
+themselves, "nor ever will." One neck-or-nothing friend of the people
+assures me that Griffith and rent and the rest of it is all
+"botheration," and that Pallas folk are going to "have their own"
+again, as was once said of a Stuart king, who did not get it
+nevertheless. I am not assuming that the opinion of a farmer anxious
+to get rid of his principal debt is that of all Munster; I merely give
+his observation for what it is worth, and as a sign that the hope of
+concession is gradually enlarging demand.</p>
+
+<p>Driving in the direction of Castlegard, I pass the signs of an
+eviction which took place at least a fortnight ago. The outgone
+tenant's bedsteads and wash-hand-stands are piled up against the wall
+as if crying to Heaven for vengeance against the oppressor. The
+display strikes me as entirely theatrical, for it is well known that
+vengeance is not left to Heaven by Pallas people, but confided to
+Snider bullets. The bailiff's left in charge of the house have been
+attacked, and yesterday an iron hut for lodging four policemen <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span>on the
+disputed property was brought to Pallas station. It went no further,
+however, for neither horse nor cart could be got to convey any
+fragment of the accursed fabric to the spot required. It is expected
+that the district will, after this display of "tyranny" on the part of
+the police, "strike" against them and refuse to supply them with food
+or forage. Pursuing the road past Castlegard I meet another crowd of
+tenants and learn that they also have been to a rent gathering, and
+have been offered acceptance of Griffith's valuation if the balance
+between that and the rent be considered as a "reduction" without
+prejudice to further arrangements, and without fixing a standard of
+value. This proposition remains under consideration, and is favourably
+viewed by the tenants. It seems, however, that everybody is afraid, or
+pretends to be afraid, to act without the sanction of the Land League.
+I am vastly inclined to think that in many parts of the country
+farmers pretend to be more scared than they really are, but around
+Castlegard they have evidently some cause for alarm. I called upon a
+farmer who has committed the unpardonable crime of failing to be, as
+Ouid&agrave; would say, "true to his order." He has been so lost to all the
+sentiments of manhood and of patriotism as to pay his rent. No sooner
+was it known that he was guilty of this dastardly deed than he was
+spoken of as a marked man, and three nights ago a Snider bullet was
+fired through his front door into the hall of his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span>newly-built house.
+I saw the hole made by the bullet through the door, and also the mark
+where it tore out a piece of the balusters before striking the
+ceiling.</p>
+
+<p>The farmer in question is one of those extraordinary persons who only
+exist in Ireland. He is a sturdy, pleasant-looking man of forty, and
+has made his way despite what would appear intolerable difficulties.
+He has farmed for some considerable time about thirty-three acres of
+good land, and must have worked hard, for during that time he has had
+a large family to maintain. His father died but a short time since,
+and reduced the number by one, but he now supports his mother and his
+aged aunt and uncle, as well as his wife and himself and six children.
+With all these mouths to feed he has built him, well and solidly, a
+thoroughly good house, with extensive outbuildings and other
+improvements, obviously worth many hundreds of pounds. It might be
+thought the people of Pallas and Castlegard would have been proud of
+him; but he has paid his rent, and is marked for "taboo," if for
+nothing worse.</p>
+
+<p>Trudging across some fine pastures, and jumping sundry ditches, we
+regain the main road and our car, and proceed on that instrument of
+torture back to Pallas. Here we find the "threes" and the "fours," not
+at issue with each other, but united like brothers against the common
+enemy. Fearful howls arise <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span>from the railway bridge and the railway
+station, both covered with Palladians, male and female. A thoroughly
+good Irish yell of execration acts differently on different persons.
+The blood of those unaccustomed to it is apt to turn cold at the
+savage sound; but, with a little practice, "the ear becomes more Irish
+and less nice," and a good howl acts as a stimulant on the spirits of
+many landlords and agents. All the screeching at Pallas is brought
+about by the departure of Mr. Sanders, who, escorted by the police
+till he is safely off, rentless, but undismayed, slips away in the
+train, leaving the "Threes" and "Fours" to talk the matter over, not
+unaided by the presence, in the spirit, of all-powerful "John
+Jamieson."</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<p class="right"><span class="sc">Tipperary</span>, <i>Tuesday Night.</i></p>
+
+<p>Another proof has been given that it takes more people to do less in
+Ireland than in any other country in the world. The attitude of the
+combined "Three and Four Year Olds" was yesterday so threatening that
+the authorities decided that the police-hut at Pallas could only be
+erected in the teeth of the Palladians by dint of an overwhelming
+display of force. There is no doubt of the wisdom of this policy. A
+small force, insufficient to overawe the country side, only provokes
+the resistance it is unable to overcome, but a strong detachment of
+redcoats thoroughly cows the adventurous spirits of the most mutinous
+localities. What threatened at <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span>one moment to become a civil war in
+Mayo was put down without the loss of a drop of blood by an imposing
+military force, and the lesson so well illustrated at Ballinrobe is
+hardly likely to be lost in other rebellious districts. Yesterday, the
+affair at Pallas came to such a pitch that extraordinary measures were
+resolved upon. A bailiff had been shot because he, in the execution of
+his duty, occupied the dwelling of an evicted farmer, one Burke; hence
+it was decided that a police-hut should be built on the ground lately
+occupied by Burke, but, as readers of the <i>Daily News</i> are aware, the
+Palladians actually struck against the police, and proceeded to
+"Boycott" those "myrmidons" after the most approved manner. Not only
+did Pallas refuse to aid in conveying the materials for a police-hut
+to a short distance from the railway station, but prevented the police
+from doing their work themselves. Yesterday, the whole border-folk of
+county Limerick and county Tipperary turned up at Pallas, and the
+conduct of the crowd was such as to lead persons by no means of an
+alarmist character to expect an ugly morrow. The authorities had
+determined that a police-hut should be erected on the spot chosen, and
+the populace had equally made up their minds that although "the
+makings" of a hut had been brought to Pallas railway station, they
+should remain there, and never be allowed to defile the land of
+Burke's <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span>farm. The police, despite their barrack, which looks strong
+enough to bear a siege, were obviously unable to quell the people, and
+it would hardly have been politic to let the latter enjoy a victory;
+consequently it was determined to employ the military to convoy the
+police-hut, or rather its <i>disjecta membra</i>, from the railway to its
+proposed site.</p>
+
+<p>It was pitch dark at five o'clock this morning, the hour for parade at
+the fine new barracks at Tipperary. The air, too, was keen, and the
+detachment of the gallant 48th Regiment ordered for service at Pallas
+paraded in no very affectionate spirit towards the Palladians. The
+ill-humour of the 48th is easily accounted for. After twelve years'
+service abroad no regiment would be cheered by the announcement that
+instead of Portsmouth its destination was Queenstown, <i>en route</i> for
+Tipperary. Such, however, has been the fate of the unlucky 48th, from
+whom the mob of Pallas, or any other centre of mutiny, could expect
+but little mercy. Tempers, however, brightened at sunrise, and by the
+time the hundred men under the command of Captain Cartwright and
+Lieutenants Fraser and Maycock arrived at the Tipperary station every
+one was in a good-humoured, contemptuous frame of mind. Everybody knew
+that there was no chance of a row, and that the very presence of all
+the Queen's horses and all the Queen's men would make it certain that
+a blank would be drawn. The whole military plan of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span>campaign had been
+well imagined. While the 48th came on from Tipperary the 9th came on
+also by rail from Limerick, together with a half battery of the Royal
+Artillery. It must not, however, be supposed that cannon was deemed
+necessary to quell the ardent spirits of Pallas. The guns were left at
+Limerick, and only the waggons brought as a means of conveyance for
+the makings of the hut. But the Limerick contingent was imposing
+nevertheless. It consisted of 105 men of the 9th Regiment, of a
+squadron of Hussars, who went by road, and of the artillery
+before-mentioned, who came, like the infantry, by rail. So well was
+the movement timed by Colonel Humphreys, R.A., in command, that the
+trains from Tipperary and Limerick met almost exactly at New Pallas
+station a little before nine o'clock this morning, just as the busbies
+of the Hussars appeared upon the bridge. Pallas was evidently taken by
+surprise, for any movement on a western Irish town before nine in the
+morning may be taken as a night attack. The people of the border of
+county Limerick and county Tipperary are quite ready to "muster in
+their thousands" at a convenient hour, but they are sure to be taken
+at a disadvantage before nine o'clock. The Palladians rubbed their
+eyes to find the classic battle-ground of the "Three Year Olds" and
+"Four Year Olds" occupied by the matutinal redcoats, and horse, foot,
+and artillery already in possession. As Pallas woke up about a
+hundred <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span>and fifty or a couple of hundred roughs made up "the name of
+a crowd," but those in command were informed that this poor show of
+resistance was really a feint, and that no sooner would the materials
+for the hateful hut be put in motion than a rush would be made by the
+people collected "in thousands" behind the village, either upon the
+railway station or upon the convoy in motion. I had no opportunity of
+getting round behind the village to review the supposed thousands who
+were to make the ugly rush and overwhelm the redcoats, but I have a
+strong impression that the Palladian army might have been dubbed the
+"Mrs. Harris" brigade. With the respected Mrs. Prigg, I disbelieve in
+its existence absolutely. Two arguments will destroy it. On the one
+hand, it is incredible that thousands of persons were out of their
+beds at ten minutes to nine <span class="sc">A.M.</span>; on the other, if they had
+sat up all night in the hope of a fight with the police they would
+most certainly have anticipated that diversion by a preliminary
+"shindy" among themselves, and have broken up in disorder.</p>
+
+<p>But when horse, foot, artillery, and police converge on a disaffected
+spot, it is hardly the province of their commander to disbelieve in
+the existence of an enemy. Colonel Humphreys accordingly made the
+wisest use of his forces. He had at his disposal 200 infantry, a
+squadron of cavalry, a demi-battery of artillery, and 70 armed
+constables&mdash;in all about 350 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span>men. His first care was to secure his
+base, the railway station, and this <i>point d'appui</i> was strongly
+garrisoned by the 48th Regiment. Then the road between the station and
+Burke's farm was strongly patrolled&mdash;so strongly as to keep up an
+unbroken line of communication between the farm and the railroad. When
+this was established, the procession, bearing the materials of the
+hut, set forth. First went the armed police, then an escort of
+Hussars, and then the Artillery waggons, carrying the pieces of the
+hut, guarded by the soldiers of the 9th Regiment. It is hardly
+necessary to add that no attempt at rushing or crowding the station
+was made by the populace. Father Ryan, the parish priest, behaved in
+the most praiseworthy manner, and exhorted the people to be quiet; but
+my own impression is that they were already completely cowed by the
+sudden appearance of the military from two quarters at once. By no
+means wanting in keenness of perception, they knew that, if ordered to
+do so, the soldiers will fire "at" them, and not vaguely, after the
+manner of the police. So the whole affair passed off quietly, and
+after trebling the ordinary police garrison of Pallas, the military
+returned to their respective quarters. A beginning has been made of
+building the hut, and at the moment of writing (9 <span class="sc">P.M.</span>) all
+is quiet at Old and New Pallas, as well as at Pallas Green. Whether
+the blood of the "Threes" and "Fours" will endure the sight of the
+detested hut gradually rising on the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span>farm of the sainted Burke
+remains to be seen; but it it is doubtful whether the "Boys" will
+attempt a <i>coup de main</i>. Should such an attempt be made, the police
+would be compelled to make a desperate resistance, and serious
+consequences would certainly ensue. There is a curious contrast
+between the state of the "Three and Four Year Olds" yesterday and
+to-day&mdash;between the bragging of the one and the cowed look of the
+other. There is also something of amusement, were not the entire
+question all too serious, in the sudden and contemptuous withdrawal of
+the troops to-day, after having shown the Palladians that, however
+they felt about the hut, it should be built, and law and order
+maintained "maugre their teeth."</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="XI" id="XI"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span><br />
+
+
+<h3>XI.<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h3>GOMBEEN.</h3>
+<br />
+
+<p class="right"><span class="sc">Cork</span>, <i>December 2nd.</i></p>
+
+<p>Among the many spectres which haunt the sadly-vexed West and South of
+Ireland, there is one far more grim and real than the <i>spectre vert</i>
+who is either buried for ever and aye, or has undergone gradual
+transformation since '98 into Repeal of the Union, Young Ireland,
+Fenianism, Nationalism, and finally perhaps into Anti-Landlordism;
+albeit this latter avatar of an ancient and familiar spirit is by no
+means imbued with the poetic attributes of the original spectre.
+During my stay in Ennis and Limerick I succeeded in holding somewhat
+protracted conversations with three landed proprietors, three of the
+largest land-agents in Ireland, two bank managers, an influential
+lawyer, three leaders of the people, and one probable assassin.
+Through the discourse of all of these&mdash;varied and contradictory as
+much of it necessarily was&mdash;I could see distinctly one ugly shadow, as
+of an old man filthy of aspect, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span>hungry of eye, and greedy of claw,
+sitting in the rear of a gloomy store looking over papers by the light
+of a miserable tallow dip. From the papers the figure turned to a heap
+as of bank-notes, and there was in the air the chink of money. For the
+name of this grisly and terribly real spectre is <i>gombeen</i>; which, in
+the Irish tongue, signifies usury.</p>
+
+<p>To Thackeray's truthful remark that there is never so poor an Irishman
+that he has not a still poorer countryman as a hanger-on, it may be
+added that when an Irishman is not a borrower he is almost certain to
+be a lender&mdash;the advice of Polonius being abhorrent to the spirit of a
+free-and-easy, happy-go-lucky people. When a man in these parts gets
+or keeps out of debt himself, he is mostly engaged in encouraging
+others to get into it. Often he has little or nothing himself, but
+acts after the Irish fashion as deputy <i>gombeen</i> man for the pleasure
+of the thing, and also for a commission well and duly paid. This
+determination towards borrowing and lending is not confined to any
+particular class, but is characteristic of all. As the peer, who would
+never have put his hand into his own pocket to pay for improving his
+property, suddenly awakes to the value of drainage when the Government
+offers a million and a half at one per cent., so did the <i>gombeen</i>
+man, who would never have dreamed of lending more than a pound at a
+time to a peasant, extend his credit four or five fold when the Land
+Act of 1870 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span>gave him the first instalment of proprietary right in the
+land he occupied. The instalment was a very small one, but it was at
+once discounted by the <i>gombeen</i> man, whose rate of interest enabled
+him to run extraordinary risks. As the poor pay dearly for everything,
+so do they pay an extravagant interest for money. There was once a
+fashionable West-end usurer, who, pretending to know nothing about
+arithmetic, met his clients on the subject of percentage with "I don't
+understand figures, but my terms are a shilling per pound every month.
+It is easy to reckon up without going into sums on slates." This poor
+innocent was charging just 60 per cent., but his terms were lavishly
+liberal as compared with those of the <i>gombeen</i> man. Instead of a
+shilling per month the latter charges a shilling a week for every
+sovereign advanced, and then "Begorra, it's only the name of a
+sovereign," which being interpreted signifies that an advance of one
+pound, less charges, only amounts to 18<i>s.</i> 10<i>d.</i>, and that upon this
+sum a shilling interest must be well and duly paid weekly. Any failure
+entails a fine, and a failure to pay off the original sovereign
+borrowed within six months is very heavily fined indeed. I am told
+that the <i>gombeen</i> man actually puts on cent. per cent. for this
+failure of redemption; but, on my principle of believing only a
+percentage of all I hear, and of taking a liberal discount off all I
+see, I doubt this enormity. Concerning the shilling interest per week
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span>on a pound there is, however, unhappily no room for doubt, and for
+small unsecured loans 260 per cent. per annum is still the ruling
+figure.</p>
+
+<p>This enormous rate of interest, however, is now only exacted on the
+very smallest loans, for the old-fashioned <i>gombeen</i> man has lost his
+customers for larger sums. In old times he was the only means of
+obtaining such little sums as five and ten pounds on personal
+security; but since 1870 the banks have entered into competition with
+him, have undersold him, and, in fact, "run him out of the market,"
+except for sums under four or five pounds. The unfortunates who are
+short of a sovereign or two must look up their old friend in the back
+shop smelling of bacon, tallow, pepper, tea, and whisky, just as their
+social superiors seek the intrepid sixty per cent. man of St. James's,
+whose snuggery is perfumed by the best Havannahs that other people's
+money can buy. But when the soul of Mike rises to the sublime
+conception of a loan of five pounds he dismisses the old-fashioned
+usurer, and hies him to one of the branch banks which abound in every
+petty townlet in Western and Southern Ireland. When I say "abound" I
+mean to be taken literally. What would be thought in England, I
+wonder, of four banks in a town like Ennis, or of two in pettifogging
+places like Kilrush or Ennistynon&mdash;mere hamlets of some two thousand
+inhabitants? Yet these three places have eight branch banking
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span>establishments among them. It must not, however, be supposed that Mike
+gets his paltry four or five pounds on his promissory note without
+further security. Nothing of the kind. Mike must go through as much
+artful financiering to raise his five pounds as the Hon. Algernon
+Deuceace to raise his "monkey." His bill must be well backed by his
+friends, Thady and Tim. Now, Thady's name on the back of a five-pound
+bill is not good for much. He is but a peasant, like Mike, not a
+farmer, properly so called, and even as two blacks will not make a
+white, so will the joint credit of Mike and Thady not rise to the
+height of five one-pound notes. But they have a potent ally in Tim,
+who married Thady's wife's cousin. Tim is a prudent man, has worked
+hard at his farm, and, as a rule, has a matter of twenty or thirty
+pounds on deposit note at the bank, receiving for the same interest at
+the rate of one per cent. per annum. His name at the back of a
+five-pound bill is therefore a tower of strength, and, in fact, floats
+the entire speculation. In commercial phrase, he "stands to be shot
+at" while his own deposit money, on which he receives one per cent.,
+supplies the funds for the bank to lend Mike and Thady, at ten or
+twenty per cent., for there is no pretence made of doing very small
+bills at anything approaching ordinary rates. In fact, the peasant
+cultivator, having acquired under the Land Acts now in force a species
+of proprietory interest in the soil, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span>has a sort of credit which,
+backed by a friendly and innocent depositor, can be made an engine for
+raising ready money in a small way. This help from the banks is so far
+good that it has relieved the decent peasant from his ancient
+bloodsucker, the <i>gombeen</i> man. Admitting that with charges and fine
+for renewal and so forth the loan ultimately costs Mike fifteen or
+twenty per cent, he is vastly better off than he was under the old
+system. He gets money to buy pigs to fatten for sale, or manure for
+his bit of arable land, and if the rate appears high, it is wondrously
+merciful as compared with that to which he was formerly accustomed.</p>
+
+<p>But there is an awkward side even to the business which enables the
+principal Irish banks to pay large dividends. So long as care is taken
+that Mike and Thady do not overdo the accommodation bill system,
+perhaps no very great harm is done in extending the advantage of
+moderate credit to the humblest cultivator; but when competition is
+sharp in a petty townlet between two rival banks, the tendency towards
+a mischievous extension of credit is almost irresistible, and bank
+managers are at last driven to look sharply after their clients on
+market days, lest the ready money which is their due should be
+deflected to other purposes. The provision man, who has supplied bacon
+and other necessaries, is on the alert to secure something on account;
+and if, as is most probable, he has been giving credit somewhat
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span>recklessly, he is pinched for money, despite the high rate of profit
+he has been charging to cover his risk. For some time past the game of
+credit has been going on gaily; but since the commencement of the
+present agitation both banks and <i>gombeen</i> men have distinctly
+narrowed their operations, and the landlord is now the almost
+universal creditor. The harvest-money has either gone to pay advances
+or to settle accounts with tradesfolk, so that an awkward future is in
+preparation for all but the prosperous tenants, of whom there is no
+lack in counties Clare and Limerick. Whatever the details of the
+forthcoming Land Act may be when it has passed the ordeal of both
+Houses of Parliament, the work of passing it will take time, and at
+least another half-year's rent will accrue before it takes the shape
+of law. Now, with all the talk of Griffith's valuation, there has
+been, except in a few cases, no hint of paying that sum "without
+prejudice" into court or into any bank whatsoever; and the cash held
+by both farmers and peasants runs, in the opinion of many well
+qualified to judge, sore risk of diminution before any comprehensive
+measure can pass through Parliament. Even the well-to-do farmers will
+be called upon to expend their balance in hand in many ways which they
+will find difficult to resist. Not only the provision merchants, but
+the drapers and milliners of Limerick, Ennis, and Galway, will hold
+out allurements to those in possession of ready <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span>money. To put the
+case briefly, there is great danger that, without any intentional
+dishonesty on their part, the cultivators, great and small, of Western
+and South-Western Ireland will hardly be in as good a position for the
+discharge of their liabilities six months or a year hence as they are
+at present. The three "F's" will hardly wipe off existing debt, and
+the result of a division of the population into two sharply defined
+classes of debtors and creditors is viewed by many thoughtful people
+with considerable apprehension.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="XII" id="XII"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span><br />
+
+
+<h3>XII.<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h3>THE RETAINER.</h3>
+<br />
+
+<p class="right"><span class="sc">Cork</span>, <i>December 4th.</i></p>
+
+<p>In describing the character of the Western and Southern Irishman
+nothing would be more unfair than to leave out of the estimate his
+curious faithfulness to some persons, and the tenderness with which he
+cherishes the traditions of the past. In no country in the world is
+the superstition concerning the "good old times" more fervently
+believed in than in Western and Southern Ireland. And in the opinion
+of the mass of the people the good old times extended down to a recent
+date. One is asked to believe that before the period of the potato
+famine Ireland was the abode of plenty if not of peace, and that
+landlords and tenants blundered on together on the most amicable
+terms. It is hardly necessary to state that the golden age of Ireland,
+like the golden age of every other country, never had any real
+existence. It is like the good old-fashioned servant who from the time
+of Terence to our own has always lived <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span>in the imaginary past, but
+never in the real present. The belief in a recent golden age is,
+however, so prevalent in Ireland that I have thought it worth while to
+investigate the grounds on which it is based and the means by which it
+has been kept fresh and green.</p>
+
+<p>The first fact which strikes the observer is that since the potato
+famine the West and South have been going through a period of
+transition still in progress. Under the authority of the Encumbered
+Estates Court a vast area of land has changed hands, and the new
+proprietors have only in rare cases succeeded in securing the
+affection of their tenants and neighbours, who sit "crooning" over the
+fire, extolling the virtues of the "ould masther" and comparing him
+with the new one, very much to the disadvantage of the latter. It is
+not remarkable that such comparisons should be instituted. The people
+have very little to do, and do that in a slovenly, slip-shod way, and
+they have therefore plenty of leisure for gossip. As they are ignorant
+of everything beyond their own county, it is only natural that the new
+proprietor or lessee should be discussed at great length, and all his
+acts and deeds be fully commented upon. And it is not remarkable that
+the judgment should be adverse to the new man. He is generally North
+Irish, Scotch, or English. The two former are hated at once, at a
+venture; but the "domineering Saxon" is given a chance, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span>with a
+little tact and good temper can secure, if not affection, at least
+toleration.</p>
+
+<p>But it is not easy to get the good word of the people, even when one
+is neither a "tyrant" oneself nor the lessee of an "exterminator"; for
+the ways of the most just and generous of the new men do not suit
+those of the natives like the system, or rather want of system, of the
+old chiefs. Even when a demesne only is leased by a "foreigner," and
+all risk of quarrelling with tenants is thus avoided, it is hard work
+to achieve popularity. As I drove up the avenue of a dwelling thus
+inhabited, I asked the driver what he and the country-side thought of
+the new tenant of the old house. "A good man, your honour," was the
+cold answer; followed by an enthusiastic, "Och, but it was the ould
+masther that was the good man! Sorra the bite or sup any one wanted
+while he was to the fore!" Now, the "ould masther" was, I understand,
+a worthy gentleman, of good old county family, who lived in the midst
+of his tenantry for several months every year, and "kept up his old
+mansion at a bountiful old rate," like a fine old "Celticised Norman,"
+as he was. Like the descendants of the early settlers described by Mr.
+Froude, he and his had retained their popularity by concessions to
+Celtic habits, not in religion or personal conduct be it understood,
+but in letting things go on easily, in a happy-go-lucky way, without
+any superstitions concerning the profuse <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span>employment of soap and water
+by their dependents. Probably no lady of the house had for many
+generations entered the kitchen, which apparently served as a focus
+for the country folk. The stone floor was a stranger to hearthstone
+and to water, except such as might be spilt upon it; and was either
+slippery or sticky here and there, according to the nature of the most
+recent deposits. The table and dressers were in such a condition when
+taken over by the "domineering Saxon" that washing was abandoned as
+hopeless, and scraping and planing were perforce resorted to. But
+overhead, firmly fixed in the beams of the ceiling, hung many a goodly
+flitch of bacon, many a plump, well-fed ham. Under the shadow of this
+appetising display might be found at any time during the day about a
+score of persons who had no business there whatever, but found it
+"mighty convanient" to look in about meal times for the bite and sup
+my car-driver so regretfully alluded to, and to sit round the fire
+smoking a pipe and talking for hours afterwards.</p>
+
+<p>It was in the larder attached to this fine old kitchen that I met a
+glorious specimen of the fine Old Irish Retainer, faithful to the
+memory of the "ould masther," who had left him an annuity of eight
+shillings per week, and not unmindful of the virtues of the new one,
+who keeps him on the establishment as an interesting "survival," and
+lodges, feeds, and clothes him, in order that he <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span>may not be obliged
+to divert any portion of his income from its natural course towards
+Mary Molony's shebeen, to the purchase of the prosaic necessaries of
+life. The Retainer, who was enjoying the occupation of turning some
+hams and bacon in salt, and inspecting the condition of some pigs'
+heads in highly spiced pickle, was a singularly good-looking man,
+with, well&mdash;I will not say "clean"&mdash;cut features and a generally
+healthy look, speaking wonders for the vigour of constitution which
+had successfully withstood sixty odd winters and an incalculable
+quantity of the poisonous new whisky of the country. He was interested
+in the subject of obtaining sundry rounds of salt beef for
+Christmastide, holding that roast beef is but a vain thing, good
+enough for Saxons, no doubt, but not to be compared with corned beef
+or bacon and cabbage. The Retainer spoke kindly of his new master, but
+at the mention of the old one at once kindled to fever heat. "Thim was
+times, your honour. Niver a week but we killed two sheep, or a month
+that we didn't kill a baste. And pigs, your honour. If we didn't kill
+a pig every day, as your honour says, we killed a matther of four
+score every sayson. And there was lashings and lavings of mate for
+every one. And the ould masther said, says he, 'As long as it's
+there,' says he, 'all are welcome to a bite and a sup at my house. As
+long as it's there,' says he. And he was the good man, your honour."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span>This was it. The present tenant's Celticised predecessor, whose glory
+still fills the land, lived the life of an African chief. When ox,
+sheep, or pig was slain, the choice morsels of the animal were perhaps
+reserved for the chieftain's table, and the remainder of the carcase
+was distributed among the tribe assembled in that part of the kraal
+called the kitchen. Odds and ends of food were always on hand; and if
+there was not much to eat at home there was always something to be had
+at the chieftain's tent. Outside of the kitchen door was the stable
+yard, knee deep in the accumulated filth of years, and the garden was
+a wilderness. "But, your honour," said the Retainer, "it was the foine
+gentleman he was, and it tuk three waggons to carry away the empty
+champagne bottles when the new masther came, and long life to him and
+to your honour; and I wish your honour safe home and welcome back."</p>
+
+<p>Thus far the Retainer, who is fairly well cared for, and ought to be
+satisfied whether he is or not; but it is otherwise with the
+surrounding public. As the old order changes and gives place to the
+new, the poorer tenants have seen one privilege depart from them after
+the other. To the new occupant, however much inclined he may be to
+deal liberally, nay, generously with the country folk, it appears
+preposterous that a score or more of loafers should assist his
+servants in "eating up his mutton." The <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span>new comer is prepared to deal
+handsomely with the people, who with all their faults have endearing
+qualities almost impossible to resist; but the fact is that he does
+not understand the situation till it is too late. A good Scotch or
+English housewife going into her kitchen and finding it so
+inexpressibly dirty that her feet are literally rooted to the ground,
+is apt to express a very decided opinion, despite the presence of a
+dozen or more of gossips smoking their pipes round the fire; but her
+remarks are hardly likely to be taken in good part, and she is classed
+as a "domineering" person forthwith. And a general misunderstanding
+can only be averted by timely concessions and the prompt dismissal of
+English servants who neither can nor will live with their Irish peers.
+And yet it cannot be fairly said that anybody is to blame. The
+"foreigner" cannot endure to be kept in bed till late in the morning,
+and hence easily acquires the reputation of a "tyrant." And the small
+tenants feel the loss of the African system, under which they never
+actually went short of a meal. As the right of mountain pasture and of
+cutting turf have vanished on some estates, so has the privilege of
+living at free quarters disappeared on others, to be replaced by no
+compensating advantage. This is one of the features of a period of
+transition during which, without ill-will on either side, the gulf
+between rich and poor is becoming perceptibly wider.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span>Inasmuch as I am just now contradicted by peers in the columns of the
+<i>Daily News</i> itself, and attacked&mdash;I must add, in very courteous as
+well as brilliant style&mdash;by a leader writer of the <i>Irish Times</i>, and
+held up to public opprobrium at Sunday meetings, I thought it well to
+submit the foregoing to a friend, born and bred in Ireland, before
+committing it to print. Where, except so far as the retainer is
+concerned, I was obliged to depend so much on hearsay evidence, I
+thought it just possible that I might have selected an extreme case
+instead of a fair type of what I have ventured to call the African
+system. I am quite reassured. My friend, who is an accomplished and
+experienced Irishman, tainted only by a very few years' residence in
+England, assures me that I have considerably understated the wild,
+wasteful profusion, slothfulness, and dirt of the old-fashioned
+chieftain's kitchen. He assures me that families are now abroad in the
+world without an acre of land or a halfpenny beyond their earnings,
+who, within his recollection, have been "ruined by their
+kitchen,"&mdash;literally eaten up by hungry retainers and tenants. He
+mentioned one family in particular, whose income sank from 12,000<i>l.</i>
+to nothing a year under the ancient system which united almost every
+possible defect. The tenants were not, it is true, charged a heavy
+rent in money, because civilisation had not advanced quite so far as
+the commutation of all dues into cash; but "duty work" was as strictly
+exacted <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span>on the lord's farm as it is now on some estates when coal is
+to be drawn, and "duty" tribute in kind was levied as well. Thus the
+tenant was obliged not only to cultivate the "ould masther's" land,
+but to give him at Christmas tide a "duty" pig and "duty" geese and
+fowls according to a fixed percentage. My friend, whose position
+places his assertion above all doubt, assures me that in old leases it
+is quite common to find a sum of money specified as the equivalent of
+a "duty" hog; and other tribute of similar kind. The "ould masther,"
+whose bailiffs looked sharply after "duty" of all descriptions,
+himself dispensed the indiscriminate hospitality already described,
+and "masther" and man floundered in the slough of debt and poverty
+together, making light of occasional hardship. All this feudal
+fellowship has gone with the old chieftains, whom the people profess
+to admire, and compare regretfully with the new men who expect to pay
+and be paid. But I am reminded that I have omitted to mention an
+important factor in the older polity of Ireland. The opposite ends of
+the social chain were brought together by that time-honoured ensign
+and instrument of authority, one end of which was in the master's hand
+and the other in the man's ribs or across his shoulders. It was "the
+shtick" which kept things together so far as they were kept so at all.
+The descendants of the masters say little or nothing about the good
+old custom of their forefathers in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span>"laying about them with their
+rattan;" but the Retainer has not forgotten the ungentle practice
+which stimulated him to exertion in his youth. To hear the Retainer
+one would believe that the great smoother of difficulties, stimulant
+to exertion, and pacificator of quarrels was the "shtick." The idea of
+one of the tribe "processing" his chief for assault was never dreamt
+of in the good old times; for the recalcitrant one would have been
+"hunted out" of the county by the indignant population. To the
+Retainer the old time has hardly passed away, for it is not long since
+he actually recommended a "domineering Saxon" on the occasion of a
+domestic disturbance to "take the shtick to 'um, your honour. Sure the
+ould masther always did. And when he had murthered 'um they was as
+saft as silk." It is curious that the wand of the enchanter during the
+Golden Age of "Ould Ireland" should prove to have been the
+all-persuasive, all-powerful "shtick."</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="XIII" id="XIII"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span><br />
+
+
+<h3>XIII.<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h3>CROPPED.</h3>
+<br />
+
+<p class="right"><span class="sc">Gortatlea, Co. Kerry</span>, <i>Monday, Dec. 6th.</i></p>
+
+<p>Having heard agrarian outrages reported one day and denied or
+explained away the next, I thought it worth while to ascertain the
+exact truth concerning the case of Laurence Griffin, of Kilfalliny,
+co. Kerry. It had been reported at Cork that Griffin had been taken
+out of his bed in his own house, that his ears had been slit, and that
+he had been otherwise maltreated by a band of ruffians, on the night
+of Monday last. Then it was roundly asserted that he had never been
+attacked at all, and that he was a malingerer who had slit his own
+ears, or persuaded his wife to slit them for him, with an eye to the
+excitement of sympathy and charity; that winter was coming on; and
+that, after all, the ear is not a very sensitive part of the human
+form. To ascertain the exact truth there seemed to be only one
+method&mdash;to see for oneself. Having seen the man, and assisted at <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span>the
+application of a fresh dressing to his wounded ear, not <i>ears</i>, I must
+confess myself incapable of entertaining any doubt as to his veracity.
+His mutilated ear is not slit, nor is he "ear-marked" like a beast, by
+a notch being cut in that organ. The upper and exterior convolution of
+his left ear is cut clean off, so that its outline, instead off being
+rounded at the top, is straight. The wound is of course still fresh
+and sore, but is already showing signs of healing. The poor man has
+evidently been not only barbarously mutilated, but nearly frightened
+to death. With his pale face and half-grown beard, and his head bound
+up, he is a pitiable object. Obviously he was nearly as much afraid of
+me as of his midnight assailants, and was far too much bewildered by
+the harsh tone of "the Saxon" to tell a smooth and coherent story. Bit
+by bit, amid many interruptions, he told his pitiful narrative, only
+one part of which I consider doubtful. He denied that, either by their
+clothes or any other sign, he could identify any one of the men who
+attacked him. I am obliged to believe that, despite their blackened
+faces, he could have done so, were he not in fear of his life. The
+hand of his enemies is still heavy upon him, for his wife cannot get
+milk from the neighbours for her children. They are either afraid, or
+say that they are, to give or sell to Laurence Griffin, his wife, or
+his children. He is thrown out of employment, and may, so far as the
+anti-landlord party are concerned, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span>starve. The causes which led to
+the outrage on this poor man afford such a curious picture of the
+present state of county Kerry as to be worth narrating.</p>
+
+<p>A man named Sullivan occupied a farm at Kilfalliny, on the little
+river Main, a spot almost equidistant from each of the three railway
+stations of Farranfore, Gortatlea, and Castleisland. When Sullivan
+died several years ago, the farm, for which he paid about 190<i>l.</i> a
+year rent, was divided between his three sons, the man who obtained
+the middle or best section being "set" to pay 5<i>l.</i> more than either
+of the others, as having the best farm. The brothers on the outside
+sections have prospered. One has saved some hundreds of pounds; the
+other has given good, substantial portions to his three daughters. No
+objection was made to the manner in which the land was subdivided by
+the agent, Mr. Hussey, of the firm of Hussey and Townsend, of Cork,
+Tralee, and other places. The Sullivan who inherited the "good will,"
+as it is called here, of the "Benjamin's mess" has not succeeded in
+life so well as his brothers. At the October sessions of 1878 an
+ejectment order was obtained against him for one and a half year's
+rent, equal to 100<i>l.</i> 10<i>s.</i> In January, 1879, possession was taken,
+and the farmer formally ejected, but immediately reinstated as
+"caretaker," a convenient practice, when it is borne in mind that in
+Ireland an ejected tenant has six months allowed him for
+"redemption," <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span>during which the landlord can only let the farm subject
+to the risk of the late tenant paying up his rent, less whatever has
+been taken off the farm in the meanwhile. Sullivan then was
+re-established in his farm as "caretaker," and there he remained with
+the consent of the agent until last spring, when he was summoned to
+depart. To this request he has declined to pay the slightest
+attention. When he is summoned for trespass and sent to gaol the Land
+Leaguers pay his fine and restore him to his family, who still keep
+houses on the farm as before. As the case at present stands he is
+indebted to his landlord (deduction being made for sums received for
+grazing and for about 100<i>l.</i> worth of hay still stacked on the farm)
+in the sum of 100<i>l.</i> The agent, anxious to settle the matter,
+persuaded the landlord to offer him a receipt for this, and a bonus of
+100<i>l.</i> in cash, if he would go away, but this he, or the Land League
+for him, declines to do.</p>
+
+<p>It was obviously necessary at the end of the hay harvest to appoint a
+caretaker to see that the crop was not "lifted," after the manner of
+that of the irreconcilable Tom Browne, of Cloontakilla, county Mayo.
+Hence, Laurence Griffin, a labouring man, with an acre patch of land
+to his house, was given the job of looking after the hay, and
+occasionally summoning Sullivan for trespass. It must be understood
+that Sullivan's family have never been disturbed, and that Griffin
+lives, not like a man in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span>possession of their holding, but in his own
+little house hard by with his own family. The supervision exercised
+was, therefore, of the mildest character, but the summoning for
+trespass was accounted a dire offence by the popular leaders. Hence
+Griffin was first "noticed" to give up the occupation assigned to him
+by his employer, Mr. Hussey, who had given him his house and potato
+patch. The poor fellow was sadly exercised in his mind, but he kept on
+with his duty until a second notice was affixed to his door. Then he
+lost heart, and a fortnight ago gave up his dangerous occupation.</p>
+
+<p>On the Saturday following, however, he happened to go into Tralee, and
+the exponents of the popular will made up their minds that he had not
+given up his employment as he was "noticed" to do, that he was still
+persevering in the nefarious career of a caretaker, and that he had
+actually dared to go in the light of day to Tralee to receive the wage
+of his iniquity. If not actually guilty of this enormity, he had at
+least a guilty look, and it was determined to punish him, and make him
+a warning to other evildoers.</p>
+
+<p>According to the man's account, given in a disjointed manner under
+severe cross-questioning, he had gone to bed on Monday last, when
+somebody tapped at his door and called to him to open. Thinking the
+visit was from the police, who occasionally looked in upon him, he got
+up, and huddling on some clothes as he went, made for the door. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span>As he
+was on the point of opening it, a voice called out to him to "make
+haste," for the speaker was "starved with the cold;" then he knew the
+voice was not that of the policeman, and he would fain have closed the
+just opening door, but a gun was thrust through the opening, the door
+was pushed open, and a dozen men with blackened faces and armed to the
+teeth burst into the room.</p>
+
+<p>The ringleader then proceeded to go through some form akin to a trial,
+and asked his companions what should be done with Laurence Griffin,
+who had disregarded the notices served on him, and persevered in his
+villanous calling. It was suggested that death alone would meet the
+case. "Shoot 'um, says they," said Griffin to me. At this his wife
+sprang out of bed shrieking, and his children collected round him.
+Almost out of his wits with terror, the poor fellow declared that he
+had obeyed the notice, that he had relinquished his office, and that
+he was out of work, and full of trouble in consequence.</p>
+
+<p>After some little consultation the chiefs of the Blackfaces consented
+to swear Griffin as to the truth of his statement, and while guns were
+held to his breast and to each side of his head, he swore solemnly
+that he had obeyed the notice, that he was no longer watching
+Sullivan's farm, and that he would never offend in such wise again.</p>
+
+<p>When an end was made of swearing him, poor Griffin, more dead than
+alive, was marched out <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span>alone between his guards into the road, where
+he found himself among a score more of men, all with blackened faces.
+Then, so far as I could understand Griffin, the leader of the men
+outside displayed some dissatisfaction at the way in which things had
+passed off, and expressed his determination that the unhappy caretaker
+should not go scot free.</p>
+
+<p>"What did we come out for to-night?" growled the chief; "did we come
+out for nothing?" Muffled groans followed this appeal, and encouraged
+the spokesman to add, "Shall we go back as we came, boys?" the answer
+to which was a decided negative. Then the unlucky man, Griffin, saw
+something glitter in the chief's hand, and while he was kept steady by
+gun barrels pressing against each side of his head, he felt a sharp
+pain in his left ear, and the blood running down his neck.</p>
+
+<p>As to what followed he was very incoherent; but it seems that the
+Blackfaces departed, leaving him with his wife and children nearly
+frightened to death, and with the top of his ear cut clean off.</p>
+
+<p>I may add, as an indication of the state of Kerry, that a gentleman
+invited to meet me last night postponed the meeting till daylight, on
+the ground that night air is not good for landlords. Not a single
+person directly or indirectly connected with land ventures out unarmed
+even in broad daylight. It is needless to say that no money would hire
+a man to watch Sullivan's farm.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="XIV" id="XIV"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span><br />
+
+
+<h3>XIV.<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h3>IN KERRY.</h3>
+<br />
+
+<p class="right"><span class="sc">Tralee, Co. Kerry</span>, <i>Wednesday, December 8th.</i></p>
+
+<p>The character of the principal estates in counties Cork and Kerry
+appears to be like that of their bacon and beef&mdash;streaky. There are to
+be seen some admirable specimens of skilful and liberal management, as
+well as instances of almost insane blundering on the part of both
+landlord and tenant. From Blarney to the Blaskets the distance is not
+that of a couple of counties, but the gap between Kylemore and Rinvyle
+between civilization and savagery. It would be thought that worse
+degradation than that on Innisturk and Innisbofin would be difficult
+to find; but in poverty, misery, and lawlessness the population of
+those inclement isles is far outdone by the five-and-twenty families
+now in the position of squatters on the Great Blasket. This is an
+island some three miles and three-quarters long, lying off the
+peninsula of Corkaguiny beyond Dunmore Head, on the northern side of
+Dingle Bay, as Bray Head and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span>the island of Valentia lie on its
+southern side. Of old the Greater Blasket, which has some good
+pasturage upon it, was let to a few tenants who made a sort of living
+on this wild spot. They fed their sheep, they grew potatoes, caught
+great store of porpoises, which they converted into bacon, and thus
+kept body and soul together in a rough way. But whatever of rude
+plenty once existed on Great Blasket has vanished before its
+increasing population. The island is now asked to maintain some
+hundred and forty persons, and refuses to respond to the demand.</p>
+
+<p>The tenants can hardly complain of much interference of late years,
+either from Lord Cork, the head landlord, or from Mr. Hussey, who till
+just recently leased the island from him; for they have paid no rent
+for four or five, nor county cess for seven, years. They have never
+paid any poor-rate, and yet hunger after "relief meal." They are
+simply attempting the impossible&mdash;to live on a place which might
+perhaps support a score of people, but will not support six times that
+number.</p>
+
+<p>Blarney, for other reasons than its groves and "the stone there, that
+whoever kisses he never misses to grow eloquent," is one of the most
+interesting places in the south of Ireland. It is not only the centre
+of a rich agricultural country and the abode of an improving landlord,
+Sir George St. John <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span>Colthurst, of Ardrum, but the seat of an
+important manufacture of woollens, a rare and curious industry in
+Munster. The Blarney mills make a great "turn over" of tweed, and
+employ five hundred and fifty men, women, and girls. I had an
+excellent opportunity of seeing the factory hands, for I went to
+Blarney on pay-day, and was greatly struck by the difference between
+their appearance and that of the people engaged in agriculture alone.
+The number and appearance of the women employed is a good answer to
+those pessimists who maintain that the curse of the poorer Irish is
+the filthiness, laziness, and general slatternliness of the women. In
+dress and general bearing the girls of Blarney would compare
+favourably with those of many English manufacturing towns; and,
+inasmuch as Blarney Mills are successful, their work must be well
+done. One reason of course of the comfortable look of the Blarney folk
+is that all the family work. Perhaps the husband works at agriculture,
+and the wife and daughter at the mill. All work, and hence a good
+income, as at Blackburn and other cotton towns, instead of the
+starvation which attends a useless woman who, with her string of
+helpless children, hangs like a millstone round her husband's neck.
+There are no "useless mouths" at Blarney, where everybody helps to
+maintain the family roof-tree, and to prove that the Irish of the
+south, like those of Connemara, are susceptible of being taught, if
+only pains be taken with them. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span>It must be admitted that Blarney Mills
+are in the second generation, having been founded by Mr. Mahony, the
+father of the late "Father Prout" and of the present proprietor. The
+houses of the workpeople at Blarney are neat and trim, white and
+clean, and a repose to the eyes of beholders, sick of slouching thatch
+and bulging mud walls.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps, however, the spot of all others in which the sharpest
+contrast occurs between the old life of Ireland and that brought about
+by "improving" landlords and tenants is the hamlet of Millstreet,
+situate on the line of railway between this place and Mallow, once a
+kind of Irish Tunbridge Wells, and famous for the "Rakes of Mallow,"
+whose virtues are immortalised in verse. When Mallow was the farthest
+south-western outpost of civilization it is possible that the "rakes"
+who converged upon that pretty spot from the surrounding country
+"ranted," "roared," and "drank" to the extent that the poet has
+credited them withal. But they are gone now, these rakes, and Mallow
+appears to get on very well without them.</p>
+
+<p>It is remarkable for its pretty villas, and for a comfortable hotel,
+kept by a self-made man, who has risen from the ranks into prosperity
+by sheer industry and foresight. Millstreet is a very different kind
+of place from Mallow. The latter has the beautiful Blackwater river to
+give it beauty; but Millstreet is chiefly remarkable as the <i>locale</i>
+of the mill <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span>which gives it a name; as the habitation of the Rev.
+Canon Griffin, a Roman Catholic of high culture, who, unlike some of
+the priesthood, abjures the Land League and all its works; and as the
+spot on which "Ould Ireland" and New Ireland meet face to face.</p>
+
+<p>The hamlet is mainly divided between two proprietors. That part known
+as the McCarthy O'Leary property is mainly composed of filthy hovels
+of the worst Irish type&mdash;is, in fact, rather a gigantic piggery than a
+dwelling-place for human beings. The houses are not so small as the
+mountain cabins of Mayo or the seaside dens of Connemara, but they are
+small enough, crowded with inhabitants, and filthy beyond the belief
+of those who know not the western half of Ireland. It is hardly
+possible, nor would it be worth while, to inquire into the causes
+which have made one half of Millstreet an opprobrium and the other
+half a model hamlet. I simply record what I see&mdash;filth and swinishness
+on the left hand, order, neatness, and cleanliness on the right.</p>
+
+<p>The white houses, the trim streets of the townlet, are on the Wallace
+property, which is at present, and will be for some little time to
+come, in the hands of the Court of Chancery. Skilfully administered
+for several years past, the Wallace property is very well known in
+these parts for the success with which its management has been
+attended. One of the principal <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span>tenants of this thriving estate is Mr.
+Jeremiah Hegarty, whose peculiar position towards his landlords
+affords a curious instance of the working of the present land laws of
+Ireland. To begin with Mr. Hegarty holds about eight hundred acres as
+a tenant farmer, without a lease or any guarantee against his being
+turned off by his landlords at any time, except the natural goodwill
+and joint interest of landlord and tenant. He has of course the Act of
+1870 in his favour, but inasmuch as his "improvements" have extended
+over a long term of years, it is almost certain that if a series of
+deaths should bring the property into needy or unscrupulous hands Mr.
+Hegarty might be removed from his farm, or rather farms, at great loss
+to himself, despite the compensation that would be awarded him, and on
+which the landlord would assuredly make a great profit. It may be
+thought hardly likely that any landlord would be mad enough to
+disestablish a tenant of eight hundred acres of land who pays his rent
+with commendable punctuality; but as such things, and things even more
+foolish, have been done during the present year, it is not agreeable
+to think of the risks run by an improving tenant in county Cork, and
+an improving tenant Mr. Hegarty assuredly is.</p>
+
+<p>It is a curious illustration of that difference between English and
+Irish farming which makes the agrarian question so difficult for
+Englishmen to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span>understand, that Mr. Hegarty, who may be accepted as a
+type of the Irish farmer, possessed by advanced ideas, conducts his
+operations successfully and profitably by almost exactly reversing the
+proportions of tillage and pasture existing on Mr. Clare Read's famous
+farm at Honingham Thorpe. On the particular farm of Mr. Read's here
+referred to, the quantity of pasture is about one eighth or ninth of
+the whole. On Mr. Hegarty's farms, for he has more than one to make up
+his total of eight hundred acres, there is exactly one-ninth under
+tillage to eight-ninths of pasture.</p>
+
+<p>This will not at first strike the English eye as any great thing in
+the way of reclamation; but it must be recollected that in this part
+of Ireland it is no small matter to obtain good pasture. One of the
+first sights the eye becomes accustomed to is the long bent or sedge,
+shooting rankly up among the sweeter grass, and telling surely of land
+overcharged with water. There is no escape from the fact that Ireland
+as a country is cursed with defective natural drainage. The fall of
+the greater rivers is so slight that they meander hither and thither
+in "S's," as they say here, and only require a little surplus on the
+average rainfall to overflow the more valuable land. And it is
+astonishing how quickly good land left untilled reverts to its
+primeval condition, or, in the expressive language of the country,
+"goes back to bog." This has been shown in many cases.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span>There is, for instance, a not small portion of Lord Inchiquin's and
+Lord Kenmare's land, which has been allowed by the tenants to
+gradually go back to sedge, if not to bog, for the want of keeping
+drains clear and putting on lime. A curious instance of the effect of
+not liming the land is supplied on one of the fields newly reclaimed
+by Mr. Hegarty. Owing either to the supply of lime running short, for
+the moment, or to the carelessness of his men, a patch of recently
+drained land was left without lime which was liberally bestowed on the
+rest of the field. The forgotten patch can be seen from afar by the
+tufts of sedge sprouting from it.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Hegarty's eight hundred acres are, saving one or two little lots,
+divided between the Millstreet farm and the mountain farm of
+Lackadota, for the goodwill whereof the incoming paid the outgoing
+tenants 560<i>l.</i> before he began the work of thorough reclamation. His
+success on this hill-side has been remarkable. This season he has
+taken out potatoes from eight acres at the rate of 20<i>l.</i> per acre,
+and the triumph of his method has been equally great in other
+crops&mdash;to wit, oats, mangolds, and turnips.</p>
+
+<p>It is needless to remind agricultural readers that the artificial
+feeding of cattle is still in its infancy in the west and south-west
+of Ireland. The various kinds of cake&mdash;oil, cotton, and nut&mdash;and
+cattle "spices," made up of fenugreek seed and other condiments, are,
+if not unknown, quite unused by all <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span>but a few gentlemen farmers, of
+whom I shall in another letter have more to say. The old-fashioned
+notion was to rear cattle, turn them loose on the mountain, and sell
+them to be finished in the Meaths or elsewhere. On the Millstreet
+farm, however, root-crops are largely used for feeding, and the beasts
+are kept more under cover than is common here. All this means, of
+course, large outlay, and the farmer has expended not less than six
+thousand pounds in building, and in draining and liming four hundred
+acres of the eight hundred he occupies. He was, like Canon Griffin,
+one of the first to recognise the necessity for changing the potato
+seed, and imported "champions" before other people thought of it, and
+while they were growing potatoes not much bigger than marbles, and
+hardly fit to feed pigs upon, he was getting crops of fine tubers. In
+draining the portion of his farm near the river, he has found himself
+obliged to employ stone drains, the attempts previously made with tile
+drains having failed signally; and it may be added that his attempts,
+now shown to be successful, to drain the flat land near the river
+Oughbane were derided by neighbouring agriculturists, who could not
+see that if the land do not slope sufficiently towards the natural
+drainage the artificial drains may be made to do so. His
+farm-buildings, machinery for threshing, &amp;c., are an agreeable sight.
+In building, concrete has been largely used, especially in the
+cow-houses and feeding <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span>stalls, and the general effect of this large
+farm in county Cork is that of a well-managed business, every detail
+of which is familiar to its head.</p>
+
+<p>It can hardly be thought extraordinary that farmers like Mr. Hegarty,
+even on a smaller scale, are anxious for a good, sound Land Bill.
+They, with all good feeling toward their present landlords, cannot
+avoid recognising that as the law stands the work of their lives may
+be taken from them by any accident of succession. Despite the Land
+Bill of 1870, they are harassed by a sense of insecurity. Monetary
+payment for the work of their best years would not compensate them for
+the loss of the holdings, the value of which has been created by their
+own intelligent work. In England farmers of this type would assuredly
+have a lease, and their Irish brethren hold that schemes for the
+gradual acquirement of land by tenants should be accompanied by the
+"Three F's," and extended over fifty instead of thirty-five years. The
+latter plan would, they think, be of little use to the present tenant,
+as it would practically raise his rent too far, and thus prevent him
+from doing his best by the land. Great force is given to these
+opinions by evidence in my possession, that, although a great deal of
+land has been reclaimed within the last fifty years, a large
+proportion is running barren for want of means on the farmers' part to
+cultivate it properly.</p>
+
+<p>The panic among all classes connected with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span>"landlordism" is on the
+increase. All who can conveniently leave county Kerry are doing so. If
+I go for a drive with one of those proscribed by the grogshop-keepers
+of Castleisland the muzzle of a double-barrelled carbine peeps
+ominously from the "well" of the car. Meanwhile all enterprise and
+development of the country is arrested. The North Kerry Railway,
+connecting this town with Limerick, will, I believe, be opened next
+week, "despite of foes," but other undertakings are for the moment
+paralysed. This is the more to be regretted, as Tralee is a rising
+place. After a desperate struggle against the inertness of Western
+Ireland on the subject of pure water, the uncongenial element has been
+introduced so skilfully and with so much fall that a jet can be thrown
+over any house in Tralee. The last new idea is a railway to Fenit
+Without, six miles down the bay. Up to the present time vessels have
+been brought to Tralee by a ship canal, but it is now sought to
+construct a railway running on to a pier, the elbow of which should be
+formed by Great Camphire Island. The cost of the railway will be
+45,000<i>l.</i>, of which 30,000<i>l.</i> is guaranteed by the county, and a
+large part of the balance taken up by the town. The pier is a far more
+serious business, depending on the Board of Works; but all attention
+is diverted from this and other important subjects by the terrorism
+which has, only just recently, extended to the county of Kerry.</p>
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span><br />
+
+<p class="right"><span class="sc">Killarney, Co. Kerry</span>, <i>Thursday, Dec. 9th.</i></p>
+
+<p>The eviction&mdash;of landlords and land-agents&mdash;is going on bravely. Mr.
+Hussey, Lord Kenmare's agent, left Kerry a short time ago, and the
+Lord Chamberlain himself left Killarney House yesterday morning, not
+in a paroxysm of indignant "landlordism," but "more in sorrow than in
+anger." Lord Kenmare, who is a downright resident Irish landlord,
+<i>s'il en fust oncques</i>, confessedly leaves Ireland with great regret,
+and bade his people "Good-bye, for a long time" with no feigned grief.
+But he finds the country uninhabitable, while indignation meetings are
+held almost at his gates, and the very labourers whom he has done so
+much to employ make common cause with the farmers against him in
+paying no rent. The improvements going on here for some time past are
+stopped, and about 200<i>l.</i> a week of wages lost to the neighbourhood.
+The causes which led to Lord Kenmare's departure have but recently
+sprung into existence. The <i>jacquerie</i> only reached Kerry the other
+day, and already the county is revolutionised. Thanks to The
+O'Donoghue and other Land Leaguers, Kerry is now in as unsettled a
+condition as Mayo, Galway, Clare, and Limerick. The flame was long in
+reaching this remote region; but when it came it fell among
+inflammable stuff, as will be gathered from the almost ridiculous
+circumstance of farmers and labourers combining together against a
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span>supposed common enemy. Farmers who a fortnight ago talked scornfully
+of those who "held the harvest" have, to my certain knowledge,
+subscribed to the Land League within the last few days, and I am
+informed that those who have hitherto held out will be members before
+another week is gone. It is true that additional allurements are held
+out to them. The three "F's" no longer satisfy the more advanced
+spirits who emulate Mr. Parnell's magnificent vagueness, and declare
+it quite impossible that any measure likely to pass the Houses of
+Parliament as at present constituted will satisfy the people of
+Ireland. Meanwhile terrorism is upheld as a legitimate weapon of
+reform. If it were possible to be surprised at anything taking place
+in Ireland at the present moment, I should have been surprised at a
+farmer to whom I was talking a couple of days ago, and who farms
+between two and three hundred acres under an "improving" landlord. The
+farmer, who was evidently a local luminary on the land question, is
+only a recent convert to Land League principles; but he was
+nevertheless prepared to defend the cowardly kind of general strike
+against an individual, known as "Boycotting." He also talked a great
+deal about fair rents and the compulsion that farmers are under to pay
+anything that their landlords choose to ask. Yet this very man was,
+not long since, offered the profitable farm he now occupies in the
+place of smaller and less convenient holdings. Asked by his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span>landlord
+what he thought he ought to pay, he offered two and a half times
+Griffith's valuation, and on the landlord asking him three times that
+rate, agreed with him to "split the difference," and was, or appeared
+to be, satisfied. But at that moment he had not been made conscious of
+his wrongs, and of his down-trodden, serf-like condition. He is fully
+aware of them now, and, in plain English, is prepared to make the best
+of the present opportunity.</p>
+
+<p>As the possible peasant proprietor of the future is a personage much
+discussed among landlords and others just how, I thought it well to
+consult the farmer as well as the legal and proprietorial minds on
+this important subject. I was at once struck by the "so far and no
+farther" tone, so to speak, of the larger farmers. According to many
+of those I consulted, no greater disaster could occur to Ireland than
+the creation of peasant proprietors. I will endeavour to give, as
+nearly as possible, the exact words of farmers whose ideas concerning
+the claims of their own class are of the most advanced I have heard.</p>
+
+<p>The instant I asked a question concerning the peasant-proprietor
+problem and the future of the "poor devil" cottiers, whose sufferings
+have made an excellent stalking-horse for the farmers, properly
+so-called, I was met with a well-formulated objection to any scheme of
+peasant proprietorship. The cottier <i>pauvre diable</i> appears, I
+apprehend, to the farmers as <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span>a labourer, and they therefore look with
+anything but favour upon a scheme for raising the poor peasants above
+the necessity of working for them, by giving the poor a real stake in
+the country. The farmers hold that, unless some stringent regulations
+against subdividing or subletting be adopted and firmly enforced, the
+creation of peasant proprietors on an extensive scale will be the
+greatest misfortune that ever befell Ireland; as in the course of time
+it will create a nation of beggars, which cannot be maintained on the
+land. The farmer mind fails to perceive how any Act of Parliament can
+prevent an owner or peasant proprietor from selling his entire
+interest in his holding. This, they argue, will lead to the creation
+of a race of landlords who will bring more misery and ruin upon the
+country than anything that the present generation is acquainted with;
+as necessarily the class of landlords thus formed will be more
+exacting and severe upon their tenants than the present large
+territorial proprietors.</p>
+
+<p>Thus far the farmer, who so far as the evils of subdivision or
+subletting are concerned is at one with the great landed proprietor,
+who, thanks to the recklessness of his predecessors, sees his efforts
+to improve his property paralysed, and his own personal honour and
+reputation endangered by the acts of the leaseholders or fee-farm,
+renters over whom he has no power whatever. Many large holdings are
+leased to middlemen who have sublet them at extravagant <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span>rents, but
+cannot be dispossessed. This is the system which now exists, yet the
+great landholders I have consulted describe it as the result which
+will be brought about by giving the fee-simple of holdings to cottier
+tenants. "And," I am asked on all sides, "is fixity of tenure to
+signify the fixture of little tenants in their present holdings, on
+which they cannot possibly lead a reasonably human existence? Is it
+intended to stereotype disaster, to perpetuate the blundering of the
+past? Or is it intended to give them at great expense to the country,
+larger holdings on partially reclaimed waste lands on the system
+commended by Mr. Mitchell Henry, and perhaps applicable to Connemara,
+if not to other places? And is it intended that when Mike, and Thady,
+and Tim are settled on their new clearings they are to do as they like
+on them, to subdivide, to sublet, to conacre, to settle their numerous
+children and their children's children on the original forty-acre
+farm? And are they, after they have taken possession of it, partly
+reclaimed and brought under plough, to be allowed to cultivate it or
+not cultivate it as they like&mdash;to let it all go back first to pasture
+then to sedge, and finally to bog?"</p>
+
+<p>Mainly with a view to elicit further expression of opinion, I hinted
+to the last and most accomplished person who put these queries to me,
+that it would be absurd to give the cottier absolute control over his
+land, and that he should have a conditional lease <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span>from the
+Government, the four cardinal conditions being&mdash;that he should not
+subdivide; that he should not sublet; that he should not take in a
+partner; that he should cultivate some portion of the land according
+to a prescribed system. I saw the fine Irish "oi" of my friend gleam
+with triumph. "A second Daniel," he almost shouted; "a second Daniel
+come from England. But are you aware, my friend, that you have evolved
+from your own unaided consciousness one of 'Lord Leitrim's
+leases'&mdash;the leases, which cost him his life? Bating the fines which
+he injudiciously levied you have exactly the programme for enforcing
+which he was shot, as you would probably be if you attempted anything
+of the kind. It is not at the signing of the leases that any
+difficulty would arise, but in carrying their letter and spirit into
+effect."</p>
+
+<p>In view of the conflicting opinions held by able residents in the
+western and south-western counties, I thought it well to inspect a few
+estates, great and small, and to record such visible and otherwise
+well ascertained facts as might bear on the questions now at issue. My
+first visit in Kerry was to Clashatlea on the hill-side, opposite the
+station of Gortatlea on the railway line to Tralee. This townland is
+the property of Mr. Arthur Blennerhasset, of Ballyseedy, and it has
+fallen into an awful condition through no fault of its present
+proprietor.</p>
+
+<p>Years ago the land was let for electioneering <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span>purposes, akin to the
+creation of faggot votes, and a vast number of small holders became
+fixed upon land from which it is impossible to evict them. The
+approach to the small holdings lies along a cross road now in the
+course of construction from the lower road to the mountain road into
+Tralee. The cross road is in its present wet and unfinished condition
+a sore trial to man and beast; but it has a history nevertheless.
+Years ago it was a matter of complaint by the cottiers of Clashatlea
+that to obtain turf they were obliged to make a great detour involving
+the climbing of a severe hill. An attempt was made to lay a road on
+the lines now in progress; but it never grew into more than "the name
+of a road." So the little peasant cultivators whose land abutted on
+the abortive road gradually absorbed it into their possessions, each
+peasant taking his section in turn; a system exactly like that
+followed in bygone days by English landholders, and now attempted by
+the riparian proprietors of the Thames Valley. So far these poor
+people imitated the method of their social superiors; but they were
+not so fortunate as some of these in retaining their plunder. The new
+road was decreed, and Mike, and Thady, and Tim were obliged to
+withdraw within their ancient limits. Along the new road we went,
+bumping and jolting, at the imminent risk of the guns and revolvers in
+the car going off, until we reached the upper road by the glen. In
+parts the wretched <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span>houses were separated by a perceptible distance;
+but here and there they had been built side by side to accommodate the
+increasing population on the holdings.</p>
+
+<p>How minute the subdivision has been may be gathered from the fact that
+335 English acres, whereof some 250 are good for anything in their
+present condition, are divided among 40 tenant families, whose numbers
+may be safely put down at 200 souls. The land is therefore divided at
+the rate of one and a quarter English acres per head, and when it is
+mentioned that the most important tenant pays a rent of 17<i>l.</i> 10<i>s.</i>,
+it will be seen that some of the holdings are ridiculously small. Many
+range from 4<i>l.</i> to 5<i>l.</i> per annum and are absolutely incapable of
+providing food for a family. It has been found impossible to reduce
+the number of tenants to any sensible degree without incurring the
+hatred of the country side, and the old and infirm whose children are
+dead or have emigrated, still cling to the miserable cabins in which
+their lives have been passed.</p>
+
+<p>On the opposite side of Tralee I witnessed a spectacle of a widely
+different character. A smart drive from Tralee northwards through a
+blinding rain landed me at Ardfert, the village in the centre of Mr.
+W. Crosbie's wonderfully improved estate. Going about his work quietly
+and unostentatiously, the proprietor has, in the course of forty-two
+years, completely altered the conditions of existence on his land.
+When it came into his possession in 1838, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span>it was, as many Irish
+estates are now, suffering from local congestion of population. Mr.
+Crosbie's father had inherited from the Earl of Glendore, who had
+given leases under the old penal laws. At the time only Protestants
+were allowed to hold leases, and in consequence of the small number of
+Protestants compared with the demand for lessees, the leases were
+obtained upon very advantageous terms&mdash;a long period, a low rent, and
+few conditions. The result was that the penal law, like other clumsy
+devices of the kind, defeated itself; for there was nothing to prevent
+the lessee from subletting the land. This had been done to an enormous
+extent when Mr. Crosbie came into possession, and the lowland part of
+the estate was greatly over-populated. The upper part was greatly
+under-populated, and in the words of the proprietor, nothing could be
+worse than the way in which the tenants held the land. "No one knew
+from year to year which farm he had to till, and they used to divide
+every field and divide the crops every year." Mr. Crosbie was not
+deterred by the difficulty of the task before him, and undertook the
+redistribution of his tenantry, on the anti-rundale system, and by
+degrees succeeded in planting the surplus population of the lowlands
+upon the higher ground. Moreover he anticipated the ideas of Mr.
+Mitchell Henry and Canon Griffin by putting his tenants under the
+direct control of a skilled agriculturist, under his own supervision.
+Having <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span>thus redistributed his people on the land and taught them the
+elements of agricultural science, he commenced the work of building
+them suitable houses and farm buildings.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Crosbie's estate in Kerry is of 9,913 acres valued by Government
+at 4,638<i>l.</i>, with a present rent roll of 8,500<i>l.</i>, thanks to the
+expenditure of 40,000<i>l.</i> since 1839. As one approaches Ardfert the
+cabin common in Kerry vanishes to make room for houses well and
+substantially built of concrete, with whale-back roofs also of
+concrete. The merit of originally introducing concrete as a building
+material into this part of Ireland belongs, I believe, to Mr. Mahony,
+of Dromore, who has employed it largely on his own estate; but Mr.
+Crosbie was, at least, one of the first to perceive the advantage of
+using it. With Portland cement and the sand and pebbles of the
+adjacent sea-shore he has made a concrete village, and given his
+farmers houses of a kind previously unknown in his neighbourhood.
+Concrete has several advantages keenly appreciated in Kerry. It is
+dry&mdash;an immense advantage in a humid climate, and floors, ceilings,
+partition walls, and roofs, are all made of it, as well as the
+external walls. It also requires very little skilled work, and can be
+built up by ordinary labourers under proper supervision. Another great
+advantage is that it can be moulded to any shape and thickness, and is
+therefore most useful for barns, cowhouses, and feeding stalls.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span>The houses and farm buildings I have seen certainly seem perfect, and
+have, I am informed, been constructed at about the same price as
+corrugated iron. Those fond of tracing the genius of a nation in its
+constructive faculty will probably be amused at finding that the
+latest work of structural genius in Kerry is a development of that
+mud-hut order of architecture which has existed here from pre-historic
+times. But concrete well employed is a very different thing from the
+dirt-pie or mud-hut idea at the other end of the evolutionary chain.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Chute, of Chute Hall, is also an improver and architectural
+reformer, his efforts being directed towards the abolition of thatch
+in favour of slate, an idea which has proved more fortunate in his
+case than in that of the great-grandfather of the present Lord
+Kenmare. The great estates of the Lord Chamberlain have curiously
+enough been equally damaged by the care and carelessness of his
+ancestors. His great-grandfather was disgusted at the condition of the
+town of Killarney, and offered any tenant who would build a decent
+house with a slate roof a perpetual lease of the land it stood upon
+and the adjoining garden for a nominal rent of four shillings and
+fourpence per annum, without other important conditions. The result
+has been that Killarney can boast of as filthy lanes as any in London
+or Liverpool. The ordinary process, the same as that which formed the
+hideous slums between Drury-lane and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span>Great Wild-street, now happily
+demolished, has gone on in Killarney. Tenants under no restrictions
+gradually converted their gardens into lanes of hovels, and made money
+thereby, and the result is a concentration in Killarney of filth which
+would be better distributed on the side of a mountain, and which is
+under the nose of a landlord who is powerless to apply a remedy.</p>
+
+<p>Not long ago Lord Kenmare sought to establish what is called here a
+Temperance Hall, for the purpose of giving lecturers and entertainers
+a chance of amusing the people; but the proprietor of the ground,
+after a prolonged negotiation, declined to surrender his property.
+Killarney is in the hands of the dwellers therein, and a very poor
+place it is.</p>
+
+<p>Conversely Lord Kenmare's property suffers severely from the
+recklessness of the ancestor who flourished in the "comet year,"
+famous for hock. That spirited nobleman, averse to the nuisance of
+dealing directly with tenants, leased a large portion of his property
+to middlemen in 1811 for forty-one years or three lives; that is to
+say, for a minimum of forty-one years with expansion to three lives.
+The effect of this fatal policy of giving away all power of
+supervision and management has been made manifest in the past, and is
+yet visible on those portions of the estate the three-life leases of
+which have not yet fallen in. The gross rental of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span>Lord Kenmare's
+estates in Kerry, Cork, and Limerick, amounting altogether to 118,606
+acres, is 37,713<i>l.</i>, against Griffith's valuation of 34,473<i>l.</i>, but
+the distribution of this sum is very unequal, especially since the
+rents of the yearly tenants were raised in 1876, in some cases to the
+by no means unfair extent of 50 per cent. above the poor-rate
+valuation.</p>
+
+<p>The 3,300 tenants on Lord Kenmare's property have been mainly put upon
+the land by middlemen who made a great profit out of their three-life
+leases. The lands of Mastergechy, Knockacrea, and Knockacappul are all
+let at an immense reduction on Griffith's valuation, but to middlemen,
+who realise from 200 to 300 per cent. on their investment. Despite
+these drawbacks, Lord Kenmare is an "improving" landlord, and has laid
+out in the last ten months some 7,000<i>l.</i> on his property. The pretty
+tile-roof cottages outside of Killarney are a reproach to the town
+itself, over which Lord Kenmare, after the manner of many other Irish
+landlords, has no kind of control.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<p class="right"><span class="sc">Valentia, Co. Kerry</span>, <i>Dec. 12th.</i></p>
+
+<p>In a previous letter I alluded to the length of time it had taken the
+Land League agitation to make itself felt in Kerry, and to the
+swiftness with which, when once ignited, the far south-west of Ireland
+blazed into open disaffection. The causes <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span>of this slowness to light
+up, immediately followed by a fierce and sudden flame, are by no means
+obscure. Kerry has always been the last place to follow a popular
+movement, and the last to relinquish it.</p>
+
+<p>As the French Revolution and its effects on Ireland were not heard of
+in Kerry till long after the establishment of the Empire, so was Ross
+Castle, on the lower lake at Killarney, the last stronghold subdued by
+Ludlow; and so also was Kerry the last stronghold of Fenianism.
+Moribund in the other parts of Ireland until Nationalists and Land
+Leaguers were united, by the prosecution of Mr. Parnell, Fenianism
+still lingered and lingers on in Kerry. In the pot-houses of Tralee,
+Castle Island, and Cahirciveen the embers of Fenianism have smouldered
+since the outbreak of 1867. Slow to learn, Kerry has been slow to
+forget, and when once the emissaries of the Land League arrived here
+they found ready to their hand the <i>cadre</i> at least of a formidable
+organisation, and the reign of terrorism at once commenced.</p>
+
+<p>Up to the present moment I have not heard of houses being blown up by
+dynamite after the fashion in Bantry, but the farmers who have already
+not paid their rents decline to do so, or pay in full secretly, while
+openly subscribing to the Land League and denouncing the mean-spirited
+serfs who would pay a farthing above Griffith's valuation.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span>There is no mistaking the strength of the movement which has at last
+reached this remote island, between which and America, as a native
+said to me yesterday, "There is not as much as the grass of a goat."
+This saying refers to the popular method of measurement, which is not
+by acres, but by the grass of so many cows, according to the richness
+of the pasture. Up to a month ago there was no talk of the Land League
+on Valentia Island. The tenants had for the most part paid their May
+rents, and the situation therefore afforded little scope for
+agitation; but the subtle spirit which spread instantaneously from
+Tralee to Cahirciveen quickly traversed the ferry, and now the
+Valentians are as keen on the subject of their grievances as anybody
+else in the western half of Ireland. At Cahirciveen anti-landlordism
+is as vigorous at this moment as at Tralee, or even at Ennis itself,
+albeit violent personal outrages have not been perpetrated in the
+immediate neighbourhood.</p>
+
+<p>A resolute and influential leader of the people declared to me
+yesterday that the spirit now aroused would never be quelled but by a
+full and generous recognition of the claims of the cultivators. He
+averred that the people are not only awakened to their wrongs and
+determined to have them redressed, but that they possess the power of
+enforcing their will. I hinted that savage threats and deeds of
+violence might produce temporary anarchy, but that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span>the end of all
+would be the crushing of the League with a strong hand. The answer was
+not argument, but defiance. It was impossible, the speaker asserted,
+to crush the combination now existing in Kerry. It could not be
+crushed, for the simple reason that it did not transgress the law.
