IRELAND UNDER COERCION

THE DIARY OF AN AMERICAN

BY

WILLIAM HENRY HURLBERT

VOL. II. 

_SECOND EDITION. _

1888

"Upon the future of Ireland hangs the future of the British Empire. "CARDINAL MANNING TO EARL GREY, 1868

CONTENTS OF VOL. II. 

CHAPTER VII. Rossbehy, Feb. 21, 1 The latest eviction at Glenbehy, 1 Trafalgar Square, 1, 2 Father Little, 3 Mr. Frost, 3, 4 Priest and landlord, 3 Savings Banks' deposits at Six-mile Bridge, 5 Drive through Limerick, 5 Population and trade, 5, 6 Boycotting and commerce, 6, 7 Shores of the Atlantic, 7 Tralee, 7 Killorglin, 8 Hostelry in the hills, 8 Facts of the eviction, 9-13 Glenbehy Eviction Fund (see Note G2), 12 A walk on Washington's birthday, 13 A tenant at Glenbehy offers £13 in two instalments in full for £240 arrears, 13 English and Irish members, 14 "Winn's Folly, " 15 Acreage and rental of the Glenbehy estate, 16 Work of eviction begun, 17 Patience of officers, 17 American and Irish evictions contrasted, 17 "Oh, he's quite familiar, " 18 A modest Poor Law Guardian, 18, 19 Moonlighters' swords, 20 Father Quilter and the "poor slaves, " his people, 21, 22 Beauty of Lough Caragh, 23 Difficulty of getting evidence, 25 Effects of terrorism in Kerry, 25 Singular identification of a murderer, 26 Local administration in Tralee, 28

CHAPTER VIII. Cork, Feb. 23, 30 Press accounts of Glenbehy evictions astonish an eye-witness, 30 Castle Island, 31 Mr. Roche and Mr. Gladstone, 31 Opinions of a railway traveller, 31, 32 Misrepresentations of evictions, 32 Cork, past and present, 34 Mr. Gladstone and the Dean, 35 League Courts in Kerry, 36 Local Law Lords, 36 Mr. Colomb and the Fenian rising in 1867, 37 Remarkable letter of an M. P. , 38 Irish Constabulary, _morale_ of the force, 40 The clergy and the Plan of Campaign, 41 Municipal history, 43 Increase of public burdens, 44 Tralee Board of Guardians, 46 Labourers and tenants, 46 Feb. 25, 47 Boycotting, 47-49 Land law and freedom of contract, 49 Rivalry between Limerick and Cork, 50 Henry VIII. And the Irish harp, 50 Municipal Parliamentary franchise, 51 Environs of Cork, 52 Churches and chapels, 53 Attractive home at Belmullet, 54 Lord Carnarvon and the Priest, 55 Feb. 26, 56 Blarney Castle, 56, 57 St. Anne's Hill, 56, 57 An evicted woman on "the Plan, " 59 The Ponsonby estate, 59 Feb. 27--A day at Youghal, 60 Father Keller, 61-76 On emigration and migration, 66 Protestants and Catholics (see Note G3), 68 Meath as a field for peasant proprietors, 69 Ghost of British protection, 70 A farmer evicted from a tenancy of 200 years, 71 Sir Walter Raleigh's house and garden, 71-73 Churches of St. Mary of Youghal and St. Nicholas of Galway, 73 Monument and churchyard, 73, 74 An Elizabethan candidate for canonisation, 75 Drive to Lismore, 76 Driver's opinions on the Ponsonby estates, 77 Dromaneen Castle and the Countess of Desmond, 78 Trappist Monastery at Cappoquin, 78 Lismore, 78, 79 Castle grounds and cathedral, 79, 80

CHAPTER IX. Feb. 28, 82 Portumna, Galway, 82 Run through Cork, Limerick, Tipperary, Queen's and King's County to Parsonstown, 82 A Canadian priest on the situation, 83 His reply to M. De Mandat Grancey, 83 Relations of priests with the League, 83-85 Parsonstown and Lord Rosse, 86 Drive to Portumna, 87 An abandoned railway, 88 American storms, grain, and beasts, 88, 89 Portumna Castle, 90, 91 Lord Clanricarde's estate, 92 Mr. Tener, 92-128 Plan of Campaign, 94-99 Ability of tenants to pay their rents, 95 Mr. Dillon in 1886, 96 Mr. Parnell in 1885, 97 Tenants in greater danger than landlords and agents, 100 Feb. 29, 100 Conference between evicted tenants and agent, 100-106 Castle and park, 107 The League shopkeeper and tenant, 108 Under police escort, 109 Cost of 'knocking' a man, 109 What constitutes a group, 110 Favourite spots for administering a League oath, 110 Disbursing treasurers, 111 Change of venue, 111 Bishop of Clonfert, 112-115 Bector of Portumna, 115 Father Coen, 116 Coercion on the part of the League, 118-121 Deposits in banks, 120 Should landlords and shopkeepers be placed on one footing? 121 New Castle of Portumna, 122 Portumna Union, 123, 124 Troubles of resident landlords, 125-127 Effects of the agitation on the people, 124 War against property and private rights, 127 Mr. Tener's experiences in Cavan, 127-130 Similar cases in Leitrim, 130-132 Sale of rents and value of tenant-right, 133, 134

CHAPTER X. Dublin, March 1, 135 Portumna to Woodford, 135 Evictions of October 1887, 135 Capture of Cloondadauv Castle, 137-141 A tenant and a priest, 141-144 Workmen's wages in Massachusetts compared with the profits of a tenant farmer in Ireland, 146 Loughrea, 148, 149 Murder of Finlay, 150, 151 The chrysoprase Lake of Loughrea, 154 Lord Clanricarde's estate office, acreage, and rental, 155 Woodford acreage and rental, 155, 156 Drive from Loughrea to Woodlawn, 156-160 A Galway "jarvey" on the situation, 156-159 Woodlawn and the Ashtown property, 160

CHAPTER XI. Borris, March 2, 161 Mr. Kavanagh, 161-163 Borris House, 163-167 A living Banshee, 165, 166 Land Corporation--its mode of working, 167 Meeting in Dublin, 1885, 168 Rev. Mr. Cantwell, 168 Lord Lansdowne's property at Luggacurren, 169 Mr. Kavanagh's career, 170 Books and papers at Borris, 171 Strongbow, 172 "The five bloods, " 172, 173 Genealogy of M'Morroghs and Kavanaghs, 173 March 4, 174 Protestant service read every morning, 174 A Catholic gentleman's views, 175 Relation of tenants to village despots, 176 Would America make a State of Ireland? 177 Land Acts since 1870, 178 The O'Grady of Kilballyowen and his rental, 179 Dispute with his tenants: its cause and effect, 180 His circular to his tenantry, 181-186

CHAPTER XII. Grenane House, March 5, 187 Visit to Mr. Seigne, 187 Beautiful situation of Grenane, 189 A lady of the country, 189 Mr. Seigne's experience of the tenants, 191-194 The beauty of Woodstock, 194-198 The watch of Waterloo, 197-200 Curious discovery of stolen property, 200 Dublin, March 6, 200 State of deposits in the Savings Banks, 200-201 Interest on "Plan of Campaign" funds, 202

CHAPTER XIII. Dublin, March 8, 203 Inch and the Coolgreany evictions, 203 Sweet vale of Avoca, 204 Dr. Dillon of Arklow, 204 Fathers O'Neill and Dunphy, 205, 206 Mr. Davitt watching the evictions, 207 Lazy and thriftless tenants better off than before, 209 A self-made committee, 211 The Brooke estate, 212 Sir Thomas Esmonde's house, 213 An Arklow dinner, 214 Dr. Dillon in his study, 215-217 Visit to Glenart Castle, 217

CHAPTER XIV. Dublin, March 9, 219 Athy, 219 A political jarvey, 220-225 "Who is Mr. Gilhooly?" 221 Lord Lansdowne's offer refused through pressure of the League, 226 Mr. Kilbride, M. P. , and Mr. Dunne, 226-228 Lord Lansdowne's estate in Kerry, 228-231 Plan of Campaign at Luggacurren, 231-236 Interview with Father Maher, 236-239 A "jarvey" on a J. P. , 240 "Railway amenities, " 241 Dublin, March 10, 242 Mr. Brooke, 242-248 Unreasonable tenants, 243, 244 Size and rental of estate, 246 Sub-commissioner's reduction reversed, 246, 247

CHAPTER XV. Maryborough, 249 Archbishop Croke, 249 Interviews with labourers, 251-253 Views of a successful country teacher, 254, 255 A veteran of the '48, 256-260 Amount of wages to men, 261 The farmers and labourers and lawyers, 264, 265 Dublin, June 23, 268 Mr. Hamilton Stubber and Mr. Robert Staples, 268-270 From Attanagh to Ballyragget, 270 Case of "a little-good-for tenant, " 271, 272 Mr. Kough and his tenants, 273-277 Mr. Richardson of Castle Comer, 277 Position of the tenants, 282 £70 a year for whisky, 282 Kilkenny Castle, 282 Mr. Rolleston of Delgany, 283-292 John O'Leary, 285-292 Boycotting private opinion, 292 The League as now conducted, 295 Poems and Ballads of "Young Ireland, " 296 Law Courts and Trinity College, 297 American Civil War, 299-302 Dublin, June 24, 302 A dinner with officials, 303-306 A priest earns over £20, 000, 305, 306 "Crowner's Quest Law, " 309-311

CHAPTER XVI. Belfast, June 25, 313 Ulster in Irish history, 313 Moira, 315 Views of an Ulsterman, 315, 316 Beauty of Belfast, 317, 318 Its buildings, 319-321 Dr. Hanna, 322-324 Dr. Kane, 325 June 26, 326 Sir John Preston, 326-328 Mr. Cameron, of Royal Irish Constabulary, 328 Police parade, 328 Belfast steamers, 329 Scotland and America at work on Ireland, 330

EPILOGUE, p. 333-349

APPENDIX. 

 NOTES--

 F. The Moonlighters and Home Rule (pp. 10, 38), 351 G. The Ponsonby Property (pp. 59-66), 353 G2 The Glenbehy Eviction Fund (p. 12), 360 G3 Home Rule and Protestantism (p. 68), 362 H. Tully and the Woodford Evictions (p. 149), 364 H2. Boycotting the Dead (p. 151), 370 I. The Savings Banks (P. O. ) (vol. I. P. 39, vol. Ii. Pp. 5 and 200), 371 K. The Coolgreany Evictions (p. 216), 372 L. A Ducal Supper in 1711 (p. 283), 374 M. Letter from Mr. O'Leary (p. 291), 375 N. Boycotting Private Opinion (p. 293), 377 O. Boycotting by Crowner's Quest Law (p. 312), 382

 CHAPTER VII. 

ROSSBEHY, [1] _Feb. 21. _--We are here on the eve of battle! An "eviction"is to be made to-morrow on the Glenbehy[1] estate of Mr. Winn, an uncleof Lord Headley, so upon the invitation of Colonel Turner, who has cometo see that all is done decently and in order, I left Ennis with him at7. 40 A. M. For Limerick; the "city of the Liberator" for "the city of theBroken Treaty. " There we breakfasted at the Artillery Barracks. 

The officers showed us there the new twelve-pounder gun with itselaborately scientific machinery, its Scotch sight, and its four-milerange. I compared notes about the Trafalgar Square riots of February1886 with an Irish officer who happened to have been on the oppositeside of Pall Mall from me at the moment when the mob, getting out of thehand of my socialistic friend Mr. Hyndman, and advancing towards St. James' Street and Piccadilly was broken by a skilful and very spiritedcharge of the police. He gave a most humorous account of his ownsensations when he first came into contact with the multitude afteremerging from St. Paul's, where, as he put it, he had left the people"all singing away like devils. " But I found he quite agreed with me inthinking that there was a visible nucleus of something like militaryorganisation in the mob of that day, which was overborne and, as itwere, smothered by the mere mob element before it came to tryingconclusions with the police. 

On our way to Limerick, Colonel Turner caught sight, at a station, ofFather Little, the parish priest of Six Mile Bridge, in County Clare, and jumping out of the carriage invited him to get in and pursue hisjourney with us, which he very politely did. Father Little is a tallfine-looking man of a Saxon rather than a Celtic type, and I daresaycomes of the Cromwellian stock. He is a staunch and outspokenNationalist, and has been made rather prominent of late by hischampionship of certain of his parishioners in their contest with theirlandlord, Mr. H. V. D'Esterre, who lives chiefly at Bournemouth inEngland, but owns 2833 acres in County Clare at Rosmanagher, valued at£1625 a year. More than a year ago one of Father Little's parishioners, Mr. Frost, successfully resisted a large force of the constabulary benton executing a process of ejectment against him obtained by Mr. D'Esterre. 

Frost's holding was of 33 Irish, or, in round numbers, about 50 English, acres, at a rental of £117, 10s. , on which he had asked but had notobtained an abatement. The Poor-Law valuation of the holding was £78, and Frost estimated the value of his and his father's improvements, including the homestead and the offices, or in other words histenant-right, at £400. The authorities sent a stronger body ofconstables and ejected Frost. But as soon as they had left the placeFrost came back with his family, on the 28th Jan. 1887, and reoccupiedit. Of course proceedings were taken against him immediately, and asmall war was waged over the Frost farm until the 5th of September last, when an expedition was sent against it, and it was finally captured, andFrost evicted with his family. Upon this last occasion Father Little(who gave me a very temperate but vigorous account of the whole affair)distinguished himself by a most ingenious and original attempt to "holdthe fort. " He chained himself to the main doorway, and stretching thechains right and left secured them to two other doors. It was of thisrefreshing touch of humour that I heard the other day at Abbeyleix ashappening not in Clare but in Kerry. 

Since his eviction Frost has been living, Father Little tells me, in awooden hut put up for him on the lands of a kinsman of the same name, who is also a tenant of Mr. D'Esterre, and who has since been served byhis landlord with a notice of ejectment for arrears, although he hadpaid up six months' dues two months only before the service. FatherLittle charged the landlord in this case with prevarication and otherevasive proceedings in the course of his negotiations with the tenants;and Colonel Turner did not contest the statements made by him in supportof his contention that the Rosmanagher difficulty might have beenavoided had the tenants been more fairly and more considerately dealtwith. It is strong presumptive evidence against the landlord that akinsman, Mr. Robert D'Esterre, is one of the subscribers to a fundraised by Father Little in aid of the evicted man Frost. On the otherhand, as illustrating the condition of the tenants, it is noteworthythat the Post-Office Savings Bank's deposits at Six-Mile Bridge rosefrom £382, 17s. 10d. In 1880 to £934, 13s. 4d. In 1887. 

After breakfast we took a car and drove rapidly about the city for anhour. With its noble river flowing through the very heart of the place, and broadening soon into an estuary of the Atlantic, Limerick ought longago to have taken its place in the front rank of British ports dealingwith the New World. In the seventeenth century it was the fourth city ofIreland, Boate putting it then next after Dublin, Galway, and Waterford. Belfast at that time, he describes as a place hardly comparable "to asmall market-town in England. " To-day Limerick has a population of someforty thousand, and Belfast a population of more than two hundredthousand souls. This change cannot be attributed solely, if at all, tothe "Protestant ascendency, " nor yet to the alleged superiority of theNorthern over the Southern Irish in energy and thrift, For in theseventeenth century Limerick was more important than Cork, whereas ithad so far fallen behind its Southern competitor in the eighteenthcentury that it contained in 1781 but 3859 houses, while Cork contained5295. To-day its population is about half as large as that of Cork. Itis a very well built city, its main thoroughfare, George Street, beingat least a mile in length, and a picturesque city also, thanks to theisland site of its most ancient quarter, the English Town, and to thehills of Clare and Killaloe, which close the prospect of the surroundingcountry. But the streets, though many of them are handsome, have aneglected look, as have also the quays and bridges. One of mycompanions, to whom I spoke of this, replied, "if they look neglected, it's because they are neglected. Politics are the death of the place, and the life of its publics. "[2]

As we approached the shores of the Atlantic from Limerick, the scenerybecame very grand and beautiful. On the right of the railway the countryrolled and undulated away towards the Stacks, amid the spurs and slopesof which, in the wood of Clonlish, Sanders, the Nuncio sent over toorganise Catholic Ireland against Elizabeth, miserably perished of wantand disease six years before the advent of the great Armada. To thesouth-west rose the grand outlines of the Macgillicuddy's Reeks, thehighest points, I believe, in the South of Ireland. We establishedourselves at the County Kerry Club on our arrival in Tralee, which Ifound to be a brisk prosperous-looking town, and quite well built. ANationalist member once gave me a gloomy notion of Tralee, by tellingme, when I asked him whether he looked forward with longing to a seat inthe Parliament of Ireland, that "when he was in Dublin now he alwaysthought of London, just as when he used to be in Tralee he alwaysthought of Dublin. " But he did less than justice to the town upon theLee. We left it at half-past four in the train for Killorglin. Thelittle station there was full of policemen and soldiers, and knots ofcountry people stood about the platform discussing the morrow. There hadbeen some notion that the car-drivers at Killorglin might "boycott" theauthorities. But they were only anxious to turn an honest penny bybringing us on to this lonely but extremely neat and comfortablehostelry in the hills. 

We left the Sheriff and the escort to find their way as best they couldafter us. 

Mrs. Shee, the landlady here, ushered us into a very pretty room hungwith little landscapes of the country, and made cheery by a roaringfire. Two or three officers of the soldiers sent on here to prevent anyserious uproar to-morrow dined with us. 

The constabulary are in force, but in great good humour. They have nobelief that there will be any trouble, though all sorts of wild taleswere flying about Tralee before we left, of English members ofParliament coming down to denounce the "Coercion" law, and of risings inthe hills, and I know not what besides. The agent of the Winn property, or of Mr. Head of Reigate in Surrey, the mortgagee of the estate, whoholds a power of attorney from Mr. Winn, is here, a quiet, intelligentyoung man, who has given me the case in a nut-shell. 

The tenant to be evicted, James Griffin, is the son and heir of one Mrs. Griffin, who on the 5th of April 1854 took a lease of the lands known asWest Lettur from the then Lord Headley and the Hon. R. Winn, at theannual rent of £32, 10s. This rent has since been reduced by a judicialprocess to £26. In 1883 James Griffin, who was then, as he is now, anactive member of the local branch of the National League, and who wasimprisoned under Mr. Gladstone's Act of 1881 as a "suspect, " wasevicted, being then several years in arrears. He re-entered unlawfullyimmediately afterwards, and has remained in West Lettur unlawfully eversince, actively deterring and discouraging other tenants from payingtheir rents. He took a great part in promoting the refusal to pay whichled to the famous evictions of last year. As to these, it seems thetenants had agreed, in 1886, to accept a proposition from Mr. Head, remitting four-fifths of all their arrears upon payment of one year'srent and costs. Mr. Sheehan, M. P. , a hotel-keeper in Killarney, intervened, advising the tenants that the Dublin Parliament would soonbe established, and would abolish "landlordism, " whereupon they refusedto keep their agreement. [3] Sir Redvers Buller, who then filled the postnow held by Sir West Ridgway, seeing this alarming deadlock, urged Mr. Head to go further, and offer to take a half-year's rent and costs. Ifthe tenants refused this Sir Redvers advised Mr. Head to destroy allhouses occupied by mere trespassers, such as Griffin, who, if they couldhold a place for twelve years, would acquire a title under the Statuteof Limitations. A negotiation conducted by Sir Redvers and FatherQuilter, P. P. , followed, and Father Quilter, for the tenants, finally, in writing, accepted Mr. Head's offer, under which, by the payment of£865, they would be rid of a legal liability for £6177. The League againintervened with bribes and threats, and Father Quilter found himselfobliged to write to Colonel Turner a letter in which he said, "Onlyseventeen of the seventy tenants have sent on their rents to Mr. Roe(the agent). Though promising that they would accept the terms, theyhave withdrawn at the last moment from fulfilment.... I shall neveragain during my time in Glenbehy interfere between a landlord and histenants. I have poor slaves who will not keep their word. Now let Mr. Roe or any other agent in future deal with Glenbeighans as he likes. "The farms lie at a distance even from this inn, and very far thereforefrom Killorglin, and the agent, knowing that the tenants would beencouraged by Griffin and by Mr. Harrington, M. P. , and others, to comeback into their holdings as soon as the officers withdrew, ordered thewoodwork of several cottages to be burned in order to prevent this. Thisburning of the cottages, which were the lawful property of themortgagee, made a great figure in the newspaper reports, and"scandalised the civilised world. " The present agent thinks it wasimpolitic on that account, but he has no doubt it was a good thingfinancially for the evicted tenants. "You will see the shells of thecottages to-morrow, " he said, "and you will judge for yourself what theywere worth. " But the sympathy excited by the illustrations of the cruelconflagration and the heartrending descriptions of the reporters, resulted in a very handsome subscription for the benefit of the tenantsof Glenbehy. General Sir William Butler, whose name came so prominentlybefore the public in connection with his failure to appear and giveevidence in a recent _cause célèbre_, and whose brother is a ResidentMagistrate in Kerry, was one of the subscribers. The fund thus raisedhas been since administered by two trustees, Father Quilter, P. P. , andMr. Shee, a son of our brisk little landlady here, who maintain out ofit very comfortably the evicted tenants. Not long ago a man in Traleetried to bribe the agent into having him evicted, that he might make aclaim on this fund! At Killorglin the Post-Office Savings Bank deposits, which stood at £282, 15s. 9d. In 1880, rose in 1887 to £1299, 2s. 6d. James Griffin, despite, or because, of the two evictions through whichhe has passed, is very well off. He owns a very good horse and cart, andseven or eight head of cattle. His arrears now amount to about £240, andon being urged yesterday to make a proposition which might avoid aneviction, he gravely offered to pay £8 of the current half-year's rentin cash, and the remaining £5 in June, the landlord taking on himselfall the costs and giving him a clean receipt! This liberal propositionwas declined. The zeal of her son in behalf of the evicted tenants doesnot seem to affect the amiable anxiety of our trim and energetic hostessto make things agreeable here to the minions of the alien despotism. Theofficers both of the police and of the military appear to be on the bestof terms with the whole household, and everything is going as merrily asmarriage bells on this eve of an eviction. 

TRALEE, _Wednesday evening, Feb. 22. _--We rose early at Mrs. Shee's, made a good breakfast, and set out for the scene of the day's work. Itwas a glorious morning for Washington's birthday, and I could not helpimagining the amazement with which that stern old Virginian landlordwould have regarded the elaborate preparations thought necessary here inIreland in the year of our Lord 1888, to eject a tenant who owes twohundred and forty pounds of arrears on a holding at twenty-six pounds ayear, and offers to settle the little unpleasantness by paying thirteenpounds in two instalments!

We had a five miles' march of it through a singularly wild andpicturesque region, the hills which lead up to the Macgillicuddy's Reekson our left, and on the right the lower hills trending to the salt waterof Dingle Bay. Our start had been delayed by the non-appearance of theSheriff, in aid of whom all this parade of power was made; but it turnedout afterwards that he had gone on without stopping to let ColonelTurner know it. 

The air was so bracing and the scenery so fine that we walked most ofthe way. Two or three cars drove past us, the police and the troopsmaking way for them very civilly, though some of the officers thoughtthey were taking some Nationalist leaders and some English"sympathisers" to Glenbehy. One of the officers, when I commented uponthis, told me they never had much trouble with the Irish members. "Someof them, " he said, "talk more than is necessary, and flourish about; butthey have sense enough to let us go about our work without foolishlytrying to bother us. The English are not always like that. " And he thentold me a story of a scene in which an English M. P. , we will call Mr. Gargoyle, was a conspicuous actor. Mr. Gargoyle being present either atan eviction or a prohibited meeting, I didn't note which, with two orthree Irish members, all of them were politely requested to step on oneside and let the police march past. The Irish members touched their hatsin return to the salute of the officer, and drew to one side of theroad. But Mr. Gargoyle defiantly planted himself in the middle of theroad. The police, marching four abreast, hesitated for a moment, andthen suddenly dividing into two columns marched on. The right-hand manof the first double file, as he went by, just touched the M. P. With hisshoulder, and thereby sent him up against the left-hand man of thecorresponding double file, who promptly returned the attention. And inthis manner the distinguished visitor went gyrating through the wholelength of the column, to emerge at the end of it breathless, hatless, and bewildered, to the intense and ill-suppressed delight of his Irishcolleagues. 

Our hostess's son, the trustee of the Eviction Fund, was on one of thecars which passed us, with two or three companions, who proved to be"gentlemen of the Press. " We passed a number of cottages and some largerhouses on the way, the inmates of which seemed to be minding their ownbusiness and taking but a slight interest in the great event of the day. We made a little detour at one of the finest points on the road to visit"Winn's Folly, " a modern mediæval castle of considerable size, upon amost enchanting site, with noble views on every side, quite impossibleto be seen through its narrow loopholed and latticed windows. The castleis extremely well built, of a fine stone from the neighbourhood, andwith a very small expenditure might be made immediately habitable. Butno one has ever lived in it. It has only been occupied as a temporarybarrack by the police when sent here, and the largest rooms are nowlittered with straw for the use of the force. At the beginning of thecentury, and for many years afterwards, Lord and Lady Headley lived onthe estate, and kept a liberal house. Their residence was on a finepoint running out into the bay, but, I am told, the sea has now invadedit, and eaten it away. In 1809 the acreage of this Glenbehy property was8915 Irish acres or 14, 442 English acres, set down under Bath'svaluation at £2299, 17s. 6d. Between 1830 and 1860 the rental averaged£5000 a year, and between these years £17, 898, 14s. 5d. Were expended bythe landlord in improvements upon the property. This castle, which wevisited, must have involved since then an outlay of at least £10, 000 inthe place. 

The present Lord Headley, only a year or two ago, went through theBankruptcy Court, and the Hon. Rowland Winn, his uncle, the titularowner of Glenbehy, is set down among the Irish landlords as owning13, 932 Irish acres at a rental of £1382. 

After we passed the castle we began to hear the blowing of rude hornsfrom time to time on the distant hills. These were signals to the peopleof our approach, and gave quite the air of an invasion to ourexpedition. We passed the burned cottages of last year just beforereaching Mr. Griffin's house at West Lettur. They were certainly notlarge cottages, and I saw but three of them. We found the Sheriff atWest Lettur. The police and the soldiers drew a cordon around the place, within which no admittance was to be had except on business; and themyrmidons of the law going into the house with the agent held a finalconference with the tenant, of which nothing came but a renewal of hisprevious offer. Then the work of eviction began. There was no attempt ata resistance, and but for the martial aspect of the forces, and anoccasional blast of a horn from the hills, or the curious noises madefrom time to time by a small concourse of people, chiefly women, assembled on the slope of an adjoining tenancy, the proceedings were asdull as a parish meeting. What most struck me about the affair was thepatience and good-nature of the officers. In the two hours and a halfwhich we spent at West Lettur a New York Sheriff's deputies would haveput fifty tenants with all their bags and baggage out of as many housesinto the street. In fact it is very likely that at least that number ofNew York tenants were actually so ousted from their houses during thisvery time. 

The evicted Mr. Griffin was a stout, stalwart man of middle age, comfortably dressed, with the air rather of a citizen than of a farmer, who took the whole thing most coolly, as did also his women-kind. All ofthem were well dressed, and they superintended the removal and piling upof their household goods as composedly as if they were simply moving outof one house into another. The house itself was a large comfortablehouse of the country, and it was amply furnished. 

I commented on Griffin's indifference to the bailiff, a quiet, good-natured man. 

"Oh, he's quite familiar, " was the reply; "it's the third time he's beenevicted! I believe's going to America. "

"Oh! he will do very well, " said a gentleman who had joined theexpedition like myself to see the scene. "He is a shrewd chap, and nottroubled by bashfulness. He sat on a Board of Guardians with a man Iknew four years ago, and one day he read out his own name, 'JamesGriffin, ' among a list of applicants for relief at Cahirciveen. Thechairman looked up, and said, 'Surely that is not your name you arereading, is it?' 'It is, indeed, ' replied Griffin, 'and I am as much inneed of relief as any one!' Perhaps you'll be surprised to hear hedidn't get it. This is a good holding he had, and he used to do prettywell with it--not in his mother's time only of the flush prices, but inhis own. It was the going to Kilmainham that spoiled him. "

"How did that spoil him?"

"Oh, it made a great man of him, being locked up. He was too welltreated there. He got a liking for sherry and bitters, and he's neverbeen able to make his dinner since without a nip of them. Mrs. Sheeknows that well. "

To make an eviction complete and legal here, everything belonging to thetenant, and every live creature must be taken out of the house. A catmay save a house as a cat may save a derelict ship. Then the Sheriffmust "walk" over the whole holding. All this takes time. There was anunobtrusive search for arms too going on all the time. Three ramrodswere found hidden in a straw-bed--two of which showed signs of recentuse. But the guns had vanished. An officer told me that not long ago tworevolvers were found in a corner of the thatch of a house; but thecartridges for them were only some time afterwards discovered neatlypacked away in the top of a bedroom wall. It is not the ownership ofthese arms, it is the careful concealment of them which indicatessinister intent. One of the constables brought out three "Moonlighters'swords" found hidden away in the house. One of these Colonel Turnershowed me. It was a reversal of the Scriptural injunction, being aploughshare beaten into a weapon, and a very nasty weapon of offence, one end of it sharpened for an ugly thrust, the other fashioned intoquite a fair grip. While I was examining this trophy there was a stir, and presently two of the gentlemen who had passed us on Mr. Shee's carcame rather suddenly out of the house in company with two or threeconstables. 

They were representatives, they said, of the Press, and as such desiredto be allowed to remain. Colonel Turner replied that this could not be, and, in fact, no one had been suffered to enter the house except thelaw-officers, the agent, and the constables. So the representatives ofthe Press were obliged to pass outside of the lines, one of theconstables declaring that they had got into the house through a hole inthe back wall!

Shortly after this incident there arose a considerable noise of groaningand shouting from the hill-side beyond the highway, and presently anumber of people, women and children predominating, appeared coming downtowards the precincts of the house. They were following a person in aclerical dress, who proved to be Father Quilter, the parish priest, whohad denounced his people to Colonel Turner as "poor slaves" of theLeague! A colloquy followed between Father Quilter and the policemen ofthe cordon. This was brought to a close by Mr. Roche, the residentmagistrate, who went forward, and finding that Father Quilter wished topass the cordon, politely but firmly informed him that this could not bedone. "Not if I am the bearer of a telegram for the lawyer?" askedFather Quilter, in a loud and not entirely amiable tone. "Not on anyterms whatever, " responded the magistrate. Father Quilter stillmaintaining his ground, the women crowded in around and behind him, themen bringing up the rear at a respectable distance, and the small boysshouting loudly. For a moment faint hopes arose within me that I wasabout to witness one of the . Exciting scenes of which I have more thanonce read. But only for a moment. The magistrate ordered the police toadvance. As they drew near the wall with an evident intention of goingover it into the highway, Father Quilter and the women fell back, theboys and men retreated up the opposite hill, and the brief battle ofGlenbehy was over. 

A small messenger bearing a telegram then emerged from the crowd, andshowing his telegram, was permitted to pass. Father Quilter, in a loudvoice, commented upon this, crying out, "See now your consistency! Yousaid no one should pass, and you let the messenger come in!" To thissally no reply was returned. After a little the priest, followed by mostof the people, went up the hill to the holding of another tenant, andthere, as the police came in and reported, held a meeting. From time totime cries were heard in the distance, and ever and anon the blast of ahorn came from some outlying hill. 

But no notice was taken of these things by the police, and when thetedious formalities of the law had all been gone through with, a squadof men were put in charge of the house and the holding, the rest of thearmy re-formed for the march back, our cars came up, and we left WestLettur. Seeing a number of men come down the hill, as the columnprepared to move, Mr. Roche, making his voice tremendous, after thefashion of a Greek chorus, commanded the police to arrest and handcuffany riotous person making provocative noises. This had the desiredeffect, and the march back began in silence. When the column was fairlyin the road, "boos" and groans went up from knots of men higher up thehill, but no heed was taken of these, and no further incident occurred. I shall be curious to see whether the story of this affair can possiblybe worked up into a thrilling narrative. 

We lunched at Mrs. Shee's, where no sort of curiosity was manifestedabout the proceedings at West Lettur, and I came back here with ColonelTurner by another road, which led us past one of the loveliest lakes Ihave ever seen--Lough Caragh. Less known to fame than the much largerLake of Killarney, it is in its way quite worthy of comparison with anyof the lesser lakes of Europe. It is not indeed set in a coronal ofmountains like Orta, but its shores are well wooded, picturesque, andenlivened by charming seats--now, for the most part, alas!--abandoned bytheir owners. We had a pleasant club dinner here this evening, afterwhich came in to see me Mr. Hussey, to whom I had sent a letter from Mr. Froude. Few men, I imagine, know this whole region better than Mr. Hussey. Some gentlemen of the country joined in the conversation, andcurious stories were told of the difficulty of getting evidence incriminal cases. What Froude says of the effect of the prohibitive andprotection policy in Ireland upon the morals of the people as tosmuggling must be said, I fear, of the effect of the Penal Laws againstCatholics upon their morals as to perjury. It is not surprising that thepeasants should have been educated into the state of mind of theIrishman in the old American story, who, being solicited to promise hisvote when he landed in New York, asked whether the party which sought itwas for the Government or against it. Against it, he was told, "Thenbegorra you shall have my vote, for I'm agin the Government whatever itis. " One shocking case was told of a notorious and terrible murder herein Kerry. An old man and his son, so poor that they lay naked in theirbeds, were taken out and shot by a party of Moonlighters for breaking aboycott. They were left for dead, and their bodies thrown upon adunghill. The boy, however, was still alive when they were found, and itwas thought he might recover. The magistrates questioned him as to hisknowledge of the murderers. The boy's mother stood behind themagistrate, and when the question was put, held up her finger in awarning manner at the poor lad. She didn't wish him to "peach, " as, ifhe lived, the friends of the murderers would make it impossible for themto keep their holding and live on it. The lad lied, and died with thelie on his lips. Who shall sit in judgment on that wretched mother andher son? But what rule can possibly be too stern to crush out theterrorism which makes such things possible?

And what right have Englishmen to expect their dominion to stand inIreland when their party leaders for party ends shake hands with men whowink at and use this terrorism? It has so wrought upon the populationhere, that in another case, in which the truth needed by justice and thefears of a poor family trembling for their substance and their livescame thus into collision, an Irish Judge did not hesitate to warn thejury against allowing themselves to be influenced by "the usual familylie"!

A magistrate told us a curious story, which recalls a case noted by SirWalter Scott, about the detection of a murderer, who lay long in waitfor a certain police sergeant, obnoxious to the "Moonlighters, " andfinally shot him dead in the public street of Loughrea, after dark on arainy night, as he was returning from the Post-Office on one side of thestreet to the Police Barracks on the other. The town and theneighbouring country were all agog about the matter, but no trace couldbe got until the Dublin detectives came down three days after themurder. It had rained more or less every one of these days, and thepools of water were still standing in the street, as on the night of themurder. One of the Dublin officers closely examining the highway saw aheavy footprint in the coarse mud at the bottom of one of these pools. He had the water drawn off, and made out clearly, from the print in themud, that the brogan worn by the foot which made it had a brokensole-piece turned over under the foot. By this the murderer waseventually traced, captured, tried, and found guilty. 

Mr. Morphy, I find, is coming down from Dublin to conduct theprosecution in the case of the Crown against the murderers ofFitzmaurice, the old man, so brutally slain the other day near Lixnaw, in the presence of his daughter, for taking and farming a farm given upby his thriftless brother. "He will find, " said one of the company, "the mischief done in this instance also by prematurely pressing forevidence. The girl Honora, who saw her father murdered, never ought tohave been subjected to any inquiry at first by any one, least of all bythe local priest. Her first thought inevitably was that if she intimatedwho the men were, they would be screened, and she would suffer. Now sheis recovering her self-possession and coming round, and she will tellthe truth. "

"Meanwhile, " said a magistrate, "the girl and her family are all'boycotted, ' and that, mark you, by the priest, as well as by thepeople. The girl's life would be in peril were not these scoundrelscowards as well as bullies. Two staunch policemen--Irishmen andCatholics both of them--are in constant attendance, with orders toprevent any one from trying to intimidate or to tamper with her. Apolice hut is putting up close to the Fitzmaurice house. The Nationalistpapers haven't a word to say for this poor girl or her murdered father. But they are always putting in some sly word in behalf of Moriarty andHayes, the men accused of the murder. "

"Furthermore, " said another guest, "these two men are regularly suppliedwhile in prison with special meals by Mrs. Tangney. Who foots the bills?That is what she won't tell, nor has the Head-Constable so far been ableaccurately to ascertain. All we know is that the friends of theprisoners haven't the money to do it. "

Late in the evening came in a tall fine-looking Kerry squire, who toldus, _à propos_ of the Fitzmaurice murder, that only a day or two ago avery decent tenant of his, who had taken over a holding from adisreputable kinsman, intending to manage it for the benefit of thiskinsman's family, came to him and said he must give it up, as theMoonlighters had threatened him if he continued to hold it. 

A man of substance in Tralee gave me some startling facts as to thelocal administration here. In Tralee Union, he said, there were in 1879eighty-seven persons receiving outdoor relief, at a cost to the Union of£30, 17s. 11d. , being an average per head of 7s. 1d. , and 1879 was avery bad year, the worst since the great famine year, 1847. ANationalist Board was elected in 1880, and a Nationalist chairman in1884. 1884 was a very good year, but in that year no fewer than 3434persons received outdoor relief, at a cost of £2534, 13s. 10d. , makingan average per head of 14s. 9d. ! And at the present time £5000 nominalworth of dishonoured cheques of the authorities were flying all over thecounty!

"On whom, " I asked, "does the burden fall of these levies andextravagances?"

"On the landlords, not on the tenants, " he promptly replied. "Thelandlord pays the whole of the rates on all holdings of less than £4 ayear, and on all land which is either really or technically in his ownpossession. He also pays one-half of the rates on all the rest of hisproperty. "

"Then, in a case like that of Griffin's, evicted at Glenbehy, witharrears going back to 1883, who would pay the rates?"

"The landlord of course!"[4]

CHAPTER VIII. 

CORK, _Thursday, Feb. 23d. _--We left Tralee this morning. It wasdifficult to recognise the events yesterday witnessed by us at Glenbehyin the accounts which we read of them to-day when we got the newspapers. 

As these accounts are obviously intended to be read, not in Ireland, where nobody seems to take the least interest in Irish affairs beyondhis own bailiwick, but in England and America, it is only natural, Isuppose, that they should be coloured to suit the taste of the marketfor which they are destined. It is astonishing how little interest thepeople generally show in the newspapers. The Irish make good journalistsas they make good soldiers; but most of the journalists who nowrepresent Irish constituencies at Westminster find their chief field ofactivity, I am told, not in Irish but in British or in Americanjournals. Mr. Roche, R. M. , who travelled with us as far as CastleIsland, where we left him, was much less moved by the grotesque accountsgiven in the local journals of his conduct yesterday than by Mr. Gladstone's "retractation" of the extraordinary attack which he made theother day upon Mr. Roche himself, and four other magistrates by name. 

"The retractation aggravates the attack, " he said. 

When one sees what a magistrate now represents in Ireland, it certainlyis not easy to reconcile an inconsiderate attack upon the character andconduct of such an officer with the most elementary ideas of goodcitizenship. 

After Mr. Roche left us, a gentleman in the carriage, who is interestedin some Castle Island property, told us that nothing could be worse thanthe state of that region. Open defiance of the moral authority of theclergy is as rife there, he says, as open defiance of the civilauthorities. The church was not long ago broken into, and the sacredvestments were defiled; and, but the other day, a young girl of theplace came to a magistrate and asked him to give her a summons againstthe parish priest "for assaulting her. " The magistrate, a Protestant, but a personal friend of the priest, esteeming him for his fidelity tohis duties, asked the girl what on earth she meant. She proceeded withperfect coolness to say that the priest had impertinently interferedwith her, "assaulted her, " and told her to "go home, " when he found hersitting in a lonely part of the road with her young man, rather late atnight! For this, the girl, professing to be a Catholic, actually wantedthe Protestant magistrate to have her parish priest brought into hiscourt! He told the girl plainly what he thought of her conduct, whereupon she went away, very angry, and vowing vengeance both againstthe priest and against him. 

This same gentleman said that at the Bodyke evictions, of which so muchhas been heard, the girls and women swarmed about the police usinglanguage so revoltingly obscene that the policemen blushed--suchlanguage, he said, as was never heard from decent Irishwomen in the daysof his youth. 

Of this business of evictions, he said, the greatest imaginablemisrepresentations are made in the press and by public speakers. "Youhave just seen one eviction yourself, " he said, "and you can judge foryourself whether that can be truly described in Mr. Gladstone's languageas a 'sentence of death. ' The people that were put out of these burnedhouses you saw, houses that never would have needed to be burned, hadHarrington and the other Leaguers allowed the people to keep theirpledges given Sir Redvers Buller, those very people are better off nowthan they were before they were evicted, in so far as this, that theyget their food and drink and shelter without working for it, and I'msorry to say that the Government and the League, between them, have beensoliciting half of Ireland for the last six or eight years to think thatsort of thing a heaven upon earth. An eviction in Ireland in these daysgenerally means just this, that the fight between a landlord and theLeague has come to a head. If the tenant wants to be rid of his holding, or if he is more afraid of the League than of the law, why, out he goes, and then he is a victim of heartless oppression; but if he iswell-to-do, and if he thinks he will be protected, he takes the evictionproceedings just for a notice to stop palavering and make a settlement, and a settlement is made. The ordinary Irish tenant don't think anythingmore of an eviction than Irish gentlemen used to think of a duel; butyou can never get English people to understand the one any more than theother!"

The fine broad streets which Cork owes to the filling up and bridgingover of the canals which in the last century made her a kind of IrishVenice, give the city a comely and even stately aspect. But they are notmuch better kept and looked after than the streets of New York. And theyare certainly less busy and animated than when I last was here, fiveyears ago. All the canals, however, are not filled up or bridged over. From my windows, in a neat comfortable little private hotel onMorrison's Quay, I look down upon the deck of a small barque, mooredwell up among the houses. The hospitable and dignified County Club iswithin two minutes' walk of my hostelry, and the equally hospitable andmore bustling City Club, but a little farther off, at the end of theSouth Mall. At luncheon to-day a gentleman who was at Kilkenny with Mr. Gladstone on the occasion of his visit to that city told me a story toogood to be lost. The party were eight in number, and on their return toAbbeyleix they naturally looked out for an empty railway carriage. Thetrain was rather full, but in one compartment my informant descried adignitary, whom he knew, of the Protestant Church of Ireland, its onlyoccupant. He went up and saluted the Dean, and, pointing to hiscompanions, asked if he would object to changing his place in the train, which would give them a compartment to themselves. The Dean courteously, and indeed briskly, assented, when he saw that Mr. Gladstone was one ofthe party. 

After the train moved off, Mr. Gladstone said, "Was not that gentlemanwho so kindly vacated his place for us a clergyman?"

"Yes. " "I hope he won't think I have disestablished him again!"

At the next station, my informant getting out for a moment to thank theDean again for his civility, and chat with him, repeated Mr. Gladstone'sremark. 

"Oh!" said the Dean; "you may tell him I don't mind his disestablishingme again; for he didn't disendow me; he didn't confiscate my ticket!"

With this gentleman was another from Kerry, who tells me there is adistinct change for the better already visible in that county, which heattributes to the steady action of the Dublin authorities in enforcingthe law. 

"The League Courts, " he said, "are ceasing to be the terror they used tobe. "

I asked what he meant by the "League Courts, " when he expressed hisastonishment at my not knowing that it was the practice of the League tohold regular Courts, before which the tenants are summoned, as if by aprocess of the law, to explain their conduct, when they are charged withpaying their rents without the permission of the Local League. In hispart of Kerry, he tells me, these Courts used not very long ago to sitregularly every Sunday. The idea, he says, is as old as the time of theUnited Irishmen, who used to terrorise the country just in the same way. A man whom he named, a blacksmith, acted as a kind of "Law Lord, " and tohim the chairmen of the different local "Courts" used to refer casesheard before them![5]

All this was testified to openly two years ago, before Lord Cowper'sCommission, but no decisive action has ever been taken by the Governmentto put a stop to the scandal, and relieve the tenants from this opentyranny. These Courts enforced, and still enforce, their decrees byvarious forms of outrage, ranging "from the boycott, " in its simplestforms up to direct outrages upon property and the person. 

"This dual Government business, " he said, "can only end in a duelbetween the two Governments, and it must be a duel to the death of oneor the other. "

To-night at dinner I had a most interesting conversation with Mr. Colomb, Assistant Inspector-General of the Constabulary, who is hereengaged with Mr. Cameron of Belfast, and Colonel Turner, ininvestigating the affair at Mitchelstown. Mr. Colomb was at Killarney atthe time of the Fenian rising under "General O'Connor" in 1867--a risingwhich was undoubtedly an indirect consequence of our own Civil War inAmerica. Warning came to two magistrates, of impending trouble fromCahirciveen. Upon this Mr. Colomb immediately ordered the arrest of allpassengers to arrive that day at Killarney by the "stage-car" from thatplace. When the car came in at night, it brought only one person--"anawful-looking ruffian he was, " said Mr. Colomb, "whom, by hissquare-toed shoes, we knew to be just arrived from your side of thewater. "

He was examined, and said he was a commercial traveller, and that he hadonly one letter about him, a business letter, addressed to "J. D. Sheehan. "

"Have you any objection to show us that letter?"