+This was startling news, and I at once asked what was to be said of
+the dynamite affair at Bantry, the ear-cutting business near Castle
+Island, and the shooting of a bailiff in Tyrone? Only one of those
+things, I was instantly reminded, had occurred in Kerry, and I was
+moreover instructed that personal violence was preached against by the
+Land League priests, and opposed by all lay leaders. The crimes
+alluded to were the accidents of a great upheaval of the people, who
+could attain their objects perfectly well without violence.</p>
+
+<p>To the objection that without occasional violence the terrorism now
+existing would lose all its strength, that threats never carried out
+would become ridiculous, that when violence ceased, tenants as well as
+landlords would set the Land League law aside and, do as they pleased,
+it was replied that the great agrarian movement had passed through the
+period of terrorism as nations pass through the early stage of
+baronial rights, especially that of private war. The present condition
+of the anti-landlord party was not that of a revolt, but of a strike,
+which whether it was wise and according to the laws of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span>political
+economy or not, was clearly lawful. There was no constitutional right
+in any one man to compel another to work for him, and a strike was
+therefore clearly permissible. It was nonsense to cry out against
+combination. It was the only possible method of the weak making good
+their case against the strong, and the landlords might combine, and
+welcome, if they thought it would do them any good. Nobody wanted to
+shoot them any more, for they were "Quite, quite down." The present
+strike was of an unprecedented character. Strikes of workpeople were
+sometimes met and defeated by combinations of masters, because the
+masters held the property and plant, and the men had nothing but their
+heads and hands, and perhaps a little money in savings banks. So the
+masters lasted the longest and won, except when their number included
+a large proportion of needy, speculative manufacturers, who durst not
+stop their mills, and thus became the indirect and unwilling allies of
+the artisan. But where the masters were few and wealthy, the artisans
+had no chance against them.</p>
+
+<p>It was far otherwise with the Irish farmers and cottiers, who not only
+"held the harvest," or rather its monetary result, but held the land
+and were "not going to give it up." The people, the speaker opined,
+had really won the battle already, and it was for them to exercise the
+power they had suddenly become aware of wisely and mercifully. There
+was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span>no further need for violence or threats of violence, but what was
+called the law should not be carried out until the claims of the Irish
+people were fully admitted by the English Government.</p>
+
+<p>How then was this gigantic strike to be carried on without violence or
+threatening life or limb? Quite easily was the reply&mdash;by extending the
+process of "Boycotting." This is, it seems, the great constitutional
+weapon on which neither horse, foot, nor artillery can be brought to
+bear. Those who will not join the <i>Jacquerie</i>, and aid and abet those
+Irish analogues of Jacques Bonhomme, Mike and Thady and Tim, in their
+resistance to "landlordism" shall be "Boycotted"; and all those who
+refuse to join in "Boycotting" an offender shall be treated in the
+same way.</p>
+
+<p>Already the stoutest hearted are yielding on every side to the dread
+of being "Boycotted," a doom which signifies simply that the victim
+must surrender or leave the country. It means that nobody will buy or
+sell with any member of the family which is declared "taboo"; that the
+farmer may drive his cattle and pigs to market, but will not find a
+purchaser; that he may reap his grain and pull his potatoes, but that
+not a soul in the country will buy them for fear of being "Boycotted"
+himself. It means that the baker will refuse him bread, and the
+butcher meat; that no draper who knows his wife by sight will sell her
+as much as a ribbon; that not a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span>creature will buy her butter and
+eggs, chickens and turkeys, geese and ducks; that she will be unable
+to buy any article of food or luxury for her children, and that they
+will be "sent to Coventry" at school.</p>
+
+<p>There is not an atom of exaggeration in anything here stated. It is
+not a fancy picture, but as genuine as that of Mr. Boycott himself;
+and there is no doubt that the taste for "Boycotting" is spreading
+rapidly, as my informant, who is heartily in favour of it, declares it
+is "clean within any law that could be made, let alone carried out."
+It is impossible to compel any community to have dealings with a
+person whom they dislike, and the anti-landlord party are determined
+to carry their point without, as appears on the notices served on
+farmers, "hurting one hair of their heads." "Isolation" has, in fact,
+been added to the number of the arts which soften manners and forbid
+them to be savage. It is the sprig of shillelagh in a velvet sheath.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="XV" id="XV"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span><br />
+
+
+<h3>XV.<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h3>THE "BOYCOTTING" OF MR. BENCE JONES.</h3>
+<br />
+
+<p class="right"><span class="sc">Cork</span>, <i>Friday, Dec. 17th.</i></p>
+
+<p>The present condition of Mr. W. Bence Jones, of Lisselan, whom I
+called upon to-day, illustrates most vividly the advance made in the
+art of "Boycotting" since its invention. Early attempts in any
+artistic direction are apt to be crude, and when "Boycotting" was
+first practised at Lough Mask it put on the guise of a general strike
+of the country side against an individual, but its effect was purely
+local. Since that time great progress has been made in shaping and
+finishing what one of my informants defined as "a strictly
+constitutional weapon." At this moment the arm of the skilful
+"Boycotter" is long. It can stop the sale of the original victim's
+potatoes in a northern town; it can keep Mr. Stacpoole from getting
+rid of his horses in Limerick; and can actually prevent Mr. Bence
+Jones from sending his cattle from Cork to England. The latter
+gentleman is <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span>isolated on his estate at Lisselan, a place near
+Ballinascarthy, between Bandon and Clonakilty, in this county, but his
+isolation has not yet gone, in some respects, to the same brutal
+length as that of Mr. Boycott. He is still permitted to receive and to
+despatch his letters; and car-drivers have, perhaps by some oversight
+of the "Boycotters," not yet been warned to avoid his house as if it
+were a lazaretto, and to refuse to carry his visitors within miles of
+his door. Perhaps he is considered by the mysterious persons who alone
+exercise authority in Ireland just now as only a "tyrant" of the
+second or third degree, and not as a first-class malefactor.</p>
+
+<p>But, however this may be, I found none of the difficulty in reaching
+Lisselan which accompanied my second visit to Lough Mask House. When I
+started from Bandon this morning, that thriving town was wrapped in
+slumber, although the sun was shining brightly out of a deep blue sky,
+just flecked at the horizon with pearly-hued clouds. The ground was
+hard and crisp, and the hoofs of the horses rang out merrily as I sped
+in the direction of Clonakilty, through an undulating country mainly
+devoted to pasture, some of which was rough and sedgy. As I approached
+Ballinascarthy the quality of the land was visibly better.</p>
+
+<p>Lisselan House lies in the midst of a charming pastoral scene. Beyond
+the clean-cut lawn flows the silvery flood of the Arrigadeen, its
+opposite <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span>bank is clothed with the bright green tops of white turnips
+in the midst of which is penned a flock of sheep (Shropshire Downs),
+and in the distance are green meadows and browsing kine. All would be
+soft, peaceful, and Arcadian, were it not for the helmets of the 3rd
+Dragoon Guards glittering in the sun as the patrol turns the corner of
+the wood, and the tall, dark figures of the Royal Irish Constabulary
+guarding the gate and doorstep. At present the house, the farm, and
+the neighbouring village are occupied by the police, and it has been
+thought necessary to increase the strength of the garrison in order to
+assure the safety of the servants who, to their infinite credit in
+such times as these, remain true to their master.</p>
+
+<p>It is not pretended for an instant that either Mr. W. Bence Jones or
+his son, who are as gigantic of stature as they are resolute of mind,
+need fear personal attack. They are known to be armed to the teeth,
+and the chances are that the weak-minded labourers who have deserted
+them are far more afraid of "the masters" than they are of them. The
+household of Lisselan consists for the time being of the Messrs. Bence
+Jones, father and son. Miss Bence Jones, their English house servants,
+two labourers&mdash;whereof one is English and the other Irish&mdash;Mr. Law,
+the Scotch bailiff, and an Irish housemaid, who has remained faithful,
+and helps Miss Bence Jones to milk the cows and to attend to the
+dairy. The <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span>road is slippery on the high ground hard by, and it is
+debated at Lisselan House whether the farrier of the Dragoon Guards
+shall not be asked to "sharpen" the shoes of the animals employed
+there, for no local workman will touch them.</p>
+
+<p>As I pass by the dairy, one of those in which collectively Mr. Bence
+Jones makes 1,000<i>l.</i> worth of butter yearly, I see the trim
+housemaid, dressed in cotton print, milking a cow, and am presently
+aware of "the master's" son and daughter, who have been up since the
+dawn feeding and penning cattle and sheep, and milking the cows. Since
+Monday the strike among the Irish employed on the house and the farm
+has, with the exceptions already mentioned, been rigidly maintained.
+The men, about forty in number, were "noticed" on Friday; on Saturday
+they announced their intention of working no more for Mr. Bence Jones,
+and on Monday deserted the place as if it were plague-stricken.</p>
+
+<p>On Monday morning Mr. Law stood aghast at the sight of a farm of a
+thousand acres with nobody to work it; but he soon recovered himself,
+and with the help of his own work, that of a couple of labourers left,
+and the co-operation of the master's son and daughter, matters went on
+despite the strike. Mr. Law is, of course, as a good Scotch bailiff
+should be, greatly distressed at the state of his cow-houses,
+feeding-stalls, and stockyard, now ankle-deep in "muck"; but the fine
+shorthorned bull seems none <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span>the worse, and the pigs have taken kindly
+to the new and disorderly condition of affairs. But things are not
+brought to a deadlock yet. Of the animals "Boycotted" in Dublin the
+sheep have since been shipped, and it is thought here that at the
+moment of writing the cattle will be on their way to Sir Thomas Dyke
+Acland, to whom they are consigned.</p>
+
+<p>Byron wrote that "nought so much the spirit calms as rum and true
+religion;" but this dictum is hardly confirmed in the case of Mr.
+Bence Jones's assailants, who number among them a minister of
+religion, as well as the irrepressible grogshop-keeper. I am informed
+that last Sunday the mutinous labourers&mdash;or, perhaps, it would be more
+correct to say the labourers who have been coerced by threats into
+mutiny&mdash;were addressed in the vestry by Father Mulcahy, and that
+either he or some other person assured them that they would receive
+their wages as if they were still employed. However this may be, the
+unfortunate families, about thirty in number, who have struck at the
+bidding of the anti-landlord party, are making a sorry bargain; for
+many of the men are getting on in years, and will have to seek work
+and house-room elsewhere when they are turned out of their cottages to
+make room for the strange hands who are coming to do the work they
+refuse to do. The neat little dwellings of stone and slate that I
+observed to-day on the Lisselan estate are not let to the labourers,
+but are, with as much potato land <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span>as they can manure, thrown in with
+their wages, 11<i>s.</i> per week. They must now make way for people who
+will work, and are not afraid of "Rory of the Hills." Offers of help
+pour in upon Mr. Bence Jones, and the first detachment of labourers is
+expected forthwith. One friend offers a phalanx of English navvies;
+but temperate counsels prevail, and it is thought better to get the
+really small number of men required brought in quietly. With police
+everywhere at Lisselan and Ballinascarthy, and cavalry patrols always
+at hand, it is hardly likely that violence will be attempted towards
+the newcomers or the present slender garrison.</p>
+
+<p>There are, as in all such cases, conflicting reports as to the cause
+of the quarrel, if such it can be designated, between landlord and
+labourer at Lisselan. In his forthcoming book, <i>A Life's Work in
+Ireland, by a Landlord who tried to do his duty</i>, Mr. Bence Jones will
+doubtless describe with characteristic accuracy the objects he had in
+view, and the means he took to accomplish them. He has also already
+made known his difficulties and disappointments through the medium of
+the Press. He has undoubtedly, had abundant opportunity of weighing
+the possibilities of Irish country life during the long period of his
+residence in Ireland. It is also clear to any unprejudiced person that
+he has striven, not only to do his duty by the land, but by the
+tenants occupying one part of it and the labourers <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span>employed on the
+other. In round numbers he owns about 4,000 acres, of which he farms
+1,000 himself. Besides 1,000<i>l.</i> worth of butter annually made, he
+sells 1,000<i>l.</i> worth more of cattle, and 1,000<i>l.</i> worth of sheep and
+wool, besides oats and various other produce.</p>
+
+<p>While this one-thousand-acre farm was let to tenants, it yielded its
+proprietor an average rental of 17<i>s.</i> an acre. No person acquainted
+with farming would for an instant assume that a small tenant could
+make nearly as much out of his land as the farmer of a thousand acres;
+but allowing for all this, 14<i>s.</i> 3<i>d.</i> per acre appeared a very low
+rate to the landlord of the farm of fifty-eight acres occupied for the
+last half-century by the Walsh family. I gather that the grandfather
+of D. Walsh held the farm from the grandfather of the present
+landlord; that the original occupant was succeeded by his son; that on
+the son's death his widow retained undisturbed possession until her
+son was old enough to assume the management, and that then the
+landlord required 20<i>s.</i> per acre from him. To the landlord it seemed
+that the Walsh family had had a good bargain. He was informed, with
+what degree of accuracy I cannot at this moment ascertain, that the
+widow had given her four daughters respectively 140<i>l.</i>, 130<i>l.</i>,
+130<i>l.</i>, and the stock of a farm, probably of equal value "to their
+fortune," and that she had also helped one of her sons to make a start
+in the world on an <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span>independent farm. From these circumstances he
+concluded that he was entitled to more rent than he had been
+receiving, and demanded 20<i>s.</i> from her son for a lease of thirty-one
+years.</p>
+
+<p>To the tenant the case assumed a widely-different aspect. His
+grandfather, his father and his mother, had successively occupied the
+fifty-eight acre farm for fifty years. Two generations had been bred,
+if not born, on the holding at Ballinascarthy, just beyond the bridge.
+They had been decent people. They had paid their rent, and if his
+sisters had received good portions it was no more than their due,
+considering the respectability of their family. Was he, after his
+people had held the land for fifty years, to have it "raised on him"
+to nearly double Griffith's valuation? Was it just to increase the
+rent because his father and mother were dead? All these questions
+occurred to the tenant, beyond any matter of improvements and so
+forth. The landlord's position is quite intelligible. The value of
+farm produce had risen so greatly since the original rent was levied,
+and the farmer had prospered so well of late years, that the holding
+was demonstrably worth more rent than had been paid. On the other
+hand, the tenant held that the farm had done well by his people,
+because they had done well by it, and that to "raise the rent on him"
+because his family had behaved honestly and industriously was a
+monstrous exercise of arbitrary power. The upshot of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span>the whole matter
+was a refusal on the part of the whole tenantry to pay the last "gale"
+or six months' rent. It is a noteworthy circumstance that none of the
+tenants are in arrear.</p>
+
+<p>There are other accusations than that of raising the rent brought
+against Mr. Bence Jones. The police barrack at Ballinascarthy was once
+a grogshop, given by the landlord to a dairymaid who had been long in
+his service. No sooner had she a groggery "to her fortune" than her
+hand was sought by a legion of admirers. It is not, I fancy, generally
+known in England that in this romantic country the warmhearted,
+impulsive peasants almost invariably contract <i>mariages de
+convenance</i>.</p>
+
+<p>It is said that a young man in the neighbouring city of Kerry was once
+sorely vexed in his mind as to his matrimonial choice. The
+"matchmaker" who arranges such matters had proposed two girls to him,
+one of whom had one cow and the other two cows "to her fortune." Now,
+the "Boy" liked the girl with one cow far better than her rival who
+had two, but the magnitude of the sacrifice he wished to make sat
+heavy on his soul. He consulted a patriarch renowned for his wisdom,
+and laid great stress upon his love for the girl with one cow. The
+oracle spake as follows: "Take the gyurl wid the two cows. There isn't
+the difference of a cow, begorra, betune any two women in the
+wor-r-ld." By similar reasoning a superannuated dairymaid with a
+grogshop is a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span>very different person to the "pretty girl milking her
+cow"&mdash;sovereign lady of her presence, but of no groggery beside.
+Consequently the woman got married and died, and her husband having
+proved objectionable was evicted and the grogshop extinguished. This
+was another grievance against Mr. Bence Jones, who is known to oppose
+the indiscriminate licensing which takes place in many parts of
+Ireland. I believe that in the neighbouring townlet of Clonakilty
+there are no less than forty-two whisky shops, a proportion to make
+Lord Aberdare's hair to stand on end. Furthermore it seems that after
+bearing with Mr. Bence Jones for nearly forty years the people have
+dubbed him "tyrant" and "domineering Saxon," epithets certain to be
+applied to any Englishman who tries to do his own work in his own way
+in Ireland. Any insistance on anything being done in the master's way
+instead of the man's is "tyranny." Any curt command is "domineering."
+Irish peasants are accustomed to easier and pleasanter ways, and like
+to be coaxed and petted. It is only just to admit that under this
+treatment they display the utmost goodwill and pliancy. They will do
+anything to serve those who take them rightly, but they hate
+discipline. To the Saxon again it seems hard that he should be called
+upon to waste time in coaxing a mere hewer of wood and drawer of
+water, who, moreover, hews wood very badly, and draws water with
+exasperating <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[272]</a></span>deliberation. But a peremptory tone will not answer in
+southern and western Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>It may be urged that it has taken the people a long time to discover
+that Mr. Bence Jones was a tyrant. One thing is certain&mdash;they are
+likely soon to be rid of him. By living carefully he has been enabled
+to spend a large proportion of his income in improving his estate. He
+now announces his intention of throwing all his farm into pasture and
+leaving a country which has become uninhabitable.</p>
+
+<p>It is curious, to say the least, that as he was correcting the proofs
+of the volume which embodies his experience, he was called upon to
+rise and welcome the resident magistrate and the officer commanding
+the patrol, considered necessary for the preservation of himself, his
+family, and the few dependants who yet remain steadfast.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<p class="right"><span class="sc">Cork</span>, <i>December 20th.</i></p>
+
+<p>It is impossible to exaggerate the panic prevailing among the landed
+proprietors of Cork, Kerry, Tipperary, Limerick, and Clare. Within the
+triangle, which may be roughly described as inclosed by Galway town,
+Waterford, and Valentia Island, a reign of terror paralyses all those
+classes of the population owning any kind of property directly or
+indirectly connected with land.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps the agents whose calling is menaced with extinction preserve
+the most equable mind under the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span>present arduous circumstances. They
+are to the manner born. They are accustomed to receive threatening
+letters frequently, and to be shot at now and then. Individually,
+therefore, they bear up very well, but it is far otherwise with their
+families, who look forward to St. Stephen's Day and its threatened
+meetings with undisguised apprehension. The men leave home in the
+morning bristling with double-barrelled carbines and revolving
+pistols, and, confiding either in themselves, their police escort, or
+both, keep, in the language of the country, a "good heart"; but it is
+far otherwise with their wives and daughters. As the "master" and the
+"boys" prepare to depart, and guns are being put on the car, together
+with the rugs and macintoshes, the matron's cheek grows pale, and her
+lips quiver as she bids farewell to the beloved ones, whom she may
+never see "safe home" again. This is no picture drawn by the
+imagination, with which flattering critics are pleased to credit me.</p>
+
+<p>Such a scene as I describe was witnessed by me a few days ago, and I
+regret to hear that the brave lady, who bore up well for several weeks
+against ever-present anxiety, has broken down at last, and lies on a
+bed of sickness. In this struggle against a covert mutiny, women, as
+in open warfare, are the chief sufferers. There are many of the men
+who ask for nothing better than to be let loose on some visible mortal
+representatives of their intangible foe. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[274]</a></span>But the general feeling is
+despondent. The unfortunate landowners, house proprietors, and many of
+the merchants, complain bitterly that they are delivered into the
+hands of a "convict," whose ticket of leave enables him to paralyse
+the industry of the country.</p>
+
+<p>To a person unconnected with the landed interest of Ireland it is at
+first a little difficult to understand the almost insane terror of
+nearly all persons endowed with property. To the stranger the country
+is absolutely safe, and unless in the company of landlords or land
+agents he may go safely unarmed in any part of Ireland I have visited;
+but resident proprietors, and the representatives of absentees, are in
+very different case, and the farmers and labourers who have not yet
+joined the Land League are in a still worse position. So skilfully has
+this organisation been carried out that hardly a creature dare do his
+duty or speak his mind except the judges. In Court to-day the man
+O'Halloran, whose being sent up for trial at the Assizes here
+occasioned the riot at Tulla a few days since, was tried for appending
+a threatening notice to a chapel door. It will be recollected that the
+prisoner was brought before the magistrates at Tulla rather than at
+Ennis, in order to avoid a tumult, but that on its being known that he
+was committed for trial an uproar occurred, which ended in the
+bayoneting of three of the rioters by the police. The man was tried
+here to-day, and he will be tried again to-morrow before another
+jury.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[275]</a></span>I may not express an opinion on the evidence of the police; it will
+suffice that the jury of to-day did not agree, and that this absence
+of result provoked some severe remarks from the bench. Great blame is
+thrown upon Lord O'Hagan's Act for frequent miscarriage of justice in
+this country, but the truth is that the outside pressure is too strong
+for any but a "packed" jury of independent, that is to say
+non-resident, persons to withstand.</p>
+
+<p>That terrorism has prevailed not only over landlords who are flying
+from the country, and agents who are at least putting their families
+in the few places in which some semblance of order prevails&mdash;that is,
+within the shadow of a police barrack or under the wing of a
+garrison&mdash;but over merchants, as was proved the other day in the case
+of Mr. Bence Jones's cattle. I hear of a similar occurrence to-day.
+Mr. Richard Stacpoole, of Eden Vale, county Clare, wrote a few days
+since to a firm in Limerick for twelve tons of oilcake, not an
+insignificant order from a responsible person as times go. The answer
+was that the firm in question had not a pound of oilcake in store, but
+that the order could be transferred to a firm in Cork, who would
+direct the cake to some other person than Mr. Stacpoole, "to be left
+till called for" at the Ennis Railway Station, and that if the
+purchaser would send somebody else's carts for it late at night or
+very early in the morning, he would probably get it home safely. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[276]</a></span>It
+may be imagined that Mr. Stacpoole declined to receive oilcake as if
+it were "potheen" or other contraband, and at once closed his account
+with the firm in question.</p>
+
+<p>This instance is quoted out of many to show that the art of
+"Boycotting" is advancing from the proportions of a mere local strike
+to those of an almost national combination against any person who has
+incurred the resentment of the popular party. It is noteworthy that
+strict adherence to the "constitutional weapon" is mainly confined to
+the cases of those whom it is unsafe to attack by more violent means.
+His enemies dare not make an onslaught on Mr. Stacpoole himself, for
+reasons well known and thoroughly appreciated; so they clip the ears
+of wretched hinds who are neither strong nor courageous enough to
+resist their violence, which is just now only employed against the
+defenceless; but such outrages are apparently quite sufficient to make
+the power of the <i>Jacquerie</i> absolute.</p>
+
+<p>I am weary of hearing from panic-stricken interviewers that the "real
+Government of Ireland is that of the Land League;" but the facts
+adduced can hardly be passed over in silence. For the present,
+creditors have only two courses to pursue&mdash;to accept Griffith's
+valuation where they can get it, or to do nothing, await the action of
+Parliament, and go without money for their Christmas bills. "Weak
+holders," as they are called in the commercial world, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[277]</a></span>must take what
+they can get, and stronger capitalists may wait for better times; for
+it is impossible to put the existing laws for the recovery of debt
+into effect. Evictions are out of the question. Neither Dublin writs
+nor "civil bills" can be served, except in a large town or its
+immediate neighbourhood, and seizure of goods for a common debt in
+country places is quite out of the question. The principal
+process-server in the town of Tipperary has retired from service, and
+addressed himself to "J.J." for several days past. That matters are
+going from bad to worse is proved by the calibre of the persons who
+are amply capable of paying their rent, but are afraid to do so. More
+than this, those who have paid before they received notices are
+threatened with pains and penalties if they do not join, publicly
+approve of, and subscribe to the popular combination.</p>
+
+<p>Startling cases have just occurred in Tipperary. A farmer paying a
+very large rent even by English measure is leaving the country because
+he is threatened by vengeance if he do not immediately take back a
+labourer whom he dismissed for misconduct. Another large farmer is
+informed that all his labourers will be compelled to leave his
+employment unless he instantly joins the League. His farm includes a
+large percentage of tillage, and he must either undergo heavy
+pecuniary loss or submit, as he probably will do. A smaller tenant,
+who had <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[278]</a></span>been discovered to have paid on account a trifle more than
+Griffith's valuation, has been compelled to ask his landlord to give
+him the little balance back and a receipt in full. The request was
+acceded to, for the poor man declared that his life was not safe; that
+nobody would speak to him, and that nobody would work for him until he
+had righted himself with "the only Government which can carry its
+decrees into effect."</p>
+
+<p>The 2nd Battalion Rifle Brigade has just arrived from Gibraltar, under
+the command of Colonel Carr Glyn, and will remain, together with the
+26th Regiment, under Colonel Carr, and three troops of the 3rd Dragoon
+Guards, in Cork. The 37th Regiment leaves to make room for the Rifle
+Brigade; three companies go to Waterford, and the remainder to
+Kilkenny.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="XVI" id="XVI"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[279]</a></span><br />
+
+
+<h3>XVI.<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h3>A CRUISE IN A GROWLER.</h3>
+<br />
+
+<p class="right"><span class="sc">Cork</span>, <i>December 21.</i></p>
+
+<p>Just before starting towards the scene of the last case of Boycotting
+I had returned from a tour in Kerry, undertaken mainly with the object
+of collecting facts and ideas concerning the fiercely-debated question
+of peasant propriety. There are other great estates in Kerry besides
+that of Lord Kenmare, which is twenty-six miles long, and covers
+91,080 acres. There are Lord Lansdowne's still greater estate of
+94,983 acres, and the large property held by Trinity College, both of
+which have given rise to considerable controversy of late.</p>
+
+<p>In many parts of Kerry may be found townlands vying in wretchedness
+with Coshleen and Champolard, with Derryinver, Cleggan, and Omey
+Island while others give abundant evidence of improvement and
+enlightened management. On the north side of Dingle Bay lies the
+estate of Lord Ventry, a popular landlord I am told, for the reason
+that he has not <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[280]</a></span>"harassed his tenants" with improvements, nor sought
+to wipe out the effect of the old middleman style of mismanagement by
+reducing their number and forcing them to live in habitations better
+perhaps than they care for. The crowding of people into a few
+villages, brought about partly by the desire of middlemen to make a
+profit, partly by electioneering schemes, and partly by the natural
+gregariousness of the peasants, has been already too fully dwelt upon
+to need repetition. What was done by landlords and middlemen in many
+places has been emulated by squatters wherever they have succeeded in
+occupying free land like the Commons of Ardfert, the condition whereof
+rivals that of Lurgankeale, in Louth, and of the historic townland of
+Tibarney, in common, a map of which hung, if I mistake not, for some
+time in the Library of the House of Commons. This last-named spot
+consisted of 164 statute acres, divided into 222 lots among eleven
+tenants, who cultivated alternate ridges and patches in the same
+field. Whether held by small tenants or landlords or of middlemen or
+by small proprietors, the land was always in the same state of
+confusion.</p>
+
+<p>On portions of the Blennerhasset estate previously spoken of, and on
+the Commons of Ardfert, the effect may be studied of influences
+against which the modern Kerry landlord has been in many cases
+striving for the whole of his lifetime. Half a century ago the advice
+to "neither a borrower nor a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[281]</a></span>lender be," was systematically ignored.
+It is curious to hear that two eminent patriots of the period, Daniel
+O'Connell and the Knight of Kerry, were both middlemen, and in the
+case of Cahirciveen had one of the Blennerhassets as a co-middleman
+under Trinity College, and that the compact was only finally annulled
+by the resolution of the latter to have no more to do with it. The
+great "Liberator" considered as a middleman appears in an odd light,
+but he was a liberal specimen of the genus, and with his partners
+supplied Cahirciveen with previously unheard-of drainage and pavement.
+At the same time the ends of the Island of Valentia were leased by
+Maurice Fitzgerald, Knight of Kerry, the friend of Castlereagh and
+Wellington, to other middlemen, and it seemed that the work of
+confusion could go no further.</p>
+
+<p>The Island of Valentia was, I was informed, a favourable spot on which
+to study the operation of paternal government. Sir Peter Fitzgerald,
+the late Knight of Kerry, had enjoyed unbounded popularity, and had
+employed his personal influence to raise the population under his care
+in the social scale. When he had retaken the lands leased to Sir James
+O'Connell or his ancestor, he found certain lowlands, notably that of
+Bally Hearny, among a number of small holders; but the patches held by
+each tenant were oddly distributed. Three men held farms of thirty
+acres each, made up of detached lots <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[282]</a></span>completely separate one from the
+other, and scattered broadcast over the area of the townlands; while
+another man's farm of the same area extended from the sea at one end
+to the top of the mountain at the other, measuring one mile and
+fourteen perches in length, with an average width of twenty perches.
+After some difficulties had been surmounted the fields were "squared,"
+the odds and ends of lands consolidated, and the partnership in
+fields, with its absurd practice of cultivating alternate ridges,
+abolished.</p>
+
+<p>In a speech addressed by the Knight of Kerry to his tenants, he
+distinctly put his foot down on the system of subdivision, to which
+the peasantry of Ireland are almost insanely attached. He determined
+to permit nothing of the kind in the future. To those who had already
+subdivided he offered new mountain farms, leaving the sub-dividers to
+decide who should remain and who should remove. To those removed for
+sub-dividing their small holdings, and to those whose still smaller
+patches made their removal imperative, reclaimed and reclaimable lands
+at Corobeg and Bray Head were offered, with brand new houses; and
+after much discussion and final casting of lots the extruded ones
+resigned themselves to the fearful doom of removal from the spots to
+which they had long clung like limpets.</p>
+
+<p>To reach Valentia Island it is necessary to leave the railway track
+from Mallow to Tralee, and at <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[283]</a></span>Killarney commence what in London
+parlance might be called a cruise in a "growler;" for an unmistakable
+"growler," well built and comfortably lined, was the vehicle supplied
+to me as a "carriage," with a pair of excellent horses, by Spillane,
+the sometime guide and present postingmaster of Killarney. The
+postchaise assumes many forms in Ireland, but only once have I met the
+original <i>coup&eacute;</i> holding only two persons. It is a long drive to the
+ferry at the extremity of the peninsula between the bays of Kenmare
+and Dingle. Beyond, the Island of Valentia lies like a breakwater
+against the Atlantic, and the scene at nightfall is strange enough,
+with flashing lanterns, shouting ferrymen, and plashing oars. The
+ferryman is far from considering Valentia Harbour as a drawback to the
+island, and, like a fine old discontented retainer as he is, complains
+bitterly of the attempt made years ago by the late Knight of Kerry to
+establish a steam ferry. But ferrymen are always stern sticklers for
+vested rights. Doubtless Charon claimed heavy compensation when the
+Styx Ferry was disestablished. Apart from the ferryman, however, the
+Valentians are by no means enamoured of their insular position. "That
+ould blackgyard of a ferry" is, in fact, just now a serious item of
+discontent.</p>
+
+<p>It is urged by the islanders, nearly three thousand in number,
+including the villagers, the quarrymen, and the staff of
+telegraphists, presided over by the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[284]</a></span>skilful and courteous Mr. Graves,
+that the ferry is the cause of half their troubles. The peasants, who
+sell their stock at the thirteen fairs held yearly at Cahirciveen,
+declare that the cost of the ferry-boat for themselves and their
+beasts is a substantial reason for the reduction of the rent, inasmuch
+as they are put at a disadvantage with the people on the mainland.
+This is not the only grievance of that section transplanted to the
+hill side by Bray Head. They complain that they are afar off&mdash;a droll
+objection on an island six miles long&mdash;and have given their settlement
+the nickname of "Paris," in allusion to its remoteness from
+Knightstown and the ferry which leads to the grogshops and Fenian
+centres of Cahirciveen. I am told that the duty on the spirits sold in
+that cheerful townlet exceeds the whole annual value of the barony of
+Iveragh, and can bear witness to the convergence of the surrounding
+population on market day.</p>
+
+<p>Beside the grievances already enumerated, and only felt in their full
+poignancy since the establishment of a branch of the Land League at
+Cahirciveen, the Valentians now complain that their land is "set" too
+high.</p>
+
+<p>Amid the mass of conflicting evidence and the diverse methods of
+calculation, it is very difficult to arrive at any conclusion on this
+point. That the land is let above Griffith's valuation is certain, but
+so is much more of the cheapest land in the west <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[285]</a></span>and south. Moreover,
+the improvements made by the late Sir Peter Fitzgerald were not only
+considerable in the way of draining and fencing, but are visible to
+the naked eye in the shape of some fifty new houses, well and solidly
+built of stone with slate roofs, sleeping rooms up stairs, properly
+separated after the most approved fashion, a cowhouse, and other
+offices required by the Board of Works. These houses, which contrast
+remarkably with the old structures not yet improved off the face of
+the island, accommodate half of Sir Maurice Fitzgerald's agricultural
+tenants, of whom there are about 100 on his part of the island, as
+well as eighty-eight cottier or labourer tenants, who work for the
+farmers or at the slate quarry, and have little patches of ground
+attached to their cabins. Each new house built out-and-out has cost
+80<i>l.</i>, and those put on existing foundations about 60<i>l.</i> It seems to
+me wonderful that anybody should dream of building anything on the
+site of an Irish peasant's hut, but perhaps I am fastidious. So far as
+I make it out, about 6 per cent. has been charged for building and
+other improvements to the tenant, whose rent has thus in one case been
+raised by 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i>, and in others by as much as 3<i>s.</i> 3<i>d.</i> per
+acre. As the entire rent in one case reaches 8<i>s.</i>, and in the other
+10<i>s.</i> 9<i>d.</i> per acre, it does not seem enormous; but it is no
+business of mine to decide on value. I only state facts as distinctly
+as I can, and whether the rent be light or <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[286]</a></span>heavy there is no doubt
+that the tenants have paid it with some approach to regularity even up
+to date, and that the local agitation is deprived of much of its
+effervescence owing to this fact. Against this fair side of the
+picture is the awkward truth that during the bad times of last winter
+the Valentians, including the tenants of the Knight of Kerry and those
+of Trinity College, received about 1,200<i>l.</i> worth of relief among a
+couple of thousand souls.</p>
+
+<p>It is equally worthy of remark that those tenants for whom new houses
+have been built are by no means enthusiastic about them, and
+apparently would rather save the rent of them and live in a rough
+stone cabin as of old. I am aware that in making this statement I am
+liable to a charge of prejudice against the ignorant people, of whom I
+can only speak with pity not unmixed with kindness. I may be told that
+pigs were thought to be dirty until people took to keeping them clean,
+and that the animals are known to prefer their last state to their
+first. I may also be told that filth is the outcome of poverty, and
+that the Irish peasantry are filthy in their habits because they are
+poor. Now, to speak out plainly, this is not true; for I have seen
+people with a round sum on deposit at the bank, and in one case paying
+as much as 250<i>l.</i> rent for their farms, living amid almost
+indescribable filth. The dislike of soap and water, except for the
+visible parts of the human body on high days and holidays, appears <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[287]</a></span>to
+be part of the general indifference to beauty remarkable in the Irish
+peasant. His cottage is never adorned with flowers. Neither rose,
+honeysuckle, nor jasmine clings around his door. In a climate which
+allows fuchsia hedges to grow and bloom luxuriantly none appear round
+the peasant's garden. Myrtles, laurel, and bay there are in plenty at
+Valentia, but they are grouped near the gigantic fuchsia bush at
+Glanleam, or nestle among the houses of the telegraphic company. It is
+the same in other places. All is unloveliness and squalor, even when
+potatoes are plentiful and butter fetches a high price at Cork.</p>
+
+<p>These thoughts were borne strongly in upon me during a visit to
+"Paris." A drifting rain obscured the Skelligs, and drove me to take
+shelter in a "Parisian" household. The house stood sound and square to
+the wind with its slated roof and thick stone whitewashed walls,
+whitewash being ordained by a Board of Works wildly striving for
+cleanliness and health. The exterior of the house itself was well
+enough, but alack for the approaches and the interior! Plunging
+through mud I reached the door, and, glancing through the window,
+descried the inevitable pig inside the kitchen. The people&mdash;to be just
+to them&mdash;seemed a little fluttered, if not ashamed, of the plight in
+which I found them. It was quite evident that since the new 80<i>l.</i>
+house was built not a drop of water had been <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[288]</a></span>expended on its
+interior. The wooden staircase leading to the bedrooms aloft was in
+such condition that I shuddered to touch its sticky surface, the floor
+so filthy that I instinctively gathered up the skirts of my overcoat,
+the bedsteads filled up with blankets and odds and ends of
+unimaginable shades of dirt colour.</p>
+
+<p>Yet this apparently poverty-stricken home was already subdivided in
+defiance of the conditions of tenancy. The eldest daughter had been
+married some little time without the landlord or bailiff finding it
+out, and there was the bridegroom established in half of the house and
+endowed with half of the farm. He was at home too; a huge black-browed
+fellow, doing nothing at all, after the manner of his kind. And this
+was the outcome of an attempt to distribute the Valentians in holdings
+of respectable size and to make them live in houses instead of hovels.
+Two families were already established in the place of one, and the
+house was already like unto a stye. The inhabitants, however, were
+mighty civil when they recovered from their surprise, and spoke well
+of their landlord and of everybody connected with him, especially of
+the ladies of his family, who had done much to find paying employment
+for the girls by getting them a market for knitted and other
+needlework.</p>
+
+<p>Pursuing my cruise in a Growler round the coast I came past some
+magnificent scenery by Waterville, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[289]</a></span>at the head of Ballinskelligs Bay
+to Derrynane, once the abode of the "Liberator," and now occupied by
+Mr. Daniel O'Connell, his grandson, who gave me a curious instance of
+the profit to be realised on a dairy and grazing farm. He has leased
+the island of Scariff from Lord Dunraven for 60<i>l.</i> per annum, has put
+a dairyman upon it, and sells off of it yearly produce, butter,
+cattle, sheep, wool, and pigs, to the value of 230<i>l.</i>, the valuation
+of the island, according to Griffith, being, including the dairyman's
+house 27<i>l.</i> 5<i>s.</i> Mr. O'Connell also gave me an odd proof of the
+retribution which appears likely to fall upon the landowners of the
+barony of Iveragh.</p>
+
+<p>When the Government valuation was first made public it was protested
+against by Sir James O'Connell, who succeeded in getting it reduced by
+30 per cent., an unfortunate circumstance for the present proprietors
+if the Land League continue to have it all their own way. The League,
+however, has not yet troubled Derrynane; the tenants, who since 1841
+have been greatly reduced in number by emigration and the
+consolidation of holdings, have paid their rent fairly up to this,
+that is to say fairly according to the usage of that remote part of
+Kerry. They average "the grass of six cows," with the run of the
+mountain, "for rather more" collops or young cows, not yet in milk.</p>
+
+<p>Derrynane rejoices in many memorials of the Liberator, but the relic
+of "Ould Dan" that all <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[290]</a></span>visitors, and especially Irishmen, are most
+anxious to see, is in the oblong mahogany box lying on the tall desk
+at which he was wont to stand and write. It is that article of
+furniture without which no Irish gentleman's equipment was more
+complete than his house without an avenue. "My pistols which I shot
+Captain Marker," as poor Rawdon Crawley put it. There reposes
+peacefully enough now by the side of its companion, the weapon with
+which the "Liberator" shot Mr. D'Esterre. It is a flint lock pistol of
+very large bore, and with stock reaching to the muzzle. One
+peculiarity about this pistol is worthy of note. Beneath the trigger
+guard a piece of steel extends curving downwards and outwards towards
+the muzzle, a convenient device, as I find, for steadying the weapon
+by aid of the second finger. On the stock is cut rudely a capital D.,
+for D'Esterre. There are no other marks, although the pistols have a
+pedigree and a story attached to them.</p>
+
+<p>One day an English officer stationed in Ireland found himself in the
+painful position of waiting for remittances. Knowing nobody likely to
+be useful to him he appealed to the most noteworthy Irishman of his
+day, and stating his pressing need, asked him to lend him 50<i>l.</i> until
+his funds came to hand. Daniel O'Connell, who was a keen judge of
+character, lent him the money without hesitation, and was shortly
+repaid, with many expressions of gratitude. About a year afterwards
+the Englishman was ordered <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[291]</a></span>on a foreign station, and, unwilling to
+leave Ireland without giving some tangible expression of his
+thankfulness to O'Connell, called upon him and presented him with the
+duelling pistols in question, which were accepted as heartily as the
+money was lent. On taking his leave the Englishman said, "If you
+should ever have occasion to use these pistols you will find them very
+good ones; they have already killed ten men." The first and only time
+"Ould Dan" used them he killed Mr. D'Esterre, to whose family, it must
+be added, he afterwards did all he could to atone for that injury.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. O'Connell also showed me a brass blunderbuss once the property of
+Robert Emmet. It has a revolving chamber, which, instead of turning
+automatically, must be adjusted by hand after every shot, a curious
+forerunner of Colt's invention, adaptation, or revival. Derrynane is
+delightfully situated at a spot called appropriately "White Strand,"
+from the silvery sand washed by the Atlantic waves. Above it stands
+the celebrated circular fort of Staigue, built of dry stone, and with
+an inclined plane inside like those at West Cove and Ballycarbery.
+Opposite is the magnificent rocky peninsula of Lamb Head, the road
+across which much resembles parts of St. Gothard, plus the magnificent
+sea shining in the sun.</p>
+
+<p>The crag of Lamb Head, broken into a thousand jagged slopes, is here
+and there overgrown with short sweet herbage. Wherever grass grows
+there will a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[292]</a></span>Kerry calf or "collop" be found. How the pretty little
+black cattle cling like flies to those dizzy windy heights is
+marvellous; but there they are, night and day, for months at a
+stretch, giving no trouble to anybody, growing into condition ready
+for "finishing" on richer pasture, and giving life and beauty to a
+scene which would, without them, be but grandly desolate. The little
+Kerries are greatly prized as "milkers," and they yield good beef, but
+very little of it&mdash;not more than four hundredweight per beast. By the
+side of the superb shorthorns of the Ardfert herd they look like
+goats; but such cattle as Mr. Crosbie's cream-coloured bull are only
+suited to richer pasture than the rocks of Lamb Head. It may also be
+added that for the purpose of dairy-farms the best commercial cows are
+all bred between the rough native cattle and shorthorns, or between
+Devon and Ayrshire, the latter cross being specially liked by Mr.
+Hegarty, of Mill Street, county Cork, referred to in a previous
+letter, and by many other good judges. This fact, however, by no means
+detracts from the value of such a magnificent herd as that of Mr.
+Crosbie. On the contrary it is held by many experts that first-class
+shorthorn bulls are a necessity for preventing the cross-bred animals
+from reverting to the original local type.</p>
+
+<p>The improvement in cattle in Kerry, owing to the importation of
+shorthorns by Mr. Crosbie, and in a smaller degree by other
+proprietors, is very marked; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[293]</a></span>but despite this the thoroughbred Kerry
+still remains and is likely to remain lord of the mountain until
+mayhap he be displaced by the smaller Scotch cattle, as he has already
+been in some localities by the black-faced sheep, who leads an equally
+hardy and independent life until wanted for "finishing."</p>
+
+<p>From Derrynane the road passes along the coast, and through Sneem to
+Derryquin, the estate of that typical landlord, Mr. F.C. Bland, beyond
+whose lands lie those of Mr. Mahony, of Dromore, the apostle of
+concrete and author of a pamphlet which has made a great noise in
+Ireland, and is accepted by "improving" landlords as stating their
+case perfectly. Mr. Bland, whose domain lies on the north side of the
+embouchure of the Kenmare River, owns about thirty-eight square miles
+of territory, and is one of the most popular men in Kerry.
+Extraordinary stories are told of him. "Know 'um, begorra," answered a
+native to my query, "Don't I know 'um; and it is he that's the good
+man, your honour, and every man and baste will do anything for 'um,
+and he has got tame lobsthers that sit up to be fed, and a tame salmon
+that follows 'um about like a dog."</p>
+
+<p>This, to say the least, appeared an ample statement; but I confess the
+temptation to see the man who owned contented tenants and tame fish
+was too strong to be overcome, and I therefore procured an
+introduction to Mr. Bland, who with great modesty promised to show me
+his improvements on condition <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[294]</a></span>that I would also look over those of
+that arch improver his neighbour, Mr. Mahony. To appraise the real
+value of the work done by these two gentlemen at Derryquin and
+Dromore&mdash;a region of some eighty-five square miles altogether&mdash;it must
+be understood that forty years ago this part of Kerry was, with the
+exception of the main track to Cork, absolutely without roads, an
+almost impassable tract of wild mountain and morass cut up by streams,
+which when swollen stopped all communication even for foot passengers.
+Yet it was inhabited by a considerable population paying rent,
+sometimes, for the mountain farms, to which they carried their store
+of meal on their backs.</p>
+
+<p>It is said that the father of Mr. Bland went to his first school in a
+pannier, a stone being put in the opposite one to steady the load on
+the ass's back. This was the "good old-time," when few of the people
+could speak English, none could read or write, all spun their wool and
+made their bread at home, and none dreamed of opposing "the master's
+will." Fortunately they were in good hands, for Mr. Bland went to
+work, at first gently and afterwards more swiftly, at the task of
+making land and people more civilised than had been thought possible
+up to his time. During thirty years he has laid out 7,000<i>l.</i> of his
+own and 10,000<i>l.</i> of Government money in bringing his estate and
+people somewhat into consonance with modern ideas. He has made
+twenty-three <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[295]</a></span>miles of road, built thirty stone houses with slated or
+tiled roofs, and three schools. When the estate came into his hands
+there was not a cart upon it except at Derryquin itself. Now
+two-thirds of the tenants have carts and horses. Forty years ago the
+entire export and import trade was done by a carrier who came from
+Cork once a month and was looked for as anxiously as the periodical
+steamer at a station on the West Coast of Africa. Now there are
+carriers weekly in all directions, and steamboats calling regularly in
+Kenmare Bay. All this work has been compassed by the landlord, with
+the partial assistance of the Government, with the exception of one
+solitary house, which was built by the tenant.</p>
+
+<p>The story of Mr. Bland's tame fish, which "sat up, and followed him
+about like a dog," turns out to have had some foundation in fact.
+There is a fine pool of salt water at Derryquin (Ang. "Oakslope")
+Castle, which stands on the edge of Kenmare Bay; and this pool not
+long since held a number of tame fish, which came to be fed when
+anybody approached, just as carp do in many well-known places.
+Unluckily, however, a neighbouring otter found this out, and carried
+away the unfortunate fish at the rate of two every night till not a
+single fish is left. I hear that both salmon and pollock became
+equally tame, but that the former, although eating everything offered
+them, became miserably poor in a comparatively short time. The only
+denizen of the pool that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[296]</a></span>I actually saw was a lobster, who came out
+from under a stone as I approached, in the hope, I was told, that I
+was going to give him a mussel.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Bland, however, if he has not proved so redoubtable a fishtamer as
+my original informant opined, has proved very successful in oyster
+culture. Having a little salt-water inlet, with a river running into
+it, he conceived the idea of breeding and raising oysters, but found
+the climate bad for "spatting," and now buys his tiny young oysters by
+the ten thousand at the Isle of Rh&eacute;, and puts them down in long
+perforated boxes on his oyster beds. When they are between three and
+four years old he consigns them to a correspondent at Ballyvaughan,
+who puts them in, I believe, deep-sea oyster beds for a while and
+converts them into the famous Burren oysters, which, like the Marenne
+oysters, are generally preferred by Englishmen to "Natives," while the
+"spat" of the latter is eagerly sought by the French for development
+into Huitres d'Ostende.</p>
+
+<p>It rained so furiously at Derryquin that I hardly saw so much of Mr.
+Bland's estate as I could have wished, but between the showers I was
+able to form a fair idea of his building and road improvement. It is a
+matter of pride to the proprietor that on a territory once impassable
+by a wheeled vehicle he can now drive to every farm in a carriage and
+pair, and that among tenants averaging "the grass of six cows" apiece;
+men and women at least speak <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[297]</a></span>English, and children go to school. The
+barbarous state of the country and inhabitants forty years ago may be
+gathered from the following anecdote. Two gentlemen were out shooting
+on the mountain and were driven by a "Kerry shower"&mdash;which is as much
+like a cataract as anything I know of&mdash;into a peasant's cabin. The man
+received them with all the dignity and self-possession peculiar to the
+best of his class, and when the storm cleared off invited them to eat
+with him on their return from the hillside. When they came back,
+expecting only potatoes and butter, they were astounded to see their
+host take several pieces of some kind of meat out of the pot and place
+them on the table, for there were no plates before them. It turned out
+that the mysterious meat was that of a newly-born calf whose dam was
+yet lying helpless in a corner of the cabin. The man was quite
+unconscious that there was anything objectionable in the dreadful
+food, and offered it to "the masthers" with perfect grace, and without
+the slightest pang at the costliness of the banquet. He had given the
+best and only meat he had to his guests. Like the Italian gentleman
+with his falcon, or rather the Arab sheik with his horse, who, my
+friend Mr. Browning tells me, is the original of Boccaccio's
+mamby-pamby story, the Kerry mountaineer had fulfilled the rites of
+hospitality at whatever cost. For long after the date of the grim
+repast just recorded, in fact, even till <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[298]</a></span>to-day, the peasants on the
+Derryquin estate have been accustomed to refer their almost
+innumerable wrangles and squabbles to the decision of "the masther,"
+who might be figured as a kind of Hibernian St. Louis, sitting under a
+tree, and adjudicating between his subjects. Sometimes it was not very
+easy to arrive at a decision. Not very long ago a man came with a
+complaint that his once-intended son-in-law had behaved shabbily and
+fraudulently. It appeared that the father of the girl had agreed with
+the "boy" that a cow should be killed "to furnish forth the marriage
+table;" that the father should provide the cow for the happy day, and
+that the cost of the animal should be shared between them. The cow had
+been killed, and the bride had been dressed, but the Kerry "county
+Guy" had not been forthcoming, that mercenary youth having married out
+of hand another girl with four more cows to her fortune than the one
+he was engaged to. Hereat the outraged parent demanded, not that he
+should pay damages for breach of promise, but his share of the cost of
+the cow. "And," said the masther, "you had the cow and the daughter
+thrown on your hands?" "Divil a throw, your honour," was the reply;
+"mee daughter got another husband in tin minutes, begorra, and we ate
+the cow, your honour; but Mike is a blackgyard, and should pay his
+half of the cow, your honour." This was a knotty case, but <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[299]</a></span>his
+"honour" decided that Mike should pay his share, and, to do that
+fickle bridegroom justice, he paid up with very little demurring. He
+was clearly three cows and a half the better by his bargain, and, I
+believe, lives happily to this day. It is needless to say that he has
+numerous children.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Bland has under his paternal rule about 300 agricultural tenants
+besides the villagers of Sneem, who mostly have lots lying contiguous
+to, or at some little distance from, their houses. The holdings,
+albeit averaging the grass of six cows, vary very considerably in size
+and quality. Thus one farmer holds 803 acres, or "the grass of
+twenty-four cows," with mountain run attached, at a rent of 35<i>l.</i>,
+while another who has 1,493 acres is only charged 26<i>l.</i> for "the
+grass of seventeen cows," with proportionate mountain. Even on
+holdings of this size, as well as on others of less value, such as 250
+acres at a rent of 13<i>l.</i> 15<i>s.</i>, Mr. Bland has experienced great
+difficulty in inducing the tenants to bear any share of the cost of
+building and other improvements. Of course there are tenants and
+tenants at Derryquin, as elsewhere, but the general feeling has
+undoubtedly been averse to paying an extra percentage for
+improvements. Mr. Bland has done what he could, but has rarely found
+anybody inclined to pay more than 2 per cent., and one irreconcilable
+actually refused to pay 1<i>l.</i> a year extra to have a 70<i>l.</i> house
+built for him. The <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[300]</a></span>"masther" appears to take a view of the subject
+which might have been with great advantage more widely distributed
+among Irish proprietors of the improving sort. It is not extravagant
+to ask a farmer with the nominal grass of twenty cows, and a mountain
+run on which he grazes twice as many bullocks, to pay 5 per cent. on
+80<i>l.</i> or 100<i>l.</i> as the rent of a good and substantial house; but it
+is preposterous to ask the holder of a ten-acre lot to do likewise.
+Such peasants should, as I observed in one of my early letters, not be
+called farmers at all. Their condition is about equal to that of the
+English farm labourer. When the landlord can afford to build better
+cottages for them than they now have, he should certainly not expect
+more than 1, or at best 2 per cent. for his outlay, and carry the
+balance to his profit and loss account, after the manner of English
+landowners of the best class. The Derryquin houses or cottages are
+very well built and excellently planned; they are also very pretty
+with their whitewashed walls, red tile roofs, and doors painted red to
+match. These patches of bright colour give extraordinary cheerfulness
+to a landscape otherwise of green, brown, and grey, looking cold
+enough under a weeping sky. The walls are of stone, "dashed" after the
+Irish fashion with mortar or concrete, and slate roofs have now given
+place to red tiles in fancy patterns. Inside they are divided into two
+rooms on the ground floor, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[301]</a></span>paved with concrete, and two sleeping
+rooms above, in order, if possible, to keep the people from huddling
+together at night. It is a fact, impossible as it may appear, that
+when the pretty and tasteful lodge at the gate of Derryquin was first
+built, the occupants, four in number, all slept together in one room
+rather than be separated at night, and were only induced to occupy the
+apartments built to prevent this habit by the threat of eviction. I
+might have doubted this amazing story had I not seen the condition of
+a cottage rebuilt recently on an old foundation at a cost of 60<i>l.</i>,
+for which a rent of 1<i>l.</i> is charged. The tenant fought hard against
+the innovation, and yielded to the imposition of 1<i>l.</i> a year, and a
+clean new house, only under fear of being turned off the estate. He
+and his have only been in the new building for a few weeks, but they
+have made wild work of it already. In the room to the left of the door
+a "bonneva," or half-grown pig of the size called a "shote," in the
+State of Georgia, was disporting himself by looking on at a girl
+spinning wool, a "boy" doing nothing, and two dirty youngsters
+wallowing on the floor. In the other brand new room, not long since
+left sweet and tidy by the builders, were piled an immense heap of
+turf and a great store of potatoes, over against which stood a
+bedstead and a pair of boots. There was nothing else in the room, not
+the slightest fragment of table or chair, not a sign of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[302]</a></span>water or
+washing utensils; in the room above were also bedsteads, without
+anything that could be called bedding, and no other stick of
+furniture. Before the front door was a rough stone causeway, already
+ankle-deep in filth. Close up to the rear of the house was a dung-heap
+of portentous size and savour. Evidently this was a case of taking the
+horse to the water and being unable to make him drink, for the people
+thrust into a clean house were obviously doing their best to bring it
+into harmony with their own views. I heard also of a remarkable case
+of subdivision on the part of some labourers on Mr. Bland's estate,
+higher up on the mountain. A couple or three years ago two "boys"
+received permission to occupy a cabin on a little patch of land. This
+spot has since grown into a colony. The "boys" have both got married,
+and have children. Their brothers-in-law also, with wives and
+children, as a matter of course, have built their cabins against the
+original one given to the two bachelors, and the holding has a
+population of forty-five souls. These poor people are surely the most
+affectionate in the world, and the uproar when any one of the colony
+is ailing is astonishing, and bewildering to more civilised and
+perhaps colder-blooded folk.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. R. Mahony's estate of Dromore (<i>Anglice</i> "Big Ridge") is the
+theatre of even more extensive improvements than those of Derryquin.
+Mr. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[303]</a></span>Mahony has 29,163 acres in Kerry, valued by Griffith at 3,071<i>l.</i>
+In his pamphlet he states:&mdash;"In the year 1851 I came into possession
+of my estate. Old rentals in my possession show that for many years
+previous to that date there had been allowances made to tenants at the
+rate of about 1,000<i>l.</i> per annum. Yet when I took up the estate there
+was not one drain made by a tenant, not one slated house, not a perch
+of road, not a yard of sub-soiled land. I then adopted the system of
+making all improvements myself, charging interest of the outlay upon
+the occupier according to the circumstances and increased value of the
+farm. The result has been that in five-and-twenty years I have built
+about eighty houses and offices slated or tiled, made twenty-eight
+miles of road, built nine bridges, made twenty-three miles of fences,
+thoroughly drained about five hundred acres, planted one hundred and
+fifty acres of waste land, and proportionately improved the condition
+and circumstances of the people."</p>
+
+<p>There is abundant evidence of Mr. Mahony's work on his estate, which
+is not only valuable in itself but as an example. The roads are
+admirably laid, and the employment of concrete made of Portland cement
+and the sand and pebbles of the seashore, since followed at Ardfert,
+was initiated at Dromore. Walls, floors, partitions, are all of
+concrete, and the roofs of the houses last built of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[304]</a></span>handsome red
+tiles. The disposition of the apartments in the Dromore cottages
+varies somewhat from that of the neighbouring estate. The principal
+room, or kitchen, has nothing above it but the high-pitched roof,
+lined with wood tastefully disposed. The remaining three apartments
+are two on the ground floor, a tiny parlour and convenient bedroom,
+and one full-sized bedroom above. Separate cow-houses and pigsties are
+also appended to each cottage. So far as can be judged from a hurried
+visit, many of the houses are very well and tidily kept; in fact, so
+treated as not to destroy hope in the future of the Irish peasant
+cultivator, although this trimness is by no means so general as it
+might be. Mr. Mahony has also, by way of showing his people how things
+should be done, a model farm and dairy, of such moderate size as not
+to be beyond the ambition of a successful tenant. The proprietor has
+also, like Mr. Bland and Mr. Butler, of Waterville, a successful
+salmon fishery, great part of the produce whereof goes, at some little
+advance on sixpence per pound, to the agents of a London firm, who
+also get an enormous supply of mushrooms from county Kerry.</p>
+
+<p>There is a greatly-improved property in county Cork, lying west of
+Macroom and south of Mill Street. This is Ballyvourney, one of the
+estates of Sir George St. John Colthurst, of Ardrum, whose father laid
+out an immense sum in reclaiming a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[305]</a></span>portion of the 25,000 acres, which
+bring him in about 5,000<i>l.</i> per annum.</p>
+
+<p>There are other landlords in the counties of Cork and Kerry who, like
+Mr. Bence Jones, have done well by their land; but there is no
+occasion to multiply experiences of a similar character. The purpose
+of my Kerry excursion was to observe the Kerry peasant when he had
+been left to himself, and where he had been looked after, and perhaps
+governed, by a landlord whose interest in him had not been diminished
+by recent legislation. My impression is very much the same as that
+produced by my visit to Connemara, that the peasant requires firm as
+well as gentle handling, and that his emancipation from the control of
+his landlord should be accompanied by some other authority
+representing the State, and interfering to prevent the tendency to
+local congestion of population.</p>
+
+<p>The Kerry peasant's qualities are in the main good, and he is upheld
+under difficulties by hopefulness almost equal to his vanity and habit
+of exaggeration. A Kerry man's boat is a ship, his cabin is a house,
+his shrubs are trees, his "boreen" is an avenue, and, as a native bard
+declares, "all his hens are paycocks." He may be briefly described as
+in morals correct, disposition kindly, manners excellent, customs
+filthy. It is, however, despite his hopefulness, difficult to find any
+trace of that gaiety for which he was formerly famous, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[306]</a></span>whether justly
+or not. His amusements outside the calm of Derrynane, Derryquin, and
+Dromore, appear to be cattle fairs, whisky, and sedition. At times he
+is unconsciously humorous, as in the story of the Duchess of
+Marlborough's Indian meal distributed for the relief of the poor
+during the hard time of last winter. A gentleman, who ought to know
+better, was buying some potheen, or illicit whisky, of the maker.
+"Now, Pat," said he, "I hope this lot is better than the last." "And,
+your honour," was the reply, "the last was but the name of whisky.
+Begorra, it's the Duchess's meal as makes mighty poor potheen." This
+was said quite seriously and with an injured air. For there is no
+merriment in Kerry. The old dances at the cross roads are danced no
+more. The pipe of the piper is played out.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="XVII" id="XVII"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[307]</a></span><br />
+
+
+<h3>XVII.<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h3>"BOYCOTTED" AT CHRISTMASTIDE.</h3>
+<br />
+
+<p class="right"><span class="sc">Kilfinane, Co. Limerick</span>, <i>Christmas Eve.</i></p>
+
+<p>The fox-terrier sits blinking on the hearth-rug in the pretty
+drawing-room as nightfall approaches, and a servant appears with a
+message that a woman has come with a big cake from Mrs. O'Blank, a
+sympathising neighbour. There is no mistake about the size and
+condition of the cake; it is a yard and a quarter in circumference; it
+has a shining holiday face, like that of the fabled pigs who ran about
+ready roasted, covered with delicately-browned "crackling," perfumed
+with sage and onions, and carrying huge bowls of apple-sauce in their
+mouths. As the pigs cried, "Come and eat me," so does the cake appeal,
+but in more subtle manner, to the instincts and nostrils of all
+present. It has that pleasant scent with it peculiar to newly-baked
+plumcake. Huge plums, which have worked their way perseveringly to the
+surface, wink invitingly, and, above all, the cake is hot, gloriously
+hot, besides having with it a delicate zest of contraband acquired by
+being <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[308]</a></span>smuggled on to the premises under Biddy M'Carthy's shawl.</p>
+
+<p>Biddy has watched the moment when the "boys" on the watch&mdash;scowling
+ruffians by the same token&mdash;had gone in quest of tea or more potent
+refreshment, and has slipped from the avenue which runs past the house
+instead of up to it, by the lodge gate and up to the door in that
+spirit-like fashion peculiar to this part of Ireland. When they wish
+to do so, the people appear to spring out of the ground. Two minutes
+before the monotony of existence is broken by a fight there will not
+be a soul to be seen, but no sooner is it discovered that some unlucky
+wight is in present receipt of a "big bating" than hundreds appear on
+the spot, and struggle for a "vacancy," like the lame piper who howled
+for the same at the "murthering" of a bailiff.</p>
+
+<p>This ghost-like faculty, however, has served us right well, for I need
+not speculate upon what would have happened to Mrs. M'Carthy (whose
+real name is not given for obvious reasons) if she had been discovered
+carrying a huge cake to a house under ban. She would not have been
+injured bodily; no soul in Kilfinane would have touched the cake, much
+less have eaten the hateful food made and baked and attempted to be
+carried to the stronghold of the "tyrant"; but it would have gone ill
+with the brave little woman nevertheless. Her husband would have been
+compelled to seek elsewhere for a livelihood, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[309]</a></span>for neither farmer nor
+tradesman would dare to employ either him or her. Her elder children
+would have been pointed at as they went to school, and sent to
+Coventry while there; and she would have been refused milk for the
+younger ones. Not a potato nor a pound of meal nor an egg could she
+have bought all through the hamlet; and if people at a distance had
+sold her anything, they would have been intercepted and compelled to
+take it back again. The carriers would not have delivered to or taken
+parcels from her; she would, in fact, have been very much in the
+condition that Eve, according to Lord Byron, thought she could put
+Cain into by cursing him.</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately, however, the cake-bearer has escaped, and we fall with
+keen appetites upon the not very digestible banquet she has provided.
+The blockade has been successfully run, and we celebrate the event
+accordingly. We are not so very badly off after all, and in fact have
+passed a by no means dull time for the last two days. It is not quite
+so easy to frighten our garrison as a pack of sympathising peasants
+who attempt no kind of resistance against the mysterious leaders of
+the <i>Jacquerie</i>. The son of the house and his two grown cousins are
+here, the butler and gardener still remain staunch, as well as the
+coachman and a couple of bailiffs living outside, all "Boycotted"
+also. Moreover, we have a cook and housemaid with us, and two members
+of the Royal <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[310]</a></span>Constabulary. We have busy times, too. So far as
+turkeys, geese, chickens, and eggs, butter and bacon are concerned, we
+have enough and to spare within protecting range of rifle and
+revolver, but for fresh beef and mutton and flour we must depend upon
+Cork. Now the mysterious agent in Cork who sends us the supplies
+cannot get them carried nearer to the house than the railway station
+at Kilmallock, the interesting little town at which one of the county
+members keeps the inn and "runs" the cars, a fact whereof the citizens
+are not a little proud. When we receive the news, letter or telegram,
+announcing that meat or other stores will arrive by a certain train,
+we drive down to meet it, and without the slightest assistance, for
+not a single gloomy by-stander would do us a hand's turn, we carry it
+off to our own car, and thanks to the awe inspired by army revolvers,
+Winchester rifles, one constable on the car, and those officially at
+the railway station, bring our property away.</p>
+
+<p>A day since there was great excitement concerning the arrival of a
+daughter of the house, who was coming down to keep house for the
+"boys" whose guest I am. Her brother and one of her cousins went down
+on the car to meet her, armed as usual, for although they would be
+comparatively safe with a lady on the car, they ran considerable risk
+until she was actually on board. The train came, but not the young
+lady, and as it was broad daylight her <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[311]</a></span>well-armed escort came back
+again. Towards the hour for the arrival of the evening train there was
+more anxiety. It was dark, but it was absolutely necessary to go down
+to Kilmallock again, on the off chance that she might have come later
+than was expected, and had forgotten to telegraph. If she had arrived
+and nobody had been there to meet her, the consequences would have
+been awkward. She would not, it is true, have been exposed to the
+slightest insult, for except in the case of Miss Gardiner, of
+Farmhill, I believe Irishmen have never forgotten their natural
+gallantry so much as to insult, much less shoot at and wound, a lady.
+There would, therefore, have been no fear of violence; but it is very
+doubtful whether anybody would have removed her trunks from the spot
+on which they had been laid down. Most assuredly no cardriver would
+have dared to drive her home, and I question if any house in
+Kilmallock would have afforded her shelter. However, she did not come
+by the train after all, and the "boys" drove back, not without an
+Irish howl to keep them company on the road.</p>
+
+<p>Dinner over, the company being composed of the three "boys" and the
+writer, who among them made short work of a plump turkey and a
+vigorous inroad on a round of beef, besides disposing of soups,
+sweets, and sherry&mdash;not a bad <i>menu</i> under "Boycotting" rules&mdash;we,
+after seeing that the front door was properly <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[312]</a></span>barred, bolted, and
+chained, and the iron-linked shutters, relics of the Fenian time, made
+equally secure, adjourned to the kitchen for a smoke, a common
+practice in this part of Ireland. The kitchen, with its red-tiled
+floor, is a capital smoking room, warm and cosy, and while tobacco is
+leisurely puffed, and that eternal subject, "the state of the
+country," discussed, the eye reposes complacently on the treasures
+suspended from the hooks on the ceiling, plump hams and sides of
+well-fed bacon giving assurance that the garrison is far from being
+reduced to extremities. But there are in the kitchen other objects
+less suggestive of festivity. On the round table by the central column
+supporting the kitchen roof lie sundry revolvers, and nearer one of
+the windows a couple of repeating rifles and the double-barrelled
+carbines of the constabulary. Two members of that well-grown and well
+set-up corps are seated at a corner of the dresser, deeply engrossed
+in the intricacies of the mysterious game of forty-five, before which
+the mind of the dull Saxon remains bewildered in hopeless incapacity.
+Presently the well-thumbed pack is laid aside, and one of the
+constables addresses himself to the task of closing and barring up the
+shutters, thus shutting out all chance of any present being picked off
+by a shot through the window, as was done when Miss Gardiner was
+wounded under somewhat similar circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>There is a great deal of gossip concerning the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[313]</a></span>"Boycotting" of Mr.
+Bence Jones, and that of the most recent victim, The Macgillicuddy of
+the Reeks, whose family is well known to all present; but even the one
+engrossing subject wears itself out at last. One cannot attain any
+wild pitch of hilarity among bolts and bars and Winchester rifles.
+Nobody appears to care for any stories but such as bear upon the
+present troubles and the Fenian affair in 1867. At Kilmallock there is
+no sign of song or dance; no talk of pantomimes, and what jokes are
+made bear grim reference to troubles actually endured and possible
+troubles to come.</p>
+
+<p>By day it is by no means dreary. To begin with, the house is built on
+a charming spot six miles distant from a railway station; in front and
+beyond the lawn is a pretty little lake broken up by islands, making a
+tender foreground for the Galtee and nearer mountains. From the
+opposite side the view is equally delightful, the hills being crowned
+with trees and brushwood, an unusual sight in Ireland. Down the slope
+of the immense saddle-backed range lie fields of the brightest green,
+divided by banks and hedges delightful to look at after the grim stone
+walls of Mayo, Galway, and Clare. From behind these grassy slopes
+peeps the purple crest of the distant mountains, giving grandeur to a
+scene which might otherwise have been deemed tame. The climate,
+although chilled by recent heavy rains, is deliciously soft, and the
+breeze has none of that incisive quality common <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[314]</a></span>to the more northern
+hills. It is needless to say that at sunrise there is no chance of
+meeting any watchers of the "Boycotting" brigade. At seven o'clock any
+quantity of cargo might be "run" into the beleaguered citadel; but so
+for that matter can anything one likes be done at noon, under
+sufficient escort. When nothing is to be carried there is not the
+slightest occasion for escort in Kilfinane itself, although the
+attitude of the people is hostile in the extreme. Going for a stroll
+with the nephew of the absent "master," I am recommended to put a
+pistol in my pocket, and, much against the grain, do so.</p>
+
+<p>I must confess that I draw a line at agents. Alone I should not dream
+of going about armed, although "indignation meetings" have been held
+to denounce me for speaking the truth and believing my own eyes, and I
+consider myself quite safe while in the company of many landlords. But
+agents are another matter. There is while with them always the off
+chance of something untoward turning up, and it is, perhaps, as well
+to be prepared for emergencies. Personally I must confess that I am
+favourably disposed towards the much vilified agents. They are in many
+respects the most manly men in Ireland. Nearly always well-bred, they
+excite sympathy by the position they hold between the upper and nether
+millstone of landlord and tenant. Perhaps they have made a good thing
+of it, but if so they have earned it, for their position always
+reminds one of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[315]</a></span>that assigned by Lord Macaulay to the officers of the
+East India Company, such as Olive and Warren Hastings. To these
+founders of our Eastern Empire "John Company" said, "Respect treaties;
+keep faith with native rulers; do not oppress the people; but send us
+money."</p>
+
+<p>This is exactly what easy-going Irish absentee proprietors
+preach&mdash;"Don't hurt my tenants; don't make my name to stink in the
+land; above all, let there be no evictions among my people; but send
+me a couple of thousand pounds before Monday, or remit me at least one
+thousand to Nice some time next week.&mdash;Yours, The O'Martingale." This,
+I take it, has been the situation for the last quarter of a century,
+since the younger sons of Irish families took to land agency as a
+profession because there seemed nothing else in Ireland for them to
+do. Nevertheless they are hideously unpopular, and I like to be armed
+when I take a stroll with them in a lonely country district.</p>
+
+<p>So we walk down to Kilfinane to look after the progress made in
+arranging quarters for the soldiers presently expected, some fifty odd
+redcoats or rifles as the authorities may decide. It is instructive to
+observe the demeanour of the people towards us. My companion formerly
+lived at Kilfinane, and took his share of the work there, but he was
+the first of his family "Boycotted," and was obliged to take up his
+quarters in his uncle's house. Not a blacksmith <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[316]</a></span>could be found to
+shoe his horse, and not a living creature to cook his food; so a forge
+belonging to the mounted division of the Royal Irish Constabulary was
+sent down for the horse, and the master of that interesting animal
+went up to the big house to eat and sleep, and the "Boycotters" were,
+so far, brought to nought. But the good folk of Kilfinane eye us
+terribly askant, or, to be more literally exact, do not eye us at all;
+at least, their eyes betray "no speculation." Had I driven in from
+Charleville alone I might have gossipped with all the idlers of the
+village, but now that I am walking with a "Boycotted" person I seem to
+have become invisible. A few men are on the side walks&mdash;a few women at
+their doors&mdash;but they either look at us as if we were transparent as
+panes of glass, or suddenly become interested in their boots or finger
+nails, both which would be better for more regular attention. The
+children run away and hide themselves as if a brace of megalosauri or
+other happily extinct monsters had crawled out of the bog and come
+into Kilfinane to look for a meal. It is altogether a strange
+experience. It dawns upon me that the man who has driven me over from
+Charleville might issue from the hotel and ask for my orders, but he
+does not.</p>
+
+<p>The edifice wherein he has established himself, his vehicle and
+horses, is of a bright salmon colour, rejoiceful to the eyes of the
+natives. My driver, on being asked at my arrival, greatly preferred
+the rude <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[317]</a></span>freedom and plenty of this pink hostelry to the supposed
+narrow rations of a house under ban. Possibly he loves the ruddy-faced
+village inn on account of its affinity in hue to that of his own
+visage, in which nose and beard contend fiercely for pre-eminence in
+warmth of tone. But be this as it may, he is just now giving warmth
+and colour to the interior of the establishment, instead of trying to
+catch my eye as I go past.</p>
+
+<p>There is absolutely no sign of life or movement in the "Salmon Arms,"
+or "The Rose," or whatever its name may be. Thus we stride down the
+street of Kilfinane in lonely grandeur till we come to the
+schoolmaster's house, to be presently converted with the schools into
+a barrack. Schoolmaster and wife are being temporarily evicted to make
+room for the military, in whose behalf a quantity of work is being
+done, not surely by the "Boycotters," who have already determined to
+"Boycott" the soldiers as far as they can by refusing to let a car
+carry a single article from the railway station. The military when
+they arrive and give that sense of security attached to a redcoat in
+Ireland, will be obliged to bring every kind of vehicle and transport
+animal with them.</p>
+
+<p>In the cabbage garden of the school-house I meet an old acquaintance,
+Sub-Inspector Fraser, of the Royal Irish Constabulary, who seems to
+enjoy a monopoly of posts in which the roughest kind of "constabulary
+duty is to be done." Whether he <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[318]</a></span>esteems his "lot a happy one" I do
+not know; but at any rate, he looks hearty and healthy enough upon it,
+and is mightily cheerful withal. He has finished off one tough job,
+for it was Mr. Fraser who was left at Pallas on the great day when
+horse, foot, and artillery smote the combined "Three and four year
+olds," or, rather, would have smitten them if they had been so
+misguided as to show fight. I have already recorded how the Palladians
+on that memorable occasion displayed a keen appreciation of the better
+part of valour, and I also marked my surprise that after it had taken
+"the fut and the dthragoons in shquadrons and plathoons," and "the
+boys who fear no noise" to boot, to bring the "makings" of a police
+hut from the railway station, where they lay "Boycotted," to Bourke's
+farm, twenty-five constables should have been judged a sufficiently
+imposing force to overawe the Palladians and to build the hut. But I
+hear that Mr. Fraser's slender army proved quite sufficient for its
+purpose, and that the hut is not only built, but very well built, and
+likely to vex the souls of the Palladians for some time to come. There
+is plenty of work to do in getting ready for the soldiers. Masons and
+carpenters are hard at work&mdash;that is to say, as hard as anybody ever
+works in this part of Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>On the dairy farms, which form the principal "industry"&mdash;save the
+mark!&mdash;of this rich part of the country, the life of the male kind is
+of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[319]</a></span>laziest imaginable. Employing girls to milk the cows and make
+the butter, the farmer appears to me to do nothing whatever except go
+to market and drink himself into a disaffected, discontented
+condition. He is rarely visible before ten or eleven o'clock in the
+morning, except on market days, and he appears to smoke and dawdle
+most of his time away. Just now he broods over his wrongs, and
+declares he "will have his own again," whatever that may signify. He
+says he is enormously over-rented. Perhaps he is; but I cannot forget
+that it is not many years since he and his neighbours in the adjacent
+county of Tipperary boasted that they had brought about an equitable
+adjustment of values by an ingenious process invented by
+themselves&mdash;that of "shooting down the rents." Have they gone up since
+under maleficent Saxon coercion? Verily, I do not know; for the faith
+I put in estimates and valuations, not excepting "The Book of
+Griffith," is but small.</p>
+
+<p>Information in Ireland depends entirely on the person who
+"infawrrrums" one, and is rarely complete. Almost everybody seems to
+think that an inquirer has some object to serve, and they either tell
+him what they think will amuse him or advance their own interest if it
+be repeated; but there are notable exceptions to this as to all other
+Irish rules.</p>
+
+<p>Chatting easily, we stroll back through Kilfinane, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[320]</a></span>bewailing the
+sternness of military rule, which keeps officers and men together, and
+will not permit of the principal coming warriors being quartered at
+Spa-hill. On one point we are most anxious, and that is, that the
+troops shall be in Kilfinane by Christmas-day, to the end that the
+gaiety proper to the British Army should enliven the "Boycotted"
+establishment at dinner time; while the imposing presence of Thomas
+Atkins should overawe the village mutineers, and bring grist to the
+proprietor of the Couleur de Rose Hotel. As evening gathers in we sit
+down drowsily to listen to the loud ticking of the clock and drink a
+glass of sherry to the health of "all poor and distressed Boycottees"
+within her Majesty's "sometime kingdom of Ireland." Soothed by sherry,
+incipient sleep, and the subtle influence of the season, the little
+garrison of Spa-hill gradually waxes benevolent, until one of its
+number actually suggests that a fat goose should be sent to the
+proximate cause of all its woes, Father Sheehy. Even as a big loaf of
+bread was once thrown into an enemy's camp, at one moment this
+spirited proposition is nearly carried, but it breaks down before the
+remark that the coachman, gardener, and two bailiffs are "Boycotted,"
+bringing up the total number to about thirty-six, and that geese would
+be better distributed among these than flung away on the enemy; and
+the clock goes on to tick, the ticking growing louder and louder, and
+then comes the harsh, grating sound of shooting <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[321]</a></span>bolts and the clank
+of the chain on the front door.</p>
+
+<p>There is some pretence on the part of one of my young hosts of going
+into his uncle's office and drawing a lease, until he is reminded that
+he will probably be performing a work of supererogation, that leases
+and feudalism and property are going out of date, and that the land
+agents of the future, if suffered to cumber the earth at all, will be
+elected by the tenants, as the New York magistrates are elected by the
+persons whom they will be called upon to judge. And the clock ticks
+and the fox-terrier whines in his sleep. He is dreaming of rats,
+perhaps. It is pleasant to dream, even if one is a dog.</p>
+
+<p>A sudden start. The long-looked-for telegram has come announcing the
+arrival of the daughter of the house shortly at Kilmallock Station.
+There is another skirmish for rifles, rugs, and revolvers, and a sally
+out of the fortress. No sooner has the brave young lady arrived, who
+with her brother and cousin, and perhaps the representatives of the
+British army, will form the Christmas dinner-party, than she draws up
+a bill of fare, which includes, as well as turkey, ham, and plum
+pudding, lobsters brought from afar, thanks to feminine foresight. The
+retainers will feast on mighty joints of beef and on plum pudding
+galore. And now another telegram&mdash;The troops will arrive before the
+bells ring in Christmas-day.</p>
+
+<p>As I approach the end of my letter, it occurs to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[322]</a></span>me that although the
+place, events, and persons described would be recognised by anybody
+living in the counties of Limerick, Cork, or Tipperary, this account
+might appear to English readers rather as an imaginative and
+highly-coloured picture, painted for the Christmas market from a
+number of models, than as a simple sketch in neutral greys as exactly
+and faithfully drawn as is possible to the writer. To prevent any such
+misapprehension, I will observe that the events which I describe as
+occurring before me, have all taken place within forty-eight hours in
+and near the house of Mr. Townsend, of Spa-hill, Kilfinane, county
+Limerick, and are telegraphed from Limerick city to the <i>Daily News</i>,
+because there was no nearer or more convenient office from which to
+send so long a message. Mr. Uniacke Townsend is one of a large family
+mostly engaged in land agency, and has incurred the ire of the people
+of Kilfinane, Kilmallock, Charleville, and the surrounding country, in
+consequence of a difficulty with one Murphy, a fairly large farmer
+according to the Irish measure of farming capacity. Murphy's farm is
+known as Lisheen. It includes between 40 and 50 acres, and the rent,
+240<i>l.</i> per annum, has, I am informed, not been changed for forty-six
+years. When Murphy owed a clear year's rent and a balance on a "broken
+gale," he was sued for the whole amount. By May of this year he owed
+another gale of half a year's rent, and he was formally evicted <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[323]</a></span>and a
+caretaker put in possession on the 21st June.</p>
+
+<p>It has been explained in a previous letter that after receiving any
+amount of credit an Irish farmer is again allowed six months'
+"redemption" after eviction. After paying up everything, including the
+additional "gale" incurred, less the proceeds of the farm, he
+re-enters on possession at any time within the margin of six months.
+Thus another "gale" fell due in November, and Murphy was still
+unprovided with funds. He did, however, very well without them; for
+the Land League, having become strong in the meanwhile in county
+Limerick, the caretaker was frightened away from the farm and Murphy
+reinstated. Mr. Uniacke Townsend requested him to give up possession,
+and was refused, and it then became known that Murphy might expect
+imprisonment or fine for trespass. Thereat a meeting was held, and Mr.
+Townsend solemnly adjudged worthy of "Boycotting." The lead in these
+disgraceful proceedings was taken by a Father Sheehy.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever the merits of Murphy's case may be, and it seems that members
+of his family have held Lisheen for some considerable time, there is
+no doubt that Father Sheehy made an almost frantic speech against Mr.
+Townsend, the agent, and Mr. Coote, the owner of the property,
+declaring that "the very name of Coote smelt of blood." I am not aware
+of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[324]</a></span>the sanguinary deeds of the Cootes in the past; all I know of them
+is that the present incumbent is a very old man, of somewhat clerical
+exterior, who, like "A fine old Irish gentleman, one of the olden
+time," lives in London, requests his agent to enforce the law against
+his tenants without delay, and, in order to encourage him to do his
+duty, sends down to Spa-hill the very best repeating rifles that money
+can buy.</p>
+
+<p>The upshot of the matter is that Mr. Townsend has been so threatened
+that he has yielded to the entreaties of his family and left Kilfinane
+for a week or two, at any rate. He is, however, like most of his
+profession, a very determined man, and declared that he would come
+home and eat his Christmas dinner in his own house, "despite of foes;"
+but Mrs. Townsend, who, like the lady to whom I referred in a previous
+letter, has borne up nobly under her severe trial, was so scared at
+the thought of her husband's coming among a population banded together
+against him that she set off on Saturday and joined him, as the only
+way of averting some terrible disaster; for there is little doubt that
+the law will be put in force against Murphy now that his six months
+for "redemption" have expired; and nobody can tell what will happen at
+Lisheen any more than at Ennistymon if writs are issued against the
+tenants on the Macnamara estate, or on Mr. Stacpoole's property, if he
+perseveres in his resolution to "Dublin writ" the people with whom he
+has to deal.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[325]</a></span>So the family at Spa-hill is broken up this Christmas; father and
+mother are both away&mdash;where I should hardly divulge, but assuredly
+where their Christmastide will be passed peacefully, if not joyfully.</p>
+
+<p>Another gentleman of these parts is being severely "Boycotted," to wit
+Mr. T. Sanders, of Sanders Park, Charleville, county Cork, just over
+the border from county Limerick; the Mr. Sanders, in fact, whom I saw
+the Palladians roaring and yelling at on the occasion of my first
+visit to the classic battlefield of the "three and four year olds." On
+that occasion he had been vainly trying to get in rents for the
+charitable bequest known as Erasmus Smith's Schools, and Pallas was
+full of noisy and more or less drunken Palladians, who dealt with Mr.
+Sanders in such wise that the police were obliged to see him into a
+railway carriage, and stand by the door till the train moved on. I
+would fain have called upon Mr. Sanders as I drove to Charleville, but
+the civil and obliging landlord of Lincoln's Hotel at that place, who
+supplied me with an excellent carriage and horses, politely apologised
+for his inability to drive me thither. He could not possibly enter
+Sanders Park, nor would any of his men go near that abhorred spot. No
+orders concerning Spa-hill had been issued by the "Real Government" in
+the absence of the hated head of the house, and I might be driven
+there and welcome; but Sanders Park was another matter. I <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[326]</a></span>might walk
+out of the town, and across the park if I liked, and my informant
+would ensure that I went and returned in safety, as for that matter I
+knew very well; but not being fond of walking against time through the
+mud, I preferred going whither I could be driven in comfort. Moreover,
+the novelty of the thing is wearing off, and "Boycotting" is now only
+interesting when ingeniously evaded or boldly defied.</p>
+
+<p>So long as a railway station is near him, the "Boycottee," if he have
+only two or three servants to stand firm, can practically bring the
+Boycotters to their wits' end. The railway companies being, I take it,
+common carriers, dare not refuse, like the cowardly shippers of Cork,
+to take the "Boycottee's" beef and plum pudding, wine and whisky, to
+the most convenient railway station, whence he, if well-armed and
+provided with an escort of constabulary, can bring in his supplies
+under the very nose of the infuriated peasants who stand scowling
+around the station gate and roar and "boo" their disgust at being
+foiled. There is not the slightest fear of the "Boycotters" running
+their heads against Winchester rifles and army revolvers, and the
+convoy need apprehend nothing hotter or harder than curses and groans,
+which, "like the idle wind, hurt not the mariner ashore."</p>
+
+<p>This last quotation had the misfortune to displease one of my young
+hosts, who opined that he thought, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[327]</a></span>on the contrary, we were all at
+sea in Ireland just now, and breakers were ahead. Perhaps he is over
+much of an alarmist, but his present situation is hardly calculated to
+inspire confidence in anything but conical bullets and cold steel. As
+we stand together on the doorstep, he remarks that it will be long
+before Christmas <i>&agrave; la</i> Boycott is forgotten in Ireland, and then he
+wishes me the compliments of the season. "Good bye," and "Safe
+home"&mdash;hateful valediction! I wish him and his a happier new year than
+the old one has been; but it would be a sorry jest to wish a merry
+Christmas to one whose greatest happiness and consolation are that at
+this time of gathered kindred, at the feast which comes but once a
+year for the re-knitting of the ties of domestic affection, the kindly
+voice of the house-mother is not heard beneath her own roof tree; that
+the chair of the house-father stands empty at the Christmas board.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="XVIII" id="XVIII"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[328]</a></span><br />
+
+
+<h3>XVIII.<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h3>CHRISTMAS IN COUNTY CLARE.</h3>
+<br />
+
+<p class="right"><span class="sc">Ennis</span>, <i>Monday.</i></p>
+
+<p>In a picture exhibited a few years ago, and since engraved, was
+powerfully and pathetically portrayed a scene of the early life of the
+Pilgrim Fathers of New England. It was winter time, and the day was
+Sunday. Clad in raiment of quaint severity, the head of the house led
+his Puritan family and servants across the snow-clad fields to
+worship. Living in the midst of a hostile population, the little band
+of worshippers was armed to the teeth. The father carried his "plain
+falling band" and steeple-crowned hat with a stiff air, and also
+carried lethal weapons. His prim wife and daughters bare Bibles, and
+his serving men, muskets. "Like a servant of the Lord, With his Bible
+and his sword," the unflinching old soldier of the Commonwealth strode
+manfully from his homestead to his religious duties, not unprepared to
+deal with any foes who might turn up by the way.</p>
+
+<p>As a glimpse of the remote past, as well as a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[329]</a></span>work of art, this
+picture struck me as valuable; but it certainly did not occur to me
+that a similar sight would be seen within a short space in the kingdom
+of Ireland. Nevertheless, it may be witnessed on any Sunday in county
+Clare. Near Tulla, a spot of evil repute just now as the theatre of a
+recent attack upon magistrates returning from doing their duty,
+Colonel O'Callaghan, his wife and son, may be seen on any Sunday
+morning going to church armed with rifle and revolver, and protected
+by an escort of constabulary. The church is a long walk from Lismeehan
+(<i>Anglice</i>, Maryfort), and the way is not safe either for Colonel
+O'Callaghan himself, his wife, his child, or anything that is his.</p>
+
+<p>I will not pretend for what are called "sensational" purposes that the
+stranger who ventures within the gates of Maryfort is in any danger so
+long as he remains within them, or that any weightier missiles than
+groans and hisses are launched at him as he goes to and from the house
+under "taboo." It is well known that an attack on Lismeehan would not
+be bloodless, and that the defence would be far fiercer and more
+deadly than that made at the Clare-street Police Barrack at Limerick.
+The little garrison is perfectly armed, and small as it is, would work
+mischief on any attacking mob; but the experience at Tulla the other
+day proves that safety is only purchased at the trouble and
+inconvenience of going everywhere armed to the teeth.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[330]</a></span>After my experience in the matter of Mr. Sanders, of Sanders Park,
+Charleville, I did not think it worth while to go to a posting-house
+for a carriage and horses to reach Maryfort; but being fortunate
+enough to obtain the loan of a friend's victoria and servant I got a
+horse "sharpened" as to his shoes at Ennis; and drove over the
+frost-bound road to Colonel O'Callaghan's house yesterday afternoon.
+It was a long drive to the most severely "Boycotted" house in Clare.
+It was also a drive of surpassing dreariness. The sun, which had made
+the hoar frost to sparkle on Christmas Day, barely pierced through the
+clouds on the afternoon of St. Stephen's. Leaving trim lawns, a forest
+of box-trees, budding roses and peonies, well-grown early brocoli and
+York cabbages behind, we drove through a country of eternal little
+fields and grey stone walls.</p>
+
+<p>It is needless to say that Maryfort is a long way from Ennis. Every
+place is a long way from everywhere in this western part of Ireland&mdash;a
+fact, by the way, not unfrequently forgotten by critics of the
+much-criticised constabulary. Where gentlemen's houses and
+considerable villages are as much as fifteen miles apart, the area of
+country to be watched becomes quite unmanageable. Only those who have
+incurred the fearful loss of time in getting from place to place in
+Connaught can form an adequate idea of it. Despite the discouraging
+remarks of its critics, this well-drilled, well-grown corps of Royal
+Irish <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[331]</a></span>Constabulary remains as staunch and loyal as of old, but it is
+absurd to expect impossibilities. Galway to a person sitting
+comfortably in his own library appears to be overwhelmed with
+constables. I believe that there is, in fact, one constable to every
+fifty adult males in that county&mdash;an enormous proportion judged
+statistically, but yet slight enough when the vast area of the county
+and the miles of actual desert which separate one partially civilised
+spot from another are considered.</p>
+
+<p>A large percentage of the constabulary is also deflected from general
+to special service in affording downright personal protection, and
+that modified protection known as "looking after" individuals. A
+hundred and twenty persons in Ireland are now receiving "personal
+protection," amounting to the constant attendance of never less than
+two constables, frequently to the residence of four or more on the
+premises or the property. At least eight hundred persons are being
+"looked after;" so that it is no exaggeration to state that twelve or
+thirteen hundred men are detached from the regular force on particular
+duty of the most harassing and vexatious kind. Wherever the person
+under protection chooses to go, at whatever hour, or in whatever
+weather, his "escort" must accompany him; for their orders are "not to
+lose sight of him" outside of his own door. This is a troublesome
+duty, sometimes greatly aggravated by the conduct of the protected
+persons, who <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[332]</a></span>take sudden fits and starts, and fly hither and thither
+in the oddest kind of way. The constables get no rest; they are
+perpetually harassed and exposed, and they are quite superior to the
+consolation of a "tip."</p>
+
+<p>I say this deliberately, for on three several occasions I tried to
+give a drenched and half-frozen constable a reward for service
+rendered, not for information to be given, and on each and every
+occasion I met with a dignified refusal, accompanied by one man with a
+friendly caution not to attempt that sort of thing, as some of the men
+might be rough. I say that I did not ask for information, because I
+generally knew more than the constables, for the excellent reason that
+I had wider and better sources to draw upon. From the country folk it
+is absolutely impossible to glean any scrap of information. A question
+immediately shapes their countenances into a look of hopeless
+simplicity and guilelessness bordering upon idiocy. Persons in quest
+of information in the remote parts of Ireland put me in mind of the
+hunter of the Rocky Mountains, who, while he was trying to stalk some
+antelope, became aware that a grizzly bear was stalking him. The
+people find out all about the person seeking for knowledge, but he
+discovers nothing.</p>
+
+<p>After this it is needless to say that the constabulary must of
+necessity be the last people to learn anything from the country folk,
+and that a London <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[333]</a></span>detective would be as much out of his element as "a
+salmon on a gravel walk."</p>
+
+<p>Between Ennis and Maryfort we only met two brace of constables on the
+road, but we knew there were others with Mr. Hall, of Cluny, at Tulla,
+and other places within ten miles of Colonel O'Callaghan's house.
+There was a little gathering of people near the chapel at Bearfield,
+but in other respects the road was empty till we neared our
+destination, when a little crowd set up an Irish howl against us,
+followed by a shout of "Long live Parnell." Presently we came to
+Lismeehan gates, opened after a good steady look at us by an ancient
+retainer, in a grey frieze coat. I was told civilly enough that "the
+masther" was at home. Beyond a pretty park, full of well-bred cattle,
+lay the "Boycotted" house, tall and grey and grim, in the waning
+light. There was no sign of life in it. Under a handsome portico was
+the grand entrance, bolted and barred up, with shutters closed. There
+was nothing for it but to tug vigorously at the bell. Nobody came to
+the door, but around each corner of the house stepped an armed
+constable. A moment later a narrow slip of the shutter was moved, and
+we became aware first of a fur cap and then of a youthful face, which
+ultimately proved to be that of Colonel O'Callaghan's eldest son, home
+for the holidays from a great English school, and undergoing the
+"hardening" process of spending Christmas in a state of siege.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[334]</a></span>Presently came a maidservant, neat and trim, and after some wrestling
+with bolts the outer door was opened a little way, and our names and
+business demanded, after which we entered a great hall, apparently
+used as a refectory. Huge logs blazed on the hearth, and the room
+looked comfortable enough. We were next ushered into the drawing-room
+of Colonel O'Callaghan, who had just come in from herding his cattle
+and sheep, and was still girt with a brace of full-sized revolvers.</p>
+
+<p>No whit dismayed by the attack made on him at Tulla, and holding his
+foes in very slight estimation, Colonel O'Callaghan is yet subjected
+to inconvenience and oppression of an extraordinary kind. The
+proximate cause of his being "Boycotted" was his action is serving
+four processes himself, because neither love nor money nor threats
+would induce a process-server to do his work. The country folk know
+quite well the difference between Land League law and the phantom
+which remains of the law of the land. The former is instantly
+enforced, the latter cannot be carried into effect at all, a fact
+which is telling upon its officers with discouraging effect.</p>
+
+<p>Finding his writs could be served by nobody but himself, Colonel
+O'Callaghan started early one morning, attended by his escort, served
+the four writs himself, and then prepared to hold his own. Pigs were
+killed, barrels of flour and other stores were brought in, and the
+house provisioned to stand a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[335]</a></span>siege. Recollection of old days in the
+Crimea, when Colonel O'Callaghan was in the 62nd Regiment, were
+revived under the provisioning process, which was by no means complete
+when he was formally "Boycotted," and left with 300 cattle and sheep
+upon his hands, with only one man to help him to look after them.
+Thirty odd herds, labourers, and other dependents have left Maryfort.
+Only three maid-servants, the old man at the gate, and another man now
+remain, and even the housemaid, who is Irish and a Roman Catholic,
+must be guarded to and from mass, amid the yells of the natives. It
+must be remembered that Maryfort is a lonely place, three miles from a
+post-office, and three times that distance from a railway station;
+that it is no light matter to send in and out for letters and parcels;
+and the emissary would, if unarmed, assuredly be stopped, if not
+maltreated. This difficulty of getting letters and fresh joints has
+been met in the latter case by falling back upon patriarchal customs.
+As Colonel O'Callaghan can neither sell his sheep nor buy mutton, he
+has taken to consuming his flock, albeit a sheep is a large animal to
+kill in a small family, and but for the winter weather the loss would
+be very great.</p>
+
+<p>There is another annoyance&mdash;the risk of valuable cattle being houghed
+or otherwise mutilated; a risk calling for incessant watchfulness.
+That it is not of an imaginary nature is demonstrated by the fact that
+the tails were cut off of two of Mrs. Westropp's <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[336]</a></span>cows a few nights
+since, and a threatening letter, savagely coarse and brutal in its
+wording, was sent to that lady. There is no doubt about this, for I
+have seen the letter, in which reference is made to the cows and
+brutal treatment promised to Mrs. Westropp, a widow of small property.</p>
+
+<p>The difficulty concerning letters, which it seems the postmaster at
+Callaghan's Mills is not compelled to deliver at Maryfort, is got over
+in another way. As we are discussing the question of supply, there
+enters to us a lady dressed in walking costume of studied simplicity.
+This is the terrible Mrs. O'Callaghan, of whom I had heard wonderful
+stories in Clare and Limerick; "And begorra," said one informant,
+"it's herself that's a divil of a lady entoirely, and she shoots
+rabbuts wid a rifle at three hundred yards and niver misses, and she
+tould 'um at the village that she'd as soon shoot one of 'um as a
+rabbut, and she is the sisther of Misthress Dick Stacpoole, of
+Edenvale. They was the Miss Westropps, your honour, out of county
+Limerick, and it is thim as makes their husbands the tyrants that they
+are." This account made me wonder at two things&mdash;firstly, at the
+astounding power of lying and exaggeration displayed by my
+interlocutor; and secondly, where the old Irish gallantry towards the
+fair sex has gone to. It seems to have gone very far, for one hears
+now of ladies being shot at. But, although not impressed with the
+truth <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[337]</a></span>of the information vouchsafed to me, I expected to see at least
+an Irish version of Lady Macbeth, instead of the graceful,
+well-dressed, thorough-bred Irish gentlewoman who had just come from a
+long walk to the post-office and back. Since the boy who used to carry
+the letter bag was frightened away, Mrs. O'Callaghan has taken up his
+duties, and, armed with rifle and revolver, performs them daily.</p>
+
+<p>With the case of Miss Ellard, and other ladies, before my eyes, I
+cannot blame Mrs. O'Callaghan for going about armed, and maintaining a
+defiant attitude towards the people, who really go in bodily fear of
+her. There is, as I have observed, nothing to terrify in the look or
+voice of Mrs. O'Callaghan, but I gradually gather from her
+conversation that it is not all romance about her wonderful shooting.
+If not at three hundred, yet at thirty yards she can hit a rabbit
+cleverly enough, and actually does go out rabbit shooting "for the
+pot" to relieve the monotony of everlasting pig and sheep. Mrs.
+O'Callaghan is also nearly as good a shot with the revolver as her
+husband, and would certainly not hesitate to use that weapon in
+self-defence.</p>
+
+<p>Such is the present <i>personnel</i> of Maryfort at this moment, affording
+a sketch of manners reminding one rather of a Huguenot family in
+southern France just after receiving the news of St. Bartholomew, than
+of any social condition extant in modern Europe.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[338]</a></span>As we drive out into the darkness and heavily-falling snow there is
+some debate touching the lighting of the carriage lamps. It is thought
+better not to light up, and to keep firearms handy until we get some
+miles from Maryfort.</p>
+
+<p>A howl pierces through the darkness as we pass a clump of houses, and
+I remark that my friend's coachman drives very fast by any house on
+the road; but nothing occurs till we stop at a "shebeen" to light both
+cigars and lamps, for the snowstorm is increasing. Not desiring
+refreshment, I give the woman of the house a shilling for a drink for
+a man who is sitting by the fire. I explain the nature of the
+transaction to him, and wish him a happy new year. The sulky brute
+answers me never a word. Probably he knows or suspects where I have
+been, and if so would let me lie on the ground under a kicking horse
+till an end was made of me rather than stretch forth a hand. He will
+not speak now, and I observe that the woman, who has kept a tight hold
+on the shilling, has not poured out any whisky, although she has had
+the decency to ask me if I wished for any. It is a strange sight, this
+sullen silent savage sitting scowling over the fire; but <i>on se fait &agrave;
+tout</i> in Disturbed Ireland.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h5>LONDON: R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS.</h5>
+
+<br />
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+
+
+<h3>MESSRS. MACMILLAN &amp; CO.'S PUBLICATIONS.</h3>
+
+<h3>NEW BOOKS ON IRELAND.</h3>
+<br />
+
+<div class="block"><p class="hang">NEW VIEWS ON IRELAND, OR IRISH LAND GRIEVANCES AND REMEDIES. By
+<span class="sc">Charles Russell</span>, Q.C., M.P. Crown 8vo, cloth. 2<i>s.</i>
+6<i>d.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="block"><p>"They should be studied by every one who desires to understand the
+existing crisis in Ireland."&mdash;<span class="sc">Spectator</span>.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Russell has undoubtedly done his best by careful observation
+to arrive at the prevalent evils and their causes, and he has
+honestly and sincerely propounded his remedial scheme. His work is
+worthy of careful perusal."&mdash;<span class="sc">Examiner</span>.</p></div>
+
+
+<div class="block"><p class="hang">THE LIFE'S WORK IN IRELAND OF A LANDLORD WHO TRIED TO DO HIS
+DUTY. By <span class="sc">W. Bence Jones</span>, of Lisselan. Crown 8vo. 6<i>s.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="block"><p>"Mr. Bence Jones has written an interesting and instructive book,
+but not the least enlightening part of it is the preface. This is
+dated the 12th of December, 1880. He had just been threatened with
+'Boycotting,' which he now undergoes."&mdash;<span class="sc">St. James's
+Gazette.</span></p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Bence Jones, every one must own, has a fair claim to be
+heard, and no one can be in a position properly to discuss Irish
+affairs till he has read his really valuable book."&mdash;<span class="sc">Literary
+World.</span></p></div>
+
+
+<div class="block"><p class="hang">THE IRISH LAND LAWS. By <span class="sc">Alexander G. Richey</span>, Q.C.;
+LL.D., Deputy Regius Professor of Feudal and English Law in the
+University of Dublin. Crown 8vo. 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p></div>
+
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+little book to all who speak, write, or seriously think upon this
+question, in or out of Parliament."&mdash;<span class="sc">Times</span>.</p>
+
+<p>"This book cannot fail to do good ... Mr. Richey writes throughout
+fairly, and in no partisan or controversial spirit, and his book
+is a contribution of great value to the discussion in which we now
+find ourselves involved."&mdash;<span class="sc">St. James's Gazette.</span></p></div>
+
+
+<div class="block"><p class="hang">THE IRISH CRISIS, being a Narrative of the Measures for the
+Relief of the Distress caused by the Great Irish Famine of
+1846&mdash;47. By <span class="sc">Sir Charles Trevelyan</span>, Bart., K.C.B. 8vo.
+Price 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
+
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+<span class="sc">James Godkin</span>, Author of "Ireland and Her Churches,"
+late Irish Correspondent of the <i>Times</i>. Demy 8vo. 12<i>s.</i></p></div>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON.</h4>
+
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+<h3>MESSRS. MACMILLAN &amp; CO.'S PUBLICATIONS.</h3>
+
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+
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+5<i>s.</i></p>
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+Suffrage in Counties&mdash;Irish University Education, &amp;c.</p></div>
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+
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+their Establishment in Ireland. New Edition. Crown 8vo. 7<i>s.</i>
+6<i>d.</i></p>
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+Scotland. By <span class="sc">John Macdonel</span>, Barrister-at-Law. 8vo.
+10<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
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+8vo. 4<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
+
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+ENGLAND RELATING to the SECURITY of the PERSON. By <span class="sc">James
+Paterson</span>, Barrister-at-Law. Cheaper Issue. Two vols. Crown
+8vo. 21<i>s.</i></p>
+
+<p class="hang">The LIBERTY of the PRESS, SPEECH, and PUBLIC WORSHIP. Being
+Commentaries on the Liberty of the Subject and the Laws of
+England. By <span class="sc">James Paterson</span>, Barrister-at-Law. Crown
+8vo. 12<i>s.</i></p></div>
+
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+<h4>MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON.</h4>
+
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+
+<div class="tr">
+<p class="cen"><a name="TN" id="TN"></a>Typographical errors corrected in text:</p>
+<br />
+Page &nbsp; 14: &nbsp; escert replaced with escort<br />
+Page &nbsp; 24: &nbsp; similiar replaced with similar<br />
+Page &nbsp; 44: &nbsp; licence replaced with license<br />
+Page &nbsp; 75: &nbsp; 'kings men' replaced with 'king's men'<br />
+Page 149: &nbsp; posssble replaced with possible<br />
+Page 218: &nbsp; 'he split upon it' replaced with 'be split upon it'<br />
+</div>
+
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Disturbed Ireland, by Bernard H. Becker
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+</body>
+</html>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Disturbed Ireland, by Bernard H. Becker
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Disturbed Ireland
+       Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81.
+
+Author: Bernard H. Becker
+
+Release Date: September 2, 2006 [EBook #19160]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DISTURBED IRELAND ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Jeannie Howse and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    +--------------------------------------------------------------+
+    | Transcriber's Note:                                          |
+    |                                                              |
+    | Inconsistent hyphenation and unusual spelling in the         |
+    | original document has been preserved.                        |
+    |                                                              |
+    | A number of obvious typographical errors have been corrected |
+    | in this text. For a complete list, please see the bottom of  |
+    | this document.                                               |
+    |                                                              |
+    +--------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+DISTURBED IRELAND:
+
+BEING THE LETTERS
+WRITTEN DURING THE WINTER OF 1880-81.
+
+BY
+BERNARD H. BECKER,
+_SPECIAL COMMISSIONER OF THE "DAILY NEWS."_
+
+WITH ROUTE MAPS.
+
+London:
+MACMILLAN AND CO.
+1881.
+
+
+
+
+LONDON:
+R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR,
+BREAD STREET HILL.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+Having been most cordially granted permission to republish these
+letters in a collected form, it is my duty to mention that my mission
+from the _Daily News_ was absolutely unfettered, either by
+instructions or introductions. It was thought that an independent and
+impartial account of the present condition of the disturbed districts
+of Ireland would be best secured by sending thither a writer without
+either Irish politics or Irish friends--in short, one who might occupy
+the stand-point of the too-often-quoted "intelligent foreigner." Hence
+my little book is purely descriptive of the stirring scenes and deeply
+interesting people I have met with on my way through the counties of
+Mayo, Galway, Clare, Limerick, Cork, and Kerry. It is neither a
+political treatise, nor a dissertation on the tenure of land, but a
+plain record of my experience of a strange phase of national life. I
+have simply endeavoured to reflect as accurately as might be the
+salient features of a social and economic upheaval, soon I fervently
+hope, to pass into the domain of history; and in offering my work to
+the public must ask indulgence for the errors of omission and
+commission so difficult to avoid while travelling and writing rapidly
+in a country which, even to its own people, is a complex problem.
+
+           B.H.B.
+
+ARTS' CLUB, _January 6th, 1881._
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+                                                        PAGE
+I.
+AT LOUGH MASK                                              1
+
+II.
+AN AGRARIAN DIFFICULTY                                    18
+
+III.
+LAND MEETINGS                                             26
+
+IV.
+MISS GARDINER AND HER TENANTS                             52
+
+V.
+FROM MAYO TO CONNEMARA                                    70
+
+VI.
+THE RELIEF OF MR. BOYCOTT                                120
+
+VII.
+MR. RICHARD STACPOOLE                                    153
+
+VIII.
+PATRIOTS                                                 160
+
+IX.
+ON THE FERGUS                                            166
+
+X.
+PALLAS AND THE PALLADIANS                                191
+
+XI.
+GOMBEEN                                                  207
+
+XII.
+THE RETAINER                                             215
+
+XIII.
+CROPPED                                                  225
+
+XIV.
+IN KERRY                                                 232
+
+XV.
+THE "BOYCOTTING" OF MR. BENCE JONES                      262
+
+XVI.
+A CRUISE IN A GROWLER                                    279
+
+XVII.
+"BOYCOTTED" AT CHRISTMASTIDE                             307
+
+XVIII.
+CHRISTMAS IN COUNTY CLARE                                328
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+  [Illustration: (foldout Map of Ireland, showing author's route.)]
+
+  [Illustration: (foldout detail map of western Ireland, showing author's route.)]
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+DISTURBED IRELAND.
+
+I.
+
+AT LOUGH MASK.
+
+
+WESTPORT, CO. MAYO, _Oct. 24._
+
+The result of several days' incessant travelling in county Mayo is a
+very considerable modification of the opinion formed at the first
+glance at this, the most disaffected part of Ireland. On reaching
+Claremorris, in the heart of the most disturbed district, I certainly
+felt, and not for the first time, that as one approaches a spot in
+which law and order are supposed to be suspended the sense of alarm
+and insecurity diminishes, to put it mathematically, "as the square of
+the distances." Even after a rapid survey of this part of the West I
+cannot help contrasting the state of public opinion here with that
+prevailing in Dublin. In the capital--outside of "the Castle," where
+moderate counsels prevail--the alarmists appear to have it all their
+own way. I was told gravely that there was no longer any security for
+life or property in the West; that county Mayo was like Tipperary in
+the old time, "only more so;" and that if I would go lurking about
+Lough Mask and Lough Corrib it was impossible to prevent me; but that
+the chances of return were, to say the least, remote. It was in vain
+that I pointed out that every stone wall did not hide an assassin, and
+that strangers and others not connected either directly or indirectly
+with the land were probably as safe, if not safer, on a high road in
+Mayo than in Sackville-street, Dublin. It was admitted that,
+theoretically, I was quite in the right; but that like many other
+theorists I might find my theory break down in practice. I was
+entertained with a full account of the way in which assassinations are
+conducted in the livelier counties of Ireland, and great stress was
+laid upon the fact that the assassins were always well primed with
+"the wine of the country," that is to say whisky, of similar quality
+to that known in New York as "fighting rum," "Jersey lightning," or
+"torchlight procession." It was then impressed upon me that
+half-drunken assassins, specially imported from a distant part of the
+county to shoot a landlord or agent, might easily mistake a stranger
+for the obnoxious person and shoot him accordingly, just as the
+unlucky driver was hit in Kerry the other day instead of the land
+agent. Furthermore, I was taken to a gunsmith's in Dawson-street,
+where I was assured that the sale of firearms had been and was
+remarkably brisk, the chief demand being for full-sized revolvers and
+double-barrelled carbines. The weapon chiefly recommended was one of
+the latter, with a large smooth bore for carrying buck-shot and
+spreading the charge so much as to make the hitting of a man at thirty
+yards almost certain. The barrels were very short, in order that the
+gun might be convenient to carry in carriage or car. This formidable
+weapon was to be carried in the hand so as to be ready when
+opportunity served; a little ostentation as to one's habit of going
+armed being vigorously insisted on as a powerful deterrent.
+
+To any person unacquainted with the humorous side of the Irish
+character a morning spent in such converse as I have endeavoured to
+indicate might have proved disquieting enough; but those who know
+Irishmen and their ways at once enter into the spirit of the thing,
+and enjoy it as much as the untamable jokers themselves. Nothing is
+more amazing to serious people than the light and easy manner in which
+everybody takes everything on this side of the Irish Sea. This is
+perfectly exemplified by the tone in which the Kerry murder is
+discussed. I have heard it talked over by every class of person, from
+a landholding peer to a not very sober car-driver, and the view taken
+is always the same. No horror is expressed at the commission of such a
+crime, or at the state of society which makes it possible. Nothing of
+the kind. A little sympathy is expressed for the poor man who was shot
+by mistake, and then the humour of the situation overrules every other
+consideration. That poor people resenting what they imagine to be
+tyranny should shoot one of their own class instead of the hated agent
+is a fact so irresistibly comic as to provoke a quantity of hilarious
+comment. As laughter dies away, however, another expression of feeling
+takes place, and the slackness of the master in not being ready with
+his pistol, and his want of presence of mind to pursue the murderer
+and avenge his servant's death, are spoken of with the fiercest
+indignation. But nobody appears to care about the general and social
+aspect of the case.
+
+Beneath all this humour and a curious tendency to exaggerate the
+condition of the West, there undeniably lurked very considerable
+uneasiness. It was known that "the Castle" was hard at work, and that,
+before proceeding to coercive measures, Mr. Forster was getting
+together all the trustworthy evidence that could be obtained as to the
+state of the country. As an instance of the absurd rumours flying
+about, I may mention that I was in the presence of two Irish peers
+solemnly assured that a "rising in the West" was imminent, and not
+only imminent, but fixed for the 31st October. Now, who has not heard
+at any time within the memory of man of this expected "rising in the
+West"? It is the _spectre rouge_, or, to be more accurate as to local
+colour, the _spectre vert_ of the Irish alarmist, and a poor, ragged,
+out-at-elbows spectre it is, altogether very much the worse for wear.
+Flesh and blood could not bear the mention of this shabby, worn-out
+old ghost with calmness, and I conveyed to the gentlemen who
+volunteered the information my opinion that the _spectre vert_ was, in
+American language, "played out." Will it be believed that I was the
+only person present who ridiculed the "poor ghost"? I soon perceived
+that my scornful remarks were not at all in accordance with the
+feeling of the company, who did not see anything impossible in a
+"rising in the West," and refused to laugh at the Saxon's remark that
+things did not "rise," but "set" in that direction. County Mayo and
+parts of county Galway were beyond the law, and could only be cured by
+the means successfully employed in Westmeath a few years
+ago--coercion. It was of no avail to say that very few people had been
+shot in the disaffected counties during the last ten years. The answer
+was always the same. The minds of the people were poisoned by
+agitators, and they would pay nobody either rent or any other just
+debt except on compulsion.
+
+Beyond Athlone the tone of public opinion improved very rapidly, and
+in Roscommon, once a disturbed county, I found plenty of people ready
+to laugh with me at the _spectre vert_. There was nothing the matter
+in that county. A fair price had been obtained for sheep and cattle,
+the harvest had been good, everything was going on as well as
+possible. There was some talk, it was true, about disturbances in
+Mayo, but there was a great deal of imagination and exaggeration, and
+the trouble was confined to certain districts of the county, the
+centre of disturbance being somewhere about Claremorris, a market
+town, on the railway to Westport, and not very far from Knock, the
+last new place of pilgrimage. At Claremorris I accordingly halted to
+look about me, and was surprised at the extraordinary activity of the
+little place. Travellers in agricultural England, either Wessex or
+East Anglia, often wonder who drinks all the beer for the distribution
+of which such ample facilities are afforded. A church, a public-house,
+and a blacksmith's shop constitute an English village; but there is
+nobody on the spot either to go to church or drink the beer. At
+Claremorris a similar effect is produced on the visitor's mind. The
+main street is full of shops, corn-dealers, drapers, butchers, bakers,
+and general dealers in everything, from a horse to a hayseed; but out
+of the main track there are no houses--only hovels as wretched as any
+in Connaught. It is quite evident that the poor people who inhabit
+them cannot buy much of anything. Men, women, and children, dogs,
+ducks, and a donkey, are frequently crowded together in these
+miserable cabins, the like of which on any English estate would bring
+down a torrent of indignation on the landlord. They are all of one
+pattern, wretchedly thatched, but with stout stone walls, and are,
+when a big peat fire is burning, hot almost to suffocation. When it is
+possible to distinguish the pattern of the bed-curtains through the
+dirt, they are seen to be of the familiar blue and white checked
+pattern made familiar to London playgoers by Susan's cottage as
+displayed at the St. James's Theatre. The chest of drawers is nearly
+always covered with tea-things and other crockery, generally of the
+cheapest and commonest kind, but in great plenty. House accommodation
+in Claremorris is of the humblest character. At the best inn, called
+ambitiously Hughes's Hotel, I found that I was considered fortunate in
+getting any sort of bedroom to myself. The apartment was very small,
+with a lean-to roof, but then I reigned over it in solitary grandeur,
+while a dozen commercial travellers were packed into the three or four
+other bedrooms in the house. As these gentlemen arrived at odd hours
+of the night and were put into the rooms and beds occupied by their
+friends, sleep at Claremorris was not a function easily performed, and
+it was some foreknowledge of what actually occurred that induced me to
+sit up as late as possible in the eating, dining, reading, and
+commercial room, the only apartment of any size in the house, but full
+of occupants, most of whom were very communicative concerning their
+business. Here were the eagles indeed, but where was the carcass? To
+my amazement I found that Mike this and Tim that, whose shops are very
+small, had been giving large orders, and that the credit of
+Claremorris was in a very healthy condition. Equally curious was it to
+find that the gathering of "commercials" was not an unusual
+occurrence, but that the queer townlet was a genuine centre of
+business activity. We sat up as late as the stench of paraffin from
+the lamps--for there is no gas--would allow us. Lizzie, literally a
+maid of all work, but dressed in a gown tied violently back, brought
+up armful after armful of peat, and built and rebuilt the fire over
+and over again. There was in the corner of the room a huge receptacle,
+like half a hogshead, fastened to the wall for holding peat--or
+"turf," as it is called here--but it never occurred apparently to
+anybody to fill this bin and save the trouble of eternal journeys up
+and down stairs. It may be also mentioned, not out of any
+squeamishness, but purely as a matter of fact, that in the intervals
+of bringing in "arrumfuls" of "torrf" Lizzie folded tablecloths for
+newcomers so as to hide the coffee-stains as much as possible, and
+then proceeded to set their tea for them, after which she went back to
+building the fire again. In the work of waiting she was at uncertain
+intervals assisted by Joe, a shock-headed, black-haired Celt, who,
+when a Sybarite asked at breakfast for toast, repeated "Toast!" in a
+tone that set the table in a roar. It was not said impudently or
+rudely. Far from it. Joe's tone simply expressed honest amazement, as
+if one had asked for a broiled crocodile or any other impossible
+viand.
+
+There are, of course, people who would like separate servants to build
+up peat fires and to cut their bread and butter; but this kind of
+person should not come to county Mayo. To the less fastidious all
+other shortcomings are made up for by the absolutely delightful manner
+of the people, whose kindness, civility, good humour, and, I may add,
+honesty, are remarkable. At Hughes's Hotel the politeness of everybody
+was perfect; and I may add that the proprietor saved me both time and
+money by giving up a long posting job, to his own obvious loss. But if
+a visitor to Mayo wants anything done at once, then and there, he had
+better do it himself. I ventured to remark to Joe that he was a
+civil-spoken boy, but not very prompt in carrying out instructions,
+and asked whether everybody in Connaught conducted himself in the same
+way. He at once admitted that everybody did so. "Divil the bad answer
+ye'll iver get, Sorr," said he. "We just say, 'I will, Sorr,' and thin
+go away, and another gintleman says something, and ye're forgotten.
+Dy'e see, now?" And away he went, and forgot everything. Being at
+Claremorris, I tried to see a "lister," that is, a landowner and agent
+on the "black list." I was obliged to make inquiries concerning his
+whereabouts, and this investigation soon convinced me that there was
+something wrong in Mayo after all; not the _spectre vert_ exactly, but
+yet an unpleasant impalpability. All was well at Claremorris. Trade
+was good "presently now," potatoes were good and cheap, poverty was
+not advancing arm-in-arm with winter. It was cold, for snow was
+already on the Nephin; but turf had been stored during the long, fine,
+warm summer, and nobody was afraid of the frost. But the instant I
+mentioned the name of the gentleman I wanted to find not a soul knew
+anything about him. Farming several hundred acres of land on his own
+account, a resident on Lough Mask for seven years, and agent to Lord
+Erne, he seemed to be a man concerning whose movements the country
+side would probably be well informed. But nobody knew anything at all
+about him. He might be at the Curragh, or he might be in Dublin, and
+then would, one informant thought, slip over to England and get out of
+the trouble, if he were wise. In one of the larger stores I saw that
+the mention of his name drew every eye upon me, and that the
+bystanders were greatly exercised as to my identity and my business.
+In this part of the country everybody knows everybody, and a stranger
+asking for a proscribed man excited native curiosity to a maddening
+pitch. Presently I was taken aside, led round a corner, and there told
+that most assuredly the man I sought had not come home from Dublin
+_via_ Claremorris. Having a map of the county with me, I naturally
+suggested that he might have reached Lough Mask by way of Tuam, and,
+moreover, that, having a shrewd notion he would be shot at when
+occasion served, he would most likely try to get home by an unusual
+route on which he would hardly be looked for. "Is it alone ye think
+he'd be going, Sorr?" asked my informant in astonishment. "Divil a fut
+does he stir widout an escort." This was news indeed. "He came here,
+sure, Sorr, wid two constables on the kyar and two mounted men
+following him." I was also recommended to hold my tongue, for that Mr.
+Boycott's friends would certainly not tell whether he was at home or
+not, and his enemies would probably be kept in ignorance or led astray
+altogether. But it was necessary for me to find out his whereabouts.
+To go and see whether he was at Lough Mask involved a ride of forty
+miles, enlivened by the probability of being mistaken for him,
+slipping quietly home, and cheered by the risk of hearing at his house
+that he had gone to England. Telegraphing to him appeared useless, as
+communications were said to be cut off on the five Irish miles between
+Ballinrobe, the telegraph station, and Lough Mask House. As time wore
+on, I learned that he had had cattle at Tuam Fair, but that he had not
+come home that way for certain. In despair I came on to this place,
+where information reached me yesterday morning that, contrary to all
+expectations, he had gone on the other line of railway to Galway, and
+taken the steamboat on Lough Corrib to Cong, after having telegraphed
+to his escort to meet him there.
+
+From Westport to Lough Mask is a long but picturesque drive. I was
+lucky enough to secure an intelligent driver and an excellent horse
+and car. Thirty Irish miles is not in this part of the country
+considered an extravagant distance to drive a horse. I believe,
+indeed, that under other circumstances the unfortunate animal would
+have been compelled to carry me the entire distance; but I remarked
+that when I suggested a change of horses at Ballinrobe I was not only
+accommodated with a fresh horse, but with a fresh car and a fresh
+driver, who declared that the road to Lough Mask was about the safest
+and best that he had ever heard of. Now from Westport to Ballinrobe we
+had met nobody but a very few people going into town either riding on
+an ass or driving one laden with a pair of panniers or "cleaves" of
+turf, for which some fourpence or fivepence would be paid. All seemed
+thinly clad, despite the fearfully cold wind sweeping down from the
+Nephin, the Hest, and other snow-clad mountains. Crossing the long
+dreary peat-moss known as Mun-a-lun, we found the cold intense; but on
+approaching Lough Carra came into bright broad sunshine. At Ballinrobe
+the sun was still hotter, and as I approached Lough Mask the heat was
+almost oppressive. I was not, however, allowed to inspect Lough Mask
+House and the ruins of the adjacent castle in the first place. I had
+but just passed a magnificent field of mangolds, many of which weighed
+from a stone to a stone and a half, when I came upon a sight which
+could not be paralleled in any other civilised country at the present
+moment.
+
+Beyond a turn in the road was a flock of sheep, in front of which
+stood a shepherdess heading them back, while a shepherd, clad in a
+leather shooting-jacket and aided by a bull terrier, was driving them
+through a gate into an adjacent field. Despite her white woollen shawl
+and the work she was engaged upon, it was quite evident, from her
+voice and manner, that the shepherdess was of the educated class, and
+the shepherd, albeit dressed in a leather jacket, carried himself with
+the true military air. Both were obviously amateurs at sheep-driving,
+and the smart, intelligent bull terrier was as much an amateur as
+either of them, for shepherd, shepherdess and dog were only doing what
+a good collie would achieve alone and unaided. Behind the shepherd
+were two tall members of the Royal Irish Constabulary in full uniform
+and with carbines loaded. As the shepherd entered the field the
+constables followed him everywhere at a distance of a few yards. All
+his backings and fillings, turnings and doublings, were followed by
+the armed policemen. This combination of the most proverbially
+peaceful of pursuits with carbines and buckshot was irresistibly
+striking, and the effect of the picture was not diminished by the
+remarks of Mr. and Mrs. Boycott, for the shepherd and shepherdess were
+no other than these. The condition of Mr. Boycott and his family has
+undergone not the slightest amelioration since he last week wrote a
+statement of his case to a daily contemporary. In fact, he is in many
+respects worse off. It will be recollected that about a month ago a
+process-server and his escort retreated on Lough Mask House, followed
+by a mob, and that on the following day all the farm servants were
+ordered to leave Mr. Boycott's employment. I may mention that Mr.
+Boycott is a Norfolk man, the son of a clergyman, and was formerly an
+officer in the 39th Regiment. On his marriage he settled on the Island
+of Achill, near here, and farmed there until he was offered some land
+agencies, which occupied so much of his time, that he, after some
+twenty years' residence in Achill, elected to take a farm on the
+mainland. For seven years he has farmed at Lough Mask, acting also as
+Lord Erne's agent. He has on his own account had a few difficulties
+with his workpeople; but these were tided over by concessions on his
+part, and all went smoothly till the serving of notices upon Lord
+Erne's tenants. All the weight of the tenants' vengeance has fallen
+upon the unfortunate agent, whom the irritated people declare they
+will "hunt out of the country." The position is an extraordinary one.
+During his period of occupation Mr. Boycott has laid out a great deal
+of money on his farm, has improved the roads, and made turnips and
+other root crops to grow where none grew before. But the country side
+has struck against him, and he is now actually in a state of siege.
+Personally attended by an armed escort everywhere, he has a garrison
+of ten constables on his premises, some established in a hut, and the
+rest in that part of Lough Mask House adjacent to the old castle.
+Garrisoned at home and escorted abroad, Mr. Boycott and his family are
+now reduced to one female domestic. Everybody else has gone away,
+protesting sorrow, but alleging that the power brought to bear upon
+them was greater than they could resist. Farm labourers, workmen,
+herds-men, stablemen, all went long ago, leaving the corn standing,
+the horses in the stable, the sheep in the field, the turnips, swedes,
+carrots, and potatoes in the ground, where I saw them yesterday. Last
+Tuesday the laundress refused to wash for the family any longer; the
+baker at Ballinrobe is afraid to supply them with bread, and the
+butcher fears to send them meat. The state of siege is perfect.
+
+When the strike first began Mr. Boycott went bravely to work with his
+family, setting the young ladies to reaping and binding, and looking
+after the beasts and sheep himself. But the struggle is nearly at an
+end now. Mr. Boycott has sold some of his stock; but he can neither
+sell his crop to anybody else, nor, as they say in the North of
+England, "win" it for himself. There remains in the ground at least
+five hundred pounds worth of potatoes and other root crops, and the
+owner has no possible means of doing anything with them. Nor, I am
+assured on trustworthy authority, would any human being buy them at
+any price; nor, if any such person were found, would he be able to
+find any labourer to touch any manner of work on the spot under the
+ban. By an impalpable and invisible power it is decreed that Mr.
+Boycott shall be "hunted out," and it is more than doubtful whether he
+will, under existing circumstances, be able to stand against it. He is
+unquestionably a brave and resolute man, but there is too much reason
+to believe that without his garrison and escort his life would not be
+worth an hour's purchase.
+
+There are few fairer prospects than that from the steps of Lough Mask
+House, a moderately comfortable and unpretending edifice, not quite so
+good as a large farmer's homestead in England. But the potatoes will
+rot in the ground, and the cattle will go astray, for not a soul in
+the Ballinrobe country dare touch a spade for Mr. Boycott. Personally
+he is protected, but no woman in Ballinrobe would dream of washing him
+a cravat or making him a loaf. All the people have to say is that
+they are sorry, but that they "dare not." Hence either Mr. Boycott,
+with an escort armed to the teeth, or his wife without an escort--for
+the people would not harm her--must go to Ballinrobe after putting a
+horse in the shafts themselves, buy what they can, and bring it home.
+Everybody advises them to leave the country; but the answer of the
+besieged agent is simply this: "I can hardly desert Lord Erne, and,
+moreover, my own property is sunk in this place." It is very much like
+asking a man to give up work and go abroad for the benefit of his
+health. He cannot sacrifice his occupation and his property.
+
+There is very little doubt that this unfortunate gentleman has been
+selected as a victim whose fate may strike terror into others. Judging
+from what I hear, there is a sort of general determination to frighten
+the landlords. Only a few nights ago a man went into a store at
+Longford and said openly, "My landlord has processed me for the last
+four or five years; but he hasn't processed me this year, and the
+divil thank him for that same."
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+AN AGRARIAN DIFFICULTY.
+
+
+WESTPORT, CO. MAYO, _Oct. 25th._
+
+"Tiernaur, Sorr, is on the way to Claggan Mountain, where they shot at
+Smith last year, and--if I don't disremember--is just where they shot
+Hunter last August eleven years. Ye'll mind the cross-roads before ye
+come to the chapel. It was there they shot him from behind a
+sod-bank." This was the reply I received in answer to my question as
+to the whereabouts of a public meeting to be held yesterday morning,
+with the patriotic object of striking terror into the hearts of
+landlords and agents. It was delivered without appearance of
+excitement or emotion of any kind, the demeanour of the speaker being
+quite as simple as that of Wessex Hodge when he recommends one to go
+straight on past the Craven Arms, and then bear round by the Dog and
+Duck till the great house comes in sight. Tiernaur, I gathered, was
+about fifteen miles to the north-west along Clew Bay towards
+Ballycroy. It is called Newfield Chapel on the Ordnance map, but is
+always spoken of here by its native name. It is invested with more
+than the mere transient interest attaching to the place of an open-air
+meeting, for it is the centre of a district subject to chronic
+disturbance, and is just now the scene of serious trouble, or what
+would appear serious trouble in any less turbulent part of the
+country. It is necessary to be exact in describing what occurs here,
+as a phrase may easily be construed to imply much more than is
+intended. When it is said that the country between Westport and
+Ballycroy is disturbed, and that law and order are set at defiance, it
+must not be imagined that the roads are unsafe for travellers, or that
+any ordinary person is liable to be shot at, beaten, robbed, or
+insulted. I have no hesitation in stating that a stranger may go
+anywhere in the county, at any hour of the day or night, alone and
+unarmed, and that even in country inns he need take no precautions
+against robbery. Mayo people do not steal, and if they shot a
+stranger, it would only be by mistake for a Scotch farmer or an
+English agent. And I am sure that the accident would be sincerely
+deplored by the warm-hearted natives. I have thought it well to master
+all the details of the Tiernaur difficulty, because it is a perfect
+type of the agrarian troubles which agitate the West. In the first
+place the reader will clearly understand that English and Scotch
+landlords, agents, and farmers, are as a rule abhorred by the Irish
+population. It is perhaps hardly my province to decide who is to
+blame. Difference of manner may go for a great deal, but beyond and
+below the resentment caused by a prompt, decisive, and perhaps
+imperious tone, lies a deeply-rooted sense of wrong--logically or
+illogically arrived at. The evictions of the last third of a century
+and the depopulation of large tracts of country have filled the hearts
+of the people with revenge, and, rightly or wrongly, they not only
+blame the landlord but the occupier of the land. If, they argue, there
+had been no Englishmen and Scotchmen to take large farms, the small
+holders would not have been swept away, and "driven like a wild goose
+on the mountain" to make room for them. Without for the present
+discussing the reasonableness of this plea, I merely record the simple
+fact that an English or Scotch farmer is unpopular from the beginning.
+Here and there such a one as Mr. Simpson may manage to live the
+prejudice down; but that he will have to encounter it on his arrival
+is absolutely certain.
+
+This being the case, it is not to be wondered at that when the late
+Mr. Hunter, a Scotchman, took a large grazing farm at Tiernaur, his
+arrival was at once regarded in a hostile spirit. The land he occupied
+was let to him by two adjoining proprietors, Mr. Gibbings, of Trinity
+College, Dublin, and Mr. Stoney, of Rossturk Castle, near at hand.
+There was a convenient dwelling-house on the part of the farm looking
+over Clew Bay towards Clare Island, and all was apparently smooth and
+pleasant. No sooner, however, was Mr. Hunter established there than a
+difficulty arose. The inhabitants of the surrounding country had been
+in the habit of cutting turf and pulling sedge on parts of the
+mountain and bog included within the limits of Mr. Hunter's farm. It
+is only fair to the memory of the deceased gentleman to state that
+such rights are frequently paid for, and that he had not taken the
+farm subject to any "turbary" rights or local customs. Accordingly he
+demanded payment from the people, who objected that they had always
+cut turf and pulled sedge on the mountain; that they could not live
+without turf for fuel and sedge to serve first as winter bedding for
+their cattle and afterwards as manure; that except on Mr. Hunter's
+mountain neither turf nor sedge could be got within any reasonable
+distance; and, finally, that they had always enjoyed such right. And
+so forth. As this was, as already intimated, not in the bond, Mr.
+Hunter, not very unnaturally, insisted that if the people would not
+pay him his landlord must, and asked Mr. Gibbings to allow him ten
+pounds a year off his rent. The latter offered him, as I am informed,
+five pounds. The matter was referred to an umpire, who awarded Mr.
+Hunter twelve pounds, an assessment which Mr. Gibbings declined to
+take into consideration at all. After some further discussion Mr.
+Hunter warned the people off his farm and declared their supposed
+"turbary" rights at an end. It is of course difficult to arrive at any
+conclusion on the merits of the case. All that is certain is, that the
+people had long enjoyed privileges which Mr. Gibbings declared to be
+simple trespass. Finally he told Mr. Hunter he had his bond and must
+enforce it himself. The unfortunate farmer, thus placed, as it were,
+between the upper and nether millstone, endeavoured to enforce his
+supposed rights. It is almost needless to remark that the people went
+on cutting turf just as if nothing had happened. In an evil hour Mr.
+Hunter determined to see what the law could do to protect him in the
+enjoyment of his farm, and he sued the trespassers accordingly. I will
+not attempt to explain the intricacies of an Irish lawsuit farther
+than to note that, owing to some deficiency in their pleas, the
+trespassers underwent a nonsuit, or some analogous doom, and went
+gloomily away without having even the satisfaction of a fair fight in
+court. At the instance of Mr. Hunter, execution for damages and costs
+was issued against the most solvent of the trespassers, one John
+O'Neill, of Knockmanus--his next-door neighbour, so to speak. On
+Friday the execution was put in, and, on its being found impossible to
+find anybody to act as bailiff, Mr. Hunter himself asked the
+sub-sheriff to put in his name, and he would see himself that the
+crops were not removed. This was done, and on the following Sunday Mr.
+Hunter went with his family to attend Divine service at Newport.
+Leaving Newport in the evening, he had gone not half-way to Tiernaur
+when his horse's shoe came off. This circumstance, ominous enough in
+the disturbed districts of Ireland, was not heeded by Mr. Hunter, who
+put back to Newport and had his horse shod. As he set out for the
+second time, the evening was closing in, and as he reached the road
+turning off from the main track towards his own dwelling he was shot
+from the opposite angle. The assassin must have been a good marksman,
+for there were four persons in the dog-cart--Mr. Hunter, his wife, his
+son, and a servant lad. The doomed man was picked out and shot dead.
+It is obviously unnecessary to add that the assassin escaped, and has
+not been discovered unto this day.
+
+Immediately on the commission of the crime the widow of the murdered
+man was afforded "protection," as it is called, in the manner usual
+during Irish disturbances--that is, four men and a sergeant of the
+constabulary were stationed at her house. In course of time, however,
+Mrs. Hunter felt comparatively safe, and the constables removed to a
+hut about two miles on the Newport road, opposite to some very good
+grouse-shooting. There the five men dwell in their little iron-clad
+house, pierced with loopholes in case of attack--a very improbable
+event. At the moment of writing, four constables are also stationed at
+Mr. Stoney's residence, Rossturk Castle, although it is not quite
+certain what the owner has done to provoke the anger of the people.
+This being the situation, a very short time since Mrs. Hunter elected
+to give up the farm and leave this part of the country. The property
+is therefore on the hands of the landlord, and is "to let." How bright
+the prospect of getting a tenant is may be estimated by the remark
+made to me by a very well-instructed person living close by--"If the
+landlord were to give me that farm for nothing, stock it for me, and
+give me a cash balance to go on with, I would gratefully but firmly
+decline the generous gift. No consideration on earth would induce me
+to occupy Hunter's farm." In the present condition of affairs it would
+certainly require either great courage or profound ignorance on the
+part of a would-be tenant to impel him to occupy any land under ban. A
+rational being would almost as soon think of going to help Mr. Boycott
+to get in his potatoes. For the people of Tiernaur are now face to
+face--only at a safe distance for him--with Mr. Gibbings. The cause of
+the new difficulty is as follows: Mrs. Hunter having given up the
+farm, it was applied for by some of the neighbours, who offered a
+similar rent to that paid by her. Either because the landlord did not
+want the applicants as tenants, or because he thought the land
+improved, he demanded a higher rent. This is the one unpardonable
+crime--an attempt to raise the rent. For his own reasons the landlord
+does not choose to let what is called Hunter's farm to the Tiernaur
+people on the old terms, and the stranger who should venture upon it
+would need be girt with _robur et aes triplex_.
+
+Within the last few days this proprietary deadlock has been enlivened
+by an act which has caused much conversation in this part of Ireland.
+A house on Glendahurk Mountain has been burned down, and the cattle of
+the neighbouring farmers have been turned on to the mountain to
+pasture at the expense of Mr. Gibbings. Moreover the bailiff has been
+warned not to interfere, or attempt to scare the cattle and drive them
+off. Thus the tenant farmers are grazing their cattle for nothing,
+and, what is more, no man dare meddle with them. The sole remedy open
+to Mr. Gibbings is civil process for trespass. Should he adopt this
+course he will probably be safe enough in Dublin, but I am assured
+that the life of his bailiff will not be worth a day's purchase.
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+A LAND MEETING.
+
+
+WESTPORT, CO. MAYO, _Oct. 27th._
+
+The way from this place to Tiernaur is through a country, as a Mayo
+man said to me, "eminently adapted to tourists." Not very far off lies
+Croagh Patrick, the sacred mountain from which St. Patrick cursed the
+snakes and other venomous creatures and drove them from Ireland. I was
+assured by the car-driver that the noxious animals vanished into the
+earth at the touch of the Saint's bell. "He just," said this veracious
+informant, "shlung his bell at 'um, and the bell cum back right into
+his hand. And the mountain is full of holes. And the snakes went into
+'um and ye can hear 'um hissing on clear still days." Be this as it
+may, the line of country towards Newport is delightfully picturesque.
+The great brown cone of Croagh Patrick soars above all, and to right
+and left rise the snow-covered Nephin and Hest. Evidences of careful
+cultivation are frequent on every side. Fairly large potato-fields
+occur at short intervals, and mangolds and turnips are grown for
+feeding stock. Cabbages also are grown for winter feed, and the
+character of the country is infinitely more cheerful than on the
+opposite side of Westport. Inquiring of my driver as to the safety of
+the country, I received the following extraordinary reply, "Ye might
+lie down and sleep anywhere, and divil a soul would molest ye, barring
+the lizards in summer time; and they are dreadful, are lizards. They
+don't bite ye like snakes, or spit at ye like toads; but if ye sleep
+wid ye'r mouth open, they crawl, just crawl down ye'r throat into ye'r
+stommick and kill ye. For they've schales on their bodies, and can't
+get back; and they just scratch, and bite, and claw at your innards
+till ye die." There was nothing to be done with these terrible lizards
+but to drink an unmentionable potion, which, I am assured, is strong
+enough to rout the most determined lizard of them all, and bring him
+to nought. It is, however, noteworthy that stories of persons being
+killed by lizards crawling down their throats are widely distributed.
+There is one of a young Hampshire lady who, the day before she was
+married, went to sleep in her father's garden, and was killed by a
+lizard crawling down her throat. And, my informant said, the lizard is
+carved on her tomb--a fact which makes it appear likely that the story
+was made for the armorial bearings of the lady in question.
+
+By a pleasant road lined with cabbage gardens we came on to Newport--a
+port which, like this, is not one of the "has beens," but one of the
+"would have beens." There is the semblance of a port without ships,
+and warehouses without goods, and quays overgrown with grass. Beyond
+Newport the country grows wilder. There is less cultivation, and
+behind every little shanty rises the great brown shoulder of the
+neighbouring mountain covered with rough, bent grass--or sedge, as it
+is called here. Grey plover and curlew scud across the road, a sign of
+hard weather, and near the rarer homesteads towers the hawk, looking
+for his prey. Now and again come glimpses of the bay, of the great
+island of Innisturk, of Clare Island, and of Innisboffin. Wilder and
+wilder grows the scenery as we approach Grace O'Malley's Castle, a
+small tenement for a Queen of Connaught. It is a lone tower like a
+border "peel," but on the very edge of the sea. The country folk show
+the window through which passed the cable of a mighty war ship to be
+tied round Grace O'Malley's bedpost, whom one concludes to have been,
+in a small way, a kind of pirate queen. As we approach Tiernaur the
+road becomes lively with country folk going to and from chapel, and
+stopping to exchange a jest--always in the tongue of the country--by
+the way. In this part of the wild road the Saxon feels himself,
+indeed, a stranger--in race, in creed, and in language. Now and then
+he sees the Irishman of the stage, clad in the short swallow-tailed
+coat with pocket-flaps, the corduroy breeches, the blue worsted
+stockings and misshapen caubeen, made familiar by a thousand novels
+and plays. These articles of attire are becoming day by day as rare as
+the red petticoats formerly worn by the peasant women. On the latter,
+however, may still be seen, now and then, the great blue cloth cloaks
+which once formed a distinctive article of costume, and a very
+necessary one in this severe climate. Presently jog by a few men on
+horseback, very ill-mounted on sorry beasts, and riding in unison with
+the quality of their animals. Men, women and children are in their
+Sunday best, and to all outward appearance scrupulously clean. I am
+constrained to believe that among the very lowest class--that which
+comes under prison regulations--the preliminary washing is counted as
+the severest part of the punishment; but the evidence of my own
+eyesight is in favour of the strict personal cleanliness of Sunday
+folk in this part of the country. Near Tiernaur I find bands of men
+marching to the gathering, which is a purely local affair, not
+regularly organized by the Land League. But the men themselves appear
+to be very strictly organized, to march well, and to obey their bugler
+promptly. They are all in Sunday clothes, wear green scarves, and
+carry green banners. The latter are inscribed with various mottoes
+proper to the occasion. On the Kilmeena banner appears, "No prison
+cell nor tyrant's claim Can keep us from our glorious aim." The
+Glendahurk men proclaim on another green banner, bearing the harp
+without the crown, that "Those who toil Must own the soil;" and the
+Mulrawny contingent call upon the people to "Hold the Mountain," to
+cry "Down with the Land Grabbers," and "God save Ireland." The musical
+arrangements are of the humblest kind, and not a single man is armed,
+at least outwardly, and not one in twenty carries a stick. All is
+quiet and orderly, and the same tranquil demeanour obtains at
+Tiernaur, or rather at Newfield Chapel, appointed as the
+trysting-place after morning service. In accordance with recent
+regulations there is no ostentatious display of police, but everybody
+knows that a strong detachment is posted in Mrs. Hunter's house, and
+that on any sign of disturbance they will promptly put in an
+appearance. On the side of the Government, as on that of the people,
+there is an obvious desire to avoid any semblance of an appeal to
+force.
+
+The scene at Newfield Chapel is both interesting and beautiful.
+Tiernaur lies between the brown mountains and a sapphire sea, studded
+with islands rising precipitously from its level. In front lies the
+lofty eminence of Clare Island, below which appears to nestle the
+picturesque castle of Rossturk. The bay--which is said to hold as many
+islands as there are days in a year and one over--presents a series
+of magnificent views. One might be assisting at one of the meetings of
+the Covenanters held amid the seas and mountains of Galloway, but with
+the difference that the faith of the meeting is that of the Church of
+Rome, and that the scenery is far grander than that of Wigton and
+Kirkcudbright. It is a natural amphitheatre of sea and mountain,
+perfect in its beauty, but for one dark spot, just visible--the place
+where Hunter was shot. The chapel, modest and unpretending, is a
+simple, whitewashed edifice, surrounded by a white wall, over which
+gleam, in the already declining sun, the red and black plaid shawls of
+the peasant women who have remained after mass to witness the
+proceedings. Not a dozen bonnets are present, and hardly as many hats,
+for nearly all the women and girls wear the shawl pulled over their
+heads, Lancashire fashion. In appearance the people contrast
+favourably with those of the inland towns of county Mayo. The men look
+active and wiry, and the women are well grown and in many cases have
+an air of distinction foreign to the heavy-browed, black-haired Celt
+of the interior. Altogether the picture is well worthy of a master of
+colour, with its masses of black and green, relieved by patches of
+bright red, standing boldly out against the background of brown moor
+and azure sea.