"Certainly not, " he replied very coolly, and, taking it out of hispocket, he walked toward a table on which stood a candle, as if to readit. A gentleman who was closely watching him, caught him by the wrist, just as he was putting the letter to the flame, and saved it. It wasaddressed to J. D. Sheehan, Esq. , Killarney [Present], and ran asfollows:

 "_Feb. 12th, Morning_. 

 "MY DEAR SHEEHAN, --I have the honour to introduce to you Captain Mortimer Moriarty. He will be of great assistance to you, and I have told him all that is to be done until I get to your place. The Private _Spys_ are very active this morning. Unless they smell a rat all will be done without any trouble. 

 "Success to you. Hoping to meet soon, --Yours as ever. 

 "(Signed) JOHN J. O'CONNOR. "[6]

Despatches were at once sent off to the authorities at different points. They were all transmitted, except to Cahirciveen, the wires to whichplace were found to have been cut. Mr. Colomb--who had a force of butseventeen men in the town of Killarney--saw the uselessness of trying tocommunicate with the officer at Cahirciveen, but was so strongly urgedby the magistrates that he unwillingly consented to endeavour to do so, and a mounted orderly was sent. Just after this unfortunate officer hadpassed Glenbehy (the scene of the eviction I have just witnessed) he wasshot by some of O'Connor's party, whom he tried to pass in the dark, andwho were marching on Killarney, and fell from his horse, which gallopedoff. He managed to crawl to a neighbouring cottage, where he was notlong after found by "General O'Connor" and some of his followers. Thewounded man was kindly treated by O'Connor, who had him examined fordespatches, but prevented one of his men from shooting him dead, as helay on the ground, and had his wounds as well attended to as waspossible. There was no response in the country to the Kerry rising, suchas it was, because the intended seizure of Chester Castle by the Feniansfailed, but O'Connor was not captured, though great efforts were made toseize him. How he escaped is not known to this day. 

At that time, as always in emergencies, Mr. Colomh says the Constabularybehaved with exemplary coolness, courage, and fidelity. His positiongives him a very thorough knowledge of the force, which is almostentirely recruited from the body of the Irish people. Of late years nota few men of family, reduced in fortune, have taken service in it. Amongthese has been mentioned to me a young Irishman of title, and of anancient race, who is a sergeant in the force, and who recently declinedto accept a commission, as his increased expenses would make it harderfor him to support his two sisters. Another constable in the ranksrepresents a family illustrious in the annals of England four centuriesago. 

As to the _morale_ of the force, he cites one eloquent fact. Out of atotal of more than 13, 000 men, the cases of drunkenness, proved oradmitted, average no more than fourteen a week! On many days absolutelyno such cases occur. This is really amazing when one thinks how many ofthe men are isolated on lonely posts all over the island, exposed to allsorts of weather, and cut off from the ordinary resources and amusementsof social life. 

CORK, _Friday, Feb. 24th. _--This morning after breakfast I met in theSouth Mall a charming ecclesiastic, whose acquaintance I made in Romewhile I was attending the great celebration there in 1867 of St. Peter'sDay. Father Burke introduced me to him after the Pontifical Mass at SanPaolo fuori le Mure; and we had a delightful symposium that afternoon. Iwalked with him to his lodgings, talking over those "days longvanished, " and the friend whose genius made them, like the suppers ofPlato, "a joy for ever. " He is sorely troubled now by the attitude of aportion of the clergy in his part of Ireland, which is one almost ofopen hostility, he says, to the moral authority of the Church, andindicates the development of a class of priests moving in the directionof the "conventional priests, " by whom the Church was disgraced duringthe darkest days of the French Revolution of 1793. 

Almost more mischievous than these men, he thinks, who must eventuallygo the way of their kind in times past, are the timid priests, for themost part parish priests, who go in fear of their violent curates, andof the politicians who tyrannise their flocks. He showed me a letterwritten to him last week by one of these, whose parish is just now in atempest over the Plan of Campaign. Certainly a most remarkable letter. In it the writer frankly says, "There is no justification for the Planof Campaign on this property. 

"I assented to putting it in force here, " he goes on, "because I did notat the time know the facts of the case, and took them on trust frompersons who, I find, have practised upon my confidence. What am I to do?I am made to appear as a consenting party now, and, indeed, an assistingagent in action, which I certainly was led to believe right andnecessary, but which upon the facts I now see involves much injusticeto ---- (naming the landlord), and I fear positive ruin to worthy men andfamilies of my people. I shall be grateful and glad of your counsel inthese most distressing circumstances. "

"What can any one do to help such a man?" said my friend. "Therebellious and unruly in the Church, be they priests or laymen, can onlyin the end damage themselves. _Tu es Petrus_; and revolt, like schism, is a devil which only carries away those of whom it gets possession outof the Church and into the sea. But a weak sentinel on the wall or atthe gate who drops his musket to wipe his eyes, that is a thing fortears!"

He asked me to come and see him if possible in his own county, and hehas promised to send me letters to-day for priests who will he glad totell me what they know only too well of the pressure put upon the bettersort of the people by the organised idlers and mischief-makers in Clareand Kerry. 

To-day at the City Club, I made the acquaintance of the Town-Clerk ofCork, Mr. Alexander M'Carthy, a staunch Nationalist and Home Ruler, whoholds his office almost by a sort of hereditary tenure, having beenappointed to it in 1859 in succession to his father. He gave me manyinteresting particulars as to the municipal history and administrationof Cork, and showed me some of the responses he is receiving to a kindof circular letter sent by the municipality to the town governments ofEngland, touching the recent proceedings against the Mayor. So far theseresponses have not been very sympathetic. He invited me to lunch herewith him to-morrow, and visit some of the most interesting points in andaround the city. Here, too, I met Colonel Spaight, Inspector of theLocal Government Board, who gives me a startling account of the increaseof the public burdens. Twenty years ago there were no persons whateverseeking outdoor relief in Cork. This year, out of a total population of145, 216, there are 3775 persons here receiving indoor relief, and 4337receiving outdoor relief, making in all 8112, or nearly 6 per cent. Ofthe inhabitants. This proportion is swelled by the influx of people fromother regions seeking occupation here, which they do not find, or simplycoming here because they are sure of relief. This state of thingsillustrates not so much the decay of industry in Cork as the developmentof a spirit of mendicancy throughout Ireland. In the opinion of manythoughtful people, this began with the Duchess of Marlborough's Fund, and with the Mansion House Fund. Colonel Spaight remembers that inStrokestown Union, Roscommon, when the guardians there received a supplyof one hundred tons of seed potatoes, they distributed eighty tons, andwere then completely at a loss what to do with the remaining twentytons. Mr. Parnell and Mr. O'Kelly, however, came to Roscommon, and thelatter made a speech out of the hotel window to the people, advisingthem to apply for more, and take all they could get. "With a stroke of apen, " he said, "we'll wipe out the seed rate!" Whereupon theapplications for seed rose to six hundred tons!

The Labourers Act, passed by the British Parliament for the benefit ofthe Irish labourers, who get but scant recognition of their wants andwishes from the tenant farmers, is not producing the good resultsexpected from it, mainly because it is perverted to all sorts ofjobbery. Only last week Colonel Spaight had to hand in to the LocalGovernment Board a report on certain schemes of expenditure under thisAct, prepared by the Board of Guardians of Tralee. These schemescontemplated the erection of 196 cottages in 135 electoral divisions ofthe Union. This meant, of course, so much money of the ratepayers to beturned over to local contractors. Colonel Spaight on inspection foundthat of the 196 proposed cottages, the erection of 61 had been forbiddenby the sanitary authorities, the notices for the erection of 23 had beenwrongly served, 20 were proposed to be erected on sites not adjoining apublic road, and no necessity had been shown for erecting 40 of theothers. He accordingly recommended that only 32 be allowed to beerected! For a small town like Tralee this proposition to put up 196buildings at the public expense where only 32 were needed is not bad. Ithas the right old Tammany Ring smack, and would have commanded, I amsure, the patronising approval of the late Mr. Tweed. 

I mentioned it to-night at the County Club, when a gentleman said thatthis morning at Macroom a serious "row" had occurred between the localBoard of Guardians there and a great crowd of labourers. The labourersthronged the Board-room, demanding the half-acre plots of land which hadbeen promised them. The Guardians put them off, promising to attend tothem when the regular business of the meeting was over. So the poorfellows were kept waiting for three mortal hours, at the end of whichtime they espied the elected Nationalist members of the Board subtlyfiling out of the place. This angered them. They stopped the fugitives, blockaded the Board-room, and forced the Guardians to appoint acommittee to act upon their demands. 

It is certainly a curious fact that, so far, in Ireland I have seen nodecent cottages for labourers, excepting those put up at their ownexpense on their own property by landlords. 

I dined to-night at the County Club with Captain Plunkett, a mostenergetic, spirited, and well-informed resident magistrate, a brother ofthe late Lord Louth, --still remembered, I dare say, at the New YorkHotel as the only Briton who ever really mastered the mystery ofconcocting a "cocktail, "--and an uncle of the present peer. We had avery cheery dinner, and a very clever lawyer, Mr. Shannon, gave us anirresistible reproduction of a charge delivered by an Irish judge famousfor shooting over the heads of juries, who sent twelve worthy citizensof Galway out of their minds by bidding them remember, in a case oflarceny, that they could not find the prisoner guilty unless they werequite sure "as to the _animus furandi_ and the _asportavit_. "

_Saturday, Feb. 25. _--I had an interesting talk this morning at theCounty Club with a gentleman from Limerick on the subject of"boycotting. " I told him what I had seen at Edenvale of the practice asapplied to a forlorn and helpless old woman, for the crime of standingby her "boycotted" son. "You think this an extreme case, " he said, "butyou are quite mistaken. It is a typical case certainly, but it gives youonly an inadequate idea of the scope given to this infernal machinery. The 'boycott' is now used in Ireland as the Inquisition was used inSpain, --to stifle freedom of thought and action. It is to-day the chiefreliance of the National League for keeping up its membership, andsqueezing subscriptions out of the people. If you want proof of this, "he added, "ask any Nationalist you know whether members of the League inthe country allow farmers who are not members to associate with them inany way. I can cite you a case at Ballingarry, in my county, where lastsummer a resolution of the League was published and put on the Chapeldoor, that members of the National League were thenceforth to have nodealings or communication with any person not a member. This I saw withmy own eyes, and it was matter of public notoriety. "

I lunched at the City Club with Mr. M'Carthy. Sir Daniel O'Sullivan, formerly Mayor of Cork, whose views of Home Rule seem to differ widelyfrom those of his successor, now incarcerated here, was one of thecompany. In the course of an animated but perfectly good-natureddiscussion of the Land Law question between two other gentlemen present, one of them, a strong Nationalist, smote his Unionist opponent veryneatly under the fifth rib. The latter contending that it was monstrousto interfere by law with the principle of freedom of contract, theNationalist responded, "That cannot be; it must be right and legitimateto do it, for the Imperial Parliament has done it four times withinseventeen years!"

I walked with Mr. M'Carthy to his apartments, where he showed me manycurious papers and volumes bearing on municipal law and municipalhistory in Ireland. Among these, two most elaborate and interestingvolumes, being the Council Books of Cork, Youghal, and Kinsale, from1610 to 1659, 1666 to 1687, and 1690 to 1800. The records for the yearsnot enumerated have perished, that is, for the first five or six yearsafter the Restoration, and for the years just preceding and justfollowing the fall of James II. These volumes take one back to thecondition of Southern Ireland immediately after English greed andintrigue had sapped the foundations of the peace which followed thesubmission of the great Earl of Tyrone, and brought about the flight tothe Continent of that chieftain, and of his friend and ally, the Earl ofTyrconnell. 

They give us no picture, unfortunately, of the closing years ofElizabeth's long struggle to establish the English power, or of theoccupation of Kinsale by the Spanish in the name of the Pope. But thereis abundant evidence in them of the theological hatred which soembittered the conflict of races in Ireland during the seventeenthcentury. 

It was a relief to turn from these to a solemn controversy waged in ourown times between Cork and Limerick over a question of municipalprecedence, in which Mr. M'Carthy did battle for the City of the Galleyand the Towers[7] against the City of the Gateway and Cathedral dome. The truth seems to be that King John gave charters to both cities, butto Cork twelve years earlier than to Limerick. Speaking of this contest, by the way, with a loyalist of Cork to-night, I observed that it wasalmost as odd to find such a question hotly disputed between twoNationalist cities as to see the champions of Irish independencemarching under the banner of the harp, which was invented for Ireland byHenry VIII. 

"I don't know why you call Cork a Nationalist city, " he replied, "forParnell and Maurice Healy were returned for it by a clear minority ofthe voters. If all the voters had gone to the polls, they would bothhave been beaten. "

A curious statement certainly, and worth looking into. Mr. M'Carthy gaveme also much information as to the working of the municipal system here, and a copy of the rules which govern the debates of the Town Council. One of these might be adopted with advantage in other assemblies, towit, "that no member be permitted to occupy the time of the Council formore than ten minutes. "

There is an important difference between the parliamentary and themunicipal constituencies of Cork. The former constituency comprises allresidents within the borough boundaries occupying premises of therateable value of £10 a year. The municipal constituency consists of nomore than 1800 voters, divided among the seven wards which make up thecity under the "3d and 4th Victoria, " and which contain about 13, 000 ofthe 15, 116 Parliamentary voters of the borough. The same thing is truein the main of nine out of the eleven municipal boroughs of Irelandincluding Dublin. The 3d and 4th Victoria was amended for Dublin in1849, so as to give that city the municipal franchise then existing inEngland, but no move in that direction was made for Cork, Waterford, Limerick, or any other municipal borough. The Nationalists have taken nointerest in the question. Perhaps they have good reason for this, as inBelfast, where the municipal franchise has been widely extended sincethe present Government came into power, the democratic electorate hasput the whole municipal government into the hands of the Unionists. Theday being cool, though fine, Mr. M'Carthy got an "inside car, " and wewent off for a drive about the city. The environs of Cork are veryattractive. We visited the new cemetery grounds which are very neatlyand tastefully laid out. There was a conflict over them, the owners offamily vaults staunchly standing out against the "levelling" tendency ofa harmonious city of the dead. But all is well that ends well, and nowtwo handsome stone chapels, one Catholic and one Protestant, keep watchand ward over the silent sleepers, standing face to face near the grandentrance, and exactly alike in their architecture. A very pretty drivetook us to the water-works, which are extensive, well planned, andexceedingly well kept. They are awaiting now the arrival from America ofsome great turbine wheels, but the engines are of English make. In thecity we visited the new Protestant cathedral of St. Finbar, a very finechurch, which advantageously replaces a "spacious structure of the Doricorder, " built here in the reign of George II. , with the proceeds of aparliamentary tax on coals. Despite his name, I imagine that admirableprelate, Dr. England, the first Catholic bishop of my native city inAmerica, must have been a Corkonian, for he it was, I believe, who putthe cathedral of Charleston under the invocation of St. Finbar, thefirst bishop of Cork. The church stands charmingly amid fine trees on asouthern branch of the river Lea. We visited also two fine Catholicchurches, one of St. Vincent de Paul, and the other the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul, a grandly proportioned and imposing edifice. 

It was at vespers that we entered it, and found it filled with thekneeling people. This noble church is rather ignobly hidden away behindcrowded houses and shops, and the contrast was very striking when weemerged from its dim religious space and silence into the thronged andrather noisy streets. There is a statue here of Father Mathew; but whatI have seen to-night makes me doubt whether the present generation ofCorkonians would have erected it. 

At dinner a gentleman gave us a most interesting account of thepicturesque home which a man of taste, and a lover of natural history, has made for himself at the remote seaside village of Belmullet, inMayo, the seat of the Mayo quarries, in which Mr. Davitt takes so muchinterest. The sea brings in there all sorts of wreckage, and the houseis beautifully finished with mahogany and other rare woods, just as Iremember finding in a noble mansion in South Wales, near a dangeroushead-land, some magnificent doors and wainscotings made of that mostbeautiful of the Central American woods, nogarote, which I never saw inthe United States, excepting in a superb specimen of it sent home bymyself from Corinto. This colonist of Mayo employs all the people he canget in the fisheries there, which are very rich; and the ducks and wildgeese are so numerous that he sometimes sends as far as to Wicklow formen to capture and sell them for him. He was once fortunate enough totrap a pair of the snow geese of the Arctic region, but Belmullet, inother respects a primeval paradise, is cursed with the small boy ofcivilisation; and one of these pests of society slew the goose with astone. The widowed gander consoled himself by contracting family tieswith the common domestic goose of the parish, and all his progeny, inother particulars indistinguishable from that familiar bird, bear theblack marks distinctive of the Arctic tribe. 

Belmullet, this gentleman tells me, boasts a very good little inn, keptby a Mrs. Deehan, which was honoured by a visit from Lord Carnarvon withhis wife and daughters during the Earl's Viceroyalty. This was in thecourse of a private and personal, not official tour, during which, LordCarnarvon says, he was everywhere received with the greatest courtesy byall sorts and conditions of the people. It is an interestingillustration of the temper in which certain priests in Ireland deal withmatters of State, that when Lord Carnarvon politely invited the parishpriest of Belmullet to come to see him, that functionary declined to doso. Upon this the placable Viceroy sent to know whether the priest wouldreceive the visit he refused to pay. The priest replied that he neverdeclined to receive any gentleman who wished to see him; and the Viceroyaccordingly called upon him, to the edification of the people, whoafterwards listened very respectfully to a little speech which HisExcellency made to them from a car. It is rather surprising that theseincidents have never been adduced in proof of Lord Carnarvon'sdetermination to take the Home Rule wind out of the sails of theLiberals!

CORK, _Sunday, Feb. 26. _--I went out to-day with Mr. Cameron to seeBlarney Castle and St. Anne's Hill. Nothing can be lovelier than thecountry around Cork and the valley of the Lea. A "light railway, " of thesort authorised by the Act of 1883, takes you out quickly enough toBlarney, and the train was well filled. The construction of theserailways is found fault with as aggravating instead of relieving thosedefects in the organisation and management of the Irish railways, whichare so thoroughly and intelligently exposed in the Public Works Reportof Sir James Allport and his fellow-commissioners. A morning paperto-day points this out sharply. 

In the days of King William III. Blarney Castle must have been amagnificent stronghold. It stands very finely on a well-wooded height, and dominates the land for miles around. But it held out against thevictor of the Boyne so long that, when he captured it, he thought itbest, in the expressive phrase of the Commonwealth, to "slight" it, little now remaining of it but the gigantic keep, the walls of which aresome six yards thick, and a range of ruined outworks stretching alongand above a line of caverns, probably the work of the quarrymen who gotout the stone for the Castle ages ago. The legend of the Blarney Stonedoes not seem to be a hundred years old, but the stone itself is one ofthe front battlements of the grand old tower, which has more than oncefallen to the ground from the giddy height at which it was originallyset. It is now made fast there by iron clamps, in such a position thatto kiss it one should be a Japanese acrobat, or a volunteer riflemanshooting for the championship of the world. There are many and very finetrees in the grounds about the Castle, and there is a charming garden, now closed against the casual tourist, as it has been leased with themodern house to a tenant who lives here. In the leafy summer the placemust be a dream of beauty. An avenue of stately trees quite overarchingthe highway leads from Blarney to St. Anne's Hill, the site of which, atleast, is that of an ideal sanatorium. We walked thither over hill anddale. The panorama commanded by the buildings of the sanatorium is oneof the widest and finest imaginable, worthy to be compared with theprospect from the Star and Garter at Richmond, or with that from theterrace at St. Germain. 

Several handsome lodges or cottages have been built about the extensivegrounds. These are comfortably furnished and leased to people who preferto bring their households here rather than take up their abode in thehotel, which, however, seems to be a very well kept and comfortable sortof place, with billiard and music rooms, a small theatre, and all kindsof contrivances for making the country almost as tedious as the town. The establishment is directed now by a German resident physician, butbelongs to an Irish gentleman, Mr. Barter, who lives here himself, andhere manages what I am told is one of the finest dairy farms and dairiesin Ireland. Our return trip to Cork on the "light railway, " with a warmred sunset lighting up the river Lea, and throwing its glamour over thevaried and picturesque scenery through which we ran, was not the leastdelightful part of a very delightful excursion. 

After we got back I spent half-an-hour with a gentleman who knows thecountry about Youghal, which I propose to visit to-morrow, and who sawsomething of the recent troubles there arising out of the Plan ofCampaign, as put into effect on the Ponsonby property. 

He is of the opinion that the Nationalists were misled into this contestby bad information as to Mr. Ponsonby's resources and relations. Theyexpected to drive him to the wall, but they will fail to do this, andfailing to do this they will be left in the vocative. He showed me acurious souvenir of the day of the evictions, in the shape of aquatrain, written by the young wife of an evicted tenant. This youngwoman, Mrs. Mahoney, was observed by one of the officers, as theeviction went on, to go apart to a window, where she stood for a whileapparently writing something on a wooden panel of the shutter. After theeviction was over the officer remembered this, and going up to thewindow found these lines pencilled upon the panel:--

 "We are evicted from this house, Me and my loving man; We're homeless now upon the world! May the divil take 'the Plan'!"

CORK, _Monday, Feb. 27. _--A most interesting day. I left alone and earlyby the train for Youghal, having sent before me a letter of introductionto Canon Keller, the parish priest, who has recently become aconspicuous person through his refusal to give evidence about matters, his knowledge of which he conceives to be "privileged, " as acquired inhis capacity as a priest. 

I had many fine views of the shore and the sea as we ran along, and thesite of Youghal itself is very fine. It is an old seaport town, and oncewas a place of considerable trade, especially in wool. 

Oliver dwelt here for a while, and from Youghal he embarked on hisvictorious return to England. He seems to have done his work while hewas here "not negligently, " like Harrison at Naseby Field, for when hedeparted he left Youghal a citadel of Protestant intolerance. Even underCharles II they maintained an ordinance forbidding "any Papist to buy orbarter anything in the public markets, " which may be taken as a piece ofcold-blooded and statutory "boycotting. " Then there was no parish priestin Youghal; now it may almost be said there is nobody in Youghal but theparish priest! So does "the whirligig of time bring in his revenges"!

At Youghal station a very civil young man came up, calling me by name, and said Father Keller had sent him with a car to meet me. We drove uppast some beautiful grounds into the main street. A picturesquewaterside town, little lanes and narrow streets leading out of the mainartery down to the bay, and a savour of the sea in the place, gratefuldoubtless to the souls of Raleigh and the west country folk he broughtover here when he became lord of the land, just three hundred years ago. Edmund Spenser came here in those days to see him, and talk over theevents of that senseless rising of the Desmonds, which gave the poet ofthe "Faerie Queen" his awful pictures of the desolation of Ireland, andmade the planter of Virginia master of more than forty thousand acres ofIrish land. 

We turned suddenly into a little narrow wynd, and pulled up, the driversaying, "There is the Father, yer honour!" In a moment up came a tall, very fine-looking ecclesiastic, quite the best dressed and mostdistinguished-looking priest I have yet seen in Ireland, with featuresof a fine Teutonic type, and the erect bearing of a soldier. I jumpeddown to greet him, and he proposed that we should walk together to hishouse near by. An extremely good house I found it to be, well placed inthe most interesting quarter of the town. Having it in my mind to driveon from Youghal to Lismore, there to make an early dinner, see thecastle of the Duke of Devonshire, and return to Cork by an eveningtrain, I had to decline Father Keller's cordial hospitalities, but hegave me a most interesting hour with him in his comfortable study. Father Keller stands firmly by the position which earned for him asentence of imprisonment last year, when he refused to testify before acourt of justice in a bankruptcy case, on the ground that it might"drift him into answers which would disclose secrets he was bound inhonour not to disclose. " He does not accept the view taken of hisconduct, however, by Lord Selborne, that, in the circumstances, hisrefusal is to be regarded as the act of his ecclesiastical superiorsrather than his own. He maintains it as his own view of the sworn dutyof a priest, and not unnaturally therefore he looks upon his sentence asa blow levelled at the clergy; nor, as I understood him, has heabandoned his original contention, that the Court had no right to summonhim as a witness. It was impossible to listen to him on this subject, and doubt his entire good faith, nor do I see that he ought to be heldresponsible for the interpretation put by Mr. Lane, M. P. , and othersupon his attitude as a priest, in a sense going to make him merely a"martyr" of Home Rule. I did not gather from what he said that, in hismind, the question of his relations with the Nationalists or the Plan ofCampaign entered into that affair at all, but simply that he believedthe right and the duty of a priest to protect, no matter at what cost tohimself, secrets confided to him as a priest, was really involved in hisconsent or refusal to answer, when he was asked whether he was or wasnot on a certain day at the "Mall House" in Youghal. Of course from theconnection of this refusal in this particular case with the Nationalistmovement, Nationalists would easily glide into the idea that he refusedto testify in order to serve their cause. 

As to the troubles on the Ponsonby estate, Father Keller spoke veryfreely. He divided the responsibility for them between theuntractableness of the agent, and the absenteeism of the owner. It wasonly since the troubles began, he said, that he had ever seen Mr. Ponsonby, who lived in Hampshire, and was therefore out of touch withthe condition and the feelings of the people here. In a personalinterview with him he had found Mr. Ponsonby a kindly disposedEnglishman, but the estate is heavily encumbered, and the agent who hashad complete control of it forced the tenants, by his hard and fastrefusal of a reasonable reduction more than two years ago, into aninitial combination to defend themselves by "clubbing" their rents. Thatwas before Mr. Dillon announced the Plan of Campaign at all. 

"It was not till the autumn of 1886, " said Father Keller, "that anyquestion arose of the Plan of Campaign here, [8] and it was by thetenants themselves that the determination was taken to adopt it. My parthas been that of a peace-maker throughout, and we should have had peaceif Mr. Ponsonby would have listened to me; we should have had peace, andhe would have received a reasonable rental for his property. Instead ofthis, look at the law costs arising out of bankruptcy proceedings andsheriff's sales and writs and processes, and the whole district throwninto disorder and confusion, and the industrious people now put out oftheir holdings, and forced into idleness. "

As to the recent evictions which had taken place, Father Keller saidthey had taken him as well as the people by surprise, and had thus ledto greater agitation and excitement. "But the unfortunate incident ofthe loss of Hanlon's life, " he said, "would never have occurred had Ibeen duly apprised of what was going on in the town. I had come homeinto my house, having quieted the people, and left all in order, as Ithought, when that charge of the police, for which there was nooccasion, and which led to the killing of Hanlon, was ordered. I made myway rapidly to the people, and when I appeared they were brought topatience and to good order with astonishing ease, despite all that hadoccurred. "

As to the present outlook, it was his opinion that Mr. Ponsonby, evenwith the Cork Defence Union behind him, could not hold out. "The LandCorporation were taking over some parts of the estate, and puttingEmergency men on them--a set of desperate men, a kind of _enfantsperdus_, " he said, "to work and manage the land;" but he did not believethe operation could be successfully carried out. Meanwhile heconfidently counted upon seeing "the present Tory Government give way, and go out, when it would become necessary for the landlords to dojustice to the rack-rented people. Pray understand, " said Father Keller, "that I do not say all landlords stand at all where Mr. Ponsonby hasbeen put by his agent, for that is not the case; but the action of manylandlords in the county Cork in sustaining Mr. Ponsonby, whose estate isand has been as badly rack-rented an estate as can be found, is, in myjudgment, most unwise, and threatening to the peace and happiness ofIreland. "[9]

I asked whether, in his opinion, it would be possible for the Ponsonbytenants to live and prosper here on this estate, could they becomepeasant proprietors of it under Lord Ashbourne's Act, provided theyincreased in numbers, as in that event might be expected. This hethought very doubtful so far as a few of the tenants are concerned. 

"Would you seek a remedy, then, " I asked, "in emigration?"

"No, not in emigration, " he replied, "but in migration. "

I begged him to explain the difference. 

"What I mean, " he said, "is, that the people should migrate, not out ofIreland, but from those parts of Ireland which cannot support them intoparts of Ireland which can support them. There is room in Meath, forexample, for the people of many congested districts. "

"You would, then, turn the great cattle farms of Meath, " I said, "intopeasant holdings?"

"Certainly. "

"But would not that involve the expropriation of many people nowestablished in Meath, and the disturbance or destruction of a greatcattle industry for which Ireland has especial advantages?"

To this Father Keller replied that he did not wish to see Irelandexporting her cattle, any more than to see Ireland exporting her sonsand daughters. "I mean, " he said, quite earnestly, "when they are forcedto export them to pay exorbitant rents, and thus deprive themselves oftheir capital or of a fair share of the comforts of life. I should beglad to see the Irish people sufficient to themselves by the domesticexchange of their own industries and products. " At the same time hebegged me to understand that he had no wish to see this developmentattended by any estrangement or hostile feeling between Ireland andGreat Britain. "On the contrary, " he said, "I have seen with thegreatest satisfaction the growth of such good feeling towards England asI never expected to witness, as the result of the visits here of Englishpublic men, sympathising with the Irish tenants. I believe their visitsare opening the way to a real union of the Democracies of the twocountries, and to an alliance between them against the aristocraticclasses which depress both peoples. " This alliance Father Kellerbelieved would be a sufficient guarantee against any religious contestbetween the Catholics of Ireland and the Protestants of Great Britain. 

"I was much astounded, " he said, "the other day, to hear from an Englishgentleman that he had met a Protestant clergyman who told him he reallybelieved that a persecution of the Protestants would follow theestablishment of Home Rule in Ireland. I begged him to consider that Mr. Parnell was a Protestant, and I assured him Protestants would haveabsolutely nothing to fear from Home Rule. "

Reverting to his idea of re-distributing the Irish population throughIreland, under changed conditions, social and economical, I asked himhow in Meath, for example, he would meet the difficulty of stocking withcattle the peasant holdings of a new set of proprietors not owningstock. He thought it would be easily met by advances of money from theTreasury to the peasant proprietors, these advances to be repaid, withinterest, as in the case of Lady Burdett Coutts, and the advances madeby her to the fishermen now under the direction of Father Davis atBaltimore. 

I was struck by the resemblance of these views to the Irish policysketched for me by my Nationalist fellow-traveller of the other nightfrom London. "The evil that men do lives after them"--and when oneremembers how only a hundred years ago, and just after the establishmentof American Independence ought to have taught England a lesson, theIrish House of Commons had to deal with the persistent determination ofthe English manufacturers to fight the bogey of Irish competition byprotective duties in England against imports from Ireland, it is notsurprising that Irishmen who allow sentiment to get the upper hand ofsense should now think of playing a return game. England went in fearthen not only of Irish beasts and Irish butter, but of Irish woollens, Irish cottons, Irish leather, Irish glass. Nay, absurd as it may nowseem, English ironmasters no longer ago than in 1785 testified before aParliamentary Committee that unless a duty was clapped on Irishmanufactures of iron, the Irish ironmasters had such advantages throughcheaper labour and through the discrimination in their favour under thethen existing relations with the new Republic of the United States thatthey would "ruin the ironmasters of England. "

In Ireland, as in America, the benign spirit of Free Trade is thwartedand intercepted at every turn by the abominable ghost of BritishProtection. What a blessing it would have been if the meddlesomepalaverers of the Cobden Club, American as well as English, could everhave been made to understand the essentially insular character ofProtection and the essentially continental character of Free Trade!

It should never be forgotten, and it is almost never remembered, thatwhen the Treaty of Versailles was making in 1783 the AmericanCommissioners offered complete free trade between the United States andall parts of the British Dominions save the territories of the EastIndia Company. The British Commissioner, David Hartley, saw the value ofthis proposition, and submitted it at London. But King George III. Wouldnot entertain it. 

When I rose to leave him Father Keller courteously insisted on showingme the "lions" of Youghal. A most accomplished cicerone he proved to be. As we left his house we met in the street two or three of the "evicted"tenants, whom he introduced to me. One of these, Mr. Loughlin, was theholder of farms representing a rental of £94. A stalwart, hearty, rotund, and rubicund farmer he was, and in reply to my query how longthe holdings he had lost had been in his family, he answered, "not farfrom two hundred years. " Certainly some one must have blundered as badlyas at Balaklava to make it necessary for a tenant with such a pastbehind him to go out of his holdings on arrears of a twelvemonth. FatherKeller gave me, as we left Mr. Loughlin and his friend, a leaflet inwhich he has printed the story of "the struggle for life on the Ponsonbyestate, " as he understands it. 

A minute's walk brought us to Sir Walter Raleigh's house, now theproperty of Sir John Pope Hennessey. It was probably built by Sir Walterwhile he lived here in 1588-89, during the time of the great Armada; forit is a typical Elizabethan house, quaintly gabled, with charming Tudorwindows, and delightfully wainscoted with richly carved black oak. Achimney-piece in the library where Sir John's aged mother received usmost kindly and hospitably is a marvel of Elizabethan woodwork. Theshelves are filled with a quaint and miscellaneous collection of old andrare books. I opened at random one fine old quarto, and found it tocontain, among other curious tracts, models of typography, a Latincritical disquisition by Raphael Regini on the first edition ofPlutarch's Life of Cicero, "_nuper inventâ diu desideraiâ _"--adisquisition quite aglow with the cinquecento delight in discovery andadventure. In the grounds of this charming house stand four very fineIrish yews forming a little hollow square, within which, according to alocal legend, Sir Walter sat enjoying the first pipe of tobacco everlighted in Ireland, when his terrified serving-maid espying the smokethat curled about her master's head hastily ran up and emptied a pail ofwater over him. In the garden here, too, we are told, was first plantedthe esculent which better deserves to be called the Curse of Irelandthan does the Nine of Diamonds to be known as the Curse of Scotland. TheIrish yew must have been indigenous here, for the name of Youghal, Father Keller tells me, in Irish signifies "the wood of yew-trees. " Asubterranean passage is said to lead from Sir Walter's dining-room intothe church, but we preferred the light of day. 

The precincts of the church adjoin the grounds and garden, and withthese make up a most fascinating poem in architecture. The churches ofSt. Mary of Youghal and St. Nicholas of Galway have always been cited tome as the two most interesting churches in Ireland. Certainly thischurch of St. Mary, as now restored, is worth a journey to see. Itsmassive tower, with walls eight feet thick, its battlemented chancel, the pointed arches of its nave and aisles, a curious and, so far as Iknow, unique arch in the north transept, drawn at an obtuse angle anddemarcating a quaint little side-chapel, and the interesting monumentsit contains, all were pointed out to me with as much zest andintelligent delight by Father Keller as if the edifice were stilldedicated to the faith which originally called it into existence. Itcontains a fine Jacobean tomb of Richard, the "great Earl of Cork, " whodied here in September 1643. On this monument, which is in admirablecondition, the effigy of the earl appears between those of his twowives, while below them kneel his five sons and seven daughters, theirnames and those of their partners in marriage inscribed upon the marble. It was of this earl that Oliver said: "Had there been an Earl of Cork inevery province, there had been no rebellion in Ireland. " Several Earlsof Desmond are also buried here, including the founder of the church, and under a monumental effigy in one of the transepts lies the wonderfulold Countess of Desmond, who having danced in her youth with RichardIII. Lived through the Tudor dynasty "to the age of a hundred and ten, "and, as the old distich tells us, "died by a fall from a cherry-treethen. "

In the churchyard is a hillock, bare of grass, about a tomb. There liesburied, according to tradition, a public functionary who attested astatement by exclaiming, "If I speak falsely, may grass never grow on mygrave. " One of his descendants is doubtless now an M. P. Mr. Cameron hadkindly written from Cork to the officer in charge of the constabularyhere asking him to get me a good car for Lismore. So Father Keller verykindly walked with me through the town to the "Devonshire Arms, " a veryneat and considerable hotel, in quest of him. On the way he pointed outto me what remains of a house which is supposed to have served as theheadquarters of Cromwell while he was here, and a small chapel also inwhich the Protector worshipped after his sort. Off the main street is alane called Windmill Lane, where probably stood the windmill from whichin 1580 a Franciscan friar, Father David O'Neilan, was hung by the feetand shot to death by the soldiers of Elizabeth because he refused toacknowledge the spiritual supremacy of the Queen. He had been draggedthrough the main street at the tail of a horse to the place ofexecution. His name is one of many names of confessors of that timeabout to be submitted at Rome for canonisation. We could not find theofficer I sought at the hotel, but Father Keller took me to a livery-manin the main street, who very promptly got out a car with "his besthorse, " and a jarvey who would "surely take me over to Lismore inside oftwo hours and a half. " He was as good as his master's word, and adelightful drive it was, following the course of Spenser's river, theAwniduffe, "which by the Englishman is called Blackwater. " Nobody nowcalls it anything else. The view of Youghal Harbour, as we made a greatcircuit by the bridge on leaving the town, was exceedingly fine. Lyingas it does within easy reach of Cork, this might be made a very pleasantsummer halting-place for Americans landing at Queenstown, who now gofurther and probably fare worse. One Western wanderer, with his family, Father Keller told me, did last year establish himself here, a Catholicfrom Boston, to whom a son was born, and who begged the Father to givethe lad a local name in baptism, "the oldest he could think of. "

I should have thought St. Declan would have been "old" enough, or St. Nessan of "Ireland's Eye, " or Saint Cartagh, who made Lismore a holycity, "into the half of which no woman durst enter, " sufficiently"local, " but Father Keller found in the Calendar a more satisfactorysaint still in St. Goran or "Curran, " known also as St. Mochicaroen _deNona_, from a change he made in the recitation of that part of the HolyOffice. 

The drive from Youghal to Lismore along the Blackwater, begins, continues, and ends in beauty. In the summer a steamer makes the trip bythe river, and it must be as charming in its way as the ascent of theDart from Dartmouth to Totness, or of the Eance from Dinard to St. Suliac. My jarvey was rather a taciturn fellow, but by no meansinsensible to the charms of his native region. About the Ponsonby estateand its troubles he said very little, but that little was not entirelyin keeping with what I had heard at Youghal. "It was an old place, andthere was no grand house on it. But the landlord was a kind-man. ""Father Keller was a good man too. It was a great pity the peoplecouldn't be on their farms; and there was land that was taken on thehills. It was a great pity. The people came from all parts to see theBlackwater and Lismore; and there was money going. " "Yes, he would beglad to see it all quiet again. Ah yes! that was a most beautiful placethere just running out into the Blackwater. It was a gentleman owned it;he lived there a good deal, and he fished. Ah! there's no such river inthe whole world for salmon as the Blackwater; indeed, there is not!Everything was better when he was a lad. There was more money going, andless talking. Father Keller was a very good man; but he was a new man, and came to Youghal from Queenstown. "

We passed on our way the ruins of Dromaneen Castle, the birthplace ofthe lively old Countess of Desmond, who lies buried at Youghal. Here, too, according to a local tradition, she met her death, having climbedtoo high into a famous cherry-tree at Affane, near Dromaneen, plantedthere by Sir Walter Raleigh, who first introduced this fruit, as well asthe tobacco plant and the potato, into Ireland. At Cappoquin, whichstands beautifully on the river, I should have been glad to halt for thenight, in order to visit the Trappist Monastery there, an offshoot of LaMeilleraye, planted, I think, by some monks from Santa Susanna, ofLulworth, after Charles X. Took refuge in the secluded and beautifulhome of the Welds. The schools of this monastery have been a benedictionto all this part of Ireland for more than half a century. 

Lismore has nothing now to show of its ancient importance save itscastle and its cathedral, both of them absolutely modern! A hundredyears ago the castle was simply a ruin overhanging the river. It thenbelonged to the fifth Duke of Devonshire, who had inherited it from hismother, the only child and heiress of the friend of Pope, Richard, fourth Earl of Cork, and third Earl of Burlington. It had come into thehands of the Boyles by purchase from Sir Walter Ealeigh, to whomElizabeth had granted it, with all its appendages and appurtenances. Thefifth Duke of Devonshire, who was the husband of Coleridge's "ladynursed in pomp and pleasure, " did little or nothing, I believe, torestore the vanished glories of Lismore; and the castle, as it nowexists, is the creation of his son, the artistic bachelor Duke, to whomEngland owes the Crystal Palace and all the other outcomes of Sir JosephPaxton's industry and enterprise. His kinsman and successor, the presentDuke, used to visit Lismore regularly down to the time of the atrociousmurder of Lord Frederick Cavendish, and many of the beautiful walks andgroves which make the place lovely are due, I believe, to his taste andhis appreciation of the natural charms of Lismore. I dismissed my car atthe "Devonshire Arms, " an admirable little hotel near the river, andhaving ordered my dinner there, walked down to the castle, almost withinthe grounds of which the hotel stands. It is impossible to imagine amore picturesque site for a great inland mansion. The views up and downthe Blackwater from the drawing-room windows are simply the perfectionof river landscape. The grounds are beautifully laid out, one secludedgarden-walk, in particular, taking you back to the inimitable Italiangarden-walks of the seventeenth century. In the vestibule is the swordof state of the Corporation of Youghal, a carved wooden cradle for whichstill stands in the church at that place, and over the great gateway arethe arms of the great Earl of Cork, but these are almost the onlyoutward and visible signs of the historic past about the castle. Seenfrom the graceful stone bridge which spans the river, its grey towersand turrets quite excuse the youthful enthusiasm with which the Duke ofConnaught, who made a visit here when he was Prince Arthur, is said tohave written to his mother, that Lismore was "a beautiful place, verylike Windsor Castle, only much finer. "

Lismore Cathedral was almost entirely rebuilt by the second Earl of Corkthree or four years after the Restoration, and has a handsome marblespire, but there is little in it to recall the Catholic times in whichLismore was a city of churches and a centre of Irish devotion. 

The hostess of the "Devonshire Arms" gave me some excellent salmon, fresh from the river, and a very good dinner. She bewailed the evil dayson which she has fallen, and the loss to Lismore of all that the Castleused to mean to the people. Lady Edward Cavendish had spent a short timehere some little time ago, she said, and the people were delighted tohave her come there. "It would be a great thing for the country if allthe uproar and quarrelling could be put an end to. It did nobody anygood, least of all the poor people. "

From Lismore I came back by the railway through Fermoy. 

CHAPTER IX. 

PORTUMNA, GALWAY, _Feb. 28. _--I left Cork by an early train to-day, andpassing through the counties of Cork, Limerick, Tipperary, Queen's, andKing's, reached this place after dark on a car from Parsonstown. The daywas delightfully cool and bright. I had the carriage to myself almostall the way, and gave up all the time I could snatch from the constantlyvarying and often very beautiful scenery to reading a curious pamphletwhich I picked up in Dublin entitled _Pour I'Irlande. _ It purports tohave been written by a "Canadian priest" living at Lurgan in Ireland, and to be a reply to M. De Mandat Grancey's volume, _Chez Paddy. _ It isadorned with a frontispiece representing a monster of the Cerberus typeon a monument, with three heads and three collars labelled respectively"Flattery, " "Famine, " and "Coercion. " On the pedestal is theinscription--"1800 to 1887. Erected by the grateful Irish to the EnglishGovernment. " The text is in keeping with the frontispiece. In a passagedevoted to the "atrocious evictions" of Glenbehy in 1887, the agent ofthe property is represented as "setting fire with petroleum" to thehouses of two helpless men, and turning out "eighteen human beings intothe highway in the depth of winter. " Not a word is said of the agent'sflat denial of these charges, nor a word of the advice given to theagent by Sir Redvers Buller that the mortgagee ought to level thecottages occupied by trespassers, nor a word about Father Quilter'sletter to Colonel Turner, branding his flock as "poor slaves" of theLeague, and turning them over to "Mr. Roe or any other agent" to do ashe liked with them, since they could not, or would not, keep theirplighted faith given through their own priest. 

This sort of ostrich fury is common enough among the regular drumbeatersof the Irish agitation. But it is not creditable to a "Canadian priest. "Still less creditable is his direct arraignment of M. De MandatGrancey's good faith and veracity upon the strength of what he describesas M. De Mandat Grancey's amplification and distortion of a story toldby himself. This was a tale of a priest called out to confess one of hisparishioners. The penitent accused himself of killing one man, andtrying to kill several others. The priest, as the dreadful tale went on, made a tally on his sleeve, with chalk, of the crimes recited. "Goodheavens! my son, " he cried at last, "what had all these men done to youthat you tried to send them all into eternity? Who were they?"

"Oh, Father, they were all bailiffs or tax-collectors!"

"You idiot!" exclaimed the confessor, angrily rubbing at his sleeve, "why didn't ye tell me that before instead of letting me spoil my bestcassock?"

As I happened to have the book of M. De Mandat Grancey in mydespatch-box, I compared it with the attack made upon it. The resultswere edifying. In the first place, M. De Mandat Grancey does notindicate the Canadian priest as his authority. He says that he heard thestory, apparently at a dinner-table in France, from a _curé Irlandais_, who was endeavouring to impress upon his hearers "the sympathy of theclergy with the Land League. " The "Canadian priest" now comes forwardand makes it a count in his indictment against M. De Mandat Grancey thathe is described as an "Irish curate, " when he is in fact neither anIrishman nor a curate. What was more natural than that an ecclesiastic, claiming to live in Ireland, and telling stories in France about thesympathy of the Irish clergy with the Land League, should be taken byone of his auditors to be an Irish _curé_, particularly as the French_curé_ is, I believe, the equivalent of the Irish "parish priest"?