+
+The proceedings are hardly in consonance with the dignity of the
+surroundings. Many marchings to and fro occur before the various
+deputations are duly ushered to their place near the temporary
+hustings erected in front of the chapel. When the meeting--of some two
+thousand people at most--has gathered, there is an unlucky fall of
+rain, advantage of which is taken by a local "omadhaun," or "softy" as
+they call him in Northern England, to mount the stage and make a
+speech, which elicits loud shouts of laughter. Taking little heed of
+the pelting shower the "omadhaun," who wears a red bandanna like a
+shawl, and waves a formidable shillelagh, makes a harangue which, so
+far as I can understand it, has neither head nor tail. Delivered with
+much violent gesticulation, the speech is evidently to the taste of
+the audience, who cheer and applaud more or less ironically. At last
+the rain is over, and the serious business of the day commences. The
+chair is taken by the parish priest of Tiernaur, whose initial oration
+is peculiar in its character. The tone and manner of speaking are
+excellent, but alack for the matter! A more wandering, blundering
+piece of dreary repetition never bemused an audience. In fairness to
+the priest, however, it must be admitted that a Government reporter is
+on the platform, and that the presence of that official may perhaps
+exercise a blighting influence on the budding flowers of rhetoric. All
+that the speaker--a handsome man, with a very fine voice--said,
+amounted to a statement, repeated over and over again with slight
+variations, that the people of Tiernaur were placed by the Almighty on
+the spot intended for them to live upon; that they were between the
+mountains and the sea; that all that the landlords could take from
+them they had taken; "the wonder was they had not taken the salt sea
+itself." This was all the speaker had to say, and he said it over and
+over again. He was succeeded by his curate, who insisted with like
+iteration on the duty of supporting the people imposed upon the land.
+Out of the fatness thereof they should, would, and must be maintained.
+Other sources of profit there were, according to this rev. gentleman,
+absolutely none. The land belonged to the people "on payment of a just
+rent" to the landlords. "Down wid 'em!" yelled an enthusiast, who was
+instantly suppressed. And the people had a right to live, not like the
+beasts of the field, but like decent people. And _da capo_.
+
+Now among many and beautiful and picturesque things Ireland possesses
+some others altogether detestable. The car of the country, for
+instance, is the most abominable of all civilised vehicles. Why the
+numskull who invented the crab-like machine turned it round sidewise
+is as absolutely inconceivable as that since dog-carts have been
+introduced into the West the car should survive. But it does survive
+to the discomfort and fatigue of everybody, and the especial disgust
+of the writer. There is another thing in Connaught which I love not
+to look upon. That is the plate of a diner at a _table d'hote_, on
+which he has piled a quantity of roast goose with a liberal supply of
+stuffing, together with about a pound of hot boiled beef, and cabbage,
+carrots, turnips, and parsnips in profusion--the honour of a separate
+plate being accorded to the national vegetable alone. It is not
+agreeable to witness the demolition of this "Benjamin's mess" against
+time; and when the feat is being performed by several persons the
+effect thereof is the reverse of appetising. But I would rather be
+driven seventy miles--Irish miles--on a car, and compelled to sit down
+to roast goose commingled with boiled beef and "trimmings," than I
+would listen to a political speech from the curate of Tiernaur. By
+degrees I felt an utter weariness and loathing of life creeping over
+me, and I turned my face towards the sun, setting in golden glory
+behind Clare Island, and lighting up the rich ruddy brown of the
+mountain, behind which lay the invaded pastures of Knockdahurk. By the
+way this invasion of what are elsewhere deemed the rights of property
+was barely alluded to by the reverend speakers, the latter of whom,
+after making all kinds of blunders, finally broke down as he was
+appealing to the "immortal and immutable laws of--of--of"--and here
+some wicked prompter suggested "Nature," a suggestion adopted by the
+unhappy speaker before he had time to recollect himself. After this
+lame and impotent conclusion, a gentleman in a green cap and sash,
+richly adorned with the harp without the crown, infused some vitality
+into the proceedings by declaring that the only creature on God's
+earth worse than a landlord was the despicable wretch who presumed to
+take a farm at an advanced rent. This remark was distinctly to the
+point, and was applauded accordingly. It was indeed a significant, but
+in this part of the country quite unnecessary, intimation that safer,
+if not better, holdings might be found than "Hunter's Farm." As most
+of the persons present had come from a long distance, some as much as
+fifteen or twenty Irish miles, the subsequent proceedings, such as the
+passing of resolutions concerning fixity of tenure and so forth, were
+got through rapidly, and the meeting dispersed as quietly as it
+assembled. The organized bodies marched off the ground in good order,
+without the slightest sign of riot or even of enthusiasm. Men and
+women, the latter especially, were almost sad and gloomy--for Irish
+people. I certainly heard one merry laugh as I was making for my car,
+and it was at my own expense. A raw-boned, black-haired woman, "tall,
+as Joan of France or English Moll," insisted that I should buy some
+singularly ill-favoured apples of her. As I declined for the last time
+she fired a parting shot, "An' why won't ye buy me apples? Sure
+they're big and round and plump like yerself, aghra"--a sally vastly
+to the taste of the bystanders. It struck me, however, that the
+people generally seemed rather tired than excited by the proceedings
+of the day--the most contented man of all being, I take it, Mike
+Gibbons, who had been driving a brisk trade at his "shebeen," the only
+house of business or entertainment for miles around.
+
+As I drove homewards on what had suddenly become a hideously raw
+evening, my driver entertained me with many heartrending and more or
+less truthful stories of evictions. He showed me a vast tract of land
+belonging to the Marquis of Sligo, from which the original inhabitants
+had, according to his story, been driven to make way for one tenant
+who paid less rent for all than they did for a part. One hears of
+course a great deal of this kind of thing from the poorer
+folk,--car-drivers, whose eloquence is proverbial, not excepted. My
+driver had assuredly not been corrupted by reading inflammatory
+articles in newspapers, for, although he speaks English as well as
+Irish, "letter or line knows he never a one" of either, any more than
+did stout William of Deloraine. His statements, however, are strictly
+of that class of travellers' tales told by car-drivers, and must be
+taken with more than the proverbial grain of seasoning. I find him as
+a rule very quiet until I have administered to him a dose of "the wine
+of the country," and then he mourns over the desolation of the land
+and the ravages of the so-called "crowbar brigade" as if they were
+things of yesterday. Whether the local Press reflects the opinion of
+the peasants of Mayo, or the peasants only echo the opinion of the
+Press as reproduced to them by native orators, I am at present hardly
+prepared to decide. One thing, however, is certain. Not only that
+professional "deludher," the car-driver, but tradesmen, farmers, and
+all the less wealthy part of the community still speak sorely of the
+evictions of thirty and forty years ago, and point out the graveyards
+which alone mark the sites of thickly populated hamlets abolished by
+the crowbar. All over this part of the country people complain
+bitterly of loneliness. According to their view, their friends have
+been swept away and the country reduced to a desert in order that it
+might be let in blocks of several square miles each to Englishmen and
+Scotchmen, who employ the land for grazing purposes only, and perhaps
+a score or two of people where once a thousand lived--after a fashion.
+It is of no avail to point out to them that the wretchedly small
+holdings common enough even now in Connaught cannot be made to support
+the farmer, or rather labourer, and his family decently, even in the
+best of years, and that any failure of crop must signify ruin and
+starvation. Any observation of this kind is ill received by the
+people, who cling to their inhospitable mountains as a woman clings to
+a deformed or idiot child. And in this astonishing perversion of
+patriotism they are supported in unreasoning fashion by their
+pastors, who seem to imagine that because a person is born on any
+particular spot he must remain there and insist on its maintaining him
+and his.
+
+Now, it is not inconceivable that a landlord should take a very
+different view of the situation. Whether his estate is encumbered or
+not, he expects to get something out of it for himself. It was
+therefore not unnatural that advantage should have been taken of the
+famine and the Encumbered Estates Act to get the land into such
+condition that it would return some ascertainable sum. The best way of
+effecting this was thought to be the removal of the inhabitants who
+paid rent or not as it suited them, and in place of a few hundred of
+these to secure one responsible tenant, even if he paid much less per
+acre than the native peasant. I draw particular attention to the
+latter fact, as one of the popular grievances sorely and lengthily
+dwelt upon is that the oppressor not only took the land from the
+people, evicted them, and demolished their cabins with crowbars, but
+that he let his property to the hated foreigner for less than the
+natives had paid and were willing to pay, or promised to pay, him. He
+let land by thousands of acres to Englishmen and Scotchmen at a pound
+an acre, whereas he had received twenty-five and thirty shillings from
+the starving peasants of Connaught. This was deliberate cruelty,
+framed to drive the people away who were willing to stay and pay their
+high rents as of old. But the fact unfortunately was that Lord Lucan,
+Lord Sligo, and other great landowners in county Mayo had found it so
+difficult to get rent out of their tenants that they determined to let
+their land to large farmers only, at such a price as they could get,
+but with the certainty that the rent, whatever it was, would be well
+and duly paid, and there would be an end to the matter. This, I hear,
+is the true history of the eviction of the old tenants and the letting
+of great tracts of land to tenants like Mr. Simpson on favourable
+terms. The landlord knew that he would get his rent, and he has got
+it, that is, hitherto.
+
+The story of the great farm, colossal for this part of the country,
+leased by Mr. Simpson from Lord Lucan, and now on that nobleman's
+hands, is a curious one as revealing the real capacity of the soil
+when properly handled. Twenty-two hundred Irish acres at as many
+pounds sterling per annum represent in Mayo an immense transaction.
+The tenant came to his work with capital and ripe experience, farmed
+well, and, I am assured on the best authority, fared well, getting a
+handsome return for his capital. So satisfied was he with his bargain,
+that he offered to renew his agreement with Lord Lucan if he were
+allowed a deduction for the false measurement of the acreage of the
+farm, which had been corrected by a subsequent survey. As I am
+instructed, there were not 2,200 acres, but the tenant was quite
+willing to pay a pound per acre for what was there. Now, an Irish acre
+is so much bigger than an English acre that thirty acres Irish
+measurement make forty-nine English. Lord Lucan consequently thought
+the farm cheaply let, and hesitated to make any allowance. This
+negotiation began last spring, but soon became hopeless. The country
+about Hollymount and Ballinrobe grew disturbed. Proprietors, agents,
+and large farmers required "protection" from the constabulary, and
+there was no longer anything to attract capital to the neighbourhood
+in the face of a deterrent population. Hence one of the largest and
+most popular farmers in Mayo has retired from the field with his
+capital, and has left his landlord to farm the land himself.
+Apparently Lord Lucan can do no better; for it would be difficult to
+find a stranger of sufficient substance to rent and farm twenty-two
+hundred acres of land, endowed with sufficient hardihood to bring his
+money and his life hither under the existing condition of affairs.
+
+The incident just narrated, moreover, appears to prove that one object
+at least of the party of agitation has been achieved. To
+politico-economists it will appear a Pyrrhic victory. Capital is
+effectually scared from this part of Ireland, and those who have
+invested money on mortgage and found themselves at last compelled to
+"take the beast for the debt" are bitterly regretting their ill-judged
+promptitude. A large farm between this and Achill, or near Ballina on
+the north, or in the country extending from the spot where Lord
+Mountmorres was shot, towards Ballinrobe, Hollymount, Claremorris, or
+Castlebar, could hardly be let now at any price, even where the
+neighbours have not actually taken possession, as at Knockdahurk.
+Landlords have apparently the three proverbial courses open to them.
+They cannot sell their land, it is true; but they can let it lie
+waste, they can farm it themselves "if," as a trustworthy informant
+said to me just now, "they dare," or they can let it directly, as of
+old, to small tenants, who will come in at once and perhaps pay what
+they consider a fair rent in good years. It is folly to expect them to
+pay at all when crops are bad. And then there is the inevitable delay
+and uncertainty at all times which has led to the system of
+"middlemen" of which so much has been said and written. The middleman
+is that handy person, to the landlord, who assures him of a certain
+income from his property by buying certain rents at a deduction of 30
+or 40 per cent., and collecting them as best he can. To the landlord
+he is a most useful man of business, thanks to whom he can count upon
+a certain amount of ready money. To the peasant he appears as a
+fiendish oppressor.
+
+Touching this word "peasant," a great deal of misconception concerning
+the condition of the people of the West and their attitude towards
+their landlords will be got rid of by substituting it for the word
+"farmer." It is absurd to compare the tenant of a small holding in
+Mayo with an English farmer--properly so called. The latter is a man
+engaged in a large business, and must possess, or, as I regret to be
+obliged to write, _have been_ possessed of capital. The misuse of the
+word farmer and its application to the little peasant cultivators here
+can only lead to confusion. The proper standard of comparison with the
+so-called Mayo farmer is the English farmer's labourer. In education,
+in knowledge of his trade, in the command of the comforts of life, a
+Mayo cultivator of six, eight or ten acres is the analogue of the
+English labourer at fourteen shillings per week. The latter has nearly
+always a better cottage than the Mayo man, and, taking the whole year
+round, is about as well off as the Irishman. The future of neither is
+very bright. The Wessex hind may jog on into old age and the
+workhouse; the Irishman may be ruined and reduced to a similar
+condition at once by a failure of his harvest. Neither has any
+capital, yet the Irishman obtains an amount of credit which would
+strike Hodge dumb with amazement. He is allowed to owe, frequently one
+year's, sometimes two years' rent. Indeed, I know of one particularly
+tough customer who at this moment owes three years' rent--to wit,
+24l.--and will neither pay anything nor go. Now for an English
+labourer to obtain credit for a five-pound note would be a remarkable
+experience. His cottage and his potato patch cost him from one to two
+shillings per week; but who ever heard of his owing six months', let
+alone three years', rent? But this is the country of credit; and, so
+far as I have seen, nobody is in a violent hurry either to pay or to
+be paid, bating those who have lent money on mortgage. And even they
+are not in a hurry to foreclose just now.
+
+
+CASTLEBAR, _Oct. 28._
+
+The marked--I had almost written ostentatious--absence of weapons at
+the meetings of the last two Sundays has attracted great attention.
+From perfectly trustworthy information I gather that appearances are
+in this matter more than usually deceitful. It is impossible to doubt
+that the large population of this country is armed to the teeth. Since
+the expiration of the Peace Preservation Act the purchase of firearms
+has been incessant. At the stores in Westport, where carbines are
+sold, more have been disposed of in the last five months than in the
+ten previous years, and revolvers are also in great demand. The
+favourite weapon of the peasantry, on account of its low price and
+other good qualities, is the old Enfield rifle bought out of the
+Government stores, shortened and rebored to get rid of the rifling.
+The work of refashioning the superannuated rifles and adapting them
+for slugs and buckshot has, I hear, been performed for the most part
+in America, whence the guns have been re-imported into this country
+in large quantities. It is believed that the suppression of arms on
+the occasion of large gatherings is due to the judgment of popular
+leaders, who are naturally averse to any display which would afford
+the Government a pretext for disarming the inhabitants. There is,
+however, no doubt that the people of this district are more completely
+armed than at any previous period of Irish history. A ten-shilling gun
+license enables any idle person to walk about anywhere with a gun on
+his shoulder, but this privilege is rarely exercised. Two mornings ago
+four men passed in front of the Railway Hotel at Westport with guns on
+their shoulders, but such occurrences are very rare, the only
+individuals who carry weapons ostentatiously being landlords, agents,
+and the Royal Irish Constabulary affording them "protection." This
+protection is always granted when asked for, but many landlords have
+an almost invincible repugnance to go everywhere attended by armed
+police. Lord Ardilaun, I hear, has organised a little bodyguard of his
+own people, in preference to being followed about by the tall dark
+figures now frequent everywhere in county Mayo from Achill to Newport,
+from Ballina to Ballinrobe, and from Claremorris to Westport. Still,
+anything like a "rising in the West" is regarded here as chimerical;
+and the arming of the people as aimed only at the terrifying of
+landlords. No apprehension of any immediate outbreak or collision
+with the authorities is entertained in the very centre of disturbance.
+It may be added that, owing to the firm yet gentle grip of the
+Resident Magistrate, Major A.G. Wyse, late of the 48th Regiment, a
+veteran of the Crimea and of the war of the Indian Mutiny, the
+Government has this district well in hand, and is kept perfectly
+informed as to every occurrence of the slightest importance.
+Meanwhile, the possibility of armed resistance to the serving of
+civil-bill and other processes is averted by the presence of an
+overwhelming body of armed constabulary. Fifty men and a couple of
+sub-inspectors attended the serving of some civil-bill processes
+towards Newport only a few days ago, and a similar body attended to
+witness an abortive attempt at eviction on Miss Gardiner's property
+near Ballina.
+
+From all that I can ascertain, the position of the Lord-Lieutenant of
+the country is by no means enviable. Having succeeded in losing his
+chief tenant and been compelled, in order to farm his own land in
+safety, to ask for "protection," he is now embroiled with a portion at
+least of the Castlebar people, who think, rightly or wrongly, that the
+lord of the soil and collector of tolls and dues has something to do
+with providing the town with a market-place. Into the merits of the
+question it is hardly necessary to enter. Suffice it to say that the
+local Press has taken advantage of the occasion to renew the popular
+outcry against "this old exterminator." Perhaps it does not hurt
+anybody very much to be called an "exterminator," especially when the
+extermination referred to occurred thirty years ago. The instance is
+merely worth citing as showing the undying hatred felt in this part of
+the country towards those who, acting wisely or unwisely, after the
+famine, determined to get rid of a population which the soil had shown
+itself unequal to support. There is no doubt that Lord Lucan brought
+"a conscience to his work" and made a solitude around Castlebar. "On
+the ruins of many a once happy homestead," continues the local scribe,
+"do the lambs frisk and play, a fleecy tribe that has, through
+landlord tyranny, superseded the once happy peasant." It is also urged
+as an additional grievance that the sheep, cattle, and pigs raised by
+"the old exterminator" are sent from the railway station "to appease
+the appetite of John Bull." Thus Lord Lucan and in a minor degree John
+Bull are shown up as the destroyers of the Irish peasant and devourers
+of that produce which should have gone to support him in that
+happiness and plenty which he enjoyed--at some probably apocryphal
+period. Be this, however, as it may, the personal hatred of the
+"exterminator" is a fact to be taken into account in any attempt to
+reflect the public opinion of this part of Ireland.
+
+Those able to look more impartially on the matter than is possible to
+the children of the soil can perceive that the decay only too visible
+in many parts of Mayo is due in great measure to causes far beyond
+the control of exterminators, or even of the arch-devourer John Bull
+himself. In the old time, before the famine and before railroads and
+imported grain, this far western corner of Ireland had a trade of its
+own. I am not prepared to believe that the enormous warehouses of
+Westport were ever filled to overflowing with merchandise, being
+inclined rather to assign their vast size to that tendency towards
+overbuilding which is a permanent characteristic of a generous and
+hopeful people. Perhaps the trade of Westport might have expanded to
+the dimensions of the gaunt warehouses which now look emptily on the
+sea, but for adverse influences. At the period of the old French war
+Westport was undoubtedly a great emporium for grain, especially oats,
+for beef, pork, and military stores, which were shipped thence to our
+army in the Peninsula. But other sources of supply and improved means
+of communication have left the little seaport on the Atlantic, as it
+were, on one side, and such vitality as exists in the coasting trade
+of this part of the country is rather visible at Ballina than at
+Westport. It is quite possible that under the old condition of affairs
+the peasant whose oats were in brisk demand for cavalry stores fared
+better than his son who fell on the evil days of the famine; but there
+can be no doubt that the decline of Mayo as an exporting county can
+hardly be laid to the charge of the depopulators of the land. So far
+as can be descried through the cloud of prejudice which involves the
+entire question, the land was no longer able to feed its inhabitants,
+much less afford any surplus for sale or export.
+
+The Marquis of Sligo, whose agent, Mr. Smith, was shot at--and
+missed--last year, is almost as unpopular as Lord Lucan, for not only
+have most of the people been swept from his country, but the rent was
+raised on the remainder no longer ago than 1876. It is probably this
+nobleman who was in the mind of the humourist who pointed out that the
+shooting of an agent was hardly likely to intimidate that "distant
+Trojan," the landlord. The Lucan and Sligo lands in Mayo have,
+therefore, been managed on nearly parallel lines, and it is curious to
+contrast with them the management of Sir Robert Blosse's estate. This
+is another very large property, and has been conducted on the exactly
+opposite principle to that pursued by Lords Sligo and Lucan. The
+people have been let alone; they retain the holdings their fathers
+tilled, and they have tided over bad times so well that their April
+rents have, to my certain knowledge, been all paid. What will occur in
+November it is unnecessary to predict, but it may be remarked, by the
+way, that the Irish landlord, whose rents do not overlap each other,
+is in an exceptionally fortunate position.
+
+When I was at Ballinrobe the other day I was much struck with the
+unanimity with which everybody had agreed to leave that unfortunate
+gentleman, Mr. Boycott, in the lurch. That his servants should revolt,
+that his labourers should go away, that strangers should be bribed or
+frightened away from taking their place, are things by no means
+unparalleled even in the most manufacturing town in England. But that
+his butcher and baker should strike against their customer was a new
+experience hardly to be explained on any ready-made theory. I confess
+that I was so much astonished that I preferred waiting for facts
+before committing myself to any explanation. At this moment I have no
+hesitation in stating that the tradespeople of the smaller towns in
+the west are neither strong enough to resist the pressure put upon
+them by the popular party nor very much disposed to defend their right
+to buy and sell as they please. On the same principle apparently that
+a great nobleman of the Scottish Lowlands has, since the last
+election, made his sovereign displeasure known to his tenants, have
+the party of agitation made "taboo" any tradesmen who have dared to
+run counter to the current of present opinion. When a baker is told he
+must not do a certain thing he obeys at once, and, with a certain
+quickness and suppleness of intellect, casts about to see how he can
+best represent himself as a martyr. "Pay rint, Sorr," said a
+well-to-do shopkeeper to me two days ago; "and how are thim poor
+divils to pay rint that cannot pay me? And how am I to pay any one
+when I can't get a shillin' ov a soul?"
+
+This little incident will explain how the opportunity of shirking
+responsibility is seized upon by many. To begin with, the advantage is
+with the assailant, for the custom of any one farmer or agent is a
+small matter compared with that of the country side. It is therefore
+manifestly to the interest of the little shopkeeper to curry favour
+with the populace rather than with those set in authority over them.
+Again, the petty trader would fain, after the example laid down by
+Panurge, pray to God for the success of the peasant in order that he
+might "de terre d'aultruy remplir son fosse"--that the till might be
+filled if the agent's book remained empty. As I have previously
+explained, everybody owes to somebody, or is owed by somebody, in this
+island of weeping skies and smiling faces. The peasant owes his
+landlord, who owes the mortgagee or the agent. And the peasant has
+another creditor--the little trader who works on the credit extended
+to him from Dublin or Belfast. Beyond a certain limit the little
+shopkeeper cannot go. So he likes to be threatened, to be made
+"taboo," to be a martyr, and then presses the tenants who have paid no
+rent to the landlord to pay him "as they can afford to, begorra, if
+they hould the harvest." This advice of Mr. Parnell's is keenly
+relished by many, and has gained him, from a poet, whose Hibernian
+extraction speaks in his every line, the incomprehensible title of
+"Young Lion of the Fold."
+
+    Young Lion of the Fold,
+      Says the Shan Van Vocht,
+    Young Lion of the Fold,
+      Says the Shan Van Vocht;
+    Young Lion of the Fold,
+    Bade us the harvest hold--
+    We'll do as he has told,
+      Says the Shan Van Vocht.
+
+    We'll pay no more Rackrents,
+      Says the Shan Van Vocht,
+    We'll pay no more Rackrents,
+      Says the Shan Van Vocht;
+    We'll pay no more Rackrents,
+    To upstart shoneen gents,
+    Whose hearts are hard as flints,
+      Says the Shan Van Vocht.
+
+    Then glory to Parnell,
+      Says the Shan Van Vocht,
+    Then glory to Parnell,
+      Says the Shan Van Vocht,
+    Oh, all glory to Parnell,
+    Whom the people love so well,
+    And his foes may go to ----,
+      Says the Shan Van Vocht.
+
+There is an American humourist who once said that "if the lion ever
+did lie down with the lamb it would be with the lamb inside of him."
+Mayhap this is what the indigenous "pote" dimly shadows forth from the
+mistland of verse. Or has he mixed up the lion with the eagle in a
+dovecot?
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+MISS GARDINER AND HER TENANTS.
+
+
+WESTPORT, CO. MAYO, _Nov. 1st._
+
+A trip into the northern part of this county, which has occupied me
+for the last three days, has hardly reassured me as to the condition
+of the country around Ballina and Killala. The last-named place is
+famous for its round tower and that invasion of the French in '98,
+which led to "Castlebar Races." Ballina is a town of about six
+thousand inhabitants, situate on the river Moy--an excellent salmon
+stream which debouches into Killala Bay, the most important inlet of
+the sea between Westport and Sligo. Perhaps Ballina is the principal
+town in county Mayo; certainly it seems to be the most improving one.
+It is, however, a considerable distance from the sea. Just now it is
+the seat of a species of internecine war between landlord and tenant,
+waged under conditions which lend it extraordinary interest. Exacting
+"landlordism" and recalcitrant "tenantism" seem here to have said
+their last word. Between a considerable landholder and her tenants a
+fight is being fought out which throws a lurid light on the present
+land agitation in Ireland.
+
+The landholder referred to is the Miss Gardiner whose name is familiar
+in connection with more or less successful attempts at eviction. This
+lady, who many years ago inherited a large property from her father,
+the late Captain Gardiner, has become a by no means _persona grata_ to
+"the Castle," the sub-sheriff, the Royal Irish Constabulary, and her
+tenants. She is doubtless a resolute and determined woman, and
+possessed by a vigorous idea of the rights of property. If not
+descended from the celebrated Grace O'Malley, Queen of Connaught, she
+has at least equally autocratic ideas with that celebrated ruler of
+the West. For years past Miss Gardiner has been famous as a raiser of
+stock, equine and bovine, but unfortunately she has been most
+frequently before the public as the strong assertor of territorial
+rights. She dwells far beyond Killala, near the village of Kilcun, at
+a house called Farmhill. From Westport to Farmhill the country is as
+picturesque as any in the West of Ireland. The snow-clad hills of
+Nephin and Nephin Beg are in sight all the way from Manulla
+Junction--the chief railway centre hereabouts, and the line past
+Loughs Cullen and Conn to Ballina, and the car-drive beyond Ballina,
+reveal a series of magnificent views. There is, however, something
+very "uncanny" to the Saxon eye about Farmhill. The first object
+which comes in sight is a police barrack, with a high wall surrounding
+a sort of "compound," the whole being obviously constructed with a
+view to resisting a possible attack. This stiff staring assertion of
+the power of the law stands out gaunt and grim in the midst of a
+landscape of great beauty. Autumn hues gild the trees, the wide
+pastures are of brilliant green, and on the rough land the reddening
+bent-grass glows richly in the declining sun, which throws its glory
+alike over snowy hills and rosy clouds. The only blot, if a white
+edifice can be thus designated, is the stern, angular police barrack.
+In the front inclosure the sergeant is drilling his men; and those not
+under drill are watching the domain immediately opposite, to the end
+that no unauthorised person may approach it. Like most of the
+dwellings in a country otherwise sparsely supplied with trees,
+Farmhill is nestled in a grove. But the surroundings of the house are
+not those associated in the ordinary mind with a home. The outer gate
+is locked hard and fast, and the little sulky-looking porter's lodge
+is untenanted. Its windows are barred, and all communication with the
+house itself is cut off, except to adventurous persons prepared to
+climb a stone wall. From the lodge onward the private road passes
+through a poor kind of park, and subsides every now and then into a
+quagmire. It is vile walking in this park of Farmhill, and as the
+house is approached there is a barking of dogs. Oxen are seen grazing,
+and peacocks as well as turkeys heave in sight. The house itself is
+barred and barricaded in a remarkable manner. The front door is so
+strongly fastened that it is said not to have been opened for years.
+Massive bars of iron protect the windows, and the solitary servant
+visible is a species of shepherd or odd man, who comes slinking round
+the corner. No stranger gentlewoman's dwelling could be found in the
+three kingdoms. The spot reeks with a dungeon-like atmosphere. It is,
+according to the present state of life in Mayo, simply a "strong
+place," duly fortified and garrisoned against the enemy.
+
+It must be confessed that the proprietress who has a police detachment
+opposite to her gate, and lives in a house defended by iron bars and
+chains, has some reason for her precautions against surprise. She was
+shot at through the window of her own house not very long ago. Now
+this experience of being shot at acts variously on different minds.
+Mr. Smith, the Marquis of Sligo's agent, whose son returned fire and
+killed the intending assassin, took the matter as an incident of
+business in the West, and is not a whit less cheery and happy than
+before the attack at Claggan Mountain. It is also true that Miss
+Gardiner is not an atom less personally brave than Mr. Smith. It is
+said that she carries a revolver in the pocket of her shooting-jacket,
+and only asks for an escort of armed constabulary when she goes into
+Ballina. But she, nevertheless, thinks it well to convert her home
+into a fortress--perhaps the only one of the kind now extant in
+Europe. Here she dwells with a lady-companion, Miss Pringle, far out
+of range of such social life as remains in the county, occupied nearly
+exclusively with the management of her estate; a matter which, far
+from concerning herself alone, entails great vexation, embarrassment,
+and expense upon others. The sending of bodies of constabulary half a
+hundred strong to protect the officers of the law serving writs on
+Miss Gardiner's tenantry is a troublesome and costly business, and has
+the effect of stirring up strife and exciting public opinion to no
+small degree. As her property is widely scattered over Northern Mayo,
+there is generally something going on in her behalf. One day there is
+an ejectment at Ballycastle; the next an abortive attempt to evict at
+Cloontakilla. In the opinion of the poorer peasantry this eccentric
+lady is a malevolent fiend, an "extherminathor," a tyrant striving to
+make the lives of the poor so wretched as to drive them off her
+estate. "A sthrange lady is she, Sorr," cried one of her tenants to
+me. "Och, she's a divil of a woman, entoirely. All she wants is to
+hunt the poor off the face of the wor-r-rold." There are, however, to
+this question, as to every Irish question, two sides--if not more. If
+Miss Gardiner "hunts" her tenants off her estate, Lord Erne's people
+are just now trying their best to perform the same operation upon
+Captain Boycott.
+
+It is not all at once that Farmhill has become a sort of dreary
+edition of Castle Rackrent, oppressing the mind with almost
+inexpressible gloom. The owner's feud with her tenants began long
+before the Land League was known. It is said in Northern Mayo that her
+father was the first of the "exterminators," justly or unjustly so
+called, and that the traditions of the family have been heartily
+carried out by his heiress. There is perhaps very little doubt that
+Miss Gardiner, like Lord Lucan and the Marquis of Sligo, prefers large
+farmers as tenants to a crowd of miserable peasants striving to
+extract a living for an entire family from a paltry patch of five
+acres of poor land; but whatever her wish may be she has undoubtedly a
+large number of small tenants on her estate at the present moment. It
+is therefore probable that she is somewhat less of an exterminatrix
+than the exasperated people represent her to be. In their eyes,
+however, she is guilty of the unpardonable crime of insisting upon her
+rent being paid. Her formula is simple, "Give me my rent, or give me
+my land." In England and in some other countries such a demand would
+be looked upon as perfectly reasonable; but "pay or go" is in this
+part of Ireland looked upon as the option of an exterminator. Miss
+Gardiner merely asks for her own, and judged by an English standard
+would appear to be a strange kind of Lady Bountiful if she allowed
+her tenants to go on quietly living on her property without making any
+show of payment. But this is very much what landlords are expected to
+do in county Mayo, except in very good seasons. The majority of the
+people in the islands of Clew Bay have given up the idea of paying
+rent as a bad job altogether, and these advanced spirits have many
+imitators on the mainland. To the request, "Give me my rent, or give
+me my land," is made one eternal answer, "And how can I pay the rent
+when the corn is washed away and the pitaties rot in the ground? And
+if I give ye the land, hwhere am I to go, and my wife and my eight
+childher?" This answer, long used as an _argumentum ad misericordiam_,
+is now defended by popular orators. No longer ago than yesterday I
+heard it averred that the failure of the crop by the visitation of God
+absolved the tenant from the payment of rent. The assumption of the
+speaker was that landlord and tenant were in a manner partners, and
+that if the joint business venture produced nothing the working
+partner could pay over no share of profit to the sleeping partner.
+Such doctrine is naturally acceptable to the tenant. It signifies that
+in bad years the landlord gets nothing; in good years, what the tenant
+pleases to give him, after buying manure and paying up arrears of debt
+all round. It is, however, hardly surprising that the landlords see
+the question through a differently tinted medium. They entertain an
+idea that the land is their property, and, like any other commodity,
+should be let or sold to a person who can pay for it. Strict and
+downright "landlordism," as it is called, as if it were a disease like
+"Daltonism," does not see things through a medium charged with the
+national colour, and Miss Gardiner is a true type of downright
+landlordism such as would not be complained of in England, but in
+Ireland is viewed with absolute abhorrence.
+
+As a proof how utterly an exacting landlord puts himself, if not
+outside of the law, yet beyond any claim to public sympathy, I may
+cite the conduct of Mr. James C. MacDonnell, the sub-sheriff of this
+county. I have the story from an intimate friend of that gentleman, on
+whose veracity I can implicitly rely. I say this because I did not in
+the first place pay much attention to the story, but have since been
+enabled to verify it in every particular. Last spring Mr. MacDonnell,
+in his capacity as sub-sheriff, was required by Miss Gardiner to serve
+notices of ejectment against about a score of her tenants who had not
+paid up. There was great excitement when it became known that twenty
+families would be evicted from their holdings, and a breach of the
+peace appeared very probable. In England the public voice would
+possibly be in favour of executing the law at all hazards. Some of the
+tenants owed two years' rent. The patience of the landlord was
+exhausted. The tenants would neither pay nor take themselves off.
+There was no option but to evict them; the sub-sheriff must do his
+duty, backed by as large a body of constabulary as might be necessary.
+Law and order must be enforced. This would be the view taken in any
+other place but this, but in Ireland the matter appeared in a totally
+different light. To begin with, the idea of blood being shed in order
+that Miss Gardiner might get in her rents appeared utterly
+preposterous. Secondly, the two past crops had completely failed in
+Mayo. Thirdly, the bad crops of 1878 and 1879 in England had prevented
+the Mayo men from earning the English harvest money on which they
+entirely depend for their rent, and much more than their rent.
+Finally, the sub-sheriff himself, who, despite his being at once a
+proprietor, a middleman, and an officer of the law, has won popularity
+by sheer weight of character, felt a natural reluctance to enforce his
+authority. Compelled to execute the law, he determined to make a
+personal appeal to the tenants before evicting them. Accordingly, he
+adjured them to get together a little money to show that they really
+meant to act well and honestly, and that he would then help them
+himself. The matter ended in his advancing them about 140l. out of his
+own pocket, on their notes of hand, and paying Miss Gardiner, who
+observed that "he had done well for her tenants, but not so well for
+her." To the credit of the tenants helped by Mr. MacDonnell it must be
+added that all have met their notes save two or three, who among them
+owe but 15l. This little story is entirely typical of the kindliness
+and honesty of Mayo men, and of their peculiar ideas of right and
+justice. Miss Gardiner's tenants would not pay her a shilling; they
+were prepared to resist eviction by force, and would have been backed
+by the whole country side, but they paid the sub-sheriff with the
+first money they got. He had stood their friend, and they could not
+act meanly towards him.
+
+As a contrast to this pleasant picture I am compelled to draw one not
+altogether so agreeable. I mentioned in a previous letter a
+particularly "tough customer" who, owing L24 for three years' rent,
+would part neither with a single shilling nor with the land. I thought
+this champion of the irreconcilables must be worth a visit, and
+foregoing the diversion of a call on Tom Molloy, a noted character in
+the Ballina district, I drove out in the direction of Cloontakilla. On
+the way to that dismal spot by a diabolical road I passed a homestead,
+so neat and trim, standing on the hillside clear of trees, that I at
+once asked if it were not owned by a Scotchman, and was answered that
+Mr. Petrie was indeed a Scot and a considerable tenant farmer. On one
+side of his farm was a knot of dismantled houses, telling their story
+plainly and pathetically enough, and on the further side stood a row
+of hovels, only one of which was uninhabited. The locked-up cabin had
+a brace of bullet-holes in the door, those which caused a great deal
+of trouble some time since. A Mr. Joynt it seems, in a wild freak,
+fired his gun through the door of the cabin occupied by Mistress
+Murphy, who with her children is now about to join her husband in
+America. Instead of being frightened the courageous matron opened the
+door, issued therefrom armed with a fire-shovel and administered to
+the delinquent "the greatest batin' begorra" my informant had ever
+heard of. Afterwards the law was invoked against Mr. Joynt, who was
+esteemed very lucky in escaping punishment on account of his
+ill-health. A little further on, still to the right of the road,
+branched off suddenly a narrow bridle-path, or "boreen," as it is
+called in this part of the country. It was my car-driver, a
+teetotaller, opined on this "boreen," that the irreconcilable tenant,
+one Thomas Browne, dwelt. There were doubts in his mind; but,
+nevertheless, we turned on to the wretched track, and tried to get the
+car over the stones and mud-lakes which formed it. It could not be
+strictly called a road of any kind, but was rather a space left
+between two deep ditches of black peat-oozings from the bog. Finding
+progress almost impossible, we at last forsook the car. I can quite
+imagine an impatient reader asking why we did not get out and walk at
+first; but the option was hardly a simple one. By walking the horse
+and letting the car swing and jolt along one experienced the combined
+agonies of sea-sickness and rheumatism, with the additional chance of
+being shot headlong into the inky ditch on either side. By taking to
+what the driver called "our own hind legs," we accepted an ankle-deep
+plod through filth indescribable and treacherous boulders, which
+turned over when trust and sixteen stone were reposed on them. It was
+at this part of the journey that I saw for the first time the Mountain
+Sylph. Some women and children, who looked very frightened, cleared
+away towards their wretched dwellings, and the place would presently
+have been deserted had not my driver roared at the top of his voice,
+"Hullo, the gyurl!" Presently, out of the crowd of frightened people
+sprang a "colleen" of about twelve years, as thinly and scantily clad
+as is consistent with that decency and modesty for which Irishwomen of
+the poorer classes are so justly celebrated. Her legs and feet were
+bare, as a matter of course; a faded red petticoat, or rather kilt,
+and a "body" of some indescribable hue, in which dirt largely
+predominated, formed all her visible raiment and adornment, except a
+mass of fair hair, which fluttered wildly in the cutting wind.
+Skipping from stone to stone she neared us swiftly, and stood still at
+last perched on a huge boulder--an artist's study of native grace and
+beauty--with every rag instinct with "wild civility." An inquiry
+whether "Misther Browne" was at home was met by the polite answer that
+he was from home "just thin," almost instantly supplemented by "Oi
+know hwhere he is, and will fetch him to ye, sorr." And away went the
+Sylph dancing from spot to spot like the will-o'-the-wisp of her
+native bog. She had also indicated the dwelling of Thomas Browne, and
+I pushed on in that direction through a maze of mud. At last I came to
+a turning into a path several degrees worse in quality than the
+"boreen," and concluded that, as it was nearly impassable, it must
+lead to the home of the Irreconcilable. As a change it was pleasant to
+step from deep slippery mud and slime on to stones placed with their
+acutest angles upwards, but a final encounter with these landed me
+literally at Mr. Browne's homestead.
+
+It has been my lot at various times to witness the institution known
+as "home" in a state of denudation, as my scientific friends would
+call it. It is not necessary to go far from the site of Whitechapel
+Church to find dwellings unutterably wretched. Two years ago I saw
+people reduced to one "family" pair of boots in Sheffield, and without
+food, or fire to cook it with if they had had it; and I have seen a
+Cornish woman making turnip pie. But for general misery I think the
+home of the Browne family at Cloontakilla equals, and more than equals
+anything I have seen during a long experience of painful sights. The
+road to it as already described, is a quagmire, and the dwelling, when
+arrived at, exceeds the wildest of nightmares. Part of the stone wall
+has fallen in, and the two rooms which remain have the ground for a
+carpet and miserable starved-looking thatch for a roof. The horses and
+cattle of every gentleman in England, and especially Mr. Tankerville
+Chamberlayne's Berkshire pigs, are a thousand times better lodged than
+the family of the irreconcilable Browne. The chimney, if ever there
+were one, has long since "caved in" and vanished, and the smoke from a
+few lumps of turf burning on the hearth finds its way through the sore
+places in the thatch. In a bed in the corner of the room lies a sick
+woman, coughing badly; near her sits another woman, huddled over the
+fire. Now, I have been quite long enough in the world to be
+suspicious, and had it been possible for these poor people to have
+known of my coming I should certainly have been inclined to suspect a
+prepared scene. But this was impossible, for even my car-driver did
+not know where he was going till he started. And as we could not find
+the house without the Mountain Sylph, the inference must be in favour
+of all being genuine. There are no indications of cooking going on,
+and, bating an iron pot, a three-legged stool, a bench, half a dozen
+willow-pattern dishes, and a few ropes of straw suspended from the
+roof with the evident object of supporting something which is not
+there, no signs of property are visible. And this is the outcome of a
+farm of five acres--Irish acres, be it well understood. There is
+nothing at all to feed man, wife, sister-in-law, son, and daughter
+during the winter, and the snow is already lying deep on Nephin.
+
+While my inspection of the Browne domicile has been going on, the
+Mountain Sylph has vanished, never more to be seen. Whether she
+disappeared in the peat-smoke or sank gracefully into the parent bog
+it is impossible to decide; but it is quite certain that she has faded
+out of sight. Poor Mountain Sylph! When she grows older, and goes out
+to earn money as a work-girl in Ballina, she will no longer appear
+picturesque, but ridiculous. She will wear a cheap gown, but of the
+latest fashion, and a knowing-looking hat flung on at a killing angle;
+and she will don smart boots while she is in Ballina, and will take
+them off before she is far on her way to Cloontakilla, and trudge
+along the road as barefooted as of old. But she will never more be a
+Mountain Sylph--only a young woman proudly wearing a bonnet and mantle
+at which Whitechapel would turn up its nose in disdain. But the Sylph
+has gone, and in her place stands the Irreconcilable himself--a
+grey-haired man with bent shoulders and well-cut features, which
+account for the good looks of the Sylph. He is a sorrowful man; but,
+like all Irishmen, especially when in trouble, is not wanting in
+loquacity. He shows me his "far-r-rum," as he calls it, and it is a
+poor place. He has had a good harvest enough; but what does it all
+amount to? An acre (English) of oats, mayhap a couple of acres of
+potatoes and cabbages, and the rest pasture, except a little patch on
+which, he tells me, he grew vetches in summer for sale as green feed
+for cattle. Of beasts he has none, except dogs of some breed unknown
+either to dog-fanciers or naturalists, and an ass--the unfortunate
+creature who is made to drink the dregs of any sorrow falling upon
+Western Ireland. Put to work when not more than a year old, the poor
+animal becomes a stunted, withered phantasm of the curled darlings of
+the London costermongers which excited the kindly feelings of Lord
+Shaftesbury and the Baroness Burdett-Coutts.
+
+A Mayo donkey is a wretched creature, and Mr. Browne has a very poor
+specimen of an under-fed, overworked race. But there is a cow browsing
+in the field, and the tenant hastens to explain that she is not his
+own, but the absolute property of his sister-in-law. I must confess
+that I cool somewhat after this--inwardly that is--towards the
+Irreconcilable in battered corduroys who amuses me with a string of
+stories more or less veracious. I am required to believe that "bating
+the ass," no living beast on the five-acre farm belongs to the tenant.
+The turkeys belong to a neighbour, as do the geese, and there is
+neither hen nor egg left on the premises. "And where is everything?" I
+naturally ask.
+
+"And the neighbours is good to me, sorr, and they reaped my oats for
+me in a day, and carried 'um in a night. And my pitaties they dug for
+me, and carried all clane away before the sheriff could come. And when
+Mr. MacDonnell did come my wife was sick in bed, and the house was
+full of people, and all he could do was to consult the doctor and go
+away."
+
+Now, as the basis for a burlesque or Christmas pantomime, in which the
+Good Fairy warns the tenant to remove his crops lest the Demon
+Landlord should seize upon them--the tenant being of course transmuted
+into Harlequin and the landlord into Clown--this would be funny
+enough; but it is difficult to see how the everyday business of life
+could be carried on under such conditions. The case of Miss Gardiner
+against Thomas Browne is one purely of hide and seek. When he owed two
+years' rent he begged for time on account of two bad crops. When he
+was threatened with eviction he begged time to get in his crop. It was
+given to him. It is quite easy to understand that a tenant who has
+been thirty years on a little holding thinks himself entitled to great
+lenity, especially if his rent has been raised during that period,
+and, as this man asserts, his "turbary" rights restricted, and every
+kind of privilege reduced. But it has been said by a great literary
+and social authority that there are such things as limits. Now this
+man, Browne, feeling that he had an execution hanging over him,
+contrived to temporise until his grain and potatoes were secured, and
+then, aided by the accident of a sick wife, defied the law. The house
+was full of people, a doctor said that the woman could not be removed,
+and the sub-sheriff, backed by fifty policemen, could make nothing of
+the business without incurring the odium of tearing a sick woman from
+her bed. He offered the irreconcilable Browne the offer of accepting
+the ejectment and remaining in the house as "caretaker," but the
+tenant was staunch and would make no terms. The consequence is that
+when Miss Gardiner again attempts to evict him she must incur the
+considerable cost of a new writ. The condition of affairs now is that
+a tenant owing three years' rent, and not having paid a shilling on
+account, simply defies the landlord and remains in his wretched
+holding, having possibly--for the Irish are an intelligent as well as
+good-humoured people--the proceeds of his miserable little harvest to
+live upon through the winter months. Mr. Browne is, I doubt me, not
+very rigid as to his duties, and takes but an imperfect view of
+financial obligations; but he is horribly poor, nevertheless, and is
+as much a type of his class as Miss Gardiner of hers.
+
+
+
+
+V.
+
+FROM MAYO TO CONNEMARA.
+
+
+LEENANE, _Tuesday, Nov 2._
+
+The meeting which took place on Sheehane Hill was only remarkable as
+affording an additional proof of the extraordinary faculty of
+selection possessed by Western Irishmen. Whether they intend to shoot
+a landlord or merely to hold a meeting to bring him to his bearings,
+they choose their ground with equal discrimination. In the former case
+a spot is selected at the descent or ascent of a hill, so that the
+carriage of the victim cannot be going at a sufficient pace to defeat
+the marksman's aim, and a conveniently protected angle, with
+facilities for escape, is occupied by the ambuscade. In the latter,
+either a natural amphitheatre or a conspicuous hill is pitched upon
+for the gathering. To the picturesque Mayo mind a park meeting on a
+dead flat would be the most uninteresting affair possible unless
+vitality were infused into the proceedings by a conflict with the
+police, which would naturally atone for many shortcomings. The
+meeting at Tiernaur was held in the midst of magnificent scenery, and
+that on Sheehane was equally well selected. From the top of the hill,
+which is crowned by a large tumulus, the country around for many miles
+lay spread like a map; and, what was of more immediate importance, the
+small additional hill afforded a convenient spot for posting the
+orators and displaying the banners of the various organizations
+represented at the meeting. The demonstration, however, could hardly
+be represented as successful--not more than a thousand persons being
+present. It was weary waiting until the proceedings commenced, the
+only diversion being provided by a hare which got up in an adjacent
+field. In a moment greyhounds, bull-dogs, terriers, and mongrels were
+in pursuit, followed by the assembled people. The hare, however,
+completely distanced both dogs and spectators, and was in comparative
+safety several fields away from the foremost greyhound, when she
+doubled back in an unaccountable manner, and ran into the midst of the
+crowd, who set upon her with sticks, and killed her in the most
+unsportsmanlike manner. A man next held poor puss over his head as if
+she were a fox, and a voice went up "That's the way to serve the
+landlords." This ebullition was followed by shouts of "Down wid 'em!"
+and the meeting on Sheehane became more cheerful. It was recollected
+that O'Connell once held a meeting on the same spot, and that the
+hare and the meetings were both mentioned by the prophet Columbkill.
+
+Of the speeches it need only be said that what they lacked in elegance
+was made up in violence. The speeches made in the North were oddly
+designated "seditious," and every kind of reprisal was hinted at in
+the event of Mr. Parnell being arrested. If he were seized, not a
+landlord in Ireland would be safe except in Dublin Castle. This kind
+of thing, accompanied by shouts of "Down wid 'em!" at every mention of
+the abhorred landlords, became very tedious, especially in a high wind
+and drifting rain. The meeting gradually became thinner and thinner,
+and finally faded out altogether. It is quite true that such
+gatherings may have a powerful effect upon the vivacious Celt, but if
+so, it is quite beneath the surface, for the people seemed to take
+little interest in the proceedings. To all outward show the oratory at
+Sheehane produced no more serious impression than that at Tiernaur on
+the preceding Sunday. Yet there is something in the air, for the first
+thing I heard on returning to Westport was that Mr. Barbour's
+herdsman, who lives at Erriff Bridge, had been warned to leave his
+master's service. The "herd" (as he is called here, as well as on the
+Scottish border) is in great alarm. He cannot afford to leave his
+place, for it is his sole means of subsistence, and if turned out in
+the world the poor fellow might starve. Now it is a disagreeable thing
+to think you will starve if you leave, and be shot if you remain at
+your work; but I hear that the "herd" has asked for protection and
+will try to weather it out. His master, Mr. Barbour, and Mr. Mitchell
+hold each about half of the great farm formerly held of Lord Sligo by
+Captain Houstoun, the husband of the well-known authoress. Large
+numbers of black-faced sheep and polled Galloways are raised by Mr.
+Barbour, who lives at Dhulough, in the house formerly occupied by
+Captain Houstoun.
+
+I have just come from Westport to this place, the mountain scenery
+around which is magnificent. On the lofty heights of "the Devil's
+Mother," a famous mountain of this country, the sheep are seen feeding
+almost on the same level as the haunt of the golden eagles who breed
+here regularly. I believe that the valley of the Erriff was once well
+populated, but that after the famine the people were cleared off
+nearly 20 square miles of land to make way for the great grazing farm
+now divided between two occupants. As I have stated in previous
+letters, the resentment of the surrounding inhabitants at this
+depopulation of a vast tract of country is ineradicable. In the
+wretched huts which appear at wide intervals on the sea-shore the
+miserable people sit over the fire and talk of the old times when they
+might go from Clifden to Westport and find friends nearly everywhere
+on the road, while now from the last-named place to this--a distance
+of 18 Irish miles--the country is simply wild mountain, moor, and
+bog, bating the little Ulster Protestant village, not far from
+Westport (a curious relic of '98), a few herds-men's huts, and the
+police-station at Erriff Bridge. To those who, like myself, love
+animals, the drive is by no means uninteresting. As the car jolts
+along past "Hag's Valley," a dozen curlews take wing, and a little
+further on the shrill cry of the redshank strikes on the ear. Now and
+then a hare will start among the bent-grass, while aloft the falcon
+rests poised on her mighty wing. But saving these wild animals, the
+beautiful blackfaced sheep, and black Galloway calves, the country has
+no inhabitants. What little was once cultivated has reverted to rough
+pasture, covered with bent or sedge and a little grass, or to bog
+impassable to man or any creature heavier than the light-footed fox,
+who attains among these mountains to extraordinary size and beauty.
+But hares and grouse, and even stray pheasants from Mr. Mitchell
+Henry's woods at Kylemore, will not convince the fragment of
+population around the great grazing farms that things are better now
+than of yore; and there is some reason for believing that disturbance
+is to be apprehended in this part of the country. The warning to Mr.
+Barbour's unfortunate herd can hardly be a separate and solitary act
+of intimidation and oppression. The work of one herd is of no great
+matter. But the distinct warning given to the poor man at Erriff
+Bridge to give up his livelihood on the first instant is possibly part
+of a settled scheme to reduce great grazing farmers to the same
+condition as landlords. They are to be frightened away, in order that
+squatters may pasture their cattle on "the Devil's Mother," as the
+Tiernaur people have done theirs on Knockdahurk. Nothing would
+surprise me less than a strike against anybody in this neighbourhood.
+
+If one may judge by the language used yesterday at Westport Fair, at
+which I was glad to discover more outward evidence of prosperity than
+had yet come under my observation in this part of Ireland, the
+landlords and their agents are determined to make another effort to
+get in their rents in January. Their view of the case is that the law
+must assist them: but whatever abstract idea of the majesty of the law
+may exist elsewhere is obviously foreign to those parts of Connaught
+which I have visited. It is urged day after day upon me by high as
+well as low, that if Sir Robert Blosse and Lord De Clifford can get in
+their rents without "all the king's horses and all the king's men,"
+other landlords must try to do the same. To prevent misconception, I
+will aver, even at the risk that I may seem to "protest too much,"
+that this argument is not thrust upon me by the Land League, but by
+persons who are proprietors themselves. It is held ridiculous, in this
+section of the country, that enormous expense should be thrown upon
+the county in order that the rents of certain landlords may be
+collected. There is, it must be admitted, a rational indisposition in
+the West to ascribe any particularly sacred character to rent as
+distinguished from any other debt. This is an agreeable feature in the
+Irish character. In some other countries there prevails a preposterous
+notion that rent must be paid above and before all things, as a
+species of solemn obligation. Until the other day there prevailed in
+Scotland the almost insane law of hypothec, which allowed a landlord
+to pursue his tenant's goods even into the hands of an "innocent
+holder." But there is no argument in favour of the landlord which any
+other creditor might not advance with equally good reason. The
+butcher, the baker, the clothier, as well as the farmer, the dealer in
+feeding-cake and manure, have claims quite as good as that of the
+landlord, and, as they think, a great deal better. Tradesmen who have
+fed and clothed people, and others who have helped them to fatten
+their land and their cattle, think their claims paramount. It is of
+the nature of every creditor to think he has the right to be paid
+before anybody else. But the landlord, probably because landlords made
+the law, such as it is, has a claim which he can enforce, or rather
+just now seeks to enforce, by the aid of armed intervention. The civil
+bill creditor can only levy execution where anything exists to levy
+upon; but the landlord can turn his tenants out of doors and put the
+key in his pocket--that is, theoretically. But, it is argued, if this
+cannot be done without the aid of an army, it would be better for the
+majority of peaceable inhabitants if it were left alone. It is not
+easy to predict the state of popular feeling here in January next; but
+it is quite certain that attempts to evict, if made now, would be met
+by armed resistance. I have already stated that Mayo is armed to the
+teeth, and I have good reason for believing county Galway to be in a
+similar condition. This being fairly well known on the spot, it is
+quite easy to understand how any resolution to commence a landlords'
+crusade is received by the public.
+
+
+LETTERFRACK, CONNEMARA, _Wednesday._
+
+At this pretty village, in the most beautiful part of the West of
+Ireland, I hear that the disinclination to pay rent and the desire to
+"hunt" grazing farmers out of the country have spread to the once
+peaceful region of Connemara. Three years ago crime and police were
+alike unknown. The people were poor, and preserved the sense of having
+been wronged. But theft and violence, saving a broken head now and
+then, were unknown.
+
+Within the last two years a great change has come over this remote
+corner of Ireland. Police barracks have made their appearance, and
+outrages of the agrarian class have become disagreeably frequent.
+Formerly cattle and sheep were as safe on the mountain as oats in the
+stackyard. Now nobody of the grazing farmer class is entirely free
+from alarm. At any moment his animals may be driven into the sea or
+his ricks fired. The population, if not so fully armed as that of
+Mayo, is arming rapidly. To my certain knowledge revolvers and
+carbines are being distributed among the peasantry of Connemara
+proper. This district--which including within its limits the pretty
+village I write from, as well as Clifden and Ballynahinch, lies mainly
+between the seashore and a line drawn from Leenane to Carna--has,
+during the last twelve months become disturbed in such wise that it is
+impossible to shut one's eyes to the fact that here, as in Mayo, a
+sort of dead set is being made against grazing farmers. It is true
+that life is not taken, and, it may be added, not even threatened in
+Connemara proper, but outrages of a cowardly and destructive kind are
+common. During last winter an epidemic of destruction broke out, the
+effect of which may be seen in the large amount added to the county
+cess to give compensation to the injured persons. The grand jury has
+levied altogether between seven and eight hundred pounds more than
+usual. So ignorant or reckless are the destroyers, that they take no
+heed of what is well understood in other places; to wit, that the
+amount of the damage done is levied upon the adjacent townlands. Thus
+the addition to the county cess in Lettermore is 10s. 111/2d. in the
+1l.; in Carna, 8s. 91/2d.; and in Derryinver, 8s. 71/2d.--a cruel
+additional burden on the ratepayer. Some of the items are very large.
+To George J. Robinson was awarded 181l. for seventy-six sheep and two
+rams "maliciously taken away, killed, maimed, and destroyed." To
+Hamilton C. Smith three separate awards were made--28l. for four head
+of cattle driven or carried out to sea and drowned; 21l. for fourteen
+sheep maliciously driven off and removed; and again 17l. 10s. for
+fourteen sheep similarly treated. Houses and boats have been burned,
+and even turf-ricks destroyed. The object in all cases seems to have
+been to "hunt" the injured persons out of the country in order that
+the neighbours might turn their cattle on to his grazing land, as has
+been done in Mayo. In one conspicuous case these tactics have proved
+successful. Michael O'Neil was awarded 120l. "to compensate him for
+ninety-six sheep, his property, maliciously taken or carried away and
+destroyed, at Tonadooravaun, in the parish of Ballynakill." This sum
+is levied off the fourteen adjacent townlands, among which is the
+unlucky Lettermore, just quoted as paying an enormous addition to the
+county cess. Michael O'Neil, who appears to have been a respectable
+man, not otherwise objectionable than as the tenant of more grazing
+land than was considered his share by his neighbours, has received his
+120l., and is so far reimbursed; but he thought it better to obey the
+popular will than to attempt to stand against it, and gave up his farm
+accordingly. Such deeds as the frightening of "decent people" out of
+Connemara by maiming cattle and burning houses, which must be paid for
+by the offending districts, speak more distinctly than any words could
+do of the ignorance of this part of the wild West. So wild is it that
+although the Roman Catholic clergy of Connemara adhere to the
+elsewhere-obsolete practice of holding "stations" for confession,
+there are many dwellers on the mountain who have never received any
+religious instruction. Chapels are few and remote from each other, and
+even the "stations" kept for the purpose of getting at the scattered
+population only attract those dwelling within reasonable distances.
+The poor mountaineers in the neighbourhood of the Recess Valley and
+away over the hills seldom go far enough from home to rub shoulders
+with civilisation. Many of them have never seen bigger places than
+Letterfrack and Leenane, and those perhaps not fifty times in their
+lives.
+
+The islanders of Clew Bay are almost as difficult to assist and to
+improve as the highlanders of Joyce's country, Southern Mayo, and
+Great and Little Connemara; but for an opposite reason. The latter are
+thinly scattered on the fringe of the grazing farms, while the former
+are crowded together on islands inadequate to support them. This
+question of space assumes a curious importance in Ireland owing to
+the want of other industry than such as is intimately connected with
+the land. With the exception of a few manufacturing districts in
+Ulster, which is altogether another country from Connaught, there are
+no industries in Ireland independent of the produce of arable land and
+pasture. What is to be enjoyed by the people must be got out of the
+land, and this in a country where nobody will turn to and work hard as
+a cultivator so long as he can graze, "finish," or "job" cattle,
+sheep, or horses. I was citing to a Mayo-man this defect of the
+so-called farmer, and was at once met by a prompt reply. The tendency
+to graze cattle, which is not hard work, and to "gad" about to cattle
+fairs, which are esteemed the greatest diversion the country affords,
+is an indication of the distinct superiority of the quick-witted Celt
+to the dull Saxon hind. An Irish peasant cultivator is a being of
+greater faculty of expansion than Wessex Hodge. He is profoundly
+ignorant and absurdly superstitious, but he is naturally keen-witted,
+and his innate gifts are brightened by contact with his fellow man. He
+is not a ploughman, for he often cultivates with the spade alone, and
+he has, besides his oats, his potatoes, his cabbages, and mayhap a few
+turnips, and a variety of animals, all of which he understands--or
+misunderstands. If a holder of twenty or thirty, or, still better,
+forty acres, he will have a horse, a cow, a beast or two, a few sheep,
+and some turkeys and geese. It is possible to have all these on
+fifteen acres or less of fairly good land, and then the Western
+peasant cultivator becomes a many-sided man by dint of buying and
+selling stock--that is, he acquires the sort of intelligence possessed
+by a smart huckster. This is held to be cleverness in these parts, and
+undoubtedly gives its possessor a greater "faculty of expansion" than
+the career of an Essex or Wessex ploughman or carter. But what is
+peculiarly pertinent to the burning question of peasant cultivators
+and proprietors is the tendency, perpetually visible in the Western
+Irishman, to fly off at a tangent from agriculture to grazing.
+According to an ancient and indurated belief in all this section of
+the country, animals ought to get fat on the pasture provided by
+nature. I am told that thirty years ago there was not a plough in
+existence from Westport to Dhulough, and that the turnip was an
+unknown vegetable in Connemara. The notion of growing turnips and
+mangolds in a country made for root crops was at first not well
+received. "Bastes" had done hitherto on the rough mountain pasture
+"well enough;" which signified that no properly fatted animal had ever
+been seen around the Twelve Pins.
+
+Now that the Connemara man here and there has been taught to grow root
+crops for cattle he begins to yield, and feeds his beasts, sometimes,
+on roots instead of sedge. Thus far he has become a cultivator; but I
+have my doubts whether the hard work of tillage suits him well. To get
+good crops off a little farm is an undertaking which requires
+"sticking to work." It is not so pleasant by a great deal as looking
+at cattle and taking them to market. Hence the tilled part of an Irish
+farm in the West nearly always bears a very small proportion to that
+under pasture. It is only quite recently that artificial feeding for
+cattle has been resorted to, and compelled the farmer to grow root
+crops. Perhaps, in the present condition of the market for beasts and
+grain the nimble-minded Celt is hitting the right nail on the head,
+and cattle and dairy farms are the future of the agriculturist, who
+will compete against American meat with English produce fed upon
+English grass and roots, and upon maize imported from the New World. I
+prefer, however, to leave this possibility for the discussion of Mr.
+Caird and Mr. Clare Read, and to confine myself to the fact that the
+Western cultivator is far less a farmer than a cattle-jobber or
+gambler in four-legged stock.
+
+The poor inhabitants of the islands between this place and Achill
+Point cannot certainly be accused of a tendency to gad about. Almost
+everybody blames their dull determination to remain at home. They are,
+I doubt, neither good fishermen nor good farmers--at least, I know
+that they neither catch fish nor pay their rent. Neither on Clare
+Island, Innishark, Innisbofin, nor Innisturk is there any alacrity in
+making the slightest attempt to satisfy the landlord. That these
+little tenants are only removed by a hairsbreadth from starvation at
+the best of times will be gathered from the facts that Clare Island
+with 4,000 acres, some of which is let at 10s. per acre, with common
+grazing rights "thrown in," is called upon to support nearly seven
+hundred souls. A glance at the picturesque outline of the island will
+tell of the proportion of "mountain," that is moor and bog, upon it,
+and it is at once seen that unless there is either good fishing or
+some other source of supply the land cannot keep the people. No better
+proof can be given than that of the greatest tenant, who pays 55l. a
+year for some five hundred acres. In Innisbofin and Innishark are at
+least 1,500 individuals, nearly all very small tenants, either on the
+brink of starvation or pretending to be so. It is nearly as impossible
+to extract any rent from them as from the twenty-three families on
+Innisturk, an island belonging to Lord Lucan, whose rents are farmed,
+so far as Innisturk is concerned, by Mr. MacDonnell, the sub-sheriff,
+who is said to have a bad bargain. Lord Lucan, of course, receives his
+150l. yearly from his "middleman," who is left to fight it out with
+the people, and get 230l., the price at which the land is let, out of
+them, if he can. Just now he is getting nothing, and the situation is
+becoming strained. The people pay no rent, the sub-sheriff, is not
+only losing his margin of profit but cannot get 150l. a year out of
+them. They said they liked him well enough but would not pay a
+"middleman's" profit, whereupon he offered to take the exact amount
+he contracts to pay to Lord Lucan, and forego his profit altogether;
+but this proposition, after being received with some amusement, was
+not declined exactly, but, in American language, "let slide." And
+nothing has been or can be done. For if it were attempted to evict the
+Innisturk people the evictors would be accused of hurling an entire
+population into the sea.
+
+The more that is seen of the people of far Western Connaught the more
+distinct becomes the conviction that the present difficulty is rather
+social and economic than political. It is far more a question,
+apparently, of stomach than of brain. The complaints which are poured
+out on every side refer not in the least to politics. Very few in
+Mayo, and hardly anybody at all in Connemara, seem to take any account
+of Home Rule, or of any other rule except that of the Land League. The
+possibility of a Parliament on College-green affects the people of the
+West far less than the remotest chance of securing some share of the
+land. If ever popular disaffection were purely agrarian, it is now, so
+far as this part of Ireland is concerned. Orators and politicians from
+O'Connell until now have spoken of Repeal and Reform; but it is more
+than probable that the Connaught peasant always understood that he was
+to be emancipated from some of his burdens. All his ideas are
+dominated by the single one of land. He knows and cares for very
+little else. He is superstitious to an astounding degree, and his
+ignorance passes all understanding--that is, on every subject but the
+single one of land. And the land he knows of is that in his own
+county, or home section of a county. But his knowledge of this is
+singularly and curiously exact. Either by his own experience or by
+tradition he is perfectly acquainted with the topography of his own
+locality and with the history of its present and former proprietors
+and occupants. With perfect precision he will point out a certain
+tract of country and tell how, in the old, old time, it was, "reigned
+over" by the O'Flahertys, and then was owned by the Blakes, who
+disposed of part of their country to the present possessors. He knows
+perfectly well how the great Martin country came first into the hands
+of the Law Life Insurance Company, and then into those of Mr.
+Berridge, and how the latter gentleman came down to Ballynahinch, of
+the traditional avenue, extending for forty miles to Galway. More than
+this, he knows how an island was bought by its present owner with so
+much on it due to the above-named society. Moreover, he knows the site
+and size of the villages depopulated by famine, emigration, or the
+"exterminator," and in many cases the very names of the former
+tenants. He is a man of one idea--that the country was once prosperous
+and is now wretched, not in consequence of natural causes but of
+oppression and mismanagement. When he shouted in favour of Repeal he
+meant Land. When he applauded Disestablishment and Denominational
+Schools he meant Land, Land, nothing but Land. At last his dominant
+feeling is candidly expressed when he cries out against landlords,
+"Down wid 'em!"
+
+In one of those neat remarks, distracting attention from the real
+point at issue, for which Lord Beaconsfield is justly famous, he
+expressed an opinion that "the Irish people are discontented because
+they have no amusements." Like all such sayings, it is true as far as
+it goes. Despite dramatists, novelists and humorists, Ireland is
+singularly barren of diversion. In a former letter I pointed out that
+the only relaxation from dreary toil enjoyed in Mayo is found at the
+cattle-fairs, and little country races to which they give rise. There
+are no amusements at all at Connemara. One ballad-singer and one
+broken-legged piper are the only ministers to public hilarity that I
+have yet seen. Nothing more dreary can be imagined than the existence
+of the inhabitants. When by rare good luck a peasant secures road-work
+or other employment from a proprietor at once sufficiently solvent and
+public-spirited to undertake any enterprise for the improvement of the
+country, he will walk for a couple or three hours to his work and then
+go on with it till dinner-time. But it is painfully significant that
+the word "dinner" is never used in this connection. The foreman does
+not say that the dinner hour has arrived, but "Now, boys, it is time
+to eat your bit o' bread." The expression is painfully exact; for the
+repast consists of a bit of bread and perhaps a bottle of milk. Indian
+corn meal is the material of the bit of bread, a heavy square block
+unskilfully made, and so unattractive in appearance that no human
+being who could get anything else would touch it. Then the man works
+on till it is time to trudge over the mountain to the miserable cabin
+he imagines to be a home, and meet his poor wife, weary with carrying
+turf from a distant bog, and his half-clad and more than half-starved
+children. Luckily the year has been a good one for drying peat, and
+one necessity for supporting human life is supplied. What the
+condition of the people must be when fuel is scarce is too terrible to
+think of.
+
+I esteem myself fortunate in being enabled to describe what the life
+of the Connemara peasant is under favourable circumstances. His abject
+misery in years of famine and persistent rain, when crops fail and
+peat cannot be dried, may be left to the imagination. Potatoes raised
+from the "champion" seed introduced during the distress last year are,
+if not plentiful, yet sufficient, perhaps, for the present, in the
+localities to which a good supply of seed was sent; but I should not
+like to speculate on the probable condition of affairs in March next.
+I have also spoken of such a peasant as has been fortunate enough to
+obtain work at nine shillings a week, esteemed a fair rate
+hereabouts. But in truth there is very little work to be had; for the
+curse of absenteeism sits heavily on the West. Four great landed
+proprietors, who together have drawn for several years past about
+70,000l. from their estates in Mayo, Galway, and Clare, have not, I am
+assured, ever spent 10,000l. a year in this country. As with the land
+itself, crop after crop has been gathered and no fertiliser has been
+put in. The peasant is now aware of as many of such facts as apply to
+his own locality, and this knowledge, coupled with hard work and
+hunger, has aroused a discontent not to be easily appeased. To him his
+forefathers appear to have led happy lives. It would be beyond my
+purpose to discuss whether the good old times ever existed, either
+here or anywhere else. My object just now is simply to reflect the
+peasant's mind, after having endeavoured, so far as is possible in
+this place, to verify the facts adduced by him, and I may add
+generally admitted by others.
+
+The peasant looks lovingly on the tradition of the old time when the
+native proprietors dwelt among their people, without reflecting that
+it was the almost insane recklessness and extravagance of the
+hereditary lords of the soil which led to the breaking up of their
+estates among purchasers who had no kind of sympathy with the
+inhabitants. But good or bad, as they may have been, the names of the
+Martins, the O'Flahertys, the Joyces, and the Lynches are still held
+in honour, although their descendants may have disappeared altogether,
+or remained on a tenth or twentieth part of the vast possessions once
+held by their family. Some of the present representatives, however,
+are unpopular from no fault of their own. To cite a typical case.
+There is a large estate between this place and Clifden, the present
+holders of which should hardly be held responsible for the faults of
+their ancestors. A very large part of it has been sold outright and is
+in good hands. The remainder is strictly settled on a minor, and is
+mortgaged, in the language of the country, "up to the mast-head."
+Naturally the guardians of the minor are unwilling that the estate
+should be sold up, all possibility of improvement and recovery
+sacrificed, and themselves erased from the list of the county gentry.
+Landlords have as much objection to eviction and compulsory emigration
+as tenants, and are as much inclined to cling to their land, hoping
+for better things. Thus arises a state of affairs against which the
+peasant at last shows signs of revolt. Physically and mentally
+neglected for centuries by his masters, he has found within the last
+fifty years neglect exchanged for extortion and oppression. To prevent
+the sale of the property, the owners or trustees must pay the interest
+on the encumbrances. Moreover, they, being only human, think
+themselves entitled to a modest subsistence out of the proceeds of the
+property. To pay the interest and secure this "margin" for themselves
+there are only two ways--to wring the last shilling out of the
+wretched tenants, to first deprive them of their ancient privileges,
+and then charge them extra dues for exercising them, or to let every
+available inch of mountain pasture to a cattle-farmer, whose herds
+take very good care that the cottier's cow does not get "the run of
+the mountain" at their master's expense.
+
+This "run of the mountain" appears to have been the old Irish analogue
+of the various kinds of rights of common in England, which have for
+the most part been lost to the poorer folk, not always without a
+struggle with the neighbouring landlord or lord of the manor. I hear
+from almost every place a complaint that within thirty or forty years
+the "run of the mountain" has been taken from the people and let to
+graziers. On the legal merits of the case I cannot at this moment
+pretend to decide, but inasmuch as this addition to an ordinary
+holding survives on some estates, there appears strong ground for
+believing that the practice was general. Where the cattle-run remains
+it is mapped out as a "reserve" for a certain townland, and is greatly
+prized by the peasants. It may therefore be imagined that those from
+whom it has been taken by the strong hand are bitterly resentful, and
+even where the change was made so long as twenty-five or thirty years
+ago nourish a deeply-rooted sense of wrong. It is absurd to suppose
+that when the act of spoliation took place village Hampdens could
+spring up on every hill-side in Connemara. Owing to the neglect of
+those who were responsible for their condition, they were the most
+ignorant and superstitious people in the British Islands. Landlords
+were not yet awakened to a sense that their tenants should at least be
+taught to read; and Connemara was esteemed, I am told, as a kind of
+penal settlement for priests who had not proved shining lights in more
+civilised communities. The latter reproach can no longer be brought,
+for the zeal and activity of the local clergy are conspicuous; and
+where the children are within any reasonable distance of a school they
+come readily to it, and prove bright and apt scholars. But when the
+"run of the mountain" was seized upon by many proprietors, the people
+were mentally, if not bodily, in a swinish condition. The idea of any
+right which a landlord was bound to respect had not dawned upon them,
+and, if it had, prompt vengeance would have descended on the village
+Hampden in the shape of a notice to quit, and he whose conception of
+the world was limited to his native mountains would have been turned
+out upon them with his wife and children to die.