In the next place, the "Canadian priest" declares that the story "is asold as the Round Towers of Ireland, " and that M. De Mandat Granceyrepresents him as making himself the hero of the tale. As a matter offact, M. De Mandat Grancey does nothing of the kind. On the contrary, heexpressly says that the _curé Irlandais_, who told the story, gave it tohis hearers as having occurred not to himself at all, but "to one of hiscolleagues. " Furthermore he is at the pains to add (_Chez Paddy_, p. 43)that the story, which was not to the taste of some of the Frenchecclesiastics who heard it, was related "as a simple pleasantry. ""But, " he adds, and this I suspect is the sting which has so exasperatedthe "Canadian priest, " "he gave us to understand at the same time thatthis pleasantry struck the keynote of the state of mind of many Irishpriests, and, he said, that he was himself the President of the Leaguein his district. "

In connection with Colonel Turner's statements as to the conduct ofFather White at Milltown Malbay, and with the accounts given me of theconduct of Father Sheehan at Lixnaw, this side-light upon the relationsof a certain class of the Irish clergy with the most violent henchmen ofthe League, is certainly noteworthy. I happen to have had somecorrespondence with friends of mine in Paris, who are friends also of M. De Mandat Grarncey, about his visit to Ireland before he made it, and Iam quite certain that he went there, to put the case mildly, with noprejudices in favour of the English Government or against theNationalists. Perhaps the extreme bitterness shown in the pamphlet ofthe "Canadian priest" may have been born of his disgust at finding thatthe sympathy of French Catholics with Catholic Ireland draws the line atpriests who regard the assassination of "bailiffs and tax-collectors" asa pardonable, if not positively amusing, excess of patriotic zeal. 

It was late when I reached Parsonstown, known of old in Irish story asBirr, from St. Brendan's Abbey of Biorra, and now a clean prosperousplace, carefully looked after by the chief landlord of the region, theEarl of Rosse, who, while he inherits the astronomical tastes and themathematical ability of his father, is not so absorbed in star-gazing asto be indifferent to his terrestrial duties and obligations. I haveheard nothing but good of him, and of his management of his estates, from men of the most diverse political views. But I think it moreimportant to get a look at the Clanricarde property, about which I haveheard little but evil from anybody. The strongest point I have heardmade in favour of the owner is, that he is habitually described by thatdumb organ of a down-trodden people, _United Ireland_, as "the most vileClanricarde. "

I found a good car at the railway station, and set off at once forPortumna. Parsonstown was called by Sir William Petty, in his _Survey ofIreland_, the _umbilicus Hiberniæ_. It is the centre of Ireland, as apoint near Newnham Paddox is of England, and the famous or infamous "Bogof Allan" stretches hence to Athlone. Our way fortunately took uswestward. A light railway was laid down some years ago from Parsonstownto Portumna, but it did not pay, and it has now been abandoned. 

"What has become of the road?" I asked my jarvey. 

"Oh! they just take up the rails when they like, the people do. "

"And what do they do with them?"

"Is it what they do with them? Oh; they make fences of them for thebeasts. "

He was a dry, shrewd old fellow, not very amiably disposed, I was sorryto find, towards my own country. 

"Ah! it's America, sorr, that's been the ruin of us entirely. "

"Pray, how is that?"

"It's the storms they send; and then the grain; and now they tell meit's the American beasts that's spoiling the market altogether forIreland. "

"Is that what your member tells you?"

"The member, sorr? which member?"

"The member of Parliament for your district, I mean. What is his name?"

"His name? Well, I'm not sure; and I don't know that I know the man atall. But I believe his name is Mulloy. "

"Does he live in Portumna?"

"Oh no, not at all. I don't know at all where he lives, but I believeit's in Tullamore. But what would he know about America? Sure, any onecan see it's the storms and the grain that is the death of us inIreland. "

"But I thought it was the landlords and the rents?"

"Oh, that's in Woodford and Loughrea; not here at all. There'll be nogood till we get a war. "

"Get a war? with whom? What do you want a war for?"

"Ah! it was the good time when we had the Crimean war--with the wheatall about Portumna. I'll show you the great store there was built. It'sno use now. But we'll have a war. My son, he's a soldier now. He wentout to America. But he didn't like it. "

"Why not?" I asked. 

"Oh, he didn't like it. He could get no work, but to be a porter, and itwas too hard. So he came back in three months' time, and then he 'listedfor a soldier. He's over in England now. He likes it very well. He'sgetting very good pay. They pay the soldiers well. There's a troop ofHussars here now. They bring a power of money to the place. "

"What do they do with the wheat lands now?"

"Oh, they're for sheep; they do very well. Were you ever in Australia, sorr?" pointing to a place we were passing. "There was a man came herefrom Australia with a pot of money, and he bought that place; but hethought he was a bigger man than he was, and now he's found himself out. I think he would have done as well to stay in Australia where he was. "

In quite a different vein he spoke of the landlord of another largeseat, and of the way in which the people, some of them, hadmisbehaved--breaking open the graves of the family on the place, "andtossing the coffins and the bones about, and all for what?"

The view as we crossed the long and very fine bridge over the Shannonafter dusk was very striking. It was not too dark to make out the courseof the broad gleaming river, and the lights of the town made it seemlarger, I daresay, than it really is. As we drove up the main street Itold my jarvey to take me to the Castle. 

"To the Castle, is it?" he replied, looking around at me with anastonished air. 

"Yes, " I said, "I am going to see Mr. Tener, the agent, who lives there, doesn't he?"

"Oh, the new agent? Oh yes; I believe he's a very good man. "

"You don't expect to be 'boycotted' for going to the Castle, do you?"

"And why should I be? But I haven't been inside of the Castle gates fortwenty years. And--here they are!" he cried out suddenly, pulling up hishorse just in time to avoid driving him up against a pair of iron gatesinhospitably closed. It was by this time pitch dark. Not a light couldwe see within the enclosure. But presently a couple of shadowy formsappeared behind the iron gates; the iron gates creaked on their hinges, a masculine voice bade us drive in, and a policeman with a lanternadvanced from a thicket of trees. All this had a fine martial andadventurous aspect, and my jarvey seemed to enjoy it as much as I. 

We got directions from the friendly policeman as to the roads and thelandmarks, and after once nearly running into a clump of trees foundourselves at last in an open courtyard, where men appeared and tookcharge of the car, the horse, and my luggage. We were in a quadrangle ofthe out-buildings attached to the old residence of the Clanricardes, which had escaped the fire of 1826. The late Marquis for a long timehesitated whether to reconstruct the castle on the old site (the wallsare still standing), or to build an entirely new house on another site. He finally chose the latter alternative, chiefly, I am told, under theadvice of his oldest son, the late Lord Dunkellin, one of the mostcharming and deservedly popular men of his time. He was a great friendand admirer of Father Burke, whom he used to claim as a Galway cousin, and with whom I met him in Rome not long before his death in the summerof 1867. His brother, the present Marquis, I have never met, but Mr. Tener, his present agent here, who passed some time in America severalyears ago, learning from him that I wished to see this place, verycourteously wrote to me asking me to make his house my headquarters. Ifound my way through queer passages to a cheery little hall where myhost met me, and taking me into a pleasant little parlour, enlivened byflowers, and a merrily blazing fire, presented me to Mrs. Tener. 

Mr. Tener is an Ulster man from the County Cavan. He went with his wifeon their bridal trip to America, and what he there saw of the peremptoryfashion in which the authorities deal with conspiracies to resist thelaw seems not unnaturally to have made him a little impatient of thedilatory, not to say dawdling, processes of the law in his own country. He gave me a very interesting account after dinner this evening of thesituation in which he found affairs on this property, an account verydifferent from those which I have seen in print. He is himself the ownerof a small landed property in Cavan, and he has had a good deal ofexperience as an agent for other properties. "I have a very simplerule, " he said to me, "in dealing with Irish tenants, and that isneither to do an injustice nor to submit to one. " It was only, he said, after convincing himself that the Clanricarde tenants had no legitimateground of complaint against the management of the estate, not removableupon a fair and candid discussion of all the issues involved betweenthem and himself, that he consented to take charge of the property. Thatto do this was to run a certain personal risk, in the present state ofthe country, he was quite aware. 

But he takes this part of the contract very coolly, telling me that theonly real danger, he thinks, is incurred when he makes a journey ofwhich he has to send a notice by telegraph--a remark which recalled tome the curious advice given me in Dublin to seal my letters, as aprotection against "the Nationalist clerks in the post-offices. " Thepark of Portumua Castle, which is very extensive, is patrolled by armedpolicemen, and whenever Mr. Tener drives out he is followed by a policecar carrying two armed men. 

"Against whom are all these precautions necessary?" I asked. "Againstthe evicted tenants, or against the local agents of the League?"

"Not at all against the tenants, " he replied, "as you can satisfyyourself by talking with them. The trouble comes not from the tenants atall, nor from the people here at Portumna, but from mischievous anddangerous persons at Loughrea and Woodford. Woodford, mind you, notbeing Lord Clanricarde's place at all, though all the country has beenroused about the cruel Clanricarde and his wicked Woodford evictions. Woodford was simply the headquarters of the agitation against LordClanricarde and my predecessor, Mr. Joyce, and it has got the name ofthe 'cockpit of Ireland, ' because it was there that Mr. Dillon, inOctober 1886, opened the 'war against the landlords' with the 'Plan ofCampaign. ' It is an odd circumstance, by the way, worth noting, thatwhen these apostles of Irish agitation went to Lord Clanricarde'sproperty nearer the city of Gralway, and tried to stir the people up, they failed dismally, because the people there could understand noEnglish, and the Irish agitators could speak no Irish! Nobody has everhad the face to pretend that the Clanricarde estates were 'rack-rented. 'There have been many personal attacks made upon Mr. Joyce and upon LordClanricarde, and Mr. Joyce has brought that well-known action againstthe Marquis for libel, and all this answers with the general public asan argument to show that the tenants on the Clanricarde property musthave had great grievances, and must have been cruelly ground down andunable to pay their way. I will introduce you, if you will allow me, tothe Catholic Bishop here, and to the resident Protestant clergyman, andto the manager of the bank, and they can help you to form your ownjudgment as to the state of the tenants. You will find that whateverquarrels they may have had with their landlord or his agent, they arenow, and always have been, quite able to pay their rents, and I need nottell you that it is no longer in the power of a landlord or an agent tosay what these rents shall be. "[10]

"Mr. Dillon in that speech of his at Woodford (I have it here aspublished in _United Ireland_), you will see, openly advised, or ratherordered, the tenants here to club their rents, or, in plain English, themoney due to their landlord, with the deliberate intent to confiscate totheir own use, or, in their own jargon, 'grab, ' the money of any one oftheir number who, after going into this dishonest combination, mightfind it working badly and wish to get out of it. Here is his ownlanguage:"--

I took the speech as reported in the _United Ireland_ of October 23rd, 1886, and therein found Mr. Dillon, M. P. , using these words:--"If youmean to fight really, you must put the money aside for tworeasons--first of all because you want the means to support the men whoare hit first; and, secondly, because you want to prohibit traitorsgoing behind your back. There is no way to deal with a traitor except toget his money under lock and key, and if you find that he pays his rent, and betrays the organisation, what will you do with him? I will tell youwhat to do with him. _Close upon his money, and use it for theorganisation_. I have always opposed outrages. _This is a legal plan, and it is ten times more effective_. "

Not a word here as to the morality of the proceeding thus recommended;but almost in the same breath in which he bade his ignorant hearersregard his plan as "legal, " Mr. Dillon said to them, "_this must be doneprivately, and you must not inform the public where the money isplaced_!"

Why not, if the plan was "legal"? Mr. Dillon, I believe, is not alawyer, but he can hardly have deluded himself into thinking his plan ofcampaign "legal" in the face of the particular pains taken by hisleader, Mr. Parnell, to disclaim all participation in any such plans. Ayear before Mr. Dillon made this curious speech, Mr. Parnell, Iremember, on the 11th of October 1885, speaking at Kildare, declaredthat he had "in no case during the last few years advised anycombination among tenants against even rack-rents, " and insisted thatany combination of the sort which might exist should be regarded as an"isolated" combination, "confined to the tenants of individual estates, who, of their own accord, without any incitement from us, on thecontrary, kept back by us, without any urging on our part, without anyadvice on our part, but stung by necessity, and the terrible realitiesof their position, may have formed such a combination among themselvesto secure such a reduction of rent as will enable them to live in theirown homes. " From this language of Mr. Parnell in October 1885 to Mr. Dillon's speech in October 1886, urging and advising the tenants toorganise, exact contributions from every member of the organisation, andput these contributions under the control of third parties determined toconfiscate the money subscribed by any member who might not find theorganisation working to his advantage, is a rather long step! It coversall the distance between a cunning defensive evasion of the law, and anopen aggressive violation of the law--not of the land only, but ofcommon honesty. One of two things is clear: either these combinationsare voluntary and "isolated, " and intended, as Mr. Parnell asserts, tosecure such a reduction of rents as will enable the tenants, and each ofthem, to live peacefully and comfortably at home, and in that case anymember of the combination who finds that he can attain his object betterby leaving it has an absolute right to do this, and to demand the returnof his money; or they are part of a system imposed upon the tenants by amoral coercion inconsistent with the most elementary ideas of privateright and personal freedom. This makes the importance of Mr. Dillon'sspeech, that by his denunciation of any member who wishes to withdrawfrom this "voluntary" combination as a "traitor, " and by his order to"close upon the money" of any such member, "and use it for theorganisation, " he brands the "organisation" as a subterranean despotismof a very cheap and nasty kind. The Government which tolerates thecreation of such a Houndsditch tyranny as this within its dominionsrichly deserves to be overthrown. As for the people who submitthemselves to it, I do not wonder that in his more lucid moments aCatholic priest like Father Quilter feels himself moved to denounce themas "poor slaves. " Of course with a benevolent neutral like myself, thequestion always recurs, Who trained them to submit to this sort ofthing? But I really am at a loss to see why a parcel of conspiratorsshould be encouraged in the nineteenth century to bully Irish farmersout of their manhood and their money, because in the seventeenth centuryit pleased the stupid rulers of England, as the great Duke of Ormondindignantly said, to "put so general a discountenance upon theimprovement of Ireland, as if it were resolved that to keep it low is tokeep it safe. "

On going back to the little drawing-room after dinner we found Mrs. Tener among her flowers, busy with some literary work. It is not a gaylife here, she admits, her nearest visiting acquaintance living someseven or eight miles away--but she takes long walks with a couple ofstalwart dogs in her company, and has little fear of being molested. "The tenants are in more danger, " she thinks, "than the landlords or theagents"--nor do I see any reason to doubt this, remembering the Connellswhom I saw at Edenvale, and the story of the "boycotted" Fitzmauricebrutally murdered in the presence of his daughter at Lixnaw on the 31stof January, as if by way of welcome to Lord Ripon and Mr. Morley ontheir arrival at Dublin. 

PORTUMNA, _Feb. 29th. _--Early this morning two of the "evicted" tenants, and an ex-bailiff of the property here, came by appointment to discussthe situation with Mr. Tener. He asked me to attend the conference, andupon learning that I was an American, they expressed their perfectwillingness that I should do so. The tenants were quiet, sturdy, intelligent-looking men. I asked one of them if he objected to tellingme whether he thought the rent he had refused to pay excessive, orwhether he was simply unable to pay it. 

"I had the money, sir, to pay the rent, " he replied, "and I wanted topay the rent--only I wouldn't be let. "

"Who wouldn't let you?" I asked. 

"The people that were in with the League. "

"Was your holding worth anything to you?" I asked. 

"It was indeed. Two or three years ago I could have sold my right for amatter of three hundred pounds. "

"Yes!" interrupted the other tenant, "and a bit before that for sixhundred pounds. "

"Is it not worth three hundred pounds to you now?"

"No, " said Mr. Tener, "for he has lost it by refusing the settlement Ioffered to make, and driving us into proceedings against him, andallowing his six months' equity of redemption to lapse. "

"And sure, if we had it, no one would be let to buy it now, sir, " saidthe tenant. "But it's we that hope Mr. Tener here will let us come backon the holdings--that is, if we'd be protected coming back. "

"Now, do you see, " said Mr. Tener, "what it is you ask me to do? You askme to make you a present outright of the property you chose foolishly tothrow away, and to do this after you have put the estate to endlesstrouble and expense; don't you think that is asking me to do a gooddeal?"

The tenants looked at one another, at Mr. Tener, and at me, and theex-bailiff smiled. 

"You must see this, " said Mr. Tener, "but I am perfectly willing now tosay to you, in the presence of this gentleman, that in spite of all, Iam quite willing to do what you ask, and to let you come back into thetitles you have forfeited, for I would rather have you back on theproperty than strangers--"

"And, indeed, we're sure you would. "

"But understand, you must pay down a year's rent and the costs you haveput us to. "

"Ah! sure you wouldn't have us to pay the costs?"

"But indeed I will, " responded Mr. Tener; "you mustn't for a momentsuppose I will have any question about that. You brought all thistrouble on yourselves, and on us; and while I am ready and willing todeal more than fairly, to deal liberally with you about the arrears--andto give you time--the costs you must pay. "

"And what would they be, the costs?" queried one of the tenantsanxiously. 

"Oh, that I can't tell you, for I don't know, " said Mr. Tener, "but theyshall not be anything beyond the strict necessary costs. "

"And if we come back would we be protected?"

"Of course you will have protection. But why do you want protection?Here you are, a couple of strong grown men, with men-folk of yourfamilies. See here! why don't you go to such an one, and such an one, "naming other tenants; "you know them well. Go to them quietly and soundthem to see if they will come back on the same terms with you; form acombination to be honest and to stand by your rights, and defy and breakup the other dishonest combination you go in fear of! Is it not a shamefor men like you to lie down and let those fellows walk over you, anddrive you out of your livelihood and your homes?"

The tenants looked at each other, and at the rest of us. "I think, " saidone of them at last, "I think ---- and ----, " naming two men, "would comewith us. Of course, " turning to Mr. Tener, "you wouldn't discover on us, sir. "

"Discover on you! Certainly not, " said Mr. Tener. "But why don't youmake up your minds to be men, and 'discover' on yourselves, and defythese fellows?"

"And the cattle, sir? would we get protection for the cattle? They'd bemurdered else entirely. "

"Of course, " said Mr. Tener, "the police would endeavour to protect thecattle. "

Then, turning to me, he said, "That is a very reasonable question. Thesescoundrels, when they are afraid to tackle the men put under their ban, go about at night, and mutilate and torture and kill the poor beasts. Iremember a case, " he went on, "in Roscommon, where several head ofcattle mysteriously disappeared. They could be found nowhere. No traceof them could be got. But long weeks after they vanished, some lads in afield several miles away saw numbers of crows hovering over a particularpoint. They went there, and there at the bottom of an abandonedcoal-shaft lay the shattered remains of these lost cattle. The poorbeasts had been driven blindfold over the fields and down into this pit, where, with broken limbs, and maimed, they all miserably died ofhunger. "

"Yes, " said one of the tenants, "and our cattle'd be driven into theShannon, and drownded, and washed away. "

"You must understand, " interposed Mr. Tener "that when cattle are thusmaliciously destroyed the owners can recover nothing unless the remainsof the poor beasts are found and identified within three days. "

The disgust which I felt and expressed at these revelations seemed toencourage the tenants. One of them said that before the evictions cameoff certain of the National Leaguers visited him, and told him he mustresist the officers. "I consulted my sister, " he said, "and she said, 'Don't you be such a fool as to be doing that; we'll all be ruinedentirely by those rascals and rogues of the League. ' And I didn'tresist. But only the other day I went to a priest in the trouble we arein, and what do you think he said to me? He said, 'Why didn't you do asyou were bid? then you would be helped, ' and he would do nothing for us!Would you think that right, sir, in your country?"

"I should think in my country, " I replied, "that a priest who behaved inthat way ought to be unfrocked. "

"Did you pay over all your rent into the hands of the trustees of theLeague?" I asked of one of these tenants. 

"I paid over money to them, sir, " he replied. 

"Yes, " I said, "but did you pay over all the amount of the rent, or howmuch of it?"

"Oh! I paid as much as I thought they would think I ought to pay!" heresponded, with that sly twinkle of the peasant's eye one sees so oftenin rural France. 

"Oh! I understand, " I said, laughing. "But if you come to terms now withMr. Tener here, will you get that money back again?"

"Divil a penny of it!" he replied, with much emphasis. 

Finally they got up together to take their leave, after a long whisperedconversation together. 

"And if we made it half the costs?"

"No!" said Mr. Tener good-naturedly but firmly; "not a penny off thecosts. "

"Well, we'll see the men, sir, just quietly, and we'll let you know whatcan be done"; and with that they wished us, most civilly, good-morning, and went their way. 

We walked in the park for some time, and a wild, beautiful park it is, not the less beautiful for being given up, as it is, very much to theDryads to deal with it as they list. It is as unlike a trim English parkas possible; but it contains many very fine trees, and grand open sweepsof landscape. In a tangled copse are the ruins of an ancient Franciscanabbey, in one corner of which lie buried together, under a monumentalmound of brickwork, the late Marquis of Clanricarde and his wife. Thewalls of the Castle, burned in 1826, are still standing, and so perfectthat the building might easily enough have been restored. A keen-eyed, wiry old household servant, still here, told us the house was burned inthe afternoon of January 6, 1826. There were three women-servants in thehouse--"Anna and Mary Meehan, and Mrs. Underwood, the housekeeper"; andthey were getting the Castle ready for his Lordship's arrival, so littleof an "absentee" was the late Lord Clanricarde, then only one yearmarried to the daughter of George Canning. The fires were laid on in theupper rooms, and Mrs. Underwood went off upon an errand. When she cameback all was in flames. 

The deer-park is full of deer, now become quite wild. We heard themcrashing through the undergrowth on all sides. There must be capitalfishing, too, in the lake, and in the river of which it is an expansion. 

While they were getting the cars ready for a drive, came up another sonof the soil. This man I found had only a small interest in the battle onthe Clanricarde estates, holding his homestead of another landlord. Buthe admitted he had gone in a manner into the "combination, " in that hehad paid a certain, not very large, sum, which he named, to thetrustees, "just for peace and quiet. " He considered it gone, pastrecovery; and he named another man with a small holding, but doing aconsiderable business in other ways, who had "paid £10 or more just notto be bothered. " Upon this Mr. Tener told me of a shopkeeper at Loughreain a large way of business, a man with seven or eight thousand pounds, who, finding his goods about to be seized after the agent had turned asharp strategic corner on him, and unexpectedly got into his shop, wasabout to own up to his defeat, and make a fair settlement, when thesecretary of the League appeared, and requested a private talk with him. In a quarter of an hour the tradesman reappeared looking rather sullenand crestfallen. He said he couldn't pay, and must let the goods betaken. So taken they were, and duly put up under the process and sold. He bought them in himself, paying all the costs. 

Presently two cars appeared. We got upon one, Mr. Tener driving aspirited nag, and taking on the seat with him a loaded carbine-rifle. Two armed policeman followed us upon the other, keeping at such adistance as would enable them easily to cover any one approaching fromeither side of the roadway. It quite took me back to the delightful daysof 1866 in Mexico, when we used to ride out to picnics at the Rincon atOrizaba armed to the teeth, and ready at a moment's notice to throw thefour-in-hand mule-wagons into a hollow square, and prepare to receivecavalry. As it seems to be perfectly well understood that the regularprice paid for shooting a designated person (they call it "knocking" himin these parts) is the ridiculously small sum of four pounds, and thattwo persons who divide this sum are always detailed by the organisers ofoutrage to "knock" an objectionable individual, it is obvious that toomuch care can hardly be taken by prudent people in coming and goingthrough such a country. Fortunately for the people most directlyconcerned to avoid these unpleasantnesses a systematic leakage seems toexist in the machinery of mischief. The places where the oaths of thislocal "Mafia" are administered, for instance, are well known. A roadsidenear a chapel is frequently selected--and this for two or three obviousreasons. The sanctity of the spot may be supposed to impress theneophyte; and if the police or any other undesirable people shouldsuddenly come upon the officiating adepts and the expectant acolyte, agroup on the roadside is not necessarily a criminal gathering--though Ido not see why, in such times, our old American college definition of a"group" as a gathering of "three or more persons" should not be adoptedby the authorities, and held to make such a gathering liable todispersion by the police, as our "groups" used to be subject toproctorial punishment. Mills are another favourite resort of thelaw-breakers. Mr. Tener tells me that a large mill between this placeand Loughrea is a great centre of trouble, not wholly to thedisadvantage of the astute miller, who finds it not only brings grist tohis mill, but takes away grist from another mill belonging to a coupleof worthy ladies, and once quite prosperous. It is no uncommon thing, itappears, for the same person to be put through the ceremony of swearingfidelity more than once, and at more than one place, with the notunnatural result, however, of diminishing the pressure of the oath uponhis conscience or his fears, and also of alienating his affections, ashe is expected to pay down two shillings on each occasion. Once amember, he contributes a penny a week to the general fund. It seems alsoto be an open secret who the disbursing treasurers are of this fund, from whom the members, detailed to do the dark bidding of the"organisation, " receive their wage. "A stout gentleman with sandy hairand wearing glasses" was the description given to me of one suchfunctionary. When so much is known of the methods and the men, why is itthat so many crimes are committed with virtual impunity? For twosufficient reasons. Witnesses cannot be got to testify, or trusted, ifthey do testify, to speak the truth; and it is idle to expect juries ofthe vicinage in nine cases out of ten will do their duty. Politicalcowardice having made it impossible to transfer the venue in cases ofIrish crime, as to which all the authorities were agreed about thesepoints, from Ireland into Great Britain, it is found that even totransfer the trial of "Moonlighters" from Clare or Kerry into Wicklow, for example, has a most instructive effect, opening the eyes of thepeople of Wicklow to a state of things in their own island, of whichhappily for themselves they were previously as ignorant as the people ofSurrey or of Middlesex. This explains the indignant wish expressed to mesome time ago in a letter from a priest in another part of Ireland, that"martial law" might be proclaimed in Clare and Kerry to "stamp out theMoonlighters, those pests of society. " That in Clare and Kerry priestsshould be found not only disposed to wink at and condone the proceedingsof these "pests of society, " but openly to co-operate with them underthe pretext of a "national" movement, is surely a thing equallyintolerable by the Church and dangerous to the cause of Irish autonomy. This I am glad to say is strongly felt, and has been on more than oneoccasion very vigorously stated by one of the most eminent and estimableof Irish ecclesiastics, the Bishop-Coadjutor of Clonfert, upon whom Icalled this morning. Dr. Healy, who is a senator of the Royal Universityof Ireland, and a member of the Royal Irish Academy, presides over thatpart of the diocese of Clonfort which includes Portumna and Woodford. Helives in a handsome and commodious, but simple and unpretentious house, set in ample grounds well-planted, and commanding a wide view of a mostagreeable country. We were ushered into a well-furnished study, and thebishop came in at once to greet us with the most cordial courtesy. He isa frank, dignified, unaffected man, and in his becoming episcopalpurple, with the gold chain and cross, looked every inch a bishop. I wasparticularly anxious to see Dr. Healy, as a type of the high-minded andcourageous ecclesiastics who, in Ireland, have resolutely refused tosubordinate their duties and their authority as ecclesiastics to theconvenience and the policy of an organisation absolutely controlled byMr. Parnell, who not only is not a Catholic, but who is an open ally andassociate of the bitterest enemies of the Catholic Church in France andin England. Protestant historians affirm that Pope Innocent was one ofthe financial backers of William of Orange when he set sail from Hollandto crush the Catholic faith in Great Britain and Ireland, and drive theCatholic house of Stuart into exile. But it was reserved for thenineteenth century to witness the strange spectacle of men, callingthemselves Irishmen and Catholics, deliberately slandering and assailingin concord with a non-Catholic political leader the consecrated pastorsand masters of the Church in Ireland. When in order to explain what theythemselves concede to be "the absence from the popular ranks of the bestof the priesthood, " Nationalist writers find it necessary to denounceCardinal Cullen and Cardinal M'Cabe as "anti-Irish "; and to sneer atmen like Dr. Healy as "Castle Bishops, " it is impossible not to bereminded of the three "patriotic" tailors of Tooley Street. 

Bishop Healy looks upon the systematic development of a substantialpeasant proprietary throughout Ireland as the economic hope of thecountry, and he regards therefore the actual "campaigning" of theself-styled "Nationalists" as essentially anti-national, inasmuch as itsmethods are demoralising the people of Ireland, and destroying thatrespect for law and for private rights which lies at the foundation ofcivil order and of property. In his opinion, "Home Rule, " to the peoplein general, means simply ownership of the land which they are to liveon, and to live by. How that ownership shall be brought about peaceably, fairly, and without wrong or outrage to any man or class of men is aproblem of politics to be worked out by politicians, and by public men. That men, calling themselves Catholics, should be led on to attempt tobring this or any other object about by immoral and criminal means isquite another matter, and a matter falling within the domain, not of theState primarily, but of the Church. 

As to this, Bishop Healy, who was in Rome not very long ago, and who, while in Rome, had more than one audience of His Holiness by command, has no doubt whatever that the Vatican will insist upon the abandonmentand repudiation by Catholics of boycotting, and "plans of campaign, " andall such devices of evil. Nor has the Bishop any doubt that whenever theHoly Father speaks the priests and the people of Ireland will obey. 

To say this, of course, is only to say that the Bishop believes thepriests of Ireland to be honest priests, and the people of Ireland to begood Catholics. 

If he is mistaken in this it will be a doleful thing, not for theChurch, but for the Irish priests, and for the Irish people. No Irishmanwho witnessed the magnificent display made at Rome this year, of thescope and power of the Catholic Church, can labour under any delusionson that point. 

From the Bishop's residence we went to call upon the Protestant rectorof Portumna, Mr. Crawford. The handsome Anglican church stands within anangle of the park, and the parsonage is a very substantial mansion. Mr. Crawford, the present rector, who is a man of substance, holds a finefarm of the Clanricarde estate, at a peppercorn rent, and he is tenantalso of another holding at £118 a year, as to which he has brought theagent into Court, with the object, as he avers, of setting an example tothe other tenants, and inducing them, like himself, to fight under thelaw instead of against it. He is not, however, in arrears, and in thatrespect sets a better example, I am sorry to say, than the Catholicpriest, Father Coen, who made himself so conspicuous here on theoccasion of the much bewritten Woodford evictions. The case of FatherCoen is most instructive, and most unpleasant. He occupies an excellenthouse on a holding of twenty-three acres of good laud, with a garden--inshort, a handsome country residence, which was provided by the late LordClanricarde, expressly for the accommodation of whoever might be theCatholic priest in that part of his estate. For all this the rent isfixed at the absurd and nominal sum of two guineas a year! Yet FatherCoen, who now enjoys the mansion, and has a substantial income from theparish, is actually two years and a half in arrears with this rent! Thisfact Mr. Tener mentioned to the Bishop, whose countenance naturallydarkened. "What am I to do in such a case, my lord?" asked Mr. Tener. "Do?" said the Bishop, "do your plain duty, and proceed against himaccording to law. " But suppose he were proceeded against and evicted, asin America he certainly would be, who can doubt that he would instantlybe paraded, before the world, on both sides of the Atlantic as a"martyr, " suffering for the holy cause of an oppressed and down-troddenpeople, at the hands of a "most vile" Marquis, and of a remorse-less andblood-thirsty agent?[11] Mr. Crawford, a tall, fine-looking man, talkedvery fully and freely about the situation here. He came to Portumnaabout eight years ago; one of his reasons for accepting the positionhere offered him being that he wished to take over a piece of propertynear Woodford from his brother-in-law, who found he could not manage it. As a practical farmer, and a straightforward capable man of business, hehas gradually acquired the general confidence of the tenants here. Thatthey are, as a rule, quite able to pay the rents which they have been"coerced" into refusing to pay, he fully believes. He told me of casesin which Catholic tenants of Lord Clanricarde came to him when theagitation began about the Plan of Campaign, and begged him privately totake the money for their rents, and hold it for them till the timeshould come for a settlement. 

The reason for this was that they did not wish to be obliged to giveover the money into the "Trust" created by the Campaigners, and wantedit to be safely put beyond the reach of these obliging "friends. " Onevery shrewd tenant came to him and begged him to buy some beasts, inorder that he might pay his rent out of the proceeds. The man owed £15to the Clanricarde property. Mr. Crawford did not particularly want tobuy his beasts, but eventually agreed to do so, and gave him £50 forthem. The man went off with the money, but he never paid the rent! Mr. Crawford discovering this called him to account, and refused to granthim some further favour which he asked. The result is that the"distressed tenant" now cuts Mr. Crawford when he meets him, and is theprosperous owner of quite a small herd of cattle. 

Mr. Crawford's opinion of the mischief done by the methods and spirit ofthe National League in this place is quite in accord with the opinionsof the Bishop-Coadjutor. Power without responsibility, which made theCæesars madmen, easily turns the heads of village tyrants, and there issomething positively grotesque in the excesses of this subterranean"Home Rule. " Mr. Crawford told me of a case here, in which a tenantfarmer, whom he named, came to him in great wrath, not unmingled withterror, to say that the League had ordered him, on pain of beingboycotted, to give up his holding to the heirs of a woman from whom, twenty years ago, he had bought, for £100 in cash, the tenant-right ofher deceased husband! There was no question of refunding the £100. Hewas merely to consider himself a "land-grabber, " and evict himself forthe benefit of those heirs who had never done a stroke of work on theproperty for twenty years, and who had no shadow of a legal or moralclaim on it, except that the oldest of them was an active member of thelocal League!

Nor was this unique. 

In another case, the children of a tenant, who died forty years ago, came forward and called upon the League to boycott an old man who hadbeen in possession of the holding during nearly half a century. In athird case, a tenant-farmer, some ten years ago, had in his employ asherd a man who fell ill and died. He put into the vacant place anhonest, capable young fellow, who still holds it, and has faithfully andefficiently served him. Only the other day this tenant-farmer was warnedby the League to expect trouble, unless he dismissed this herd, and putinto his place the son, now grown to man's estate, of the herd who diedten years ago!

It is amusing, if not instructive, to find the hereditary principle, just now threatened in its application to the British Senate, croppingout afresh as an element in the regeneration of Irish agriculture andthe land tenure of Ireland!

On our way back to the Castle we called on Mr. Place, the manager of thePortumna Branch of the Hibernian Bank, who lives in the town. He wasamusing himself, after the labour of the day in the bank, with someamateur work as a carpenter, but received us very cordially. He saidthere was no doubt that the deposits in the bank had increasedconsiderably since the adoption of the Plan of Campaign on theClanricarde property. Money was paid into the bank continually bypersons who wished the fact of their payments kept secret; and he knewof more than one case in which tenants, whose stock had been seized bythe agent for the rents, were much delighted at the seizure, since ithad paid off their rents, and so enabled them to retain their holdingsand keep out of the grasp of the League, even though to do this they hadundergone a forced sale and been muleted in costs. 

It was his opinion that the tenants on the Clanricarde property, who arenot in arrears, would gladly accept a twenty-five per cent. Reduction, and do very well by accepting it. But they are constrained into ahostile attitude by the tenants who are in arrears, some of them forseveral years (as, for example, Father Coen), although I find, to myastonishment, that in Ireland the landlord has no power to distrain formore than a twelvemonth's rent, no matter how far back the arrears mayrun. 

Mr. Place seems to think it would be well to put all the creditors ofthe tenants on one footing with the landlords. The shopkeepers and othercreditors, he thinks, in that event would see many things in quite a newlight. 

What is called the new Castle of Portumna is a large and handsomebuilding of the Mansard type, standing on an eminence in the park, atsome distance from the original seat. The building was finished not longbefore the death of his father, the late Marquis. It has never beenoccupied, save by a large force of police quartered in it not very longago by Mr. Tener in readiness for an expedition against the Castle ofCloondadauv, to the scene of which he promises to drive me to-morrow onmy way back to Dublin. It is thoroughly well built, and might easily bemade a most delightful residence. The views which it commands of theShannon are magnificent, and there are many fine trees about it. 

The old man who has charge of it is a typical Galway retainer of the oldschool. The "boys, " he says, once tried to "boycott" him because he wasthe pound-master; but he showed fight, and they let him alone. Hepointed out to me from the top of the house, in the distance, theresidences of Colonel Hickie, and of the young Lord Avonmore, who latelysucceeded on the death of his brother in the recent Egyptian expedition. The place is now shut up, and the owners live in France. 

We visited too the Portumna Union before driving home. The buildings ofthis Union are extensive for the place, and well built, and it seems tobe well-ordered and neatly kept--thanks, in no small degree, I suspect, to the influence of the Sisters who have charge of the hospital, butwhose benign spirit shows itself not only in the flower-garden whichthey have called into being, but in many details of the administrationbeyond their special control. 

The contrast was very striking between the atmosphere of thisunpretending refuge of the helpless and that of certain of the"laicised" hospitals of France, which I not long ago visited, from whichthe devoted nuns have been expelled to make way for hired nurses. I madea remark to this effect to the clerk of the Union, Mr. Lavan, whom wefound in his office. 

"Oh, yes, " he said, "I have no doubt of that. We owe more than I can sayto the Sisters, but I don't know how long we should have them here ifthe local guardians could have their way. "

In explanation of this, he went on to tell me that these localguardians, who are elected, are hostile to the whole administration, because of its relations with the Local Government Board at Dublin, which controls their generous tendency to expend the money of theratepayers. By way of expressing their feelings, therefore, they havebeen trying to cut down, not only the salary of the clerk, but that ofthe Catholic chaplain of the Union; and as there is a good deal ofirreligious feeling among the agitators here, it is his impression thatthey would make things disagreeable for the Sisters also were they inany way to get the management into their own hands. That there cannot bemuch real distress in this neighbourhood appears from two facts. Thereare now but 130 inmates of this Union, out of a population of 12, 900, and the outlay for out-of-door relief averages between eight and tenpounds a week. 

In the quiet, neat chapel two or three of the inmates were kneeling atprayers; and others whom we saw in the kitchen and about the offices hadnothing of the "workhouse" look which is so painful in the ordinaryinmates of an English or American almshouse. 

"The trouble with the place, " said Mr. Lavan, "is that they like it toowell. It takes an eviction almost to get them out of it. "

We sat down with Mr. Lavan in his office, and had an interesting talkwith him. 

He is the agent of Mr. Mathews, who lives between Woodford and Portumna. Mr. Mathews is a resident landlord, he says, who has constantly employedand has lived on friendly terms with his tenants, numbering twenty, whohold now under judicial rents. On these judicial rents two years agothey were allowed a further reduction of 15 per cent. Last year theywere allowed 20 per cent. This year he offered them a reduction of 25per cent. , which they rejected, demanding 35 per cent. 

This demand Mr. Lavan considers to be unreasonable in the extreme, andhe attributes it to the influence of the National Leaguers here, whoserepresentatives among the local guardians constantly vote away the moneyof the ratepayers in "relief to evicted tenants who have ample means andcan in no respect be called destitute. " In his opinion the effect of theNationalist agitation here has been to upset all ideas of right andwrong in the minds of the people where any question arises betweentenants and landlords. He told a story, confirmed by Mr. Tener, of abailiff, whom he named, on the Clanricarde property here, who wascompelled two years ago to resign his place in order to prevent the"boycotting" of his mother who keeps a shop on the farm. He wasfamiliar, too, with the details of a story told me by one of theClanricarde tenants, a farmer near Loughrea who holds a farm at £90 ayear. This man was forced to subscribe to the Plan of Campaign. Theagent proceeded against him for the rent due, and he incurred costs of£10. His sheep and crop were then seized. 

He begged the local leaders to "permit" him to pay his rent, as he wasable to do it _without drawing out the funds in their hands_! Theyrefused, and so compelled him to allow his property to be publicly sold, and to incur further costs of £10. "His farm lies so near the town thathe did not dare to risk the vengeance of the local ruffians. "

Mr. Lavan gave me the name also of another man who is now actually undera "boycott, " because he has ventured to resist the modest demand made bythe son of a man whose tenant-right he bought, paying him £100 for it, twenty years ago, that he shall give up his farm without beingreimbursed for his outlay made to purchase it! In other words, aftertwenty years' peaceable possession of a piece of property, bought andpaid for, this tenant-farmer is treated as a "land-grabber" by theself-installed "Nationalist" government of Ireland, because he will notsubmit to be robbed both of the money which he paid for histenant-right, and of his tenant-right!

Obviously in such a case as this the "war against landlordism" is simplya war against property and against private rights. Priests of theCatholic Church who not only countenance but aid and abet suchproceedings certainly go even beyond Dr. M'Glynn. Dr. M'Glynn, so far asI know, stops at the confiscation of all private property in rent by theState for the State. But here is simply a confiscation of the propertyof A for the benefit of B, such as might happen if B, being armed andmeeting A unarmed in a forest, should confiscate the watch and chain ofA, bought by A of B's lamented but unthrifty father twenty years before!

After dinner to-night Mr. Tener gave me some interesting and edifyingaccounts of his experience in other parts of Ireland. 

Some time ago, before the Plan of Campaign was adopted, one of histenants in Cavan came to him with a doleful story of the bad times andthe low prices, and wound up by saying he could pay no more than half ayear's rent. 

"Now his rent had been reduced under the Land Act, " said Mr, Tener, "andI had voluntarily thrown off a lot of arrears, so I looked at himquietly and said, 'Mickey, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. You havebeen very well treated, and you can perfectly well pay your rent. Yourwife would be ashamed of you if she knew you were trying to get out ofit. '"

"Ah no, your honour!" he briskly replied; "indade she would approve it. If you won't discover on me, I'll tell you the truth. It was the wifeherself, she's a great schollard, and reads the papers, that tould menot to pay you more than half the rent--for she says there's a new Actcoming to wipe it all out. Will you take the half-year?"

"No, I will not. Don't be afraid of your wife, but pay what you owe, like a man. You've got the money there in your pocket. "

This was a good shot. Mickey couldn't resist it, and his countenancebroke into a broad smile. 

"Ah no! I've got it in two pockets. Begorra, it was the wife herselfmade up the money in two parcels, and she put one into each pocket, tobe sure--and I wasn't to give your honour but one, if you would take it. But there's the money, and I daresay it's all for the best. "

On another occasion, when he was collecting the rents of a property inthe county of Longford, one tenant came forward as the spokesman of therest, admitted that the rents had been accepted fairly after a reductionunder the Land Act, expressed the general wish of the tenants to meettheir obligations, and wound up by asking a further abatement, "thetimes were so bad, and the money couldn't be got, it couldn't indeed!"

Mr. Tener listened patiently--to listen patiently is the most essentialquality of an agent in Ireland--and finally said:--

"Very well, if you haven't got the money to pay in full, paythree-quarters of it, and I'll give you time for the rest. "

"Thank your honour!" said Pat, "and that'll be thirty pounds--and hereit is in one pound notes, and hard enough to get they are, these times!"

So Mr. Tener took the money, counted the notes twice over, and then, writing out a receipt, handed it to the tenant. 

"All right, Pat, there's your receipt for thirty-nine pounds, and I'mglad to see ten-pound notes going about the country in these hardtimes!"

By mistake the "distressful" orator had put one ten-pound note into hisparcel! He took his receipt, and went off without a word. But thecombination to get an "abatement" broke down then and there, and theother tenants came forward and put down their money. 

These incidents occurred to Mr. Tener himself. Not less amusing andinstructive was a similar mistake on a larger scale made by anover-crafty tenant in dealing with one of Mr. Tener's friends a fewyears ago in the county of Leitrim. This tenant, whom we will callDenis, was the fugleman also of a combination. He was a cattle dealer aswell as a farmer, and having spent a couple of hours in idly eloquentattempts to bring about a general abatement of the rents, he lost hispatience. 

"Ah, well, your honour!" he said, "I can't stay here all day talkinglike these men, I must go to the fair at Boyle. Will you take adeposit-receipt of the bank for ten pounds and give me the pound change?that'll just be the nine pounds for the half-year's rent. But all thesame, yer honour, those men are all farmers, and it's not out of thefarm at all I made the ten pounds, it's out of the dealing!"

"But you couldn't deal without a farm, Denis, for the stock, " said theagent, as he glanced at the receipt. He hastily turned it over, and wenton, "Just indorse the receipt, and I'll consider your proposition. "

The receipt was indorsed, and at once taken off by the agent's clerk tothe bank to bring back pound-notes for it, while the agent quietlyproceeded to fill out the regular form of receipt for a full year'srent, eighteen pounds. Denis noted what he supposed of course to be theagent's blunder, but like an astute person held his peace. The clerkcame back with the notes. Denis took up his receipt, and the agentquietly began handing him note after note across the table. 

"But, your honour!" exclaimed Denis, "what on earth are ye giving me allthis money for?"

"It's your change, " said the agent, quite imperturbably. "You gave me abank receipt for one hundred pounds. I have given you a receipt for yourfull year's rent, and here are eighty-two pounds in notes, and with iteighteen shillings in silver--that's five per cent. Reduction. I wouldhave made it ten per cent. , only you were so very sharp, first about nothaving the money, and then about the full receipt!"

In an instant all eyes were fastened upon Denis. Ichabod! the glory haddeparted. The chorus went up from his disenchanted followers:--

"Ah, glory be to God, you were not bright enough for the agent, Denis!"

And so that day the agent made a very full and handsome collection--andthere was a slight reduction in the deposit-accounts of the local bank!