+
+I hear on very good authority that the purchaser of part of one of the
+old estates has acquired an unpleasant notoriety in his management of
+the land. I am compelled to believe that in the old period the
+peasants enjoyed their little holdings at a very low rent. Moreover
+these holdings were not all "measured on 'um," as one of my informants
+phrased it, but were often composed of two or more patches, bits of
+productive land, taken here and there on the rough mountain. Doubtless
+this arrangement had its inconveniences, but the people were
+accustomed to it, and also set great store by the run of the mountain,
+which they had, it seems, enjoyed without let or hindrance from time
+immemorial. The first act of the new management was to "sthripe the
+land on 'um," that is to mark it out into five-pound holdings, each in
+one "sthripe" or block. This arrangement, which to the ordinary mind
+hardly appears unreasonable, was considered oppressive by the tenants,
+who submitted, however, as was then the manner of their kind. They had
+still the mountain, and could graze their cow or two, or their
+half-dozen sheep upon it, and they naturally regarded this privilege
+as the most valuable part of their holding, inasmuch as it paid their
+rent, clothed them, and supplied them with milk to drink with their
+potatoes. In these days of alimentary science it is needless to remind
+readers that, humble as it appears, a dinner of abundant potatoes and
+milk is a perfect meal, containing all the constituents of human
+food--fat, starch, acids, and so forth.
+
+Thus many of the tenants were, as they call it, "snug." Satisfied
+with little, they rubbed on contentedly enough, only the more
+adventurous spirits going to England for the harvesting. Then came
+serious changes. The rent of the five-pound holdings was raised to
+seven pounds, and the mountain was taken away. The poor people
+protested that they had nothing to feed their few animals upon on the
+paltry holdings of which a couple of acres might be available for
+tillage, a couple more for grass, and the remaining two or three good
+for hardly anything. An answer was given to them. If they must have
+the mountain they must pay for it--practically another rise in the
+rent. To this they agreed perforce, and even to the extraordinary
+condition that during a month or six weeks of the breeding season for
+grouse they should drive their tiny flocks or herds off the mountain
+and on to their holdings, in order that the game might not be
+disturbed at a critical period. I hear that for the last year rents
+have fallen into arrear, and that the beasts of those who have not
+paid up have just been driven off the mountain.
+
+I have cited this case as one of the proofs in my hands that the
+country is not overpopulated, as has been so frequently stated. I
+drove over part of the estate mentioned, and questioned some of the
+people as to the accuracy of the story already told to me, and the
+agreement was so general that I am obliged to give credence to it. To
+talk of over-population in a country with perhaps half-a-dozen houses
+per square mile, is absurd. What is called over-population would be
+more accurately described as local congestion of population. The
+people who in their little way were graziers and raisers of stock have
+been deprived of their cattle run, and having no ground to raise
+turnips upon, cannot resort to artificial feeding. What was originally
+intended to serve as a little homestead to raise food on for
+themselves is all they have left, and it is now said that they are
+crowded together. It would be more correct to say that they have been
+driven together like rats in the corner of a pit. As one steps out of
+one of their cabins the eye ranges over a vast extent of hill, valley,
+and lake--as fair a prospect as could be gazed upon. Yet the few
+wretched inhabitants are cooped within their petty holdings, and
+allowed to do no more than look upon the immense space before them.
+Where there is so much room to breathe they are stifled.
+
+
+GALWAY, _Tuesday, Nov. 9th._
+
+On the long dreary road from Clifden to this place, the greater part
+of which is included in the vaunted "avenue" to Ballynahinch, there is
+visible at ordinary times very little but mountain, bog, and sky. Of
+stones and water, and of air marvellously bright and pure, there is no
+lack, and some of the scenery is of surpassing grandeur, especially on
+a day like yesterday, so fair and still that mountain and cloud alike
+were mirrored on the surface of a legion of lakes. It was only when
+one reached the clump of trees which in these wild districts denotes
+the presence of a house of the better sort that any symptoms of
+disturbance were seen. All was calm and bright on Glendalough itself,
+but no sooner had I entered the grounds of the hotel than I became
+aware of the presence of an armed escort. Presently Mr. Robinson, the
+agent for Mr. Berridge, the purchaser of the "Martin property" from
+the Law Life Insurance Company, came out, jumped on his car with his
+driver, and was immediately followed by the usual escort of two men
+armed with double-barrelled carbines. A few minutes later I heard that
+Mr. Thompson's "herd" over at Moyrus, near the sea-coast, had been
+badly beaten on Sunday night, or rather early yesterday morning; and
+there were disquieting rumours of trouble impending at Lough Mask. If
+the Moyrus story be true, it is noteworthy as marking a new line of
+departure in Connemara. Hitherto actual outrages have been confined to
+property; persons have only been threatened, and few but agents go in
+downright bodily fear. I have not heard why Mr. Thompson is unpopular;
+but can easily understand that Mr. Robinson has become so. The
+management of 180,000 acres of poor country, in some parts utterly
+desolate, in others afflicted with congested population, can hardly
+be carried on without making some enemies. Moreover, I have no reason
+to believe that the vast "Law Life" property has, since it passed out
+of the hands of its ancient insolvent owners, been either more wisely
+or liberally administered than in the wild, wicked days when the
+Martins "reigned" at Ballynahinch, and boasted that the King's writs
+did not run "in their country."
+
+Before leaving Connemara I resolved to give a detailed account of the
+condition of the peasants of the sea-coast at the conclusion of a
+phenomenally good season followed by a fair harvest, thinking that a
+better impression would be obtained now than in periods of distress. I
+regret to say that the effect of several excursions from Letterfrack
+and Clifden has been almost to make me despair of the Connemara man of
+the sea-coast. I hesitate to employ the word "down-trodden," because
+it has been absurdly misused and ignorantly applied to the whole
+population of Ireland. I may be pardoned for observing in this place,
+once for all, that my remarks are always particularly confined to the
+place described, and by no means intended to apply to districts I have
+not yet visited, still less to Ireland generally--if a country with
+four if not five distinct populations should ever by thoughtful
+persons be spoken of "generally." What I say of the inhabitants of the
+sea-coast of Connemara does not, I hope most sincerely, apply to any
+other people in the British Islands. They are emphatically
+"down-trodden"--bodily, mentally, and in a certain direction morally.
+They do not commit either murder, adultery, or theft, but they are
+fearfully addicted to lying--the vice of slaves. Their prevarication
+and procrastination are at times almost maddening. I have seen men and
+women actually fencing with questions put to them by the excellent
+priest who dwells at Letterfrack, Father McAndrew, who was obliged to
+exercise all his authority to obtain a straight answer concerning the
+potato crop grown on a patch of conacre land. Did they have any
+"champion" seed given to them at the various distributions of that
+precious boon? "Was it champions thin?" was the reply. "'Deed, they
+had the name o' champions." The woman who said this in my hearing only
+confessed under very vigorous cross-examination that "the name o'
+champions" signified four stone weight of the invaluable seed which
+has resisted disease in its very stronghold. Now in very poor ground
+the yield of this quantity should have been twelvefold, or about 5
+cwt. of potatoes. "'Deed, and it wasn't the half of it. The champions
+was planted too thick, sure; and two halves of 'um was lost." Taken
+only mathematically this statement would not hold water, but it was
+not till after a stern allocution that the fact was elicited that
+much champion seed had been wasted by over-thick planting--a habit
+acquired by the people during successive bad years. As these poor
+people prevaricate, so do they procrastinate. The saddened man who
+said, in his wrath, all men are liars, would have found ample
+justification for his stern judgment on the Connemara sea-coast at the
+present moment; but the Roman centurion immortalised in Holy Writ
+would make a novel experience. He might say "Go," but he would have to
+wait a while before the man went, and if he cried "Come" would need to
+possess his soul with patience. Yet the people are not dull. In fact
+the dull Saxon is worth a hundred of them in doing what he is told,
+and in doing it at once. This simple fact goes far to explain the
+unpopularity of English land-agents. Prepared to obey their own chief,
+Englishmen, especially if they have served in the army, expect instant
+obedience from others. Now that is just what they will not get in
+Clifden or elsewhere in the neighbourhood. Almost everybody is as
+fearfully deliberate in action as in untruth, and the Saxon who
+expects instant attention and a straightforward answer, and is apt to
+storm at procrastinators and shufflers, appears to the poor native as
+an imperious tyrant. Now the native is always as civil as he is
+deceptive. About the middle of my journey yesterday, I discovered that
+the pair of horses who were to bring me twenty-six Irish miles from
+Clifden to Oughterard had been driven ten miles before they began
+that long pull. Of course the poor creatures dwindled to a walk at
+last, and I sank into passive endurance lest the driver might inflict
+heartless punishment upon them. My remarks on arriving at Oughterard,
+where an excellent team awaited me, were vigorous in the extreme; but
+I am bound to admit that they were accepted in a thoroughly Christian
+spirit.
+
+My long car-drives from Letterfrack and Clifden were directed mainly
+towards the spots mentioned in a former letter as of specially evil
+reputation for agrarian crime, and as being heavily amerced by the
+grand jury. A very slight acquaintance with them excites amazement
+that cess, rent, or anything else can be extracted from the utterly
+wretched cabins looking on the broad Atlantic. A large number of these
+are built on the slope of a lofty peninsula rising to 1,172 feet from
+the sea-level, and marked on the maps as Rinvyle Mountain. It is
+better known to the natives as Lettermore Hill, and forms part of the
+Rinvyle estate, one of the encumbered properties alluded to in my last
+letter. The hill-folk, who appear, on the best evidence procurable, to
+have had hard measure dealt to them by the Mr. Graham who bought part
+of the old Lynch property, declaim against the "new man," as others
+ascribe every evil to the middleman; but others again hold that the
+old proprietors, who remain on the land, fighting against
+encumbrances, are the "hardest of all," and that the whips of cupidity
+cannot compare with the scorpions of poverty. Be this as it may, the
+present holder of Rinvyle is by no means personally unpopular, and has
+helped the district lately in getting subscriptions and a Government
+grant for building a pier, extremely useful both as a protection to
+fisher-folk, and as providing labour for the still poorer people. It
+is also only fair to state that much of the local congestion of
+inhabitants at Rinvyle is due to the kelp-manufacture. The kelp-trade
+was at one time very prosperous, and employed a large number of people
+in collecting, drying, and burning seaweed. At that period it was the
+object of proprietors on the seaboard to attract population to their
+domains, on account of the royalty levied on kelp, which exceeded by
+far the rent asked for a little holding. While some proprietors were
+wiping off the map great villages, containing hundreds of families,
+like that of Aughadrinagh, near Castlebar, the holders of the
+sea-coast encouraged people to settle on their estates. No reasonable
+person can blame them for doing so. The proprietor was poor, and saw
+that a large accession to his means might be secured by attracting
+kelp-burners. He made a good thing of it. The people paid about 3l. or
+a little more a year for their cottage and little, very little,
+paddock, not bigger than a garden; about 11s. a year for the "right to
+gather seaweed," and one-third of the proceeds of the kelp they made
+as "royalty" to the landlord. It should be added that the owners of
+Rinvyle were not themselves dealers in kelp, like some middlemen along
+the coast, and that their "people,"--save the mark!--could sell to
+whom they pleased, but the lords of the seashore took their third of
+the proceeds. Within comparatively recent times kelp has been worth
+6l. and 7l. per ton. Putting the "royalty" at 2l. per ton, and the
+production of each family at a couple of tons per annum, we arrive at
+the position that the landlord drew, in rent and royalty, about half
+his tenants' summer earnings. The tenants obtained about 8l. clear per
+family for the summer's laborious work in collecting, drying, and
+burning seaweed. The rest of their living was made either out of a
+conacre potato patch, for which they were charged a tremendous rent,
+or eked out by the excursion of one member of the family to England
+for the reaping season. It was not a prosperous life, except in
+comparison with that which has succeeded it. For the last few years
+kelp has been almost thrown out of the market, and such small prices
+are obtainable that it is not worth while to collect it. But the
+population originally attracted by kelp remains to starve on the rocks
+of Rinvyle.
+
+Lettermore Hill, rising directly from the sea level, is a magnificent
+object glittering in the sun. It is "backed" rather like a whale than
+a weasel, and includes some good rough mountain pasture, as well as
+green fields near its base. As one approaches it a ring of villages is
+seen delightfully situated, high for the most part above the sea and
+the green fields, and lying back against the huge mountain. It is
+natural to suppose that here resides a race of marine mountaineers
+seeking their living on the deep while their flocks and herds pasture
+on the hill. But no supposition could be wider of the actual fact.
+Neither the fields beneath nor the mountain above belong in any way to
+the villages which form a belt of pain and sorrow half-way up its
+side, drooping at Derryinver to the sea. One of these villages,
+Coshleen, surely as wretched a place as any in the world, is
+unapproachable by a wheeled vehicle. The pasture land in front is
+walled off, and, together with the mountain behind, down almost to the
+roof of the cabins, is reserved to the use of a great grazier living
+far away. Below, near the sea, stands Rinvyle Castle--whence the name
+Coshleen, the village by the castle--the ruined stronghold of the
+O'Flahertys who ruled this country long ago, either better or worse
+than the Blakes, who have held it for some generations, and under
+whose care it has become a reproach to the empire. There is a little
+arable land farther down Lettermore Hill, which, being also called
+Rinvyle Mountain, might well receive the third name of Mount Misery.
+This bit of arable land is let to the surrounding tenants on the
+conacre principle--that is, the holders are not even yearly tenants,
+but have the land let to them for the crop, the season while their
+potatoes or oats are on the ground. By letting this conacre land in
+little patches, a high rent is secured, which the tenants have no
+option but to promise to pay. Apparently it is these wretched people
+who, maddened by the sight of a stranger's flocks and herds pasturing
+above and below them, have risen at times and driven his animals into
+the sea. All the notice he has taken of the matter is to make the
+county pay his loss, and leave the county to get the amount out of the
+offending townlands if it can. He is not to be scared, for he lives
+far away, and apparently his herds are not much afraid either--at
+present, that is. How any compensation money is to be got from the
+hundreds of miserable people who inhabit Coshleen and Derryinver I
+cannot conceive. They have, it is true, potatoes to eat just now, and
+may have enough till February; but their pale cheeks, high
+cheek-bones, and hollow eyes tell a sorry tale, not of sudden want but
+of a long course of insufficient food, varied by occasional fever.
+With the full breath of the Atlantic blowing upon them, they look as
+sickly as if they had just come out of a slum in St. Giles's. There is
+something strangely appalling in the pallid looks of people who live
+mainly in the open air, and the finest air in the world. Doubtless
+they tell a good story without, as I have already said, any very
+severe adherence to truth; but there can be no falsehood in their
+gaunt, famished faces, no fabrication in their own rags and the
+nakedness of their children. I doubt me Mr. Ruskin would designate the
+condition of Mount Misery, otherwise Lettermore Hill, as "altogether
+devilish."
+
+The cabins of Connemara have been so frequently described that there
+is no necessity for telling the English public that in the villages I
+have named anything approaching the character of a bed is very rare. A
+heap of rags flung on some dirty straw, or the four posts of what was
+once a bedstead filled in with straw, with a blanket spread over it,
+form the sleeping-place. Everybody knows that one compartment serves
+in these seaside hovels for the entire family, including the pig (if
+any), ducks, chickens, or geese. Few people hereabouts own an ass,
+much less a horse or a cow, and boats are few in proportion to the
+population. Such a cabin as I have rather indicated than described is
+occupied by the wife of one John Connolly, of Derryinver. When I
+called the husband was away at some work over the hill, and the two
+elder boys with him, the wife and seven younger children remaining at
+home. I had hardly put my foot inside the cabin when a "bonniva," or
+very little pig, quietly made up to me and began to eat the
+upper-leather of my boot, doubtless because he could find nothing else
+to eat, poor little beast. Besides the "bonniva," who looked very
+thin, the property of the entire family consisted of a dozen fowls
+and ducks, some potatoes, a little stack of poor oats, not much taller
+than a man, and a still smaller stack of rough hay. An experienced
+hand in such matters, who accompanied me, valued the stacks at 2l.
+15s. together. This was all they had at John Connolly's to face the
+winter withal, and I was curious to know what rent they paid for their
+little cabin and the field attached. An acre was quite as much as they
+appeared to have, and for this they were "set," as it is called here,
+at 3l. per annum, and, in addition, were charged 2s. 6d. for the
+privilege of cutting turf, and 5s. 6d. for the seaweed. This toll for
+cutting seaweed is a regular impost in these parts, sometimes rising
+for "red weed" and "black weed" to 11s. The latter is used only for
+manuring the potato fields, the former being the proper kelp weed, and
+must be paid for whether it is used or not. As a matter of fact, Mrs.
+Connolly's place assigned for cutting red-weed is the island of
+Innisbroon, some four or five miles out at sea, and as her husband has
+never been worth a boat she has paid her dues for nine years for
+nothing. The seaweed dues in fact have for several years past
+represented merely an increase of rental. It should not, however, be
+forgotten that when kelp was valuable the lords of the soil took their
+third part of it when it was burnt, in addition to the first tax for
+collecting the weed, a most laborious and tedious operation.
+
+It may be asked, and with some appearance of reason, why, if people
+are hungry, they do not eat what is nearest to hand. That one owning a
+dozen fowls and ducks and a stack of oats, be the same never so small,
+should be hungry, seems at a superficial glance ridiculous. But the
+fact is that this is just the flood time of harvest, the oats are
+stacked and the potatoes stored, but there is a long winter to face;
+and, what is more depressing to hear, these people who rear fowls
+would as soon think of eating one as of flying. They do not even eat
+the eggs, but sell them to an "eggler," and invest the money in Indian
+corn meal, a stone of which goes much farther than a dozen or a dozen
+and a half of eggs. Those, and they are greatly in the majority, who
+have no cow are obliged to buy milk for their children, and find it
+difficult and costly to get enough for them.
+
+In equally poor case with the cottiers is the woman who keeps the
+village shop at Derryinver. Those who know the village shops of England
+and the mingled odour of flour, bacon, cheese, and plenty which
+pervades them, would shudder at Mrs. Stanton's store at Derryinver. It
+is a shop almost without a window; in fact, a cabin like those occupied
+by her customers. The shopkeeper's stock is very low just now. She
+could do a roaring trade on credit, but unfortunately her own is
+exhausted. Like the little traders during English and Welsh strikes,
+her sympathies are all with her customers, but she can get no credit
+for herself. She has a matter of 40l. standing out; she owes 21l.; she
+has sold her cow and calf to keep up her credit at Clifden, and she is
+doing no business. When I looked in on her she was engaged in combing
+the hair of one of her fair-skinned children, an operation not common
+in these parts, where the back hair of even grown women in such centres
+of commercial activity as Clifden has a curious knack of coming down.
+It is part of the tumble-downishness of the neglected West. At some
+remote period things must have been new, but bating Casson's Hotel, at
+Letterfrack, there is nothing in good order between Mr.
+Mitchell-Henry's well-managed estate at Kylemore and Galway. At Clifden
+and all through the surrounding country things appear to be decaying or
+decayed. The doors will not shut, and the windows cannot be opened; the
+bells have no handles, and if they had would not ring; the wall-paper
+and the carpets, the houses, the land and the people seem to be all
+very much the worse for wear. The dirt and slovenliness are
+unspeakable. I tried to write on the table of the general room of a
+well-known inn, or so-called hotel, the other day, and my arm actually
+stuck to the table, so adhesive was the all-pervading filth. The white
+flannel cloaks and deep red petticoats of Connemara women are
+picturesque enough on market-day in Clifden, but, like Eastern cities,
+they should be seen from afar. I have a shrewd suspicion that the
+blight has gone beyond the potato, and it is not very difficult to see
+how it strode onward. The little towns of the West depend entirely upon
+the surrounding country for their subsistence, and, when the peasantry
+are poor, gradually undergo commercial atrophy. Just at this moment
+they are in a livelier condition than usual, somewhat because the
+comparatively well-to-do among the peasants have taken advantage in
+many places of the popular cry to pay no rent, and have, therefore, for
+the moment a little ready money. But there is no escaping the saddening
+influence of a general aspect of dirt and decay.
+
+It is a significant feature of the present agitation in Ireland that
+all parties are nearly agreed so far as the Connaught peasant
+cultivator is concerned. That anything approaching agreement on any
+part of the complex Irish problem should be arrived at is so
+remarkable that I am inclined to hearken to the popular voice.
+Whatever may be done for the benefit of other parts of the country,
+something must, it is thought, be attempted for the counties of Mayo
+and Galway. So far as I have been able to arrive at facts and
+opinions, it is not altogether a question of rent. A general remission
+of rent in these two counties would merely have the effect of
+enriching those farmers who are already "snug," but would leave the
+peasant cultivators exactly as they are at present. It is quite true
+that in some of the most wretched places I have seen the rent is
+extravagantly high; but while exclaiming against attempted extortion,
+I cannot shut my eyes to the fact that for the last two years the
+attempt has been in the main abortive. Everybody is not so deep in his
+landlord's books as the irreconcileable Thomas Browne, of
+Cloontakilla; but a vast number of poor tenants owe one and a half and
+two years' rent. I speak of those whose holdings are "set" from 3l. to
+8l. per annum. The rent has not impoverished them this year at any
+rate; they have had a fair harvest, their beast or few sheep have
+fetched good prices, and yet they are miserably poor. It is quite true
+that two very bad years preceded the good one, but allowing for all
+this there is no room for hope that under their present conditions of
+existence they will ever be better off than they are now--when they
+are practically living rent free.
+
+Letting for the moment bygones be bygones between landlord and tenant,
+what is to occur in the future? Hunger is an evil counsellor, and
+there would apparently always be hunger and consequent discontent
+among the little cultivators of Connaught, even if the land were given
+to them outright. The fact is that, despite the assertions of
+demagogues, the holdings on which the people now live cannot support
+them, and, in fact, never have supported them. It is, as I remarked in
+one of my previous letters, the harvest money from England and the
+labourers' wages brought from Scotland which have kept body and soul
+together after a poor fashion. The annual migration of reapers and
+labourers has been a matter not of enterprise, but of necessity; for
+on the summer savings, varying from 10l. to 15l., the family entirely
+depend. It is, therefore, an absolute mistake to speak of the Mayo and
+Galway men as peasant cultivators living on the produce of the soil
+they cultivate. It cannot be done. I have talked to scores of these
+people, and have invariably found that a decent cabin with properly
+clad inhabitants depended upon something beyond the food produced on
+the spot. Either the father went to England for the harvest, or the
+boys were working in a shipyard on the Clyde, or the girls were in
+America and sent home money. On the seashore, among the wretched
+people who send their children out on the coast to pick shell-fish
+worth fourpence per stone, I found here and there a household such as
+I have described really depending on money earned far away. I have
+thought it well to put the case somewhat strongly because it is sheer
+absurdity to expect that a living for a family can be extracted from
+five Irish acres of land in Connaught. In very good years, and when
+credit is abundant, not so unusual an occurrence as might be supposed,
+it is just possible for the peasant to struggle on; but he can never
+be said to live. His land is exhausted by the old Mayo rotation of
+"potatoes, oats, burn," and he has no manure but guano and seaweed.
+
+It is like inhaling fresh air to turn aside from poorly nourished
+people and land to look, from the window of Casson's hotel at
+Letterfrack, on two bright green oases rising amid a brown desert of
+bog. Turnips and mangolds are growing in great forty-acre squares.
+Dark-ribbed fields of similar size show where the potatoes have been
+dug, and men are dotted here and there busily engaged with work of
+various kinds. The green oases at the mouth of the magnificent pass of
+Kylemore are the work of Mr. Mitchell-Henry, M.P. for the county of
+Galway. When Mr. Henry first went salmon-fishing in the river Dowris,
+which flows from Kylemore Lake into the sea at Ballynakill Harbour,
+Kylemore was a mountain pass and nothing more. Now it not only boasts
+a castle, but is the centre of extraordinary activity, the first
+fruits of which are seen in the villages of Currywongoan and
+Greenmount already alluded to as forming conspicuous objects in a
+landscape of strange grandeur. Mr. Henry, who was an eminent surgeon
+before he became a great landowner, has gone about the work of
+reclamation with scientific knowledge as well as vigorous will, and
+now has a great area in the various stages of conversion from bog into
+productive land. When he began to reclaim land at Kylemore the
+neighbouring gentry smiled good-humouredly, plunged their hands into
+their (mostly empty) pockets, and wished him joy of his bargain. Now
+the Kylemore improvements are the wonder of Connemara. The long
+unknown mangold is seen to flourish on spots which once nourished
+about a snipe to an acre. Root crops are very largely grown, and it is
+to these that the climate and reclaimed bog of Connemara are more
+particularly favourable; but there is abundance of grain at
+Currywongoan, at Greenmount, and at the home-farm at Dowris.
+Neighbouring proprietors are thinking the matter over, and are
+wondering whether an Irish landlord ought, like an English one, to do
+something to employ and encourage his poor tenants, and help on with
+improvements those inclined to help themselves. Even the tenants
+themselves on the Kylemore Estate are beginning to wake up under the
+care of a resident landlord inclined to set them in the way of
+improving their condition. With the run of the mountain in addition to
+holdings varying from twelve to forty and fifty acres in extent, Mr.
+Mitchell Henry's people are learning by example, are breaking up land,
+and every year increasing the area under the plough. It would thus
+seem that the Connemara peasant is not unteachable, if only some
+patience be shown and fair breathing space allotted to him.
+
+Mr. Mitchell Henry's idea of reclamation was purely scientific at
+first, and has only by degrees been developed into a large enterprise.
+He was struck by the fact that the bog lies directly on the
+limestone, as coal, ironstone, and limestone lie in parts of
+Staffordshire, only awaiting the hand of man to turn them to practical
+account. Draining and liming are all that bog-land requires to yield
+immediate crops. The main difficulty is of course to get rid of the
+water, which keeps down the temperature of the land until it produces
+nothing but the humblest kind of vegetation. All the steps of the
+reclaiming process may be seen at Kylemore. The first thing to be done
+is to cut a big deep drain right through the bog to the gravel between
+it and the limestone. Then the secondary drains are also cut down to
+the gravel, and are supplemented by "sheep" or surface drains about
+twenty inches deep and twenty inches wide at top, narrowing to six
+inches at the bottom. This process may be called "tapping the bog,"
+which begins to shrink visibly. The puffy rounded surface gradually
+sinks as the water runs off, and the earth gains in solidity. When
+this process is sufficiently advanced the drains are cleared and
+deepened, and a wedge-shaped sod, too wide to reach the bottom, is
+rammed in so as to leave below it a permanent tubular covered drain,
+which is thus made without tiles or other costly material. Then the
+surface is dressed with lime, which, as the people say, "boils the
+bog" instead of burning it in the old-fashioned Irish manner. On such
+newly broken-up ground I saw numerous potato ridges, the large area
+of turnips and mangolds already spoken of, grasses and rape for
+sheep-feed. The celery grown on the reclaimed bog is superb, even
+finer than that grown on Chat Moss, which gave Manchester its
+reputation for celery-growing.
+
+It is not pretended that all the bogs in Ireland are susceptible of
+similar treatment, nor is it by any means necessary that they should
+be. For there is plenty of bog-land less than four feet in depth, and
+this alone is worth draining and liming at present. According to Mr.
+Mitchell Henry's calculation he can drain and lime the land, take a
+first crop off it, and then afford to let it at fifteen shillings per
+acre. This is thirteen shillings more than it is worth now, and would
+return interest for the necessary outlay at five per cent. per annum.
+It is well known that Mr. Mitchell Henry has pursued his work at
+Kylemore in the spirit of a pioneer, and that he looks to the
+employment of the poor Connemara folk on reclamations as the loophole
+of escape from their present miserable condition. But, while anxious
+for the people, he is not unjust to the landlords who, whatever their
+wish may be, are too poor to attempt any extensive improvement of
+their estates. With the exception of Mr. Berridge and Lord Sligo,
+nobody has much money in these parts besides Mr. Henry, whose example
+is followed slowly, because proprietors lack the means to undertake
+anything on a grand scale. His impression is, that to effect any good
+the matter must be made Imperial. The suggestion is, that suitable
+tracts of the best waste lands should be acquired by the Government;
+that the work of reclamation should be carried on by labourers who
+would be paid weekly wages and lodged in huts close to their work; and
+that when the land had been properly fertilised it should be divided
+into farms of forty acres and the men who have worked at reclaiming it
+settled upon it with their families, and instructors appointed to
+teach them farming. It is no part of the scheme that the land should
+be given to the people. On the contrary, a rent should be charged
+them, calculated upon the basis of a percentage on the original outlay
+in the purchase of the estate and of the amount paid in wages,
+together with a small sum to pay off the capital in the course of a
+term of years. The occupant would thus in time become a freeholder,
+and as much interested in maintaining the law as any other proprietor.
+Meanwhile he would, like the Donegal folk mentioned by Mr. Tuke, live
+on hopefully under the rule, for the time being, of the Kingdom, as
+landlord.
+
+I am far from inclined to detract in any way from the merit of Mr.
+Mitchell Henry's project for Imperial reclamation any more than from
+his scheme for draining and for improving the internal navigation of
+Ireland. Although born in Lancashire he is a thorough-bred Irishman,
+and naturally hopeful of his country. But, although I am most
+painfully impressed by the fearful degradation into which a part of
+the Western people has fallen, I cannot on that account shut my eyes
+to their failings any more than to their poverty. Mr. Henry's scheme,
+if it deferred actual proprietorship in fee simple till the next
+generation, would I hope prove of incalculable benefit to Mayo and
+Galway, especially if his excellent idea of appointing agricultural
+instructors were carried out faithfully. But I fear from what I have
+actually seen and heard from the most trustworthy informants of all
+classes, that the forty-acre farmer of this generation would require a
+firm hand to guide him. This is no insolent Saxon assumption of
+superiority, but is said, after due consideration, sadly and
+seriously. The poor people of the West have been brought very low, so
+low that even their very virtues have become perverted into faults.
+They are affectionate to their kith and kin; but this amiable quality
+leads to their huddling together in a curiously gregarious way, and in
+some cases has been made the means of extorting money from them. It is
+this tendency to live together and thus divide and subdivide whatever
+little property they may have, which will require to be most
+strenuously guarded against.
+
+It is of no use assigning to a man forty acres of land to get a living
+out of, if he immediately sublets some of it to a less fortunate
+friend, or takes all his remotest relations into partnership. It
+requires no prophet's eye to discern that the instant the tenant's son
+got married he would bring his wife home to his father's roof, and
+that if the energies of the united family did not suffice to cultivate
+the whole of the forty acres, part would be let at "conacre," that is,
+for the period of one harvest, to a man with or without a holding of
+his own. The tendency to bring several families together in one cabin
+is almost irresistible, and has, as mentioned above, not been wisely
+and firmly met by proprietors, but taken a mean advantage of to wring
+money out of tenants.
+
+Subdivision of holdings has in many cases been, not sternly forbidden
+on pain of eviction, but made the occasion of inflicting a fine. This
+shabby and extortionate kind of protest against subdivision has long
+obtained on certain estates. If one may believe evidence given on oath
+in a court of justice, as reported in a local newspaper, there was
+within the last twenty years on at least one estate a custom of
+exacting a fine from tenants who married without leave. Probably this
+originated in some clumsy attempt to prevent the subdivision of
+holdings and the accumulation of population in certain places--in
+itself a laudable and necessary precaution. Whatever shape any attempt
+to settle the unfortunate peasants on fresh holdings may take, the
+tendency to subdivide and sublet must be sternly resisted--and
+prevented. A thousand excuses will be made for taking partners, for
+subletting on the "conacre" and other systems. "Sure I was sick, your
+honour, and the farrum was gettin' desthroyed;" or, "I was too poor to
+buy seed for the whole of it, and let some at conacre to Thady
+O'Flaherty, that's a good man, your honour, as any in Galway!" or "Wad
+ye have me tur-r-r-n my own childther out like geese on the mountain?"
+are a few of the replies which would, I am assured by a native, be
+made to any inquiry or reproof concerning the subletting of land or
+the accumulation of people. But if any attempt be made to help the
+West, nothing of the kind must be listened to. The young bees must
+depart from the parent hive and begin life on their own account. This
+may appear the harsh judgment of a half-informed traveller. It is, on
+the contrary, the mere reflection of native opinion.
+
+
+
+
+VI.
+
+THE RELIEF OF MR. BOYCOTT.
+
+
+BALLINROBE, CO. MAYO,
+_Wednesday, Nov. 10th._
+
+Finding that despite all the influence brought to bear upon it the
+Boycott Brigade was actually going to invade Lough Mask, I came from
+Galway to-day by the route preferred by Mr. Boycott himself, just
+before I met him and Mrs. Boycott herding sheep more than a fortnight
+ago. The steam packet _Lady Eglinton_ conveyed an oddly assorted
+freight. Among the passengers were Mrs. Burke, the wife of Lord
+Ardilaun's agent, two commercial travellers, the representative of the
+_Daily News_, and thirty-two of the Royal Irish Constabulary, who had
+been summoned from Galway to the scene of action. From every side
+soldiers and constabulary--soldiers in everything but name--converge
+upon Ballinrobe and Claremorris, townlets, which, if one could quite
+believe their artless inhabitants, are Arcadian in their simplicity,
+prosperous to every degree short of the payment of rent, and
+absolutely safe as to life and property.
+
+When the good ship _Lady Eglinton_ had puffed and scraped her way
+through the tortuous shallows of Lough Corrib to Cong, she was
+received by a large meeting of the country folk assembled on the pier.
+Fortunately I had secured a car from Ballinrobe to await my arrival,
+and the driver, a perfect "gem of the sea," received me with high good
+humour. "To Ballinrobe, your honour?" he said, and drove off like a
+true son of Nimshi. As soon as he was fairly on the way, I said that I
+should like to drive to Ballinrobe by Lough Mask House. "It's not on
+our way, your honour," was the first and civil objection. I then
+observed that I wished to go that way in order to call on Mr. Boycott.
+"Sure it's a different way altogether, your honour," was the answer.
+"A long way round, your honour." Then I said, after the brutal Saxon
+fashion, "Go that way, nevertheless." No answer, but the speed of the
+car relaxed until two other cars came up. Then a particularly wild
+Irish conversation was kept up among the drivers, and I observed a
+pleasant commercial gentleman who was bound for the village, as
+distinguished from the landing-place of Cong, laughing consumedly as
+his car branched off and left me to pursue my way in the twilight.
+Then my car-driver, evidently backed by a brother car-driver, put his
+case plainly. He had been engaged to drive a gentleman from Cong to
+Ballinrobe, and would do what he had engaged to do cheerfully, but he
+had not engaged himself to go to Lough Mask House. It was not, as a
+notorious claimant said, "in the contract." I hinted that a mile or
+two out of the way, even Irish miles, could not matter; that at
+complete sundown there would be a moon; that increased pay would be
+given. Not the slightest effect was produced.
+
+My driver would go to Ballinrobe and nowhere else. He had not engaged
+to go to Lough Mask House, and he would not go. I confess that for an
+instant I asked myself should I threaten my man and make him take me
+to Lough Mask whether he liked it or not; but an instant's reflection
+convinced me that any such attempt would be worse than futile. The
+horse would go lame or fall down within a quarter of a mile, and I
+should never arrive anywhere. So I tried coaxing, much against the
+grain, but it was of no use. To Lough Mask House the car-driver would
+not go. He would drive me to Galway or to Newport, "bedad," but "divil
+a fut" would he stir towards the accursed spot. He was good enough to
+say that he would not interfere with me. If I liked to walk, I was
+welcome to do it. Now a walk of seven Irish miles at sundown in a
+steady rain, over a line of road watched at every turn by disaffected
+peasants, was not attractive; so I made a last appeal to my
+car-driver's personal courage--Was he afraid? "Begorra, he was not
+afraid of anything, but would my honour want to set the whole country
+against him?" This is what it all came to. He durst not for his life
+drive anybody to Mr. Boycott's with or without escort. He was
+compelled to form part of the strike.
+
+Here in Ballinrobe we are in a state of siege. About 600 soldiers came
+in last night, who, together with the resident garrison, make a rough
+total of 750 military. Claremorris, I hear, is also strongly occupied
+to-night. In Ballinrobe are now stationed, under Colonel Bedingfeld,
+R.A., commanding the district, two squadrons of the 19th Hussars, or
+123 sabres, commanded by Major Coghill. The Royal Dragoons, under the
+command of Captain Tomkinson, number sixty sabres, and with the
+Hussars will probably perform the main work of convoy to-morrow. The
+Royal Engineers are also represented, and 400 men of the 84th Regiment
+from the Curragh, under Lieut.-Colonel Wilson, have reinforced the
+resident detachment of the 76th Regiment, commanded by Captain Talbot.
+Moreover, there are nearly two hundred Royal Irish Constabulary in the
+town, and the sub-inspector, Mr. McArdle, has his work cut out for
+to-morrow. A great part of the troops are now under canvas, and last
+night were in even worse condition.
+
+As one trudges across the slushy road over Ballinrobe Fair Green, the
+illuminated tents light up the foreground pleasantly, while the moon
+tinges the tree-tops and the river Robe with silver. All is beautiful
+enough were it not for the persistent rattle of the sabre and the
+jingle of the spur. So far as can be ascertained at present the Ulster
+contingent will consist of no more than fifty men, who will probably
+arrive by train at Claremorris about three o'clock to-morrow
+afternoon. Early in the forenoon a hundred infantry and sixty sabres
+of the Royal Dragoons will occupy Lough Mask House and the surrounding
+fields, and about four hundred infantry, a strong detachment of
+police, and the two squadrons of the 19th Hussars will receive the
+harvesters at Claremorris and escort them to Lough Mask House.
+
+It has been suggested that if sufficient cars can be requisitioned the
+Boycott Brigade might be mounted upon them and sent through guarded by
+the cavalry alone. The pace at which this evolution could be performed
+is its greatest recommendation. Any encounter with the people of the
+country side, who are sure to assemble in large numbers, would be
+completely prevented, and, what is of greater importance, the reapers
+would reach their destination before sundown. The long distance from
+Claremorris would be certain to prolong a foot march into the night,
+when all kinds of complication might occur. At the moment of writing
+the streets are dotted with little knots of people, and the excitement
+concerning the morrow is intense.
+
+
+BALLINROBE, CO. MAYO, _Thursday, Nov. 11th._
+
+Hearing that the march of the Ulster men upon Lough Mask House would
+not commence till nearly nightfall, I drove over early this morning to
+Mr. Boycott's in a private carriage, hired cars being, for the reasons
+stated yesterday, quite unattainable. "Did your honour wish to set the
+country on me?" is the only reply vouchsafed by car-drivers since one
+of their body was cruelly beaten, presumably for the unpardonable sin
+of driving a policeman to the house under taboo.
+
+The drive through the warm soft morning air was much pleasanter than
+that of yesterday evening; nor did people start up in an uncomfortable
+way from behind the stone wall, as they did last night. At intervals
+the sun shone out on the reddened foliage, greatly changed in hue
+since my first visit to Lough Mask. The half-dozen persons I met
+appeared to be going about their daily work like good citizens; and a
+casual visitor might, if he could have persuaded anybody to drive him
+along the road to Lough Mask, have gone away convinced that the whole
+story of wrong and outrage was the work of a distempered brain. The
+isolated dwelling itself was by far the most gloomy object in the
+landscape--grey and prison-like as most of the Irish houses of its
+class.
+
+Mr. Boycott's habitation has thoroughly the look of a place in which
+crimes have been, or, as a native of these parts suggested, "ought to
+be committed." Two dark figures of the Royal Irish Constabulary occupy
+the front-door step, and others of the same keep watch and ward over
+stables and ground. Nearly three weeks of painful excitement had made
+but slight change in Mr. Boycott's family. His wife and daughter live
+under circumstances which would drive many people mad, and the
+combative land-agent and farmer himself maintains a belligerent
+attitude, the grey head and slight spare figure bowed, but by no means
+in submission. On the contrary, never was Mr. Boycott's attitude more
+defiant. It is only by skilful subterfuge that he can get a shirt
+washed for his outer, or a loaf of bread made for his inner man. The
+underground routes which existed a fortnight ago are closed. In fact
+"every earth is stopped," and the hunted man is driven to the open.
+Not a soul will sell him sixpence-worth of anything. He cannot even
+get a glass for his watch, for the watch-maker no more than anybody
+else dare serve him. Every feature of his extraordinary situation
+depicted in my first letter on "Disturbed Ireland" is exaggerated
+almost to distortion.
+
+Last evening the following letter was handed to him by the tenants of
+Lord Erne:--"Kilmore. Nov. 10, 1880. C.C. Boycott, Esq. Sir,--In
+accordance with the decision made in Lord Erne's last letter to us, we
+want you to appoint a day to receive the rents.--THE TENANTS. A reply
+requested."
+
+Mr. Boycott's reply was that he was ready to receive the rents at ten
+o'clock this morning, an hour after which time he received the
+following notice:--"The tenants request an answer to the following
+before they pay you the rent:--1st. Don't you wish you may get it?
+2nd. When do you expect the Orangemen, and how are they to come? 3rd.
+When are you going to hook it? Let us know, so that we may see you
+off. 4th. Are you any way comfortable? Don't be uneasy in your mind:
+we'll take care of you. Down with the landlords and agents. God save
+Ireland." Such communications as this are agreeable and amusing enough
+when addressed to a distant friend, but are hardly so diverting when
+directed to one's self. It is also disquieting to hear people say, as
+one passes, "He will not hear the birds sing in spring."
+
+Next to open and secret enemies, indiscreet friends are, perhaps, the
+most disagreeable of created beings. Unfortunate Mr. Boycott, who
+wanted a score, at most, of Northern men to get in his crop, has been
+threatened with an invasion from Ulster. The opposition of the
+Government to such "Ulsterior" measures, as a Galway man called them
+to-day, has at least had the effect of moderating the rancour of the
+relief expedition. Only fifty, with baggage and implements, are
+announced as on the march, but even this number is a hideous
+infliction on Mr. Boycott. He has nowhere to lodge them but in a
+barn, and has assuredly not the wherewithal to feed them, so that
+their help and sympathy are somewhat overwhelming. Three hundred men
+of the 76th Regiment have been sent over from Castlebar to Claremorris
+to keep order, with Captain Webster's squadron of the 19th Hussars to
+furnish escort to Hollymount, where a troop of the Royals, under
+Lieutenant Rutledge, and 200 men of the 84th Regiment meet them. To
+Lough Mask House itself a squadron of the 19th Hussars and 100
+infantry have been despatched to occupy the ground inspected and
+selected this morning by Colonel Bedingfeld and Captain Tomkinson
+during my visit to Mr. Boycott.
+
+
+BALLINROBE, CO. MAYO, _Friday Night, Nov. 12th._
+
+The march of the Ulster contingent last evening commenced smoothly
+enough at Claremorris. The dismal little country station was lined
+with troops, and perhaps made a more brilliant show than at any other
+period during its existence. After the manner of this part of the
+country the train due at 2.41 arrived at 3.30 P.M., and it was almost
+twilight before the well-guarded procession commenced. Perhaps two
+thousand persons assembled at dreary Claremorris, but the small
+representation of the country side made up for the paucity of its
+numbers by the loudness of its voice. The groans which announced the
+arrival of the train were repeated again and again as the sixty-three
+officers and men of the Ulster contingent made their way towards the
+cars engaged for them. At the cars, however, some difficulty occurred;
+for the drivers absolutely refused to carry anybody but police. They
+were not bound, they said, to carry Orangemen, and would not carry
+them. This difficulty occasioned some little hustling, but the upshot
+was that the Ulster men, a well-grown, powerful set of fellows, were
+compelled to walk all the way from Claremorris to the infantry
+barracks at Ballinrobe.
+
+The march was inexpressibly dreary. When any sound was heard it was a
+yell, and these expressions of disapprobation were repeated at
+Hollymount, and with increased vigour at Ballinrobe, where the streets
+were full of people. The Boycott Brigade was last night kept strictly
+within barracks, not a soul being allowed to venture out of the gate.
+
+The general aspect of everybody and everything in Ballinrobe this
+morning expressed fatigue. The Ulster contingent, who call themselves
+"workmen," were terribly knocked up by their walk of about thirteen
+miles from Claremorris, a fact which hardly speaks well for their
+thews and sinews, but in fairness it must be admitted that they were
+obliged to undertake their march after a long and fatiguing railway
+journey, at sundown, on a muddy road, and in alternate light and heavy
+rain. They were also poorly fed, for their carts and implements
+generally only came in here this afternoon, escorted by the Royal
+Dragoons, under Captain Tomkinson, during part of the distance, and
+for the remainder by a troop of the 19th Hussars; wherefore the Ulster
+"workmen" hardly appeared to advantage this morning until breakfast
+had been supplied them in the infantry barracks. Then they
+straightened their backs and stood squarely enough to make a very old
+soldier exclaim with delight, "Foine men, sorr, they'd be with me to
+dhrill 'um for a couple o' weeks."
+
+Poorly fed as the Orangemen were, their case was not nearly so hard as
+that of the military. It is all very well to send "the fut and the
+dhragoons in squadhrons and plathoons" to the fore, but it is not
+clever to send them to Ballinrobe or elsewhere without tents, baggage,
+or food. That furious Ulster Tories, "spoiling for a fight," should
+leave everything but repeating rifles and revolving pistols behind
+when rushing to possible fray is quite conceivable; but that the
+Control Department should always blunder when troops are moved rapidly
+is not quite so easy to understand.
+
+By what appears almost persistent clumsiness the troops sent hither
+were allowed to arrive many hours before their tents, baggage, and
+provisions. Suddenly ordered to leave Dublin, two squadrons of the
+19th Hussars, a not very huge or unmanageable army of a hundred and
+twenty men, came away without being allowed to bring rations with
+them. The effect of this blundering is that the Hussars have been
+pursued by their food and tents, and on the night of their arrival
+were utterly without any accommodation whatever. The cooking pots have
+only just arrived here. Why it should take three days to convey a
+cooking pot over the distance a man travels in less than ten hours it
+is difficult to imagine; but the fact is absolutely true,
+nevertheless. The officer commanding the unlucky Hussars has more
+cause to complain than any of his men, for, owing to an accident to
+his own charger on the railway platform, he was obliged to ride a
+fresh horse, which, startled by the crowd, yesterday reared suddenly,
+and fell backwards upon Major Coghill, who is now confined to his
+room. It is hoped that no bones are broken, but this is not yet
+accurately ascertained, so great is the swelling and inflammation.
+
+The hour of starting was late, by reason of everybody being tired with
+the hard, dull, wet work of yesterday, unrelieved by the slightest
+approach to a breach of the peace. Fatigue and disappointment had done
+their work, and only a few of the more ardent and sanguine spirits
+looked cheerfully forward to the march to Lough Mask House. The
+Orangemen, however, had not lost all hope, and one stalwart fellow,
+who told me he was a steward, and not an agricultural labourer,
+rejoiced in carrying a perfect arsenal, including a double-barrelled
+gun of his own, a "repeater" of Mr. Maxwell's, and several full-sized
+revolvers. This honest fellow confessed that digging potatoes and
+pulling mangolds were not his regular occupations, but that he had
+come "for the fun of the thing," and to show them there were still
+"loyal men left in Ireland." This is hardly the place in which to
+discuss the loyalty which goes on an amateur potato-digging excursion
+armed with Remington rifles and navy revolvers and escorted by an army
+of horse, foot, and police.
+
+The quality of loyalty, like that of mercy, is not strained, but it
+has fallen upon Mayo unlike the "gentle dew from heaven." The people
+here are undoubtedly cowed by the overwhelming display of military
+force, but they vow revenge for the affront put upon the soil of the
+county by the Northern invaders. Against the soldiers no animosity is
+felt, but the hatred against the cause of their presence is bitter and
+profound. Mayo has its back up, and only waits for an opportunity of
+vengeance.
+
+At eleven o'clock the march from the barracks to Lough Mask commenced.
+First came a strong detachment of constabulary, then a squadron of the
+19th Hussars, commanded by Captain Webster, and next two hundred men
+of the 84th and 76th Regiments, who completely surrounded and enclosed
+the so-called "workmen" and their leaders, Mr. Somerset Maxwell, who
+contested Cavan at the last election in the Conservative interest,
+and Mr. Goddard, a solicitor of Monaghan, who led the men of that
+county, with whom was the Mr. Manning to whose letters in the _Daily
+Express_, a Dublin newspaper, the Orange movement is attributed in
+this part of the country. In the rear came the men and waggons of the
+Army Service Corps.
+
+To the astonishment of most of those who formed part of the procession
+the number of persons assembled to witness it was almost ridiculously
+small, and popular indignation roared as gently as a sucking-dove. In
+their own opinion the most law-abiding of Her Majesty's subjects, the
+Ballinrobe folk indulged but very slightly in groaning or hissing, and
+when the little army got clear of the town its sole followers were a
+couple of cars, a market cart, and a private gig driven by a lady, the
+tag-rag and bobtail being made up of a dozen bare-legged girls, whose
+scoffs and jeers never went beyond the inquiry, "Wad ye dig auld
+Boycott's pitaties, thin?" There was no wit or humour racy of the
+soil, no flashes of bitter sarcasm, no pungent observations: everybody
+felt that the thing was going off like a damp firework, and that,
+bating the "Dead March" from _Saul_, it was very like a funeral.
+Still, those who ought to know declared that the absence of any
+demonstration was in itself a bad sign. Hardly any men were seen on
+the line of march, but it was said that scouts were on every hill, and
+that pains were being taken to identify the Orangemen. It was also
+heard on the best authority that Mr. Ruttledge's herds had been
+threatened and ordered to quit his service by the mysterious agency
+which rules the rural mind of Mayo.
+
+Silently, except for an occasional laugh or two from a colleen
+standing by the wayside, we kept the line of march towards Lough Mask.
+At the village, standing on two townlands, a few more spectators hove
+in sight, but at no point could more than a dozen be counted. As the
+sun now shone through the western sky it revealed a picturesque as
+well as interesting scene.
+
+Like a huge red serpent with black head and tail, the convoy wound
+gradually up a slight hill, the scarlet thrown into relief by the long
+line of grey walls on either side, beyond which lay green fields and
+clumps of trees dyed with the myriad hues of autumn, the distance
+being filled in by the purple mountains beyond Lough Mask. Presently
+came the angle which marks the extremity of Captain Boycott's land.
+Taking the road to the right, we approached the house under ban, and
+around which a crowd of peasants had been expected. The only human
+beings in sight were the police guarding the entrance by the lodge,
+and those stationed near the hut on a slight eminence to the right.
+Here the surrounding trees contrasted vividly with the animated and
+highly coloured scenes beneath. Completely enclosed by foliage was an
+encampment of the most picturesque kind.
+
+On the greenest of all possible fields in front of the tents the
+officers commanding the escort, the leaders of the Ulster Brigade, and
+the resident magistrates were received by Mr. Boycott, who appeared in
+a dark shooting-dress and cap, and carried a double-barrelled gun in
+his hand. A little further on stood Mrs. Boycott and her nephew and
+niece, the house itself seeming almost deserted. The workmen, like the
+troopers, formed in line, and appeared to be equally well armed.
+
+Presently the arduous task of stowing the uninvited Northern
+contingent was undertaken. The troops, who had remained on the ground
+all night, and had been reduced to straits by the failure of the
+commissariat, had, after some reflection and the exercise of
+considerable patience, taken care of themselves as best they might.
+Sheep had been slain, and chickens and geese had lent savoury aid to
+the banquet of the warriors, who also, in the absence of other fuel,
+were constrained to make short work of Lord Erne's trees. But they had
+done their work cheerfully in the cold and wet, and had pitched tents
+for the Ulster men. When the belligerent "agriculturists" came to be
+told off into these tents an amusing difficulty, illustrative of the
+light handling necessary to the conduct of affairs in Ireland,
+interrupted the dulness which had hitherto oppressed all present.
+
+Those "agriculturists" who hailed from Cavan insisted that they would
+foregather only with Cavan men, while the men of Monaghan were equally
+indisposed to give a Cavan man "as much space as a lark could stand
+on" in their tents. Moreover some jealousy was exhibited as to the
+situation and furniture of the tents assigned to the two wings of the
+army of relief. At last harmony was restored, and the edifying
+spectacle of Cavan and Monaghan fighting it out then and there, while
+Mayo looked on, was averted, greatly to the sorrow of a Mayo friend of
+mine, whose eyes sparkled and whose mouth watered at the delicious
+prospect.
+
+It seems that Mr. Boycott, fully aware of the feelings of Mayo folk
+after having Orangemen set on them, is about to leave the country, at
+least for a while, after his crop has been got in--probably a rational
+decision on his part. Meanwhile he is having a hard time of it between
+friends and foes. His enemies have spoiled a great part of his crop,
+and what they have left his defenders threaten to devour.
+
+
+BALLINROBE, CO. MAYO, _Nov. 13._
+
+A wild night of wind and rain was borne with unflagging spirit by the
+unlucky troops condemned to the most uncongenial of tasks. The fair
+green of Ballinrobe is now a quagmire, and the men under canvas have
+had the roughest possible night of it. Only two tents were actually
+carried away, but the hurricane made all those in the others
+uncomfortable enough. For ordinary pedestrians, perhaps, the slush of
+this morning was better than the sticky mud of yesterday, in which it
+was impossible to move; but the autumnal charm of Ballinrobe was gone
+for this year.
+
+In the cavalry encampment the leaves lay thick around the unfortunate
+horses exposed to the weather with miserably insufficient covering.
+There was a general air of wetness and wretchedness from the infantry
+to the cavalry barracks, and some misgivings were entertained as to
+the condition of the garrison of Lough Mask House. General opinion has
+set in decidedly against the Ulster contingent: horse and foot, and
+police, magistrates and floating population unite in wishing the
+Ulster Orangemen "five fathoms under the Rialto." In the language of
+those who dwell habitually on the banks of the river the wish is
+epigrammatically expressed, "May the Robe be their winding-sheet."
+
+Originally imagined as a scheme to force the hand of the Government,
+the Ulster invasion has been so far successful. The great actual
+mischief has been already done. According to public opinion in Mayo,
+the Government had no more than the traditional three courses open to
+them--they could have let armed Ulster come in hundreds or thousands,
+an invading force, and civil war would have ensued; they could have
+allowed the small number of labourers really needed by Mr. Boycott to
+arrive by threes and fours, at the risk of not getting alive to Lough
+Mask at all; and they could do as they have done. The probable effect
+of the movement, if any, will be to bring Mr. Somerset-Maxwell to the
+fore at the next contest for the county of Cavan. It may be imagined
+that the picked men of Monaghan are not very pleased at playing second
+fiddle to an electioneering scheme. Concerning Cavan, the hope of a
+fight between the men of the two counties has by no means died away.
+
+To do justice to the Ulster men, they displayed a great deal of
+earnestness at Lough Mask House this morning. In the midst of a
+hurricane a large number of them went bravely out to a potato field
+and worked with a conscience at getting out the national vegetables,
+which ran a risk of being completely spoiled by the rain. The
+potatoes, however, might, as Mr. Boycott opined, have been spoiled if
+they had remained in the ground, and might as well be ruined in one
+way as the other.
+
+The remainder of the Orangemen, when I saw them, were busy in the barn
+with a so-called "Tiny" threshing-machine, threshing Mr. Boycott's
+oats with all the seriousness and solemn purpose befitting their task.
+Nothing could have been more dreary and wretched than the entire
+proceedings. Mr. Boycott himself had discarded his martial array of
+yesterday, and appeared in a herdsman's overcoat of venerable age,
+and, as he grasped a crook instead of a double-barrelled gun, looked
+every inch a patriarch. He exhibits no profuse gratitude towards the
+officious persons who have come to help him, thinking probably that he
+would have been nearly as well without them. Thanks to his obstructive
+assistants, he is almost overwhelmed with sympathisers gifted by
+nature with tremendous appetites. Keen-eyed officers detect the
+mutton-bones which tell of unauthorised ovicide, and "clutches" of
+geese and chickens vanish as if by magic. There will be a fearful bill
+for somebody to pay when the whole business is over, whenever that may
+be.
+
+From every quarter I hear acts of the so-called "staunchness" of the
+population. When Captain Tomkinson went over to Claremorris yesterday
+with dragoons to convey the carts and other impediments of the Ulster
+division, it happened that one of the cart-horses lost a shoe. Will it
+be believed that it was necessary to delude the only blacksmith who
+could be captured with a story that the animal belonged to the Army
+Service Corps? Simple and artless, the Claremorris blacksmith made the
+shoe: but before he could put it on he was "infawrrumd" that the beast
+he was working for was in an Ulster cart. Down fell the hammer, the
+nails, and the shoe. The blacksmith was immovable. Not a blow more
+would he strike for love or money; nor would any blacksmith for miles
+around this place. At last the shoe was got on to the horse's foot
+among the military and police; but not a soul belonging to this part
+of the country would drive a cart at any price.
+
+All this appears to point to the conclusion that when Mr. Boycott's
+potatoes, turnips, and mangolds are got in, and his oats are threshed
+out, when his sheep are either sold or devoured on the spot by his
+hungry defenders, he will accompany the Orangemen on their return
+march, at least to the nearest railway station. That neither he nor
+his auxiliaries would be safe for a single hour after the departure of
+the military is certain, and the expense of maintaining a huge
+garrison in Ballinrobe will therefore of necessity continue until the
+last potato is dug and the last turnip pulled.[1] If the weather were
+only moderately favourable, the work might be got through in a week or
+ten days; but if it rains as it has done to-day, it is quite
+impossible to say when it will be done. As I was looking at the men
+potato-digging the rain seemed to cut at one's face like a whip, and
+all through the afternoon Ballinrobe has been deluged. In this
+beautiful island everybody disregards ordinary rain, but the downpour
+of the last few days is quite extraordinary. The river is swollen to
+double its usual size, and the slushy misery endured by the military
+under canvas is quite beyond general camp experience. The soldiers
+have only one consolation--that the Orangemen are under canvas too.
+
+
+GALWAY, _Tuesday, Nov. 16th._
+
+"Thim that is snug, your honour, is slower in payin' than thim that is
+poor," said one of my informants a few days ago, just as I was setting
+out for the seat of war in county Mayo. The speaker was a Connemara
+man, and his remark was applied more particularly to his own region;
+but the state of affairs in the neighbouring county illustrates his
+opinion in the most vivid colours.
+
+Ballinrobe is the centre of a by no means unprosperous part of
+Ireland. Pretty homesteads are frequent, and well-furnished stackyards
+refresh the eye wearied with looking upon want and desolation. Between
+Ballinrobe and Hollymount the country is agreeably fertile; toward
+Cong and Cloonbur, where Lord Mountmorres was shot, and in the
+direction of Headford, on the Galway road, there is plenty of evidence
+of prosperity. It is, however, precisely in the rich country lying
+east of Lough Mask that the greatest disinclination to pay rent
+prevails. Nowhere is the disaffected party more completely organized,
+and nowhere is it, rightly or wrongly, thought that some of the
+tenants could more easily pay up if they liked. As contrasted with
+the hovels of the northern part of Mayo and the west of county
+Galway, the houses at Ballinrobe are comfortable, and the people
+apparently naturally well off. Moreover, they have a better idea of
+what comfort is than the inhabitants of the seaboard. I cannot better
+show this than by describing the houses in which I passed part, at
+least, of the last two Sundays.
+
+When I arrived at Ballinrobe on Wednesday last it was almost
+impossible to obtain quarters either for love or money. I had
+telegraphed beforehand to that most civil and obliging of
+hotel-keepers, Mr. Valkenburgh, of Ballinrobe, to secure rooms for me
+and send a car to Cong. The car came, and the driver with whom I had
+the debate already recorded, but it had been impossible to obtain a
+room for me anywhere. Mr. Valkenburgh's own house was crammed to the
+roof with closely laid strata of guests, from the American reporter
+under the roof to the cavalry officer in the front parlour. There was
+nothing for it but to be bedded out--a severe infliction in some parts
+of Ireland. The polite hotel-keeper finally bethought him that in the
+house of a widow, who had only four officers of Hussars staying with
+her, a stray corner could be found; and I was finally established in
+the widow's drawing-room or best parlour, in which a cot, only a foot
+too short for me, was placed.
+
+The excellent woman, whose house was converted into military
+quarters, is by no means rich. Her late husband was in the office of a
+neighbouring landlord, and would appear to have been just getting on
+in the world when he died. He certainly lived in a house properly so
+called; not a house in the Irish meaning of the word, which includes a
+Connemara cabin. It is only one storey high. The ground floor is
+occupied by two parlours, a kitchen, and offices; the bedrooms being
+upstairs. There are curious signs of better times about the place. My
+bed was far too short, but by the side of it was an old-fashioned
+square pianoforte. There was no carpet on the floor, but the lamp was
+a very good one, and well trimmed. The fire was entirely of turf, but
+of enormous size, and on the mantelpiece were some excellent
+photographs. Hens clucked as they hopped on to the table, and a
+red-headed colleen was perpetually chasing a cat of almost equally
+ruddy hue, but everybody was mightily civil and kindly. The room was
+full of peat-smoke, but the eggs were undeniably fresh; so that there
+were compensations on every side. The widow, her step-daughter, and
+the colleen before mentioned did all the work. They made my bed, what
+there was of it, they tended the fire with unflagging zeal, they
+brought water in very limited quantity for the purposes of ablution,
+they dried my boots and clothes with almost motherly care and
+tenderness when I came in out of the pouring rain. In fact, nobody
+could have been kinder or more attentive, and when Major Coghill was
+laid up by his accident their sympathy was almost overwhelming. Yet I
+believe that we annoyed them and deranged the tenor of their lives by
+our matutinal habits. Perhaps they might have been strong enough to
+resist my desperate efforts to get a cup of tea at some time before
+nine o'clock in the morning, but the officers' servants were too
+strong for them. They came and knocked the house up betimes, and then
+the bustle of the day began.
+
+Now, I have been assured by the Irish priests and people that whatever
+faults your Commissioner may have, prejudice against Ireland and the
+Irish is not one of them. But at the risk of being thought a
+censorious Saxon I must confess that I am quite at issue with Western
+Ireland on the question of early rising. It is impossible to get
+anybody out of bed in the morning except the Boots at an hotel, and
+then the chances are that no hot water is to be obtained.
+
+A housemaid in one of the Mayo hotels on coming up to make a fire
+complained bitterly, not of the toil of coming up stairs, but of the
+early hour of ten, and do what I would I could get nothing done
+earlier. On another occasion I was told that people out West rose late
+because the "day is long enough for hwhat we have got to do." I
+retorted that they did not do it, but fear that my remark was put
+down to prejudice. It is not my function to indulge in sweeping
+assertions, but if I were asked why the Western people do not prosper
+I should be inclined to reply--Because they will not turn out early in
+the morning.
+
+But they are pleasant people in Ballinrobe nevertheless. Our widow
+never complained of our unearthly hours any more than we did of the
+turf smoke which communicated a high flavour to all our habiliments.
+The widow, although not rich, is evidently "snug" in her
+circumstances. She has a farm or two, part of which is underlet of
+course. This is another peculiarity of Irish life very remarkable to
+the stranger. Everybody seems to do work by deputy. A proprietor of a
+landed estate, not worth a thousand pounds a year when interest is
+paid on the various mortgages, would never think of being his own
+agent--that is doing his own work on his own estate. Not at all. He
+employs an agent who, thinking him rather small fry, neglects him or
+hands him over to the bailiff, who again transfers him to his
+"headmen," so that three people are paid for looking on before anybody
+does anything. This practice also may be in part the cause of the
+decay of the wild West.
+
+I have been so far particular in my remarks concerning the Ballinrobe
+widow, in order to compare the inland standard of comfort with that
+prevailing on the sea-coast. Just before the Ulster invasion as it is
+called here, I was induced to go to Omey Island. It is a place of evil
+repute for poverty, but is as healthy as it ought to be, having the
+blue Atlantic for one lung and the brown hills of Connemara for the
+other. It is one of those interesting islands which become peninsulas
+at low tide, a charming natural feature making it a matter of tidal
+calculation whether one can drive on board of them or not. It is not
+as bad as Innishark, which requires a trained gymnast to effect a
+landing, for it only needs nimbleness of brain instead of that of
+limbs.
+
+While that zealous and hard-working young minister of the gospel,
+Father Rhatigan, was saying mass, and visiting that part of his flock
+congregated at Claddaghduff Chapel, I made my way over the
+intermittent isthmus of dry, hard, fine sand. It was an agreeable
+change from the road, which for some distance had lain over a "shaved
+bog"--that is, a locality from which the peat had been cut away down
+to its rocky bed. For some distance nothing was visible but stones, on
+which the rain came plashing down like a cataract. But the aspect and
+situation of Omey Island are such as to suggest to the speculative
+mind another and better Scheveningen without anything between it and
+Labrador. The island is not, however, purely sandbank, as Scheveningen
+appears to be, for it has a nucleus of rock, the sand being a later
+accumulation, every year increasing in volume, after the manner
+observed in Donegal, or as stones are amassed at Dungeness. I had
+heard wild stories of Omey Island, of troglodytes, hungry dwellers in
+rocky seaside caves, and rabbit-people burrowing in the sand. As
+Maundeville observes, "Verilie I have not seen them," but I can quite
+understand how the story was spread.
+
+Over against the inhabited part of the island is what is now a mere
+sandbank. It is now covered with sand, and not a soul dwells thereon.
+But there were people there once who clung to their stone cabins till
+the sand finally covered them; so that they might fairly be described
+as dwellers or burrowers therein. At last their cabins became sanded
+up, and the poor folk moved to their present situation. Now I have
+seen superb potatoes grown literally in the sand at Scheveningen, and
+was not surprised to hear that Omey Island was once so famous for the
+national staff of life that few cared to grow anything else. But there
+are difficulties everywhere, and it is parlous work to break up ground
+at Omey. There is too much fresh air; for it blows so hard that people
+are afraid to disturb the thin covering of herbage which overspreads
+the best part of the island. "If ye break the shkin of 'um, your
+honour, the wind blows the sand away and leaves your pitaties bare.
+And, begorra, there are nights when the pitaties thimselves 'ud be
+blown away."
+
+Statements like this must always be taken at a reduction, but,
+judging from my own experience, Omey is a "grand place for weather
+entirely." Half of the island is rented by a considerable farmer, for
+these parts. He pays a hundred pounds a year for his farm at Omey, and
+a hundred and fifty for another cattle farm up on the hills. When I
+said he "pays," I am not at all sure whether he has paid up this year
+or not, but he has flocks and herds, and of course is a responsible
+tenant. Yet he lives with his family in but a "bettermost" sort of
+cabin. His wife treated me most hospitably; in fact, she paid me too
+much honour, for she insisted that I should not sit round the fire
+with the countryfolk, but occupy the best parlour, a room large
+enough, but blackened with smoke, and unutterably depressing, despite
+the cabinet pianoforte opposite the fireplace. Musical instruments of
+torture appear to be considered a necessary mark of competence in
+Western Ireland, just as a big watch-chain is in certain parts of
+England. Not a soul on Omey Island could play the pianoforte, thank
+heaven; so it remained with its back against the wall, as mute
+evidence of solvency. There was no carpet on the floor, which was of a
+fine dirt-colour, and the chickens, ducks, and geese circulated freely
+about.
+
+Here now was a man paying, or promising to pay, 250l. a year in rent,
+and who yet seemed to have not the faintest idea of comfort. It should
+be recollected that my visit was paid on a Sunday, when his family
+would be seen at their best; but the girls were running about with
+bare feet and dirty faces, and the neighbouring gossips, also
+barefooted and dirty beyond all imagination, were hanging round the
+fire, talking amongst themselves about the stranger, and half mad with
+curiosity concerning him. The farmer lived, it is true, in a wild
+place; but sand is so clean a thing in itself that it is a mystery how
+his tribe of children got so abominably dirty.
+
+The drive homeward past Streamstown was wet enough, but still
+interesting in many ways. In no part of Ireland has the curse of
+middlemen been felt more severely than in Connemara. The middleman is
+specially abhorrent to the people when he is one of themselves. He is
+"not a gentleman, sure," is a deadly reproach in this part of the
+country. Practically he is objectionable because, being one of the
+people, he is aware of their tricks and their ways, and suspects them
+as they hate and suspect him. What would be urbanity on the part of
+the real "masther" is in the middleman viewed as deceit. The sharp
+tone of command endurable in a superior is resented when employed by a
+person of low origin. And it would seem that middlemen are not as a
+race persons of agreeable character. All the old rags of feudalism
+which have hung about Connemara long after their annihilation
+elsewhere, have been saved wherever it was possible by the middleman.
+
+I am not quite certain that any one of these has ever "hung out his
+flag for fish" after the manner of the old proprietors who, when they
+wanted fish for dinner, made their tenants obey their signal and put
+back, whatever might be the chance of the night's catch. This flag
+was, so "men seyn," hung out often by the Bodkins, the ancient owners
+of Omey Island, but how long it is since it was last done is hardly
+worth while to inquire. Far more interesting is the much talked of
+"survival" of feudalism in the shape of what is called "duty work."
+Something analogous to the _corvee_ existed, I believe, in Hungary
+till a comparatively recent period, when it was commuted for rent.
+Within the limits of the English Kingdom, however, stories about "duty
+work" clash oddly on the ear, and yet I am assured that in the lesser
+island of Turk such work has been insisted on and "processed" for
+within twelve or eighteen months. Vexatious processes are not
+undertaken just now for very obvious reasons.
+
+"Duty work," so far as I can gather, is, or was--for no such work will
+be done again in Ireland--a modified, form of the _corvee_. Here and
+there it was enforced in various shapes. At Omey, in Aughrisbeg, at
+Fountainhill, and at the lesser isle of Turk, the conditions varied
+greatly. The general principle appears to have been that besides rent
+in money, fine on entry, and dues analogous to tithes on stock of pigs
+and poultry, a certain number of days in the year were the property
+of the landlord. The usual term was about a week in spring and a week
+at harvest-time. In some places five days only were exacted; in others
+three. In the case concerning which I am best instructed, five days in
+spring and five in harvest-time were demanded, together with any one
+day in the year on which the tenant might be wanted, at a wage of
+sixpence. If the tenant refuse "duty work" he may be sued in
+court--the damage incurred by his default being generally assessed at
+five pounds.
+
+Now it does not require any very clear perception to discover that
+among agriculturists or fishermen "duty work" is an improper mode of
+levying tax. In spring and autumn, and especially in the latter, the
+tenant requires for getting in his own crop precisely the week that
+the landlord is entitled to claim. Yet he must leave his own to assist
+his landlord. On one of the little islands, let to a middleman, all
+the evil features of the _corvee_ are brought into prominence. The
+island produces three kinds of sea-weed, the so-called "red weed," cut
+off the rocks and used for kelp; the "black weed" on the shore, used
+for manure for potato-fields--often the only manure to be got; and the
+drift, or mixed weed.
+
+After spring tides there is a great mass of drift-weed on the rocks,
+half of which is on the territory reserved by the middleman, and the
+other on that half rented by the tenants. The latter must give their
+master his day's work first to get in his weed, and take the chance of
+seeing their own washed away during the night.
+
+From Ballynakill--where the ribs rising in the green grass-land, like
+waves in an emerald sea, tell of extinct cultivation, of depopulated
+villages, and an "exterminated" people--to the supremely wretched
+islands of Bofin and Turk, the record is fearfully consistent. A
+people first neglected, and then crushed by evictions, has sunk quite
+below the level of civilization.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 1: This prediction was literally fulfilled.]
+
+
+
+
+VII.
+
+MR. RICHARD STACPOOLE.
+
+
+ENNIS, CO. CLARE, _Nov. 21st._
+
+At the seat of war by Lough Mask, I was informed that it would be
+sheer waste of time to go to Clare; that all was peaceful in the
+county which Daniel O'Connell formerly represented in Parliament; that
+at Ennis, under the shadow of the Liberator's statue, rebel commotion
+was unknown. All was quiet. It was true that people did not pay their
+rent, but that was all. I should waste my time, and so forth. But no
+sooner had I set foot in Ennis than I found that the _jacquerie_ which
+broke out in Mayo and Galway had reached county Clare, and that at
+least one gentleman living close to the principal town is at war with
+his tenants and the country side.
+
+The condition of affairs at Edenvale is in many respects even more
+curious than that at Lough Mask House. There is none of the pomp and
+circumstance of open war. There is not a soldier or a policeman on the
+premises. All is calm and pastoral. From a lodge so neat and trim
+that it is a pleasure to look upon it, a well-kept road winds through
+a well-wooded and beautiful park, in the centre of which, on the brink
+of a lake, stands a large and handsome country house. All is
+ship-shape, from the gravel on the path to the knocker on the door,
+which is promptly opened, without grating of bolt or rattle of chain,
+by a clean, well-dressed, civil servitor.
+
+All such signs of peace, order, and plenty are very noteworthy after
+one has been four or five weeks in Mayo and Galway, and convey a first
+impression that law, order, and civilization generally are to the fore
+in county Clare. The large and handsome drawing-room strengthens the
+conviction that here at least life and property are secure. It is true
+that several double-barrelled guns are on the hall-table; but country
+gentlemen in Ireland go out shooting as they do elsewhere. Several
+large dogs, too, are running about outside the house; but as Mr.
+Richard Stacpoole is a celebrated sportsman, there is nothing
+wonderful in that.
+
+Mr. Stacpoole, whose appearance and manner are as frank as his welcome
+is hearty, is by no means reticent as to the matters in debate between
+him and the tenants holding from him and other members of his family
+for whom he acts as agent. To the question whether he goes in fear of
+his life, he replies, "Not at all; I take care of that," and out of
+the pocket of his lounging jacket he takes a revolver of very large
+bore. It is a curious picture, this drawing-room at Edenvale. On his
+own hearth-rug, in his own house, with a silky white Maltese lapdog
+and a beautiful terrier nestling at his feet, stands no English or
+Scotch interloper, agent, middleman, or "land-grabber," but the
+representative of one of the oldest, most honourable, and, I may add,
+till recently most honoured families in the county, with his hand on
+the pistol which is never out of his reach by day or night. There was
+once no more popular man in Clare. His steeplechasers win glory for
+Ireland at Liverpool, whether they return a profit to their owner or
+not. He keeps up, with slight assistance from members of the Hunt, a
+pack of harriers, and hunts them himself. His cousin, the late Captain
+Stacpoole, of Ballyalla, was the well-known "silent member" who for
+twenty years represented Ennis in Parliament. Finally, he is spending
+at least 3,000l. a year in household expenses alone; but he never
+leaves his revolver; and he is in the right, for not two hours ago a
+local leader declared to me with pale face and flaming eyes that he
+would "gladly go to the gallows for 'um."
+
+But the local leader does not, or at least has not yet shot at Mr.
+Stacpoole because he "can't get at 'um"--a phrase which requires some
+explanation. I had, with an eye becoming practised in such matters,
+scanned the house and its approaches as I drove up to the door, and
+had discussed with the friend who introduced me to its master the
+chances of "stalking" that gentleman on his own ground. Trees and
+brushwood grew more closely to the house than a military engineer
+would have permitted, and I hazarded the opinion that it would be easy
+to "do him over," as it is called. But on talking to Mr. Stacpoole I
+quickly discover that the real reason why he is now alive is that
+ninety-nine out of a hundred of his enemies are as afraid of him as
+the Glenveagh folk up in Donegal are of Mr. J.G. Adair. Brave and
+resolute to a fault, he has openly declared his dislike for what is
+called "protection." "But," he observes, quietly and simply, "I always
+carry my large-bore revolver, and I never walk alone, even across the
+path to look down at the lake. Whenever I go out, and wherever I go, I
+have a trustworthy man with me carrying a double-barrelled gun. His
+orders are distinct. If anybody fires at me he is not to look at me,
+but let me lie, and kill the man who fired the shot. And I am not sure
+that if he saw an armed man near me in a suspicious attitude that he
+wouldn't shoot first. I most certainly will myself. If I catch any of
+them armed and lurking about here near my house, I will kill them, and
+they know it."
+
+There was no appearance of emotion in the speaker, whose collection of
+threatening letters is large and curious. His position was clearly
+defined. There was no longer any law in Clare. It was everybody for
+himself, and he would take care of himself in his own way. Mr.
+Stacpoole's situation is certainly extraordinary. He is not an
+"exterminator," but perhaps he is a "tyrant," for everybody is
+considered one who tries to exact obedience from any created being in
+the west of Ireland. He has incurred the ill-will of the popular
+party, mainly through his debate with one Welsh, or Walsh, a small
+farmer.
+
+So far as it is possible to understand the matter, this Welsh and two
+other persons held a farm of about fifty acres among them as
+co-tenants, paying each one-third of the rent. Whether Welsh had
+reclaimed bog and increased his store is not clear, but it is certain
+that when the lease fell in he had about half of the farm and the
+other two tenants the other half between them.
+
+Moreover, the land was not "striped" in blocks, but remained in
+awkward patches, so that each man was obliged to cross the other's
+land, and perpetual squabbling occurred. So when the question of a new
+lease arose, Mr. Stacpoole sent a surveyor to divide the holding into
+three equal shares as justly and conveniently as might be with
+reference to the tenants' houses. This was done, the land was
+re-valued at 12s. 6d. per acre, the tenants preferring to hold it
+without a lease. Thus two were pleased and one displeased by the new
+arrangement, and the displeased one, Welsh, or Walsh, was finally
+evicted a short while since, and his house pulled down. Only the other
+day a mob assembled, rebuilt Welsh's house, and reinstated his wife
+and family, who occupy it at this moment. Welsh himself is not with
+them for the reason that Mr. Stacpoole has an attachment out against
+him. However, the family remains, and no process-server would show his
+face at the rebuilt house for fifty pounds. Mr. Stacpoole could, of
+course, go and turn the people out as trespassers, but does not think
+it worth while until he joins issue with all the recalcitrant tenants
+under his control. Some forty of these will neither pay up nor
+surrender their holdings, and Mr. Stacpoole declares that he will get
+Dublin writs against the whole of them, and that if they do not yield
+he will evict them all and compel the authorities to support him.
+There is no concealment about all this, and it is quite certain that
+if Mr. Adair's action in the Derryveagh matter is imitated it will
+only be by aid of the military. The landlord declares he will "have
+his own," and the tenants talk ominously of the "short days and long
+nights" between this and spring.
+
+Meanwhile they carry on the war after their fashion. Only a few days
+ago they levelled the walls of a holding which had not been
+administered to please them by Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald. The week before
+last when Mr. Stacpoole's harriers met there was a crowd assembled of
+men on foot and on horseback, and the huntsman was ordered by the
+fugleman of the mob to go home. Luckily Mr. Stacpoole himself was at
+Liverpool, winning races with Turco, or something serious might have
+happened. As it was, Mr. Healey and Mr. Studdert, well-known
+cross-country riders, and very popular here, being present, as well as
+one lady, the sport of hare-hunting was allowed to go on; but this
+week, although ordered to go out with his hounds, the huntsman thought
+it wiser to stay at home, and a meeting of the Hunt has been called to
+consider what shall be done.
+
+The people can and will prevent Mr. Stacpoole from hunting unless
+members of the Hunt think it worth while to turn out with carbines and
+revolvers, with the possible result of bringing on a civil war.
+Probably the harriers will be taken over by a Committee of the Hunt to
+whom the present owner offers them, as well as the use of his kennels.
+Should his harriers be effectually prevented from hunting he will have
+no farther reason for remaining in the country, and will probably shut
+up his house, dismiss his servants, and leave Ireland; but this he
+will not do until he has "had his own."
+
+
+
+
+VIII.
+
+PATRIOTS.
+
+
+ENNIS, CO. CLARE, _Nov. 22nd._
+
+Ennis, on deliberate inspection, proves to be by far the most
+interesting western town I have yet visited. To paraphrase a familiar
+saying, its politics and its liquor are as strong as they are
+abundant. Ennis is famous for its electioneering fights, for its three
+bridges, for its public square "forenint" O'Connell's statue, said to
+have held thirty thousand people on a space which would not contain a
+fifth of that number, for its numerous banks, for its fine salmon
+river, the Fergus, for its police barrack, once the mansion of the
+Crowe family, and for its long since closed Turkish bath, the ruined
+proprietor whereof is now in the lunatic asylum on the road to
+Ballyalla. Ennis is also proud of its County Club, of its handsome
+drapery stores, of its brand-new waterworks, of its hundred and odd
+whisky-shops, and of its patriots. Of the latter by far the most
+eminent is a certain man named in newspaper reports M.G. Considine,
+Esq., but better known to his fellow-citizens as "Dirty Mick." Mr.
+Considine is a fine specimen of the good old crusted Irish patriot. He
+has pursued patriotism ever since the day of Daniel O'Connell, and it
+redounds greatly to his honour that he is now as poor as when he
+started in that profession.
+
+This Milesian Diogenes is in many respects the most remarkable man in
+county Clare, after, if not before, The O'Gorman Mahon himself. He is
+also the dirtiest. But the grime on Mr. Considine has a romantic
+origin. It is the fakir's robe of filth. When he was only a budding
+patriot the great Liberator once kissed him. Mr. Considine determined
+that the cheek sanctified by the embrace of O'Connell should never
+again be profaned by water, that the kiss should never be washed off.
+Without speculating as to the degree of cleanliness previously
+favoured by Mr. Considine, it must be conceded that it is very
+difficult to wash day by day, or week by week, as the case may be,
+round a certain spot on one cheek which, moreover, would soon get out
+of harmony with the remainder of the countenance. It is easier,
+"wiser, better far," to bring the whole face into harmony with the
+sacred sunny side of it.
+
+This has been done; and the result is a picture worthy of Murillo or
+Zurbaran. From the grimy but handsome well-cut face gleam a pair of
+bright, marvellously bright blue eyes, and the voice which bids
+welcome to the stranger is curiously sweet and sonorous. Mr.
+Considine is quite the best speaker here, and his summons will always
+bring an audience to Ennis. One enthusiast said to me, "Whin he dies,
+may the heaven be his bed, and his statue should be beside O'Connell's
+in Ennis." Now this model patriot, whom every one must perforce
+respect for his perfect honesty and disinterestedness, keeps a
+wretched little shop in a trumpery cabin. His stock-in-trade consists
+of a few newspapers, his pantry holds but potatoes. Yet he is a great
+power in Ennis, and the candidate for that borough who neglected him
+would fare badly. I am not insinuating that any charge of venality can
+attach to him. Quite the contrary. He is admitted to be a perfectly
+disinterested citizen by those most opposed to him socially and
+politically. He is not only one of those who have kept the sacred fire
+of agitation burning since the days of O'Connell, but he is the
+possessor of relics of '98. He owns and dons upon occasion the Vinegar
+Hill uniform, and has '98 flags by him to air on great days. By dint
+of sheer honesty and truthfulness this poor grimy old man has become
+actually one of the chiefs of county Clare.
+
+Another patriot came under my notice in a queer kind of way. I had
+gone to look at the reclamation works on the Fergus river, and there
+encountered a scene odd and peculiar beyond previous experience.
+Shortly before me, had arrived Mr. Charles George Mahon, the nephew
+of The O'Gorman Mahon, and a Mr. Crowe. These two gentlemen being
+neighbours of Mr. Drinkwater, had looked in to see his works, and in a
+friendly way were chatting to one of his foremen, bringing work to a
+standstill, but conducting themselves with the easy affability common
+to the lesser proprietors of county Clare. All was going smoothly
+when, like his predecessors, disregarding the warning that no person
+could be admitted except on business, a strange personage put in an
+appearance. Neither Cruikshank, Daumier, nor Dore ever conceived a
+more grotesque figure than that which entered the Clare Reclamation
+works.
+
+Imagine a singularly small rough-coated donkey stunted by too early and
+too hard work, and on its back a cripple--a _cul-de-jatte_--carrying
+his crutches with him, laid across the withers of the unfortunate
+animal he bestrode. Imagine also a face, very cleanly washed, and of
+that Semitic outline and expression by no means uncommon in Connaught,
+dark flashing eyes, an aquiline nose, and a wide expressive mouth.
+Dismounted from his steed and placed up against the wall, the decently
+dressed and well-spoken man, propped up on his crutches, would have
+been thought rather an object of charitable interest than of distrust,
+if not of fear.
+
+This poor and apparently helpless man is a popular speaker and
+lecturer--one who does not deliver his harangues in high places, but
+rides on his donkey from village to village, spreading the doctrines
+now acceptable to the rural population. By the upper classes he is
+abhorred as a specially obnoxious and pestilent person. He, on the
+other hand, considers himself oppressed. He was a National
+Schoolmaster, but got into a scrape about a threatening letter, which,
+it is fair to state, was not completely brought home to him. However,
+he lost his place. In the hope that he might be reinstated he passed a
+science and art examination, but he fared no better, and then found
+that the trade of a popular agitator was the most congenial one he
+could pursue. He is also an itinerant scribe, writing letters for
+people who cannot write, making aggrieved people aware of the full
+extent of their grievance, and assisting them to send furious letters
+to the smaller local newspapers, concerning which I hesitate to
+express any opinion, lest the readers of the _Daily News_ should think
+they had stumbled upon the Commination Service.
+
+The bright-eyed, flexible-mouthed _cul-de-jatte_ was firmly planted
+against a stone wall, when his eye caught the figures of the two
+gentlemen talking to Mr. Drinkwater's quarrymen. Immediately the eye
+before-mentioned was aflame, and in sonorous tones the owner
+"war-r-r-ned" the foremen and workmen from holding any converse with
+Mr. Charles George Mahon, whom he addressed personally as "a
+rack-renting landlord," and otherwise held up to scorn and derision.
+Perched on his crutches, the cripple defied him, and poured out a
+torrent of eloquence on "the fiery dthragon of hunger" and other
+direful creatures, including landlords, which would have set at
+defiance Canon Dwyer's "exploded shaft of Greek philosophy." The scene
+afforded, at least to many there present, as much amusement as
+astonishment. That a nephew of a county member should be publicly
+attacked before a large number of people and be compelled to hear them
+"war-r-r-ned" not to buy an egg or a pat of butter from his tenants
+would be incredible anywhere else than in Ireland at this moment. But
+people are growing accustomed to strange things in these parts.
+
+The Clare Harriers Hunt Club met on Saturday, when Mr. Richard
+Stacpoole formally made the offer of the hounds, got together by
+himself at great expense, to the members of any Hunt Committee that
+might be found. The offer was declined. Mr. Stacpoole then declared
+his resolution to sell off the pack. He cannot keep them at Edenvale,
+for his "dog-feeder" has been "warned" not to give bite or sup to the
+animals for his life. So the hounds go to England to be sold, and the
+eviction--of landlords--goes merrily on. Such things may appear
+impossible. But it is precisely The Impossible which occurs every day
+in Ireland.
+
+
+
+
+IX.
+
+ON THE FERGUS.
+
+
+ENNIS, CO. CLARE, _Friday, Nov. 26th._
+
+It is noteworthy that the only two persons who are doing much
+reclamation work in the West of Ireland are Manchester men. Mr.
+Mitchell Henry has awakened Connemara, and Mr. Drinkwater has
+performed a similar operation upon county Clare Nothing in connection
+with the Kylemore and Fergus Reclamation works, which have brought to
+and distributed a large sum of money in their respective districts, is
+more remarkable than the apathy of the surrounding proprietors in one
+case and their hostility in the other. Mr. Mitchell Henry could afford
+to wait, and his patience has been attended with success; but Mr.
+Drinkwater was compelled to encounter, not mere passive indifference,
+but active acquisitiveness. For a time stretching beyond the memory of
+man the reclamation of what is called the Clare "slob" has been talked
+about. This talking stage is not unfamiliar in the recent history of
+Ireland.
+
+Everything has been talked about, and some few things have been done
+after a fashion. There remains in Galway a very comfortable and
+well-managed hotel at the railway station, which was originally built
+with a view to the American traffic scheme since become notorious; but
+the Galway people still believe that their ships were wrecked by a
+combination of Liverpool merchants interested in destroying them. The
+Harbour of Foynes, on the Shannon, was once talked about, but never
+grew into a seaport; while the fishing-piers, as they are called, lie
+dotted around the coast in places to which nobody ever goes and from
+which nobody ever comes. But it was seen long ago that something could
+be done with the Fergus "slob" if anybody could be found to do
+anything. Companies were formed and concessions were obtained, but
+nothing was done, although several square miles of magnificent
+alluvial deposit sixteen feet in depth were to be had for the asking.
+
+In 1843 The O'Gorman Mahon himself, as a county member, talked about
+the grand lands to be reclaimed from the Fergus, and the county talked
+about it; but nothing was done. This is the pleasant way of the West.
+All take an interest in any possible or impossible enterprise; but
+when it comes to finding some money and doing something, the scheme is
+relegated to the limbo of things undone.
+
+The principal riparian proprietors were Lords Inchiquin, Leconfield,
+and Conyngham, mostly absentees. Lord Conyngham was naturally
+indifferent, for his estate in Clare was to be sold in Dublin on
+Tuesday, and his interest in the county thus had ceased. Lord
+Leconfield is also an absentee, without even an address in the county.
+Perhaps, as the three noblemen mentioned own between them 85,226 acres
+in county Clare alone, without counting their other possessions, they
+thought that at any rate there was land enough, such as it is, in the
+county. Judging by the Government valuation the land held by them is
+not of the best quality, for it is set down at 38,188l., and probably
+is not let at very much more than that sum; but at the most moderate
+estimate they draw, or rather drew, more than 40,000l. a year from
+county Clare. When they were invited to share in reclaiming the rich
+mud-banks of the Fergus, and thus add 10,000 acres of virgin soil to
+the rateable value of the county, they declined with perfect
+unanimity. They did more than this. When Mr. Drinkwater had bought out
+the concessionees of 1860 and 1873--who had not struck a single stroke
+of work--and was endeavouring to get the necessary Bills through
+Parliament, he found himself confronted by the seignorial and other
+vested rights of these great landowners, who appeared determined, not
+only to do nothing themselves, but to prevent anybody else from doing
+anything--unless he paid handsomely for their permission.
+
+I do not cite this as an act of special iniquity. Their action was
+only part of the general system of taking as much out of Ireland as
+possible and putting nothing into it. A claim of 20,000l. and 5 per
+cent. of the land reclaimed for manorial rights over a mud-bank could
+hardly be overlooked by the Crown; and it is, I believe, not quite
+settled how this large sum of money and valuable land is to be
+divided, if at all. The landowners base their claim on various grants
+and charters and the Crown opposes them on public grounds, while the
+Court of Chancery takes care of the money. Contending against
+"landlordism" and other difficulties Mr. Drinkwater pushed vigorously
+on, almost, as it has turned out, a little too vigorously for his own
+interest. The English public is aware that the Government has at
+various times encouraged Irish landlords to improve their property by
+offering to lend, at different rates of interest, two-thirds of the
+money to be spent, always with the proviso that the Government
+engineer approves of the plan and sees the work well and duly
+performed. Under the old Act of William IV., passed in 1835, the rate
+of interest was fixed at 5 per cent. Under this statute Mr. Drinkwater
+applied for 45,000l. and thanks to his ill-timed energy in urging his
+application, obtained his loan at 5 per cent., just before the Act of
+1879 was brought in for affording somewhat similar help at 1 per cent.
+
+Mr. Drinkwater has thus the satisfaction of knowing that his
+neighbour, Lord Inchiquin, who has commenced improvements on his own
+account, has obtained 8,000l. at 1 per cent., while he pays 5 upon the
+large sum employed on the Clare Slob Reclamation; a state of things
+greatly enjoyed here as turning the laugh against "the Saxon."
+
+Being sceptical about the "slob," I went to see it. When I started the
+moon was shining so brightly that it would have been impossible to
+miss a landlord at forty yards. The sky was as blue and clear as that
+of Como or Lugano; but the wind which swept over Ballyala's sapphire
+lake was of a "nipping and an eager" quality, not commonly encountered
+in Italy. The ground was as hard as steel and as slippery as glass,
+and the first half-mile convinced us that the best thing to be done
+was to get off the car, catch hold of the mare's head, and try to hold
+her on her legs while struggling to keep on our own. It was three
+miles to the nearest blacksmith's, but there was nothing for it but to
+walk to Ennis as well as might be along the slippery road.
+
+This mode of progression was very slow, and it was nearly half-past
+eight when we reached that centre of political and alcoholic
+existence. Leaving the mare to be "sharpened" we strolled through the
+town in contemplative mood. Not a shop was open. Not a blind was
+drawn. Not a soul was stirring excepting the blacksmith, who had been
+knocked up comparatively early by the market folk. There was ample
+time and space to inspect the fierce but sleepy-headed town. In the
+main street I observed six grog-shops, side by side, actually shoulder
+to shoulder, cheek by jowl. Another street appeared to be all
+grog-shops but for the ominous exception of an undertaker. About nine
+o'clock a few people came out of chapel, and shortly afterwards the
+butchers' shops gave signs of life, one opening on each side of the
+main street, and blinking like a bloodshot eye upon the slumbering
+groceries and groggeries, drapery stores, and general drowsiness.
+Ennis was evidently sleeping off the previous day's whisky, and
+preparing to renew the battle with "John Jamieson."
+
+Presently the mare came round to the door of the principal hotel. The
+people there were just stirring, and visions of brooms and unkempt
+back-hair were frequent. At last we were on the road to Clare Castle,
+which might, in the high-flown language of the West, be fitly
+described as the "seaport" of Ennis. The river Fergus flows through
+Ennis, but it is broader and deeper at Clare Castle, a village of
+ordinary Connaught hovels. There is, however, a quay here, a relic of
+"relief-work" in famine time, and affording "convenience" for vessels
+of considerable size. Below the bridge and alongside the quay lies a
+large steam-tug, and lower down the stream is moored a similar vessel.
+A large number of rafts are being laden with stone to be presently
+towed down to the reclamation works. As we steam down the Fergus
+towards its junction with the Shannon at "The Beeves" rock, the stream
+spreads out to a great width, enclosing several islands, green as
+emeralds, of which Smith's Island and Islandavanna are, perhaps, the
+principal.
+
+There is, however, a marked difference between the area of the Fergus
+at high and low water. What at one time is an inland sea, is at the
+other a vast lake of mud rich in the constituents of fertility. As we
+reach this point of the river a mist arises compelling reduced speed,
+and as we pass by the upper station of the Slob Works a low range of
+corrugated iron shedding shines out suddenly through a break in the
+vapour, and, as the sun again pierces through, a long, low, dark line
+is seen stretching from the shore into the water like the extremity of
+some huge saurian of the Silurian period reposing on his native slime
+and ooze. But the lengthy monster lying in a vast curve is not at
+peace, for on the jagged ridge of his mighty back a puffing, snorting,
+smoking plague perpetually runs up and down. The apparent plague,
+however, is really increasing the size of the saurian. Every day
+hundreds of tons of stone are carried over his back-ridge and tipped
+into the water at the end of him, while scores of raftloads are flung
+into the water on the line staked and flagged out by the officials of
+the Government. Within a few weeks the growth of the saurian will not
+cease by day or night, until, as in the case of his kindred ophidian,
+his two extremities are brought together. For Mr. Drinkwater has
+contracted with the British Electric Lighting Company to supply him
+with the electric light. The motive power is all ready, and no sooner
+is the apparatus fixed than county Clare will be astonished by the
+sight of work going on perpetually till it is completed, and amazement
+will reach its highest pitch. The people, gentle and simple, already
+confess themselves astonished at what can and has been done, and those
+who at first laughed are now seeking how they may best imitate.
+
+As the tail of the saurian may be said to stretch into the water high
+above Islandavanna, so may his head be said to project from that
+pretty patch of verdure. Islandavanna is already a peninsula being
+connected with the mainland by a massive stone causeway, traversed
+every half-hour by a locomotive, hauling a train of trucks laden with
+stone, which, passing over the end of the island, runs out into the
+water to the "tip end," as it is called.
+
+So the work is carried on, like modern railway tunnelling, from both
+ends simultaneously, and when head and tail of the saurian meet the
+first 1,500 acres will be reclaimed. The "slob" will be easy to drain,
+and it is tolerably certain that within twelve months the first
+instalment will be ready for cropping. It is a sight to make a
+Dutchman's mouth water--a "polder" of surpassing excellence, but it
+is viewed in a different light by enthusiastic wild duck shooters,
+who, like the owner of a grouse moor, look upon drainage and
+reclamation as the visible work of the devil. I do not think they need
+be alarmed for some time to come, for, without exaggeration, I have
+seen so many duck on the Fergus and the lower Shannon that I hesitate
+to speak of figures and incur the fate of Messer Marco Polo, who, when
+he spoke of the vast population of China, was nick-named by his
+incredulous countrymen "Marco Millione." But when I say that I have
+seen scores of flights a quarter of a mile long, that I have seen
+reaches of water so full of ducks and other water fowl that they
+looked like floating islands, I only give a faint idea of the quantity
+I have beheld between Islandavanna and the abortive ocean steam-packet
+port of Foynes.
+
+Islandavanna is one of three stations of the reclamation works, and is
+occupied by about a third of the four hundred and fifty men now at
+work. In the summer seven hundred were employed, but the present
+season is not so favourable for getting stone and pushing on
+operations.
+
+The electric light, however, will, it is hoped, help matters greatly,
+and redress the balance of the "long nights and short days." By the
+way, I saw at Islandavanna, or rather at the other end of the causeway
+which connects it with the mainland, a man who once employed that
+expression in the menacing manner I have previously alluded to, with
+the effect of causing the foreman of the works to seek occupation in
+another and far distant land. Owing to some disagreement the foreman
+had dismissed or suspended this man, who had already been tried for
+murder and acquitted. Hereat he took his gun to go snipe-shooting as
+he said, walked about lanes and generally hovered about the place in
+such threatening fashion that it was thought well to persuade the
+foreman to go away. At the present moment Mr. Drinkwater and his
+friend Mr. Johnstone, the civil engineer from whose plans the work is
+carried out, are on the best terms with the workpeople; but the
+process by which comfortable relations have been brought about has
+been gradual. It is not pretended that when labour is required, and
+there is money to pay for it, any prejudice is felt against the Saxon
+as an employer. Far from it. A downright, straightforward Saxon, even
+if he be a Protestant, is looked upon by the Irish working folk with
+far less suspicion than one of their own class, and there is little
+fear of their combining against him, for they are far more likely to
+quarrel amongst themselves.
+
+It is hardly possible to convey more than the faintest idea of the
+rancour evolved by the jealousy of the Clare men against the Limerick
+men, of the hatred of both against a Galway man, and of the aversion
+of all three counties for Mayo and Donegal people. The citizens of the
+petty republics of Greece and Italy never abhorred each other more
+fervently. Now on large works with sub-contractors, gangers, artizans,
+and labourers, by piece and by day, it is no easy matter to keep
+matters going smoothly. It is needless to say that skilled artizans,
+such as engine-men and the like, are not picked up in county Clare;
+but no especial spite is felt against them. They are Englishmen, and
+that is sufficient; but if a gang of Clare men be dismissed and one of
+Limerick men taken on, there are signs of trouble in the air. Justice
+must be done to county Clare. Are the children of the soil to want
+bread while strangers eat it? For a Limerick man to the poor
+untravelled folk of Clare Castle, of Kilrush, and of Kilbaha is a
+stranger. Yet the small peasant cultivators on an islet near
+Islandavanna flatly refused to work at the "slob." Smoking a pipe and
+looking at a cow and calf grazing was a more congenial occupation, so
+they preferred staying at home. The slob work was too hard entirely.
+Now, this may appear incredible to those who have only seen the
+awakened Irishmen who do a vast quantity of the hardest and roughest
+kind of work in Great Britain and in the United States. In the latter
+country it is a matter of notoriety, supported in my own case by the
+evidence of my eyesight, that almost all the hard manual labour is
+performed by Irishmen and negroes. But downright steady hard work is
+just what the Western Irishman is not accustomed to at home. He will
+work nobly for a spurt, but when the spurt is over he loves to loiter
+and do as he likes.
+
+It is no easy matter to found such a centre of industry as the works
+on the Fergus, but it is to be sincerely hoped that many such attempts
+will be made despite of discouragement. Experience has shown that the
+neglected and, in many localities, degraded West is abundantly capable
+of improvement. Mr. Drinkwater determined to take the only way
+possible in these parts, that is, to feed and lodge his little army of
+workpeople, to establish a club for them, to give them a reading-room,
+to get porter for them at wholesale price--in short, to afford them
+every inducement to prefer the new settlements on the Fergus to the
+wretched huts and groggeries of Clare Castle and the surrounding
+villages. He insists, moreover, that every man shall have his
+half-pound of meat, either beef, mutton, or bacon, every day but
+Friday.
+
+There is no pretence of philanthropy in all this. It is done on the
+ground that it is foolish to pay a man liberal wages, if he have to
+walk several miles to work and home again, and be allowed to live on a
+scant supply of potatoes and bread, washed down with too much of the
+whisky of the country. An ill-fed man can no more work well than an
+ill-fed horse, and inasmuch as the sooner the work is done the less
+interest will be paid on the Government loan, it is obviously
+important to get the work done as soon as possible. Hence high wages,
+on the condition that a certain proportion shall be spent on food and
+lodging, in a range of labourers' houses admirably built of iron lined
+with wood, perfectly warmed and lighted, and kept wonderfully clean.
+There are a store-house and a refectory, a cooking department and
+dormitories, perfectly ventilated and swept and garnished every day.
+Tea, beer, and other beverages except whisky can be obtained, and
+there is an abundant supply of books and newspapers. Every facility
+and encouragement is given to the priests to visit their people. In
+short, the colony on the Fergus Reclamation Works is one of the most
+extraordinary sights in the West of Ireland. As the entire work will
+hardly be completed under five or six years, the influence of such a
+community of people doing their work steadily and thoroughly ought to
+be very valuable.
+
+Such works, as well as the reclamation of mountain and bog suggested
+and tried by Mr. Mitchell Henry for the benefit of peasant
+cultivators, are absolutely required to quicken the industry of the
+languishing West. The poor people here require to be taught many
+things; notably to obey orders, to mind their own business, to hold
+their tongues, and to wash themselves; but it is impossible to expect
+four such virtues as obedience, industry, silence, and cleanliness to
+be acquired all at once by people who have been neglected for
+centuries. But there can be no radical defect in them, for they work
+hard enough in America, and under strict taskmasters too, for a Yankee
+farmer is like a Yankee skipper, inclined to pay good wages, but to
+insist on the money being earned. So far as discipline is concerned
+there is no better soldier or soldier-servant than a Western Irishman,
+none more patient under difficulty and privation, none so full of
+cheerfulness and resource. Probably the conditions of life are more
+favourable elsewhere, as they may easily be. Here in county Clare
+there seems to a perhaps too-hasty observer a complete want of social
+homogeneity. What lamps of refinement and intellectual culture burn
+here burn for each other only, and serve but to intensify the darkness
+around.
+
+In no part of Ireland that I have seen are class distinctions more
+sharply defined. The landholding gentry are with but two or three
+exceptions Protestants, and, with the exception of Lord Inchiquin, are
+of English, Scotch, or Dutch descent, as such names as Vandeleur,
+Crowe, Stacpoole, and Burton indicate. I am not aware of the landed
+possessions of The O'Gorman Mahon, but I have already stated that his
+nephew holds only a moderate estate, let by the way at about three
+times the Government valuation--but not, I must add, necessarily,
+rack-rented, for Griffiths is, for reasons fully explained by a score
+of writers beside myself, a deceptive guide in grazing counties. The
+gentry of the county, however, are nearly all Protestant, and it is
+curious to note on Sunday at Ennis how the masters and their families
+go to one church and their servants to another. I am not insinuating
+that there is any sectarian squabbling. There is not, for the simple
+reason that the two classes of gentry and tradesfolk are too far apart
+to come into collision. On one side of a broad line stand the lords of
+the soil, of foreign descent, of Protestant religion, of exclusive
+social caste; on the other stand the people, the shop-keepers, the
+greater farmers and the peasants, all of whom are Irish Roman
+Catholics, and bound to each other by the ties of common religion,
+common descent, and often of actual kinship. There is, excepting
+perhaps a dozen professional men, no middle-class at all, through
+which the cultivation of the superior strata could permeate to the
+lower.
+
+Probably no more difficult social condition ever presented itself. To
+show how completely the members of what ought to be a middle-class, I
+mean the large tenant-farmers, are identified with the peasant class,
+I may add that many of them, working with a capital of many thousands
+of pounds, are subscribers to the Land League, and that many are not
+paying their rent. Lord Inchiquin enjoys a good reputation as a
+landlord; but his tenants refuse to pay more than Griffiths's
+valuation, and I hear that other great landlords in the county are not
+much more fortunate. What is most singular of all is that the
+middlemen, who are subletting and subdividing their holdings at
+tremendous rack-rents, are among the most prominent in refusing to pay
+the chief landlord. They see a great immediate advantage to themselves
+in the present movement, for they give but short credit to their
+tenants, while they enjoy the full benefit of a "hanging gale," or
+owing always half a year's rent, according to the custom of this
+county.
+
+
+ENNIS, COUNTY CLARE, _November 28th._
+
+The first news which greeted me on Friday night was, that, at a
+meeting of magistrates on Wednesday morning, Mr. Richard Stacpoole had
+been persuaded to accept police protection, and that two men living at
+Ballygoree, near Ballyalla, had been taken out of their houses on
+Thursday night and severely taken to task for having committed the
+atrocity of paying their rent. The poor fellows urged, in extenuation,
+that they had the money, that they owed it, and that their holdings
+were not "set" at an extravagant price. All this availed them nothing.
+They were compelled to kneel down in the midst of the muddy road, in
+the dead of the night, and to solemnly swear never to behave so
+wickedly again, after which six guns were fired in a volley over their
+heads, and they were allowed to regain their houses.
+
+The event which had drawn me back to Ennis was a meeting of the
+magistrates of Clare, specially called to consider the state of the
+county. A large attendance was looked for, and Saturday being market
+day in Ennis, two more things were certain--the first, that the town
+would be full of people, and the second, that the people would be full
+of whisky. A great crowd assembled to greet the magistrates on their
+arrival, but, owing to the meeting taking place two hours before the
+published time, a grand opportunity of hooting the more unpopular
+justices of the peace was lost, and the "makings of a shindy"
+evaporated in some sporadic groaning. There was a very large
+attendance of magistrates. Lord Inchiquin, the Lord-Lieutenant of the
+county, was present, as well as Mr. Burton, of Carnelly; Mr. T. Crowe,
+of Dromore; Colonel Macdonell; Mr. Hall, of Cluny, who has outlived
+sundry attempts at assassination; Mr. Dawson, of Bunratty; Mr. Hewett;
+and thirty-eight other magistrates. The formal business of the day was
+got through without speechifying, and after some little consultation
+the following resolutions were adopted:--
+
+  First Resolution--That the state of lawlessness and intimidation
+      at present existing in this county is such that the law is
+      utterly unable to cope with it, and urgently demands the
+      attention of her Majesty's Government.
+
+  Second Resolution--That the landowners, having hitherto shown the
+      greatest forbearance, will doubtless now be compelled to take
+      legal proceedings to enforce the payment of rent, in order to
+      meet their own pressing obligations, and as this can only be
+      done at the imminent risk of life we consider that the general
+      peace of the county will very shortly be seriously endangered.
+
+  Third Resolution--That with a view to the maintenance of law and
+      order we respectfully call on her Majesty's Government
+      immediately to summon Parliament, in order to obtain such
+      extraordinary powers as shall enable them to deal effectively
+      with a conspiracy unprecedented in character, which aims at
+      the total disorganization of society.
+
+It is quite possible that these resolutions may produce some
+astonishment in England, especially now that it is well known that
+nothing beyond a special emergency will induce the Government to adopt
+coercive measures. But things said and done in the West of Ireland are
+apt to be somewhat after date. Still the resolutions of the Clare
+magistrates have their value as giving a tolerably clear idea of what
+may be designated the landlord mind. Minute subdivisions set aside,
+there are at least four ways of looking at the subject of the day in
+this part of Ireland. There is the view of a great landlord who,
+because he helped his people with food during the potato famine and
+with money to emigrate with afterwards, and has spent a little money
+here and there out of a huge income, thinks he has amply discharged
+his duty to his tenants. It is true that he began by charging them 4
+and 5 per cent, respectively on building and drainage improvements, a
+tolerably round percentage; but it is fair to admit that for several
+years past he has not charged more than 21/2 per cent, for such
+improvements as he has made. The great landlords of this county are
+less attacked than others by popular orators, mainly because their
+rents are not exorbitantly high in the first place. The land is let on
+lease for terms as long sometimes as sixty-four years, and is
+sometimes underlet at greatly increased prices to the ultimate
+tenants, whose precarious condition brings the "head" landlord into
+undeserved odium. The great landholders and their agents maintain that
+to quote Griffiths against a landlord who has spent money in
+improvements since that valuation was made, and let his farms so low
+that other people can relet them at a profit, is a manifest absurdity.
+
+Another practical view of the landlord mind is that it is foolish to
+go on borrowing money under the Act of 1879 during the present
+uncertain condition of tenure and impossibility of getting in rents.
+Hence the Scariff drainage works, for which 34,000l. was to be
+borrowed by the owners of the property affected by the scheme, have
+been suddenly abandoned, and will not be carried any further, at least
+during the present winter. One consequence of this decision will be to
+throw a large number of people out of employ, who must either leave
+Clare or ask for relief.
+
+The first order of the landlord mind, however, is, to do it justice,
+not affected very seriously by the present crisis. The great
+landholders of Clare and Limerick are not in a heavily mortgaged or
+downright insolvent condition. Like the wealthy manufacturer during a
+strike, they do not care either to employ or to threaten harsh
+measures against their tenants. There is time enough for the present
+agitation to subside, as others have subsided, and if the Government
+should wish to acquire their land and disestablish "landlordism," as
+Mr. Parnell suggests, so much the better, especially since it has
+become manifest by the example of the Marquis of Conyngham's estate
+that purchasers, other than tenants, are hardly to be found for Irish
+property. And--as the agent of a great absentee landholder observed to
+me--of what avail would it be to proceed to ulterior measures against
+the tenants? Granted that all the weary delays of the local courts
+were got rid of by a Dublin writ, what would be the consequence? The
+tenant would, unless he chose to spend his own ready money to defend
+his case in Dublin, be swiftly ejected--that is, if sufficient police
+were requisitioned to make any attempt at resistance absurd. The
+landlord would get his own after a fashion; but unless he chose to
+keep a force of police on his farms the dispossessed tenants would be
+reinstated and their houses rebuilt by the mob; and nothing would be
+got in the shape of rent. As no person in the possession of his senses
+would take any farm from which a tenant had been evicted, the landlord
+would have only one course to pursue. He must farm his land himself,
+and then he would be "isolated" or "Boycotted." Nobody would work for
+him; nobody would buy anything from his farms.
+
+Everybody in Ennis knows the case of Littleton, whose farm is now
+under "taboo," and whose oats no man dare buy, and the similar case of
+a draper who had sold some material to a man working on the
+"Boycotted" farm, and was compelled to take it back. "There is nothing
+now," added another informant, "but to touch your hat to tenants, for
+they have left off doing so to you. And it is folly to talk of
+reprisals, or of persevering in hunting and going armed to the meet.
+Suppose an affray occurred and I shot a tenant, I should be most
+assuredly identified, tried, convicted, and severely punished, if not
+hanged. But if a tenant shot me it would be difficult to identify him,
+more difficult to arrest him, and downright impossible to convict him.
+Since Lord O'Hagan's Jury Act it is quite impossible to get
+convictions against the lower orders--witness the memorable instance
+of Mr. Creagh, when the assassin's gun burst and blew his finger off.
+The prisoner and his finger were both in court, there was no manner of
+doubt, and yet the jury acquitted him."
+
+Thus far the greater landowner or his agents. The tone is one of
+patient, if not amused, endurance, mingled, of course, with profound
+contempt for the _personnel_ of the Land League. But the smaller and
+resident landlord is of much more inflammable stuff. A strike against
+rent-paying signifies to him an end of all supplies. Whether he have
+two thousand or five thousand a year in land--for I omit the little
+"squireen" class as of no importance on either side of the
+question--he has almost certainly settlements and probably mortgages
+on his estate. Now, mortgagees in Dublin or London are not at all
+ready to take into account the difficulty of collecting rents in
+Connaught, and insist on being paid.
+
+Even their rancour, however, has moderated slightly just of late, for
+they are as afraid to foreclose on unsaleable property as the
+mortgagor is of losing his claim on it for ever. But the settlements
+must be paid, and as no rents are coming in, dowagers are obdurate,
+and the landlord lives well up to his means, times are hard just now
+in county Clare.
+
+It is not exactly "tyranny" which inclines the lesser landlord to get
+the rent out of his tenant, but his own need, which drives him to
+extreme measures. In bitterness of spirit he bewails his dulness in
+not following the example of some of his peers in getting rid of their
+tenantry and farming their land themselves, like Colonel Barnard in
+King's County. He also envies the lot of Mr. "Tom" Crowe, of Dromore,
+who, without acquiring the name of an "exterminator" or a "tyrant,"
+has succeeded in shaking off the load of teeming population and the
+abomination of "duty work" by degrees, and has now a magnificent farm
+of his own which might bear the inspection of Mr. Clare Read himself,
+and of all Norfolk to boot. Mr. Crowe, too, has not gone through the
+ordeal of being shot at like Colonel Barnard, and if not specially
+loved by the people, has no kind of quarrel with them. Mr. Burton, of
+Carnelly, who owns 9,669 acres in Clare, has been fortunate in getting
+some rent, mainly in consequence of his tact in driving round one day
+to collect it himself and taking his tenants by surprise. But Mr.
+Burton is an exception, both in tact and fortune, to the majority of
+landlords of the second rank. Colonel Vandeleur has been very
+unfortunate, like all landholders encumbered with what would be called
+small farmers in England. The few really large farmers in Clare, as a
+rule, have paid up either openly or privately, and in sentiment are
+quite with the landlord class. The lesser landlords are talking of
+nothing but Dublin writs, and declare that the so-called peace of the
+county is only unbroken because no attempt is made to execute the law.
+
+The farmers are of course peaceful enough so long as they are
+permitted to send a rich harvest to market, to pocket the proceeds,
+and to pay no rent. "But," said a small landholder to me, "is this law
+and order? Because I know it is hopeless at this moment to recover my
+rent, and therefore abstain from proceedings, does it follow that the
+peace would not be broken were I to put the law into operation?" I am
+sorry for this gentleman, for I know that he is what is called in
+commerce a "weak holder," or one who can afford neither to conduct his
+business with a firm hand nor to throw it aside till better times. He
+must go on, for he has mortgages and settlements on his estates; and,
+admitted that his tenants would go away to-morrow without any trouble,
+he could not spare what they owe him, and assuredly would not find new
+tenants for his farms. He of course is for the immediate suspension of
+the Habeas Corpus Act, and declares that to be the most merciful
+solution of the immediate difficulty. To him the "Three F's" appear
+altogether diabolical, and he proposes the substitution of "Three
+D's"--Disarmament, Disfranchisement, and a Dictator, the more military
+the better.
+
+From the medium and smaller farmers, who with the whisky dealers and
+the majority of the other tradespeople form the opposite camp, I hear
+that no measure that the Government can pass before the present
+Parliament will be acceptable to what is called the Irish people. It
+is now averred that the extension of the borough franchise to counties
+must be carried before a Parliament adequate to deal with the Irish
+question is formed. This appears a strong demand, and one likely to
+protract the present distracted state of the country. But I hear, on
+the best authority, that the Land League and the associated farmers
+can wait. They are in no hurry. England can take her own time and they
+will wait patiently, meanwhile of course paying no rent, nor any other
+debts which may prove inconvenient.
+
+Having passed their resolutions, the magistrates drive off quietly
+enough--but by daylight. Within the last three weeks the County Club
+sittings have been earlier than usual, the members thinking it at
+least as well to get home before dark. The valedictory wish expressed
+here just now is of itself ominous. It is not "Good-bye" or
+"Good-night," but "Safe home."
+
+
+
+
+X.
+
+PALLAS AND THE PALLADIANS.
+
+
+LIMERICK.
+
+In a previous letter I hinted that the well-to-do farmers of the West
+were not a whit more prompt in paying their rent than the starveling
+peasants of Mayo and Connemara, who, at the best, are barely able to
+keep body and soul together. Trusting far more to what I see than to
+what I hear, I become aware that in these troubled districts of
+Ireland, it is precisely the most favoured spots which are the most
+mutinous. Ballina, the most prosperous town in Mayo, is a stronghold
+of the anti-landlord party; and the Ballinrobe, Claremorris, and Cong
+country, full of good land and comparatively large farmers, is the
+district which has isolated Mr. Boycott, whose turnips and potatoes
+will probably cost the country and the county at least a guinea a
+piece. In no part of Mayo or Galway is the Land League more perfectly
+organised than in Clare, yet the farmers in that county are
+confessedly well off. There are some of course towards the sea, in
+the direction of Loop Head, who are poorly off, but the great majority
+are by no means in evil case. Ocular demonstration of this fact is
+supplied by the numerous farmhouses of the better class with which the
+country is studded. These are not merely large cabins, but houses,
+some of which are whitewashed. The haggards are full of corn-stacks,
+the rich pastures are full of kine. There is every visible evidence of
+material prosperity. It is true that when one has driven up the
+private road, be the same a mere "boreen" or a "shplendid avenue," the
+bell is found to be broken, the knocker wrenched off, the blinds
+hauled up awry, and the servants hard to be got at; but the
+householder is prosperous nevertheless. His larder is well supplied
+with poultry and wild fowl, his cellar contains "lashings," not only
+of "Parliament and pot," or "John Jamieson" and illicit "potheen," but
+of port and sherry, claret and champagne. His daughters are at the
+costly training schools of the Sacre Coeur, his lads are studying law
+in Dublin. Yet this man is a subscriber to the Land League either by
+sympathy or, as is quite as probable, by terror. Farmers of not quite
+such large acreage live in almost equally luxurious style. Their
+houses, that is the "show" rooms, are solidly if tastelessly
+furnished. Their horses and jaunting cars carry them to chapel; they
+live in the midst of rude plenty. If further demonstration be needed,
+I will point to the groceries and wine stores of Ennis. There are at
+least three of these almost on the scale of Fortnum and Mason's or
+Hedges and Butler's. Now Ennis is what an American traveller might be
+tempted to call a "one-horse" town of some six or seven thousand
+inhabitants, yet its grocery and drapery stores would hardly be beaten
+in York or Chester. Every imaginable eatable or drinkable can be
+obtained always for ready money, and very often on credit, and I am
+informed that all articles of feminine adornment, including cosmetics,
+are also to be had. Passing still farther from the domain of things
+seen to that of things heard of, I am assured on the best authority
+that for years past the banks have not held so much money on deposit
+as at the present moment. Yet nobody pays his rent. The form of
+offering Griffith's valuation is gone through, albeit it is known that
+that calculation is absolutely untrustworthy so far as a pasture
+county like Clare is concerned.
+
+My remarks concerning county Clare will apply, almost with greater
+force, to county Limerick. The city is of course a very different
+place from Ennis; but it is impossible to avoid noticing from the
+window at which I sit writing the crowds of purchasers streaming in
+and out of Cannock and Co.'s store, from late in the morning till
+early in the evening. I use the last words advisedly, for the people
+of the West seem to have accepted Charles Lamb's humorous quibble in
+good faith. If they begin work later than any other civilized people,
+they assuredly leave off earlier. But until evening sets in there is a
+torrent of customers pouring in over the way, and wooing the eye from
+the contemplation of the Shannon at the Thomond Bridge. Of the
+groggeries of Limerick and of the poison vended in them, I will
+forbear to discourse, for my business just now is with the country
+rather than with the town.
+
+Having heard much of the outrages at Pallas on the Tipperary border, I
+determined to drive over and visit the scene of action. For this
+country the journey was a short one; fifteen or sixteen miles out and
+in on an outside car is thought a mere trifle in Limerick. The trip
+occupied the entire day nevertheless. As we drove out of Limerick past
+the great pig-slaughtering and curing houses, we soon became aware
+that an immense convergence of the farming interest on Limerick was
+taking place. Car-load after car-load of well-dressed people passed
+us, and then came horsemen riding in couples or by half-dozens. For
+the most part the cavaliers were very well mounted, and also well and
+warmly dressed in the fashion of the day. Neither Connemara nor
+Claddagh cloaks were seen in the cars, nor were the blue or grey
+frieze swallow-tailed coats of Mayo and Galway seen on the powerful
+horses pounding along townward through the heavy road. All was sleek,
+prosperous, and quite modern, and was as refreshing to look upon after
+the frieze and flannel aforesaid as the green hills of Limerick and
+Clare after the brown mountains of Joyce's country. I naturally asked
+the meaning of such an important meeting of well-to-do folk. It was a
+funeral. An old lady was to be buried, and the whole country-side for
+twenty miles around had turned out to do honour to the deceased, and
+to enjoy a holiday on the principle that "a wake is better than a
+wedding." Not one in a hundred of those who rode by had paid his rent,
+nor was he prepared to pay more than Griffith's valuation, although he
+might have a deposit note for one, two, or more thousands of pounds in
+his cash-box.
+
+Pushing along this lively road we entered a famous part of Ireland,
+the Golden Vale, so called from its great fertility. Great part of the
+land here is composed of alluvial bottoms, a large area of which was
+drained by the Mullkear Cut, through the exertions of Mr. William
+Bredin, of Castlegard, a charming old fortress overgrown with
+creepers, and standing like a sentry over the more modern part of the
+dwelling. As we neared Pallas I was reminded that I was on classic
+ground, and that Old and New Pallas and Pallas Green formed the scene
+of the never-to-be-forgotten feud of the "Three and Four Year Olds,"
+the tradition whereof hath a rich and racy savour. Readers of the
+_Daily News_ will hardly need to be reminded that this historic
+vendetta commenced with a dispute concerning the age of a bull, one
+disputant maintaining that the animal was four, while the other
+insisted he was but three years old. The matter was settled, or was
+rather put on the footing of a "mighty pretty quarrel," by a desperate
+fight, wherein one of the combatants was either slain or grievously
+maimed, whereupon his cause was taken up by his family and friends,
+and a feud inaugurated which lasted many years, and led to the death
+of a considerable number of persons, besides continual "diversion" in
+the way of faction fights. Pallas is in the midst of the Golden Vale,
+a deliciously pastoral country, admirably fitted on such a glorious
+spring-like morning as that of yesterday for the sports of shepherds
+and shepherdesses as Watteau and Lancret loved to limn. But the first
+object which catches the eye in Pallas is not a bower of ribbons and
+roses, but a stiff-looking police barrack. Close at hand is the
+railway station, another unlovely edifice, and lounging about in
+groups are seventy or eighty of the gloomiest and most sullen-looking
+people I have seen in this country. The very little cheerfulness there
+is in Connaught is quite absent from Munster, or at least the
+Tipperary border of county Limerick. I learn that the occasion of this
+general loafing is a "rent-gathering," or rather an attempt to gather
+rent, and that Mr. Sanders, the agent for the Erasmus Smith School
+Trusts, is sitting, but not in receipt of custom. There has been the
+usual talk of Griffith's valuation and the usual result of not a
+shilling being paid; the present fear on the part of landlords of
+fixity of tenure being established being so great that nobody will
+accept payment according to Griffith lest his receipt should be taken
+as permanently settling the value of his land for ever. No money
+passes, as a matter of course, and the tenants mutter among
+themselves, "nor ever will." One neck-or-nothing friend of the people
+assures me that Griffith and rent and the rest of it is all
+"botheration," and that Pallas folk are going to "have their own"
+again, as was once said of a Stuart king, who did not get it
+nevertheless. I am not assuming that the opinion of a farmer anxious
+to get rid of his principal debt is that of all Munster; I merely give
+his observation for what it is worth, and as a sign that the hope of
+concession is gradually enlarging demand.
+
+Driving in the direction of Castlegard, I pass the signs of an
+eviction which took place at least a fortnight ago. The outgone
+tenant's bedsteads and wash-hand-stands are piled up against the wall
+as if crying to Heaven for vengeance against the oppressor. The
+display strikes me as entirely theatrical, for it is well known that
+vengeance is not left to Heaven by Pallas people, but confided to
+Snider bullets. The bailiff's left in charge of the house have been
+attacked, and yesterday an iron hut for lodging four policemen on the
+disputed property was brought to Pallas station. It went no further,
+however, for neither horse nor cart could be got to convey any
+fragment of the accursed fabric to the spot required. It is expected
+that the district will, after this display of "tyranny" on the part of
+the police, "strike" against them and refuse to supply them with food
+or forage. Pursuing the road past Castlegard I meet another crowd of
+tenants and learn that they also have been to a rent gathering, and
+have been offered acceptance of Griffith's valuation if the balance
+between that and the rent be considered as a "reduction" without
+prejudice to further arrangements, and without fixing a standard of
+value. This proposition remains under consideration, and is favourably
+viewed by the tenants. It seems, however, that everybody is afraid, or
+pretends to be afraid, to act without the sanction of the Land League.
+I am vastly inclined to think that in many parts of the country
+farmers pretend to be more scared than they really are, but around
+Castlegard they have evidently some cause for alarm. I called upon a
+farmer who has committed the unpardonable crime of failing to be, as
+Ouida would say, "true to his order." He has been so lost to all the
+sentiments of manhood and of patriotism as to pay his rent. No sooner
+was it known that he was guilty of this dastardly deed than he was
+spoken of as a marked man, and three nights ago a Snider bullet was
+fired through his front door into the hall of his newly-built house.
+I saw the hole made by the bullet through the door, and also the mark
+where it tore out a piece of the balusters before striking the
+ceiling.
+
+The farmer in question is one of those extraordinary persons who only
+exist in Ireland. He is a sturdy, pleasant-looking man of forty, and
+has made his way despite what would appear intolerable difficulties.
+He has farmed for some considerable time about thirty-three acres of
+good land, and must have worked hard, for during that time he has had
+a large family to maintain. His father died but a short time since,
+and reduced the number by one, but he now supports his mother and his
+aged aunt and uncle, as well as his wife and himself and six children.
+With all these mouths to feed he has built him, well and solidly, a
+thoroughly good house, with extensive outbuildings and other
+improvements, obviously worth many hundreds of pounds. It might be
+thought the people of Pallas and Castlegard would have been proud of
+him; but he has paid his rent, and is marked for "taboo," if for
+nothing worse.
+
+Trudging across some fine pastures, and jumping sundry ditches, we
+regain the main road and our car, and proceed on that instrument of
+torture back to Pallas. Here we find the "threes" and the "fours," not
+at issue with each other, but united like brothers against the common
+enemy. Fearful howls arise from the railway bridge and the railway
+station, both covered with Palladians, male and female. A thoroughly
+good Irish yell of execration acts differently on different persons.
+The blood of those unaccustomed to it is apt to turn cold at the
+savage sound; but, with a little practice, "the ear becomes more Irish
+and less nice," and a good howl acts as a stimulant on the spirits of
+many landlords and agents. All the screeching at Pallas is brought
+about by the departure of Mr. Sanders, who, escorted by the police
+till he is safely off, rentless, but undismayed, slips away in the
+train, leaving the "Threes" and "Fours" to talk the matter over, not
+unaided by the presence, in the spirit, of all-powerful "John
+Jamieson."
+
+
+TIPPERARY, _Tuesday Night._
+
+Another proof has been given that it takes more people to do less in
+Ireland than in any other country in the world. The attitude of the
+combined "Three and Four Year Olds" was yesterday so threatening that
+the authorities decided that the police-hut at Pallas could only be
+erected in the teeth of the Palladians by dint of an overwhelming
+display of force. There is no doubt of the wisdom of this policy. A
+small force, insufficient to overawe the country side, only provokes
+the resistance it is unable to overcome, but a strong detachment of
+redcoats thoroughly cows the adventurous spirits of the most mutinous
+localities. What threatened at one moment to become a civil war in
+Mayo was put down without the loss of a drop of blood by an imposing
+military force, and the lesson so well illustrated at Ballinrobe is
+hardly likely to be lost in other rebellious districts. Yesterday, the
+affair at Pallas came to such a pitch that extraordinary measures were
+resolved upon. A bailiff had been shot because he, in the execution of
+his duty, occupied the dwelling of an evicted farmer, one Burke; hence
+it was decided that a police-hut should be built on the ground lately
+occupied by Burke, but, as readers of the _Daily News_ are aware, the
+Palladians actually struck against the police, and proceeded to
+"Boycott" those "myrmidons" after the most approved manner. Not only
+did Pallas refuse to aid in conveying the materials for a police-hut
+to a short distance from the railway station, but prevented the police
+from doing their work themselves. Yesterday, the whole border-folk of
+county Limerick and county Tipperary turned up at Pallas, and the
+conduct of the crowd was such as to lead persons by no means of an
+alarmist character to expect an ugly morrow. The authorities had
+determined that a police-hut should be erected on the spot chosen, and
+the populace had equally made up their minds that although "the
+makings" of a hut had been brought to Pallas railway station, they
+should remain there, and never be allowed to defile the land of
+Burke's farm. The police, despite their barrack, which looks strong
+enough to bear a siege, were obviously unable to quell the people, and
+it would hardly have been politic to let the latter enjoy a victory;
+consequently it was determined to employ the military to convoy the
+police-hut, or rather its _disjecta membra_, from the railway to its
+proposed site.
+
+It was pitch dark at five o'clock this morning, the hour for parade at
+the fine new barracks at Tipperary. The air, too, was keen, and the
+detachment of the gallant 48th Regiment ordered for service at Pallas
+paraded in no very affectionate spirit towards the Palladians. The
+ill-humour of the 48th is easily accounted for. After twelve years'
+service abroad no regiment would be cheered by the announcement that
+instead of Portsmouth its destination was Queenstown, _en route_ for
+Tipperary. Such, however, has been the fate of the unlucky 48th, from
+whom the mob of Pallas, or any other centre of mutiny, could expect
+but little mercy. Tempers, however, brightened at sunrise, and by the
+time the hundred men under the command of Captain Cartwright and
+Lieutenants Fraser and Maycock arrived at the Tipperary station every
+one was in a good-humoured, contemptuous frame of mind. Everybody knew
+that there was no chance of a row, and that the very presence of all
+the Queen's horses and all the Queen's men would make it certain that
+a blank would be drawn. The whole military plan of campaign had been
+well imagined. While the 48th came on from Tipperary the 9th came on
+also by rail from Limerick, together with a half battery of the Royal
+Artillery. It must not, however, be supposed that cannon was deemed
+necessary to quell the ardent spirits of Pallas. The guns were left at
+Limerick, and only the waggons brought as a means of conveyance for
+the makings of the hut. But the Limerick contingent was imposing
+nevertheless. It consisted of 105 men of the 9th Regiment, of a
+squadron of Hussars, who went by road, and of the artillery
+before-mentioned, who came, like the infantry, by rail. So well was
+the movement timed by Colonel Humphreys, R.A., in command, that the
+trains from Tipperary and Limerick met almost exactly at New Pallas
+station a little before nine o'clock this morning, just as the busbies
+of the Hussars appeared upon the bridge. Pallas was evidently taken by
+surprise, for any movement on a western Irish town before nine in the
+morning may be taken as a night attack. The people of the border of
+county Limerick and county Tipperary are quite ready to "muster in
+their thousands" at a convenient hour, but they are sure to be taken
+at a disadvantage before nine o'clock. The Palladians rubbed their
+eyes to find the classic battle-ground of the "Three Year Olds" and
+"Four Year Olds" occupied by the matutinal redcoats, and horse, foot,
+and artillery already in possession. As Pallas woke up about a
+hundred and fifty or a couple of hundred roughs made up "the name of
+a crowd," but those in command were informed that this poor show of
+resistance was really a feint, and that no sooner would the materials
+for the hateful hut be put in motion than a rush would be made by the
+people collected "in thousands" behind the village, either upon the
+railway station or upon the convoy in motion. I had no opportunity of
+getting round behind the village to review the supposed thousands who
+were to make the ugly rush and overwhelm the redcoats, but I have a
+strong impression that the Palladian army might have been dubbed the
+"Mrs. Harris" brigade. With the respected Mrs. Prigg, I disbelieve in
+its existence absolutely. Two arguments will destroy it. On the one
+hand, it is incredible that thousands of persons were out of their
+beds at ten minutes to nine A.M.; on the other, if they had sat up all
+night in the hope of a fight with the police they would most certainly
+have anticipated that diversion by a preliminary "shindy" among
+themselves, and have broken up in disorder.
+
+But when horse, foot, artillery, and police converge on a disaffected
+spot, it is hardly the province of their commander to disbelieve in
+the existence of an enemy. Colonel Humphreys accordingly made the
+wisest use of his forces. He had at his disposal 200 infantry, a
+squadron of cavalry, a demi-battery of artillery, and 70 armed
+constables--in all about 350 men. His first care was to secure his
+base, the railway station, and this _point d'appui_ was strongly
+garrisoned by the 48th Regiment. Then the road between the station and
+Burke's farm was strongly patrolled--so strongly as to keep up an
+unbroken line of communication between the farm and the railroad. When
+this was established, the procession, bearing the materials of the
+hut, set forth. First went the armed police, then an escort of
+Hussars, and then the Artillery waggons, carrying the pieces of the
+hut, guarded by the soldiers of the 9th Regiment. It is hardly
+necessary to add that no attempt at rushing or crowding the station
+was made by the populace. Father Ryan, the parish priest, behaved in
+the most praiseworthy manner, and exhorted the people to be quiet; but
+my own impression is that they were already completely cowed by the
+sudden appearance of the military from two quarters at once. By no
+means wanting in keenness of perception, they knew that, if ordered to
+do so, the soldiers will fire "at" them, and not vaguely, after the
+manner of the police. So the whole affair passed off quietly, and
+after trebling the ordinary police garrison of Pallas, the military
+returned to their respective quarters. A beginning has been made of
+building the hut, and at the moment of writing (9 P.M.) all is quiet
+at Old and New Pallas, as well as at Pallas Green. Whether the blood
+of the "Threes" and "Fours" will endure the sight of the detested hut
+gradually rising on the farm of the sainted Burke remains to be seen;
+but it it is doubtful whether the "Boys" will attempt a _coup de
+main_. Should such an attempt be made, the police would be compelled
+to make a desperate resistance, and serious consequences would
+certainly ensue. There is a curious contrast between the state of the
+"Three and Four Year Olds" yesterday and to-day--between the bragging
+of the one and the cowed look of the other. There is also something of
+amusement, were not the entire question all too serious, in the sudden
+and contemptuous withdrawal of the troops to-day, after having shown
+the Palladians that, however they felt about the hut, it should be
+built, and law and order maintained "maugre their teeth."
+
+
+
+
+XI.
+
+GOMBEEN.
+
+
+CORK, _December 2nd._
+
+Among the many spectres which haunt the sadly-vexed West and South of
+Ireland, there is one far more grim and real than the _spectre vert_
+who is either buried for ever and aye, or has undergone gradual
+transformation since '98 into Repeal of the Union, Young Ireland,
+Fenianism, Nationalism, and finally perhaps into Anti-Landlordism;
+albeit this latter avatar of an ancient and familiar spirit is by no
+means imbued with the poetic attributes of the original spectre.
+During my stay in Ennis and Limerick I succeeded in holding somewhat
+protracted conversations with three landed proprietors, three of the
+largest land-agents in Ireland, two bank managers, an influential
+lawyer, three leaders of the people, and one probable assassin.
+Through the discourse of all of these--varied and contradictory as
+much of it necessarily was--I could see distinctly one ugly shadow, as
+of an old man filthy of aspect, hungry of eye, and greedy of claw,
+sitting in the rear of a gloomy store looking over papers by the light
+of a miserable tallow dip. From the papers the figure turned to a heap
+as of bank-notes, and there was in the air the chink of money. For the
+name of this grisly and terribly real spectre is _gombeen_; which, in
+the Irish tongue, signifies usury.
+
+To Thackeray's truthful remark that there is never so poor an Irishman
+that he has not a still poorer countryman as a hanger-on, it may be
+added that when an Irishman is not a borrower he is almost certain to
+be a lender--the advice of Polonius being abhorrent to the spirit of a
+free-and-easy, happy-go-lucky people. When a man in these parts gets
+or keeps out of debt himself, he is mostly engaged in encouraging
+others to get into it. Often he has little or nothing himself, but
+acts after the Irish fashion as deputy _gombeen_ man for the pleasure
+of the thing, and also for a commission well and duly paid. This
+determination towards borrowing and lending is not confined to any
+particular class, but is characteristic of all. As the peer, who would
+never have put his hand into his own pocket to pay for improving his
+property, suddenly awakes to the value of drainage when the Government
+offers a million and a half at one per cent., so did the _gombeen_
+man, who would never have dreamed of lending more than a pound at a
+time to a peasant, extend his credit four or five fold when the Land
+Act of 1870 gave him the first instalment of proprietary right in the
+land he occupied. The instalment was a very small one, but it was at
+once discounted by the _gombeen_ man, whose rate of interest enabled
+him to run extraordinary risks. As the poor pay dearly for everything,
+so do they pay an extravagant interest for money. There was once a
+fashionable West-end usurer, who, pretending to know nothing about
+arithmetic, met his clients on the subject of percentage with "I don't
+understand figures, but my terms are a shilling per pound every month.
+It is easy to reckon up without going into sums on slates." This poor
+innocent was charging just 60 per cent., but his terms were lavishly
+liberal as compared with those of the _gombeen_ man. Instead of a
+shilling per month the latter charges a shilling a week for every
+sovereign advanced, and then "Begorra, it's only the name of a
+sovereign," which being interpreted signifies that an advance of one
+pound, less charges, only amounts to 18s. 10d., and that upon this sum
+a shilling interest must be well and duly paid weekly. Any failure
+entails a fine, and a failure to pay off the original sovereign
+borrowed within six months is very heavily fined indeed. I am told
+that the _gombeen_ man actually puts on cent. per cent. for this
+failure of redemption; but, on my principle of believing only a
+percentage of all I hear, and of taking a liberal discount off all I
+see, I doubt this enormity. Concerning the shilling interest per week
+on a pound there is, however, unhappily no room for doubt, and for
+small unsecured loans 260 per cent. per annum is still the ruling
+figure.
+
+This enormous rate of interest, however, is now only exacted on the
+very smallest loans, for the old-fashioned _gombeen_ man has lost his
+customers for larger sums. In old times he was the only means of
+obtaining such little sums as five and ten pounds on personal
+security; but since 1870 the banks have entered into competition with
+him, have undersold him, and, in fact, "run him out of the market,"
+except for sums under four or five pounds. The unfortunates who are
+short of a sovereign or two must look up their old friend in the back
+shop smelling of bacon, tallow, pepper, tea, and whisky, just as their
+social superiors seek the intrepid sixty per cent. man of St. James's,
+whose snuggery is perfumed by the best Havannahs that other people's
+money can buy. But when the soul of Mike rises to the sublime
+conception of a loan of five pounds he dismisses the old-fashioned
+usurer, and hies him to one of the branch banks which abound in every
+petty townlet in Western and Southern Ireland. When I say "abound" I
+mean to be taken literally. What would be thought in England, I
+wonder, of four banks in a town like Ennis, or of two in pettifogging
+places like Kilrush or Ennistynon--mere hamlets of some two thousand
+inhabitants? Yet these three places have eight branch banking
+establishments among them. It must not, however, be supposed that Mike
+gets his paltry four or five pounds on his promissory note without
+further security. Nothing of the kind. Mike must go through as much
+artful financiering to raise his five pounds as the Hon. Algernon
+Deuceace to raise his "monkey." His bill must be well backed by his
+friends, Thady and Tim. Now, Thady's name on the back of a five-pound
+bill is not good for much. He is but a peasant, like Mike, not a
+farmer, properly so called, and even as two blacks will not make a
+white, so will the joint credit of Mike and Thady not rise to the
+height of five one-pound notes. But they have a potent ally in Tim,
+who married Thady's wife's cousin. Tim is a prudent man, has worked
+hard at his farm, and, as a rule, has a matter of twenty or thirty
+pounds on deposit note at the bank, receiving for the same interest at
+the rate of one per cent. per annum. His name at the back of a
+five-pound bill is therefore a tower of strength, and, in fact, floats
+the entire speculation. In commercial phrase, he "stands to be shot
+at" while his own deposit money, on which he receives one per cent.,
+supplies the funds for the bank to lend Mike and Thady, at ten or
+twenty per cent., for there is no pretence made of doing very small
+bills at anything approaching ordinary rates. In fact, the peasant
+cultivator, having acquired under the Land Acts now in force a species
+of proprietory interest in the soil, has a sort of credit which,
+backed by a friendly and innocent depositor, can be made an engine for
+raising ready money in a small way. This help from the banks is so far
+good that it has relieved the decent peasant from his ancient
+bloodsucker, the _gombeen_ man. Admitting that with charges and fine
+for renewal and so forth the loan ultimately costs Mike fifteen or
+twenty per cent, he is vastly better off than he was under the old
+system. He gets money to buy pigs to fatten for sale, or manure for
+his bit of arable land, and if the rate appears high, it is wondrously
+merciful as compared with that to which he was formerly accustomed.
+
+But there is an awkward side even to the business which enables the
+principal Irish banks to pay large dividends. So long as care is taken
+that Mike and Thady do not overdo the accommodation bill system,
+perhaps no very great harm is done in extending the advantage of
+moderate credit to the humblest cultivator; but when competition is
+sharp in a petty townlet between two rival banks, the tendency towards
+a mischievous extension of credit is almost irresistible, and bank
+managers are at last driven to look sharply after their clients on
+market days, lest the ready money which is their due should be
+deflected to other purposes. The provision man, who has supplied bacon
+and other necessaries, is on the alert to secure something on account;
+and if, as is most probable, he has been giving credit somewhat
+recklessly, he is pinched for money, despite the high rate of profit
+he has been charging to cover his risk. For some time past the game of
+credit has been going on gaily; but since the commencement of the
+present agitation both banks and _gombeen_ men have distinctly
+narrowed their operations, and the landlord is now the almost
+universal creditor. The harvest-money has either gone to pay advances
+or to settle accounts with tradesfolk, so that an awkward future is in
+preparation for all but the prosperous tenants, of whom there is no
+lack in counties Clare and Limerick. Whatever the details of the
+forthcoming Land Act may be when it has passed the ordeal of both
+Houses of Parliament, the work of passing it will take time, and at
+least another half-year's rent will accrue before it takes the shape
+of law. Now, with all the talk of Griffith's valuation, there has
+been, except in a few cases, no hint of paying that sum "without
+prejudice" into court or into any bank whatsoever; and the cash held
+by both farmers and peasants runs, in the opinion of many well
+qualified to judge, sore risk of diminution before any comprehensive
+measure can pass through Parliament. Even the well-to-do farmers will
+be called upon to expend their balance in hand in many ways which they
+will find difficult to resist. Not only the provision merchants, but
+the drapers and milliners of Limerick, Ennis, and Galway, will hold
+out allurements to those in possession of ready money. To put the
+case briefly, there is great danger that, without any intentional
+dishonesty on their part, the cultivators, great and small, of Western
+and South-Western Ireland will hardly be in as good a position for the
+discharge of their liabilities six months or a year hence as they are
+at present. The three "F's" will hardly wipe off existing debt, and
+the result of a division of the population into two sharply defined
+classes of debtors and creditors is viewed by many thoughtful people
+with considerable apprehension.
+
+
+
+
+XII.
+
+THE RETAINER.
+
+
+CORK, _December 4th._
+
+In describing the character of the Western and Southern Irishman
+nothing would be more unfair than to leave out of the estimate his
+curious faithfulness to some persons, and the tenderness with which he
+cherishes the traditions of the past. In no country in the world is
+the superstition concerning the "good old times" more fervently
+believed in than in Western and Southern Ireland. And in the opinion
+of the mass of the people the good old times extended down to a recent
+date. One is asked to believe that before the period of the potato
+famine Ireland was the abode of plenty if not of peace, and that
+landlords and tenants blundered on together on the most amicable
+terms. It is hardly necessary to state that the golden age of Ireland,
+like the golden age of every other country, never had any real
+existence. It is like the good old-fashioned servant who from the time
+of Terence to our own has always lived in the imaginary past, but
+never in the real present. The belief in a recent golden age is,
+however, so prevalent in Ireland that I have thought it worth while to
+investigate the grounds on which it is based and the means by which it
+has been kept fresh and green.
+
+The first fact which strikes the observer is that since the potato
+famine the West and South have been going through a period of
+transition still in progress. Under the authority of the Encumbered
+Estates Court a vast area of land has changed hands, and the new
+proprietors have only in rare cases succeeded in securing the
+affection of their tenants and neighbours, who sit "crooning" over the
+fire, extolling the virtues of the "ould masther" and comparing him
+with the new one, very much to the disadvantage of the latter. It is
+not remarkable that such comparisons should be instituted. The people
+have very little to do, and do that in a slovenly, slip-shod way, and
+they have therefore plenty of leisure for gossip. As they are ignorant
+of everything beyond their own county, it is only natural that the new
+proprietor or lessee should be discussed at great length, and all his
+acts and deeds be fully commented upon. And it is not remarkable that
+the judgment should be adverse to the new man. He is generally North
+Irish, Scotch, or English. The two former are hated at once, at a
+venture; but the "domineering Saxon" is given a chance, and with a
+little tact and good temper can secure, if not affection, at least
+toleration.