In the evening Mr. Tener gave me the details of some cases of directintimidation with the names of the tenants concerned. One man, whosefarm he visited, told him he had paid his rent not long before to theprevious agent. "Well, " said Mr. Tener, "show me your receipt!" On thisthe tenant said that he dare not keep the receipt about him, nor even inthe house, lest it should be demanded by the emissaries of the League, who went round to keep the tenants up to the "Plan of Campaign, " andthat it was hidden in his stable. And he went out to the stable andbrought it in. 

This, he had reason to believe, was not an uncommon case. [12] The sameman, wishing to take a grass farm which the people hoped the agent wouldconsent to have "cut up" was asked to give two names on apromissory-note to pay the rent. He demurred to this, and after a parleysaid, "Would a certificate do?" upon which he pulled out an oldtobacco-box, and carefully unfolded from it a bank certificate ofdeposit for a hundred pounds sterling! This tenant held eleven Irish, ormore than seventeen English, acres, and his yearly rent was £11, 16s. 6d. 

The people before this agitation began were generally quiet, thrifty, and industrious. They were great sheep-raisers. An old law of the IrishParliament had exempted sheep, but not cattle or crops, from distraint, with an eye to encouraging the woollen interest in Ireland. 

As to the sale of tenant-right in Ireland, he told me a curious story. One woman, a widow, whom he named, owed two year' rent on a holding inUlster at £4 a year. She was abundantly able to pay, but for her ownreasons preferred to be evicted, and, finally, by an understanding withhim, offered her tenant-right for sale. A man who had made money iniron-mines in the County of Durham was a bidder, and finally offered£240 for the holding. It was knocked down to him. He then saw the agent, who told him he had paid too much. The woman was then appealed to, andshe admitted that the agent was right. But it was shown that others hadoffered £200, and the woman finally agreed to take, and received, thatamount in gold, being fifty years' purchase!

CHAPTER X. 

DUBLIN, _Thursday, March 1. _--This has been a crowded day. I leftPortumna very early on a car with Mr. Tener, intending to visit thescene of his latest collision with the "National" government of Ireland, on my way to Loughrea. It was a bright spring morning, more like Aprilin Italy than like March in America, and the country is full of naturalbeauty. We made our first halt at the derelict house of Martin Kenny, one of the "victims" of the famous "Woodford evictions, " so called, as Ihave said, because Woodford is the nearest town. [13] The eviction heretook place October 21st, 1887. The house has been dismantled by theneighbours since that time, each man carrying off a door, or a shutter, or whatever best suited him. One of the constables who followed us asMr. Tener's body-guard had been present at the eviction. He came intothe house with us, and very graphically described the performance. Thehouse was still full of heavy stones taken into it, partly to block theentrances, and partly as ammunition; and trunks of trees used as_chevaux defrise_ still protruded through the door and the window. Thesetrees had been cut down by the garrison in the woodlands here and thereall over the property. I asked if the law in Ireland punisheddepredations of this sort, and was informed that trees planted bytenants, if registered by them within a certain time, are the propertyof the tenants. This would astonish our landlords in America, where thetenant who sticks so much as a sunflower into his garden-patch makes apresent of it to his landlord. [14]

I asked if the place made a long defence. Mr. Tener and the constableboth laughed, and the former told me that when the storming partyarrived shortly after daybreak, they found the house garrisoned only bysome small boys, who had been left there to keep watch. The men werefast asleep at some other place. The small boys ran away as fast aspossible to give the alarm, but the police went in, and in a jiffeypulled to pieces the elaborate defences prepared to repel them. FatherCoen, the constable said, got to Kenny's house an hour after it was allover, with a mob of people howling and groaning. But the work had beendone, and other work also at the Castle of Cloondadauv, to which we nextdrove. 

This place takes its truly awe-inspiring name from a ruined Norman towerstanding on a picturesque promontory of no great height, which juts outinto the lovely lake here made by the Shannon. At no great expense thistower might be so restored as to make an ideal fishing-box. It nowsimply adorns the holding formerly occupied by Mr. John StanislausBurke, a former tenant of Lord Clanricarde. The story of its capture onthe 17th of September is worth telling. 

Some days before the evictions were to come off, a meeting was held atWoodford or Loughrea, at which one of the speakers, the patriotic Dr. Tully, rather incautiously and exultingly told his hearers that thedefence in 1886 of the tenant's house known as "Fort Saunders" had beena grand and gallant affair indeed, but that next time "the exterminatorswould have to storm a castle"!

This put Mr. Tener at once on the alert, and as Mr. Burke of Cloondadauvwas set down for eviction, it didn't require much cogitation to fix uponthe fortress destined to be "stormed. " So he set about the campaign. TheCounty Inspector of the constabulary, who had made a secretreconnaissance, reported that he found the place too strong to be takenif defended, except "by artillery. " So it was determined to take it bysurprise. 

When the previous evictions were made, the agent and the public forceshad marched from Portumna by the highway to Woodford, so that, ofcourse, their advent was announced by the scouts and sentinels of theLeague from hill to hill long before they reached the scene of action, and abundant time was given to the agitators for organising a"reception. " Mr. Tener profited by the experience of his predecessors. He contrived to get his force of constabulary through the town ofPortumna without attracting any popular attention. And as early risingis not a popular virtue here, he resolved to steal a march on thedefenders of Cloondadauv. 

He had brought up certain large boats to Portumna, and put them on thelake. Rousing his men before dawn, he soon had them all embarked, and ontheir way swiftly and silently by the river and the lake to Cloondadauv. They reached the promontory by daybreak, and as soon as the hour oflegal action had arrived they were landed, and surrounded the "castle. "The ancient portal was found to be blocked with heavy stones and trunksof trees, nor did any adit appear to be available, till a younggentleman who had accompanied the party as a volunteer, discovered inone wall of the tower, at some little height from the ground, the ventof one of those conduits not infrequently found running down through thewalls of old castles, which were used sometimes as waste-ways forrubbish from above, and sometimes to receive water-pipes from below. Looking up into this vent, he saw a rope hanging free within it. Uponthis he hauled resolutely, and finding it firmly attached above, came tothe conclusion that it must have been fixed there by the garrison as ameans of access to the interior. 

Like an adventurous young tar, he bade his comrades stand by, and nimbly"swarmed" up the rope, without thought or care of what might await himat the top. In a few moments his shouts from above proclaimed thecapture of the stronghold. It was absolutely deserted; the garrison, confident that no attack would that day be made, had gone off to thenearest village. The interior of the castle was found filled withmunitions of war, in the shape of huge beams and piles of stoneslaboriously carried up the winding stairs, and heaped on all thelanding-places in readiness for use. On the flat roof of the castle wasestablished a sort of furnace for heating water or oil, to be poureddown upon the besiegers; and crowbars lay there in readiness to loosenout and dislodge the battlements, and topple them over upon theassailants. 

The officers soon made their way all over the building, and thenceproceeded to the residence of Mr. Burke near by, a large and verycommodious house. All the formalities were gone through with, adetachment of policemen was put in charge, and the rest of the forcesset out on their return to Portumna, before the organised "defenders" ofCloondadauv, hastily called out of their comfortable beds or from theirbreakfast-tables had realised the situation, and got the populace intomotion. A mass meeting was held in the neighbourhood, and many speecheswere made. But the castle and the farm-house and the holding all remainin the hands of a cool, quiet, determined-looking young Ulsterman, whotells me that he is getting on very well, and feels quite able with hispolice-guard to protect himself. "Once in a while, " he said, "they comehere from Loughrea with English Parliament-men, and stand outside of thegate, and call me 'Clanricarde's dog, ' and make like speeches at me; butI don't mind them, and they see it, and go away again. "

Of Mr. Burke, the evicted tenant here, Mr. Crawford, the Protestantclergyman at Portumna, told me that he was abundantly able to pay hisrent. The whole debt for which Burke was evicted was £115; and Mr. Crawford said he had himself offered Burke £300 for the holding. Burkewould have gladly taken this, but "the League wouldn't let him. " Whenhis right was put up for sale at Galway for £5, he did not dare to buyit in, and he is now living with his wife and children on the Leaguefunds. Lord Clanricarde's agent offered to take him back and restore hisright if he would pay what he owed; but he dared not accept. This farmcomprises over one hundred and ten English acres, which Burke held at arent--fixed by the Land Court--of £77, the valuation for taxes being£83. 

To call the eviction of such a tenant in such circumstances from such aholding a "sentence of death, " is making ducks and drakes of the Englishlanguage. Mr. Crawford's opinion, founded upon a thorough personalknowledge of the region, is that there is no exceptional distress inthis part of Ireland, and that over-renting has nothing to do with suchdistress as does exist here. The case of a man named Egan, one of the"victims" of the Woodford evictions of 1886, certainly bears out thisview of the matter. Egan, who was a tenant, not at all of LordClanricarde, but of a certain Mrs. Lewis, had occupied for twenty yearsa holding of about sixteen Irish acres, or more than twenty Englishacres. This he held at a yearly rental of £8, 15s. , being 9d. Over thevaluation. 

In August 1886 he was evicted for refusing to pay one year's rent thendue. At that time the crops standing on the land were valued by him at£60, 13s. He also owned six beasts. In other words, this man, when hewas called upon to pay a debt of £8, 15s. Had in his own possession, beside the valuable tenant-right of his holding, more than a hundredpounds sterling of merchantable assets. He refused to pay, and he wasevicted. 

This was in August 1886. But such are the ideas now current in Irelandas to the relations of landlord and tenant, that immediately after hiseviction Egan sent his daughter to gather some cabbages off the farm asif nothing had happened. The Emergency men in charge actually objected, and sent the damsel away. Thereupon Egan, on the 6th of September, served a legal notice on Mrs. Lewis, his landlady, requiring her eitherto let him take all the crops on the farm, or to pay him their value, estimated by him, as I have said, at £60, 13s. Two days after this, onthe 8th of September, more than a hundred men came to the place by nightand removed the greater portion of the crops. Not wishing a return ofthese visitors, Mrs. Lewis, on the 16th of September, sent word to Eganto come and take away what was left of the crops; one of the horsesemployed in the nocturnal harvest of September 8th having been seized bythe police and identified as belonging to Egan. Egan did not respond;but in July 1887 he brought an action against his landlady to recover£100 sterling for her "detention of his goods, " and her "conversion ofthe same to her own use "!

The case was heard by the Recorder at Kilmainham, and the facts which Ihave briefly recited were established by the evidence. The daughter ofthis extraordinary "victim" Egan appeared as a witness, so "fashionablydressed" as to attract a remark on the subject from the defendant'scounsel. To this she replied that "her brothers in America sent hermoney. "

"If your brothers in America sent you money for such purposes, " notunnaturally observed the Recorder, "why did they allow your father tosacrifice crops worth £60 for the non-payment of £8, 15s. ?"

"They were tired of that, " said the young lady airily; "the land wasn'tworth the rent!"

That is to say, a farm which yielded a crop of £60, and pastured severalhead of cattle, was not worth £8, 15s. A year. Certainly it was notworth £8, 15s. A year if the tenant under the operation of the existingor the impending laws of Great Britain in Ireland could get, or hope toget it for the half of that rent, or for no rent at all. 

But this being thus, on what grounds are the rest of mankind invited toregard this excellent man as a "victim" worthy of sympathy and ofmaterial aid? How had he come to be in arrears of a year in August 1886?The proceedings at Kilmainham tell us this. 

In November 1885 he had demanded, with other tenants of Mrs. Lewis, areduction of 50 per cent. This would have given him his holding at arental of £4, 7s. 6d. Mrs. Lewis refused the concession, and a monthafterwards an attempt was made to blow up her son's house with dynamite. Between that time and August 1886, all the efforts of her son, who wasalso her agent, to collect her dues by seizing beasts, were defeated bythe driving away of the cattle, so that no remedy but an eviction wasleft to her. I take it for granted that Mrs. Lewis had a family tomaintain, and debts of one sort and another to pay, as well as Mr. Egan--but I observe this material difference between her position andhis during the whole of this period of "strained relations" betweenherself and her tenant, that whereas she lay completely out of theenjoyment of the rent due her, being the interest on her capital, represented in her title to the land, Mr. Egan remained in the completeenjoyment and use of the land. Clearly the tenant was in a betterposition than the landlord, and as we are dealing not with the historyof Ireland in the past, but with the condition of Ireland at present, itappears to me to be quite beside the purpose to ask my sympathies forMr. Egan on the ground that a century or half a century ago theancestors of Mr. Egan may have been at the mercy of the ancestors ofMrs. Lewis. However that may have been, Mr. Egan seems to me now to havehad legally much the advantage of Mrs. Lewis. Not only this. Bothlegally and materially Mr. Egan, the tenant-farmer at Woodford, seems tome to have had much the advantage of thousands of his countrymen livingand earning their livelihood by their daily labour in such a typicalAmerican commonwealth, for example, as Massachusetts. I have here withme the Seventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Statistics ofMassachusetts. From this I learn that in 1876 the average yearly wagesearned by workmen in Massachusetts were $482. 72, or in round numberssomething over £96. Out of this amount the Massachusetts workman had tofeed, clothe, and house himself, and those dependent on him. 

His outlay for rent alone was on the average $109. 07, or in roundnumbers rather less than £22, making 22-1/2 per cent, of his earnings. 

How was it with Mr. Egan? Out of his labour on his holding he gotmerchantable crops worth £60 sterling, or in round numbers $300, besidesproducing in the shape of vegetables and dairy stuff, pigs and poultry, certainly a very large proportion of the food necessary for hishousehold, and raising and fattening beasts, worth at a low estimate £20or $100 more. And while thus engaged, his outlay for rent, whichincluded not only the house in which he lived, but the land out of whichhe got the returns of his labour expended upon it, was £8, 15s. , orconsiderably less than one-half the outlay of the Massachusetts workmanupon the rent of nothing more than a roof to shelter himself and hisfamily. Furthermore, the money thus paid out by the Massachusettsworkman for rent was simply a tribute paid for accommodation had andenjoyed, while out of every pound sterling paid as rent by the Irishtenant there reverted to his credit, so long as he continued to fulfilhis legal obligations, a certain proportion, calculable, valuable, andsaleable, in the form of his tenant-right. 

I am not surprised to learn that the Recorder dismissed the suit broughtby Mr. Egan, and gave costs against him. But the mere fact that in suchcircumstances it was possible for Egan to bring such a suit, and get ahearing for it, makes it quite clear that Americans of a sympatheticturn of mind can very easily find much more meritorious objects ofsympathy than the Irish tenant-farmers of Galway without crossing theAtlantic in quest of them. 

From Cloondadauv to Loughrea we had a long but very interesting drive, passing on the way, and at no great distance from each other, FatherCoen's neat, prosperous-looking presbytery of Ballinakill, and the shopand house of a local boat-builder named Tully, who is pleasantly knownin the neighbourhood as "Dr. Tully, " by reason of his recommendation ofa very particular sort of "pills for landlords. " The presbytery is nowoccupied by Father Coen, who finds it becoming his position as the moralteacher and guide of his people to be in arrears of two and a half yearswith the rent of his holding, and who is said to have entertained Mr. Blunt and other sympathising statesmen very handsomely on their visit toLoughrea and Woodford, [15] "Dr. " Tully being one of the guests invitedto meet them. [16] Not far from this presbytery, Mr. Tener showed me thescene of one of the most cowardly murders which have disgraced thisregion. Of Loughrea, the objective of our drive this morning, Sir GeorgeTrevelyan, I am told, during his brief rule in Ireland, found itnecessary to say that murder had there become an institution. Woodford, previously a dull and law-abiding spot, was illuminated by a lurid lightof modern progress about three years ago, upon the transfer thither inthe summer of 1885 of a priest from Loughrea, familiarly known as "thefirebrand priest. "

In November of that year, as I have already related, Mr. Egan and othertenants of Mrs. Lewis of Woodford made their demand for a 50 per cent. Reduction of their rents, upon the refusal of which an attempt was madewith dynamite on the 18th December to blow up the house of Mrs. Lewis'sson and agent. All the bailiffs in the region round about were warned togive up serving processes, and many of them were cowed into doing so. One man, however, was not cowed. This was a gallant Irish soldier, discharged with honour after the Crimean war, and known in the countryas "Balaklava, " because he was one of the "noble six hundred, " who thererode "into the jaws of death, into the valley of hell. " His name wasFinlay, and he was a Catholic. At a meeting in Woodford, Father Coen(the priest now in arrears), it is said, looked significantly at Finlay, and said, "no process-server will be got to serve processes for SirHenry Burke of Marble Hill. " The words and the look were thrown away onthe veteran who had faced the roar and the crash of the Russian guns, and later on, in December 1885, Finlay did his duty, and served theprocesses given to him. From that moment he and his wife were"boycotted. " His own kinsfolk dared not speak to him. His house wasattacked by night. He was a doomed man. On the 3d March 1886, about 2o'clock P. M. , he left his house--which Mr. Tener pointed out to me--tocut fuel in a wood belonging to Sir Henry Burke, at no great distance. Twice he made the journey between his house and the wood. The third timehe went and returned no more. His wife growing uneasy at his prolongedabsence went out to look for him. She found his body riddled withbullets lying lifeless in the highway. The police who went into Woodfordwith the tale report the people as laughing and jeering at the agony ofthe widowed woman. She was with them, and, maddened by the savageconduct of these wretched creatures, she knelt down over-against thehouse of Father Egan, and called down the curse of God upon him. 

On the next day things were worse. No one could be found to supply acoffin for the murdered man. [17] When the police called upon the prieststo exert their influence and enforce some semblance at least ofChristian and Catholic decency upon the people confided to their charge, the priests not only refused to do their duty, but floutingly referredthe police to Lady Mary Burke. "He did her work, " they said, "let hersend a hearse now to bury him. " The lady thus insolently spoken of isone of the best of the Catholic women of Ireland. At her summons FatherBurke, a few years only before his death, I remember, made a long winterjourney, though in very bad health, from Dublin to Marble Hill to soothethe last hours and attend the death-bed of her husband. 

No one who knew and loved him can wish him to have lived to hear fromher lips such a tale of the degradation of Catholic priests in his ownland of Galway. 

Mr. Tener pointed out to me, at another place on the road, nearBallinagar, the deserted burying-ground in which, after much trouble, agrave was found for the brave old soldier who had escaped the Russiancannon-balls to be so foully done to death by felons of his own race. There the last rites were performed by Father Callaghy, a priest who washimself "boycotted" for resigning the presidency of the League in hisparish, and for the still graver offence of paying his rent. For weeksit was necessary to guard the grave![18]

From that day to this no one has been brought to justice for this crime, committed in broad daylight, and within sight of the highway. Mr. Place, whom I saw at Portumna, told me that he believed the police had no moraldoubt as to the murderer of Finlay, but that it was useless to think ofgetting legal evidence to convict him. 

Mr. Tener tells me that when Mr. Wilfrid Blunt came to Woodford he wentwith Father Egan, and accompanied by the police, to see the widow ofthis murdered man, heard from her own lips the sickening story, and tooknotes of it. But when Mr. Rowlands, M. P. , an English "friend of HomeRule, " was examined the other day during the trial of Mr. Blunt, he wasobliged to confess that though he had visited Woodford more than once, and conversed freely with Mr. Blunt about it, he had "never heard of themurder of Finlay. "

Such an incident is apparently of little interest to politicians atWestminster. Fortunately for Ireland, it is of a nature to command moreattention at the Vatican. 

Nature has sketched the scenery of this part of Ireland with a free, bold hand. It is not so grand or so wild as the scenery of WesternDonegal, but it has both a wildness and a grandeur of its own. Sir HenryBurke's seat of Marble Hill, as seen in the distance from the road, stands superbly, high up on a lofty range of wooded hills, from which itcommands the country for miles. And no town I have seen in Ireland ismore picturesquely placed than Loughrea. It has an almost Italian aspectas you approach it from Woodford. But no lake in Lombardy or Piedmont isso peculiarly and exquisitely tinted as the lough on which it stands. The delicate grey-green of the sparkling waters reminded me of thesingular and well-defined belts and stretches of chrysoprase upon whichyou sometimes come in sailing through the dark azure of the SouthernSeas. I have never before seen precisely such a hue in any body of freshwater. The lake is incorrectly described, Mr. Tener tells me, in theguide-books, as being one of the many curious developments of the LowerShannon. It is fed by springs, but if, like the river-lakes, it wasformed by a solution of the limestone, this fact may have some chemicalrelation with its very peculiar colour. It contains three picturesqueislands. No stream flows into it, but two streams issue from it. Thetown of Loughrea is an ancient holding of the De Burghs, and theestate-office of Lord Clanricarde is here in one wing of a greatbarrack, standing, as I understood Mr. Tener to say, on the site of aformer fortress of the family. Lord Clanricarde's property here is putdown by Mr. Hussey de Burgh at 49, 025 acres in County Galway, valued at£19, 634, and at 3576 acres in the county of the City of Galway, valuedat £1202. These, I believe, are statute acres, and in estimating therelation of Irish rentals to Irish land this fact must be alwaysascertained. Of the so-called "Woodford" property the present rental isno more than £1900, payable by 260 tenants. The Poor-Law valuation fortaxes is £2400. There was a revision of the whole Galway property madeby the father of the present Marquis. Of the 260 Woodford holdings onlytwelve were increased, in no case more than 6-1/4 per cent, over thevaluation. In 1882 six of these twelve tenants applied to the LandCourt. The rents were in no case restored to the figures before 1872, but about 7 per cent. Was taken off the increased rental. The assertionrepeatedly made that in 1882 rents were reduced by the Land Court 50 percent. On the Clanricarde estates, Mr. Tener tells me, is absolutelyfalse. In the first year of the Court no reduction went beyond 10 percent. , and in later years, even under the panic of low prices, theaverage has not exceeded 20 per cent. 

After making arrangements for a car to take me on to Woodlawn, where Iwas to catch the Dublin train, I went out with Mr. Tener to look at thetown. 

My drive from Loughrea to Woodlawn was delightful. It took me over along stretch of the best hunting country of Galway, and my jarvey was aGalwegian of the type dear to the heart of Lever. He was a "Nationalist"after his fashion, but he did not hesitate to come rattling up throughthe town to the Estate Office to take me up; and after we got fairly offupon the highway, he spoke with more freedom than respect of all sortsand conditions of men in and about Loughrea. 

"He's a sharp little man, that Mr. Tener, " he said, "and he gave theboys a most beautiful beating at Burke's place. "

This was said with genuine gusto, and not at all in the querulous spiritof the delightful member of Parliament who complained at Westminsterwith unconscious humour that the agent and the police in that case had"dishonourably" stolen a march on the defenders of Cloondadauv!

"But we've beaten them entirely, " he said, with equal zest, "at MarbleHill. Sir Henry has agreed to pay all the costs, and the living expensestoo, of the poor men that were put out. [19] I didn't ever think we'd getthat; but ye see the truth is, " he added confidentially, "he must havethe money, Sir Henry--he's lying out of a deal, and then there's heavycharges on the property. A fine property it is indeed!"

"In fact, " I said, "you put Sir Henry to the wall. Is that it?"

"Well, it's like that. But we shan't get that out of Clanricarde, I'mthinking. He's got a power o' money they tell me; and he's that of theould Burke blood, he won't mind fighting just as long as you like!"

As we drove along, he pointed out to me several fine stretches ofhunting country, and, to my surprise, informed me that only the otherday "there was as fine a meet as ever you saw, more than a hundredladies and gentlemen--a grand sight it was. "

I asked if the hunting had not been "put down by the League. "

"Oh, now then, sir, who'd be wanting to put down the hunting here inGalway?--and Ballinasloe? Were you ever at Ballinasloe? just thegrandest horse fair there is in the whole wide world!"

I insisted that I had always heard a great deal about the opposition ofthe League to hunting. 

"Oh, that'll be some little lawyer fellow, " he replied, "like thatHealy, that can't sit on a horse! It's the grandest country in all theworld for riding over. What for wouldn't they ride over it?"

"Were there many went out to America from about Loughrea?"

"Oh, yes; they were always coming and going. But as many came back. "

"Why?"

"Oh, they didn't like the country. It wasn't as good a country, was it, as old Ireland? And they had to work too hard; and then some of them gotmoney, and they'd like to spend it in the old place. "

The country about Woodlawn is very picturesque and well wooded, and fora long distance we followed the neatly-kept stone walls of the large andhandsome park of Lord Ashtown. 

"The most beautiful and biggest trees in all Ireland, sorr, " said thejarvey, "and it's a great pity, it is, ye can't stay to let me drive youall over it, for the finest part of the park is just what you can't seefrom this road. Oh, her ladyship would never object to any gentlemandriving about to see the beauties of the place. She is a very goodwoman, is her ladyship. She gave work the last Christmas to thirty-twomen, and there wasn't another house in the country there that had workfor more than ten or twelve. A very good woman she is, indeed. "

"Yes, that is a very handsome church, it is indeed. It is the ProtestantChurch. Lord Ashtown built it; he was a very good man too, and did apower of good--building and making roads, and giving work to the people. He was buried there in that Castle, over the station--Trench's Castle, they called it. "

"All that lumber there by the station?"

"That came out of the Ashtown woods. They were always cutting down thetrees; there was so many of them you might be cutting for years--youwould never get to the end of them. "

Woodlawn Station is one of the neatest and prettiest railway stations Ihave seen in Ireland--more like a picturesque stone cottage, green andgay with flowers, than like a station. The station-master's family ofcheery well-dressed lads and lasses went and came about the bright firein the waiting-room in a friendly unobtrusive fashion, chatting with thepoliceman and the porter and the passengers. It was hard to believeone's-self within an easy drive of the "cockpit of Ireland. "

CHAPTER XI. 

BORRIS, _Friday, March 2d. _--This is the land of the Kavanaghs, and alovely, picturesque, richly-wooded land it is. I left Dublin with Mr. Gyles by an afternoon train; the weather almost like June. We ran fromthe County of Dublin into Kildare, and from Kildare into Carlow, throughhills; rural scenery quite unlike anything I have hitherto seen inIreland. At Bagnalstown, a very pretty place, with a spire which takesthe eye, our host joined us, and came on with us to this still moreattractive spot. Borris has been the seat of his family for manycenturies. The MacMorroghs of Leinster, whom the Kavanaghs lineallyrepresent, dwelt here long before Dermot MacMorrogh, finding hiselective throne in Leinster too hot to hold him, went off intoAquitaine, to get that famous "letter of marque" from Henry II. OfEngland, with the help of which this king without a kingdom inducedRichard de Clare, an earl without an earldom, to lend him a hand andbring the Normans into Ireland. Many of this race lie buried in theruins of St. Mullen's Abbey, on the Barrow, in this county. But none ofthem, I opine, ever did such credit to the name as its presentrepresentative, Arthur MacMorrogh Kavanagh. 

I had some correspondence with Mr. Kavanagh several years ago, when hesent me, through my correspondent for publication in New York, a verystriking statement of his views on the then condition of Irishaffairs--views since abundantly vindicated; and like most people whohave paid any attention to the recent history of Ireland, I knew howwonderful an illustration his whole career has been of what philosopherscall the superiority of man to his accidents, and plain people the powerof the will. But I knew this only imperfectly. His servant brought himup to the carriage and placed him in it. This it was impossible not tosee. But I had not talked with him for five minutes before it quitepassed out of my mind. Never was there such a justification of theparadoxical title which Wilkinson gave to his once famous book, _TheHuman Body, and its Connexion with Man_, --never such a living refutationof the theory that it is the thumb which differentiates man from thelower animals. Twenty times this evening I have been reminded of theretort I heard made the other day at Cork by a lawyer, who knows Mr. Kavanagh well, to a priest of "Nationalist" proclivities, who knows himnot at all. Some allusion having been made to Borris, the lawyer said tome, "You will see at Borris the best and ablest Irishman alive. " On thisthe priest testily and tartly broke in, "Do you mean the man withouthands or feet?"

"I mean, " replied the lawyer, very quietly, "the man in whom all thathas gone in you or me to arms and legs has gone to heart and head!"

Borris House stands high in the heart of an extensive and nobly woodedpark, and commands one of the finest landscapes I have seen in Ireland. As we stood and gazed upon it from the hall door, the distant hills weretouched with a soft purple light such as transfigures the Apennines atsunset. 

"You should see this view in June, " said Mrs, Kavanagh, "we are allbrown and bare now. "

Brown and bare, like most other terms, are relative. To the eye of anAmerican this whole region now seems a sea of verdure, less clear andfresh, I can easily suppose, than it may be in the early summer, butverdure still. And one must get into the Adirondacks, or up among themountains of Western Virginia, to find on our Atlantic slope such treesas I have this evening seen. One grand ilex near the house could hardlybe matched in the Villa d'Este. 

The house is stately and commodious, and more ancient than it appears tobe, --so many additions have been made to it at different times. It haspassed through more than one siege, and in the '98 Mr. Kavanagh tells methe townspeople of Borris came up here and sought refuge. There are vastcaverns under the house and grounds, doubtless made by taking out fromthe hill the stone used in building this house, and the fortresses whichstood here before it. In these all sorts of stores were kept, and manyof the people found shelter. 

I need not say that there is a banshee at Borris--though no livingwitness, I believe, has heard its warning wail. But as we sat in thebeautiful library, and watched the dying light of day, a lady presenttold us a tale more gruesome than many of those in which the "psychical"inquirers delight. She was sitting, she said, in an upper room of anancient mansion here in Carlow, in which she lives, when, from the lawnbelow, there came up to her a low, sad, shrill cry--the croon of awoman, such as one hears from the mourners sitting among the turbanedtombstones of the hill of Eyoub at Constantinople. It startled her, andshe held her breath and listened. She was alone, as she knew, in thatpart of the house, and the hall door below was unlocked, as is thefashion still in Ireland, despite all the troubles and turmoils. Againthe sound came, and this time nearer to the house. Could it be thebanshee? Again and again it rose and died away, each time nearer andnearer. Then, as she listened, all her nerves strung to the keenestsensibility, it came again, and now, beyond a doubt, within the hallbelow. 

With an effort she rose from her chair, opened a door leading into acorridor running aside from the main stairway, and fled at full speedtowards the wing in which she knew that she would find some of themaids. As she sped along she heard the cry again and again far behindher, as from a creature slowly and steadily mounting the grand stairwaytowards the room which she had just quitted. 

She found the maids, who fell into a terrible fright when she told herstory and dared not budge. So the bells were violently rung till thebutler and footman appeared. To the first she said simply, "There is amad woman in this house--go and find her!"

"The man looked at me, " she said, "as I spoke with a curious expressionin his face as of one who thought, 'yes, there is a mad woman in thehouse, and she is not far to seek!'"

But the lady insisted, and the men finally went off on their quest. Inthe course of half an hour it was rewarded. The mad woman--a dangerouscreature--who had wandered away from an asylum in the neighbourhood, wasfound curled up and fast asleep in the lady's own bed!

Fancy a delicate woman going alone into her bedroom at midnight to besuddenly confronted by an apparition of that sort!

BORRIS, _March 3d. _--After a stroll on the lawn this morning, the wideand glorious prospect bathed in the light of a really soft spring day, Ihad a conversation with Mr. Kavanagh about the Land Corporation, ofwhich he is the guiding spirit. This is a defensive organisation of theIrish landlords against the Land League. When a landlord has been driveninto evicting his tenants, the next step, in the "war againstlandlordism, " is to prevent other tenants from taking the vacated landsand cultivating them. This is accomplished by "boycotting" any man whodoes this as a "land-grabber. "

The ultimate sanction of the "boycott" being "murder, " derelict farmsincreased under this system very rapidly; and the Eleventh Commandmentof the League, "Thou shalt not pay the rent which thy neighbour hathrefused to pay, " was in a fair way to dethrone the Ten Commandments ofSinai throughout Ireland, even before the formal adoption in 1886 of the"Plan of Campaign. "

Mr. Gladstone would perhaps have hit the facts more accurately, if, instead of calling an eviction in Ireland a "sentence of death, " he hadcalled the taking of a tenancy a sentence of death. Mr. Hussey at Lixnawhad two tenants, Edmond and James Fitzmaurice. Edmond Fitzmaurice was"evicted" in May 1887; but he was taken into the house of a neighbour, made very comfortable, and still lives. James Fitzmaurice took, for thesake of the family, the land from which Edmond was evicted, and for thishe was denounced as a "land-grabber, " boycotted, and finally shot deadin the presence of his daughter. 

At a meeting in Dublin in the autumn of 1885, a parish priest, the Rev. Mr. Cantwell, described it as a "cardinal virtue" that "no one shouldtake a farm from which another had been evicted, " and called upon thepeople who heard him to "pass any such man by unnoticed, and treat himas an enemy in their midst. " Public opinion and the law, if not theauthorities of his church would make short work of any priest who talkedin this fashion in New York. But in Ireland, and under the BritishGovernment, it seems they order things differently. So it occurred oneday to the landlords thus assailed, as it did to the sea-lions of theCape of Good Hope when the French sailors attacked them, that they mightdefend themselves. 

To this end the Land Corporation was instituted, with a considerablecapital at its back, and Mr. Kavanagh at its head. The "plan ofcampaign" of this Corporation is to take over from the landlordsderelict lands and cultivate them, stocking them where that isnecessary. 

It is in this way that the derelict lands on the Ponsonby property atYoughal are now worked. But Mr. Kavanagh tells me that the men employedby the Corporation, of whom Father Keller spoke as a set of desperadoesor "_enfants perdus_, " are really a body of resolute and capable workingmen farmers. Many, but by no means all of them, are Protestants andUlstermen; and that they are up to their work would seem to be shown bythe fact stated to me, that in no case so far have any of them beendeterred and driven off from the holdings confided to them. A great partof the Luggacurren property of Lord Lansdowne is now worked by theCorporation; and Mr. Kavanagh was kind enough to let me see theaccounts, which indicate a good business result for the current year onthat property. This is all very interesting. But what a picture itpresents of social demoralisation! And what is to be the end of it all?Can a country be called civilised in which a farmer with a family tomaintain, having the capital and the experience necessary to managesuccessfully a small farm, is absolutely forbidden, on pain of socialostracism, and eventually on pain of death, by a conspiracy of hisneighbours, to take that farm of its lawful owner at what he considersto be a fair rent? And how long can any civilisation of our complexmodern type endure in a country in which such a state of thingstolerated by the alleged Government of that country has to be met, andmore or less partially mitigated, by deviating to the cultivation offarms rendered in this way derelict large amounts of capital which mightbe, and ought to be, far more profitably employed in other ways?

Mr. Kavanagh, after serving the office of High Sheriff thirty years ago, first for Kilkenny, and then for Carlow, sat in Parliament for fourteenyears, from 1866 to 1880, as an Irish county member. He has a very largeproperty here in Carlow, and property also in Wexford, and in Kilkenny, and was sworn into the Privy Council two years ago. If the personalinterests and the family traditions of any man alive can be said to berooted in the Irish soil, this is certainly true of his interests andhis traditions. How can the peace and prosperity of Ireland be served bya state of things which condemns an Irishman of such ties and suchtraining to expend his energies and his ability in defending theelementary right of Paddy O'Rourke to take stock and work a ten-acrefarm on terms that suit himself and his landlord?

In the afternoon we took a delightful walk through the woods, Mr. Kavanagh going with us on horseback. Every hill and clump of trees onthis large domain he knows, and he led us like a master of woodcraftthrough all manner of leafy byways to the finest points of view. TheBarrow flows past Borris, making pictures at every turn, and the bankson both sides are densely and beautifully wooded. We came in one placeupon a sawmill at work in the forest, and Mr. Kavanagh showed us withpride the piles of excellent timber which he turns out here. But he tooka greater pride in a group, sacred from the axe, of really magnificentScotch firs, such as I had certainly not expected to find in Ireland. Nearer the mansion are some remarkable Irish yews. The gardens are ofall sorts and very extensive, but we found the head-gardener bitterlylamenting the destruction by a fire in one of the conservatories of morethan six thousand plants just prepared for setting out. 

There are many curious old books and papers here, and a student of earlyIrish history might find matter to keep him well employed for a longtime in this region. It was from this region and the race which ruledit, of which race Mr. Kavanagh is the actual representative, that theinitiative came of the first Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland. Strongbowmade what, from the Anglo-Norman point of view, was a perfectlylegitimate bargain, with a dispossessed prince to help him to therecovery of his rights on the understanding that these rights, whenrecovered, should pass in succession to himself through the onlydaughter of the prince, whom he proposed to marry. It does not appearthat Strongbow knew, or that Dermot MacMorrogh cared to tell him, howutterly unlike the rights of an Anglo-Norman prince were those of theelective life-tenant of an Irish principality. FitzStephen, the son byher second marriage of Nesta, the Welsh royal mistress of HenryBeauclerk, and his cousin, Maurice Fitzgerald, the leaders into Irelandof the Geraldines, were no more clear in their minds about this thanStrongbow, and it is to the original muddle thus created that ProfessorRichey doubtless rightly refers the worst and most troublesomecomplications of the land question in Ireland. The distinction betweenthe King's lieges and the "mere Irish, " for example, is unquestionably alegal distinction, though it is continually and most mischievously usedas if it were a proof of the race-hatred borne by the Normans and Saxonsin Ireland from the first against the Celts. The O'Briens, the O'Neills, the O'Mullaghlins, the O'Connors, and the M'Morroghs, "the five bloods, "as they are called, were certainly Celts, but whether in virtue of theirbeing, or claiming to be, the royal races respectively of Minister, ofUlster, of Meath, of Connaught, and of Leinster, or from whatever otherreason, these races were "within the king's law, " and were never "mereIrish" from the first planting of the Anglo-Norman power in Ireland. Thecase of a priest, Shan O'Kerry, "an Irish enemy of the king, " presented"contrary to the form of statute" to the vicarage of Lusk, in the reignof Edward IV. (1465), illustrates this. An Act of Parliament was passedto declare the aforesaid "Shan O'Kerry, " or "John of Kevernon, " to be"English born, and of English nation, " and that he might "hold and enjoythe said benefice. "

There is a genealogy here of the M'Morroghs and Kavanaghs, mostgorgeously and elaborately gotten up many years ago for Mr. Kavanagh'sgrandfather, which shows how soon the Norman and the native strains ofblood become commingled. When one remembers how much Norman blood musthave gone even into far-off Connaught when King John, in the early partof the thirteenth century, coolly gave away that realm of the O'Connorsto the De Burgos, and how continually the English of the Pale fled fromthe exactions inflicted upon them by their own people, and sought refuge"among the savage and mere Irish, " one cannot help thinking that the"Race Question" has been "worked for at least all it is worth" byphilosophers bent on unravelling the 'snarl' of Irish affairs. If thisgenealogy may be trusted, there was little to choose between the ageswhich immediately preceded and the ages which followed the Anglo-Normaninvasion in the matter of respect for human life. Celtic chiefs andNorman knights "died in their boots" as regularly as frontiersmen inTexas. One personage is designated in the genealogy as "the murderer, "for the truly Hibernian reason, so far as appears, that he was himselfmurdered while quite a youth, and before he had had a chance to murdermore than three or four of his immediate relatives. It was as if the sonof Geoffrey Plantagenet and the Lady Constance should be branded inhistory as "Arthur, the Assassin. "

BORRIS, _March 4th. _--This is a staunch Protestant house, and Mr. Kavanagh himself reads a Protestant service every morning. But there islittle or nothing apparently in this part of Ireland of the bitterfeeling about and against the Catholics which exists in the North. Avery lively and pleasant Catholic gentleman came in to-day informallyand joined the house party at luncheon. We all walked out over theproperty afterwards, visiting quite a different region from that whichwe saw yesterday--different but equally beautiful and striking, and thisCatholic gentleman cited several cases which had fallen within his ownknowledge of priests who begin to feel their moral control of the peopleslipping away from them through the operation of the "Plan of Campaign. "I told him what I had heard in regard to one such priest from myecclesiastical friend in Cork. "It does not surprise me at all, " hesaid, "and, indeed, I not very long ago read precisely such anotherletter from a priest in a somewhat similar position. I read it with painand shame as a Catholic, " he continued, "for it was simply a completeadmission that the priest, although entirely convinced that hisparishioners were making most unfair demands upon their landlord to whomthe letter was addressed, felt himself entirely powerless to bring themto a sense of their misconduct. " "Had this priest given in his adhesionto the Plan of Campaign?" I asked. "Yes, " was the reply, "and it wasthis fact which had broken his hold on the people when he tried to bringthem to abandon their attitude under the Plan. His letter was reallynothing more nor less than an appeal to the landlord, and that landlorda Protestant, to help him to get out of the hole into which he had puthimself. "

Of the tenants and their relation to the village despots who administerthe Plan of Campaign, this gentleman had many stories also to tell ofthe same tenor with all that I have hitherto heard on this subject. Everywhere it is the same thing. The well-to-do and well-disposedtenants are coerced by the thriftless and shiftless. "I have theagencies of several properties, " he said, "and in some of the best partsof Ireland. I have had little or no trouble on any of them, for I haveone uniform method. I treat every tenant as if he were the only man Ihad to deal with, study his personal ways and character, humour him, andget him on my side against himself. You can always do this with anIrishman if you will take the trouble to do it. Within the past years Ihave had tenants come and tell me they were in fear the Plan of Campaignwould be brought upon them, just as if it were a kind of potato disease, and beg me to agree to take the rent from them in that case, and justnot discover on them that they had paid it before it was due!"

This gentleman is a pessimist as to the future. "I am a youngish manstill, " he said, "and a single man, and I am glad of it. I don't believethe English will ever learn how to govern this country, and I am sure itcan never govern itself. Would your people make a State of it?"

To this I replied that with Cuba and Canada and Mexico, all still to bedigested and assimilated, I thought the deglutition of Ireland by thegreat Republic must be remitted to a future much too remote to interesteither of us. 

"I suppose so, " he said in a humorously despondent tone; "and so I seenothing for people who think as I do, but Australia or New Zealand!"

Mr. Kavanagh sees the future, I think, in colouring not quite so dark. As a public man, familiar for years with the method and ways of BritishParliaments, he seems to regard the possible future legislation ofWestminster with more anxiety and alarm than the past or presentagitations in Ireland. The business of banishing political economy toJupiter and Saturn, however delightful it may be to the people who makelaws, is a dangerous one to the people for whom the laws are made. Whilehe has very positive opinions as to the wisdom of the concession made inthe successive Land Acts for Ireland, which have been passed since 1870, he is much less disquieted, I think, by those concessions, than by thespirit by which the legislation granting them has been guided. He thinksgreat good has been already done by Mr. Balfour, and that much more goodwill be done by him if the Irish people are made to feel that clamorousresistance to the law will no longer be regarded at Westminster as asufficient reason for changing the law. That is as much as to say thatparty spirit in Great Britain is the chief peril of Ireland to-day. Andhow can any Irishman, no matter what his state in his own country maybe, or his knowledge of Irish affairs, or his patriotic earnestness anddesire for Irish prosperity, hope to control the tides of party spiritin England or Scotland?

Of the influence upon the people in Ireland of the spirit of recentlegislation for Ireland, the story of the troubles on the O'Gradyestate, as Mr. Kavanagh tells it to me, is a most striking illustration. "The O'Grady of Kilballyowen, " as his title shows, is the directrepresentative, not of any Norman invader, but of an ancient Irish race. The O'Gradys were the heads of a sept of the "mere Irish"; and if therebe such a thing--past, present, or future--as an "Irish nation, " theplace of the O'Gradys in that nation ought to be assumed. Mr. Thomas DeCourcy O'Grady, who now wears the historic designation, owns and liveson an estate of a little more than 1000 acres, in the Golden Vein ofIreland, at Killmallock, in the county of Limerick. The land isexcellent, and for the last half-century certainly it has been let tothe tenants at rents which must be considered fair, since they havenever been raised. In 1845, two years before the great famine, therental was £2142. This rental was paid throughout the famine yearswithout difficulty; and in 1881 the rental stood at £2108. 

There has never been an eviction on the estate until last year, when sixtenants were evicted. All of these lived in good comfortable houses, andwere prosperous dairy-farmers. Why were they evicted?

In October 1886, during the candidacy at New York of the Land Reformer, Mr. George, Mr. Dillon, M. P. , propounded the "Plan of Campaign" atPortumna in Galway. The March rents being then due on the estate of TheO'Grady in Limerick, his agent, Mr. Shine, was directed to continue theabatements of 15 per cent, on the judicial rents, and of 25 per cent, onall other rents, which had been cheerfully accepted in 1885. But therewas a priest at Kilballyowen, Father Ryan, who wrought upon the tenantsuntil they demanded a general abatement of 40 per cent. This beingrefused, they asked for 30 per cent. On the judicial rents, and 40 percent. On the others. This also being refused, Father Ryan had his way, and the "Plan of Campaign" was adopted. The O'Grady's writs issuedagainst several of the tenants were met by a "Plan of Campaign" auctionof cattle at Herbertstown in December 1886, the returns of which werepaid into "the Fund. " For this, one of the tenants, Thomas Moroney, whoheld, besides a a farm of 37 Irish acres, a "public, " and five smallhouses, at Herbertstown, and the right to the tolls on cattle at theHerbertstown farm, valued at from £50 to £60 a year, and who held allthese at a yearly rent of £85, was proceeded against. Judge Boydpronounced him a bankrupt. 

In the spring of 1887, after The O'Grady had been put to great costs andtrouble, the tenants made a move. They offered to accept a generalabatement of 17-1/2 per cent. , "The O'Grady to pay all the costs. "

Here is the same story again of the small solicitors behind the "Plan ofCampaign" promoting the strife, and counting on the landlords to defraythe charges of battle!

The O'Grady responded with the following circular:--

 KlLLBALLYOWEN, BRUFF, CO. LlMERICK, _13th August 1877_. 

 To my Tenants on Kilballyowen and Herbertstown Estate, Co. Limerick. 

 MY FRIENDS, --Pending the evictions by the Sheriff on my estate, caused by your refusal to pay judicial rents on offers of liberal abatements, I desire to remind you of the following facts:--

 I am a resident landlord; my ancestors have dwelt amongst you for over 400 years; every tenant is personally known to me, and the most friendly relations have always existed between us. 

 I am not aware of there ever having been an eviction by the Sheriff on my estate. 

 Farming myself over 400 acres, and my late agent (Mr. Shine), a tenant farmer living within four miles of my property, I have every opportunity of realising and knowing your wants. 

 On the passing of the Land Act of 1881, I desired you to have any benefit it could afford you, and as you nearly all held under lease--which precluded you from going into court--I intimated to you my wish, and offered you to allow your lands to be valued at my expense, or to let you go into court and get your rents fixed by the sub-commissioners. 

 You elected to have a valuation made, and Mr. Edmond Moroney was agreed on as a land-valuer, possessing the confidence of tenants and landlord. 

 I may mention, up to then I had not known Mr. Moroney personally. 

 In 1883 Mr. Moroney valued your holdings, and, as a result, his valuation was accepted (except in three or four cases), and judicial agreements signed by you, at rents ascertained by Mr. Moroney's valuation. 

 The late Patrick Hogan objected to Mr. Moroney's valuation of his farm, and went into court, and had his rent fixed by the County Court Judge. 

 Thomas Moroney would not allow Mr. Edmond Moroney to value his holding, nor would he go into court, his reason no doubt being he should disclose the receipts of the amount of the tolls of the fairs. 

 The rents were subsequently paid on Mr. Moroney's valuation with punctuality. 

 In 1885, recognising the fall in prices of stock and produce, and at the request of my late agent, Mr. Shine, I directed him to allow you 15 per cent. On all judicial rents, or rents abated on Mr. Moroney's valuation, and 25 per cent. On all other rents, when you paid punctually and with thanks. 

 In October last, when calling in the March 1886 rents, at the instance of Mr. Shine, I agreed to continue the abatement of 15 per cent, and 25 per cent. , which, when intimated to you, were refused, and a meeting held, demanding an all-round abatement of 40 per cent. 

 This I considered unreasonable and unjust, and I refused to give it. 

 The Plan of Campaign was then most unjustly adopted on the estate, and you refused to pay your rents. 

 Thomas Moroney was elected as a test case to try the legality of the sale and removal of your property to avoid payment of your rent. His tenancy was a mixed holding of house property in the village of Herbertstown, the tolls of the fairs, and 37 acres of land, at a rent of £85, and a Poor-Law valuation of £73, 5s. , made as follows:--

 Land valued at £42 5 0 Tolls of fair at 17 0 0 Public house and yard at 11 0 0 Five small houses and forge at 3 0 0 -------- £73 5 0

 I always was led to believe the tolls of the fair averaged from £50 to £60 a year, there being four fairs in the year; and I believe his reason for refusing to allow Mr. E. Moroney to value his holding, or to go into court, was that he should disclose the amount of the tolls, and in consequence I never considered he was entitled to any abatement; but still I gave it to him, and was prepared to do so. The result of his case was that his conduct in making away with his property was unjustifiable, and his farm and holding was sold out for the benefit of his creditors, and he is no longer a tenant on the estate. 

 I subsequently took proceedings against six other tenants, who refused payment of rent, and removed their cattle off the land to avoid payment, and having got judgment against them, the Sheriff sold out four of their farms, and writs of possession on the title were taken out against them, and are now lodged with the Sheriff for execution. I have also got judgments for possession against two other tenants for non-payment of rent, also lodged with the Sheriff. One the widow of Patrick Hogan, who got his rent fixed in the County Court, and the other Mrs. Denis Ryan, whose farm on her marriage I assented to be put in settlement for her protection, Mr. Shine, my agent, consenting to act as one of her trustees, whose name, with his co-trustee, Mr. Thomas FitzGerald, appear as defendants, they having signed her judicial agreement. 

 The following are the names of the above tenants, the extent of their holdings, the rent, the Poor-Law valuation, and the average rent per Irish acre:--

 +------------------+------------+-------------+---------+-----------+ | | Acreage in | Judicial | Rent | | | TENANT. | Irish | Rent Less 20| per | Poor Law | | | Measure. | per cent. | acre[A]| Valuation | +------------------+------------+-------------+---------+-----------+ | | A. R. P. | £ s. D. | | £ s. D. | |John Carroll, | 87 3 38 | 132 4 0 | 30/- | 127 10 0 | |Honora Crimmins, | 35 0 27 | 64 5 6 | 36/6 | 52 15 0 | |James Baggott, | 18 0 0 | 37 16 10 | 42/- | 22 5 0 | |Margaret Moloney, | 23 2 9 | 46 2 8 | 39/2 | 44 15 0 | |Mrs. Denis Ryan, | 66 2 3 | 93 2 5 | 28/- | 96 0 0 | |Maryanne Hogan, | 53 2 33 | 112 0 0 | 41/8 | 117 15 0 | | +------------+-------------+---------+-----------+ | | 294 3 30 | 485 11 5 | ... | 461 0 0 | +------------------+------------+-------------+---------+-----------+

 [A] Rent per Irish acre after abatement of 20 per cent. 

 This represents an average of 34s. The Irish acre, for some of the best land in Ireland, and shows a difference of only £24, 11s. 5d. Between the rent, less 20 per cent. Now offered, and Poor-Law valuation. 

 After putting me to the cost of these proceedings, and giving me every opposition and annoyance, amongst such, compelling my agent (by threats of boycotting) to resign, boycotting myself and household, preventing my servants from attending chapel, and driving my labourers away, negotiations for a settlement were opened, and you offered to accept an all-round abatement of 17-1/2 per cent. And to pay up one year's rent, provided I paid all costs, including the costs in Moroney's case; this of course I refused, but with a desire to aid you in coming to a settlement, and to prevent the loss to the tenants of the farms under eviction on the Title, I offered to allow the 17-1/2 per cent. All round on payment of one year's rent and costs, and to give time for payment of the costs as stated in my Solicitor's letter of the 2d June 1887 to Canon Scully. 

 This offer was refused, and the writs for possession have been lodged with the Sheriff. 

 I never commenced these proceedings in a vindictive spirit, or with any desire to punish any of you for your ungracious conduct, but simply to protect my property from unjust and unreasonable demands. 

 You will owe two years' rent next month (September), and I now write you this circular letter to point out to each, individually, the position of the tenants under eviction, and even at this late hour to give them an opportunity of saving their holdings, to enable them to do so, and with a view to settlement, I am now prepared to allow 20 per cent. All round, on payment of a year's rent and costs. 

 Under no circumstance will I forego payment of costs, as they must be paid in full. 

 If this money be paid forthwith, I will arrange with my brother, the purchaser, to restore the four holdings purchased by him at sheriff's sale to the late tenants. 

 After this offer I disclaim any responsibility for the result of the evictions, and the loss attendant thereon, as it now remains with you to avert same. 

All the evictions have since been carried out, and the Land Corporationmen are at work upon the estate! Whom has all this advantaged? Thetenants?--Certainly not. The O'Grady?--Certainly not. The peace andorder of Ireland?--Certainly not. But it has given the National Leagueanother appeal to the intelligent "sympathies" of England and America. It has strengthened the revolutionary element in Irish society. It has"driven another nail into the coffin" of Irish landlordism and of theprivate ownership of land throughout Great Britain. 

Such at least is the opinion of Mr. Kavanagh. If I were an Englishman ora Scotchman, I should be strongly inclined to take very serious accountof this opinion in forecasting the future of landed property in Englandor Scotland. 

CHAPTER XII. 

GREENANE HOUSE, THOMASTOWN, _March 5th. _--The breakfast-room at Borristhis morning was gay with pink coats. A meet was to come off at a placebetween Borris and Thomastown, and bidding fare-well to my cordial hostand hostess, I set out at 11 o'clock for a flying visit to this quaintand charming house of Mr. Seigne, one of the best known and most highlyesteemed agents in this part of Ireland. 

My jarvey from Borris had an unusually neat and well-balanced car. WhenI praised it he told me it was "built by an American, " not an IrishAmerican, I understood him to say, but a genuine Yankee, who, for somemysterious reason, has established himself in this region, where he hasprospered as a cart and car builder ever since. "Just the best cars inall Ireland he builds, your honour!" Why don't he naturalise them inAmerica?

All the way was charming, the day very bright, and even warm, and thehill scenery picturesque at every turn. We looked out sharply for thehunt, but in vain. My jarvey, who knew the whole country, said they musthave broken cover somewhere on the upper road, and we should miss thementirely. And so we did. 

The silting up of the river Nore has reduced Thomastown orBallymacanton, which was its Irish name, from its former importance asan emporium for the country about Kilkenny. The river now is notnavigable above Inistiogue. But two martial square towers, one at eitherend of a fine bridge which spans the stream here, speak of the good oldtimes when the masters of Thomastown took toll and tribute of tradersand travellers. The lands about the place then belonged to the greatmonastery of Jerpoint, the ruins of which are still the most interestingof their kind in this part of Ireland. They have long made a part of theestate of the Butlers. We rattled rapidly through the quiet little town, and whisking out of a small public square into a sort of wynd betweentwo houses, suddenly found ourselves in the precincts of Grenane House. The house takes its name from the old castle of Grenane, an Irishfortress established here by some native despot long before ThomasFitz-Anthony the Norman came into the land. The ruins of this castlestill stand some half a mile away. "We call the place Candahar, " saidMr. Seigne, as he came up with two ladies from the meadows below thehouse, "because you come into it so suddenly, just as you do into thatOriental town. " But what a charming occidental place it is! It standswell above the river, the slope adorned with many fine old trees, someof which grow, and grow prosperously, in the queerest and mostimprobable forms, bent double, twisted, but still most green andvigorous. They have no business under any known theory of arboricultureto be beautiful, but beautiful they are. The views of the bridge, of thetowers, and of the river, from this slope would make the fortune of theplace in a land of peace and order. 

A most original and delightful lady of the country lunched withus, --such a character as Miss Edgeworth or Miss Austen might have drawn. Shrewd, humorous, sensible, fearless, and ready with impartial hand tobox the ears alike of Trojan and of Tyrian. She not only sees both sidesof the question in Ireland as between the landlords and the tenants, buttakes both sides of the question. She holds lands by inheritance, whichmake her keenly alive to the wrongs of the landlords, and she holdsfarms as a tenant, which make her implacably critical as to theirclaims. She mercilessly demolished in one capacity whatever she advancedin the other, and all with the most perfect nonchalance and good faith. This curiously dual attitude reminded me of the confederate General, Braxton Bragg, of whom his comrades in the old army of the United Statesused to say that he once had a very sharp official correspondence withhimself. He happened to hold a staff appointment, being also a lineofficer. So in his quality of a staff officer, he found fault withhimself in his capacity as a line officer, reprimanded himself sharply, replied defiantly to the reprimand, and eventually reported himself tohimself for discipline at head-quarters. She told an excellent story ofa near kinsman of hers who, holding a very good living in the ProtestantIrish Church, came rather unexpectedly by inheritance into a baronetcy, upon which his women-folk insisted that it would be derogatory to abaronet to be a parson. "Would you believe it, the poor man was sillyenough to listen to their cackle, and resign seven hundred a year!"

"That didn't clear him, " I said, "of the cloth, did it?"

"Not a bit, of course, poor foolish man. He was just as much a parson asever, only without a parsonage. Men are fools enough of themselves, don't you think, without needing to listen to women?"

Mr. Seigne comes of a French Protestant stock long ago planted inIreland, and his Gallic blood doubtless helps him to handle thepractical problems daily submitted in these days to an Irishland-agent--problems very different, as he thinks, from those with whichan Irish agent had to deal in the days before 1870. The Irish tenant hasa vantage-ground now in his relations with his landlord which he neverhad in the olden time, and this makes it more important than it ever wasthat the agent should have what may be called a diplomatic taste fortreating with individuals, finding out the bent of mind of this man andof that, and negotiating over particulars, instead of insisting, in theEnglish fashion, on general rules, without regard to special cases. Ihave met no one who has seemed to me so cool and precise as Mr. Seignein his study of the phenomena of the present situation. I asked himwhether he could now say, as Mr. Senior did a quarter of century ago, that the Irish tenants were less improvident, and more averse fromrunning into debt than the English. 

"I think not, " he replied; "on the contrary, in some parts of Irelandnow the shopkeepers are kept on the verge of bankruptcy by therecklessness with which the tenants incurred debts immediately after thepassing of the Land Act of 1870--a time when shopkeepers, and bankersalso, almost forced credit upon the farmers, and made thereby 'baddebts' innumerable. Farmers rarely keep anything like an account oftheir receipts and expenses. I know only one tenant-farmer in thisneighbourhood who keeps what can be called an account, showing what hetakes from his labour and spends on his living. "[20] "They save a greatdeal of money often, " he says, "but almost never in any systematic way. They spend much less on clothes and furniture, and the outward show ofthings, than English people of the same condition do, and they do notstint themselves in meat and drink as the French peasants do. In fact, under the operation of existing circumstances, they are getting into theway of improving their condition, not so much by sacrifices and savings, as by an insistence on rent being fixed low enough to leave full marginfor improved living. "

"I had a very frank statement on this point, " said Mr. Seigne, "not longago from a Tipperary man. When I tried to show him that his father hadpaid a good many years ago the very same rent which he declares himselfunable to pay now, he admitted this at once. But it was a confession andavoidance. 'My father could pay the rent, and did pay the rent, ' hesaid, 'because he was content to live so that he could pay it. He sat ona boss of straw, and ate out of a bowl. He lived in a way in which Idon't intend to live, and so he could pay the rent. Now, I must have, and I mean to have, out of the land, before I pay the rent, the means ofliving as I wish to live; and if I can't have it, I'll sell out and goaway; but I'll be--if I don't fight before I do that same!'"

"What could you reply to that?" I asked. 

"Oh, " I said, "'that's square and straightforward. Only just let me knowthe point at which you mean to fight, and then we'll see if we can agreeabout something. '"

"The truth is, " said Mr. Seigne, "that there is a pressure upward nowfrom below. The labourers don't want to live any longer as the farmershave always made them live; and so the farmers, having to consider thegrowing demands of the labourers, and meaning to live better themselves, push up against the landlord, and insist that the means of theimprovement shall come out of him. "

He then told me an instructive story of his calling upon atenant-farmer, at whose place he found the labourers sitting about theirmeal of pork and green vegetables. The farmer asked him into anotherroom, where he saw the farmer's family making their meal of stiraboutand milk and potatoes. 

"I asked you in here, " said the farmer, "because we keep in here toourselves. I don't want those fellows to see that we can't afford togive ourselves what we have to give them, "--this with strong languageindicating that he must himself be given a way to advance equally withthe progressive labourer, or he would know the reason why!

This afternoon Mr. Seigne drove me over through a beautiful country toWoodstock, near Inistiogue, the seat of the late Colonel Tighe, the headof the family of which the authoress of "Psyche" was an ornament. 

It is the finest place in this part of Ireland, and one of the finest Ihave seen in the three kingdoms, a much more picturesque and more noblyplanted place indeed than its namesake in England. The mansion has noarchitectural pretensions, being simply a very large and, I shouldthink, extremely comfortable house of the beginning of this century. Thelibrary is very rich, and there are some good pictures, as well ascertain statues in the vestibule, which would have no interest for theWeissnichtwo professor of _Sartor Resartus_, but are regarded with someawe by the good people of Inistiogue. 

The park would do no discredit to a palace, and if the vague project ofestablishing a royal residence in Ireland for one of the British Princesshould ever take shape, it would not be easy, I should say, to find ademesne more befitting the home of a prince than this of the Tighes. Atpresent it serves the State at least as usefully, being the "pleasaunce"of the people for miles around, who come here freely to walk and drive. 

It stretches for miles along the Nore, and is crowned by a gloriouslywooded hill nearly a thousand feet in height. The late Colonel Tighe, amost accomplished man, and a passionate lover of trees, made it a kindof private Kew Gardens. He planted long avenues of the rarest and finesttrees, araucarias, Scotch firs, oaks, beeches, cedars of Lebanon; laidout miles of the most varied and delightful drives, and built the mostextensive conservatories in Ireland. 

The turfed and terraced walks among those conservatories areindescribably lovely, and the whole place to-day was vocal withinnumerable birds. Picturesque little cottages and arbours are to befound in unexpected nooks all through the woodlands, each commandingsome green vista of forest aisles, or some wide view of hill andchampaign, enlivened by the winding river. From one of those to-day welooked out over a landscape to which Turner alone or Claude could havedone justice, the river, spanned by a fine bridge, in the middledistance, and all the region wooded as in the days of which EdmundSpenser sings, when Ireland

 "Flourished in fame, Of wealth and goodnesse far above the rest Of all that bears the British Islands' name. "

Over the whole place broods an indefinable charm. You feel that this wasthe home at once and the work of a refined and thoughtful spirit. And soindeed it was. Here for the greater part of the current century theowner lived, making the development of the estate and of this demesnehis constant care and chief pleasure. And here still lives his widow, with whom we took tea in a stately quiet drawing-room. Lady Louisa Tighewas in Brussels with her mother, the Duchess of Richmond, on the eve ofWaterloo. She was a child then of ten years old, and her mother badethem bring her down into the historic ball-room before the Duke ofWellington left it. The duke took up his sword. "Let Louisa buckle itfor you, " said her mother, and when the little girl had girded it on, the great captain stooped, took her up in his arms, and kissed her. "Onenever knows what may happen, child, " he said good-naturedly; and takinghis small gold watch out of his fob, he bade her keep it for him. 

She keeps it still. For more than sixty years it has measured out inthis beautiful Irish home the hours of a life given to good works andgracious usefulness. To-day, with all the vivacity of interest in thepeople and the place which one might look for in a woman of twenty, thischarming old lady of eighty-three, showing barely threescore years inher carriage, her countenance, and her voice, entertained us with minuteand most interesting accounts of the local industries which flourishhere mainly through her sympathetic and intelligent supervision. Weseemed to be in another world from the Ireland of Chicago orWestminster!

Mr. Seigne drove me back here by a most picturesque road leading alongthe banks of the Nore, quite overhung with trees, which in places diptheir branches almost into the swift deep stream. "This is the favouritedrive of all the lovers hereabouts, " he said, "and there is a spice ofdanger in it which makes it more romantic. Once, not very long ago, acouple of young people, too absorbed in their love-making to watch theirhorse, drove off the bank. Luckily for them they fell into the branchesof one of these overhanging trees, while the horse and car went plunginginto the water. There they swung, holding each other hand in hand, making a pretty and pathetic tableau, till their cries brought someanglers in a boat on the river to the rescue. "

We spoke of Lady Louisa, and of the watch of Waterloo. "That watch had awonderful escape a few years ago, " said Mr. Seigne. 

Lady Louisa, it seems, had a confidential butler whom she mostimplicitly trusted. One day it was found that a burglary had apparentlybeen committed at Woodstock, and that with a quantity of jewelry thepriceless watch had vanished. The butler was very active about thematter, and as no trace could be found leading out of the house, heintimated a suspicion that the affair might possibly have someconnection with a guest not long before at the house. This angered LadyLouisa, who thereupon consulted the agent, who employed a capabledetective from Dublin. The detective came down to Inistiogue as acommercial traveller, wandered about, made the acquaintance of LadyLouisa's maid, of the butler, and of other people about the house, andformed his own conclusions. Two or three days after his arrival hewalked into the shop of a small jeweller in a neighbouring town, andaffecting a confidential manner, told the jeweller he wanted to buy"some of those things from Woodstock. " The man was taken by surprise, and going into a backshop produced one very fine diamond, and a numberof pieces of silver plate, of the disappearance of which the butler hadsaid nothing to his mistress. This led to the arrest of the butler, andto the discovery that for a long time he had been purloining propertyfrom the house and selling it. Many cases of excellent claret had foundtheir way in this fashion to a public-house which had acquired quite areputation for its Bordeaux with the officers quartered in itsneighbourhood. The wine-bins at Woodstock were found full of bottles ofwater. Much of the capital port left by Colonel Tighe had gone--but thehock was untouched. "Probably the butler didn't care for hock, " said Mr. Seigne. The Waterloo watch was recovered from a very decent fellow, atravelling dealer, to whom it had been sold: and many pieces of jewelrywere traced up to London. But Lady Louisa could not be induced to go upto London to identify them or testify. 

DUBLIN, _Tuesday, March 6. _--It is a curious fact, which I learnedto-day from the Registrar-General, that the deposits in the Post-officeSavings Banks have never diminished in Ireland since these banks wereestablished. [21] These deposits are chiefly made, I understand, by thesmall tenants, who are less represented by the deposits in the GeneralSavings Banks than are the shopkeepers and the cattle-drovers. In theGeneral Savings Banks the deposit line fluctuates more; though on thewhole there has been a steady increase in these deposits also throughoutIreland. 

Of the details of the dealings of the private banks it is very hard toget an accurate account. One gentleman, the manager of a branch of oneimportant bank, tells me that a great deal of money is made by usurersout of the tenants, by backing their small bills. This practice goesback to the first establishment of banks in Ireland. Formerly it was notan uncommon thing for a landlord to offer his tenants a reduction, say, of twenty per cent. , on condition of their paying the rent when it felldue. Such were the relations then between landlord and tenants, and solittle was punctuality expected in such payments that this might beregarded as a sort of discount arrangement. The tenant who wished toavail himself of such an offer would go to some friendly local usurerand ask for a loan that he might avail himself of it. "One of theseusurers, whom I knew very well, " said the manager, "told me long agothat he found these operations very profitable. His method of procedurewas to agree to advance the rent to the tenant at ten per cent. , payableat a near and certain date. This would reduce the landlord's reductionat once, of course, for the tenant, to ten per cent. , but that was notto be disdained; and so the bargain would be struck. If the money wasrepaid at the fixed date, it was not a bad thing for the usurer. But itwas almost never so repaid; and with repeated renewals the usurer, byhis own showing, used to receive eventually twenty, fifty, and, in somecases, nearly a hundred per cent, for his loan. "

It is the opinion of this gentleman that, under the "Plan of Campaign, "a good deal of money-making is done in a quiet way by some of the"trustees, " who turn over at good interest, with the help of friendlyfinanciers, the funds lodged with them, being held to account to thetenants only for the principal. "Of course, " he said, "all this isdoubtless at least as legitimate as any other part of the 'Plan, ' and Idaresay it all goes for 'the good of the cause. ' But neither the tenantsnor the landlords get much by it!"

CHAPTER XIII. 

DUBLIN, _Thursday, March 8. _--At eight o'clock this morning I left theHarcourt Street station for Inch, to take a look at the scene of theCoolgreany evictions of last summer. These evictions came of theadoption of the Plan of Campaign, under the direction of Mr. Dillon, M. P. , on the Wexford property of Mr. George Brooke of Dublin. The agentof Mr. Brooke's estate, Captain Hamilton, is the honorary director ofthe Property Defence Association, so that we have here obviously agrapple between the National League doing the work, consciously orunconsciously, of the agrarian revolutionists, and a combination oflanded proprietors fighting for the rights of property as theyunderstand them. 

We ran through a beautiful country for the greater part of the way. AtBray, which is a favourite Irish watering-place, the sea broke upon usbright and full of life; and the station itself was more like aconsiderable English station than any I have seen. Thence we passed intoa richly-wooded region, with neat, well-kept hedges, as far as Rathdrumand the "Sweet Vale of Avoca. " The hills about Shillelagh areparticularly well forested, though, as the name suggests, they must havebeen cut for cudgels pretty extensively for now a great many years. Wecame again on the sea at the fishing port of Arklow, where the stonewalls about the station were populous with small ragamuffins, and at thestation of Inch I found a car waiting for me with Mr. Holmes, a youngEnglish Catholic officer, who had most obligingly offered to show me theplace and the people. We had hardly got into the roadway when weovertook a most intelligent-looking, energetic young priest, walkingbriskly on in the direction of our course. This was Dr. Dillon, thecurate of Arklow. We pulled up at once, and Mr. Holmes, introducing meto him, we begged him to take a seat with us. He excused himself ashaving to join another priest with whom he was going to a function atInch; but he was good enough to walk a little way with us, and gave mean appointment for 2 P. M. At his own town of Arklow, where I could catchthe train back to Dublin. We drove on rapidly and called on FatherO'Neill, the parish priest. We found him in full canonicals, as he wasto officiate at the function this morning, and with him were FatherDunphy, the parish priest of Arklow, and two or three more robedpriests. 

Father O'Neill, whose face and manner are those of the higher order ofthe continental clergy, briefly set forth to me his view of thetransactions at Coolgreany. He said that before the Plan of Campaign wasadopted by the tenants, Mr. William O'Brien, M. P. , had written to himexplaining what the effect of the Plan would be, and urging him to takewhatever steps he could to obviate the necessity of adopting it, as itmight eventually result to the disadvantage of the tenants. "To thatend, " said Father O'Neill, "I called upon Captain Hamilton, the agent, with Dr. Dillon of Arklow, but he positively refused to listen to us, and in fact ordered us, not very civilly, to leave his office. "

It was after this he said that he felt bound to let the tenants taketheir own way. Eighty of them joined in the "Plan of Campaign" and paidthe amount of the rent due, less a reduction of 30 per cent. , which theydemanded of the agent, into the hands of Sir Thomas Esmonde, M. P. , SirThomas being a resident in the country, and Mr. Mayne, M. P. Writs ofejectment were obtained against them afterwards, and in July lastsixty-seven of them were evicted, who are now living in "Laud Leaguehuts, " put up on the holdings of three small tenants who were exemptedfrom the Plan of Campaign, and allowed to pay their rents subject to asmaller reduction made by the agent, in order that they might retaintheir land as a refuge for the rest. 

All this Father O'Neill told us very quietly, in a gentle, undemonstrative way, but he was much interested when I told him I hadrecently come from Rome, where these proceedings, I was sure, wereexciting a good deal of serious attention. "Yes, " he said, "and FatherDunphy who is here in the other room, has just got back from Rome, wherehe had two audiences of the Holy Father. "

"Doubtless, then, " I said, "he will have given his Holiness fullparticulars of all that took place here. "

"No doubt, " responded Father O'Neill, "and he tells me the Holy Fatherlistened with great attention to all he had to say--though of course, heexpressed no opinion about it to Father Dunphy. "

As the time fixed for the function was at hand, we were obliged to leavewithout seeing Father Dunphy. 

From the Presbytery we drove to the scene of the evictions. Theseevictions were in July. Mr. Holmes witnessed them, and gave me a livelyaccount of the affair. The "battle" was not a very tough one. Mr. Davitt, who was present, stood under a tree very quietly watching itall. "He looked very picturesque, " said Mr. Holmes, "in a light greysuit, with a broad white beaver shading his dark Spanish face; andsmoked his cigar very composedly. " After it was over, Dr. Dillon broughtup one of the tenants, and presented him to Mr. Davitt as "the man whohad resisted this unjust eviction. " Mr. Davitt took his cigar from hislips, and in the hearing of all who stood about sarcastically said, "Well, if he couldn't make a better resistance than that he ought to goup for six months!" The first house we came upon was derelict--allbattered and despoiled, the people in the neighbourhood here, aselsewhere, regarding such houses as free spoil, and carrying off fromtime to time whatever they happen to fancy. Near this house we met anemergency man, named Bolton, an alert, energetic-looking native ofWicklow. He has four brothers; and is now at work on one of the"evicted" holdings. 

I asked if he was "boycotted, " and what his relations were with thepeople. 

He laughed in a shrewd, good-natured way. "Oh, I'm boycotted, ofcourse, " he said; "but I don't care a button for any of these people, and I'd rather they wouldn't speak to me. They know I can take care ofmyself, and they give me a good wide berth. All I have to object to isthat they set fire to an outhouse of mine, and cut the ears of one of myheifers, and for that I want damages. Otherwise I'm getting on verywell; and I think this will be a good year, if the law is enforced, andthese fellows are made to behave themselves. "

Near Bolton's farm we passed the holding of a tenant named Kavanagh, oneof the three who were "allowed" to pay their rents. Several Land Leaguehuts are on his place, and the evicted people who occupy them put theircattle with his. He is a quiet, cautious man, and very reticent. But itseemed to me that he was not entirely satisfied with the "squatters" whohave been quartered upon him. And it appears that he has taken anotherholding in Carlow. From his place we drove to Ballyfad, where a largehouse, at the end of a good avenue of trees, once the mansion of asquire, but now much dilapidated, is occupied as headquarters by thepolice. Here we found Mr. George Freeman, the bailiff of the Coolgreanyproperty, a strong, sturdy man, much disgusted at finding it necessaryto go about protected by two policemen. That this was necessary, however, he admitted, pointing out to us the place where one Kinsellawas killed not very long ago. The son of this man Kinsella was formerlyone of Mr. Brooke's gamekeepers, and is now, Mr. Freeman thinks, inconcert with another man named Ryan, the chief stay of the League inkeeping up its dominion over the evicted tenants. 

Many of these tenants, he believes, would gladly pay their rents now, and come back if they dared. 

"Every man, sir, " he said, "that has anything to lose, would be glad tocome back next Monday if he thought his life would be safe. But all thelazy and thriftless ones are better off now than they ever were; theyget from £4 to £6 a month, with nothing to do, and so they're in clover, and they naturally don't like to have the industrious, well-to-dotenants spoil their fun by making a general settlement. "

"Besides that, " he added, "that man Kinsella and his comrade Ryan arethe terror of the whole of them. Kinsella always was a curious, silent, moody fellow. He knows every inch of the country, going over it all thetime by night and day as a gamekeeper, and I am quite sure theParnellite men and the Land Leaguers are just as much afraid of him andRyan as the tenants are. He don't care a bit for them; and they've nocontrol of him at all. "

Mr. Freeman said he remembered very well the occasion referred to byFather O'Neill, when Captain Hamilton refused to confer with Dr. Dillonand himself. 

"Did Father O'Neill tell you, sir, " he said, "that Captain Hamilton wasquite willing to talk with him and Father O'Donel, the parish priests, and with the Coolgreany people, but he would have nothing to say to anyone who was not their priest, and had no business to be meddling withthe matter at all?"

"No; he did not tell me that. "

"Ah! well, sir, that made all the difference. Father Dunphy, who wasthere, is a high-tempered man, and he said he had just as much right torepresent the tenants as Captain Hamilton to represent the landlord, andthat Captain Hamilton wouldn't allow. It was the outside people made allthe trouble. In June of last year there was a conference at my house, and all that time there was a Committee sitting at Coolgreany, and thetenants would not be allowed to do anything without the Committee. "

"And who made the Committee?"

"Oh, they made themselves, I suppose, sir. There was Sir ThomasEsmonde--he was a convert, you know, of Father O'Neill--and Mr. Mayneand Mr. John Dillon. And Dr. Dillon of Arklow, he was as busy as hecould be till the evictions were made in July. And then he was inretreat. And I believe, sir, it is quite true that he wanted the Bishopto let him come out of the retreat just to have a hand in the business. "

The police sergeant, a very cool, sensible man, quite agreed with thebailiff as to the influence upon the present situation of theex-gamekeeper Kinsella, and his friend Eyan. "If they were twoInvincibles, sir, " he said, "these member fellows of the League couldn'tbe in greater fear of them than they are. They say nothing, and do justas they please. That Kinsella, when Mr. John Dillon was down here, justtold him before a lot of people that he 'wanted no words and no advicefrom him, ' and he's just in that surly way with all the people about. "

As to the Brooke estate, I am told here it was bought more than twentyyears ago with a Landed Estates Court title from Colonel Forde, by thegrandfather of Mr. Brooke. He paid about £75, 000 sterling for it. Hisson died young, and the present owner came into it as a child, Mr. Veseybeing then the agent, who, during the minority, spent a great deal onimproving the property. Captain Hamilton came in as agent only a fewyears ago. While the Act of 1881 was impending, an abatement was grantedof more than twenty per cent. In 1882 the tenants all paid excepteleven, who went into Court and got their rents cut down by theSub-Commissioners. There were appeals; and in 1885, after Courtvaluations, the rents cut down by the Sub-Commissioners were restored inseveral cases. There never was any rack-renting on the estate at all. There are upon it in all more than a hundred tenants, twelve of whom areProtestants, holding a little less in all than one-fourth of theproperty. 

There are fifteen judicial tenants, twenty-one lease-holders, andseventy-seven hold from year to year. 

The gross rental is a little over £2000 a year of which one-half goes toMr. Brooke's mother. Mr. Brooke himself is a wealthy man, at the head ofthe most important firm of wine-merchants in Ireland, and he hasrepeatedly spent on the property more than he took out of it. 

The house of Sir Thomas Esmonde, M. P. , was pointed out to me from theroad. "Sir Thomas is to marry an heiress, sir, isn't he, in America?"asked an ingenuous inquirer. I avowed my ignorance on this point. "Oh, well, they say so, for anyway the old house is being put in order fornow the first time in forty years. "

We reached Arklow in time for luncheon, and drove to the large policebarracks there. These were formerly the quarters of the troops. Arklowwas one of the earliest settlements of the Anglo-Normans in Irelandunder Henry II. , and once rejoiced in a castle and a monastery both nowobliterated; though a bit of an old tower here is said to have beenerected in his time. The town lives by fishing, and by shipping copperand lead ore to South Wales. The houses are rather neat and well kept;but the street was full of little ragged, merry mendicants. 

We went into a small branch of the Bank of Ireland, and asked where weshould find the hotel. We were very civilly directed to "The Register'sOffice over the way. " This seemed odd enough. But reaching it we werefurther puzzled to see the sign over the doorway of a "coach-builder"!However, we rang the bell, and presently a maid-servant appeared, whoassured us that this was really the hotel, and that we could have"whatever we liked" for luncheon. We liked what we found we couldget--chops, potatoes, and parsnips; and without too much delay thesewere neatly served to us in a most remarkable room, ablaze with muralornaments and decorations, upon which every imaginable pigment of themodern palette seemed to have been lavished, from a Nile-water-greendado to a scarlet and silver frieze. There were five times as manypotatoes served to us as two men could possibly eat, and not one of themwas half-boiled. But otherwise the meal was well enough, and the serviceexcellent. Beer could be got for us, but the house had no licence, LordCarysfort, the owner of the property, thinking, so our hostess said, that "there were too many licences in the town already. " Lord Carysfortis probably right; but it is not every owner of a house, or even of alease in Ireland, I fear, who would take such a view and act on it tothe detriment of his own property. 

Dr. Dillon lives in the main square of Arklow in a very neat house. Hewas absent at a funeral in the handsome Catholic church near by when wecalled, but we were shown into his study, and he presently came in. 

His study was that of a man of letters and of politics. Blue-books andstatistical works lay about in all directions, and on the table were theMarch numbers of the _Nineteenth Century_, and the _ContemporaryReview_. 

"You are abreast of the times, I see, " I said to him, pointing to theseperiodicals. 

"Yes, " he replied, "they have just come in; and there is a capital paperby Mr. John Morley in this _Nineteenth Century_. "

Nothing could be livelier than Dr. Dillon's interest in all that isgoing on on both sides of the Atlantic, more positive than his opinions, or more terse and clear than his way of putting them. He agreed entirelywith Father O'Neill as to the pressure put upon the Coolgreany tenants, not so much by Mr. Brooke as by the agent, Captain Hamilton; but hethought Mr. Brooke also to blame for his treatment of them. 

"Two of the most respectable of them, " said Dr. Dillon, "went to see Mr. Brooke in Dublin, and he wouldn't listen to them. On the contrary, heabsolutely put them out of his office without hearing a word they had tosay. "[22]

I found Dr. Dillon a strong disciple of Mr. Henry George, and a firmbeliever in the doctrine of the "nationalisation of the land. " "It iscertain to come, " he said, "as certain to come in Great Britain as inIreland, and the sooner the better. The movement about the seweragerates in London, " he added, "is the first symptom of the land war inLondon. It is the thin edge of the wedge to break down landlordism inthe British metropolis. "

He is watching American politics, too, very closely, and inclines tosympathise with President Cleveland. Archbishop Ryan of Philadelphia, hetells me, in his passage through Ireland the other day, did not hesitateto express his conviction that President Cleveland would be re-elected. 

Dr. Dillon was so earnest and so interesting that the time slipped byvery fast, until a casual glance at my watch showed me that we must makegreat haste to catch the Dublin train. 

We left therefore rather hurriedly, but before reaching the station wesaw the Dublin train go careering by, its white pennon of smoke andvapour curling away along the valley. 

I made the best of it, however, and letting Mr. Holmes depart by a trainwhich took him home, I found a smart jarvey with a car, and drove out toGlenart Castle, the beautiful house of the Earl of Carysfort. This is avery handsome modern house, built in a castellated style of a very goodwhitish grey marble, with extensive and extremely well-kept terracedgardens and conservatories. 

It stands very well on one high bank of the river, a residence of theEarl of Wicklow occupying the other bank. My jarvey called my attentionto the excellence of the roads, on which he said Lord Carysfort hasspent "a deal of money, " as well as upon the gardens of the new Castle. The head-gardener, an Englishman, told me he found the native labourersvery intelligent and willing both to learn and to work. Evidently hereis another centre of useful and civilising influences, not managed by an"absentee. "[23]

CHAPTER XIV. 

DUBLIN, _Friday, March 9th. _--At 7. 40 this morning I took the train forAthy to visit the Luggacurren estates of Lord Lansdowne. Mr. Lynch, aresident magistrate here, some time ago kindly offered to show me overthe place, but I thought it as well to take my chance with the people ofAthy who are reported to have been very hot over the whole matter here, and so wrote to Mr. Lynch that I would find him at the Lodge, which isthe headquarters of the property. 

Athy is a neat, well-built little town, famous of old as a frontierfortress of Kildare. An embattled tower, flanked by small squareturrets, guards a picturesque old bridge here over the Barrow, thebridge being known in the country as "Crom-a-boo, " from the old war-cryof the Fitz-Geralds. It is a busy place now; and there was quite abustle at the very pretty little station. I asked a friendly old porterwhich was the best hotel in the town. "The best? Ah! there's only one, and it's not the best--but there are worse--and it's Kavanagh's. " Ifound it easily enough, and was ushered by a civil man, who emerged fromthe shop which occupies part of it, into a sort of reading-room with agreen table. A rather slatternly but very active girl soon convertedthis into a neat breakfast-table, and gave me an excellent breakfast. The landlord found me a good car, and off I set for the residence ofFather Maher, the curate of whom I had heard as one of the most fieryand intractable of the National League priests in this part of Ireland. 

My jarvey was rather taciturn at first, but turned out to be somethingof a politician. He wanted Home Rule, one of his reasons being that thenthey "wouldn't let the Americans come and ruin them altogether, drivingout the grain from the markets. " About this he was very clear andpositive. "Oh, it doesn't matter now whether the land is good or bad, America has just ruined the farmers entirely. "

I told him I had always heard this achievement attributed to England. "Oh! that was quite a mistake! What the English did was to punish themen that stood up for Ireland. There was Mr. O'Brien. But for him therewasn't a man of Lord Lansdowne's people would have had the heart tostand up. He did it all; and now, what were they doing to him? They wereputting him on a cold plank-bed on a stone floor in a damp cell!"

"But the English put all their prisoners in those cells, don't they?" Iasked. 

"And what of it, sir?" he retorted. "They're good enough for most ofthem, but not for a gentleman like Mr. O'Brien, that would spill thelast drop of his heart's blood for Ireland!"

"But, " I said, "they're doing just the same thing with Mr. Gilhooly, Ihear. "

"And who is Mr. Gilhooly, now? And it's not for the likes of him tocomplain and be putting on airs as if he was Mr. O'Brien!"

"Yes, it is a fine country for hunting!"

"Was it ever put down here, the hunting?"

"No, indeed! Sure, the people wouldn't let it be!"

"Not if Mr. O'Brien told them they must?" I queried. 

"Mr. O'Brien; ah, he wouldn't think of such a thing! It brings money allthe time to Athy, and sells the horses. "

As to the troubles at Luggacurren, he was not very clear. "It was abeautiful place, Mr. Dunne's; we'd see it presently. And Mr. Dunne, hewas a good one for sport. It was that, your honour, that got him intothe trouble"--

"And Mr. Kilbride?"

"Oh, Mr. Kilbride's place was a very good place too, but not like Mr. Dunne's. And he was doing very well, Mr. Kilbride. He was getting a goodliving from the League, and he was a Member of Parliament. Oh, yes, hewasn't the only one of the tenants that was doing good to himself. Therewas more of them that was getting more than ever they made out of theland. "[24]

"Was the land so bad, then?" I asked. 

"No, there was as good land at Luggacurren as any there was in allIreland; but, " and here he pointed off to the crests of the hills in thedistance, "there was a deal of land there of the estate on the hills, and it was very poor land, but the tenants had to pay as much for thatas for the good property of Dunne and Kilbride. "

"Do you know Mr. Lynch, the magistrate?" I asked. "If you do, look outfor him, as he has promised to join me and show me the place. "

"Oh no, sorr!" the jarvey exclaimed at once; "don't mind about him. Hellhave his own car, and your honour won't want to take him on ours. "

"Why not?" I persisted, "there's plenty of room. "

"Oh! but indeed, sir, if it wasn't that you were going to the priest's, Father Maher, you wouldn't get a car at Athy--no, not under ten pounds!"

"Not under ten pounds, " I replied. "Would I get one then for tenpounds?"

"It's a deal of money, ten pounds, sorr, and you wouldn't have a poorman throw away ten pounds?"

"Certainly not, nor ten shillings either. Is it a question of principle, or a question of price?"

The man looked around at me with a droll glimmer in his eye: "Ah, to besure, your honour's a great lawyer; but he'll come pounding along withhis big horse in his own car, Mr. Lynch; and sure it'll be quicker foryour honour just driving to Father Maher's. "

There was no resisting this, so I laughed and bade him drive on. 

"Whose house is that?" I asked, as we passed a house surrounded withtrees. 

"Oh! that's the priest, Father Keogh--a very good man, but not so muchfor the people as Father Maher, who has everything to look after aboutthem. "

We came presently within sight of a handsome residence, Lansdowne Lodge, the headquarters of the estate. Many fine cattle were grazing in thefields about it. 

"They are Lord Lansdowne's beasts, " said my jarvey; "and it's theemergency men are looking after them. "

Nearly opposite were the Land League huts erected on the holding of anunevicted tenant--a small village of neat wooden "shanties. " On theroadway in front of these half-a-dozen men were lounging about. Theywatched us with much curiosity as we drove up, and whispered eagerlytogether. 

"They're some of the evicted men, your honour, " said my jarvey, with atwinkle in his eye; and then under his breath, "They'll be thinking yourhonour's came down to arrange it all. They think everybody that comes iscome about an arrangement. "

"Oh, then, they all want it arranged!"

"No; not all, but many of them do. Some of them like it well enoughgoing about like gentlemen with nothing to do, only their hands in theirpockets. "

We turned out of the highway here and passed some very pretty cottages. 

"No, they're not for labourers, your honour, " said my jarvey; "theestate built them for mechanics. It's the tenants look after thelabourers, and little it is they do for them. "

Then, pointing to a ridge of hills beyond us, he said: "It wasKilbride's father, sir, evicted seventeen tenants on these hills--poorlabouring men, with their families, many years ago, --and now he'sevicted himself, and a Member of Parliament!"

Father Maher's house stands well off from the highway. He was not athome, being "away at a service in the hills, " but would be back beforetwo o'clock. I left my name for him, with a memorandum of my purpose incalling, and we drove on to see the bailiff of the estate, Mr. Hind. Onthe way we met Father Norris, a curate of the parish, in a smart trapwith a good horse, and had a brief colloquy with him. Mr. Hind we foundbusy afield; a quiet, staunch sort of man. He spoke of the situationvery coolly and dispassionately. "The tenants in the main were a goodset of men--as they had reason to be, Lord Lansdowne having been notonly a fair landlord, but a liberal and enterprising promoter of localimprovements. " I had been told in Dublin that Lord Lansdowne had offereda subscription of £200 towards establishing creameries, and providinghigh-class bulls for this estate. Similar offers had been cordially metby Lord Lansdowne's tenants in Kerry, and with excellent results. Buthere they were rejected almost scornfully, though accompanied by offersof abatement on the rents, which, in the case of Mr. Kilbride, forexample, amounted to 20 per cent. 

"How did this happen, the tenants being good men as you say?" I asked ofMr. Hind. 

"Because they were unable to resist the pressure put on them by the twochief tenants, Kilbride and Dunne, with the help of the League. Kilbrideand Dunne both lived very well. " My information at Dublin was that Mr. Kilbride had a fine house built by Lord Lansdowne, and a farm of sevenhundred acres, at a rent of £760, 10s. Mr. Dunne, who co-operated withhim, held four town lands comprising 1304 acres, at a yearly rent of£1348, 15s. Upon this property Lord Lansdowne had expended in drainageand works £1993, 11s. 9d. , and in buildings £631, 15s. 4d. , or in allvery nearly two years' rental. On Mr. Kilbride's holdings Lord Lansdownehad expended in drainage works £1931, 6s. 3d. , and in buildings £1247, 19s. 5d. , or in all more than four years' rental. Mr. Kilbride held hislands on life leases. Mr. Dunne held his smallest holding of 84 acres ona yearly tenure; his two largest holdings, one on a lease for 31 yearsfrom 1874, and the other on a life lease, and his fourth holding of 172acres on a life lease. 