+
+But it is not easy to get the good word of the people, even when one
+is neither a "tyrant" oneself nor the lessee of an "exterminator"; for
+the ways of the most just and generous of the new men do not suit
+those of the natives like the system, or rather want of system, of the
+old chiefs. Even when a demesne only is leased by a "foreigner," and
+all risk of quarrelling with tenants is thus avoided, it is hard work
+to achieve popularity. As I drove up the avenue of a dwelling thus
+inhabited, I asked the driver what he and the country-side thought of
+the new tenant of the old house. "A good man, your honour," was the
+cold answer; followed by an enthusiastic, "Och, but it was the ould
+masther that was the good man! Sorra the bite or sup any one wanted
+while he was to the fore!" Now, the "ould masther" was, I understand,
+a worthy gentleman, of good old county family, who lived in the midst
+of his tenantry for several months every year, and "kept up his old
+mansion at a bountiful old rate," like a fine old "Celticised Norman,"
+as he was. Like the descendants of the early settlers described by Mr.
+Froude, he and his had retained their popularity by concessions to
+Celtic habits, not in religion or personal conduct be it understood,
+but in letting things go on easily, in a happy-go-lucky way, without
+any superstitions concerning the profuse employment of soap and water
+by their dependents. Probably no lady of the house had for many
+generations entered the kitchen, which apparently served as a focus
+for the country folk. The stone floor was a stranger to hearthstone
+and to water, except such as might be spilt upon it; and was either
+slippery or sticky here and there, according to the nature of the most
+recent deposits. The table and dressers were in such a condition when
+taken over by the "domineering Saxon" that washing was abandoned as
+hopeless, and scraping and planing were perforce resorted to. But
+overhead, firmly fixed in the beams of the ceiling, hung many a goodly
+flitch of bacon, many a plump, well-fed ham. Under the shadow of this
+appetising display might be found at any time during the day about a
+score of persons who had no business there whatever, but found it
+"mighty convanient" to look in about meal times for the bite and sup
+my car-driver so regretfully alluded to, and to sit round the fire
+smoking a pipe and talking for hours afterwards.
+
+It was in the larder attached to this fine old kitchen that I met a
+glorious specimen of the fine Old Irish Retainer, faithful to the
+memory of the "ould masther," who had left him an annuity of eight
+shillings per week, and not unmindful of the virtues of the new one,
+who keeps him on the establishment as an interesting "survival," and
+lodges, feeds, and clothes him, in order that he may not be obliged
+to divert any portion of his income from its natural course towards
+Mary Molony's shebeen, to the purchase of the prosaic necessaries of
+life. The Retainer, who was enjoying the occupation of turning some
+hams and bacon in salt, and inspecting the condition of some pigs'
+heads in highly spiced pickle, was a singularly good-looking man,
+with, well--I will not say "clean"--cut features and a generally
+healthy look, speaking wonders for the vigour of constitution which
+had successfully withstood sixty odd winters and an incalculable
+quantity of the poisonous new whisky of the country. He was interested
+in the subject of obtaining sundry rounds of salt beef for
+Christmastide, holding that roast beef is but a vain thing, good
+enough for Saxons, no doubt, but not to be compared with corned beef
+or bacon and cabbage. The Retainer spoke kindly of his new master, but
+at the mention of the old one at once kindled to fever heat. "Thim was
+times, your honour. Niver a week but we killed two sheep, or a month
+that we didn't kill a baste. And pigs, your honour. If we didn't kill
+a pig every day, as your honour says, we killed a matther of four
+score every sayson. And there was lashings and lavings of mate for
+every one. And the ould masther said, says he, 'As long as it's
+there,' says he, 'all are welcome to a bite and a sup at my house. As
+long as it's there,' says he. And he was the good man, your honour."
+
+This was it. The present tenant's Celticised predecessor, whose glory
+still fills the land, lived the life of an African chief. When ox,
+sheep, or pig was slain, the choice morsels of the animal were perhaps
+reserved for the chieftain's table, and the remainder of the carcase
+was distributed among the tribe assembled in that part of the kraal
+called the kitchen. Odds and ends of food were always on hand; and if
+there was not much to eat at home there was always something to be had
+at the chieftain's tent. Outside of the kitchen door was the stable
+yard, knee deep in the accumulated filth of years, and the garden was
+a wilderness. "But, your honour," said the Retainer, "it was the foine
+gentleman he was, and it tuk three waggons to carry away the empty
+champagne bottles when the new masther came, and long life to him and
+to your honour; and I wish your honour safe home and welcome back."
+
+Thus far the Retainer, who is fairly well cared for, and ought to be
+satisfied whether he is or not; but it is otherwise with the
+surrounding public. As the old order changes and gives place to the
+new, the poorer tenants have seen one privilege depart from them after
+the other. To the new occupant, however much inclined he may be to
+deal liberally, nay, generously with the country folk, it appears
+preposterous that a score or more of loafers should assist his
+servants in "eating up his mutton." The new comer is prepared to deal
+handsomely with the people, who with all their faults have endearing
+qualities almost impossible to resist; but the fact is that he does
+not understand the situation till it is too late. A good Scotch or
+English housewife going into her kitchen and finding it so
+inexpressibly dirty that her feet are literally rooted to the ground,
+is apt to express a very decided opinion, despite the presence of a
+dozen or more of gossips smoking their pipes round the fire; but her
+remarks are hardly likely to be taken in good part, and she is classed
+as a "domineering" person forthwith. And a general misunderstanding
+can only be averted by timely concessions and the prompt dismissal of
+English servants who neither can nor will live with their Irish peers.
+And yet it cannot be fairly said that anybody is to blame. The
+"foreigner" cannot endure to be kept in bed till late in the morning,
+and hence easily acquires the reputation of a "tyrant." And the small
+tenants feel the loss of the African system, under which they never
+actually went short of a meal. As the right of mountain pasture and of
+cutting turf have vanished on some estates, so has the privilege of
+living at free quarters disappeared on others, to be replaced by no
+compensating advantage. This is one of the features of a period of
+transition during which, without ill-will on either side, the gulf
+between rich and poor is becoming perceptibly wider.
+
+Inasmuch as I am just now contradicted by peers in the columns of the
+_Daily News_ itself, and attacked--I must add, in very courteous as
+well as brilliant style--by a leader writer of the _Irish Times_, and
+held up to public opprobrium at Sunday meetings, I thought it well to
+submit the foregoing to a friend, born and bred in Ireland, before
+committing it to print. Where, except so far as the retainer is
+concerned, I was obliged to depend so much on hearsay evidence, I
+thought it just possible that I might have selected an extreme case
+instead of a fair type of what I have ventured to call the African
+system. I am quite reassured. My friend, who is an accomplished and
+experienced Irishman, tainted only by a very few years' residence in
+England, assures me that I have considerably understated the wild,
+wasteful profusion, slothfulness, and dirt of the old-fashioned
+chieftain's kitchen. He assures me that families are now abroad in the
+world without an acre of land or a halfpenny beyond their earnings,
+who, within his recollection, have been "ruined by their
+kitchen,"--literally eaten up by hungry retainers and tenants. He
+mentioned one family in particular, whose income sank from 12,000l. to
+nothing a year under the ancient system which united almost every
+possible defect. The tenants were not, it is true, charged a heavy
+rent in money, because civilisation had not advanced quite so far as
+the commutation of all dues into cash; but "duty work" was as strictly
+exacted on the lord's farm as it is now on some estates when coal is
+to be drawn, and "duty" tribute in kind was levied as well. Thus the
+tenant was obliged not only to cultivate the "ould masther's" land,
+but to give him at Christmas tide a "duty" pig and "duty" geese and
+fowls according to a fixed percentage. My friend, whose position
+places his assertion above all doubt, assures me that in old leases it
+is quite common to find a sum of money specified as the equivalent of
+a "duty" hog; and other tribute of similar kind. The "ould masther,"
+whose bailiffs looked sharply after "duty" of all descriptions,
+himself dispensed the indiscriminate hospitality already described,
+and "masther" and man floundered in the slough of debt and poverty
+together, making light of occasional hardship. All this feudal
+fellowship has gone with the old chieftains, whom the people profess
+to admire, and compare regretfully with the new men who expect to pay
+and be paid. But I am reminded that I have omitted to mention an
+important factor in the older polity of Ireland. The opposite ends of
+the social chain were brought together by that time-honoured ensign
+and instrument of authority, one end of which was in the master's hand
+and the other in the man's ribs or across his shoulders. It was "the
+shtick" which kept things together so far as they were kept so at all.
+The descendants of the masters say little or nothing about the good
+old custom of their forefathers in "laying about them with their
+rattan;" but the Retainer has not forgotten the ungentle practice
+which stimulated him to exertion in his youth. To hear the Retainer
+one would believe that the great smoother of difficulties, stimulant
+to exertion, and pacificator of quarrels was the "shtick." The idea of
+one of the tribe "processing" his chief for assault was never dreamt
+of in the good old times; for the recalcitrant one would have been
+"hunted out" of the county by the indignant population. To the
+Retainer the old time has hardly passed away, for it is not long since
+he actually recommended a "domineering Saxon" on the occasion of a
+domestic disturbance to "take the shtick to 'um, your honour. Sure the
+ould masther always did. And when he had murthered 'um they was as
+saft as silk." It is curious that the wand of the enchanter during the
+Golden Age of "Ould Ireland" should prove to have been the
+all-persuasive, all-powerful "shtick."
+
+
+
+
+XIII.
+
+CROPPED.
+
+
+GORTATLEA, CO. KERRY, _Monday, Dec. 6th._
+
+Having heard agrarian outrages reported one day and denied or
+explained away the next, I thought it worth while to ascertain the
+exact truth concerning the case of Laurence Griffin, of Kilfalliny,
+co. Kerry. It had been reported at Cork that Griffin had been taken
+out of his bed in his own house, that his ears had been slit, and that
+he had been otherwise maltreated by a band of ruffians, on the night
+of Monday last. Then it was roundly asserted that he had never been
+attacked at all, and that he was a malingerer who had slit his own
+ears, or persuaded his wife to slit them for him, with an eye to the
+excitement of sympathy and charity; that winter was coming on; and
+that, after all, the ear is not a very sensitive part of the human
+form. To ascertain the exact truth there seemed to be only one
+method--to see for oneself. Having seen the man, and assisted at the
+application of a fresh dressing to his wounded ear, not _ears_, I must
+confess myself incapable of entertaining any doubt as to his veracity.
+His mutilated ear is not slit, nor is he "ear-marked" like a beast, by
+a notch being cut in that organ. The upper and exterior convolution of
+his left ear is cut clean off, so that its outline, instead off being
+rounded at the top, is straight. The wound is of course still fresh
+and sore, but is already showing signs of healing. The poor man has
+evidently been not only barbarously mutilated, but nearly frightened
+to death. With his pale face and half-grown beard, and his head bound
+up, he is a pitiable object. Obviously he was nearly as much afraid of
+me as of his midnight assailants, and was far too much bewildered by
+the harsh tone of "the Saxon" to tell a smooth and coherent story. Bit
+by bit, amid many interruptions, he told his pitiful narrative, only
+one part of which I consider doubtful. He denied that, either by their
+clothes or any other sign, he could identify any one of the men who
+attacked him. I am obliged to believe that, despite their blackened
+faces, he could have done so, were he not in fear of his life. The
+hand of his enemies is still heavy upon him, for his wife cannot get
+milk from the neighbours for her children. They are either afraid, or
+say that they are, to give or sell to Laurence Griffin, his wife, or
+his children. He is thrown out of employment, and may, so far as the
+anti-landlord party are concerned, starve. The causes which led to
+the outrage on this poor man afford such a curious picture of the
+present state of county Kerry as to be worth narrating.
+
+A man named Sullivan occupied a farm at Kilfalliny, on the little
+river Main, a spot almost equidistant from each of the three railway
+stations of Farranfore, Gortatlea, and Castleisland. When Sullivan
+died several years ago, the farm, for which he paid about 190l. a year
+rent, was divided between his three sons, the man who obtained the
+middle or best section being "set" to pay 5l. more than either of the
+others, as having the best farm. The brothers on the outside sections
+have prospered. One has saved some hundreds of pounds; the other has
+given good, substantial portions to his three daughters. No objection
+was made to the manner in which the land was subdivided by the agent,
+Mr. Hussey, of the firm of Hussey and Townsend, of Cork, Tralee, and
+other places. The Sullivan who inherited the "good will," as it is
+called here, of the "Benjamin's mess" has not succeeded in life so
+well as his brothers. At the October sessions of 1878 an ejectment
+order was obtained against him for one and a half year's rent, equal
+to 100l. 10s. In January, 1879, possession was taken, and the farmer
+formally ejected, but immediately reinstated as "caretaker," a
+convenient practice, when it is borne in mind that in Ireland an
+ejected tenant has six months allowed him for "redemption," during
+which the landlord can only let the farm subject to the risk of the
+late tenant paying up his rent, less whatever has been taken off the
+farm in the meanwhile. Sullivan then was re-established in his farm as
+"caretaker," and there he remained with the consent of the agent until
+last spring, when he was summoned to depart. To this request he has
+declined to pay the slightest attention. When he is summoned for
+trespass and sent to gaol the Land Leaguers pay his fine and restore
+him to his family, who still keep houses on the farm as before. As the
+case at present stands he is indebted to his landlord (deduction being
+made for sums received for grazing and for about 100l. worth of hay
+still stacked on the farm) in the sum of 100l. The agent, anxious to
+settle the matter, persuaded the landlord to offer him a receipt for
+this, and a bonus of 100l. in cash, if he would go away, but this he,
+or the Land League for him, declines to do.
+
+It was obviously necessary at the end of the hay harvest to appoint a
+caretaker to see that the crop was not "lifted," after the manner of
+that of the irreconcilable Tom Browne, of Cloontakilla, county Mayo.
+Hence, Laurence Griffin, a labouring man, with an acre patch of land
+to his house, was given the job of looking after the hay, and
+occasionally summoning Sullivan for trespass. It must be understood
+that Sullivan's family have never been disturbed, and that Griffin
+lives, not like a man in possession of their holding, but in his own
+little house hard by with his own family. The supervision exercised
+was, therefore, of the mildest character, but the summoning for
+trespass was accounted a dire offence by the popular leaders. Hence
+Griffin was first "noticed" to give up the occupation assigned to him
+by his employer, Mr. Hussey, who had given him his house and potato
+patch. The poor fellow was sadly exercised in his mind, but he kept on
+with his duty until a second notice was affixed to his door. Then he
+lost heart, and a fortnight ago gave up his dangerous occupation.
+
+On the Saturday following, however, he happened to go into Tralee, and
+the exponents of the popular will made up their minds that he had not
+given up his employment as he was "noticed" to do, that he was still
+persevering in the nefarious career of a caretaker, and that he had
+actually dared to go in the light of day to Tralee to receive the wage
+of his iniquity. If not actually guilty of this enormity, he had at
+least a guilty look, and it was determined to punish him, and make him
+a warning to other evildoers.
+
+According to the man's account, given in a disjointed manner under
+severe cross-questioning, he had gone to bed on Monday last, when
+somebody tapped at his door and called to him to open. Thinking the
+visit was from the police, who occasionally looked in upon him, he got
+up, and huddling on some clothes as he went, made for the door. As he
+was on the point of opening it, a voice called out to him to "make
+haste," for the speaker was "starved with the cold;" then he knew the
+voice was not that of the policeman, and he would fain have closed the
+just opening door, but a gun was thrust through the opening, the door
+was pushed open, and a dozen men with blackened faces and armed to the
+teeth burst into the room.
+
+The ringleader then proceeded to go through some form akin to a trial,
+and asked his companions what should be done with Laurence Griffin,
+who had disregarded the notices served on him, and persevered in his
+villanous calling. It was suggested that death alone would meet the
+case. "Shoot 'um, says they," said Griffin to me. At this his wife
+sprang out of bed shrieking, and his children collected round him.
+Almost out of his wits with terror, the poor fellow declared that he
+had obeyed the notice, that he had relinquished his office, and that
+he was out of work, and full of trouble in consequence.
+
+After some little consultation the chiefs of the Blackfaces consented
+to swear Griffin as to the truth of his statement, and while guns were
+held to his breast and to each side of his head, he swore solemnly
+that he had obeyed the notice, that he was no longer watching
+Sullivan's farm, and that he would never offend in such wise again.
+
+When an end was made of swearing him, poor Griffin, more dead than
+alive, was marched out alone between his guards into the road, where
+he found himself among a score more of men, all with blackened faces.
+Then, so far as I could understand Griffin, the leader of the men
+outside displayed some dissatisfaction at the way in which things had
+passed off, and expressed his determination that the unhappy caretaker
+should not go scot free.
+
+"What did we come out for to-night?" growled the chief; "did we come
+out for nothing?" Muffled groans followed this appeal, and encouraged
+the spokesman to add, "Shall we go back as we came, boys?" the answer
+to which was a decided negative. Then the unlucky man, Griffin, saw
+something glitter in the chief's hand, and while he was kept steady by
+gun barrels pressing against each side of his head, he felt a sharp
+pain in his left ear, and the blood running down his neck.
+
+As to what followed he was very incoherent; but it seems that the
+Blackfaces departed, leaving him with his wife and children nearly
+frightened to death, and with the top of his ear cut clean off.
+
+I may add, as an indication of the state of Kerry, that a gentleman
+invited to meet me last night postponed the meeting till daylight, on
+the ground that night air is not good for landlords. Not a single
+person directly or indirectly connected with land ventures out unarmed
+even in broad daylight. It is needless to say that no money would hire
+a man to watch Sullivan's farm.
+
+
+
+
+XIV.
+
+IN KERRY.
+
+
+TRALEE, CO. KERRY, _Wednesday, December 8th._
+
+The character of the principal estates in counties Cork and Kerry
+appears to be like that of their bacon and beef--streaky. There are to
+be seen some admirable specimens of skilful and liberal management, as
+well as instances of almost insane blundering on the part of both
+landlord and tenant. From Blarney to the Blaskets the distance is not
+that of a couple of counties, but the gap between Kylemore and Rinvyle
+between civilization and savagery. It would be thought that worse
+degradation than that on Innisturk and Innisbofin would be difficult
+to find; but in poverty, misery, and lawlessness the population of
+those inclement isles is far outdone by the five-and-twenty families
+now in the position of squatters on the Great Blasket. This is an
+island some three miles and three-quarters long, lying off the
+peninsula of Corkaguiny beyond Dunmore Head, on the northern side of
+Dingle Bay, as Bray Head and the island of Valentia lie on its
+southern side. Of old the Greater Blasket, which has some good
+pasturage upon it, was let to a few tenants who made a sort of living
+on this wild spot. They fed their sheep, they grew potatoes, caught
+great store of porpoises, which they converted into bacon, and thus
+kept body and soul together in a rough way. But whatever of rude
+plenty once existed on Great Blasket has vanished before its
+increasing population. The island is now asked to maintain some
+hundred and forty persons, and refuses to respond to the demand.
+
+The tenants can hardly complain of much interference of late years,
+either from Lord Cork, the head landlord, or from Mr. Hussey, who till
+just recently leased the island from him; for they have paid no rent
+for four or five, nor county cess for seven, years. They have never
+paid any poor-rate, and yet hunger after "relief meal." They are
+simply attempting the impossible--to live on a place which might
+perhaps support a score of people, but will not support six times that
+number.
+
+Blarney, for other reasons than its groves and "the stone there, that
+whoever kisses he never misses to grow eloquent," is one of the most
+interesting places in the south of Ireland. It is not only the centre
+of a rich agricultural country and the abode of an improving landlord,
+Sir George St. John Colthurst, of Ardrum, but the seat of an
+important manufacture of woollens, a rare and curious industry in
+Munster. The Blarney mills make a great "turn over" of tweed, and
+employ five hundred and fifty men, women, and girls. I had an
+excellent opportunity of seeing the factory hands, for I went to
+Blarney on pay-day, and was greatly struck by the difference between
+their appearance and that of the people engaged in agriculture alone.
+The number and appearance of the women employed is a good answer to
+those pessimists who maintain that the curse of the poorer Irish is
+the filthiness, laziness, and general slatternliness of the women. In
+dress and general bearing the girls of Blarney would compare
+favourably with those of many English manufacturing towns; and,
+inasmuch as Blarney Mills are successful, their work must be well
+done. One reason of course of the comfortable look of the Blarney folk
+is that all the family work. Perhaps the husband works at agriculture,
+and the wife and daughter at the mill. All work, and hence a good
+income, as at Blackburn and other cotton towns, instead of the
+starvation which attends a useless woman who, with her string of
+helpless children, hangs like a millstone round her husband's neck.
+There are no "useless mouths" at Blarney, where everybody helps to
+maintain the family roof-tree, and to prove that the Irish of the
+south, like those of Connemara, are susceptible of being taught, if
+only pains be taken with them. It must be admitted that Blarney Mills
+are in the second generation, having been founded by Mr. Mahony, the
+father of the late "Father Prout" and of the present proprietor. The
+houses of the workpeople at Blarney are neat and trim, white and
+clean, and a repose to the eyes of beholders, sick of slouching thatch
+and bulging mud walls.
+
+Perhaps, however, the spot of all others in which the sharpest
+contrast occurs between the old life of Ireland and that brought about
+by "improving" landlords and tenants is the hamlet of Millstreet,
+situate on the line of railway between this place and Mallow, once a
+kind of Irish Tunbridge Wells, and famous for the "Rakes of Mallow,"
+whose virtues are immortalised in verse. When Mallow was the farthest
+south-western outpost of civilization it is possible that the "rakes"
+who converged upon that pretty spot from the surrounding country
+"ranted," "roared," and "drank" to the extent that the poet has
+credited them withal. But they are gone now, these rakes, and Mallow
+appears to get on very well without them.
+
+It is remarkable for its pretty villas, and for a comfortable hotel,
+kept by a self-made man, who has risen from the ranks into prosperity
+by sheer industry and foresight. Millstreet is a very different kind
+of place from Mallow. The latter has the beautiful Blackwater river to
+give it beauty; but Millstreet is chiefly remarkable as the _locale_
+of the mill which gives it a name; as the habitation of the Rev.
+Canon Griffin, a Roman Catholic of high culture, who, unlike some of
+the priesthood, abjures the Land League and all its works; and as the
+spot on which "Ould Ireland" and New Ireland meet face to face.
+
+The hamlet is mainly divided between two proprietors. That part known
+as the McCarthy O'Leary property is mainly composed of filthy hovels
+of the worst Irish type--is, in fact, rather a gigantic piggery than a
+dwelling-place for human beings. The houses are not so small as the
+mountain cabins of Mayo or the seaside dens of Connemara, but they are
+small enough, crowded with inhabitants, and filthy beyond the belief
+of those who know not the western half of Ireland. It is hardly
+possible, nor would it be worth while, to inquire into the causes
+which have made one half of Millstreet an opprobrium and the other
+half a model hamlet. I simply record what I see--filth and swinishness
+on the left hand, order, neatness, and cleanliness on the right.
+
+The white houses, the trim streets of the townlet, are on the Wallace
+property, which is at present, and will be for some little time to
+come, in the hands of the Court of Chancery. Skilfully administered
+for several years past, the Wallace property is very well known in
+these parts for the success with which its management has been
+attended. One of the principal tenants of this thriving estate is Mr.
+Jeremiah Hegarty, whose peculiar position towards his landlords
+affords a curious instance of the working of the present land laws of
+Ireland. To begin with Mr. Hegarty holds about eight hundred acres as
+a tenant farmer, without a lease or any guarantee against his being
+turned off by his landlords at any time, except the natural goodwill
+and joint interest of landlord and tenant. He has of course the Act of
+1870 in his favour, but inasmuch as his "improvements" have extended
+over a long term of years, it is almost certain that if a series of
+deaths should bring the property into needy or unscrupulous hands Mr.
+Hegarty might be removed from his farm, or rather farms, at great loss
+to himself, despite the compensation that would be awarded him, and on
+which the landlord would assuredly make a great profit. It may be
+thought hardly likely that any landlord would be mad enough to
+disestablish a tenant of eight hundred acres of land who pays his rent
+with commendable punctuality; but as such things, and things even more
+foolish, have been done during the present year, it is not agreeable
+to think of the risks run by an improving tenant in county Cork, and
+an improving tenant Mr. Hegarty assuredly is.
+
+It is a curious illustration of that difference between English and
+Irish farming which makes the agrarian question so difficult for
+Englishmen to understand, that Mr. Hegarty, who may be accepted as a
+type of the Irish farmer, possessed by advanced ideas, conducts his
+operations successfully and profitably by almost exactly reversing the
+proportions of tillage and pasture existing on Mr. Clare Read's famous
+farm at Honingham Thorpe. On the particular farm of Mr. Read's here
+referred to, the quantity of pasture is about one eighth or ninth of
+the whole. On Mr. Hegarty's farms, for he has more than one to make up
+his total of eight hundred acres, there is exactly one-ninth under
+tillage to eight-ninths of pasture.
+
+This will not at first strike the English eye as any great thing in
+the way of reclamation; but it must be recollected that in this part
+of Ireland it is no small matter to obtain good pasture. One of the
+first sights the eye becomes accustomed to is the long bent or sedge,
+shooting rankly up among the sweeter grass, and telling surely of land
+overcharged with water. There is no escape from the fact that Ireland
+as a country is cursed with defective natural drainage. The fall of
+the greater rivers is so slight that they meander hither and thither
+in "S's," as they say here, and only require a little surplus on the
+average rainfall to overflow the more valuable land. And it is
+astonishing how quickly good land left untilled reverts to its
+primeval condition, or, in the expressive language of the country,
+"goes back to bog." This has been shown in many cases.
+
+There is, for instance, a not small portion of Lord Inchiquin's and
+Lord Kenmare's land, which has been allowed by the tenants to
+gradually go back to sedge, if not to bog, for the want of keeping
+drains clear and putting on lime. A curious instance of the effect of
+not liming the land is supplied on one of the fields newly reclaimed
+by Mr. Hegarty. Owing either to the supply of lime running short, for
+the moment, or to the carelessness of his men, a patch of recently
+drained land was left without lime which was liberally bestowed on the
+rest of the field. The forgotten patch can be seen from afar by the
+tufts of sedge sprouting from it.
+
+Mr. Hegarty's eight hundred acres are, saving one or two little lots,
+divided between the Millstreet farm and the mountain farm of
+Lackadota, for the goodwill whereof the incoming paid the outgoing
+tenants 560l. before he began the work of thorough reclamation. His
+success on this hill-side has been remarkable. This season he has
+taken out potatoes from eight acres at the rate of 20l. per acre, and
+the triumph of his method has been equally great in other crops--to
+wit, oats, mangolds, and turnips.
+
+It is needless to remind agricultural readers that the artificial
+feeding of cattle is still in its infancy in the west and south-west
+of Ireland. The various kinds of cake--oil, cotton, and nut--and
+cattle "spices," made up of fenugreek seed and other condiments, are,
+if not unknown, quite unused by all but a few gentlemen farmers, of
+whom I shall in another letter have more to say. The old-fashioned
+notion was to rear cattle, turn them loose on the mountain, and sell
+them to be finished in the Meaths or elsewhere. On the Millstreet
+farm, however, root-crops are largely used for feeding, and the beasts
+are kept more under cover than is common here. All this means, of
+course, large outlay, and the farmer has expended not less than six
+thousand pounds in building, and in draining and liming four hundred
+acres of the eight hundred he occupies. He was, like Canon Griffin,
+one of the first to recognise the necessity for changing the potato
+seed, and imported "champions" before other people thought of it, and
+while they were growing potatoes not much bigger than marbles, and
+hardly fit to feed pigs upon, he was getting crops of fine tubers. In
+draining the portion of his farm near the river, he has found himself
+obliged to employ stone drains, the attempts previously made with tile
+drains having failed signally; and it may be added that his attempts,
+now shown to be successful, to drain the flat land near the river
+Oughbane were derided by neighbouring agriculturists, who could not
+see that if the land do not slope sufficiently towards the natural
+drainage the artificial drains may be made to do so. His
+farm-buildings, machinery for threshing, &c., are an agreeable sight.
+In building, concrete has been largely used, especially in the
+cow-houses and feeding stalls, and the general effect of this large
+farm in county Cork is that of a well-managed business, every detail
+of which is familiar to its head.
+
+It can hardly be thought extraordinary that farmers like Mr. Hegarty,
+even on a smaller scale, are anxious for a good, sound Land Bill.
+They, with all good feeling toward their present landlords, cannot
+avoid recognising that as the law stands the work of their lives may
+be taken from them by any accident of succession. Despite the Land
+Bill of 1870, they are harassed by a sense of insecurity. Monetary
+payment for the work of their best years would not compensate them for
+the loss of the holdings, the value of which has been created by their
+own intelligent work. In England farmers of this type would assuredly
+have a lease, and their Irish brethren hold that schemes for the
+gradual acquirement of land by tenants should be accompanied by the
+"Three F's," and extended over fifty instead of thirty-five years. The
+latter plan would, they think, be of little use to the present tenant,
+as it would practically raise his rent too far, and thus prevent him
+from doing his best by the land. Great force is given to these
+opinions by evidence in my possession, that, although a great deal of
+land has been reclaimed within the last fifty years, a large
+proportion is running barren for want of means on the farmers' part to
+cultivate it properly.
+
+The panic among all classes connected with "landlordism" is on the
+increase. All who can conveniently leave county Kerry are doing so. If
+I go for a drive with one of those proscribed by the grogshop-keepers
+of Castleisland the muzzle of a double-barrelled carbine peeps
+ominously from the "well" of the car. Meanwhile all enterprise and
+development of the country is arrested. The North Kerry Railway,
+connecting this town with Limerick, will, I believe, be opened next
+week, "despite of foes," but other undertakings are for the moment
+paralysed. This is the more to be regretted, as Tralee is a rising
+place. After a desperate struggle against the inertness of Western
+Ireland on the subject of pure water, the uncongenial element has been
+introduced so skilfully and with so much fall that a jet can be thrown
+over any house in Tralee. The last new idea is a railway to Fenit
+Without, six miles down the bay. Up to the present time vessels have
+been brought to Tralee by a ship canal, but it is now sought to
+construct a railway running on to a pier, the elbow of which should be
+formed by Great Camphire Island. The cost of the railway will be
+45,000l., of which 30,000l. is guaranteed by the county, and a large
+part of the balance taken up by the town. The pier is a far more
+serious business, depending on the Board of Works; but all attention
+is diverted from this and other important subjects by the terrorism
+which has, only just recently, extended to the county of Kerry.
+
+
+KILLARNEY, CO. KERRY, _Thursday, Dec. 9th._
+
+The eviction--of landlords and land-agents--is going on bravely. Mr.
+Hussey, Lord Kenmare's agent, left Kerry a short time ago, and the
+Lord Chamberlain himself left Killarney House yesterday morning, not
+in a paroxysm of indignant "landlordism," but "more in sorrow than in
+anger." Lord Kenmare, who is a downright resident Irish landlord,
+_s'il en fust oncques_, confessedly leaves Ireland with great regret,
+and bade his people "Good-bye, for a long time" with no feigned grief.
+But he finds the country uninhabitable, while indignation meetings are
+held almost at his gates, and the very labourers whom he has done so
+much to employ make common cause with the farmers against him in
+paying no rent. The improvements going on here for some time past are
+stopped, and about 200l. a week of wages lost to the neighbourhood.
+The causes which led to Lord Kenmare's departure have but recently
+sprung into existence. The _jacquerie_ only reached Kerry the other
+day, and already the county is revolutionised. Thanks to The
+O'Donoghue and other Land Leaguers, Kerry is now in as unsettled a
+condition as Mayo, Galway, Clare, and Limerick. The flame was long in
+reaching this remote region; but when it came it fell among
+inflammable stuff, as will be gathered from the almost ridiculous
+circumstance of farmers and labourers combining together against a
+supposed common enemy. Farmers who a fortnight ago talked scornfully
+of those who "held the harvest" have, to my certain knowledge,
+subscribed to the Land League within the last few days, and I am
+informed that those who have hitherto held out will be members before
+another week is gone. It is true that additional allurements are held
+out to them. The three "F's" no longer satisfy the more advanced
+spirits who emulate Mr. Parnell's magnificent vagueness, and declare
+it quite impossible that any measure likely to pass the Houses of
+Parliament as at present constituted will satisfy the people of
+Ireland. Meanwhile terrorism is upheld as a legitimate weapon of
+reform. If it were possible to be surprised at anything taking place
+in Ireland at the present moment, I should have been surprised at a
+farmer to whom I was talking a couple of days ago, and who farms
+between two and three hundred acres under an "improving" landlord. The
+farmer, who was evidently a local luminary on the land question, is
+only a recent convert to Land League principles; but he was
+nevertheless prepared to defend the cowardly kind of general strike
+against an individual, known as "Boycotting." He also talked a great
+deal about fair rents and the compulsion that farmers are under to pay
+anything that their landlords choose to ask. Yet this very man was,
+not long since, offered the profitable farm he now occupies in the
+place of smaller and less convenient holdings. Asked by his landlord
+what he thought he ought to pay, he offered two and a half times
+Griffith's valuation, and on the landlord asking him three times that
+rate, agreed with him to "split the difference," and was, or appeared
+to be, satisfied. But at that moment he had not been made conscious of
+his wrongs, and of his down-trodden, serf-like condition. He is fully
+aware of them now, and, in plain English, is prepared to make the best
+of the present opportunity.
+
+As the possible peasant proprietor of the future is a personage much
+discussed among landlords and others just how, I thought it well to
+consult the farmer as well as the legal and proprietorial minds on
+this important subject. I was at once struck by the "so far and no
+farther" tone, so to speak, of the larger farmers. According to many
+of those I consulted, no greater disaster could occur to Ireland than
+the creation of peasant proprietors. I will endeavour to give, as
+nearly as possible, the exact words of farmers whose ideas concerning
+the claims of their own class are of the most advanced I have heard.
+
+The instant I asked a question concerning the peasant-proprietor
+problem and the future of the "poor devil" cottiers, whose sufferings
+have made an excellent stalking-horse for the farmers, properly
+so-called, I was met with a well-formulated objection to any scheme of
+peasant proprietorship. The cottier _pauvre diable_ appears, I
+apprehend, to the farmers as a labourer, and they therefore look with
+anything but favour upon a scheme for raising the poor peasants above
+the necessity of working for them, by giving the poor a real stake in
+the country. The farmers hold that, unless some stringent regulations
+against subdividing or subletting be adopted and firmly enforced, the
+creation of peasant proprietors on an extensive scale will be the
+greatest misfortune that ever befell Ireland; as in the course of time
+it will create a nation of beggars, which cannot be maintained on the
+land. The farmer mind fails to perceive how any Act of Parliament can
+prevent an owner or peasant proprietor from selling his entire
+interest in his holding. This, they argue, will lead to the creation
+of a race of landlords who will bring more misery and ruin upon the
+country than anything that the present generation is acquainted with;
+as necessarily the class of landlords thus formed will be more
+exacting and severe upon their tenants than the present large
+territorial proprietors.
+
+Thus far the farmer, who so far as the evils of subdivision or
+subletting are concerned is at one with the great landed proprietor,
+who, thanks to the recklessness of his predecessors, sees his efforts
+to improve his property paralysed, and his own personal honour and
+reputation endangered by the acts of the leaseholders or fee-farm,
+renters over whom he has no power whatever. Many large holdings are
+leased to middlemen who have sublet them at extravagant rents, but
+cannot be dispossessed. This is the system which now exists, yet the
+great landholders I have consulted describe it as the result which
+will be brought about by giving the fee-simple of holdings to cottier
+tenants. "And," I am asked on all sides, "is fixity of tenure to
+signify the fixture of little tenants in their present holdings, on
+which they cannot possibly lead a reasonably human existence? Is it
+intended to stereotype disaster, to perpetuate the blundering of the
+past? Or is it intended to give them at great expense to the country,
+larger holdings on partially reclaimed waste lands on the system
+commended by Mr. Mitchell Henry, and perhaps applicable to Connemara,
+if not to other places? And is it intended that when Mike, and Thady,
+and Tim are settled on their new clearings they are to do as they like
+on them, to subdivide, to sublet, to conacre, to settle their numerous
+children and their children's children on the original forty-acre
+farm? And are they, after they have taken possession of it, partly
+reclaimed and brought under plough, to be allowed to cultivate it or
+not cultivate it as they like--to let it all go back first to pasture
+then to sedge, and finally to bog?"
+
+Mainly with a view to elicit further expression of opinion, I hinted
+to the last and most accomplished person who put these queries to me,
+that it would be absurd to give the cottier absolute control over his
+land, and that he should have a conditional lease from the
+Government, the four cardinal conditions being--that he should not
+subdivide; that he should not sublet; that he should not take in a
+partner; that he should cultivate some portion of the land according
+to a prescribed system. I saw the fine Irish "oi" of my friend gleam
+with triumph. "A second Daniel," he almost shouted; "a second Daniel
+come from England. But are you aware, my friend, that you have evolved
+from your own unaided consciousness one of 'Lord Leitrim's
+leases'--the leases, which cost him his life? Bating the fines which
+he injudiciously levied you have exactly the programme for enforcing
+which he was shot, as you would probably be if you attempted anything
+of the kind. It is not at the signing of the leases that any
+difficulty would arise, but in carrying their letter and spirit into
+effect."
+
+In view of the conflicting opinions held by able residents in the
+western and south-western counties, I thought it well to inspect a few
+estates, great and small, and to record such visible and otherwise
+well ascertained facts as might bear on the questions now at issue. My
+first visit in Kerry was to Clashatlea on the hill-side, opposite the
+station of Gortatlea on the railway line to Tralee. This townland is
+the property of Mr. Arthur Blennerhasset, of Ballyseedy, and it has
+fallen into an awful condition through no fault of its present
+proprietor.
+
+Years ago the land was let for electioneering purposes, akin to the
+creation of faggot votes, and a vast number of small holders became
+fixed upon land from which it is impossible to evict them. The
+approach to the small holdings lies along a cross road now in the
+course of construction from the lower road to the mountain road into
+Tralee. The cross road is in its present wet and unfinished condition
+a sore trial to man and beast; but it has a history nevertheless.
+Years ago it was a matter of complaint by the cottiers of Clashatlea
+that to obtain turf they were obliged to make a great detour involving
+the climbing of a severe hill. An attempt was made to lay a road on
+the lines now in progress; but it never grew into more than "the name
+of a road." So the little peasant cultivators whose land abutted on
+the abortive road gradually absorbed it into their possessions, each
+peasant taking his section in turn; a system exactly like that
+followed in bygone days by English landholders, and now attempted by
+the riparian proprietors of the Thames Valley. So far these poor
+people imitated the method of their social superiors; but they were
+not so fortunate as some of these in retaining their plunder. The new
+road was decreed, and Mike, and Thady, and Tim were obliged to
+withdraw within their ancient limits. Along the new road we went,
+bumping and jolting, at the imminent risk of the guns and revolvers in
+the car going off, until we reached the upper road by the glen. In
+parts the wretched houses were separated by a perceptible distance;
+but here and there they had been built side by side to accommodate the
+increasing population on the holdings.
+
+How minute the subdivision has been may be gathered from the fact that
+335 English acres, whereof some 250 are good for anything in their
+present condition, are divided among 40 tenant families, whose numbers
+may be safely put down at 200 souls. The land is therefore divided at
+the rate of one and a quarter English acres per head, and when it is
+mentioned that the most important tenant pays a rent of 17l. 10s., it
+will be seen that some of the holdings are ridiculously small. Many
+range from 4l. to 5l. per annum and are absolutely incapable of
+providing food for a family. It has been found impossible to reduce
+the number of tenants to any sensible degree without incurring the
+hatred of the country side, and the old and infirm whose children are
+dead or have emigrated, still cling to the miserable cabins in which
+their lives have been passed.
+
+On the opposite side of Tralee I witnessed a spectacle of a widely
+different character. A smart drive from Tralee northwards through a
+blinding rain landed me at Ardfert, the village in the centre of Mr.
+W. Crosbie's wonderfully improved estate. Going about his work quietly
+and unostentatiously, the proprietor has, in the course of forty-two
+years, completely altered the conditions of existence on his land.
+When it came into his possession in 1838, it was, as many Irish
+estates are now, suffering from local congestion of population. Mr.
+Crosbie's father had inherited from the Earl of Glendore, who had
+given leases under the old penal laws. At the time only Protestants
+were allowed to hold leases, and in consequence of the small number of
+Protestants compared with the demand for lessees, the leases were
+obtained upon very advantageous terms--a long period, a low rent, and
+few conditions. The result was that the penal law, like other clumsy
+devices of the kind, defeated itself; for there was nothing to prevent
+the lessee from subletting the land. This had been done to an enormous
+extent when Mr. Crosbie came into possession, and the lowland part of
+the estate was greatly over-populated. The upper part was greatly
+under-populated, and in the words of the proprietor, nothing could be
+worse than the way in which the tenants held the land. "No one knew
+from year to year which farm he had to till, and they used to divide
+every field and divide the crops every year." Mr. Crosbie was not
+deterred by the difficulty of the task before him, and undertook the
+redistribution of his tenantry, on the anti-rundale system, and by
+degrees succeeded in planting the surplus population of the lowlands
+upon the higher ground. Moreover he anticipated the ideas of Mr.
+Mitchell Henry and Canon Griffin by putting his tenants under the
+direct control of a skilled agriculturist, under his own supervision.
+Having thus redistributed his people on the land and taught them the
+elements of agricultural science, he commenced the work of building
+them suitable houses and farm buildings.
+
+Mr. Crosbie's estate in Kerry is of 9,913 acres valued by Government
+at 4,638l., with a present rent roll of 8,500l., thanks to the
+expenditure of 40,000l. since 1839. As one approaches Ardfert the
+cabin common in Kerry vanishes to make room for houses well and
+substantially built of concrete, with whale-back roofs also of
+concrete. The merit of originally introducing concrete as a building
+material into this part of Ireland belongs, I believe, to Mr. Mahony,
+of Dromore, who has employed it largely on his own estate; but Mr.
+Crosbie was, at least, one of the first to perceive the advantage of
+using it. With Portland cement and the sand and pebbles of the
+adjacent sea-shore he has made a concrete village, and given his
+farmers houses of a kind previously unknown in his neighbourhood.
+Concrete has several advantages keenly appreciated in Kerry. It is
+dry--an immense advantage in a humid climate, and floors, ceilings,
+partition walls, and roofs, are all made of it, as well as the
+external walls. It also requires very little skilled work, and can be
+built up by ordinary labourers under proper supervision. Another great
+advantage is that it can be moulded to any shape and thickness, and is
+therefore most useful for barns, cowhouses, and feeding stalls.
+
+The houses and farm buildings I have seen certainly seem perfect, and
+have, I am informed, been constructed at about the same price as
+corrugated iron. Those fond of tracing the genius of a nation in its
+constructive faculty will probably be amused at finding that the
+latest work of structural genius in Kerry is a development of that
+mud-hut order of architecture which has existed here from pre-historic
+times. But concrete well employed is a very different thing from the
+dirt-pie or mud-hut idea at the other end of the evolutionary chain.
+
+Mr. Chute, of Chute Hall, is also an improver and architectural
+reformer, his efforts being directed towards the abolition of thatch
+in favour of slate, an idea which has proved more fortunate in his
+case than in that of the great-grandfather of the present Lord
+Kenmare. The great estates of the Lord Chamberlain have curiously
+enough been equally damaged by the care and carelessness of his
+ancestors. His great-grandfather was disgusted at the condition of the
+town of Killarney, and offered any tenant who would build a decent
+house with a slate roof a perpetual lease of the land it stood upon
+and the adjoining garden for a nominal rent of four shillings and
+fourpence per annum, without other important conditions. The result
+has been that Killarney can boast of as filthy lanes as any in London
+or Liverpool. The ordinary process, the same as that which formed the
+hideous slums between Drury-lane and Great Wild-street, now happily
+demolished, has gone on in Killarney. Tenants under no restrictions
+gradually converted their gardens into lanes of hovels, and made money
+thereby, and the result is a concentration in Killarney of filth which
+would be better distributed on the side of a mountain, and which is
+under the nose of a landlord who is powerless to apply a remedy.
+
+Not long ago Lord Kenmare sought to establish what is called here a
+Temperance Hall, for the purpose of giving lecturers and entertainers
+a chance of amusing the people; but the proprietor of the ground,
+after a prolonged negotiation, declined to surrender his property.
+Killarney is in the hands of the dwellers therein, and a very poor
+place it is.
+
+Conversely Lord Kenmare's property suffers severely from the
+recklessness of the ancestor who flourished in the "comet year,"
+famous for hock. That spirited nobleman, averse to the nuisance of
+dealing directly with tenants, leased a large portion of his property
+to middlemen in 1811 for forty-one years or three lives; that is to
+say, for a minimum of forty-one years with expansion to three lives.
+The effect of this fatal policy of giving away all power of
+supervision and management has been made manifest in the past, and is
+yet visible on those portions of the estate the three-life leases of
+which have not yet fallen in. The gross rental of Lord Kenmare's
+estates in Kerry, Cork, and Limerick, amounting altogether to 118,606
+acres, is 37,713l., against Griffith's valuation of 34,473l., but the
+distribution of this sum is very unequal, especially since the rents
+of the yearly tenants were raised in 1876, in some cases to the by no
+means unfair extent of 50 per cent. above the poor-rate valuation.
+
+The 3,300 tenants on Lord Kenmare's property have been mainly put upon
+the land by middlemen who made a great profit out of their three-life
+leases. The lands of Mastergechy, Knockacrea, and Knockacappul are all
+let at an immense reduction on Griffith's valuation, but to middlemen,
+who realise from 200 to 300 per cent. on their investment. Despite
+these drawbacks, Lord Kenmare is an "improving" landlord, and has laid
+out in the last ten months some 7,000l. on his property. The pretty
+tile-roof cottages outside of Killarney are a reproach to the town
+itself, over which Lord Kenmare, after the manner of many other Irish
+landlords, has no kind of control.
+
+
+VALENTIA, CO. KERRY, _Dec. 12th._
+
+In a previous letter I alluded to the length of time it had taken the
+Land League agitation to make itself felt in Kerry, and to the
+swiftness with which, when once ignited, the far south-west of Ireland
+blazed into open disaffection. The causes of this slowness to light
+up, immediately followed by a fierce and sudden flame, are by no means
+obscure. Kerry has always been the last place to follow a popular
+movement, and the last to relinquish it.
+
+As the French Revolution and its effects on Ireland were not heard of
+in Kerry till long after the establishment of the Empire, so was Ross
+Castle, on the lower lake at Killarney, the last stronghold subdued by
+Ludlow; and so also was Kerry the last stronghold of Fenianism.
+Moribund in the other parts of Ireland until Nationalists and Land
+Leaguers were united, by the prosecution of Mr. Parnell, Fenianism
+still lingered and lingers on in Kerry. In the pot-houses of Tralee,
+Castle Island, and Cahirciveen the embers of Fenianism have smouldered
+since the outbreak of 1867. Slow to learn, Kerry has been slow to
+forget, and when once the emissaries of the Land League arrived here
+they found ready to their hand the _cadre_ at least of a formidable
+organisation, and the reign of terrorism at once commenced.
+
+Up to the present moment I have not heard of houses being blown up by
+dynamite after the fashion in Bantry, but the farmers who have already
+not paid their rents decline to do so, or pay in full secretly, while
+openly subscribing to the Land League and denouncing the mean-spirited
+serfs who would pay a farthing above Griffith's valuation.
+
+There is no mistaking the strength of the movement which has at last
+reached this remote island, between which and America, as a native
+said to me yesterday, "There is not as much as the grass of a goat."
+This saying refers to the popular method of measurement, which is not
+by acres, but by the grass of so many cows, according to the richness
+of the pasture. Up to a month ago there was no talk of the Land League
+on Valentia Island. The tenants had for the most part paid their May
+rents, and the situation therefore afforded little scope for
+agitation; but the subtle spirit which spread instantaneously from
+Tralee to Cahirciveen quickly traversed the ferry, and now the
+Valentians are as keen on the subject of their grievances as anybody
+else in the western half of Ireland. At Cahirciveen anti-landlordism
+is as vigorous at this moment as at Tralee, or even at Ennis itself,
+albeit violent personal outrages have not been perpetrated in the
+immediate neighbourhood.
+
+A resolute and influential leader of the people declared to me
+yesterday that the spirit now aroused would never be quelled but by a
+full and generous recognition of the claims of the cultivators. He
+averred that the people are not only awakened to their wrongs and
+determined to have them redressed, but that they possess the power of
+enforcing their will. I hinted that savage threats and deeds of
+violence might produce temporary anarchy, but that the end of all
+would be the crushing of the League with a strong hand. The answer was
+not argument, but defiance. It was impossible, the speaker asserted,
+to crush the combination now existing in Kerry. It could not be
+crushed, for the simple reason that it did not transgress the law.
+This was startling news, and I at once asked what was to be said of
+the dynamite affair at Bantry, the ear-cutting business near Castle
+Island, and the shooting of a bailiff in Tyrone? Only one of those
+things, I was instantly reminded, had occurred in Kerry, and I was
+moreover instructed that personal violence was preached against by the
+Land League priests, and opposed by all lay leaders. The crimes
+alluded to were the accidents of a great upheaval of the people, who
+could attain their objects perfectly well without violence.
+
+To the objection that without occasional violence the terrorism now
+existing would lose all its strength, that threats never carried out
+would become ridiculous, that when violence ceased, tenants as well as
+landlords would set the Land League law aside and, do as they pleased,
+it was replied that the great agrarian movement had passed through the
+period of terrorism as nations pass through the early stage of
+baronial rights, especially that of private war. The present condition
+of the anti-landlord party was not that of a revolt, but of a strike,
+which whether it was wise and according to the laws of political
+economy or not, was clearly lawful. There was no constitutional right
+in any one man to compel another to work for him, and a strike was
+therefore clearly permissible. It was nonsense to cry out against
+combination. It was the only possible method of the weak making good
+their case against the strong, and the landlords might combine, and
+welcome, if they thought it would do them any good. Nobody wanted to
+shoot them any more, for they were "Quite, quite down." The present
+strike was of an unprecedented character. Strikes of workpeople were
+sometimes met and defeated by combinations of masters, because the
+masters held the property and plant, and the men had nothing but their
+heads and hands, and perhaps a little money in savings banks. So the
+masters lasted the longest and won, except when their number included
+a large proportion of needy, speculative manufacturers, who durst not
+stop their mills, and thus became the indirect and unwilling allies of
+the artisan. But where the masters were few and wealthy, the artisans
+had no chance against them.
+
+It was far otherwise with the Irish farmers and cottiers, who not only
+"held the harvest," or rather its monetary result, but held the land
+and were "not going to give it up." The people, the speaker opined,
+had really won the battle already, and it was for them to exercise the
+power they had suddenly become aware of wisely and mercifully. There
+was no further need for violence or threats of violence, but what was
+called the law should not be carried out until the claims of the Irish
+people were fully admitted by the English Government.
+
+How then was this gigantic strike to be carried on without violence or
+threatening life or limb? Quite easily was the reply--by extending the
+process of "Boycotting." This is, it seems, the great constitutional
+weapon on which neither horse, foot, nor artillery can be brought to
+bear. Those who will not join the _Jacquerie_, and aid and abet those
+Irish analogues of Jacques Bonhomme, Mike and Thady and Tim, in their
+resistance to "landlordism" shall be "Boycotted"; and all those who
+refuse to join in "Boycotting" an offender shall be treated in the
+same way.
+
+Already the stoutest hearted are yielding on every side to the dread
+of being "Boycotted," a doom which signifies simply that the victim
+must surrender or leave the country. It means that nobody will buy or
+sell with any member of the family which is declared "taboo"; that the
+farmer may drive his cattle and pigs to market, but will not find a
+purchaser; that he may reap his grain and pull his potatoes, but that
+not a soul in the country will buy them for fear of being "Boycotted"
+himself. It means that the baker will refuse him bread, and the
+butcher meat; that no draper who knows his wife by sight will sell her
+as much as a ribbon; that not a creature will buy her butter and
+eggs, chickens and turkeys, geese and ducks; that she will be unable
+to buy any article of food or luxury for her children, and that they
+will be "sent to Coventry" at school.
+
+There is not an atom of exaggeration in anything here stated. It is
+not a fancy picture, but as genuine as that of Mr. Boycott himself;
+and there is no doubt that the taste for "Boycotting" is spreading
+rapidly, as my informant, who is heartily in favour of it, declares it
+is "clean within any law that could be made, let alone carried out."
+It is impossible to compel any community to have dealings with a
+person whom they dislike, and the anti-landlord party are determined
+to carry their point without, as appears on the notices served on
+farmers, "hurting one hair of their heads." "Isolation" has, in fact,
+been added to the number of the arts which soften manners and forbid
+them to be savage. It is the sprig of shillelagh in a velvet sheath.
+
+
+
+
+XV.
+
+THE "BOYCOTTING" OF MR. BENCE JONES.
+
+
+CORK, _Friday, Dec. 17th._
+
+The present condition of Mr. W. Bence Jones, of Lisselan, whom I
+called upon to-day, illustrates most vividly the advance made in the
+art of "Boycotting" since its invention. Early attempts in any
+artistic direction are apt to be crude, and when "Boycotting" was
+first practised at Lough Mask it put on the guise of a general strike
+of the country side against an individual, but its effect was purely
+local. Since that time great progress has been made in shaping and
+finishing what one of my informants defined as "a strictly
+constitutional weapon." At this moment the arm of the skilful
+"Boycotter" is long. It can stop the sale of the original victim's
+potatoes in a northern town; it can keep Mr. Stacpoole from getting
+rid of his horses in Limerick; and can actually prevent Mr. Bence
+Jones from sending his cattle from Cork to England. The latter
+gentleman is isolated on his estate at Lisselan, a place near
+Ballinascarthy, between Bandon and Clonakilty, in this county, but his
+isolation has not yet gone, in some respects, to the same brutal
+length as that of Mr. Boycott. He is still permitted to receive and to
+despatch his letters; and car-drivers have, perhaps by some oversight
+of the "Boycotters," not yet been warned to avoid his house as if it
+were a lazaretto, and to refuse to carry his visitors within miles of
+his door. Perhaps he is considered by the mysterious persons who alone
+exercise authority in Ireland just now as only a "tyrant" of the
+second or third degree, and not as a first-class malefactor.
+
+But, however this may be, I found none of the difficulty in reaching
+Lisselan which accompanied my second visit to Lough Mask House. When I
+started from Bandon this morning, that thriving town was wrapped in
+slumber, although the sun was shining brightly out of a deep blue sky,
+just flecked at the horizon with pearly-hued clouds. The ground was
+hard and crisp, and the hoofs of the horses rang out merrily as I sped
+in the direction of Clonakilty, through an undulating country mainly
+devoted to pasture, some of which was rough and sedgy. As I approached
+Ballinascarthy the quality of the land was visibly better.
+
+Lisselan House lies in the midst of a charming pastoral scene. Beyond
+the clean-cut lawn flows the silvery flood of the Arrigadeen, its
+opposite bank is clothed with the bright green tops of white turnips
+in the midst of which is penned a flock of sheep (Shropshire Downs),
+and in the distance are green meadows and browsing kine. All would be
+soft, peaceful, and Arcadian, were it not for the helmets of the 3rd
+Dragoon Guards glittering in the sun as the patrol turns the corner of
+the wood, and the tall, dark figures of the Royal Irish Constabulary
+guarding the gate and doorstep. At present the house, the farm, and
+the neighbouring village are occupied by the police, and it has been
+thought necessary to increase the strength of the garrison in order to
+assure the safety of the servants who, to their infinite credit in
+such times as these, remain true to their master.
+
+It is not pretended for an instant that either Mr. W. Bence Jones or
+his son, who are as gigantic of stature as they are resolute of mind,
+need fear personal attack. They are known to be armed to the teeth,
+and the chances are that the weak-minded labourers who have deserted
+them are far more afraid of "the masters" than they are of them. The
+household of Lisselan consists for the time being of the Messrs. Bence
+Jones, father and son. Miss Bence Jones, their English house servants,
+two labourers--whereof one is English and the other Irish--Mr. Law,
+the Scotch bailiff, and an Irish housemaid, who has remained faithful,
+and helps Miss Bence Jones to milk the cows and to attend to the
+dairy. The road is slippery on the high ground hard by, and it is
+debated at Lisselan House whether the farrier of the Dragoon Guards
+shall not be asked to "sharpen" the shoes of the animals employed
+there, for no local workman will touch them.
+
+As I pass by the dairy, one of those in which collectively Mr. Bence
+Jones makes 1,000l. worth of butter yearly, I see the trim housemaid,
+dressed in cotton print, milking a cow, and am presently aware of "the
+master's" son and daughter, who have been up since the dawn feeding
+and penning cattle and sheep, and milking the cows. Since Monday the
+strike among the Irish employed on the house and the farm has, with
+the exceptions already mentioned, been rigidly maintained. The men,
+about forty in number, were "noticed" on Friday; on Saturday they
+announced their intention of working no more for Mr. Bence Jones, and
+on Monday deserted the place as if it were plague-stricken.
+
+On Monday morning Mr. Law stood aghast at the sight of a farm of a
+thousand acres with nobody to work it; but he soon recovered himself,
+and with the help of his own work, that of a couple of labourers left,
+and the co-operation of the master's son and daughter, matters went on
+despite the strike. Mr. Law is, of course, as a good Scotch bailiff
+should be, greatly distressed at the state of his cow-houses,
+feeding-stalls, and stockyard, now ankle-deep in "muck"; but the fine
+shorthorned bull seems none the worse, and the pigs have taken kindly
+to the new and disorderly condition of affairs. But things are not
+brought to a deadlock yet. Of the animals "Boycotted" in Dublin the
+sheep have since been shipped, and it is thought here that at the
+moment of writing the cattle will be on their way to Sir Thomas Dyke
+Acland, to whom they are consigned.
+
+Byron wrote that "nought so much the spirit calms as rum and true
+religion;" but this dictum is hardly confirmed in the case of Mr.
+Bence Jones's assailants, who number among them a minister of
+religion, as well as the irrepressible grogshop-keeper. I am informed
+that last Sunday the mutinous labourers--or, perhaps, it would be more
+correct to say the labourers who have been coerced by threats into
+mutiny--were addressed in the vestry by Father Mulcahy, and that
+either he or some other person assured them that they would receive
+their wages as if they were still employed. However this may be, the
+unfortunate families, about thirty in number, who have struck at the
+bidding of the anti-landlord party, are making a sorry bargain; for
+many of the men are getting on in years, and will have to seek work
+and house-room elsewhere when they are turned out of their cottages to
+make room for the strange hands who are coming to do the work they
+refuse to do. The neat little dwellings of stone and slate that I
+observed to-day on the Lisselan estate are not let to the labourers,
+but are, with as much potato land as they can manure, thrown in with
+their wages, 11s. per week. They must now make way for people who will
+work, and are not afraid of "Rory of the Hills." Offers of help pour
+in upon Mr. Bence Jones, and the first detachment of labourers is
+expected forthwith. One friend offers a phalanx of English navvies;
+but temperate counsels prevail, and it is thought better to get the
+really small number of men required brought in quietly. With police
+everywhere at Lisselan and Ballinascarthy, and cavalry patrols always
+at hand, it is hardly likely that violence will be attempted towards
+the newcomers or the present slender garrison.
+
+There are, as in all such cases, conflicting reports as to the cause
+of the quarrel, if such it can be designated, between landlord and
+labourer at Lisselan. In his forthcoming book, _A Life's Work in
+Ireland, by a Landlord who tried to do his duty_, Mr. Bence Jones will
+doubtless describe with characteristic accuracy the objects he had in
+view, and the means he took to accomplish them. He has also already
+made known his difficulties and disappointments through the medium of
+the Press. He has undoubtedly, had abundant opportunity of weighing
+the possibilities of Irish country life during the long period of his
+residence in Ireland. It is also clear to any unprejudiced person that
+he has striven, not only to do his duty by the land, but by the
+tenants occupying one part of it and the labourers employed on the
+other. In round numbers he owns about 4,000 acres, of which he farms
+1,000 himself. Besides 1,000l. worth of butter annually made, he sells
+1,000l. worth more of cattle, and 1,000l. worth of sheep and wool,
+besides oats and various other produce.
+
+While this one-thousand-acre farm was let to tenants, it yielded its
+proprietor an average rental of 17s. an acre. No person acquainted
+with farming would for an instant assume that a small tenant could
+make nearly as much out of his land as the farmer of a thousand acres;
+but allowing for all this, 14s. 3d. per acre appeared a very low rate
+to the landlord of the farm of fifty-eight acres occupied for the last
+half-century by the Walsh family. I gather that the grandfather of D.
+Walsh held the farm from the grandfather of the present landlord; that
+the original occupant was succeeded by his son; that on the son's
+death his widow retained undisturbed possession until her son was old
+enough to assume the management, and that then the landlord required
+20s. per acre from him. To the landlord it seemed that the Walsh
+family had had a good bargain. He was informed, with what degree of
+accuracy I cannot at this moment ascertain, that the widow had given
+her four daughters respectively 140l., 130l., 130l., and the stock of
+a farm, probably of equal value "to their fortune," and that she had
+also helped one of her sons to make a start in the world on an
+independent farm. From these circumstances he concluded that he was
+entitled to more rent than he had been receiving, and demanded 20s.
+from her son for a lease of thirty-one years.
+
+To the tenant the case assumed a widely-different aspect. His
+grandfather, his father and his mother, had successively occupied the
+fifty-eight acre farm for fifty years. Two generations had been bred,
+if not born, on the holding at Ballinascarthy, just beyond the bridge.
+They had been decent people. They had paid their rent, and if his
+sisters had received good portions it was no more than their due,
+considering the respectability of their family. Was he, after his
+people had held the land for fifty years, to have it "raised on him"
+to nearly double Griffith's valuation? Was it just to increase the
+rent because his father and mother were dead? All these questions
+occurred to the tenant, beyond any matter of improvements and so
+forth. The landlord's position is quite intelligible. The value of
+farm produce had risen so greatly since the original rent was levied,
+and the farmer had prospered so well of late years, that the holding
+was demonstrably worth more rent than had been paid. On the other
+hand, the tenant held that the farm had done well by his people,
+because they had done well by it, and that to "raise the rent on him"
+because his family had behaved honestly and industriously was a
+monstrous exercise of arbitrary power. The upshot of the whole matter
+was a refusal on the part of the whole tenantry to pay the last "gale"
+or six months' rent. It is a noteworthy circumstance that none of the
+tenants are in arrear.
+
+There are other accusations than that of raising the rent brought
+against Mr. Bence Jones. The police barrack at Ballinascarthy was once
+a grogshop, given by the landlord to a dairymaid who had been long in
+his service. No sooner had she a groggery "to her fortune" than her
+hand was sought by a legion of admirers. It is not, I fancy, generally
+known in England that in this romantic country the warmhearted,
+impulsive peasants almost invariably contract _mariages de
+convenance_.
+
+It is said that a young man in the neighbouring city of Kerry was once
+sorely vexed in his mind as to his matrimonial choice. The
+"matchmaker" who arranges such matters had proposed two girls to him,
+one of whom had one cow and the other two cows "to her fortune." Now,
+the "Boy" liked the girl with one cow far better than her rival who
+had two, but the magnitude of the sacrifice he wished to make sat
+heavy on his soul. He consulted a patriarch renowned for his wisdom,
+and laid great stress upon his love for the girl with one cow. The
+oracle spake as follows: "Take the gyurl wid the two cows. There isn't
+the difference of a cow, begorra, betune any two women in the
+wor-r-ld." By similar reasoning a superannuated dairymaid with a
+grogshop is a very different person to the "pretty girl milking her
+cow"--sovereign lady of her presence, but of no groggery beside.
+Consequently the woman got married and died, and her husband having
+proved objectionable was evicted and the grogshop extinguished. This
+was another grievance against Mr. Bence Jones, who is known to oppose
+the indiscriminate licensing which takes place in many parts of
+Ireland. I believe that in the neighbouring townlet of Clonakilty
+there are no less than forty-two whisky shops, a proportion to make
+Lord Aberdare's hair to stand on end. Furthermore it seems that after
+bearing with Mr. Bence Jones for nearly forty years the people have
+dubbed him "tyrant" and "domineering Saxon," epithets certain to be
+applied to any Englishman who tries to do his own work in his own way
+in Ireland. Any insistance on anything being done in the master's way
+instead of the man's is "tyranny." Any curt command is "domineering."
+Irish peasants are accustomed to easier and pleasanter ways, and like
+to be coaxed and petted. It is only just to admit that under this
+treatment they display the utmost goodwill and pliancy. They will do
+anything to serve those who take them rightly, but they hate
+discipline. To the Saxon again it seems hard that he should be called
+upon to waste time in coaxing a mere hewer of wood and drawer of
+water, who, moreover, hews wood very badly, and draws water with
+exasperating deliberation. But a peremptory tone will not answer in
+southern and western Ireland.
+
+It may be urged that it has taken the people a long time to discover
+that Mr. Bence Jones was a tyrant. One thing is certain--they are
+likely soon to be rid of him. By living carefully he has been enabled
+to spend a large proportion of his income in improving his estate. He
+now announces his intention of throwing all his farm into pasture and
+leaving a country which has become uninhabitable.
+
+It is curious, to say the least, that as he was correcting the proofs
+of the volume which embodies his experience, he was called upon to
+rise and welcome the resident magistrate and the officer commanding
+the patrol, considered necessary for the preservation of himself, his
+family, and the few dependants who yet remain steadfast.
+
+
+CORK, _December 20th._
+
+
+It is impossible to exaggerate the panic prevailing among the landed
+proprietors of Cork, Kerry, Tipperary, Limerick, and Clare. Within the
+triangle, which may be roughly described as inclosed by Galway town,
+Waterford, and Valentia Island, a reign of terror paralyses all those
+classes of the population owning any kind of property directly or
+indirectly connected with land.
+
+Perhaps the agents whose calling is menaced with extinction preserve
+the most equable mind under the present arduous circumstances. They
+are to the manner born. They are accustomed to receive threatening
+letters frequently, and to be shot at now and then. Individually,
+therefore, they bear up very well, but it is far otherwise with their
+families, who look forward to St. Stephen's Day and its threatened
+meetings with undisguised apprehension. The men leave home in the
+morning bristling with double-barrelled carbines and revolving
+pistols, and, confiding either in themselves, their police escort, or
+both, keep, in the language of the country, a "good heart"; but it is
+far otherwise with their wives and daughters. As the "master" and the
+"boys" prepare to depart, and guns are being put on the car, together
+with the rugs and macintoshes, the matron's cheek grows pale, and her
+lips quiver as she bids farewell to the beloved ones, whom she may
+never see "safe home" again. This is no picture drawn by the
+imagination, with which flattering critics are pleased to credit me.
+
+Such a scene as I describe was witnessed by me a few days ago, and I
+regret to hear that the brave lady, who bore up well for several weeks
+against ever-present anxiety, has broken down at last, and lies on a
+bed of sickness. In this struggle against a covert mutiny, women, as
+in open warfare, are the chief sufferers. There are many of the men
+who ask for nothing better than to be let loose on some visible mortal
+representatives of their intangible foe. But the general feeling is
+despondent. The unfortunate landowners, house proprietors, and many of
+the merchants, complain bitterly that they are delivered into the
+hands of a "convict," whose ticket of leave enables him to paralyse
+the industry of the country.
+
+To a person unconnected with the landed interest of Ireland it is at
+first a little difficult to understand the almost insane terror of
+nearly all persons endowed with property. To the stranger the country
+is absolutely safe, and unless in the company of landlords or land
+agents he may go safely unarmed in any part of Ireland I have visited;
+but resident proprietors, and the representatives of absentees, are in
+very different case, and the farmers and labourers who have not yet
+joined the Land League are in a still worse position. So skilfully has
+this organisation been carried out that hardly a creature dare do his
+duty or speak his mind except the judges. In Court to-day the man
+O'Halloran, whose being sent up for trial at the Assizes here
+occasioned the riot at Tulla a few days since, was tried for appending
+a threatening notice to a chapel door. It will be recollected that the
+prisoner was brought before the magistrates at Tulla rather than at
+Ennis, in order to avoid a tumult, but that on its being known that he
+was committed for trial an uproar occurred, which ended in the
+bayoneting of three of the rioters by the police. The man was tried
+here to-day, and he will be tried again to-morrow before another
+jury.
+
+I may not express an opinion on the evidence of the police; it will
+suffice that the jury of to-day did not agree, and that this absence
+of result provoked some severe remarks from the bench. Great blame is
+thrown upon Lord O'Hagan's Act for frequent miscarriage of justice in
+this country, but the truth is that the outside pressure is too strong
+for any but a "packed" jury of independent, that is to say
+non-resident, persons to withstand.
+
+That terrorism has prevailed not only over landlords who are flying
+from the country, and agents who are at least putting their families
+in the few places in which some semblance of order prevails--that is,
+within the shadow of a police barrack or under the wing of a
+garrison--but over merchants, as was proved the other day in the case
+of Mr. Bence Jones's cattle. I hear of a similar occurrence to-day.
+Mr. Richard Stacpoole, of Eden Vale, county Clare, wrote a few days
+since to a firm in Limerick for twelve tons of oilcake, not an
+insignificant order from a responsible person as times go. The answer
+was that the firm in question had not a pound of oilcake in store, but
+that the order could be transferred to a firm in Cork, who would
+direct the cake to some other person than Mr. Stacpoole, "to be left
+till called for" at the Ennis Railway Station, and that if the
+purchaser would send somebody else's carts for it late at night or
+very early in the morning, he would probably get it home safely. It
+may be imagined that Mr. Stacpoole declined to receive oilcake as if
+it were "potheen" or other contraband, and at once closed his account
+with the firm in question.
+
+This instance is quoted out of many to show that the art of
+"Boycotting" is advancing from the proportions of a mere local strike
+to those of an almost national combination against any person who has
+incurred the resentment of the popular party. It is noteworthy that
+strict adherence to the "constitutional weapon" is mainly confined to
+the cases of those whom it is unsafe to attack by more violent means.
+His enemies dare not make an onslaught on Mr. Stacpoole himself, for
+reasons well known and thoroughly appreciated; so they clip the ears
+of wretched hinds who are neither strong nor courageous enough to
+resist their violence, which is just now only employed against the
+defenceless; but such outrages are apparently quite sufficient to make
+the power of the _Jacquerie_ absolute.
+
+I am weary of hearing from panic-stricken interviewers that the "real
+Government of Ireland is that of the Land League;" but the facts
+adduced can hardly be passed over in silence. For the present,
+creditors have only two courses to pursue--to accept Griffith's
+valuation where they can get it, or to do nothing, await the action of
+Parliament, and go without money for their Christmas bills. "Weak
+holders," as they are called in the commercial world, must take what
+they can get, and stronger capitalists may wait for better times; for
+it is impossible to put the existing laws for the recovery of debt
+into effect. Evictions are out of the question. Neither Dublin writs
+nor "civil bills" can be served, except in a large town or its
+immediate neighbourhood, and seizure of goods for a common debt in
+country places is quite out of the question. The principal
+process-server in the town of Tipperary has retired from service, and
+addressed himself to "J.J." for several days past. That matters are
+going from bad to worse is proved by the calibre of the persons who
+are amply capable of paying their rent, but are afraid to do so. More
+than this, those who have paid before they received notices are
+threatened with pains and penalties if they do not join, publicly
+approve of, and subscribe to the popular combination.
+
+Startling cases have just occurred in Tipperary. A farmer paying a
+very large rent even by English measure is leaving the country because
+he is threatened by vengeance if he do not immediately take back a
+labourer whom he dismissed for misconduct. Another large farmer is
+informed that all his labourers will be compelled to leave his
+employment unless he instantly joins the League. His farm includes a
+large percentage of tillage, and he must either undergo heavy
+pecuniary loss or submit, as he probably will do. A smaller tenant,
+who had been discovered to have paid on account a trifle more than
+Griffith's valuation, has been compelled to ask his landlord to give
+him the little balance back and a receipt in full. The request was
+acceded to, for the poor man declared that his life was not safe; that
+nobody would speak to him, and that nobody would work for him until he
+had righted himself with "the only Government which can carry its
+decrees into effect."