Where does the hardship appear in all this to Mr. Dunne or Mr. Kilbride?

On Mr. Kilbride's holdings, for instance, Lord Lansdowne expended over£3000, for which he added to the rent £130 a year, or about 4 per cent. , while he himself stood to pay 6-1/2 per cent, on the loans he made fromthe Board of Works for the expenditure. In the same way it was with Mr. Dunne's farms. They were mostly in grass, and Lord Lansdowne laid outmore than £2500 on them, borrowed at the same rate from the Board, forwhich he added to the rent only £66 a year, or about 2-1/2 per cent. Mr. Kilbride was a Poor-Law Guardian, and Mr. Dunne a Justice of the Peace. The leases in both of these cases, and in those of other large tenants, seem to have been made at the instance of the tenants themselves, andafforded security against any advance in the rental during a time ofhigh agricultural prices. And it would appear that for the last quarterof a century there has been no important advance in the rental. In 1887the rental was only £300 higher than in 1862, though during the intervalthe landlord had laid out £20, 000 on improvements in the shape ofdrainage, roads, labourers' cottages, and other permanent works. Moreover, in fifteen years only one tenant has been evicted fornon-payment of rent. 

"Was there any ill-feeling towards the Marquis among the tenants?" Iasked of Mr. Hind. 

"Certainly not, and no reason for any. They were a good set of men, andthey would never have gone into this fight, only for a few who were introuble, and I'm sure that to-day most of them would be thankful if theycould settle and get back. The best of them had money enough, and didn'tlike the fight at all. "

All the trouble here seems to have originated with the adoption of thePlan of Campaign. 

Lord Lansdowne, besides this estate in Queen's County, owns property ina wild, mountainous part of the county of Kerry. On this property thetenants occupy, for the most part, small holdings, the average rentalbeing about £10, and many of the rentals much lower. They are notcapitalist farmers at all, and few of them are able to average theprofits of their industry, setting the gains of a good, against thelosses of a bad, season. In October 1886, while Mr. Dillon wasorganising his Plan of Campaign, Lord Lansdowne visited his Kerryproperty to look into the condition of the people. The local Bank hadjust failed, and the shopkeepers and money-lenders were refusing creditand calling in loans. The pressure they put upon these small farmers, together with the fall in the price of dairy produce and of young stockat that time, caused real distress, and Lord Lansdowne, after lookinginto the situation, offered, of his own motion, abatements varying from25 to 35 per cent, to all of them whose rents had not been judiciallyfixed under the Act of 1881, for a term of fifteen years. 

As to these, Lord Lansdowne wrote a letter on the 21st of October 1886(four days after the promulgation of the Plan of Campaign at Portumna onthe Clanricarde property), to his agent, Mr. Townsend Trench. Thisletter was published. I have a copy of it given to me in Dublin, and itstates the case as between the landlords and the tenants under judicialrents most clearly and temperately. 

"It might, I think, " says the Marquis, "be very fairly argued, that theState having imposed the terms of a contract on landlord and tenant, that contract should not be interfered with except by the State. 

"The punctual payment of the 'judicial rent' was the one advantage towhich the landlords were desired to look when, in 1881, they weredeprived of many of the most valuable attributes of ownership. 

"It was distinctly stipulated that the enormous privileges which weresuddenly and unexpectedly conferred upon the tenants were to be enjoyedby them conditionally upon the fulfilment on their part of the statutoryobligations specified in the Act. Of those, by far the most importantwas the punctual payment of the rent fixed by the Court for the judicialterm. 

"This obligation being unfulfilled, the landlord might reasonably claimthat he should be free to exercise his own discretion in determiningwhether any given tenancy should or should not be perpetuated. 

"In many cases [such cases are probably not so numerous on my estate asupon many others] the resumption of the holding, and the consolidationof adjoining farms, would be clearly advantageous to the wholecommunity. In the congested districts the consolidation of farms is theonly solution that I have seen suggested for meeting a chronicdifficulty. 

"I have no reason to believe that the Judicial Rents in force on myestate are such that, upon an average of the yield and prices ofagricultural produce, my tenants would find it difficult to pay them. "

In spite of all these considerations Lord Lansdowne instructed Mr. Trench to grant to these tenants under judicial leases an abatement of20 per cent. On the November gale of 1886. This abatement, freelyoffered, was gladly accepted. There had been no outrages or disturbanceson the Kerry properties, and the relations of the landlord with histenants, before and after this visit of Lord Lansdowne to Kerry, andthese reductions which followed it, had been, and continued to be, excellent. 

But the tale of Kerry reached Luggacurren; and certain of the tenants onthe latter estate were moved by it to demand for the Queen's Countyproperty identical treatment with that accorded to the very differentlysituated property in Kerry. 

The leaders of the Luggacurren movement, I gather from Mr. Hind, neverpretended inability to pay their rents. They simply demanded abatementsof 35 per cent. On non-judicial, and 25 per cent. On judicial, rents astheir due, on the ground that they should be treated like the tenants inKerry: and the Plan of Campaign being by this time in full operation inmore than one part of Ireland, they threatened to resort to it if theirdemand was refused. Lord Lansdowne at once declared that he would notrepeat at Luggacurren his concession made in Kerry as to the rentsjudicially fixed; but he offered on a fair consideration of thenon-judicial rents to make abatements on them ranging from 15 to 25 percent. 

The offer was refused, and the war began. On the 23d of March 1887 Mr. Kilbride was evicted. One week afterwards, on the 29th of March, he gotup in the rooms of the National League in Dublin, and openly declaredthat "the Luggacurren evictions differed from most other evictions inthis, that they were able to pay the rent. It was a fight, " heexultingly exclaimed, "of intelligence against intelligence; it wasdiamond cut diamond!" In other words, it was a struggle, not forjustice, but for victory. 

On all these points, and others furnished to me at Dublin touching thisestate, much light was thrown by the bailiff, who had not been concernedin the evictions. He told me what he knew, and then very obliginglyoffered to conduct me to the lodge, where we should find Mr. Hutchins, who has charge now of the properties taken up by Mr. Kavanagh's LandCorporation. My patriotic jarvey from Athy made no objection to mygiving the bailiff a lift, and we drove off to the lodge. On the way thejarvey good-naturedly exclaimed, "Ah! there comes Mr. Lynch, " and evenoffered to pull up that the magistrate might overtake us. 

We found Mr. Hutchins at home, a cool, quiet, energetic, northern man, who seems to be handling the difficult situation here with greatfirmness and prudence. Mrs. Hutchins, who has lived here now for nearlya year--a life not unlike that of the wife of an American officer on theFar Western frontier--very amicably asked me to lunch, and Mr. Hutchinsoffered to show me the holdings of Mr. Dunne and Mr. Kilbride. Mr. Lynchproposed that we should all go on my car, but I remembered the protestof the jarvey, and sending him to await me at Father Maher's, I droveoff with Mr. Hutchins. As we drove along, he confirmed the jarvey's hintas to the difference between the views and conduct of the parish priestand the views and conduct of his more fiery curate. This is a verycommon state of affairs, I find, all over Ireland. 

The house of Mr. Dunne is that of a large gentleman farmer. It is verywell fitted up, but it was plain that the tenants had done little ornothing to make or keep it a "house beautiful. " The walls had never beenpapered, and the wood-work showed no recent traces of the brush. "Hespent more money on horse-racing than on housekeeping, " said a shrewdold man who was in the house. In fact, Mr. Dunne, I am told, entered ahorse for the races at the Curragh after he had undergone what Mr. Gladstone calls "the sentence of death" of an eviction!

Some of the doors bore marks of the crowbar but no great mischief hadbeen done to them or to the large fine windows. The only serious damagedone during the eviction was the cutting of a hole through the roof. Anupper room had been provisioned to stand a siege, and so scientificallybarricaded with logs and trunks of trees that after several vainattempts to break through the door the assailants climbed to the roof, and in twenty minutes cut their way in from without. The dining anddrawing rooms were those of a gentleman's residence, and one of theparty remembered attending here a social festivity got up with muchdisplay. 

A large cattle-yard has been established on this place, with anoriginal, and, as I was assured, most successful weighing-machine by theLand Corporation. We found it full of very fine-looking cattle, and Mr. Hutchins seems to think the operation of managing the estate as a kindof "ranch" decidedly promising. "I am not a bit sorry for Mr. Dunne, " hesaid, "but I am very sorry for other quiet, good tenants who have beendeluded or driven into giving up valuable holdings to keep him and Mr. Kilbride company, and give colour to the vapourings of Mr. WilliamO'Brien. "

The cases of some of these tenants were instructive. One poor man, Knowles, had gone out to America, and regularly sent home money to hisfamily to pay the rent. They found other uses for it, and when the stormcame he was two years and a half in arrears. In another instance, twobrothers held contiguous holdings, and were in a manner partners. Onewas fonder of Athy than of agriculture; the other a steady husbandman. Four years' arrears had grown up against the one; only a half-year'sgale against the other. Clearly this difference originated outside ofthe fall of prices! In a third case, a tenant wrote to Mr. Trenchbegging to have something done, as he had the money to pay, and wantedto pay, but "didn't dare. "

From Mr. Dunne's we drove to Mr. Kilbride's, another ample, verycomfortable house--not so thoroughly well fitted up with bathroom andother modern appurtenances as Mr. Dunne's perhaps--but still a very goodhouse. It stands on a large green knoll, rather bare of trees, andcommands a fine sweep of landscape. 

Mr. Hutchins drove me to the little road which leads up past the "LandLeague village" to the house of Father Maher, and there set me down. 

I walked up and found the curate at home--a tall, slender, well-madeyoung priest, with a keen, intelligent face. He received me verypolitely, and, when I showed him the card of an eminent dignitary of theChurch, with cordiality. 

I found him full of sympathy with the people of his parish, but neithervehement nor unfair. He did not deny that there were tenants on LordLansdowne's estate who were amply able to pay their rents; but he didmost emphatically assert that there were not a few of them who reallycould not pay their rents. 

"I assure you, " he said, "there are some of them who cannot even paytheir dues to their priest, and when I say that, you will know howpinched and driven they must indeed be. " It was in view of these tenantsthat he seemed to justify the course of Mr. Dunne and Mr. Kilbride. "They must all stand or fall together. " He had nothing to say to thediscredit of Lord Lansdowne; but he spoke with some bitterness of theagent, Mr. Townsend Trench, as having protested against Lord Lansdowne'smaking reductions here while he had himself made the same reductions onthe neighbouring estate of Mrs. Adair. 

"In truth, " he said, "Mr. Trench has made all this trouble worse allalong. He is too much of a Napoleon"--and with a humorous twinkle in hiseye as he spoke--"too much of a Napoleon the Third. 

"I was just reading his father's book when you came in. Here it is, " andhe handed me a copy of Trench's _Realities of Irish Life_. 

"Did you ever read it? This Mr. Trench, the father, was a kind ofNapoleon among agents in his own time, and the son, you see, thinks itought to be understood that he is quite as great a man as his father. Did you never hear how he found a lot of his father's manuscripts once, and threw them all in the fire, calling out as he did so, 'There goessome more of my father's vanity?'"

About his people, and with his people, Father Maher said he "felt moststrongly. " How could he help it? He was himself the son of an evictedfather. 

"Of course, Father Maher, " I said, "you will understand that I wish toget at both sides of this question and of all questions here. Pray tellme then, where I shall find the story of the Luggacurren property mostfully and fairly set forth in print?"

Without a moment's hesitation he replied, "By far the best and fairestaccount of the whole matter you will get in the Irish correspondence ofthe London _Times_. "

How the conflict would end he could not say. But he was at a loss to seehow it could pay Lord Lansdowne to maintain it. 

He very civilly pressed me to stay and lunch with him, but when I toldhim I had already accepted an invitation from Mr. Hutchins, he verykindly bestirred himself to find my jarvey. 

I hastened back to the lodge, where I found a very pleasant littlecompany. They were all rather astonished, I thought, by the few words Ihad to say of Father Maher, and especially by his frank and sensiblerecommendation of the reports in the London _Times_ as the best accountI could find of the Luggacurren difficulty. To this they could notdemur, but things have got, or are getting, in Ireland, I fear, to apoint at which candour, on one side or the other of the burningquestions here debated, is regarded with at least as much suspicion asthe most deliberate misrepresentation. As to Mr. Town send Trench, whatFather Maher failed to tell me, I was here told: That down to the timeof the actual evictions he offered to take six months' rent from thetenants, give them a clean book, and pay all the costs. To refuse thiscertainly looks like a "war measure. "

But for the loneliness of her life here, Mrs. Hutchins tells me shewould find it delightful. The country is exceedingly lovely in thesummer and autumn months. 

When my car came out to take me back to Athy, I found my jarvey inexcellent spirits, and quite friendly even with Mr. Hutchins himself. Hekept up a running fire of lively commentaries upon the residents whoseestates we passed. 

"Would you think now, your honour, " he said, pointing with his whip toone large mansion standing well among good trees, "that that's thesnuggest man there is about Athy? But he is; and it's no wonder! Wouldyou believe it, he never buys a newspaper, but he walks all the way intoAthy, and goes about from the bank to the shops till he finds one, andpicks it up and reads it. He's mighty fond of the news, but he's fonder, you see, of a penny!

"There now, your honour, just look at that house! It's a magistrate heis that lives there; and why? Why, just to be called 'your honour, ' andhave the people tip their hats to him. Oh! he delights in that, he does. Why, you might knock a man, or put him in the water, you might, indeed, but if you came before Mr. ----, and you just called him 'your honour'often enough, and made up to him, you'd be all right! You've just to goup to him with your hat in your hand, looking up at him, and to say, 'Ah! now, your honour'" (imitating the wheedling tone to perfection), "and indeed you'd get anything out of him--barring a sixpence, that is, or a penny!

"Ah! he's a snug one, too!" And with that he launched a sharp thwack ofthe whip at the grey mare, and we went rattling on apace. 

At the very pretty station of Athy we parted the best of friends. "Wishyou safe home, your honour. " The kindly railway porter, also, who hadrecommended Kavanagh's Hotel, was anxious to know how I found it, and sobusied himself to get me a good carriage when the train came in, that Ifeel bound to exempt Athy from the judgment passed by Sir JamesAllport's committee against the "amenities of railway travelling inIreland. "

DUBLIN, _Saturday, March 10. _--I called by appointment to-day upon Mr. Brooke, the owner of the Coolgreany estate, at his counting-house inGardiner's Row. It is one of the spacious old last-century houses ofDublin; the counting-room is installed with dark, old-fashioned mahoganyfittings, in what once was, and might easily again be made, adrawing-room. Pictures hang on the walls, and the atmosphere of thewhole place is one of courtesy and culture rather than of mere moderncommerce. One of the portraits here is that of Mr. Brooke'sgranduncle--a handsome, full-blooded, rather testy-looking old warrior, in the close-fitting scarlet uniform of the Prince Regent's time. 

"He ought to have been called Lord Baltimore, " said Mr. Brookegood-naturedly; "for he fought against your people for that city atBladensburg with Ross. "

"That was the battle, " I said, "in which, according to a populartradition in my country, the Americans took so little interest that theyleft the field almost as soon as it began. "

Another portrait is of a kinsman who was murdered in the highway here inIreland many years ago, under peculiarly atrocious circumstances, andwith no sort of provocation or excuse. 

Mr. Brooke confirmed Dr. Dillon's statement that he had ordered out ofhis counting-house two tenants who came into it with a peculiarly brazenproposition, of which I must presume Dr. Dillon was ignorant when hecited the fact as a count against the landlord of Coolgreany. I give thestory as Mr Brooke tells it. "The Rent Audit, " he says, "at which mytenants were idiots enough to join the Plan of Campaign occurred aboutthe 12th December 1886, when, as you know, I refused to accept the termswhich they proposed to me. I heard nothing more from them till about themiddle of February 1887, when coming to my office one day I found twotenants waiting for me. One was Stephen Maher, a mountain man, and theother Patrick Kehoe. 'What do you want?' I asked. Whereupon they botharose, and Pat Kehoe pointed to Maher. Maher fumbled at his clothes, andrubbed himself softly for a bit, and then produced a scrap of paper. 'It's a bit of paper from the tenants, sir, ' he said. A queer bit ofpaper it was to look at--ruled paper, with a composition written upon itwhich might have been the work of a village schoolmaster. It was neithersigned nor addressed! The pith of it was in these words, --'inconsequence of the manner in which we have been harassed, our cattledriven throughout the country, and our crops not sown, we shall beunable to pay the half-year's rent due in March, in addition to thereduction already claimed!' I own I rather lost my temper at this!Remember I had already plainly refused to give 'the reduction alreadyclaimed, ' and had told them not once, but twenty times, that I wouldnever surrender to the 'Plan of Campaign'! I am afraid my language wasPagan rather than Parliamentary--but I told them plainly, at least, thatif they did not break from the Plan of Campaign, and pay their debts, they might be sure I would turn the whole of them out! I gave them backtheir precious bit of paper and sent them packing. 

"One of them, I have told you, was a mountain man, Stephen Maher. He iscommonly known among the people as 'the old fox of the mountain, ' and heis very proud of it!

"This old Stephen Maher, " said Mr. Brooke, "is renowned in connectionwith a trial for murder, at which he was summoned as a witness. When hewas cross-examined by Mr. Molloy, Q. C. , he fenced and dodged about withthat distinguished counsellor for a long time, until getting vexed bythe lawyer's persistency, he exclaimed, 'Now thin, Mr. Molloy, I'd haveye to know that I had a cliverer man nor iver you was, Mr. Molloy, atme, and I had to shtan' up to him for three hours before the Crowner, an' he was onable to git the throoth out of me, so he was! so he was!'"

Neither did Dr. Dillon mention the fact that one of the demands made ofCaptain Hamilton, Mr. Brooke's agent, in December 1886, was that aProtestant tenant named Webster should be evicted by Mr. Brooke from afarm for which he had paid his rent, to make room for the return thitherof a Roman Catholic tenant named Lenahan, previously evicted fornon-payment of his rent. 

When Mr. Brooke's grandfather bought the Coolgreany property in 1864, headopted a system of betterments, which has been ever since kept up onthe estate. Nearly every tenant's house on the property has been slated, and otherwise repaired by the landlord, nor has one penny ever beenadded on that account to the rents. 

In the village of Coolgreany all the houses on one side of the mainstreet were built in this way by the landlord, and the same thing wasdone in the village of Croghan, where twenty tenants have a grazingright of three sheep for every acre held on the Croghan Mountain, pronounced by the valuers of the Land Court to be one of the bestgrazing mountains in Ireland. 

Captain Hamilton became the agent of the property in 1879, on the deathof Mr. Vesey. One of his earliest acts was to advise Mr. Brooke to grantan abatement of 25 per cent. In June 1881, while the Land Act waspassing. At the same time, he cautioned the tenants that this was only atemporary reduction, and advised them to get judicial rents fixed. 

The League advised them not to do this, but to demand 25 per cent. Reduction again in December 1881. This demand was rejected, and fortywrits were issued. The tenants thereupon in January 1882 came in andpaid the full rent, with the costs. 

Eleven tenants after this went into Court, and in 1883 theSub-Commissioners cut down their rents. In five cases Mr. Brookeappealed. What was the result before the Chief Commissioner? The rent ofMary Green, which had been £43, and had been cut down by theSub-Commissioners to £39, was restored to £43; the rent of Mr. Kavanagh, cut down from £57 to £52, was restored to £55; the rent of Pat Kehoe(one of the two tenants "ejected" from Mr. Brooke's office as alreadystated), cut down from £81 to £70, was restored to £81; the rent ofGraham, cut down from £38 to £32, 10s. , was restored to £38. Otherreductions were maintained. 

This appears to be the record of "rack-renting" on the Coolgreanyproperty. 

There are 114 tenants, of whom 15 hold under judicial rents; 22 areleaseholders, and 77 are non-judicial yearly tenants. There are 12Protestants holding in all a little more than 1200 acres. All the restare Catholics, 14 of these being cottier tenants. The estate consists of5165 acres. The average is about £24, and the average rental about £26, 10s. The gross rental is £2614, of which £1000 go to the jointure of Mr. Brooke's mother, and £800 are absorbed by the tithe charges, halfpoor-rates and other taxes. During the year 1886, in which this war wasdeclared against him, Mr. Brooke spent £714 in improvements upon theproperty: so in that year his income from Coolgreany was practically_nil_. 

What in these circumstances would have been the position of thislandlord had he not possessed ample means not invested in thisparticular estate? And what has been the result to the tenants of thisconflict into which it seems clear that they were led, less to protectany direct interest of their own than to jeopardise their homes andtheir livelihood for the promotion of a general agrarian agitation? Itis not clear that they are absolutely so far out of pocket, for I findthat the Post-Office Savings Bank deposits at Inch and Gorey rose from£3699, 5s. 4d. In 1880 to £5308, 13s. In 1887, showing an increase of£1609, 7s. 8d. But they are out of house and home and work, enteredpupils in that school of idleness and iniquity which has been kept byone Preceptor from the beginning of time. 

CHAPTER XV. [25]

* * * *--Mrs. Kavanagh was quite right when she told me at Borris inMarch that this country should be seen in June! The drive to this lovelyplace this morning was one long enchantment of verdure and hawthornblossoms and fragrance. 

I came over from London to bring to a head some inquiries which have toolong delayed the publication of this diary. My intention had been to godirectly to Thurles, but a telegram which I received from the Archbishopof Cashel just before I left telling me that he could not be at home forthe last three days of the week, I came directly here. Nothing can bemore utterly unlike the popular notions of Ireland and of Irish lifethan the aspect of this most smiling and beautiful region: nothing morethoroughly Irish than its people. 

* * * who is one of the most active and energetic of Irish landlords, lives part of the year abroad, but keeps up his Irish property withcare, at the expense, I suspect, of his estates elsewhere. 

From a noble avenue of trees, making the highway like the main road of aprivate park, we turned into a literal paradise of gardens. The air wasbalmy with their wealth of odours. "Oh! yes, sir, " said the coachman, with an air of sympathetic pride, "our lady is just the greatest lady inall this land for flowers!"

And for ivy, he might have added. We drove between green walls of ivy upto a house which seemed itself to be built of ivy, like that wonderfulold mansion of Castle Leod in Scotland. Here, plainly, is another centreof "sweetness and light, " the abolition of which must make, not thisregion alone, but Ireland poorer in that precise form of wealth, which, as Laboulaye has shown in one of the best of his lectures, is absolutelyidentical with civilisation. It is such places as this, which, in theinterest of the people, justify the exemption from redistribution andresettlement, made in one of a series of remarkable articles on Irelandrecently published in the _Birmingham Post_, of lands, the "breaking upof which would interfere with the amenity of a residence. "

* * * relations with all classes of the people here are so cordial andstraightforward that he has been easily able to give me to-day, what Ihave sought in vain elsewhere in Ireland, an opportunity of conversingfrankly and freely with several labouring men. For obvious reasons thesemen, as a rule, shrink from any expression of their real feelings. Theirposition is apparently one of absolute dependence either upon thefarmers or the landlords, there being no other local market for theirlabour, which is their only stock-in-trade. As one of them said to meto-day, "The farmers will work a man just as long as they can't help it, and then they throw him away. "

I asked if there were no regular farm-labourers hired at fixed rates bythe year?

"Oh! very few--less now than ever; and there'll be fewer before there'llbe more. The farmers don't want to pay the labourers or to pay thelandlords; they want the land and the work for nothing, sir, --they doindeed!"

"What does a farm-hand get, " I asked, "if he is hired for a long time?"

"Well, permanent men, they'll get 6s. A week with breakfast and dinner, or 7s. Maybe, with one meal; and a servant-boy, sir, he'll get 2s. Aweek or may be 3s. With his board; but it's seldom he gets it. "

"And what has he for his board?"

"Oh, stirabout; and then twice a week coorse Russian or American meat, what they call the 'kitchen, ' and they like it better than good meat, sir, because it feeds the pot more. "

By this I found he meant that the "coorse meat" gave out more"unctuosity" in the boiling--the meat being always served up boiled in apot with vegetables, like the "bacon and greens" of the "crackers" inthe South. 

"And nothing else?"

"Yes; buttermilk and potatoes. "

"And these wages are the highest?"

"Oh, I know a boy got 5s. , but by living in his father's house, andworking out it was he got it. And then they go over to England to work. "

"What wages do they get there?"

"Oh, it differs, but they do well; 9s. A week, I think, and their board, and straw to sleep on in the stables. "

"But doesn't it cost them a good deal to go and come?"

"Oh no; they get cheap rates. They send them from Galway to Dublin likecattle, at £2, 5s. A car, and that makes about 1s. 6d. A head; and thenthey are taken over on the steamers very cheap. Often the graziers thatdo large business with the companies, will have a right to send over anumber of men free; and they stowaway too; and then on the railways inEngland they get passes free often from cattle-dealers, specially whenthey are coming back, and the dealers don't want their passes. They dovery well. They'll bring back £7 and £10. I was on a boat once, andthere was a man; he was drunk; he was from Galway somewhere, and theytook away and kept for him £18, all in good golden sovereigns; that wasthe most I ever saw. And he was drunk, or who'd ever have known he hadit?"

"Do the farmers build houses for the labourers?"

"Build houses, is it! Glory be to God! who ever heard of such a thing?The farmers are a poor proud lot. They'd let a labourer die in theditch!"

All that this poor man said was corroborated by another man of a higherclass, very familiar with the conditions of life and labour here, andindeed one of the most interesting men I have met in Ireland. Born theson of a labouring man, he was educated by a priest and educatedhimself, till he fitted himself for the charge of a small school, whichhe kept to such good purpose that in eighteen years he saved £1100, withwhich capital he resolved to begin life as a small farmer andshopkeeper. He had studied all the agricultural works he could get, andbefore he went fairly into the business, he travelled on the Continent, looking carefully into the methods of culture and manner of life of thepeople, especially in Italy and in Belgium. The Belgian farming gave himnew ideas of what might be done in Ireland, and those ideas he has putinto practice, with the best results. 

"On the same land with my neighbours, " he said, "I double theirproduction. Where they get two tons of hay I get four or four and ahalf, where they get forty-five barrels of potatoes I get a hundred. Only the other day I got £20 for a bullock I had taken pains with tofatten him up scientifically. Of course I had a small capital to startwith: but where did I get that? Not from the Government. I earned andsaved it myself; and then I wasn't above learning how best to use it. "

He thinks the people here--though by no means what they might be withmore thrift and knowledge--much better off than the same class in manyother parts of Ireland. There are no "Gombeen men" here, he says, and nousurious shopkeepers. "The people back each other in a friendly way whenthey need help. " Many of the labourers, he says, are in debt to him, buthe never presses them, and they are very patient with each other. Theywould do much better if any pains were taken to teach them. It is hisbelief that agricultural schools and model farms would do more thanalmost any measure that could be devised for bringing up the standard ofcomfort and prosperity here, and making the country quiet. 

It is the opinion of this man that the people of this place have beenled to regard the Papal Decree as a kind of attack on their liberties, and that they are quite as likely to resist as to obey it. For his ownpart, he thinks Ireland ought to have her own parliament, and make herown laws. He is not satisfied with the laws actually made, though headmits they are better than the older laws were. "The tenants get theirown improvements now, " he said, "and in old times the more a manimproved the worse it was for him, the agent all the while putting upthe rents. "

But he does not want Irish independence. "The people that talk thatway, " he said, "have never travelled. They don't see how idle it is forIreland to talk about supporting herself. She just can't do it. "

Not less interesting was my talk to-day with quite a different person. This was a keen-eyed, hawk-billed, wiry veteran of the '48. As a youthhe had been out with "Meagher of the Sword, " and his eyes glowed when hefound that I had known that champion of Erin. "I was out at Ballinagar, "he said; "there were five hundred men with guns, and five hundredpikemen. " It struck me he would like to be going "out" again in the samefashion, but he had little respect for the "Nationalists. "

"There's too many lawyers among them, " he said, "too many lawyers andtoo many dealers. The lawyers are doing well, thanks to the League. Ohyes!" with a knowing chuckle, and a light of mischief in his eye; "thelawyers are doing very well! There's one little bit of a solicitor notfar from here was of no good at all four years ago, and now they tell mehe's made four thousand pounds in three years' time, good money, and gotit all in hand! And there's another, I hear, has made six thousand. Thelawyers that call themselves Nationalists, they just keep mischiefagoing to further themselves. What do they care for the labourers? Why, no more than the farmers do--and what would become of the poor men! * ** * here, he is making * * * * * * * and he keeps more poor men goingthan all the lawyers and all the farmers in the place a good part of theyear. "

"Are the labourers, " I asked, "Nationalists?"

"They don't know what they are, " he answered. "They hate the farmers, but they love Ireland, and they all stand together for the counthry!"

"How is it with the Plan of Campaign and the Boycotting?"

"Now what use have the labourers got for the Plan of Campaign? No morethan for the moon! And for the Boycotting, I never liked it--but I wasnever afraid of it--and there's not been much of it here. "

"Will the Papal Decree put a stop to what there is of it?"

"I wouldn't mind the Pope's Decree no more than that door!" he exclaimedindignantly. "Hasn't he enough, sure, to mind in Rome? Why didn't hedefend his own country, not bothering about Ireland!"

"Are you not a Catholic, then?" I asked. 

"Oh yes, I'm a Catholic, but I wouldn't mind the Decree. Only remember, "he added, after a pause, "just this: it don't trouble me, for I'venothing to do with the Plan of Campaign--only I don't want the Pope tobe meddlin' in matters that don't concern him. "

"It's out of respect, then, for the Pope that you wouldn't mind theDecree?"

"Just that, intirely! It was some of them Englishmen wheedled it out ofhim, you may be sure, sir. "

"I am told you went out to America once. "

"Yes, I went there in '48, and I came back in '51. "

"What made you go?" I asked. 

"Is it what made me go?" he replied, with a sudden fierceness in hisvoice. "It was the evictions made me go; that we was put out of the goodholding my father had, and his father before him; and I can neverforgive it, never! But I came back; and it was * * * father that was thegood man to me and to mine, else where would I be?"

I afterwards learned from * * * * that the evictions of which the oldman spoke with so much bitterness were made in carrying out importantimprovements, and that it was quite true that his father had greatlybefriended the emigrant when he got enough of the New World and camehome. 

It was curious to see the old grudge fresh and fierce in the old man'sheart, but side by side with it the lion lying down with the lamb--awarm and genuine recognition of the kindness and help bestowed onhimself. His resentment against the landlord's action in one generationdid not in the least interfere with his recognition of the landlord'susefulness and liberality in the next generation. 

"You didn't like America?" I said. "Where did you live there?"

"I lived at North Brookfield in Massachusetts, a year or two, " hereplied, "with Governor Amasa Walker. Did you know him? He was a goodman; he was fond of the people, but he thought too much of the nagurs. "

"Yes, " I answered; "I know all about him, and he was, as you say, a verygood man, even if he was an abolitionist. But why didn't you stay inNorth Brookfield?"

"Oh, it was a poor country indeed! A blast of wind would blow all theground away there was! It does no good to the people, going to America, "he said; "they come back worse than they went!"

He is at work now in some quarries here. 

"The quarrymen get six shillings a week, " he said, "with bread and teaand butter and meat three times a week. With nine shillings a week andboard, a man'll make himself bigger than * * *!"

"Was the country quiet now?"

"This country here? Oh! it's very quiet; with potatoes at 3s. 6d. Abarrel, it's a good year for the people. They're a very quietpeople, "--in corroboration apparently of which statement he told me astory of a coroner's jury called to sit on the body of a man found onthe highway shot through the head, which returned an unanimous verdictof "Died by the visitation of God. "

This country is dominated by the Rocky Hills climbing up to Cullenagh, which divides the Barrow valley from the Nore. We drove this afternoonto * a most lovely place. The mansion there is now shut up anddismantled, but the park and the grounds are very beautiful, with abeauty rather enhanced than diminished by the somewhat unkemptluxuriance of the vegetation. We passed a now well-grown tree planted bythe Prince of Wales * * * * * * and drove over many miles of excellentroad made by * * * * * * * * employs * * * * * * * * regularly, * * *men as labourers, cartmen and masons, to whom he pays out annually thesum of * * Mr. * * who, by the way, rather resented my asking him if hecame of one of the Cromwellian English families so numerous here, andinformed me that his people came over with Strongbow--assures me thatbut for these works of * * * * these men under him would be literallywithout occupation. In addition to these there are about a dozen moremen employed * * as gamekeepers and plantation-men. At the * * placesbelonging to * * * * * * * * * * above eighty men find constantemployment, and receive regular wages amounting to over £4000. Were * ** * dispossessed or driven out of Ireland, all this outlay would come toan end, and with what result to these working-men? As things now are, while * * * working-men receive a regular wage of five shillings, thesame men, as farmers' labourers, would receive, now and then, fiveshillings a week, and that without food! I saw enough in the course ofour afternoon's drive to satisfy me that my informant of the morning hadprobably not overstated matters when he told me that for at leastseventy per cent. Of the work done by the labourers here, from Novemberto May, they have to look to the landlords. On the property of * * aswell as on the neighbouring properties * * * * * * * the houses havebeen generally put up by the landlords. We called in the course of theafternoon upon a labouring man who lives with his wife in a very neat, cozy, and quite new house, built recently for him by * *. These goodpeople have been living on this property for now nearly half a century. Their new house having been built for them, * * has had an agreementprepared, under which it may be secured to them. The terms have all beendiscussed and found satisfactory, but the old labourer now hesitatesabout signing the agreement. He gives, and can be got to give, no reasonfor this; but when we drove up he came out to greet us in the mostfriendly manner. We went in and found his wife, a shrewd, sharp-eyed, little old dame, with whom * * * * fell into a confabulation, while Iwent into the next room with the labourer himself. The house was neatlyfurnished--with little ornaments and photographs on the mantel-shelf, and nothing of the happy-go-lucky look so common about the houses of theworking people in Ireland, as well as about the houses of the lessersquires. 

I paid him a compliment on the appearance of his house and grounds. "Yes, sir!" he answered: "it's a very good place it is, and * * * * hasbuilt it just to please us. "

"But I am told you want to leave it?"

"Ah, no, that is not so, sir, indeed at all! We've three children yousee, sir, in America--two girls and a boy we have. "

"And where are they?"

"Ah, the girls they're not in any factory at all. They're like leddies, living out in a place they call * * in Massachusetts; and the lad, hewas on a farm there. But we don't know where he is nor his sisters anymore just now. And the wife, she thinks she would like to go out toAmerica and see the children. "

"Do you hear from them regularly?"

"Well, it's only a few pounds they send, but they're doing very well. Domestics they are, quite like leddies; there's their pictures on theshelf. "

"But what would you do there?"

"Ah! we'd have lodgings, the wife says, sir. But I like the ould placemyself. "

"I think you are quite right there, " I replied. "And do you get workhere from the farmers as the labourers do in my country?"

"Work from the farmers, sir?" he answered, rather sharply. "What theycan't help we get, but no more! If the farmers in America is like them, it's not I would be going there! The farmers! For the farmers, alabourer, sir, is not of the race of Adam! They think any place goodenough for a labourer--any place and any food! Is the farmers that wayin America?"

"Well, I don't know that they are so very much more liberal than yourfarmers are, " I replied; "but I think they'd have to treat you as beingof the race of Adam! But are not the farmers here, or the Guardians, obliged to build houses for the labourers? I thought there was an Act ofParliament about that?"

"And so there is but what's the good of it? It's just to get thelabourers' votes, and then they fool the labourers, just making themquarrel about where the cottages shall be, what they call the 'sites';and then there's no cottages built at all, at all. It's the lawyers, yousee, sir, gets in with the farmers--the strongest farmers--and then theyjust make fools of the labourers as if there was no Act of Parliament atall. "

"But if the labourers want to go away, to emigrate, " I said, "as youwant to do, to America, don't the farmers, or the Government, or thelandlords, help them to get away and make a start?"

"Not a bit of it, sir, " he replied; "not a bit of it. I believe, though, " he added after a moment; "I believe they do get some help to goto Australia. But they're mostly no good that goes that way. The best isthem that go for themselves, or their friends help them. But there's notso many going this year. "

When we drove away I asked * * if he had made any progress towards asignature of the agreement with the labourer's wife. 

"No; she couldn't be got to say yes or no. I asked her, " said * * "whatreason they had for imagining that after all these years I would try todo them an injury? She protested they never thought of such a thing; butshe couldn't be brought to say she wished her husband to sign the paper. It's very odd, indeed. "

I couldn't help suspecting that the _materfamilias_ was at the bottom ofit all, and that she was bent upon going out to America to participatein the prosperity of her two daughters, who were living "like leddies"at * * in Massachusetts. 

The incident recalled to me something which happened years ago when Iwas returning with the Storys from Rome to Boston. Our Cunarder, in themiddle of the night, off the Irish coast, ran down and instantly sank asmall schooner. 

In a wonderfully short time we had come-to, and a boat's crew hadsucceeded in picking up and bringing all the poor people on board. Amongthem was a wizened old woman, upon whom all sorts of kind attentionswere naturally lavished by the ship's company. She could not bepersuaded to go into a cabin after she had recovered from the shock andthe fright of the accident, but, comforted and clothed with new and drygarments, she took refuge under one of the companion-ways, and there, sitting huddled up, with her arms about her knees, she crooned andmoaned to herself, "I was near being in a wetter and a warmer place; Iwas near being in a wetter and a warmer place!" by the half hourtogether. We found that the poor old soul had been to Liverpool to seeher son off on a sailing ship as an emigrant to America. So asubscription was soon made up to send her on our arrival to New Yorkthere to await her son. We had some trouble in making her understandwhat was to be done with her, but when she finally got it fairly intoher head, gleams of mingled surprise and delight came over her witheredface, and she finally broke out, "Oh, then, glory be to God! it's amercy that I was drownded! glory be to God! and it's the proud boyTerence will be when he gets out to America to find his poor ould motherwaiting for him there that he left behind him in Liverpool, and quitethe leddy with all this good gold money in her hand, glory be to God!"

On our way back to * * we passed through * * a very neatprosperous-looking town, which * * tells me is growing up on the heelsof * *. * * * was one of the few places at which the "no rent"manifesto, issued by Mr. Parnell and his colleagues from their prison inKilmainham, during the confinement of Mr. Davitt at Portland, andwithout concert with him, was taken up by a village curate and commendedto the people. He was arrested for it by Mr. Gladstone's Government, andlocked up for six weeks. 

DUBLIN, _Saturday, June 23d. _--I left * * * yesterday morning early onan "outside car, " with one of my fellow-guests in that "bower ofbeauty, " who was bent on killing a salmon somewhere in the Nore * * Wedrove through a most varied and picturesque country, viewing on the waythe seats of Mr. Hamilton Stubber and Mr. Robert Staples, both finelysituated in well-wooded parks. Mr. Stubber was formerly master of theQueen's County hounds, a famous pack, which, as our jarvey put it, "brought a power of money into the county, and made it aisy for a poorman. " But the local agitations wore out his patience, and he put thepack down some years ago. Not far from his house is an astonishingmodern "tumulus, " or mound of hewn and squared stones. These it seemswere quarried and brought here by him, with the intention of building anew and handsome residence. This intention he abandoned under the sameannoyance. 

"They call it Mr. Stubber's Cairn, " said the jarvey; "and a sorrowfulsight it is, to think of the work it would have given the people, building the big house that'll never be built now, I'm thinking. " If Mr. Stubber should become an "absentee, " he can hardly, I think, be blamedfor it. 

His property marches with that of Mr. Robert Staples, who comes of aGloucestershire family planted in Ireland under Charles I. 

"Mr. Staples is farming his own lands, " said our jarvey, when Icommented on the fine appearance of some fields as we drove by; "andhe'll be doing very well this year. Ah! he comes and goes, but he's herea great deal, and he looks after everything himself; that's the reasonthe fields is good. "

This is a property of some 1500 statute acres. Only last March thelandlord took over from one tenant, who was in arrears of two years anda half and owed him some £300, a farm of 90 acres, giving the man fiftypounds to boot, and bidding him go in peace. I wonder whether thisproceeding would make the landlord a "land-grabber, " and expose him tothe pains and penalties of "boycotting"?

On this place, too, it seems that Mr. Staples's grandfather put up manyhouses for the tenants; a thing worth noting, as one of not a fewinstances I have come upon to show that it will not do to accept withoutexamination the sweeping statements so familiar to us in America, thatimprovements have never been made by the landlord upon Irish estates. 

My companion had meant to put me down at the railway station ofAttanagh, there to catch a good train to Kilkenny. 

But we had a capital nag, and reached Attanagh so early that wedetermined to drive on to Ballyragget. 

From Attanagh to Ballyragget the road ran along a plateau whichcommanded the most beautiful views of the valley of the Nore and of thefinely wooded country beyond. Ballyragget itself is a brisk littlemarket town, the American influence showing itself here, as in so manyother places, in such trifles as the signs on the shops which describethem as "stores. " My salmon-fishing companion put me down at the stationand went off to the river, which flows through the town, and is here aswift and not inconsiderable stream. 

An hour in the train took me to Kilkenny, where I met by appointmentseveral persons whom I had been unable to see during my previous visitin March. 

These gentlemen, experienced agents, gave me a good deal of informationas to the effect of the present state of things upon the "_moral_" ofthe tenantry in different parts of Ireland. On one estate, for example, in the county of Longford, a tenant has been doing battle for the causeof Ireland in the following extraordinary fashion. 

He held certain lands at a rental of £23, 4s. Being, to use thepicturesque language of the agent, a "little good for tenant, " he fellinto arrears, and on the 1st of May 1885 owed nearly three years' rent, or £63, 12s. , in addition to a sum of £150 which he had borrowed of hisamiable landlord three or four years before to enable him to work hisfarm. Of this total sum of £213, 12s. He positively refused to pay onepenny. Proceedings were accordingly taken against him, and he wasevicted. By this eviction his title to the tenancy was broken. Thelandlord nevertheless, for the sake of peace and quiet, offered to allowhim to sell, to a man who wished to take the place, any interest hemight have had in the holding, and to forgive both the arrears of therent and the £150 which had been borrowed by him. The ex-tenant flatlyrefused to accept this offer, became a weekly pensioner upon theNational League, and declared war. The landlord was forced to get acaretaker for the place from the Property Defence Association at a costof £1 per week, to provide a house for a police protection party, and todefray the expenses of that party upon fuel and lights. Nor was thisall. The landlord found himself further obliged to employ men from thesame Property Defence Association to cut and save the hay-crop on theland, and when this had been done no one could be found to buy the crop. The crop and the lands were "boycotted. " It was only in May last that apurchaser could be found for the hay cut and saved two years ago--thispurchaser being himself a "boycotted" man on an adjoining property. Hebought the hay, paying for it a price which did not quite cover one-halfthe cost of sowing it!

"No one denies for a moment, " said the agent, "that the tenant in allthis business has been more than fairly, even generously, treated by theestate; yet no one seems to think it anything but natural and reasonablethat he should demand, as he now demands, to be put back into thepossession of his forfeited tenancy at a certain rent fixed by himself, "which he will obligingly agree to pay, "provided that the hay cut andsaved on the property two years ago is accounted for to him by theestate!"

In another case an agent, Mr. Ivough, had to deal with a body of fivehundred tenants on a considerable estate. Of these tenants, two hundredsettled their rents with the landlord before the passing of the Land Actof 1881, and valuations made by the landlord's valuer, with their fullassent. There was no business for the lawyers, so far as they wereconcerned, and no compulsion of any sort was put on them. Among them wasa man who had married the daughter of an old tenant on the estate, andso came into a holding of 12 Irish, or more than 20 statute, acres, at arental of £18 a year. The valuer reduced this to £14, 10s. , whichsatisfied the tenant, and as the agent agreed to make this reducedvaluation retroactive, all went as smoothly as possible for two years, when the tenant began to fall into arrears. When the Sub-Commissioners, between 1885 and 1887, took to making sweeping reductions, the tenantswho had settled freely under the recent valuation grumbled bitterly. Asone of them tersely put it to the agent, "We were a parcel of bloodyfools, and you ought to have told us these Sub-Commissioners werecoming!" Mr. Sweeney, the tenant by marriage already mentioned, was notcontent to express his particular dissatisfaction in idle words, butkept on going into arrears. In May 1888 things came to a crisis. Theagent refused to accept a settlement which included the payment by himof the costs of the proceedings forced upon him by his tenant. "You havehad a good holding, " said the agent, "with plenty of water and goodland. In this current year two acres of your wheat will pay the wholerent. You have broken up and sold bit by bit a mill that was on theplace; and above all, when Mr. Gladstone made us accept the judicialrents, he told us we might be sure, if we did this, of punctual payment. That was the one consideration held out to us. And we are entitled tothat!"

The tenant being out of his holding, the agent wishes to put anothertenant into it. But the holding is "boycotted. " Several tenants areanxious for it, and would gladly take it, but they dare not The greatevicted will neither sell any tenant-right he may have, nor pay hisarrears and costs, nor give up the place to another tenant. To putProperty Defence men on the holding would cost the landlord £2, 10s. Aweek, and do him no great good, as the evicted man "holds the fort, "being established in a house which he occupies on an adjoining property, and for which presumably he pays his rent. It seems as if Mr. Sweeneywere inspired by the example of another tenant, named Barry, who, beforethe passing of the Land Act of 1881, gave up freely a holding of 20acres, on a property managed by Mr. Kough; but as he was on such goodterms with the agent that he could borrow money of him, he begged theagent to let him retain at a low rent a piece of this surrendered landdirectly adjoining his house. He asked this in the name of his eight ornine children, and it was granted him. The agent afterwards found thatthe piece of land in question was by far the best of the surrenderedholding. But that is a mere detail. This ingenious tenant Barry, livingnow on another estate just outside the grasp of the agent, hassystematically "boycotted" for the last nine years the land which hegave up, feeding his own cattle upon it freely meanwhile, and keepingall would-be tenants at a distance! "He is now, " said the agent, "quitea wealthy man in his way, jobbing cattle at all the great markets!"

"When the eviction of Sweeney took place, " said the agent, "I waspresent in person, as I thought I ought to be, and the result is that Ihave been held up to the execration of mankind as a monster for puttingout a child in a cradle into a storm. As a matter of fact, " he said, "there was a cradle in the way, which the sheriff-Officer gently tookup, and by direction of the tenant's wife removed. I made no remarkabout it at all, but a local paper published a lying story, which thepublisher had to retract, that I had said 'Throw out the child!'"

"Two priests, " he said, "came quite uninvited and certainly withoutprovocation, to see me, and one of them shouted out, 'Ah! we know you'llbe making another Coolgreany, ' which was as much as to say there 'wouldbe bloodshed. ' This was the more intolerable, " he added, "that, as Iafterwards found, I had already done for the sake of the tenantsprecisely what these ecclesiastics professed that they had come to askme to do!

"For thirty years, " said this gentleman, "I have lived in the midst ofthese people--and in all that time I have never had so much as athreatening letter. But after this story was published of my throwingout a cradle with a child in it, I was insulted in the street by a womanwhom I had never seen before. Two girls, too, called out at theeviction, 'You've bad pluck; why didn't you tell us you were coming downthe day?' and another woman made me laugh by crying after me, 'You'vetwo good-looking daughters, but you're a bad man yourself. '"

Quite as instructive is the story given me on this occasion of theTyaquin estate in the county of Galway. This estate is managed by anagent, Mr. Eichardson of Castle Coiner, in this county of Kilkenny. 

The rents on this Galway estate, as Mr. Richardson assures me, have beenunaltered for between thirty and forty years, and some of them for evena longer period. For the last twenty-five years certainty, during whichMr. Richardson has been the agent of the estate, and probably, hethinks, for many years previous, there has never been a case of thenon-payment of rent, except in recent years when rents were withheld fora time for political reasons. 

Large sums of money have been laid out in various useful improvements. Constant occupation was given to those requiring it, until the agrarianagitation became fully developed. On the demesne and the home farms thebest systems of reclaiming waste lands and the best systems ofagriculture were practically exhibited, so that the estate was anagricultural free school for all who cared to learn. 

When the Land Act of 1881 was passed, almost all the tenants applied, and had judicial rents fixed, many of them by consent of the agent. 

In 1887 the tenants were called on as usual to pay these judicial rents. A large minority refused to do so except on certain terms, which wererefused. The dispute continued for many months, but as the charges onthe estate had to be met, the agent was obliged to give way, and allowan abatement of four shillings in the pound on these judicial rents. Some of these charges, to meet which the agent gave way, were for moneyborrowed from the Commissioners of Public Works to _improve the holdingsof the tenants_. For these improvements thus thrown entirely upon thefunds of the estate no increase of rent or charge of any kind had beenlaid upon the tenants. 

When a settlement was agreed on, those of the tenants who had adoptedthe Plan came in a body to pay their rents on 3d January 1888. Theystated that they were unable to pay more than the rent due up toNovember 1886, and that they would never have adopted the Plan had theynot been driven into it by _sheer distress_. After which they handed Mr. Richardson a cheque drawn by John T. Dillon, Esq. , M. P. , for the amountbanked with the National League. 

An article appeared shortly afterwards in a League newspaper, loudlyboasting of the great victory won by Mr. Dillon, M. P. , for the starvingand poverty-stricken tenants. Two of these tenants (brothers) were undera yearly rent of £7, 10s. They declared they could only pay £3, 15s. , ora half-year's rent, and this only if they got an abatement of 15s. Yetthese same tenants were then paying Mr. Richardson £50 a year for agrass farm, and about £12 for meadows, as well as £30 a year more for agrass farm to an adjoining landlord. 

Another tenant who held a farm at £13, 5s. A year declared he could onlypay £6, 12s. 6d. , or a half-year's rent, if he got an abatement of £1, 6s. 6d. A very short time before, this tenant had taken a grass farmfrom an adjoining landlord, and he was so anxious to get it that heshowed the landlord a bundle of large notes, amounting to rather morethan £300 sterling, in order to prove his solvency! The same tenant hassince written a letter to Mr. Richardson offering £50 a year for a grassfarm!

All these campaigners, Mr. Richardson says, "with one noble exception, the wife of a tenant who was ill, declined to pay a penny of rent beyondNovember 1st, 1886, " stating that they were "absolutely unable" to domore. So they all left the May 1887 rent unpaid, and the hanging gale toNovember 1887, which, however, they were not even asked to pay. 

The morning after the settlement many of the tenants who, when they wereall present in a body on the previous evening, had declared their"inability" to pay the half-year's rent due down to May 1887, individually came to Mr. Richardson unasked, and paid it, some sayingthey had "borrowed the money that night, " but others frankly declaringthat they dared not break the rule publicly, having been ordered by theLeague only to pay to November 1886, for fear of the consequences. Thesewould have been injury to their cattle, or the burning of their hay, orpossibly murder. 

Of the country about Kilkenny, I am told, as of the country aboutCarlow, that nearly or quite seventy per cent, of the labourers aredependent upon the landlords from November to May for such employment asthey get. 

The shopkeepers, too, are in a bad way, being in many cases reduced tothe condition of mere agents of the great wholesale houses elsewhere, and kept going by these houses mainly in the hope of recovering olddebts. There is a severe pressure of usury, too, upon the farmers. "If afarmer, " said one resident to me, "wants to borrow a small sum of theLoan Fund Bank, he must have two securities--one of them a substantialman good for the debt. These two indorsers must be 'treated' by theborrower whom they back; and he must pay them a weekly sum for thecountenance they have given him, which not seldom amounts, before hegets through with the matter, to a hundred per cent, on the originalloan. "

I am assured too that the consumption of spirits all through this regionhas greatly increased of late years. "The official reports will showyou, " said one gentleman, "that the annual outlay upon whisky in Irelandequals the sum saved to the tenants by the reductions in rent. " This isa proposition so remarkable that I simply record it for futureverification, as having been made by a very quiet, cool, and methodicalperson, whose information on other points I have found to be correct. Hetells me too, as of his own knowledge, that in going over some financialmatters with a small farmer in his neighbourhood, he ascertained, beyonda peradventure, that this farmer annually spent in whisky, for the useof his family, consisting of himself, his wife and three adult children, nearly, or quite, _seventy pounds a year_! "You won't believe this, " hesaid to me; "and if you print the statement nobody else will believe it;but for all that it is the simple unexaggerated truth. "

Falstaff's reckoning at Dame Quickly's becomes a moderate score incomparison with this!

I spent half an hour again in the muniment-room at Kilkenny Castle, where, in the Expense-Book of the second Duke of Ormond, I found asupper _menu_ worthy of record, as illustrating what people meant by"keeping open house" in the great families of the time of QueenAnne. [Note L. ]

Taking a train early in the afternoon, I came on here in time to dinelast night with Mr. Rolleston of Delgany, an uncompromising Protestant"Home Ruler"--as Protestant and as uncompromising as John Mitchel--whoserecent pamphlet on "Boycotting" has deservedly attracted so muchattention on both sides of the Irish Sea. 

I was first led into a correspondence with Mr. Rolleston by a remarkablearticle of his published in the _Dublin University Review_ for February1886, on "The Archbishop in Politics. " In that article, Mr. Rolleston, while avowing himself to be robust enough to digest without muchdifficulty the _ex officio_ franchise conferred upon the Catholic clergyby Mr. Parnell to secure the acceptance of his candidates atParliamentary conventions, made a very firm and fearless protest againstthe attempt of the Archbishops of Dublin and Cashel to "boycott"Catholic criticism of the National League and its methods, by declaringsuch criticism to be "a public insult" offered, not to the Archbishopsof Cashel and Dublin personally, or as political supporters of theNational League, but to the Archbishops as dignitaries of the CatholicChurch, and to their Archiepiscopal office. The "boycotting, " byclerical machinery, of independent lay opinion in civil matters, is tothe body politic of a Catholic country what the germ of cancer is to thephysical body. And though Mr. Rolleston, in this article, avowed himselfto be a hearty supporter of the "political programme of the NationalLeague, " and went so far even as to maintain that the social boycotting, "which makes the League technically an illegal conspiracy against lawand individual liberty, " might be "in many cases justified by themagnitude of the legalised crime against which it was directed, " it wasobvious to me that he could not long remain blind to the true drift ofthings in an organisation condemned, by the conditions it has createdfor itself, to deal with the thinkers of Ireland as it deals with thetenants of Ireland. His recent pamphlet on "Boycotting" proves that Iwas right. What he said to me the other day in a letter about thepamphlet may be said as truly of the article. It was "a shaft sunk intothe obscure depths of Irish opinion, to bring to light and turn toservice whatever there may be in those depths of sound and healthy;" andone of my special objects in this present visit to Ireland was to get apersonal touch of the intellectual movement which is throwing suchthinkers as Mr. Rolleston to the front. 

We were five at table, Mr. Rolleston's other guests being Mr. JohnO'Leary, whose name is held in honour for his courage and honesty by allwho know anything of the story of Ireland in our times, and who was senta quarter of a century ago as a Fenian patriot--not into seclusion withsherry and bitters, at Kilmainham, like Mr. Gladstone's "suspects" of1881--but like Michael Davitt, into the stern reality of penalservitude; Dr. Sigerson, Dean of the Faculty of Science of the BoyalUniversity, and an authority upon the complicated question of Irish LandTenures; and Mr. John F. Taylor, a leading barrister of Dublin, an allyon the Land Question of Mr. Davitt, and an outspoken Repealer of theUnion of 1800. 

I have long wished to meet Mr. O'Leary, who sent me, through acorrespondent of mine, two years ago, one of the most thoughtful andwell-considered papers I have ever read on the possibilities andimpossibilities of Home Rule for Ireland; and it was a great pleasure tofind in the man the elevation of tone, the breadth of view, and therefined philosophic perception of the strong and weak points in theIrish case, which had charmed me in. The paper. Now that "Conservative"Englishmen have come to treat the main points of Chartism almost ascommonplaces in politics, it is surely time for them to recognise thehonesty and integrity of the spirit which revolted in the Ireland of1848 against the then seemingly hopeless condition of that country. Ofthat spirit Mr. O'Leary is a living, earnest, and most interestingincarnation. He strikes one at once as a much younger man in all thatmakes the youth of the intellect and the emotions than any NationalistM. P. Of half his years whom I have ever met. No Irishman living hasdealt stronger or more open blows than he against the English dominionin Ireland. Born in Tipperary, where he inherited a small property inhouses, he was sent to Trinity College in Dublin, and while a studentthere was drawn into the "Young Ireland" party mainly by the poems ofThomas Davis. Late in the electrical year of the "battle summer, " 1848, he was arrested on suspicion of being concerned in a plot to rescueSmith O'Brien and other state prisoners. The suspicion was well founded, but could not be established, and after a day or two he was liberated. From Trinity, after this, he went to the Queen's College in Cork, wherehe took his degree, and studied medicine. When the Fenian movementbecame serious, after the close of our American Civil War, O'Leary threwhimself into it with Stephens, Luby, and Charles Kickham. Stephensappointed him one of the chief organisers of the I. E. B. With Luby andKickham, and he took charge of the _Irish People_--the organ of theFenians of 1865. It was as a subordinate contributor to this journalthat Sir William Harcourt's familiar Irish bogy, O'Donovan Rossa[26], was arrested together with his chief, Mr. O'Leary, and with Kickham in1865, and found guilty, with them, after a trial before Mr. JusticeKeogh, of treason-felony. The speech then delivered by Mr. O'Leary inthe dock made a profound impression upon the public mind in America. Itwas the speech, not of a conspirator, but of a patriot. The indignationwith which he repelled for himself and for his associate Luby thecharges levelled at them both, without a particle of supportingevidence, by the prosecuting counsel, of aiming at massacre and plunder, was its most salient feature. The terrible sentence passed upon him, ofpenal servitude for twenty years, Mr. O'Leary accepted with a calmdignity, which I am glad, for the sake of Irish manhood, to find thathis friends here now recall with pride, when their ears are vexed by theshrill and clamorous complaints of more recent "patriots, " under thecomparatively trivial punishments which they invite. 

In 1870, Mr. O'Leary and his companions were released and pardoned oncondition of remaining beyond the British dominions until the expirationof their sentences. Mr. O'Leary fixed his residence for a time in Paris, and thence went to America, where he and Kickham were regarded as theleaders of the American branch of the I. R. B. He returned to Ireland in1885, his term of sentence having then expired, and it was shortly afterhis return that he gave to my correspondent the letter upon Irishaffairs to which I have already referred. He had been chosen Presidentof the "Young Ireland Society" of Dublin before he returned, and in thatcapacity delivered at the Rotunda, in the Irish capital, before a vastcrowd assembled to welcome him back, an address which showed howthoughtfully and calmly he had devoted himself during his long years ofimprisonment and exile to the cause of Ireland. Mr. William O'Brien, M. P. , and Mr. Redmond, M. P. , took part in this reception, but theirsubsequent course shows that they can hardly have relished Mr. O'Leary'sfearless and outspoken protests against the intolerance and injustice ofthe agrarian organisation which controls their action. In England, aswell as well as in Ireland, Mr. O'Leary spoke to great multitudes of hiscountrymen, and always in the same sense. Mr. Rolleston tells me thatMr. O'Leary's denunciations of "the dynamite section of the Irishpeople, " to use the euphemism of an American journal, "are the only onesever uttered by an Irish leader, lay or clerical. " The day must come, ifit be not already close at hand, when the Irish leader of whom this canbe truly said, must be felt by his own people to be the one man worthyof their trust. The thing that has been shall be, and there is nothingnew under the sun. The Marats and the Robespierres, the Barères and theCollots, are the pallbearers, not the standard-bearers of liberty. 

Towards the National League, as at present administered on the lines ofthe agrarian agitation, Mr. O'Leary has so far preserved an attitude ofneutrality, though he has never for a moment hesitated either in publicor in private most vehemently to condemn such sworn Fenians as haveaccepted seats in the British Parliament, speaking his mind freely andfirmly of them as "double-oathed men" playing a constitutional part withone hand, and a treasonable part with the other. 

Yet he is not at one with the extreme and fanatical Fenians who opposeconstitutional agitation simply because it is constitutional. Hisobjection to the existing Nationalism was exactly put, Mr. Rollestontells me, by a clever writer in the Dublin _Mail_, who said thatO'Connell having tried "moral force" and failed, and the Fenians havingtried "physical force" and failed, the Leaguers were now trying tosucceed by the use of "immoral force. "

Dr. Sigerson, who, as a man of science, must necessarily revolt from thecoarse and clumsy methods of the blunderers who have done so much since1885 to discredit the cause of Ireland, evidently clings to the hopethat something may still be saved from the visible wreck of what hascome, even in Ireland, to be called "Parnellism, " and he good-naturedlypersisted in speaking of our host last night and of his friends as"mugwumps. " For the "mugwumps" of my own country I have no particularadmiration, being rather inclined, with my friend Senator Conkling (nowgone to his rest from the racket of American politics), to regard themas "Madonnas who wish it to be distinctly understood that they mighthave been Magdalens. " But these Irish "mugwumps" seem to me to earntheir title by simply refusing to believe that two and two, which makefour in France or China, can be bullied into making five in Ireland. "What certain 'Parnellites' object to, " said one of the company, "isthat we can't be made to go out gathering grapes of thorns or figs ofthistles. Some of them expect to found an Irish republic on robbery, andto administer it by falsehood. We don't. "[27] This is precisely thespirit in which Mr. Rolleston wrote to me not long before I left Englandthis week. "I have been slowly forced, " he wrote, "to the conclusionthat the National League is a body which deserves nothing butreprobation from all who wish well to Ireland. It has plunged thiscountry into a state of moral degradation, from which it will take us atleast a generation to recover. It is teaching the people that no law ofjustice, of candour, of honour, or of humanity can be allowed tointerfere with the political ends of the moment. It is, in fact, absolutely divorcing morality from politics. The mendacity of some ofits leaders is shameless and sickening, and still more sickening is thecomplete indifference with which this mendacity is regarded in Ireland. "

It is the spirit, too, of a letter which I received not long ago fromthe west of Ireland, in which my correspondent quoted the bearer of oneof the most distinguished of Irish names, and a strong "Home Ruler, " assaying to him, "These Nationalists are stripping Irishmen as bare ofmoral sense as the Bushmen of South Africa. "

This very day I find in one of the leading Nationalist journals hereletters from Mr. Davitt, Mr. O'Leary, and Mr. Taylor himself, whichconvict that journal of making last week a statement about Mr. Taylorabsolutely untrue, and, so far as appears, absolutely without the shadowof a foundation. These letters throw such a curious light on passingevents here at this moment that I shall preserve them. [28] The statementto which they refer was thus put in the journal which made it: "We haveabsolute reason to know that when the last Coercion Act was in fullswing this pure-souled and disinterested patriot (Mr. John F. Taylor)begged for, received, and accepted a very petty Crown Prosecutorshipunder a Coercion Government. As was wittily said at the time, He soldhis principles, not for a mess of pottage, but for the stick thatstirred the mess. " This is no assertion "upon hearsay"--no publication ofa rumour or report. It is an assertion made, not upon belief even, butupon a claim of "absolute knowledge. "

Yet to-day, in the same journal, I find Mr. Taylor declaring thisstatement, made upon a claim of "absolute knowledge, " to be "absolutelyuntrue, " and appealing in support of this declaration to Mr. Walker, thehost of Lord Riand Mr. Morley, and to The M'Dermot, Q. C. , a conspicuousHome Ruler; to which Mr. Davitt adds: "Mr. Taylor, on my advice, declined the Crown Prosecutorship for King's County, a post afterwardsapplied for by, and granted to, a near relative of one of the mostprominent members of the Irish Party, "--meaning Mr. Luke Dillon, acousin of Mr. John Dillon, M. P. !

We had much interesting conversation last night about the relations ofthe Irish leaders here with public and party questions in America, as towhich I find Mr. O'Leary unusually well and accurately informed. 

I am sorry that I must get off to-morrow into Mayo to see Lord Lucan'scountry there, for I should have been particularly pleased to look moreclosely with Mr. Rolleston into the intellectual revolt against"Parnellism" and its methods, of which his attitude and that of hisfriends here is an unmistakable symptom. As he tersely puts it, he sees"no hope in Irish politics, except a reformation of the League, a returnto the principles of Thomas Davis. "

The lines for a reformation or transformation of the League, as it nowexists, appear to have been laid down in the original constitution ofthe body. Under that constitution, it seems, the League was meant to becontrolled by a representative committee chosen annually, open to publiccriticism, and liable to removal by a new election. As things now are, the officers of this alleged democratic organisation are absolutelyself-elected, and wield the wide and indefinite power they possess overthe people of Ireland in a perfectly unauthorised, irresponsible way. Itis a curious illustration of the autocratic or bureaucratic system underwhich the Irish movement is now conducted, that Mr. Davitt, who does notpretend to be a Parliamentarian, and owes indeed much of his authorityto his refusal to enter Parliament and take oaths of allegiance, doesnot hesitate for a moment to discipline any Irish member of Parliamentwho incurs his disapprobation. Sir Thomas Esmonde, for example, wasseverely taken to task by him the other day in the public prints forventuring to put a question, in his place at Westminster, to theGovernment about a man-of-war stationed in Kingstown harbour. Mr. Davittvery peremptorily ordered Sir Thomas to remember that he is not sent toWestminster to recognise the British Government, or concern himselfabout British regiments or ships, and Sir Thomas accepts the rebuke insilence. Whom does such a member of Parliament represent--theconstituents who nominally elect him, or the leader who cracks the whipover him so sharply?

I have to-day been looking through a small and beautifully-printedvolume of poems just issued here by Gill and Son, Nationalistpublishers, I take it, who have the courage of their convictions, sincetheir books bear the imprint of "O'Connell, " and not of SackvilleStreet. This little book of the _Poems and Ballads of Young Ireland _isa symptom too. It is dedicated in a few brief but vigorous stanzas toJohn O'Leary, as one who

 "Hated all things base, And held his country's honour high. "

And the spirit of all the poems it contains is the spirit of '48, or ofthat earlier Ireland of Robert Emmet, celebrated in some charming versesby "Rose Kavanagh" on "St. Michan's Churchyard, " where the

 "sunbeam went and came Above the stone which waits the name His land must write with freedom's flame. "

It interests an American to find among these poems and ballads astriking threnody called "The Exile's Return, " signed with the name of"Patrick Henry"; and it is noteworthy, for more reasons than one, thatthe volume winds up with a "Marching Song of the Gaelic Athletes, "signed "An Chraoibhin Aoibbinn. " These Athletes are numbered now, I amassured, not by thousands, but by myriads, and their organisation coversall parts of Ireland. If the spirit of '48 and of '98 is really movingamong them, I should say they are likely to be at least as troublesomein the end to the "uncrowned king" as to the crowned Queen of Ireland. 

As for the literary merit of these _Poems and Ballads of Young Ireland_, it strikes one key with their political quality. One exquisite ballad of"The Stolen Child, " by W. B. Yeats, might have been sung in themoonlight on a sylvan lake by the spirit of Heinrich Heine. 

I spent an hour or two this morning most agreeably in the libraries ofthe Law Courts and of Trinity College: the latter one of the stateliestmost academic "halls of peace" I have ever seen; and this afternoon Icalled upon Dr. Sigerson, a most patriotic Irishman, of obviously Danishblood, who has his own ideas as to Clontarf and Brian Boru; and who gaveme very kindly a copy of his valuable report on that Irish Crisis of1879-80, out of which Michael Davitt so skilfully developed the agrarianmovement whereof "Parnellism" down to this time has been the not verywell adjusted instrument. The report was drawn up after a thoroughinspection by Dr. Sigerson and his associate, Dr. Kenny, visitingphysicians to the North Dublin Union, of some of the most distresseddistricts of Mayo, Sligo, and Galway; and a more interesting, intelligent, and impressive picture of the worst phases of the socialconditions of Ireland ten years ago is not to be found. I have just beenreading it over carefully in conjunction with my memoranda made from theEmigration and Seed Potato Fund Reports, which Mr. Tuke gave me sometime ago, and it strongly reinforces the evidence imbedded in thosereports, which goes to show that agitation for political objects inIreland has perhaps done as much as all other causes put together todepress the condition of the poor in Ireland, by driving and keepingcapital out of the country. The worst districts visited in 1879 by Dr. Sigerson and Dr. Kenny do not appear to have been so completely cut offfrom civilisation as was the region about Gweedore before the purchaseof his property there by Lord George Hill, and the remedies suggested byDr. Sigerson for the suffering in these districts are all in thedirection of the remedies applied by Lord George Hill to the conditionin which he found Gweedore. After giving full value to the stockexplanations of Irish distress in the congested districts, such asexcessive rents, penal laws, born of religious or "racial" animosity, and a defective system of land tenure, it seems to be clear that themain difficulties have arisen from the isolation of these districts, andfrom the lack of varied industries. Political agitation has checked anyflow of capital into these districts, and a flow of capital into themwould surely have given them better communications and more variedindustries. Dr. Sigerson states that some of the worst of these regionsin the west of Ireland are as well adapted to flax-culture as Ulster, and Napoleon III. Showed what could be done for such wastes as LaSologne and the desert of the Landes by the intelligent study of acountry and the judicious development of such values as are inherent init. The loss of population in Ireland is not unprecedented. The State ofNew Hampshire, in America, one of the original thirteen colonies whichestablished the American Union, has twice shown an actual loss inpopulation during the past century. The population of the State declinedduring the decade between 1810 and 1820, and again during the decadebetween 1860 and 1870. This phenomenon, unique in American history, isto be explained only by three causes, all active in the case ofcongested Ireland, --a decaying agriculture, lack of communications, andthe absence of varied industries. During the decade from 1860 to 1870the great Civil War was fought out. Yet, despite the terrible waste oflife and capital in that war, especially at the South, the NorthernState of New Hampshire, peopled by the energetic English adventurers whofounded New England, was actually the only State which came out of thecontest with a positive decline in population. Virginia (including WestVirginia, which seceded from that Commonwealth in 1861) rose from1, 596, 318 inhabitants in 1860 to 1, 667, 177 in 1870. South Carolina, which was ravaged by the war more severely than any State exceptVirginia, and upon which the Republican majority at Washington pressedwith such revengeful hostility after the downfall of the Confederacy, showed in 1870 a positive increase in population, as compared with 1860, from 703, 708 to 705, 606. But New Hampshire, lying hundreds of milesbeyond the area of the conflict, showed a positive decrease from 326, 073to 318, 300. During my college days at Cambridge the mountain regions ofNew Hampshire were favourite "stamping grounds" in the vacations, and Iexaggerate nothing when I say that in the secluded nooks and corners ofthe State, the people cut off from communication with the rest of NewEngland, and scratching out of a rocky land an inadequate subsistence, were not much, if at all, in advance of the least prosperous dwellers inthe most remote parts of Ireland which I have visited. They furnishedtheir full contingent to that strange American exodus, which, about aquarter of a century ago, was led out of New England by one Adams to theHoly Land, in anticipation of the Second Advent, a real modern crusadeof superstitious land speculators, there to perish, for the most part, miserably about Jaffa--leaving houses and allotments to pass into thecontrol of a more practical colony of Teutons, which I foundestablishing itself there in 1869. 

Since 1870 a change has come over New Hampshire. The population hasrisen to 346, 984. In places waste and fallen twenty years ago brisk andsmiling villages have sprung up along lines of communication establishedto carry on the business of thriving factories. 

What reason can there be in the nature of things to prevent thedevelopment of analogous results, through the application of analogousforces, in the case of "congested" Ireland? A Nationalist friend, towhom I put this question this afternoon, answers it by alleging that solong as fiscal laws for Ireland are made at Westminster, British capitalinvested in Great Britain will prevent the application of theseanalogous forces to "congested" Ireland. His notion is that were Irelandas independent of Great Britain, for example, in fiscal matters as isCanada, Ireland might seek and secure a fiscal union with the UnitedStates, such as was partially secured to Canada under the ReciprocityTreaty denounced by Mr. Seward. 

"Give us this, " he said, "and take us into your system of Americanfree-trade as between the different States of your American Union, andno end of capital will soon be coming into Ireland, not only from yourenormously rich and growing Republic, but from Great Britain too. Giveus the American market, putting Great Britain on a less-favouredfooting, just as Mr. Blake and his party wish to do in the case ofCanada, and between India doing her own manufacturing on the one side, and Ireland becoming a manufacturing centre on the other, and a mart inEurope for American goods, we'll get our revenge on Elizabeth andCromwell in a fashion John Bull has never dreamt of in these times, though he used to be in a mortal funk of it a hundred years ago, whenthere wasn't nearly as much danger of it!"

DUBLIN, _Sunday, June 24. _--"Put not your faith in porters!" I hadexpected to pass this day at Castlebar, on the estate of Lord Lucan, andI exchanged telegrams to that effect yesterday with Mr. Harding, theEarl's grandson, who, in the absence of his wonderfully energeticgrandsire, is administering there what Lord Lucan, with pardonablepride, declares to be the finest and most successful dairy-farm in allIreland. I asked the porter to find the earliest morning train; andafter a careful search he assured me that by leaving Dublin just after 7A. M. I could reach Castlebar a little after noon. 

Upon this I determined to dine with Mr. Colomb, and spend the night inDublin. But when I reached the station a couple of hours ago, it was todiscover that my excellent porter had confounded 7 A. M. With 7 P. M. 

There is no morning train to Castlebar! So here I am with no recourse, my time being short, but to give up the glimpse I had promised myself ofMayo, and go on this afternoon to Belfast on my way back to London. 

At dinner last night Mr. Colomb gave me further and very interestinglight upon the events of 1867, of which he had already spoken with me atCork, as well as upon the critical period of Mr. Gladstone's experimentsof 1881-82 at "Coercion" in Ireland. 

Mr. Colomb lives in a remarkably bright and pleasant suburb of Dublin, which not only is called a "park, " as suburbs are apt to be, but reallyis a park, as suburbs are less apt to be. His house is set near somevery fine old trees, shading a beautiful expanse of turf. He is anamateur artist of much more than ordinary skill. His walls are gay, andhis portfolios filled, with charming water-colours, sketches, andstudies made from Nature all over the United Kingdom. The grandcoast-scenery of Cornwall and of Western Ireland, the lovely lakelandscapes of Killarney, sylvan homes and storied towers, all have beenlaid under contribution by an eye quick to seize and a hand prompt toreproduce these most subtle and transient atmospheric effects of lightand colour which are the legitimate domain of the true water-colourist. With all these pictures about us--and with Mr. Colomb's workshop fittedup with Armstrong lathes and all manner of tools wherein he varies theroutine of official life by making all manner of instruments, andwreaking his ingenuity upon all kinds of inventions--and with thepleasant company of Mr. Davies, the agreeable and accomplished officialsecretary of Sir West Ridgway, the evening wore quickly away. In thecourse of conversation the question of the average income of the Irishpriests arose, and I mentioned the fact that Lord Lucan, whose knowledgeof the smallest details of Irish life is amazingly thorough, puts itdown at about ten shillings a year per house in the average Irishparish. 

He rated Father M'Fadden and his curate of Gweedore, for example, without a moment's hesitation, at a thousand pounds a year in the whole, or very nearly the amount stated to me by Sergeant Mahony at Baron'sCourt. This brought from Mr. Davies a curious account of the proceedingsin a recent case of a contested will before Judge Warren here in Dublin. The will in question was made by the late Father M'Garvey of Milford, alittle village near Mulroy Bay in Donegal, notable chiefly as the sceneof the murder of the late Earl of Leitrim. Father M'Garvey, who died inMarch last, left by this will to religious and charitable uses the wholeof his property, save £800 bequeathed in it to his niece, Mrs. O'Connor. It was found that he died possessed not only of a farm at Ardara, but ofcash on deposit in the Northern Bank to the very respectable amount of£23, 711. Mrs. O'Connor contested the will. The Archbishop of Armagh, andFather Sheridan, C. C. Of Letterkenny, instituted an action against herto establish the will. Father M'Fadden of Gweedore, lying in Londonderryjail as a first-class misdemeanant, was brought from Londonderry as awitness for the niece. But on the trial of the case it appeared thatthere was actually no evidence to sustain the plea of the niece that"undue influence" had been exerted upon her uncle by the Archbishop, whoat the time of the making of the will was Bishop of Raphoe, or byanybody else; so the judge instructed the jury to find on all the issuesfor the plaintiffs, which was done. The judge declared the conduct ofthe defendant in advancing a charge of "undue influence" in suchcircumstances against ecclesiastics to be most reprehensible; but theArchbishop very graciously intimated through his lawyer his intention ofpaying the costs of the niece who had given him all this trouble, because she was a poor woman who had been led into her course bydisappointment at receiving so small a part of so large an inheritance. Had the priest's property come to him in any other way than through hisoffice as a priest her claim might have been more worthy ofconsideration, but Mr. M'Dermot, Q. C. , who represented the Archbishop, took pains to make it clear that as an ecclesiastic his client, who hadnothing to do with the making of the will, was bound to regard it "asproper and in accordance with the fitness of things that what had beenreceived from the poor should be given back to the poor. "

I see no adequate answer to this contention of the Archbishop. But itcertainly goes to confirm the estimates given me by Sergeant Mahony ofFather M'Fadden's receipts at Gweedore, and the opinion expressed to meby Lord Lucan as to the average returns of an average Catholic parish, that the priest of Milford, a place hardly so considerable as Gweedore, should have acquired so handsome a property in the exercise there of hisparochial functions. 

One form in which the priests in many parts of Ireland collect dues iscertainly unknown to the practice of the Church elsewhere, I believe, and it must tend to swell the incomes of the priests at the expense, perhaps, of their legitimate influence. This is the custom of personalcollections by the priests. In many parishes the priest stands by thechurch-door, or walks about the church--not with a bag in his hand, asis sometimes done in France on great occasions when a _quéle_ is made bythe _curé_ for some special object, --but with an open plate in which thepeople put their offerings. I have heard of parishes in which the priestsits by a table near the church-door, takes the offerings from theparishioners as they pass, and comments freely upon the ratio of thegift to the known or presumed financial ability of the giver. 

We had some curious stories, too, from a gentleman present of therelation of the priests in wild, out-of-the-way corners of Ireland tothe people, stories which take one back to days long before Lever. One, for example, of a delightful and stalwart old parish priest of eighty, upon whom an airy young patriot called to propose that he should acceptthe presidency of a local Land League. The veteran, whose only idea ofthe Land League was that it had used bad language about Cardinal Cullen, no sooner caught the drift of the youth than he snatched up a hugeblackthorn, fell upon him, and "boycotted" him head-foremost out of awindow. Luckily it was on the ground floor. 

Another strenuous spiritual shepherd came down during the distributionof potato-seed to the little port in which it was going on, and took uphis station on board of the distributing ship. One of his parishioners, having received his due quota, made his way back again unobserved onboard of the ship. As he came up to receive a second dole, the goodfather spied him, and staying not "to parley or dissemble, " simplyfetched him a whack over the sconce with a stick, which tumbled him outof the ship, head-foremost, into the hooker riding beside her! Quite ofanother drift was a much more astonishing tale of certain proceedingshad here in February last before the Lord Chief-Justice. These tookplace in connection with a motion to quash the verdict of a coroner'sjury, held in August 1887, on the body of a child named Ellen Gaffney, at Philipstown, in King's County, which preserves the memory of theSpanish sovereign of England, as Maryborough in Queen's preserves thememory of his Tudor consort. Cervantes never imagined an Alcalde of thequality of the "Crowner"' who figures in this story. Were it not thathis antics cost a poor woman her liberty from August 1887 till Decemberof that year, when the happy chance of a winter assizes set her free, and might have cost her her life, the story of this ideal magistratewould be extremely diverting. 

A child was born to Mrs. Gaffney at Philipstown on the 23d of July, anddied there on the 25th of August 1887, Mrs. Gaffney being the wife of a"boycotted" man. 

A local doctor named Clarke came to the police and asked the Sergeant toinspect the body of the child, and call for an inquest. The sergeantinspected the body, and saw no reason to doubt that the child had died anatural death. This did not please the doctor, so the Coroner was sentfor. He came to Philipstown the next day, conferred there with thedoctor, and with a priest, Father Bergin, and proceeded to hold aninquest on the child in a public-house, "a most appropriate place, " saidSir Michael Morris from the bench, "for the transactions whichsubsequently occurred. " Strong depositions were afterwards made by thewoman Mrs. Gaffney, by her husband, and by the police authorities, as tothe conduct of this "inquest. " She and her husband were arrested on averbal order of the Coroner on the day when the inquest was held, August27th, and the woman was kept in prison from that time till the assizesin December. The "inquest" was not completed on the 27th of August, andafter the Coroner adjourned it, two priests drove away on a car from the"public-house" in which it had been held. That night, or the next day, aman came to a magistrate with a bundle of papers which he had found inthe road near Philipstown. The magistrate examined them, and findingthem to be the depositions taken before the Coroner in the case of EllenGaffney, handed them to the police. How did they come to be in the road?On the 1st of September the Coroner resumed his inquest, this time inthe Court-House at Philipstown, and one of the police, with thedepositions in his pocket, went to hear the proceedings. Great was hisamazement to see certain papers produced, and calmly read, as being thevery original depositions which at that moment were in his own custody!He held his peace, and let the inquest go on. A letter was read from theCoroner, to the effect that he saw no ground for detaining the husband, Gaffney--but the woman was taken before a justice of the peace, andcommitted to prison on this finding by the Coroner's jury: "That MaryAnne Gaffney came by her death; and that the mother of the child, EllenGaffney, is guilty of wilful neglect by not supplying the necessary foodand care to sustain the life of this child "!

It is scarcely credible, but it is true, that upon this extraordinaryfinding the Coroner issued a warrant for "murder" against this poorwoman, on which she was actually locked up for more than three months!The jury which made this unique finding consisted of nineteen persons, and it was in evidence that their foreman reported thirteen of the juryto be for finding one way and six for finding another, whereupon acertain Mr. Whyte, who came into the case as the representative ofFather Bergin, President of the local branch of the NationalLeague--nobody can quite see on what colourable pretext--was allowed bythe Coroner to write down the finding I have quoted, and hand it to theCoroner. The Coroner read it over. He and Mr. Whyte then put six of thejury in one place, and thirteen in another; the Coroner read the findingaloud to the thirteen, and said to them, "Is that what you agree to?"and so the inquest was closed, and the warrant issued--for murder--andthe woman, this poor peasant mother sent off to jail with the brand uponher of infanticide. [29]

Where would that poor woman be now were there no "Coercion" in Irelandto protect her against "Crowner's quest law" thus administered? And whatis to be thought of educated and responsible public men in England who, as recent events have shown, are not ashamed to go to "Crowner's questCourts" of this sort for weapons of attack, not upon the administrationonly of their own Government, but upon the character and the motives oftheir political opponents?

CHAPTER XVI. 

BELFAST, _Monday, June 25. _--I left Dublin yesterday at 4 P. M. , in atrain which went off at high pressure as an "express, " but came intoBelfast panting and dilatory as an "excursion. " The day was fine, andthe line passes through what is reputed to be the most prosperous partof Ireland. In this part of Ireland, too, the fate of the island hasbeen more than once settled by the arbitrament of arms; and ifParliamentary England throws up the sponge in the wrestle with theLeague, it is probable enough that the old story will come to be toldover again here. 

At Dundalk the Irish monarchy of the Braces was made and unmade. Theplantation of Ulster under James I. Clinched the grasp not so much ofEngland as of Scotland upon Ireland, and determined the course of eventshere through the Great Rebellion. The landing of the Duke of Schombergat Carrickfergus opened the way for the subjugation of Jacobite Irelandby William of Orange. The successful descent of the French upon the sameplace in February 1760, after the close of "the Great Year, " in whichWalpole tells us he came to expect a new victory every morning with therolls for breakfast, and after Hawke had broken the strength of thegreat French Armada off Belleisle, and done for England the servicewhich Nelson did for her again off Trafalgar in 1805, shows what mighthave happened had Thurot commanded the fleet of Conflans. In this sameregion, too, the rout of Munro by Nugent at Ballinahinch practicallyended the insurrection of 1798. 

There are good reasons in the physical geography of the British Islandsfor this controlling influence of Ulster over the affairs of Ireland, which it seems to me a serious mistake to overlook. 

The author of a brief but very hard-headed and practical letter on thepacification of Ireland, which appeared in the _Times_ newspaper in1886, while the air was thrilling with rumours of Mr. Gladstone'simpending appearance as the champion of "Home Rule, " carried, Iremember, to the account of St. George's Channel "nine-tenths of thetroubles, religious, political, and social, under which Ireland haslaboured for seven centuries. " I cannot help thinking he hit the nail onthe head; and St. George's Channel does not divide Ulster from Scotland. From Donaghadee, which has an excellent harbour, the houses on theScottish coast can easily be made out in clear weather. A chain is nostronger than its weakest link, and it is as hard to see how, even withthe consent of Ulster, the independence of Ireland could be maintainedagainst the interests and the will of Scotland, as it is easy to see whyLeinster, Munster, and Connaught have been so difficult of control andassimilation by England. To dream of establishing the independence ofIreland against the will of Ulster appears to me to be little short ofmadness. 

At Moira, which stands very prettily above the Ulster Canal, a smallarmy of people returning from a day in the country to Belfast came uponus and trebled the length of our train. We picked up more at Lisburn, where stands the Cathedral Church of Jeremy Taylor, the "Shakespeare ofdivines. " Here my only companion in the compartment from Dublin left me, a most kindly, intelligent Ulster man, who had very positive views as tothe political situation. He much commended the recent discourse inScotland of a Presbyterian minister, who spoke of the Papal Decree as"pouring water on a drowned mouse, " a remark which led me to elicit thefact that he had never seen either Clare or Kerry; and he was very warmin his admiration of Mr. Chamberlain. He told me, what I had heard frommany other men of Ulster, that the North had armed itself thoroughlywhen the Home Rule business began with Mr. Gladstone. "I am a Unionist, "he said, "but I think the Union is worth as much to England as it is toIreland, and if England means to break it up it is not the part ofIrishmen who think and feel as I do to let her choose her own time fordoing it, and stand still while she robs us of our property and turns usout defenceless to be trampled under foot by the most worthlessvagabonds in our own island. " He thinks the National League has had itsdeath-blow. "What I fear now, " he said, "is that we are running straightinto a social war, and that will never be a war against the landlords inIreland; it'll be a war against the Protestants and all the decentpeople there are among the Catholics. "

He was very cordial when he found I was an American, and with thatoffhand hospitality which seems to know no distinctions of race orreligion in Ireland urged me to come and make him a visit at a place hehas nearer the sea-coast. "I'll show you Downpatrick, " he said, "wherethe tombs of St. Patrick and St. Bridget and St. Columb are, the saintssleeping quite at their ease, with a fine prosperous Presbyterian townall about them. And I'll drive you to Tullymore, where you'll see themost beautiful park, and the finest views from it all the way to theIsle of Man, that are to be seen in all Ireland. " He was very muchinterested in the curious story of the sequestration of the remains ofMr. Stewart of New York, who was born, he tells me, at Lisburn, wherethe wildest fabrications on the subject seem to have got currency. Thatthis feat of body-snatching is supposed to have been performed by alittle syndicate of Italians, afterwards broken up by the firmness ofLady Crawford in resisting the ghastly pressure to which the widow andthe executors of Mr. Stewart are believed to have succumbed, was quite anew idea to him. 

From Moira to Belfast the scenery along the line grows in beautysteadily. If Belfast were not the busiest and most thriving city inIreland, it would still be well worth a visit for the picturesque charmsof its situation and of the scenery which surrounds it. At some futureday I hope to get a better notion both of its activity and of itsattractions than it would be possible for me to attempt to get in thisflying visit, made solely to take the touch of the atmosphere of theplace at this season of the year; for we are on the very eve of thebattle month of the Boyne. 

Mr. Cameron, the Town Inspector of the Royal Irish Constabulary, met meat the station, in accordance with a promise which he kindly made when Isaw him several weeks ago at Cork; and this morning he took me all overthe city. It is very well laid out, in the new quarters especially, withbroad avenues and spacious squares. In fact, as a local wag said to meto-day at the Ulster Club, "You can drive through Belfast without oncegoing into a street"--most of the thoroughfares which are not called"avenues" or "places" being known as "roads. " It is, of course, anessentially modern city. When Boate made his survey of Ireland twocenturies ago, Belfast was so small a place that he took small note ofit, though it had been incorporated by James I. In 1613 in favour of theChichester family, still represented here. In a very careful _Tour inIreland_, published at Dublin in 1780, the author says of Belfast, "Icould not help remarking the great number of Scots who reside in thisplace, and who carry on a good trade with Scotland. " It seems then tohave had a population of less than 20, 000 souls, as it only touched thatnumber at the beginning of this century. It has since then advanced by"leaps and bounds, " after an almost American fashion, till it has nowbecome the second, and bids fair at no distant day to become the first, city in Ireland. Few of the American cities which are its truecontemporaries can be compared with Belfast in beauty. The quarter inwhich my host lives was reclaimed from the sea marshes not quite so longago, I believe, as was the Commonwealth Avenue quarter of Boston, andthough it does not show so many costly private houses perhaps as thatquarter of the New England capital, its "roads" and "avenues" are on thewhole better built, and there is no public building in Boston soimposing as the Queen's College, with its Tudor front six hundred feetin length, and its graceful central tower. The Botanic Gardens near byare much prettier and much better equipped for the pleasure andinstruction of the people than any public gardens in either Boston orNew York. These American comparisons make themselves, all the conditionsof Belfast being rather of the New World than of the Old. The oldestbuilding pointed out to me to-day is the whilom mansion of the Marquisof Donegal, now used as offices, and still called the Castle. 