+
+The 2nd Battalion Rifle Brigade has just arrived from Gibraltar, under
+the command of Colonel Carr Glyn, and will remain, together with the
+26th Regiment, under Colonel Carr, and three troops of the 3rd Dragoon
+Guards, in Cork. The 37th Regiment leaves to make room for the Rifle
+Brigade; three companies go to Waterford, and the remainder to
+Kilkenny.
+
+
+
+
+XVI.
+
+A CRUISE IN A GROWLER.
+
+
+CORK, _December 21._
+
+Just before starting towards the scene of the last case of Boycotting
+I had returned from a tour in Kerry, undertaken mainly with the object
+of collecting facts and ideas concerning the fiercely-debated question
+of peasant propriety. There are other great estates in Kerry besides
+that of Lord Kenmare, which is twenty-six miles long, and covers
+91,080 acres. There are Lord Lansdowne's still greater estate of
+94,983 acres, and the large property held by Trinity College, both of
+which have given rise to considerable controversy of late.
+
+In many parts of Kerry may be found townlands vying in wretchedness
+with Coshleen and Champolard, with Derryinver, Cleggan, and Omey
+Island while others give abundant evidence of improvement and
+enlightened management. On the north side of Dingle Bay lies the
+estate of Lord Ventry, a popular landlord I am told, for the reason
+that he has not "harassed his tenants" with improvements, nor sought
+to wipe out the effect of the old middleman style of mismanagement by
+reducing their number and forcing them to live in habitations better
+perhaps than they care for. The crowding of people into a few
+villages, brought about partly by the desire of middlemen to make a
+profit, partly by electioneering schemes, and partly by the natural
+gregariousness of the peasants, has been already too fully dwelt upon
+to need repetition. What was done by landlords and middlemen in many
+places has been emulated by squatters wherever they have succeeded in
+occupying free land like the Commons of Ardfert, the condition whereof
+rivals that of Lurgankeale, in Louth, and of the historic townland of
+Tibarney, in common, a map of which hung, if I mistake not, for some
+time in the Library of the House of Commons. This last-named spot
+consisted of 164 statute acres, divided into 222 lots among eleven
+tenants, who cultivated alternate ridges and patches in the same
+field. Whether held by small tenants or landlords or of middlemen or
+by small proprietors, the land was always in the same state of
+confusion.
+
+On portions of the Blennerhasset estate previously spoken of, and on
+the Commons of Ardfert, the effect may be studied of influences
+against which the modern Kerry landlord has been in many cases
+striving for the whole of his lifetime. Half a century ago the advice
+to "neither a borrower nor a lender be," was systematically ignored.
+It is curious to hear that two eminent patriots of the period, Daniel
+O'Connell and the Knight of Kerry, were both middlemen, and in the
+case of Cahirciveen had one of the Blennerhassets as a co-middleman
+under Trinity College, and that the compact was only finally annulled
+by the resolution of the latter to have no more to do with it. The
+great "Liberator" considered as a middleman appears in an odd light,
+but he was a liberal specimen of the genus, and with his partners
+supplied Cahirciveen with previously unheard-of drainage and pavement.
+At the same time the ends of the Island of Valentia were leased by
+Maurice Fitzgerald, Knight of Kerry, the friend of Castlereagh and
+Wellington, to other middlemen, and it seemed that the work of
+confusion could go no further.
+
+The Island of Valentia was, I was informed, a favourable spot on which
+to study the operation of paternal government. Sir Peter Fitzgerald,
+the late Knight of Kerry, had enjoyed unbounded popularity, and had
+employed his personal influence to raise the population under his care
+in the social scale. When he had retaken the lands leased to Sir James
+O'Connell or his ancestor, he found certain lowlands, notably that of
+Bally Hearny, among a number of small holders; but the patches held by
+each tenant were oddly distributed. Three men held farms of thirty
+acres each, made up of detached lots completely separate one from the
+other, and scattered broadcast over the area of the townlands; while
+another man's farm of the same area extended from the sea at one end
+to the top of the mountain at the other, measuring one mile and
+fourteen perches in length, with an average width of twenty perches.
+After some difficulties had been surmounted the fields were "squared,"
+the odds and ends of lands consolidated, and the partnership in
+fields, with its absurd practice of cultivating alternate ridges,
+abolished.
+
+In a speech addressed by the Knight of Kerry to his tenants, he
+distinctly put his foot down on the system of subdivision, to which
+the peasantry of Ireland are almost insanely attached. He determined
+to permit nothing of the kind in the future. To those who had already
+subdivided he offered new mountain farms, leaving the sub-dividers to
+decide who should remain and who should remove. To those removed for
+sub-dividing their small holdings, and to those whose still smaller
+patches made their removal imperative, reclaimed and reclaimable lands
+at Corobeg and Bray Head were offered, with brand new houses; and
+after much discussion and final casting of lots the extruded ones
+resigned themselves to the fearful doom of removal from the spots to
+which they had long clung like limpets.
+
+To reach Valentia Island it is necessary to leave the railway track
+from Mallow to Tralee, and at Killarney commence what in London
+parlance might be called a cruise in a "growler;" for an unmistakable
+"growler," well built and comfortably lined, was the vehicle supplied
+to me as a "carriage," with a pair of excellent horses, by Spillane,
+the sometime guide and present postingmaster of Killarney. The
+postchaise assumes many forms in Ireland, but only once have I met the
+original _coupe_ holding only two persons. It is a long drive to the
+ferry at the extremity of the peninsula between the bays of Kenmare
+and Dingle. Beyond, the Island of Valentia lies like a breakwater
+against the Atlantic, and the scene at nightfall is strange enough,
+with flashing lanterns, shouting ferrymen, and plashing oars. The
+ferryman is far from considering Valentia Harbour as a drawback to the
+island, and, like a fine old discontented retainer as he is, complains
+bitterly of the attempt made years ago by the late Knight of Kerry to
+establish a steam ferry. But ferrymen are always stern sticklers for
+vested rights. Doubtless Charon claimed heavy compensation when the
+Styx Ferry was disestablished. Apart from the ferryman, however, the
+Valentians are by no means enamoured of their insular position. "That
+ould blackgyard of a ferry" is, in fact, just now a serious item of
+discontent.
+
+It is urged by the islanders, nearly three thousand in number,
+including the villagers, the quarrymen, and the staff of
+telegraphists, presided over by the skilful and courteous Mr. Graves,
+that the ferry is the cause of half their troubles. The peasants, who
+sell their stock at the thirteen fairs held yearly at Cahirciveen,
+declare that the cost of the ferry-boat for themselves and their
+beasts is a substantial reason for the reduction of the rent, inasmuch
+as they are put at a disadvantage with the people on the mainland.
+This is not the only grievance of that section transplanted to the
+hill side by Bray Head. They complain that they are afar off--a droll
+objection on an island six miles long--and have given their settlement
+the nickname of "Paris," in allusion to its remoteness from
+Knightstown and the ferry which leads to the grogshops and Fenian
+centres of Cahirciveen. I am told that the duty on the spirits sold in
+that cheerful townlet exceeds the whole annual value of the barony of
+Iveragh, and can bear witness to the convergence of the surrounding
+population on market day.
+
+Beside the grievances already enumerated, and only felt in their full
+poignancy since the establishment of a branch of the Land League at
+Cahirciveen, the Valentians now complain that their land is "set" too
+high.
+
+Amid the mass of conflicting evidence and the diverse methods of
+calculation, it is very difficult to arrive at any conclusion on this
+point. That the land is let above Griffith's valuation is certain, but
+so is much more of the cheapest land in the west and south. Moreover,
+the improvements made by the late Sir Peter Fitzgerald were not only
+considerable in the way of draining and fencing, but are visible to
+the naked eye in the shape of some fifty new houses, well and solidly
+built of stone with slate roofs, sleeping rooms up stairs, properly
+separated after the most approved fashion, a cowhouse, and other
+offices required by the Board of Works. These houses, which contrast
+remarkably with the old structures not yet improved off the face of
+the island, accommodate half of Sir Maurice Fitzgerald's agricultural
+tenants, of whom there are about 100 on his part of the island, as
+well as eighty-eight cottier or labourer tenants, who work for the
+farmers or at the slate quarry, and have little patches of ground
+attached to their cabins. Each new house built out-and-out has cost
+80l., and those put on existing foundations about 60l. It seems to me
+wonderful that anybody should dream of building anything on the site
+of an Irish peasant's hut, but perhaps I am fastidious. So far as I
+make it out, about 6 per cent. has been charged for building and other
+improvements to the tenant, whose rent has thus in one case been
+raised by 2s. 6d., and in others by as much as 3s. 3d. per acre. As
+the entire rent in one case reaches 8s., and in the other 10s. 9d. per
+acre, it does not seem enormous; but it is no business of mine to
+decide on value. I only state facts as distinctly as I can, and
+whether the rent be light or heavy there is no doubt that the tenants
+have paid it with some approach to regularity even up to date, and
+that the local agitation is deprived of much of its effervescence
+owing to this fact. Against this fair side of the picture is the
+awkward truth that during the bad times of last winter the Valentians,
+including the tenants of the Knight of Kerry and those of Trinity
+College, received about 1,200l. worth of relief among a couple of
+thousand souls.
+
+It is equally worthy of remark that those tenants for whom new houses
+have been built are by no means enthusiastic about them, and
+apparently would rather save the rent of them and live in a rough
+stone cabin as of old. I am aware that in making this statement I am
+liable to a charge of prejudice against the ignorant people, of whom I
+can only speak with pity not unmixed with kindness. I may be told that
+pigs were thought to be dirty until people took to keeping them clean,
+and that the animals are known to prefer their last state to their
+first. I may also be told that filth is the outcome of poverty, and
+that the Irish peasantry are filthy in their habits because they are
+poor. Now, to speak out plainly, this is not true; for I have seen
+people with a round sum on deposit at the bank, and in one case paying
+as much as 250l. rent for their farms, living amid almost
+indescribable filth. The dislike of soap and water, except for the
+visible parts of the human body on high days and holidays, appears to
+be part of the general indifference to beauty remarkable in the Irish
+peasant. His cottage is never adorned with flowers. Neither rose,
+honeysuckle, nor jasmine clings around his door. In a climate which
+allows fuchsia hedges to grow and bloom luxuriantly none appear round
+the peasant's garden. Myrtles, laurel, and bay there are in plenty at
+Valentia, but they are grouped near the gigantic fuchsia bush at
+Glanleam, or nestle among the houses of the telegraphic company. It is
+the same in other places. All is unloveliness and squalor, even when
+potatoes are plentiful and butter fetches a high price at Cork.
+
+These thoughts were borne strongly in upon me during a visit to
+"Paris." A drifting rain obscured the Skelligs, and drove me to take
+shelter in a "Parisian" household. The house stood sound and square to
+the wind with its slated roof and thick stone whitewashed walls,
+whitewash being ordained by a Board of Works wildly striving for
+cleanliness and health. The exterior of the house itself was well
+enough, but alack for the approaches and the interior! Plunging
+through mud I reached the door, and, glancing through the window,
+descried the inevitable pig inside the kitchen. The people--to be just
+to them--seemed a little fluttered, if not ashamed, of the plight in
+which I found them. It was quite evident that since the new 80l. house
+was built not a drop of water had been expended on its interior. The
+wooden staircase leading to the bedrooms aloft was in such condition
+that I shuddered to touch its sticky surface, the floor so filthy that
+I instinctively gathered up the skirts of my overcoat, the bedsteads
+filled up with blankets and odds and ends of unimaginable shades of
+dirt colour.
+
+Yet this apparently poverty-stricken home was already subdivided in
+defiance of the conditions of tenancy. The eldest daughter had been
+married some little time without the landlord or bailiff finding it
+out, and there was the bridegroom established in half of the house and
+endowed with half of the farm. He was at home too; a huge black-browed
+fellow, doing nothing at all, after the manner of his kind. And this
+was the outcome of an attempt to distribute the Valentians in holdings
+of respectable size and to make them live in houses instead of hovels.
+Two families were already established in the place of one, and the
+house was already like unto a stye. The inhabitants, however, were
+mighty civil when they recovered from their surprise, and spoke well
+of their landlord and of everybody connected with him, especially of
+the ladies of his family, who had done much to find paying employment
+for the girls by getting them a market for knitted and other
+needlework.
+
+Pursuing my cruise in a Growler round the coast I came past some
+magnificent scenery by Waterville, at the head of Ballinskelligs Bay
+to Derrynane, once the abode of the "Liberator," and now occupied by
+Mr. Daniel O'Connell, his grandson, who gave me a curious instance of
+the profit to be realised on a dairy and grazing farm. He has leased
+the island of Scariff from Lord Dunraven for 60l. per annum, has put a
+dairyman upon it, and sells off of it yearly produce, butter, cattle,
+sheep, wool, and pigs, to the value of 230l., the valuation of the
+island, according to Griffith, being, including the dairyman's house
+27l. 5s. Mr. O'Connell also gave me an odd proof of the retribution
+which appears likely to fall upon the landowners of the barony of
+Iveragh.
+
+When the Government valuation was first made public it was protested
+against by Sir James O'Connell, who succeeded in getting it reduced by
+30 per cent., an unfortunate circumstance for the present proprietors
+if the Land League continue to have it all their own way. The League,
+however, has not yet troubled Derrynane; the tenants, who since 1841
+have been greatly reduced in number by emigration and the
+consolidation of holdings, have paid their rent fairly up to this,
+that is to say fairly according to the usage of that remote part of
+Kerry. They average "the grass of six cows," with the run of the
+mountain, "for rather more" collops or young cows, not yet in milk.
+
+Derrynane rejoices in many memorials of the Liberator, but the relic
+of "Ould Dan" that all visitors, and especially Irishmen, are most
+anxious to see, is in the oblong mahogany box lying on the tall desk
+at which he was wont to stand and write. It is that article of
+furniture without which no Irish gentleman's equipment was more
+complete than his house without an avenue. "My pistols which I shot
+Captain Marker," as poor Rawdon Crawley put it. There reposes
+peacefully enough now by the side of its companion, the weapon with
+which the "Liberator" shot Mr. D'Esterre. It is a flint lock pistol of
+very large bore, and with stock reaching to the muzzle. One
+peculiarity about this pistol is worthy of note. Beneath the trigger
+guard a piece of steel extends curving downwards and outwards towards
+the muzzle, a convenient device, as I find, for steadying the weapon
+by aid of the second finger. On the stock is cut rudely a capital D.,
+for D'Esterre. There are no other marks, although the pistols have a
+pedigree and a story attached to them.
+
+One day an English officer stationed in Ireland found himself in the
+painful position of waiting for remittances. Knowing nobody likely to
+be useful to him he appealed to the most noteworthy Irishman of his
+day, and stating his pressing need, asked him to lend him 50l. until
+his funds came to hand. Daniel O'Connell, who was a keen judge of
+character, lent him the money without hesitation, and was shortly
+repaid, with many expressions of gratitude. About a year afterwards
+the Englishman was ordered on a foreign station, and, unwilling to
+leave Ireland without giving some tangible expression of his
+thankfulness to O'Connell, called upon him and presented him with the
+duelling pistols in question, which were accepted as heartily as the
+money was lent. On taking his leave the Englishman said, "If you
+should ever have occasion to use these pistols you will find them very
+good ones; they have already killed ten men." The first and only time
+"Ould Dan" used them he killed Mr. D'Esterre, to whose family, it must
+be added, he afterwards did all he could to atone for that injury.
+
+Mr. O'Connell also showed me a brass blunderbuss once the property of
+Robert Emmet. It has a revolving chamber, which, instead of turning
+automatically, must be adjusted by hand after every shot, a curious
+forerunner of Colt's invention, adaptation, or revival. Derrynane is
+delightfully situated at a spot called appropriately "White Strand,"
+from the silvery sand washed by the Atlantic waves. Above it stands
+the celebrated circular fort of Staigue, built of dry stone, and with
+an inclined plane inside like those at West Cove and Ballycarbery.
+Opposite is the magnificent rocky peninsula of Lamb Head, the road
+across which much resembles parts of St. Gothard, plus the magnificent
+sea shining in the sun.
+
+The crag of Lamb Head, broken into a thousand jagged slopes, is here
+and there overgrown with short sweet herbage. Wherever grass grows
+there will a Kerry calf or "collop" be found. How the pretty little
+black cattle cling like flies to those dizzy windy heights is
+marvellous; but there they are, night and day, for months at a
+stretch, giving no trouble to anybody, growing into condition ready
+for "finishing" on richer pasture, and giving life and beauty to a
+scene which would, without them, be but grandly desolate. The little
+Kerries are greatly prized as "milkers," and they yield good beef, but
+very little of it--not more than four hundredweight per beast. By the
+side of the superb shorthorns of the Ardfert herd they look like
+goats; but such cattle as Mr. Crosbie's cream-coloured bull are only
+suited to richer pasture than the rocks of Lamb Head. It may also be
+added that for the purpose of dairy-farms the best commercial cows are
+all bred between the rough native cattle and shorthorns, or between
+Devon and Ayrshire, the latter cross being specially liked by Mr.
+Hegarty, of Mill Street, county Cork, referred to in a previous
+letter, and by many other good judges. This fact, however, by no means
+detracts from the value of such a magnificent herd as that of Mr.
+Crosbie. On the contrary it is held by many experts that first-class
+shorthorn bulls are a necessity for preventing the cross-bred animals
+from reverting to the original local type.
+
+The improvement in cattle in Kerry, owing to the importation of
+shorthorns by Mr. Crosbie, and in a smaller degree by other
+proprietors, is very marked; but despite this the thoroughbred Kerry
+still remains and is likely to remain lord of the mountain until
+mayhap he be displaced by the smaller Scotch cattle, as he has already
+been in some localities by the black-faced sheep, who leads an equally
+hardy and independent life until wanted for "finishing."
+
+From Derrynane the road passes along the coast, and through Sneem to
+Derryquin, the estate of that typical landlord, Mr. F.C. Bland, beyond
+whose lands lie those of Mr. Mahony, of Dromore, the apostle of
+concrete and author of a pamphlet which has made a great noise in
+Ireland, and is accepted by "improving" landlords as stating their
+case perfectly. Mr. Bland, whose domain lies on the north side of the
+embouchure of the Kenmare River, owns about thirty-eight square miles
+of territory, and is one of the most popular men in Kerry.
+Extraordinary stories are told of him. "Know 'um, begorra," answered a
+native to my query, "Don't I know 'um; and it is he that's the good
+man, your honour, and every man and baste will do anything for 'um,
+and he has got tame lobsthers that sit up to be fed, and a tame salmon
+that follows 'um about like a dog."
+
+This, to say the least, appeared an ample statement; but I confess the
+temptation to see the man who owned contented tenants and tame fish
+was too strong to be overcome, and I therefore procured an
+introduction to Mr. Bland, who with great modesty promised to show me
+his improvements on condition that I would also look over those of
+that arch improver his neighbour, Mr. Mahony. To appraise the real
+value of the work done by these two gentlemen at Derryquin and
+Dromore--a region of some eighty-five square miles altogether--it must
+be understood that forty years ago this part of Kerry was, with the
+exception of the main track to Cork, absolutely without roads, an
+almost impassable tract of wild mountain and morass cut up by streams,
+which when swollen stopped all communication even for foot passengers.
+Yet it was inhabited by a considerable population paying rent,
+sometimes, for the mountain farms, to which they carried their store
+of meal on their backs.
+
+It is said that the father of Mr. Bland went to his first school in a
+pannier, a stone being put in the opposite one to steady the load on
+the ass's back. This was the "good old-time," when few of the people
+could speak English, none could read or write, all spun their wool and
+made their bread at home, and none dreamed of opposing "the master's
+will." Fortunately they were in good hands, for Mr. Bland went to
+work, at first gently and afterwards more swiftly, at the task of
+making land and people more civilised than had been thought possible
+up to his time. During thirty years he has laid out 7,000l. of his own
+and 10,000l. of Government money in bringing his estate and people
+somewhat into consonance with modern ideas. He has made twenty-three
+miles of road, built thirty stone houses with slated or tiled roofs,
+and three schools. When the estate came into his hands there was not a
+cart upon it except at Derryquin itself. Now two-thirds of the tenants
+have carts and horses. Forty years ago the entire export and import
+trade was done by a carrier who came from Cork once a month and was
+looked for as anxiously as the periodical steamer at a station on the
+West Coast of Africa. Now there are carriers weekly in all directions,
+and steamboats calling regularly in Kenmare Bay. All this work has
+been compassed by the landlord, with the partial assistance of the
+Government, with the exception of one solitary house, which was built
+by the tenant.
+
+The story of Mr. Bland's tame fish, which "sat up, and followed him
+about like a dog," turns out to have had some foundation in fact.
+There is a fine pool of salt water at Derryquin (Ang. "Oakslope")
+Castle, which stands on the edge of Kenmare Bay; and this pool not
+long since held a number of tame fish, which came to be fed when
+anybody approached, just as carp do in many well-known places.
+Unluckily, however, a neighbouring otter found this out, and carried
+away the unfortunate fish at the rate of two every night till not a
+single fish is left. I hear that both salmon and pollock became
+equally tame, but that the former, although eating everything offered
+them, became miserably poor in a comparatively short time. The only
+denizen of the pool that I actually saw was a lobster, who came out
+from under a stone as I approached, in the hope, I was told, that I
+was going to give him a mussel.
+
+Mr. Bland, however, if he has not proved so redoubtable a fishtamer as
+my original informant opined, has proved very successful in oyster
+culture. Having a little salt-water inlet, with a river running into
+it, he conceived the idea of breeding and raising oysters, but found
+the climate bad for "spatting," and now buys his tiny young oysters by
+the ten thousand at the Isle of Rhe, and puts them down in long
+perforated boxes on his oyster beds. When they are between three and
+four years old he consigns them to a correspondent at Ballyvaughan,
+who puts them in, I believe, deep-sea oyster beds for a while and
+converts them into the famous Burren oysters, which, like the Marenne
+oysters, are generally preferred by Englishmen to "Natives," while the
+"spat" of the latter is eagerly sought by the French for development
+into Huitres d'Ostende.
+
+It rained so furiously at Derryquin that I hardly saw so much of Mr.
+Bland's estate as I could have wished, but between the showers I was
+able to form a fair idea of his building and road improvement. It is a
+matter of pride to the proprietor that on a territory once impassable
+by a wheeled vehicle he can now drive to every farm in a carriage and
+pair, and that among tenants averaging "the grass of six cows" apiece;
+men and women at least speak English, and children go to school. The
+barbarous state of the country and inhabitants forty years ago may be
+gathered from the following anecdote. Two gentlemen were out shooting
+on the mountain and were driven by a "Kerry shower"--which is as much
+like a cataract as anything I know of--into a peasant's cabin. The man
+received them with all the dignity and self-possession peculiar to the
+best of his class, and when the storm cleared off invited them to eat
+with him on their return from the hillside. When they came back,
+expecting only potatoes and butter, they were astounded to see their
+host take several pieces of some kind of meat out of the pot and place
+them on the table, for there were no plates before them. It turned out
+that the mysterious meat was that of a newly-born calf whose dam was
+yet lying helpless in a corner of the cabin. The man was quite
+unconscious that there was anything objectionable in the dreadful
+food, and offered it to "the masthers" with perfect grace, and without
+the slightest pang at the costliness of the banquet. He had given the
+best and only meat he had to his guests. Like the Italian gentleman
+with his falcon, or rather the Arab sheik with his horse, who, my
+friend Mr. Browning tells me, is the original of Boccaccio's
+mamby-pamby story, the Kerry mountaineer had fulfilled the rites of
+hospitality at whatever cost. For long after the date of the grim
+repast just recorded, in fact, even till to-day, the peasants on the
+Derryquin estate have been accustomed to refer their almost
+innumerable wrangles and squabbles to the decision of "the masther,"
+who might be figured as a kind of Hibernian St. Louis, sitting under a
+tree, and adjudicating between his subjects. Sometimes it was not very
+easy to arrive at a decision. Not very long ago a man came with a
+complaint that his once-intended son-in-law had behaved shabbily and
+fraudulently. It appeared that the father of the girl had agreed with
+the "boy" that a cow should be killed "to furnish forth the marriage
+table;" that the father should provide the cow for the happy day, and
+that the cost of the animal should be shared between them. The cow had
+been killed, and the bride had been dressed, but the Kerry "county
+Guy" had not been forthcoming, that mercenary youth having married out
+of hand another girl with four more cows to her fortune than the one
+he was engaged to. Hereat the outraged parent demanded, not that he
+should pay damages for breach of promise, but his share of the cost of
+the cow. "And," said the masther, "you had the cow and the daughter
+thrown on your hands?" "Divil a throw, your honour," was the reply;
+"mee daughter got another husband in tin minutes, begorra, and we ate
+the cow, your honour; but Mike is a blackgyard, and should pay his
+half of the cow, your honour." This was a knotty case, but his
+"honour" decided that Mike should pay his share, and, to do that
+fickle bridegroom justice, he paid up with very little demurring. He
+was clearly three cows and a half the better by his bargain, and, I
+believe, lives happily to this day. It is needless to say that he has
+numerous children.
+
+Mr. Bland has under his paternal rule about 300 agricultural tenants
+besides the villagers of Sneem, who mostly have lots lying contiguous
+to, or at some little distance from, their houses. The holdings,
+albeit averaging the grass of six cows, vary very considerably in size
+and quality. Thus one farmer holds 803 acres, or "the grass of
+twenty-four cows," with mountain run attached, at a rent of 35l.,
+while another who has 1,493 acres is only charged 26l. for "the grass
+of seventeen cows," with proportionate mountain. Even on holdings of
+this size, as well as on others of less value, such as 250 acres at a
+rent of 13l. 15s., Mr. Bland has experienced great difficulty in
+inducing the tenants to bear any share of the cost of building and
+other improvements. Of course there are tenants and tenants at
+Derryquin, as elsewhere, but the general feeling has undoubtedly been
+averse to paying an extra percentage for improvements. Mr. Bland has
+done what he could, but has rarely found anybody inclined to pay more
+than 2 per cent., and one irreconcilable actually refused to pay 1l. a
+year extra to have a 70l. house built for him. The "masther" appears
+to take a view of the subject which might have been with great
+advantage more widely distributed among Irish proprietors of the
+improving sort. It is not extravagant to ask a farmer with the nominal
+grass of twenty cows, and a mountain run on which he grazes twice as
+many bullocks, to pay 5 per cent. on 80l. or 100l. as the rent of a
+good and substantial house; but it is preposterous to ask the holder
+of a ten-acre lot to do likewise. Such peasants should, as I observed
+in one of my early letters, not be called farmers at all. Their
+condition is about equal to that of the English farm labourer. When
+the landlord can afford to build better cottages for them than they
+now have, he should certainly not expect more than 1, or at best 2 per
+cent. for his outlay, and carry the balance to his profit and loss
+account, after the manner of English landowners of the best class. The
+Derryquin houses or cottages are very well built and excellently
+planned; they are also very pretty with their whitewashed walls, red
+tile roofs, and doors painted red to match. These patches of bright
+colour give extraordinary cheerfulness to a landscape otherwise of
+green, brown, and grey, looking cold enough under a weeping sky. The
+walls are of stone, "dashed" after the Irish fashion with mortar or
+concrete, and slate roofs have now given place to red tiles in fancy
+patterns. Inside they are divided into two rooms on the ground floor,
+paved with concrete, and two sleeping rooms above, in order, if
+possible, to keep the people from huddling together at night. It is a
+fact, impossible as it may appear, that when the pretty and tasteful
+lodge at the gate of Derryquin was first built, the occupants, four in
+number, all slept together in one room rather than be separated at
+night, and were only induced to occupy the apartments built to prevent
+this habit by the threat of eviction. I might have doubted this
+amazing story had I not seen the condition of a cottage rebuilt
+recently on an old foundation at a cost of 60l., for which a rent of
+1l. is charged. The tenant fought hard against the innovation, and
+yielded to the imposition of 1l. a year, and a clean new house, only
+under fear of being turned off the estate. He and his have only been
+in the new building for a few weeks, but they have made wild work of
+it already. In the room to the left of the door a "bonneva," or
+half-grown pig of the size called a "shote," in the State of Georgia,
+was disporting himself by looking on at a girl spinning wool, a "boy"
+doing nothing, and two dirty youngsters wallowing on the floor. In the
+other brand new room, not long since left sweet and tidy by the
+builders, were piled an immense heap of turf and a great store of
+potatoes, over against which stood a bedstead and a pair of boots.
+There was nothing else in the room, not the slightest fragment of
+table or chair, not a sign of water or washing utensils; in the room
+above were also bedsteads, without anything that could be called
+bedding, and no other stick of furniture. Before the front door was a
+rough stone causeway, already ankle-deep in filth. Close up to the
+rear of the house was a dung-heap of portentous size and savour.
+Evidently this was a case of taking the horse to the water and being
+unable to make him drink, for the people thrust into a clean house
+were obviously doing their best to bring it into harmony with their
+own views. I heard also of a remarkable case of subdivision on the
+part of some labourers on Mr. Bland's estate, higher up on the
+mountain. A couple or three years ago two "boys" received permission
+to occupy a cabin on a little patch of land. This spot has since grown
+into a colony. The "boys" have both got married, and have children.
+Their brothers-in-law also, with wives and children, as a matter of
+course, have built their cabins against the original one given to the
+two bachelors, and the holding has a population of forty-five souls.
+These poor people are surely the most affectionate in the world, and
+the uproar when any one of the colony is ailing is astonishing, and
+bewildering to more civilised and perhaps colder-blooded folk.
+
+Mr. R. Mahony's estate of Dromore (_Anglice_ "Big Ridge") is the
+theatre of even more extensive improvements than those of Derryquin.
+Mr. Mahony has 29,163 acres in Kerry, valued by Griffith at 3,071l.
+In his pamphlet he states:--"In the year 1851 I came into possession
+of my estate. Old rentals in my possession show that for many years
+previous to that date there had been allowances made to tenants at the
+rate of about 1,000l. per annum. Yet when I took up the estate there
+was not one drain made by a tenant, not one slated house, not a perch
+of road, not a yard of sub-soiled land. I then adopted the system of
+making all improvements myself, charging interest of the outlay upon
+the occupier according to the circumstances and increased value of the
+farm. The result has been that in five-and-twenty years I have built
+about eighty houses and offices slated or tiled, made twenty-eight
+miles of road, built nine bridges, made twenty-three miles of fences,
+thoroughly drained about five hundred acres, planted one hundred and
+fifty acres of waste land, and proportionately improved the condition
+and circumstances of the people."
+
+There is abundant evidence of Mr. Mahony's work on his estate, which
+is not only valuable in itself but as an example. The roads are
+admirably laid, and the employment of concrete made of Portland cement
+and the sand and pebbles of the seashore, since followed at Ardfert,
+was initiated at Dromore. Walls, floors, partitions, are all of
+concrete, and the roofs of the houses last built of handsome red
+tiles. The disposition of the apartments in the Dromore cottages
+varies somewhat from that of the neighbouring estate. The principal
+room, or kitchen, has nothing above it but the high-pitched roof,
+lined with wood tastefully disposed. The remaining three apartments
+are two on the ground floor, a tiny parlour and convenient bedroom,
+and one full-sized bedroom above. Separate cow-houses and pigsties are
+also appended to each cottage. So far as can be judged from a hurried
+visit, many of the houses are very well and tidily kept; in fact, so
+treated as not to destroy hope in the future of the Irish peasant
+cultivator, although this trimness is by no means so general as it
+might be. Mr. Mahony has also, by way of showing his people how things
+should be done, a model farm and dairy, of such moderate size as not
+to be beyond the ambition of a successful tenant. The proprietor has
+also, like Mr. Bland and Mr. Butler, of Waterville, a successful
+salmon fishery, great part of the produce whereof goes, at some little
+advance on sixpence per pound, to the agents of a London firm, who
+also get an enormous supply of mushrooms from county Kerry.
+
+There is a greatly-improved property in county Cork, lying west of
+Macroom and south of Mill Street. This is Ballyvourney, one of the
+estates of Sir George St. John Colthurst, of Ardrum, whose father laid
+out an immense sum in reclaiming a portion of the 25,000 acres, which
+bring him in about 5,000l. per annum.
+
+There are other landlords in the counties of Cork and Kerry who, like
+Mr. Bence Jones, have done well by their land; but there is no
+occasion to multiply experiences of a similar character. The purpose
+of my Kerry excursion was to observe the Kerry peasant when he had
+been left to himself, and where he had been looked after, and perhaps
+governed, by a landlord whose interest in him had not been diminished
+by recent legislation. My impression is very much the same as that
+produced by my visit to Connemara, that the peasant requires firm as
+well as gentle handling, and that his emancipation from the control of
+his landlord should be accompanied by some other authority
+representing the State, and interfering to prevent the tendency to
+local congestion of population.
+
+The Kerry peasant's qualities are in the main good, and he is upheld
+under difficulties by hopefulness almost equal to his vanity and habit
+of exaggeration. A Kerry man's boat is a ship, his cabin is a house,
+his shrubs are trees, his "boreen" is an avenue, and, as a native bard
+declares, "all his hens are paycocks." He may be briefly described as
+in morals correct, disposition kindly, manners excellent, customs
+filthy. It is, however, despite his hopefulness, difficult to find any
+trace of that gaiety for which he was formerly famous, whether justly
+or not. His amusements outside the calm of Derrynane, Derryquin, and
+Dromore, appear to be cattle fairs, whisky, and sedition. At times he
+is unconsciously humorous, as in the story of the Duchess of
+Marlborough's Indian meal distributed for the relief of the poor
+during the hard time of last winter. A gentleman, who ought to know
+better, was buying some potheen, or illicit whisky, of the maker.
+"Now, Pat," said he, "I hope this lot is better than the last." "And,
+your honour," was the reply, "the last was but the name of whisky.
+Begorra, it's the Duchess's meal as makes mighty poor potheen." This
+was said quite seriously and with an injured air. For there is no
+merriment in Kerry. The old dances at the cross roads are danced no
+more. The pipe of the piper is played out.
+
+
+
+
+XVII.
+
+"BOYCOTTED" AT CHRISTMASTIDE.
+
+
+KILFINANE, CO. LIMERICK, _Christmas Eve._
+
+The fox-terrier sits blinking on the hearth-rug in the pretty
+drawing-room as nightfall approaches, and a servant appears with a
+message that a woman has come with a big cake from Mrs. O'Blank, a
+sympathising neighbour. There is no mistake about the size and
+condition of the cake; it is a yard and a quarter in circumference; it
+has a shining holiday face, like that of the fabled pigs who ran about
+ready roasted, covered with delicately-browned "crackling," perfumed
+with sage and onions, and carrying huge bowls of apple-sauce in their
+mouths. As the pigs cried, "Come and eat me," so does the cake appeal,
+but in more subtle manner, to the instincts and nostrils of all
+present. It has that pleasant scent with it peculiar to newly-baked
+plumcake. Huge plums, which have worked their way perseveringly to the
+surface, wink invitingly, and, above all, the cake is hot, gloriously
+hot, besides having with it a delicate zest of contraband acquired by
+being smuggled on to the premises under Biddy M'Carthy's shawl.
+
+Biddy has watched the moment when the "boys" on the watch--scowling
+ruffians by the same token--had gone in quest of tea or more potent
+refreshment, and has slipped from the avenue which runs past the house
+instead of up to it, by the lodge gate and up to the door in that
+spirit-like fashion peculiar to this part of Ireland. When they wish
+to do so, the people appear to spring out of the ground. Two minutes
+before the monotony of existence is broken by a fight there will not
+be a soul to be seen, but no sooner is it discovered that some unlucky
+wight is in present receipt of a "big bating" than hundreds appear on
+the spot, and struggle for a "vacancy," like the lame piper who howled
+for the same at the "murthering" of a bailiff.
+
+This ghost-like faculty, however, has served us right well, for I need
+not speculate upon what would have happened to Mrs. M'Carthy (whose
+real name is not given for obvious reasons) if she had been discovered
+carrying a huge cake to a house under ban. She would not have been
+injured bodily; no soul in Kilfinane would have touched the cake, much
+less have eaten the hateful food made and baked and attempted to be
+carried to the stronghold of the "tyrant"; but it would have gone ill
+with the brave little woman nevertheless. Her husband would have been
+compelled to seek elsewhere for a livelihood, for neither farmer nor
+tradesman would dare to employ either him or her. Her elder children
+would have been pointed at as they went to school, and sent to
+Coventry while there; and she would have been refused milk for the
+younger ones. Not a potato nor a pound of meal nor an egg could she
+have bought all through the hamlet; and if people at a distance had
+sold her anything, they would have been intercepted and compelled to
+take it back again. The carriers would not have delivered to or taken
+parcels from her; she would, in fact, have been very much in the
+condition that Eve, according to Lord Byron, thought she could put
+Cain into by cursing him.
+
+Fortunately, however, the cake-bearer has escaped, and we fall with
+keen appetites upon the not very digestible banquet she has provided.
+The blockade has been successfully run, and we celebrate the event
+accordingly. We are not so very badly off after all, and in fact have
+passed a by no means dull time for the last two days. It is not quite
+so easy to frighten our garrison as a pack of sympathising peasants
+who attempt no kind of resistance against the mysterious leaders of
+the _Jacquerie_. The son of the house and his two grown cousins are
+here, the butler and gardener still remain staunch, as well as the
+coachman and a couple of bailiffs living outside, all "Boycotted"
+also. Moreover, we have a cook and housemaid with us, and two members
+of the Royal Constabulary. We have busy times, too. So far as
+turkeys, geese, chickens, and eggs, butter and bacon are concerned, we
+have enough and to spare within protecting range of rifle and
+revolver, but for fresh beef and mutton and flour we must depend upon
+Cork. Now the mysterious agent in Cork who sends us the supplies
+cannot get them carried nearer to the house than the railway station
+at Kilmallock, the interesting little town at which one of the county
+members keeps the inn and "runs" the cars, a fact whereof the citizens
+are not a little proud. When we receive the news, letter or telegram,
+announcing that meat or other stores will arrive by a certain train,
+we drive down to meet it, and without the slightest assistance, for
+not a single gloomy by-stander would do us a hand's turn, we carry it
+off to our own car, and thanks to the awe inspired by army revolvers,
+Winchester rifles, one constable on the car, and those officially at
+the railway station, bring our property away.
+
+A day since there was great excitement concerning the arrival of a
+daughter of the house, who was coming down to keep house for the
+"boys" whose guest I am. Her brother and one of her cousins went down
+on the car to meet her, armed as usual, for although they would be
+comparatively safe with a lady on the car, they ran considerable risk
+until she was actually on board. The train came, but not the young
+lady, and as it was broad daylight her well-armed escort came back
+again. Towards the hour for the arrival of the evening train there was
+more anxiety. It was dark, but it was absolutely necessary to go down
+to Kilmallock again, on the off chance that she might have come later
+than was expected, and had forgotten to telegraph. If she had arrived
+and nobody had been there to meet her, the consequences would have
+been awkward. She would not, it is true, have been exposed to the
+slightest insult, for except in the case of Miss Gardiner, of
+Farmhill, I believe Irishmen have never forgotten their natural
+gallantry so much as to insult, much less shoot at and wound, a lady.
+There would, therefore, have been no fear of violence; but it is very
+doubtful whether anybody would have removed her trunks from the spot
+on which they had been laid down. Most assuredly no cardriver would
+have dared to drive her home, and I question if any house in
+Kilmallock would have afforded her shelter. However, she did not come
+by the train after all, and the "boys" drove back, not without an
+Irish howl to keep them company on the road.
+
+Dinner over, the company being composed of the three "boys" and the
+writer, who among them made short work of a plump turkey and a
+vigorous inroad on a round of beef, besides disposing of soups,
+sweets, and sherry--not a bad _menu_ under "Boycotting" rules--we,
+after seeing that the front door was properly barred, bolted, and
+chained, and the iron-linked shutters, relics of the Fenian time, made
+equally secure, adjourned to the kitchen for a smoke, a common
+practice in this part of Ireland. The kitchen, with its red-tiled
+floor, is a capital smoking room, warm and cosy, and while tobacco is
+leisurely puffed, and that eternal subject, "the state of the
+country," discussed, the eye reposes complacently on the treasures
+suspended from the hooks on the ceiling, plump hams and sides of
+well-fed bacon giving assurance that the garrison is far from being
+reduced to extremities. But there are in the kitchen other objects
+less suggestive of festivity. On the round table by the central column
+supporting the kitchen roof lie sundry revolvers, and nearer one of
+the windows a couple of repeating rifles and the double-barrelled
+carbines of the constabulary. Two members of that well-grown and well
+set-up corps are seated at a corner of the dresser, deeply engrossed
+in the intricacies of the mysterious game of forty-five, before which
+the mind of the dull Saxon remains bewildered in hopeless incapacity.
+Presently the well-thumbed pack is laid aside, and one of the
+constables addresses himself to the task of closing and barring up the
+shutters, thus shutting out all chance of any present being picked off
+by a shot through the window, as was done when Miss Gardiner was
+wounded under somewhat similar circumstances.
+
+There is a great deal of gossip concerning the "Boycotting" of Mr.
+Bence Jones, and that of the most recent victim, The Macgillicuddy of
+the Reeks, whose family is well known to all present; but even the one
+engrossing subject wears itself out at last. One cannot attain any
+wild pitch of hilarity among bolts and bars and Winchester rifles.
+Nobody appears to care for any stories but such as bear upon the
+present troubles and the Fenian affair in 1867. At Kilmallock there is
+no sign of song or dance; no talk of pantomimes, and what jokes are
+made bear grim reference to troubles actually endured and possible
+troubles to come.
+
+By day it is by no means dreary. To begin with, the house is built on
+a charming spot six miles distant from a railway station; in front and
+beyond the lawn is a pretty little lake broken up by islands, making a
+tender foreground for the Galtee and nearer mountains. From the
+opposite side the view is equally delightful, the hills being crowned
+with trees and brushwood, an unusual sight in Ireland. Down the slope
+of the immense saddle-backed range lie fields of the brightest green,
+divided by banks and hedges delightful to look at after the grim stone
+walls of Mayo, Galway, and Clare. From behind these grassy slopes
+peeps the purple crest of the distant mountains, giving grandeur to a
+scene which might otherwise have been deemed tame. The climate,
+although chilled by recent heavy rains, is deliciously soft, and the
+breeze has none of that incisive quality common to the more northern
+hills. It is needless to say that at sunrise there is no chance of
+meeting any watchers of the "Boycotting" brigade. At seven o'clock any
+quantity of cargo might be "run" into the beleaguered citadel; but so
+for that matter can anything one likes be done at noon, under
+sufficient escort. When nothing is to be carried there is not the
+slightest occasion for escort in Kilfinane itself, although the
+attitude of the people is hostile in the extreme. Going for a stroll
+with the nephew of the absent "master," I am recommended to put a
+pistol in my pocket, and, much against the grain, do so.
+
+I must confess that I draw a line at agents. Alone I should not dream
+of going about armed, although "indignation meetings" have been held
+to denounce me for speaking the truth and believing my own eyes, and I
+consider myself quite safe while in the company of many landlords. But
+agents are another matter. There is while with them always the off
+chance of something untoward turning up, and it is, perhaps, as well
+to be prepared for emergencies. Personally I must confess that I am
+favourably disposed towards the much vilified agents. They are in many
+respects the most manly men in Ireland. Nearly always well-bred, they
+excite sympathy by the position they hold between the upper and nether
+millstone of landlord and tenant. Perhaps they have made a good thing
+of it, but if so they have earned it, for their position always
+reminds one of that assigned by Lord Macaulay to the officers of the
+East India Company, such as Olive and Warren Hastings. To these
+founders of our Eastern Empire "John Company" said, "Respect treaties;
+keep faith with native rulers; do not oppress the people; but send us
+money."
+
+This is exactly what easy-going Irish absentee proprietors
+preach--"Don't hurt my tenants; don't make my name to stink in the
+land; above all, let there be no evictions among my people; but send
+me a couple of thousand pounds before Monday, or remit me at least one
+thousand to Nice some time next week.--Yours, The O'Martingale." This,
+I take it, has been the situation for the last quarter of a century,
+since the younger sons of Irish families took to land agency as a
+profession because there seemed nothing else in Ireland for them to
+do. Nevertheless they are hideously unpopular, and I like to be armed
+when I take a stroll with them in a lonely country district.
+
+So we walk down to Kilfinane to look after the progress made in
+arranging quarters for the soldiers presently expected, some fifty odd
+redcoats or rifles as the authorities may decide. It is instructive to
+observe the demeanour of the people towards us. My companion formerly
+lived at Kilfinane, and took his share of the work there, but he was
+the first of his family "Boycotted," and was obliged to take up his
+quarters in his uncle's house. Not a blacksmith could be found to
+shoe his horse, and not a living creature to cook his food; so a forge
+belonging to the mounted division of the Royal Irish Constabulary was
+sent down for the horse, and the master of that interesting animal
+went up to the big house to eat and sleep, and the "Boycotters" were,
+so far, brought to nought. But the good folk of Kilfinane eye us
+terribly askant, or, to be more literally exact, do not eye us at all;
+at least, their eyes betray "no speculation." Had I driven in from
+Charleville alone I might have gossipped with all the idlers of the
+village, but now that I am walking with a "Boycotted" person I seem to
+have become invisible. A few men are on the side walks--a few women at
+their doors--but they either look at us as if we were transparent as
+panes of glass, or suddenly become interested in their boots or finger
+nails, both which would be better for more regular attention. The
+children run away and hide themselves as if a brace of megalosauri or
+other happily extinct monsters had crawled out of the bog and come
+into Kilfinane to look for a meal. It is altogether a strange
+experience. It dawns upon me that the man who has driven me over from
+Charleville might issue from the hotel and ask for my orders, but he
+does not.
+
+The edifice wherein he has established himself, his vehicle and
+horses, is of a bright salmon colour, rejoiceful to the eyes of the
+natives. My driver, on being asked at my arrival, greatly preferred
+the rude freedom and plenty of this pink hostelry to the supposed
+narrow rations of a house under ban. Possibly he loves the ruddy-faced
+village inn on account of its affinity in hue to that of his own
+visage, in which nose and beard contend fiercely for pre-eminence in
+warmth of tone. But be this as it may, he is just now giving warmth
+and colour to the interior of the establishment, instead of trying to
+catch my eye as I go past.
+
+There is absolutely no sign of life or movement in the "Salmon Arms,"
+or "The Rose," or whatever its name may be. Thus we stride down the
+street of Kilfinane in lonely grandeur till we come to the
+schoolmaster's house, to be presently converted with the schools into
+a barrack. Schoolmaster and wife are being temporarily evicted to make
+room for the military, in whose behalf a quantity of work is being
+done, not surely by the "Boycotters," who have already determined to
+"Boycott" the soldiers as far as they can by refusing to let a car
+carry a single article from the railway station. The military when
+they arrive and give that sense of security attached to a redcoat in
+Ireland, will be obliged to bring every kind of vehicle and transport
+animal with them.
+
+In the cabbage garden of the school-house I meet an old acquaintance,
+Sub-Inspector Fraser, of the Royal Irish Constabulary, who seems to
+enjoy a monopoly of posts in which the roughest kind of "constabulary
+duty is to be done." Whether he esteems his "lot a happy one" I do
+not know; but at any rate, he looks hearty and healthy enough upon it,
+and is mightily cheerful withal. He has finished off one tough job,
+for it was Mr. Fraser who was left at Pallas on the great day when
+horse, foot, and artillery smote the combined "Three and four year
+olds," or, rather, would have smitten them if they had been so
+misguided as to show fight. I have already recorded how the Palladians
+on that memorable occasion displayed a keen appreciation of the better
+part of valour, and I also marked my surprise that after it had taken
+"the fut and the dthragoons in shquadrons and plathoons," and "the
+boys who fear no noise" to boot, to bring the "makings" of a police
+hut from the railway station, where they lay "Boycotted," to Bourke's
+farm, twenty-five constables should have been judged a sufficiently
+imposing force to overawe the Palladians and to build the hut. But I
+hear that Mr. Fraser's slender army proved quite sufficient for its
+purpose, and that the hut is not only built, but very well built, and
+likely to vex the souls of the Palladians for some time to come. There
+is plenty of work to do in getting ready for the soldiers. Masons and
+carpenters are hard at work--that is to say, as hard as anybody ever
+works in this part of Ireland.
+
+On the dairy farms, which form the principal "industry"--save the
+mark!--of this rich part of the country, the life of the male kind is
+of the laziest imaginable. Employing girls to milk the cows and make
+the butter, the farmer appears to me to do nothing whatever except go
+to market and drink himself into a disaffected, discontented
+condition. He is rarely visible before ten or eleven o'clock in the
+morning, except on market days, and he appears to smoke and dawdle
+most of his time away. Just now he broods over his wrongs, and
+declares he "will have his own again," whatever that may signify. He
+says he is enormously over-rented. Perhaps he is; but I cannot forget
+that it is not many years since he and his neighbours in the adjacent
+county of Tipperary boasted that they had brought about an equitable
+adjustment of values by an ingenious process invented by
+themselves--that of "shooting down the rents." Have they gone up since
+under maleficent Saxon coercion? Verily, I do not know; for the faith
+I put in estimates and valuations, not excepting "The Book of
+Griffith," is but small.
+
+Information in Ireland depends entirely on the person who
+"infawrrrums" one, and is rarely complete. Almost everybody seems to
+think that an inquirer has some object to serve, and they either tell
+him what they think will amuse him or advance their own interest if it
+be repeated; but there are notable exceptions to this as to all other
+Irish rules.
+
+Chatting easily, we stroll back through Kilfinane, bewailing the
+sternness of military rule, which keeps officers and men together, and
+will not permit of the principal coming warriors being quartered at
+Spa-hill. On one point we are most anxious, and that is, that the
+troops shall be in Kilfinane by Christmas-day, to the end that the
+gaiety proper to the British Army should enliven the "Boycotted"
+establishment at dinner time; while the imposing presence of Thomas
+Atkins should overawe the village mutineers, and bring grist to the
+proprietor of the Couleur de Rose Hotel. As evening gathers in we sit
+down drowsily to listen to the loud ticking of the clock and drink a
+glass of sherry to the health of "all poor and distressed Boycottees"
+within her Majesty's "sometime kingdom of Ireland." Soothed by sherry,
+incipient sleep, and the subtle influence of the season, the little
+garrison of Spa-hill gradually waxes benevolent, until one of its
+number actually suggests that a fat goose should be sent to the
+proximate cause of all its woes, Father Sheehy. Even as a big loaf of
+bread was once thrown into an enemy's camp, at one moment this
+spirited proposition is nearly carried, but it breaks down before the
+remark that the coachman, gardener, and two bailiffs are "Boycotted,"
+bringing up the total number to about thirty-six, and that geese would
+be better distributed among these than flung away on the enemy; and
+the clock goes on to tick, the ticking growing louder and louder, and
+then comes the harsh, grating sound of shooting bolts and the clank
+of the chain on the front door.
+
+There is some pretence on the part of one of my young hosts of going
+into his uncle's office and drawing a lease, until he is reminded that
+he will probably be performing a work of supererogation, that leases
+and feudalism and property are going out of date, and that the land
+agents of the future, if suffered to cumber the earth at all, will be
+elected by the tenants, as the New York magistrates are elected by the
+persons whom they will be called upon to judge. And the clock ticks
+and the fox-terrier whines in his sleep. He is dreaming of rats,
+perhaps. It is pleasant to dream, even if one is a dog.
+
+A sudden start. The long-looked-for telegram has come announcing the
+arrival of the daughter of the house shortly at Kilmallock Station.
+There is another skirmish for rifles, rugs, and revolvers, and a sally
+out of the fortress. No sooner has the brave young lady arrived, who
+with her brother and cousin, and perhaps the representatives of the
+British army, will form the Christmas dinner-party, than she draws up
+a bill of fare, which includes, as well as turkey, ham, and plum
+pudding, lobsters brought from afar, thanks to feminine foresight. The
+retainers will feast on mighty joints of beef and on plum pudding
+galore. And now another telegram--The troops will arrive before the
+bells ring in Christmas-day.
+
+As I approach the end of my letter, it occurs to me that although the
+place, events, and persons described would be recognised by anybody
+living in the counties of Limerick, Cork, or Tipperary, this account
+might appear to English readers rather as an imaginative and
+highly-coloured picture, painted for the Christmas market from a
+number of models, than as a simple sketch in neutral greys as exactly
+and faithfully drawn as is possible to the writer. To prevent any such
+misapprehension, I will observe that the events which I describe as
+occurring before me, have all taken place within forty-eight hours in
+and near the house of Mr. Townsend, of Spa-hill, Kilfinane, county
+Limerick, and are telegraphed from Limerick city to the _Daily News_,
+because there was no nearer or more convenient office from which to
+send so long a message. Mr. Uniacke Townsend is one of a large family
+mostly engaged in land agency, and has incurred the ire of the people
+of Kilfinane, Kilmallock, Charleville, and the surrounding country, in
+consequence of a difficulty with one Murphy, a fairly large farmer
+according to the Irish measure of farming capacity. Murphy's farm is
+known as Lisheen. It includes between 40 and 50 acres, and the rent,
+240l. per annum, has, I am informed, not been changed for forty-six
+years. When Murphy owed a clear year's rent and a balance on a "broken
+gale," he was sued for the whole amount. By May of this year he owed
+another gale of half a year's rent, and he was formally evicted and a
+caretaker put in possession on the 21st June.
+
+It has been explained in a previous letter that after receiving any
+amount of credit an Irish farmer is again allowed six months'
+"redemption" after eviction. After paying up everything, including the
+additional "gale" incurred, less the proceeds of the farm, he
+re-enters on possession at any time within the margin of six months.
+Thus another "gale" fell due in November, and Murphy was still
+unprovided with funds. He did, however, very well without them; for
+the Land League, having become strong in the meanwhile in county
+Limerick, the caretaker was frightened away from the farm and Murphy
+reinstated. Mr. Uniacke Townsend requested him to give up possession,
+and was refused, and it then became known that Murphy might expect
+imprisonment or fine for trespass. Thereat a meeting was held, and Mr.
+Townsend solemnly adjudged worthy of "Boycotting." The lead in these
+disgraceful proceedings was taken by a Father Sheehy.
+
+Whatever the merits of Murphy's case may be, and it seems that members
+of his family have held Lisheen for some considerable time, there is
+no doubt that Father Sheehy made an almost frantic speech against Mr.
+Townsend, the agent, and Mr. Coote, the owner of the property,
+declaring that "the very name of Coote smelt of blood." I am not aware
+of the sanguinary deeds of the Cootes in the past; all I know of them
+is that the present incumbent is a very old man, of somewhat clerical
+exterior, who, like "A fine old Irish gentleman, one of the olden
+time," lives in London, requests his agent to enforce the law against
+his tenants without delay, and, in order to encourage him to do his
+duty, sends down to Spa-hill the very best repeating rifles that money
+can buy.
+
+The upshot of the matter is that Mr. Townsend has been so threatened
+that he has yielded to the entreaties of his family and left Kilfinane
+for a week or two, at any rate. He is, however, like most of his
+profession, a very determined man, and declared that he would come
+home and eat his Christmas dinner in his own house, "despite of foes;"
+but Mrs. Townsend, who, like the lady to whom I referred in a previous
+letter, has borne up nobly under her severe trial, was so scared at
+the thought of her husband's coming among a population banded together
+against him that she set off on Saturday and joined him, as the only
+way of averting some terrible disaster; for there is little doubt that
+the law will be put in force against Murphy now that his six months
+for "redemption" have expired; and nobody can tell what will happen at
+Lisheen any more than at Ennistymon if writs are issued against the
+tenants on the Macnamara estate, or on Mr. Stacpoole's property, if he
+perseveres in his resolution to "Dublin writ" the people with whom he
+has to deal.
+
+So the family at Spa-hill is broken up this Christmas; father and
+mother are both away--where I should hardly divulge, but assuredly
+where their Christmastide will be passed peacefully, if not joyfully.
+
+Another gentleman of these parts is being severely "Boycotted," to wit
+Mr. T. Sanders, of Sanders Park, Charleville, county Cork, just over
+the border from county Limerick; the Mr. Sanders, in fact, whom I saw
+the Palladians roaring and yelling at on the occasion of my first
+visit to the classic battlefield of the "three and four year olds." On
+that occasion he had been vainly trying to get in rents for the
+charitable bequest known as Erasmus Smith's Schools, and Pallas was
+full of noisy and more or less drunken Palladians, who dealt with Mr.
+Sanders in such wise that the police were obliged to see him into a
+railway carriage, and stand by the door till the train moved on. I
+would fain have called upon Mr. Sanders as I drove to Charleville, but
+the civil and obliging landlord of Lincoln's Hotel at that place, who
+supplied me with an excellent carriage and horses, politely apologised
+for his inability to drive me thither. He could not possibly enter
+Sanders Park, nor would any of his men go near that abhorred spot. No
+orders concerning Spa-hill had been issued by the "Real Government" in
+the absence of the hated head of the house, and I might be driven
+there and welcome; but Sanders Park was another matter. I might walk
+out of the town, and across the park if I liked, and my informant
+would ensure that I went and returned in safety, as for that matter I
+knew very well; but not being fond of walking against time through the
+mud, I preferred going whither I could be driven in comfort. Moreover,
+the novelty of the thing is wearing off, and "Boycotting" is now only
+interesting when ingeniously evaded or boldly defied.
+
+So long as a railway station is near him, the "Boycottee," if he have
+only two or three servants to stand firm, can practically bring the
+Boycotters to their wits' end. The railway companies being, I take it,
+common carriers, dare not refuse, like the cowardly shippers of Cork,
+to take the "Boycottee's" beef and plum pudding, wine and whisky, to
+the most convenient railway station, whence he, if well-armed and
+provided with an escort of constabulary, can bring in his supplies
+under the very nose of the infuriated peasants who stand scowling
+around the station gate and roar and "boo" their disgust at being
+foiled. There is not the slightest fear of the "Boycotters" running
+their heads against Winchester rifles and army revolvers, and the
+convoy need apprehend nothing hotter or harder than curses and groans,
+which, "like the idle wind, hurt not the mariner ashore."
+
+This last quotation had the misfortune to displease one of my young
+hosts, who opined that he thought, on the contrary, we were all at
+sea in Ireland just now, and breakers were ahead. Perhaps he is over
+much of an alarmist, but his present situation is hardly calculated to
+inspire confidence in anything but conical bullets and cold steel. As
+we stand together on the doorstep, he remarks that it will be long
+before Christmas _a la_ Boycott is forgotten in Ireland, and then he
+wishes me the compliments of the season. "Good bye," and "Safe
+home"--hateful valediction! I wish him and his a happier new year than
+the old one has been; but it would be a sorry jest to wish a merry
+Christmas to one whose greatest happiness and consolation are that at
+this time of gathered kindred, at the feast which comes but once a
+year for the re-knitting of the ties of domestic affection, the kindly
+voice of the house-mother is not heard beneath her own roof tree; that
+the chair of the house-father stands empty at the Christmas board.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII.
+
+CHRISTMAS IN COUNTY CLARE.
+
+
+ENNIS, _Monday._
+
+In a picture exhibited a few years ago, and since engraved, was
+powerfully and pathetically portrayed a scene of the early life of the
+Pilgrim Fathers of New England. It was winter time, and the day was
+Sunday. Clad in raiment of quaint severity, the head of the house led
+his Puritan family and servants across the snow-clad fields to
+worship. Living in the midst of a hostile population, the little band
+of worshippers was armed to the teeth. The father carried his "plain
+falling band" and steeple-crowned hat with a stiff air, and also
+carried lethal weapons. His prim wife and daughters bare Bibles, and
+his serving men, muskets. "Like a servant of the Lord, With his Bible
+and his sword," the unflinching old soldier of the Commonwealth strode
+manfully from his homestead to his religious duties, not unprepared to
+deal with any foes who might turn up by the way.
+
+As a glimpse of the remote past, as well as a work of art, this
+picture struck me as valuable; but it certainly did not occur to me
+that a similar sight would be seen within a short space in the kingdom
+of Ireland. Nevertheless, it may be witnessed on any Sunday in county
+Clare. Near Tulla, a spot of evil repute just now as the theatre of a
+recent attack upon magistrates returning from doing their duty,
+Colonel O'Callaghan, his wife and son, may be seen on any Sunday
+morning going to church armed with rifle and revolver, and protected
+by an escort of constabulary. The church is a long walk from Lismeehan
+(_Anglice_, Maryfort), and the way is not safe either for Colonel
+O'Callaghan himself, his wife, his child, or anything that is his.
+
+I will not pretend for what are called "sensational" purposes that the
+stranger who ventures within the gates of Maryfort is in any danger so
+long as he remains within them, or that any weightier missiles than
+groans and hisses are launched at him as he goes to and from the house
+under "taboo." It is well known that an attack on Lismeehan would not
+be bloodless, and that the defence would be far fiercer and more
+deadly than that made at the Clare-street Police Barrack at Limerick.
+The little garrison is perfectly armed, and small as it is, would work
+mischief on any attacking mob; but the experience at Tulla the other
+day proves that safety is only purchased at the trouble and
+inconvenience of going everywhere armed to the teeth.
+
+After my experience in the matter of Mr. Sanders, of Sanders Park,
+Charleville, I did not think it worth while to go to a posting-house
+for a carriage and horses to reach Maryfort; but being fortunate
+enough to obtain the loan of a friend's victoria and servant I got a
+horse "sharpened" as to his shoes at Ennis; and drove over the
+frost-bound road to Colonel O'Callaghan's house yesterday afternoon.
+It was a long drive to the most severely "Boycotted" house in Clare.
+It was also a drive of surpassing dreariness. The sun, which had made
+the hoar frost to sparkle on Christmas Day, barely pierced through the
+clouds on the afternoon of St. Stephen's. Leaving trim lawns, a forest
+of box-trees, budding roses and peonies, well-grown early brocoli and
+York cabbages behind, we drove through a country of eternal little
+fields and grey stone walls.
+
+It is needless to say that Maryfort is a long way from Ennis. Every
+place is a long way from everywhere in this western part of Ireland--a
+fact, by the way, not unfrequently forgotten by critics of the
+much-criticised constabulary. Where gentlemen's houses and
+considerable villages are as much as fifteen miles apart, the area of
+country to be watched becomes quite unmanageable. Only those who have
+incurred the fearful loss of time in getting from place to place in
+Connaught can form an adequate idea of it. Despite the discouraging
+remarks of its critics, this well-drilled, well-grown corps of Royal
+Irish Constabulary remains as staunch and loyal as of old, but it is
+absurd to expect impossibilities. Galway to a person sitting
+comfortably in his own library appears to be overwhelmed with
+constables. I believe that there is, in fact, one constable to every
+fifty adult males in that county--an enormous proportion judged
+statistically, but yet slight enough when the vast area of the county
+and the miles of actual desert which separate one partially civilised
+spot from another are considered.
+
+A large percentage of the constabulary is also deflected from general
+to special service in affording downright personal protection, and
+that modified protection known as "looking after" individuals. A
+hundred and twenty persons in Ireland are now receiving "personal
+protection," amounting to the constant attendance of never less than
+two constables, frequently to the residence of four or more on the
+premises or the property. At least eight hundred persons are being
+"looked after;" so that it is no exaggeration to state that twelve or
+thirteen hundred men are detached from the regular force on particular
+duty of the most harassing and vexatious kind. Wherever the person
+under protection chooses to go, at whatever hour, or in whatever
+weather, his "escort" must accompany him; for their orders are "not to
+lose sight of him" outside of his own door. This is a troublesome
+duty, sometimes greatly aggravated by the conduct of the protected
+persons, who take sudden fits and starts, and fly hither and thither
+in the oddest kind of way. The constables get no rest; they are
+perpetually harassed and exposed, and they are quite superior to the
+consolation of a "tip."
+
+I say this deliberately, for on three several occasions I tried to
+give a drenched and half-frozen constable a reward for service
+rendered, not for information to be given, and on each and every
+occasion I met with a dignified refusal, accompanied by one man with a
+friendly caution not to attempt that sort of thing, as some of the men
+might be rough. I say that I did not ask for information, because I
+generally knew more than the constables, for the excellent reason that
+I had wider and better sources to draw upon. From the country folk it
+is absolutely impossible to glean any scrap of information. A question
+immediately shapes their countenances into a look of hopeless
+simplicity and guilelessness bordering upon idiocy. Persons in quest
+of information in the remote parts of Ireland put me in mind of the
+hunter of the Rocky Mountains, who, while he was trying to stalk some
+antelope, became aware that a grizzly bear was stalking him. The
+people find out all about the person seeking for knowledge, but he
+discovers nothing.
+
+After this it is needless to say that the constabulary must of
+necessity be the last people to learn anything from the country folk,
+and that a London detective would be as much out of his element as "a
+salmon on a gravel walk."
+
+Between Ennis and Maryfort we only met two brace of constables on the
+road, but we knew there were others with Mr. Hall, of Cluny, at Tulla,
+and other places within ten miles of Colonel O'Callaghan's house.
+There was a little gathering of people near the chapel at Bearfield,
+but in other respects the road was empty till we neared our
+destination, when a little crowd set up an Irish howl against us,
+followed by a shout of "Long live Parnell." Presently we came to
+Lismeehan gates, opened after a good steady look at us by an ancient
+retainer, in a grey frieze coat. I was told civilly enough that "the
+masther" was at home. Beyond a pretty park, full of well-bred cattle,
+lay the "Boycotted" house, tall and grey and grim, in the waning
+light. There was no sign of life in it. Under a handsome portico was
+the grand entrance, bolted and barred up, with shutters closed. There
+was nothing for it but to tug vigorously at the bell. Nobody came to
+the door, but around each corner of the house stepped an armed
+constable. A moment later a narrow slip of the shutter was moved, and
+we became aware first of a fur cap and then of a youthful face, which
+ultimately proved to be that of Colonel O'Callaghan's eldest son, home
+for the holidays from a great English school, and undergoing the
+"hardening" process of spending Christmas in a state of siege.
+
+Presently came a maidservant, neat and trim, and after some wrestling
+with bolts the outer door was opened a little way, and our names and
+business demanded, after which we entered a great hall, apparently
+used as a refectory. Huge logs blazed on the hearth, and the room
+looked comfortable enough. We were next ushered into the drawing-room
+of Colonel O'Callaghan, who had just come in from herding his cattle
+and sheep, and was still girt with a brace of full-sized revolvers.
+
+No whit dismayed by the attack made on him at Tulla, and holding his
+foes in very slight estimation, Colonel O'Callaghan is yet subjected
+to inconvenience and oppression of an extraordinary kind. The
+proximate cause of his being "Boycotted" was his action is serving
+four processes himself, because neither love nor money nor threats
+would induce a process-server to do his work. The country folk know
+quite well the difference between Land League law and the phantom
+which remains of the law of the land. The former is instantly
+enforced, the latter cannot be carried into effect at all, a fact
+which is telling upon its officers with discouraging effect.
+
+Finding his writs could be served by nobody but himself, Colonel
+O'Callaghan started early one morning, attended by his escort, served
+the four writs himself, and then prepared to hold his own. Pigs were
+killed, barrels of flour and other stores were brought in, and the
+house provisioned to stand a siege. Recollection of old days in the
+Crimea, when Colonel O'Callaghan was in the 62nd Regiment, were
+revived under the provisioning process, which was by no means complete
+when he was formally "Boycotted," and left with 300 cattle and sheep
+upon his hands, with only one man to help him to look after them.
+Thirty odd herds, labourers, and other dependents have left Maryfort.
+Only three maid-servants, the old man at the gate, and another man now
+remain, and even the housemaid, who is Irish and a Roman Catholic,
+must be guarded to and from mass, amid the yells of the natives. It
+must be remembered that Maryfort is a lonely place, three miles from a
+post-office, and three times that distance from a railway station;
+that it is no light matter to send in and out for letters and parcels;
+and the emissary would, if unarmed, assuredly be stopped, if not
+maltreated. This difficulty of getting letters and fresh joints has
+been met in the latter case by falling back upon patriarchal customs.
+As Colonel O'Callaghan can neither sell his sheep nor buy mutton, he
+has taken to consuming his flock, albeit a sheep is a large animal to
+kill in a small family, and but for the winter weather the loss would
+be very great.
+
+There is another annoyance--the risk of valuable cattle being houghed
+or otherwise mutilated; a risk calling for incessant watchfulness.
+That it is not of an imaginary nature is demonstrated by the fact that
+the tails were cut off of two of Mrs. Westropp's cows a few nights
+since, and a threatening letter, savagely coarse and brutal in its
+wording, was sent to that lady. There is no doubt about this, for I
+have seen the letter, in which reference is made to the cows and
+brutal treatment promised to Mrs. Westropp, a widow of small property.
+
+The difficulty concerning letters, which it seems the postmaster at
+Callaghan's Mills is not compelled to deliver at Maryfort, is got over
+in another way. As we are discussing the question of supply, there
+enters to us a lady dressed in walking costume of studied simplicity.
+This is the terrible Mrs. O'Callaghan, of whom I had heard wonderful
+stories in Clare and Limerick; "And begorra," said one informant,
+"it's herself that's a divil of a lady entoirely, and she shoots
+rabbuts wid a rifle at three hundred yards and niver misses, and she
+tould 'um at the village that she'd as soon shoot one of 'um as a
+rabbut, and she is the sisther of Misthress Dick Stacpoole, of
+Edenvale. They was the Miss Westropps, your honour, out of county
+Limerick, and it is thim as makes their husbands the tyrants that they
+are." This account made me wonder at two things--firstly, at the
+astounding power of lying and exaggeration displayed by my
+interlocutor; and secondly, where the old Irish gallantry towards the
+fair sex has gone to. It seems to have gone very far, for one hears
+now of ladies being shot at. But, although not impressed with the
+truth of the information vouchsafed to me, I expected to see at least
+an Irish version of Lady Macbeth, instead of the graceful,
+well-dressed, thorough-bred Irish gentlewoman who had just come from a
+long walk to the post-office and back. Since the boy who used to carry
+the letter bag was frightened away, Mrs. O'Callaghan has taken up his
+duties, and, armed with rifle and revolver, performs them daily.
+
+With the case of Miss Ellard, and other ladies, before my eyes, I
+cannot blame Mrs. O'Callaghan for going about armed, and maintaining a
+defiant attitude towards the people, who really go in bodily fear of
+her. There is, as I have observed, nothing to terrify in the look or
+voice of Mrs. O'Callaghan, but I gradually gather from her
+conversation that it is not all romance about her wonderful shooting.
+If not at three hundred, yet at thirty yards she can hit a rabbit
+cleverly enough, and actually does go out rabbit shooting "for the
+pot" to relieve the monotony of everlasting pig and sheep. Mrs.
+O'Callaghan is also nearly as good a shot with the revolver as her
+husband, and would certainly not hesitate to use that weapon in
+self-defence.
+
+Such is the present _personnel_ of Maryfort at this moment, affording
+a sketch of manners reminding one rather of a Huguenot family in
+southern France just after receiving the news of St. Bartholomew, than
+of any social condition extant in modern Europe.
+
+As we drive out into the darkness and heavily-falling snow there is
+some debate touching the lighting of the carriage lamps. It is thought
+better not to light up, and to keep firearms handy until we get some
+miles from Maryfort.
+
+A howl pierces through the darkness as we pass a clump of houses, and
+I remark that my friend's coachman drives very fast by any house on
+the road; but nothing occurs till we stop at a "shebeen" to light both
+cigars and lamps, for the snowstorm is increasing. Not desiring
+refreshment, I give the woman of the house a shilling for a drink for
+a man who is sitting by the fire. I explain the nature of the
+transaction to him, and wish him a happy new year. The sulky brute
+answers me never a word. Probably he knows or suspects where I have
+been, and if so would let me lie on the ground under a kicking horse
+till an end was made of me rather than stretch forth a hand. He will
+not speak now, and I observe that the woman, who has kept a tight hold
+on the shilling, has not poured out any whisky, although she has had
+the decency to ask me if I wished for any. It is a strange sight, this
+sullen silent savage sitting scowling over the fire; but _on se fait a
+tout_ in Disturbed Ireland.
+
+
+
+LONDON: R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS.
+
+
+MESSRS. MACMILLAN & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS.
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+
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+
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+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+  [Illustration: (foldout Map of Ireland, showing author's route.)]
+
+  [Illustration: (foldout detail map of western Ireland, showing author's route.)]
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    +--------------------------------------------------------------+
+    | Typographical errors corrected in text:                      |
+    |                                                              |
+    | Page  14: escert replaced with escort                        |
+    | Page  24: similiar replaced with similar                     |
+    | Page  44: licence replaced with license                      |
+    | Page  75: 'kings men' replaced with 'king's men'             |
+    | Page 149: posssble replaced with possible                    |
+    | Page 218: 'he split upon it' replaced with                   |
+    |           'be split upon it'                                 |
+    |                                                              |
+    +--------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Disturbed Ireland, by Bernard H. Becker
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