This stands near Donegal Square, a fine site, disfigured by a quadrangleof commonplace brick buildings, occupied as a sort of Linen Exchange, concerning which a controversy rages, I am told. They are erected onland granted by Lord Donegal to encourage the linen trade, and thebuildings used to be leased at a rental of £1 per window. The presentholders receive £10 per window, and are naturally loath to part with sogood a thing, though there is an earnest desire in the city to see theseunsightly structures removed, and their place taken by stately municipalbuildings more in key with the really remarkable and monumental privatewarehouses which already adorn this Square. Mr. Robinson, one of thepartners of a firm which has just completed one of these warehouses, wasgood enough to show us over it. It is built of a warm grey stone, whichlends itself easily to the chisel, and it is decorated with a wealth ofcarving and of architectural ornaments such as the great burghers ofFlanders lavished on their public buildings. The interior arrangementsare worthy of the external stateliness of the warehouse. Pneumatic tubesfor the delivery of cash--a Scottish invention--electric lights, steamlifts, a kitchen at the top of the lofty edifice heated by steam fromthe great engine-room in the cellars, and furnishing meals to theemployees, attest the energy and enterprise of the firm. The mostdelicate of the linen fabrics sold here are made, I was informed, allover the north country. The looms, three or four of which are kept goinghere in a great room to show the intricacy and perfection of theprocesses, are supplied by the firm to the hand-workers on a systemwhich enables them, while earning good wages from week to week, toacquire the eventual ownership of the machines. The building is crownedby a sort of observatory, from which we enjoyed a noble prospectoverlooking the whole city and miles of the beautiful country around. Ahaze on the horizon hid the coast of Scotland, which is quite visibleunder a clear sky. The Queen's Bridge over the Lagan, built in 1842between Antrim and Down, was a conspicuous feature in the panorama. Itsfive great arches of hewn granite span the distance formerly traversedby an older bridge of twenty-one arches 840 feet in length, which wasbegun in 1682, and finished just in time to welcome Schomberg and KingWilliam. 

The not less imposing warehouse of Richardson and Co. , built of asingularly beautiful brown stone, and decorated with equal taste andliberality, adjoins that of Robinson and Cleaver. The banks, the publicoffices, the clubs, the city library, the museum, the Presbyteriancollege, the principal churches, all of them modern, all alike bearwitness to the public spirit and pride in their town of the good peopleof Belfast. With more time at my disposal I would have been very glad tovisit some of the flax-mills called into being by the great impulsewhich the cotton famine resulting from our Civil War gave to the linenmanufactures of Northern Ireland, and the famous shipyards of the Woolfson Queen's Island, As things are, it was more to my purpose to see someof the representative men of this great Protestant stronghold. 

I passed a very interesting hour with the Rev. Dr. Hanna, who is reputedto be a sort of clerical "Lion of the North, " and whom I found to be inalmost all respects a complete antitype of Father M'Fadden of Gweedore. 

Dr. Hanna is not unjustly proud of being at the head of the mostextensive Sunday-school organisation in Ireland, if not in the world;and I find that the anniversary parade of his pupils, appointed forSaturday, June 30th, is looked forward to with some anxiety by theauthorities here. He tells me that he expects to put two thousandchildren that day into motion for a grand excursion to Moira; butalthough he speaks very plainly as to the ill-will with which a certainclass of the Catholics here regard both himself and his organisation, hedoes not anticipate any attack from them. With what seems to me verycommendable prudence, he has resolved this year to put this processioninto the streets without banners and bands, so that no charge ofprovocation may be even colourably advanced against it. This is noslight concession from a man so determined and so outspoken, not to sayaggressive, in his Protestantism as Dr. Hanna; and the NationalistCatholics will be very ill-advised, it strikes me, if they misinterpretit. 

He spoke respectfully of the Papal decree against Boycotting and thePlan of Campaign; but he seems to think it will not command the respectof the masses of the Catholic population, nor be really enforced by theclergy. Like most of the Ulstermen I have met, he has a firm faith, notonly in the power of the Protestant North to protect itself, but in itsdetermination to protect itself against the consequences which thenorthern Protestants believe must inevitably follow any attempt toestablish an Irish nationality. Dr. Hanna is neither an Orangeman nor aTory. He says there are but three known Orangemen among the clericalmembers of the General Assembly of the Irish Presbyterian Church, whichunanimously pronounced against Mr. Gladstone's scheme of Home Rule, andnot more than a dozen Tories. Of the 550 members of the Assembly, 538, he says, were followers of Mr. Gladstone before he adopted the politicsof Mr. Parnell; and only three out of the whole number have given himtheir support. In the country at large, Dr. Hanna puts down theUnionists at two millions, of whom 1, 200, 000 are Protestants, and800, 000 Catholics; and he maintains that if the Parliamentaryrepresentatives were chosen by a general vote, the Parnellite 80 wouldbe cut down to 62; while the Unionists would number 44. He regards theParnellite policy as "an organised imposture, " and firmly believes thatan Irish Parliament in Dublin would now mean civil war in Ireland. Hehad a visit here last week, he says, from an American Presbyterianminister, who came out to Ireland a month ago a "Home Ruler"; but, asthe result of a trip through North-Western Ireland, is going back todenounce the Home Rule movement as a mischievous fraud. 

When I asked him what remedy he would propose for the discontent stirredup by the agitation of Home Rule, this Presbyterian clergyman repliedemphatically, "Balfour, Balfour, and more Balfour!"

This on the ground, as I understood, that Mr. Balfour's administrationof the law has been the firmest, least wavering, and most equitableknown in Ireland for many a day. 

Later in the day I had the pleasure of a conversation with the Rev. Dr. Kane, the Grand Master of the Orangemen at Belfast. Dr. Kane is a tall, fine-looking, frank, and resolute man, who obviously has the courage ofhis opinions. He thinks there will be no disturbances this year on the12th of July, but that the Orange demonstrations will be on a greaterscale and more imposing than ever. He derides the notion that"Parnellism" is making any progress in Ulster. On the contrary, theconcurrence this year of the anniversary of the defeat of the GreatArmada with the anniversary of the Revolution of 1688 has aroused thestrongest feelings of enthusiasm among the Protestants of the North, andthey were never so determined as they now are not to tolerate anythingremotely looking to the constitution of a separate and separatistGovernment at Dublin. 

BELFAST, _Tuesday, June 26. _--Sir John Preston, the head of one of thegreat Belfast houses, and a former Mayor of the city, dined with us lastnight, and in the evening Sir James Haslett, the actual Mayor, came in. 

I find that in Belfast the office of Mayor is served without a salary, and is consequently filled as a rule by citizens of "weight andinstance. " In Dublin the Lord Mayor receives £3000 a year, with acontingent fund of £1500, and the office is becoming a distinctlypolitical post. The face of Belfast is so firmly set against thetendency to subordinate municipal interests to general party exigencies, that the Corporation compelled Mr. Cobain, M. P. , who sits at Westminsternow for this constituency, to resign the post which he held as treasurerand cashier of the Corporation when he became a candidate for a seat inParliament. I am not surprised, therefore, to learn that the city ratesand taxes are much lower in the commercial than they are in thepolitical capital of Ireland. 

Both Sir John Preston and Sir James Haslett have visited America. SirJohn went there to represent the linen industries of Ireland, and tourge upon Congress the propriety of reducing our import duties uponfabrics which the American climate makes it practically imposssible tomanufacture on our side of the water. Senator Sherman, who twenty yearsago had the candour to admit that the wit of man could not devise atariff so adjusted as to raise the revenue necessary for the Governmentwhich should not afford adequate incidental protection to all legitimateAmerican industries, gave Sir John reason to hope that something mightbe done in the direction of a more liberal treatment of the linenindustries. But nothing practical came of it. Sir John ought to haveknown that our typical American Protectionist, the late Horace Greeley, really persuaded himself, and tried to persuade other people, that withduties enough clapped on the Asiatic production, excellent tea might begrown on the uplands of South Carolina!

In former years Sir John Preston used to visit Gweedore every year forsport and recreation. He knew Lord George Hill very well, "as true andnoble a man as ever lived, who stinted himself to improve the state ofhis tenants. " He threw an odd light on the dreamy desire which had somuch amused me of the "beauty of Gweedore" to become "a dressmaker atDerry, " by telling me that long ago the gossips there used to tellwonderful stories of a Gweedore girl who had made her fortune as amilliner in the "Maiden City. "

This morning Mr. Cameron, who as Town Inspector of the Royal IrishConstabulary will be responsible for public peace and order here duringthe next critical fortnight, held a review of his men on a common beyondthe Theological College. About two hundred and fifty of the force wereparaded, with about twenty mounted policemen, and for an hour and ahalf, under a tolerably warm sun, they were put through a regularmilitary drill. A finer body of men cannot be seen, and in point ofdiscipline and training they can hold their own, I should say, with thebest of her Majesty's regiments. Without such discipline and training itwould not be easy for any such body of men to pass with composurethrough the ordeal of insults and abuse to which the testimony oftrustworthy eye-witnesses compels me to believe they are habituallysubjected in the more disturbed districts of Ireland. As to theimmediate outlook here, Mr. Cameron seems quite at his ease. Even ifill-disposed persons should set about provoking a collision between "thevictors and the vanquished of the Boyne" his arrangements are so made, he says, as to prevent the development of anything like the outbreaks offormer years. 

On the advice of Sir John Preston I shall take the Fleetwood route on myreturn to London to-night. 

This secures one a comfortable night on board of a very good andwell-equipped boat, from which you go ashore, he tells me, into anexcellent station of the London and North-Western Railway at Fleetwood, on the mouth of the Wyre on the Lancashire coast. Twenty years ago thiswas a small bathing resort called into existence chiefly by theenterprise of a local baronet whose name it bears. Its presentprosperity and prospective importance are another illustration of thevigour and vitality of the North of Ireland, which is connected throughFleetwood with the great manufacturing regions of middle and northernEngland, as it is through Larne with the heart of Scotland. 

While it is as true now of the predominantly Catholic south of Irelandas it was when Sir Robert Peel made the remark forty years ago, that itstands "with its back to England and its face to the West, " thisProtestant Ireland of the North faces both ways, drawing Canada and theUnited States to itself through Moville and Derry and Belfast, andholding fast at the same time upon the resources of Great Britainthrough Glasgow and Liverpool. One of the best informed bankers inLondon told me not long ago, that pretty nearly all the securities ofthe great company which has recently taken over the business of theGuinnesses have already found their way into the North of Ireland andare held here. With such resources in its wealth and industry, bettereducated, better equipped, and holding a practically impregnableposition in the North of Ireland, with Scotland and the sea at its back, Ulster is very much stronger relatively to the rest of Ireland than LaVendée was relatively to the rest of the French Republic in the lastcentury. In a struggle for independence against the rest of Ireland itwould have nothing to fear from the United States, where any attempt toorganise hostilities against it would put the Irish-American populationin serious peril, not only from the American Government, but frompopular feeling, and force home upon the attention of thequickest-witted people in the world the significant fact that while thechief contributions, so far, of America to Southern Ireland, have beenalms and agitation, the chief contributions of Scotland to NorthernIreland have been skilled agriculture and successful activity. It issurely not without meaning that the only steamers of Irish build whichnow traverse the Atlantic come from the dockyards, not of Galway nor ofCork, the natural gateways of Ireland to the west, but of Belfast, thenatural gateway of Ireland to the north. 

EPILOGUE. 

Not once, but a hundred times, during the visits to Ireland recorded inthis book, I have been reminded of the state of feeling and opinionwhich existed in the Border States, as they were called, of the AmericanUnion, after the invasion of Virginia by a piratical band under JohnBrown, and before the long-pending issues between the South, insistingupon its constitutional rights, and the North, restive under itsconstitutional obligations, were brought to a head by the election ofPresident Lincoln. 

All analogies, I know, are deceptive, and I do not insist upon thisanalogy. But it has a certain value here. For to-day in Ireland, as thenin America, we find a grave question of politics, in itself notunmanageable, perhaps, by a race trained to self-government, seriouslycomplicated and aggravated, not only by considerations of moral rightand moral wrong, but by a profound perturbation of the materialinterests of the community. 

I well remember that after a careful study of the situation in Americaat the time of which I speak, Mr. Nassau Senior, a most careful andcompetent observer, frankly told me that he saw no possible way in whichthe problem could be worked out peacefully. The event justified thisgloomy forecast. 

It would be presumptuous in me to say as much of the actual situation inIreland; but it would be uncandid not to say that the optimists ofMaryland, Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri, and Tennessee had greaterapparent odds in their favour in 1861 than the optimists of Ireland seemto me to have in 1888. 

Ireland stands to-day between Great Britain and the millions of theIrish race in America and Australia very much as the Border States ofthe American Union stood in 1861 between the North and the South. Therewas little either in the Tariff question or in the Slavery question toshake the foundations of law and order in the Border States, could theyhave been left to themselves; and the Border States enjoyed all theadvantages and immunities of "Home Rule" to an extent and underguarantees never yet openly demanded for Ireland by any responsiblelegislator within the walls of the British Parliament. But so powerfulwas the leverage upon them of conflicting passions and interests beyondtheir own borders that these sovereign states, well organised, homogeneous, prosperous communities, much more populous and richer inthe aggregate in 1861 than Ireland is to-day, practically lost thecontrol of their own affairs, and were swept helplessly into a terrificconflict, which they had the greatest imaginable interest in avoiding, and no interest whatever in promoting. 

I have seen and heard nothing in Ireland to warrant the very commonimpression that the country, as a whole, is either misgoverned orungovernable; nothing to justify me in regarding the difficulties whichthere impede the maintenance of law and order as really indigenous andspontaneous. The "agitated" Ireland of 1888 appears to me to be almostas clearly and demonstrably the creation of forces not generated in, butacting upon, a country, as was the "bleeding Kansas" of 1856. But the"bleeding Kansas" of 1856 brought the great American Union to the vergeof disruption, and the "agitated Ireland" of 1888 may do as much, orworse, for the British Empire. There is, no doubt, a great deal ofdistress in one or another part of Ireland, though it has not been myfortune to come upon any outward and visible signs of such grindingmisery as forces itself upon you in certain of the richest provinces ofthat independent, busy, prosperous, Roman Catholic kingdom of Belgium, which on a territory little more than one-third as large as theterritory of Ireland, maintains nearly a million more inhabitants, andadds to its population, on an average, in round numbers, as many peoplein four years as Ireland loses in five. 

I have seen peasant proprietors in Flanders and Brabant who could givethe ideal Irish agent of the Nationalist newspapers lessons inrack-renting, though I am not at all sure that they might not get a hintor two themselves from some of the small farmers who came in my way inIreland. 

Like all countries, mainly agricultural, too, Ireland has suffered agreat deal of late years from the fall in prices following upon a periodof intoxicating prosperity. Whether she has suffered more relativelythan we should have suffered from the same cause in America, had we beenfoolish enough to imitate the monometallic policy of Germany in 1873, ishowever open to question; and I have an impression, which it willrequire evidence to remove, that the actual organisation known as theNational Land League could never have been called into being had theBritish Government devoted to action upon the Currency Question, before1879, the time and energy which it has expended before and since thatdate in unsettling the principles of free contract, and tinkering at therelations of landlord and tenant in Ireland. 

But I am trenching upon inquiries here beyond the province of this book. 

Fortunately it is not necessary to my object in printing these volumesthat I should either form or formulate any positive opinions as to theorigin of the existing crisis in Ireland. Nor need I volunteer anysuggestions of my own as to the methods by which order may best bemaintained and civil government carried on in Ireland. It suffices forme that I close this self-imposed survey of men and things in thatcountry with a conviction, as positive as it is melancholy, that thework which Mr. Redmond, M. P. , informed us at Chicago that he and hisNationalist colleagues had undertaken, of "making the government ofIreland by England impossible, " has been so far achieved, and by suchmethods as to make it extremely doubtful whether Ireland can be governedby anybody at all in accordance with any of the systems of governmenthitherto recognised in or adopted for that country. I certainly can seenothing in the organisation and conduct, down to this time, of the partyknown as the party of the Irish Nationalists, I will not say toencourage, but even to excuse, a belief that Ireland could be governedas a civilised country were it turned over to-morrow to their control. Agreat deal has been done by them to propagate throughout Christendom ageneral impression that England has dismally failed to govern Ireland inthe past, and is unlikely hereafter to succeed in governing Ireland. Buteven granting this impression to be absolutely well founded, it by nomeans follows that Ireland is any more capable of governing herself thanEngland is of governing her. The Russians have not made a brilliantsuccess of their administration in Poland, but the Poles certainlyadministered Poland no better than the Russians have done. With an Irishrepresentation in an Imperial British Parliament at Westminster, Ireland, under Mr. Gladstone's "base and blackguard" Union of 1800, hasat least succeeded in shaking off some of the weightiest of the burdensby which, in the days of Swift, of Grattan, and of O'Connell, she mostloudly declared herself to be oppressed. Whether with a Parliament atDublin she would have fared as well in this respect since 1800 must be amatter of conjecture merely--and it must be equally a matter ofconjecture also whether she would fare any better in this respect with aParliament at Dublin hereafter. I am in no position to pronounce uponthis--but it is quite certain that nothing is more uncommon than to findan educated and intelligent man, not an active partisan, in Irelandto-day, who looks forward to the reestablishment, in existingcircumstances, of a Parliament at Dublin with confidence or hope. 

How the establishment of such a Parliament would affect the position ofGreat Britain as a power in Europe, and how it would affect the fiscalpolicy, and with the fiscal policy the well-being of the British people, are questions for British subjects to consider, not for me. 

That the processes employed during the past decade, and now employed tobring about the establishment of such a Parliament, have been, and arein their nature, essentially revolutionary, subversive of all sound andhealthy relations between man and man, inconsistent with socialstability, and therefore with social progress and with social peace, what I have seen and heard in Ireland during the past six months compelsme to feel. Of the "Coercion, " under which the Nationalist speakers andwriters ask us in America to believe that the island groans andtravails, I have seen literally nothing. 

Nowhere in the world is the press more absolutely free than to-day inIreland. Nowhere in the world are the actions of men in authority morebitterly and unsparingly criticised. If public men or private citizensare sent to prison in Ireland, they are sent there, not as they were inAmerica during the civil war, or in Ireland under the "Coercion Act" of1881, on suspicion of something they may have done, or may have intendedto do, but after being tried for doing, and convicted of having done, certain things made offences against the law by a Parliament in whichthey are represented, and of which, in some cases, they are members. 

To call this "Coercion" is, from the American point of view, simplyludicrous. What it may be from the British or the Irish point of view isanother affair, and does not concern me. I may be permitted, however, Ihope without incivility, to say that if this be "Coercion" from theBritish or the Irish point of view, I am well content to be an Americancitizen. Ours is essentially a government not of emotions, but ofstatutes, and most Americans, I think, will agree with me that the sagewas right who declared it to be better to live where nothing is lawfulthan where all things are lawful. 

The "Coercion" which I have found established in Ireland, and which Irecognise in the title of this book, is the "Coercion, " not of agovernment, but of a combination to make a particular governmentimpossible. It is a "Coercion" applied not to men who break a publiclaw, or offend against any recognised code of morals, but to men whorefuse to be bound in their personal relations and their businesstransactions by the will of other men, their equals only, clothed withno legal authority over them. It is a "Coercion" administered not bypublic and responsible functionaries, but by secret tribunals. Itssanctions are not the law and honest public opinion, but the baseinstinct of personal cowardice, and the instinct, not less base, ofpersonal greed. Whether anything more than a steady, firm administrationof the law is needed to abolish this "Coercion" is a matter as to whichauthorities differ. I should be glad to believe with Colonel Saundersonthat "the Leaguers would not hold up the 'land-grabber' to execration, and denounce him as they do, unless they knew in fact that the momentthe law is made supreme in Ireland the tenants would become just asamenable to it as any other subjects of the Queen. " But some recentevents suggest a doubt whether these "other subjects of the Queen" areas amenable to the law as my own countrymen are. 

That the Church to which the great majority of the Irish people have forso many ages, and through so many tribulations, borne steadfastallegiance, has been shaken in its hold upon the conscience of Irelandby the machinery of this odious and ignoble "Coercion, " appears to me tobe unquestionable. That the head of that Church, being compelled byevidence to believe this, has found it necessary to intervene for therestoration of the just spiritual authority of the Church over the Irishpeople all the world now knows--nor can I think that his interventionhas come a day or an hour too soon, to arrest the progress in Ireland ofa social disease which threatens, not the political interests of theempire of which Ireland is a part alone, but the character of the Irishpeople themselves, and the very existence among them of the elementaryconditions of a Christian civilisation. 

It would be unjust to the Irish people to forget that this demoralising"Coercion" against which the Head of the Catholic Church has declaredwar, seems to me to have been seriously reinforced by the LandLegislation of the Imperial Parliament. 

No one denies that great reforms and readjustments of the Land Tenure inIreland needed to be made long before any serious attempt was made tomake them. 

But that such reforms and readjustments might have been made withoutcutting completely loose from the moorings of political economy, appearspretty clearly, not only from examples on the continent of Europe, andin my own country, but from the Rent and Tenancy Acts carried out inIndia under the viceroyalty of Lord Dufferin since 1885. The conditionsof these measures were different, of course, in each of the cases ofOudh, Bengal, and the Punjab, and in none of these cases were theynearly identical with the conditions of any practicable land measure forIreland. But two great characteristics seem to me to mark the Indianlegislation, which are not conspicuous in the legislation for Ireland. 

These are a spirit of equity as between the landlords and the tenants, and finality. I do not see how it can be questioned that the landlordsof Ireland have been dealt with by recent British legislation as if theywere offenders to be mulcted, and that the tenants in Ireland have beenencouraged by recent British legislation to anticipate an eventualtransfer to them, on steadily improving terms, of the land-ownership ofthe island. Mr. Davitt is perhaps the most popular Irishman living, andI believe him to be sincerely convinced that the ownership of the landof Ireland (and of all other countries) ought to be vested in the State. But if the independence of Ireland were acknowledged by Great Britainto-morrow, and all the actual landlords of Ireland were compelledto-morrow to part with their ownership, such as it is, of the land, Ibelieve Mr. Davitt would be further from the recognition and triumph ofhis principle of State-ownership than he is to-day with a BritishParliament hostile to "Home Rule, " but apparently not altogetherunwilling to make the landlords of Ireland an acceptable burnt-offeringupon the altar of imperial unity. Probably he sees this himself, and theexisting state of things may not be wholly displeasing to him, asholding out a hope that the flame which he has been helped by Britishlegislation to kindle in Ireland may already be taking hold upon thesubstructions and outworks of the edifice of property in Great Britainalso. 

One thing at least is clear. 

The two antagonistic principles which confront each other in Irelandto-day are the principles of the Agrarian Revolution represented by Mr. Davitt, and the principle of Authority, represented in the domain ofpolitics by the British Government, and in the domain of morals by theVatican. With one or the other of these principles the victory mustrest. If the Irish people of all classes who live in Ireland could bepolled to-day, it is likely enough that a decisive majority of themwould declare for the principle of Authority in the State and in theChurch, could that over-riding issue be made perfectly plain andintelligible to them. But how is that possible? In what country of theworld, and in what age of the world, has it ever been possible to getsuch an issue made perfectly plain and intelligible to any people?

In the domain of morals the principle of Authority, so far as concernsCatholic Ireland, rests with a power which is not likely to waver orgive way. The Papal Decree has gone forth. Those who profess to acceptit will be compelled to obey it. Those who reject it, whatever theirplace in the hierarchy of the Church may be, must sooner or later findthemselves where Dr. M'Glynn of New York now is. Catholic Ireland canonly continue to be Catholic on the condition of obedience, not formalbut real, not in matters indifferent, but in matters vital andimportant, to the Head of the Catholic Church. 

In the domain of politics the principle of Authority rests with anAdministration which is at the mercy of the intelligence or theignorance, the constancy or the fickleness, the weakness or thestrength, of constituencies in Great Britain, not necessarily familiarwith the facts of the situation in Ireland, not necessarily enlightenedas to the real interests either of Great Britain or of Ireland, nor evennecessarily awake, with Cardinal Manning, to the truth that upon thefuture of Ireland hangs the future of the British Empire. 

With two, three, four, or five years of a steady and cool administrationof the laws in Ireland, by an executive officer such as Mr. Balfourseems to me to have shown himself to be--with a judicious abstinence ofthe British Legislature from feverish and fussy legislation aboutIreland, with a prudent and persistent development of the materialresources of Ireland, and with a genuine co-operation of the people whoown land in Ireland with the people who wish to own land in Ireland, forthe readjustment of land-ownership, the principle of Authority in thedomain of politics may doubtless win in the conflict with the principleof the Agrarian revolution. 

But how many contingencies are here involved! Meanwhile the influenceswhich imperil in Ireland the principle of Authority, in the domainsalike of politics and of morals, are at work incessantly, to undermineand deteriorate the character of the Irish people, to take the vigourand the manhood out of them, to unfit them day by day, not only for goodcitizenship in the British Empire or the United States, but for goodcitizenship in any possible Ireland under any possible form ofgovernment. To arrest these influences before they bring on in Ireland asocial crash, the effects of which must be felt far beyond theboundaries of that country, is a matter of primary importance, doubtless, to the British people. It is a matter, too, of hardly lessthan primary importance to the people of my own country. Unfortunatelyit does not rest with us to devise or to apply an efficient check tothese influences. 

That rests with the people of Great Britain, so long as they insist thatIreland shall remain an integral portion of the British dominions. I donot see how they can acquit themselves of this responsibility, or escapethe consequences of evading it, solely by devising the most ingeniousmachinery of local administration for Ireland, or the most liberalschemes for fostering the material interests of the Irish people. Suchthings, of course, must in due time be attended to. But the first dutyof a government is to govern; and I believe that Earl Grey has summed upthe situation in Ireland more concisely and more courageously than anyother British statesman in his outspoken declaration, that "in order toavert the wreck of the nation, it is absolutely necessary that somemeans or other should be found for securing to Ireland during thepresent crisis a wiser and more stable administration of its affairsthan can be looked for under its existing institutions. "

I have heard and read a good deal in the past of the "Three F's" thoughta panacea for Irish discontent. Three other F's seem to me quite asimportant to the future of Irish content and public order. These are, Fair Dealing towards Landlords as well as Tenants; Finality of AgrarianLegislation at Westminster; and last and most essential of all, Fixityof Executive Tenure. 

The words I have just quoted of Earl Grey, show it to be the convictionof the oldest living leader of English Liberalism that this last is thevital point, the key of the situation. Let me bracket with his words, and leave to the consideration of my readers, the following pregnantpassage from a letter written to me by an Irish correspondent who is asdevoted to Irish independence as is Earl Grey to imperial unity:--

"If the present Nationalist movement succeeds, it will have the effectof putting the worst elements of the Irish nation in power, and keepingthem there irremoveably. We are to have an Executive at the mercy of aHouse of Representatives, and the result will be a government, or seriesof governments, as weak and vicious as those of France, with thisdifference, that here all purifying changes such as seem imminent inFrance will be absolutely prevented by the irresistible power ofEngland. The true model for us would be a constitution like yours in theUnited States, with an Executive responsible to the nation at large, andirremoveable for a term of years. But this we shall never get fromEngland. Shall we make use of Home Rule to take it for ourselves?

"Many earnest and active Irish Unionists now say that if any billresembling Mr. Gladstone's passes, they will make separation, theirdefinite policy. If Home Rule comes without the landlords having beenbought out on reasonable terms, a class will be created in Ireland fullof bitter and most just hatred of England--a class which may very likelyone day play the part here which the persecuted Irish Presbyterians whofled from the tyranny of the English Church in Ireland played in yourown Revolution beyond the Atlantic. "

<p><hr /></p>

APPENDIX. 

NOTE F. 

THE "MOONLIGHTERS" AND "HOME RULE. "

(Vol. Ii. P. 38. )

On Monday, the 1st of February 1886, the _Irish Times_ published thefollowing story from Tralee, near the scene of the "boycotting, "temporal and spiritual, of the unfortunate daughters of Mr. JeremiahCurtin, murdered in his own house by "moonlighters":--

 "TRALEE, _Sunday_. 

 "It was stated that the bishop had ordered Mass to be celebrated for them--the Curtins--but this did not take place. At the village of Firies a number of people had assembled. They stopped loitering about the place in the forenoon, waiting for a meeting of the National League, which was subsequently held. A threatening notice was discovered posted up on the door of a house formerly used as a forge. It ran as follows:--

 "'NOTICE. --If we are honoured by the presence of the bloodthirsty perjurers at Mass on any of the forthcoming Sundays, take good care you'll stand up very politely and walk out. Don't be under the impression that all the Moonlighters are dead, and that this notice is a child's play, as Shawn Nelleen titled the last one. I'll be sure to keep my word, as you will see before long, so have no welcome for the Curtins, and, above all, let no one work for them in any way. As you respect the Captain, and as you value your own life, abide by this notice. '--Signed, 'A MOONLIGHTER. '

 "The above notice was written on tea paper in large legible style, and evidently by an intelligent person. Groups were perusing it during the day. A force of police marched through the village and back, but did not observe this document, as it is still posted on the door of the house. "

The "bloodthirsty perjurers" here mentioned were the daughters who haddared to demand and to promote the punishment of the assassins of theirfather! For this crime these daughters were to be excommunicated by thepeople of Firies, and denied the consolations of religion in their deepsorrow, even in defiance of the order of the Catholic bishop. 

As the advent of Mr. Gladstone to power in alliance with Mr. Parnell wasthen imminent, Mr. Sheehan, M. P. , wrote a letter to the parish priest ofFiries, the Rev. Mr. O'Connor, begging him in substance to put thebrakes--for a time--upon the wheels of the local rack, lest the outcriesof the young women subjected to this moral torture should interfere withthe success of the new alliance. This, in plain English, is the onlypossible meaning of the letter which I here reprint from a leafletissued by an Irish society:--

 "The Rev. Father O'Connor, P. P. , has received the following letter from Mr. Sheehau, M. P. , in reference to this matter, under date

 "'House of Commons, _January 26th. _

 "'REV. DEAR SIR, --At this important juncture in our history, I am sorry to see reports of the Firies display. Nothing that has taken place yet in the South of Ireland has done so much harm to the National cause. If they persist they will ruin us. To-morrow evening will be most important in Parliamentary history. Our party expect the defeat of the Government and resumption of power by Mr. Gladstone. If we succeed in this, which we are confident of, the future of our country will be great, and, although an appeal to the constituencies must be made, the Irish party in those few days have made an impression in future that no Government can withstand. The Salisbury Government want to appeal to the country on the integrity of the empire, and, of course, for the last few days have tried all means to lead to this by raking up the Curtin case and all judicial cases, which _must be avoided for a short time_, as our stoppage to the Eviction Act will cover all this. --Yours faithfully, J. D. SHEEHAN. '"

This letter was read, the leaflet informs us, by the Rev. Mr. O'Connor, at the National Schools and other places. 

NOTE G. 

THE PONSONBY PROPERTY. 

(Vol. Ii. Pp. 59-66. )

The account which the Rev. Canon Keller gave me of "The Struggle forLife on the Ponsonby Estate, " in a tract bearing that title, andauthorised by him to be published by the National League, is socircumstantial and elaborate that, after reading it carefully, I tookunusual pains to obtain some reply to it from the representatives of thelandlord implicated. These finally led to a visit from Mr. Ponsonbyhimself, who was so kind as to call upon me in London on the 15th ofMay, with papers and documents. I give in the following colloquy theresults of this interview, putting together with the allegations ofCanon Keller the answers of Mr. Ponsonby, and leave the matter in thisform to the judgment of my readers. 

_Q_. Canon Keller, I see, describes you, Mr. Ponsonby, as "a retirednavy officer, and an absentee Irish landlord. " He says your estate isnow "universally known as the famous Ponsonby Estate, " and that it isoccupied "by from 300 to 400 tenants, holding farms varying in extentfrom an acre and a half to over two hundred acres. " Are these statementscorrect?

_A_. I am a retired navy officer certainly, and perhaps I may be calledan "absentee Irish landlord. " I lived on my property for some time, andI have always attended to it. I succeeded to the estate in 1868, andalmost my first act was to borrow £2000 of the Board of Works fordrainage purposes--the tenants agreeing to pay half the interest. As amatter of fact some never paid at all, and I afterwards wiped out theclaims against them. There are about 300 tenants on the property, andthe average holdings are of about 36 acres, at an average rental of £30a holding. There are, however, not a few large farms. 

_Q_. Canon Keller says that "in the memory of living witnesses, and farbeyond it, the Ponsonby tenants have been notoriously rack-rented andoppressed"; and that they have been committed to the "tender mercies ofagents, seeing little or nothing of their landlord, and experiencing nopractical sympathy from that quarter. " How is this?

_A_. I wish to believe Canon Keller truthful when he knows the truth. Hecertainly does not know the truth here. He is a newcomer at Youghal, having come there in November 1885, and hardly so much of an authorityabout "the memory of living witnesses and far beyond it" as the tenantson the estate, who, when I went there first with my wife, presented tome, May 25, 1868, an address of welcome, referring in very differentterms to the history of the estate and of my family connection with it. Here is the original address, and a copy of it--the latter being quiteat your service. 

This original address is very handsomely engrossed, and is signed byfifty tenants. Among the names I observed those of Martin Loughlin, Peter McDonough, Michael Gould, William Forrest, and John Heaphey, allof whom are cited by Canon Keller in his tract as conspicuous victims ofthe oppression and rack-renting which he says have prevailed upon thePonsonby estates time out of mind. It was rather surprising, therefore, to find them joining with more than forty other tenants to sign anaddress, of which I here print the text:--

 To C. W. TALBOT PONSONBY, Esq. 

 Honoured Sir, --The Tenantry of your Estates near Youghal have heard with extreme pleasure of the arrival of yourself and lady in the neighbourhood, and have deputed us to address you on their behalf. 

 Through us they bid you and Mrs. Ponsonby welcome, and respectfully congratulate you on your accession to the Estates. 

 The name of Ponsonby is traditionally revered in this part of the country, being associated in the recollections and impressions of the people with all that is exalted, honourable, and generous. It has been matter of regret that the heads of the family have not (probably from uncontrollable causes) visited these Estates for many years, but the tenantry have never wavered in their sentiments of respect towards them. 

 We will not disguise from you the conviction generally entertained that the improvement of landed property, and the condition of its occupiers, is best promoted under the personal observation and supervision of the proprietor, and your tenantry on that account hail with satisfaction the promise your presence affords of future intercourse between you and them. 

 Again, on the part of your Tenants and all connected with your Estates, tendering you and your lady a most hearty welcome, and sincerely wishing you and her a long and happy career--We subscribe ourselves, Honoured Sir, Respectfully yours, YOUGHAL, _May_ 1868. 

_Q_. Did Canon Keller ever see this address, may I ask, Mr. Ponsonby?

_A_. I believe not; and I may as well say at once that I suppose he hastaken for gospel all the stories which any of the tenants under theterrorism which has been established on the place think it best to pourinto his listening ear. As I have said, he is quite a new man atYoughal, and when he first came there he was a quiet and not at allrevolutionary priest. You saw him, and saw how good his manners are, andthat he is a well-educated man. But on Sunday, November 7, 1886, a greatmeeting was held at Youghal. It was a queer meeting for a Sunday, beingopenly a political meeting, with banners and bands, to hear speechesfrom Mr. Lane, M. P. , Mr. Flynn, M. P. , and others. The Rev. Mr. Kellerpresided, and a priest from America, Father Hayes of Georgetown, Iowa, in the United States, was present. It was ostensibly a Home Rulemeeting, but the burden of the speeches was agrarian. Mr. Lane, M. P. , made a bitter personal attack on another Nationalist member, Sir JosephM'Kenna of Killeagh, calling him a "heartless and inhuman landlord;" andmy property was also attended to by Mr. Lane, who advised my tenantsopenly not to accept my offer of 20 per cent. Reduction, but to demand40 per cent. Father Hayes in his speech bade "every man stand to hisguns, " and wound up by declaring that if England and the landlordsbehaved in America as they behaved in Ireland, the Americans "would peltthem not only with dynamite, but with the lightnings of Heaven and thefires of hell, till every British bull-dog, whelp, and cur would bepulverised and made top-dressing for the soil. " Canon Keller afterwardsexpressed disapproval of this speech of Hayes, and this coming to theknowledge of Hayes in America, Hayes denounced Keller for not daring todo this at the time in his presence. Since then Canon Keller has beenmuch more violent in tone. 

_Q_. I don't want to carry you through a long examination, Mr. Ponsonby, but I see typical cases here, about which I should like to ask aquestion or two. Here, is Callaghan Flavin, for instance, described byCanon Keller as one of eight tenants who "had to retreat before thecrowbar brigade, " and who "deserved a better fate. " Canon Keller says heis assured by a competent judge that Flavin's improvements, "full valuefor £341, 10s. , " are now "the landlord's property. " What are the factsabout Mr. Flavin?

_A_. Mr. Flavin's farm was held by his cousin, Ellen Flavin of Gilmore, who, on the 7th of February 1872, surrendered it to the landlord onreceiving from me a sum of £172, 10s. 6d. I obtained a charging orderunder section 27 of the Land Act, entitling me to an annuity of £8, 12s. 6d. For thirty-five years from July 3, 1872. It was let to CallaghanFlavin in preference to other applicants, July 3, 1872; and in 1873, athis request, I obtained a loan from the Board of Works for the thoroughdraining of a portion of the farm. Thirteen acres were drained at a costof £84, 6s. 3d. , for which the tenant promised to pay 5 per cent. Interest, which I eventually forgave him. There was no house on thefarm. He took it without one, and I did not want one there. He built ahouse himself without consulting my agent, and then wanted me to makehim an allowance for it. I told him he had thirty-one years to enjoy itin, and must be content with that. About the same time he took anotherfarm of mine at a rent of £35. Since I came into my property in 1868 Ihave laid out upon it in drainage, buildings, and planting--here are theaccounts, which you may look at--over £15, 000, including about £8000 ofloans from the Board of Works. In the drainage the tenants got work forwhich they were paid. I gave them slates for the buildings, with timberand stone from the estate, and they supplied the labour. There is nocase in which the outlays for improvements came from the tenants--not asingle one. I repeat it, Canon Keller's tract is a tissue of fictions. 

What nonsense it is to talk about the "traditional rack-renting" of aproperty held by the Ponsonbys for two hundred years, the tenants onwhich could welcome me when I came into it with the language of theaddress you have here seen!

I never evicted tenants for less than three years' arrears, till whatCanon Keller calls the "crowbar brigade, " by which he means the officersof the law, had to be put into action to meet the "Plan of Campaign" inMay last. I did not proceed against the tenants because they could notpay. I selected the tenants who could pay, and who were led, or, Ibelieve in most cases, "coerced, " into refusing to pay by agitators withMr. Lane, M. P. , to inspire them, and Canon Keller, P. P. , to glorify themin a tract. 

_Q_. What were your personal relations with the tenants when you were atInchiquin?

_A_. Always most friendly; and even the other day when I was there, while none of them would speak to me when they were all together, thoseI met individually touched their hats, and were as civil as ever. Ibelieve they would all be thankful to have things as they were, and Ihave never refused to meet and treat with them on fair individual terms. 

In November 1885 my offer of an abatement of 15 per cent. Being refused, a few tenants, I believe, clubbed their rents, and for the sake of peaceI then offered 20 per cent. , which they accepted and paid. In October1886 I hoped to prevent trouble by making the same offer of 20 per cent. Abatement on non-judicial and 10 per cent. On judicial rents. One mantook the latter abatement and paid. Then another tenant demanded 40 percent. My agent said he would give them time, and also take money onaccount, the effect of which would be to put me out of court, andprevent my getting an order of ejectment if I wanted to for the balance. I thought this fair, and approved it, but I refused to make a 40 percent. All-round abatement, authorising my agent, however, to make whatabatements he liked in special cases. My words were, "I don't limit youon the amount of abatement you give, or as to the number of tenants youmay choose so to treat. " If this was not a fair free hand, what wouldbe? My agent afterwards told me he had no chance to make this known. Thefact is they meant to force the Plan on the tenants and me, and toprevent any settlement but a "victory for the League!"

In my original notes of my conversation with Father Keller at Youghal, Ifound the name of one tenant whom he introduced to me, and who certainlytold me that his holdings amounted to some £300 a year, and that theyhad been in his family for "two hundred years, " set down as Doyle--I soprinted it with the statements made. But Father Keller, to whom Isubmitted my proofs, and who was so good as to revise them, struck outthe name of Doyle, and inserted that of Loughlin, putting the rentaldown at £94 (vol. Ii. P. 71). Of course I accept this correction. But onmy mentioning the matter to Mr. Ponsonby by letter, he replies to me(July 27th) as follows:--

 "Maurice Doyle is a son of Richard Doyle, who died in 1876, leaving his widow to carry on his farm of 74 acres 1 rood, in the townland of Ballykitty, which he held in 1858 at a rental of £50, 11s. In 1868 this was reduced to £48, 11s. In September 1871 he took in addition a farm of 159 acres 2 roods at £130, in Burgen and Ballykitty. He afterwards got a lease for thirty-one years of this larger farm, with a portion of his earlier holding, for £155. This left him to pay £21, 11s. For the residue of the earlier holding as in 1858. But at his request, in 1876, the year of his death, I reduced this to £17. 

 "In March 1879, by the death of Mr. Henry Hall, in whose family it had been for certainly a century, the Inchiquin farm of 213 acres, valued at £258, 10s. , came on my hands. This farm was valued in 1873 by one valuer at £384, 10s. , and by another at £390, 10s. In an old lease I find that this farm was let at £3 an acre. Mr. Henry Hall to the day of his death held it at £306, 7s. 6d. , under a lease which I made a lease for life. For this farm Mrs. Richard Doyle applied, agreeing to take it on a 31 years' lease, at £370 a year. I let it to her, and she became the lease-holder, putting in her son Maurice Doyle to take charge of it, though not as the tenant. He was an active Land Leaguer from the moment he got into the place, and in 1886 he was a leader in promoting the Plan of Campaign. Proceedings had to be taken against his mother in order to eject him, as she was the tenant, not he. I objected to this, for I always have had the greatest regard for her. Had she been let alone she would have paid her rent as she had always done. But Mr. Lane and his allies saw it would never do to let Maurice Doyle retain his place on his mother's holding. All this will show you that Maurice Doyle did not inherit the Inchiquin farm. The only inherited holding of his mother is the farm of 74 acres 1 rood in the townland of Ballykitty, held by his father in 1858. I have no doubt you saw Doyle at Youghal, by the description you gave me, and you remembered his name at once. He was a thickset heavy-looking man, florid, with a military moustache, the last time I saw him. His mother is one of the 'rack-rented' tenants you hear of, having been able in ten years to increase her acreage from 74 acres to 376 acres, and her rental from £48, 11s. To £542!"

As to the general effect of all this business upon the tenants, and uponhimself, Mr. Ponsonby spoke most feelingly. "The tenants are ruinedwhere they might have been thriving. My means of being useful to them orto myself are taken away. My charges, though, all remain. I have to paytithes for Protestant Church service, of which I can't have the benefit, the churches being closed; and the other day I had a notice that anyproperty I had in England would be held liable for quit-rents to theCrown on my property in Ireland, of which the Government denies mepractically any control or use!"

NOTE G2. 

THE GLENBEHY EVICTION FUND. 

(Vol. Ii. P. 12. )

In the _London Times_ of September 15 appears the following letter fromthe Land Agent whom I saw at Glenbehy, setting forth the effect of this"Glenbehy Eviction Fund" upon the morals of the tenants and the peace ofthe place:--

 _To the Editor of the Times. _

 "Sir, --Although nearly eighteen months have elapsed since the evictions on the Glenbehy estate, after which the above-named fund was started and largely subscribed to by the sympathetic British public, I think it only fair to throw a little light on the manner in which this fund has been expended, and the effects which are still felt in consequence of the money not yet being exhausted. 

 "It was generally supposed that the tenants then evicted were in such poor circumstances as to be unable to settle, whereas, as a matter of fact, they were, and are, with a few exceptions, the most well-to-do on the estate, having, for the most part, from five to fifteen head of cattle, in addition to sheep, pigs, etc. 

 "Among the tenants evicted at that time many had not paid rents since 1879, and had been in illegal occupation since 1884, from which latter date the landlord was responsible for taxes, provided it is proved that sufficient distress cannot be made of the lands. These tenants were offered a clear receipt to May 1, 1886, if they paid half a year's rent, which would scarcely have paid the cost of proceedings, and the landlord would therefore have been put to actual loss. These people, though well able to settle, are given to understand that as soon as they do so their participation in the eviction fund will cease, and thus it will be seen that a direct premium is being paid to dishonesty. 

 "In one case a widow woman was summoned for being on the farm from which she was at that time evicted. Finding out that one of her children was ill, I applied to the magistrate at the hearing of the case only to impose a nominal fine. In consequence she was fined one penny, but sooner than pay this she went to gaol, though she had several head of cattle and, prior to her eviction, a very nice farm. The case of this woman fairly illustrates the combination which has existed to avoid the fulfilment of obligations. 

 "The amount of fines paid for similar offences comes, in several instances, to nearly what I require to effect a settlement. Some of the tenants actually wrote to the late agent on this estate begging him to evict them in order that they might come in for a share of the money raised for the relief of distress, and this clearly shows beyond dispute that the well-meaning subscribers to the fund will be more or less responsible for any further evictions to which it may be necessary to resort. I may mention that the parish priest is one of the trustees for the money which is thus being used for the purpose of preventing settlements and keeping the place in a continual state of turmoil. 

 "Judge Currane, at the January sessions held at Killarney this year, ruled in about fifty ejectment cases on this estate that tenants owing one and a half to nine years' rent should pay half a year's rent and costs within a week, a quarter of a year's rent by June 1, and a quarter of a year's rent by October 1; arrears to be cancelled. Some of these, owing to non-compliance with the Judge's ruling, may have to be evicted, and their eviction will be what is termed the unrooting of peasants' houses and the ejectment of overburdened tenants for not paying impossible rents. 

 "I confess I am at a loss to understand how Mr. Parnell's Arrears Act would have improved matters or have averted what one of your contemporaries calls a "painful scandal. "--I am, Sirs, yours, &c. , "D. TODD-THORNTON, J. P. , Land Agent. 

 "Glenbehy, Killarney. "

NOTE G. 

HOME RULE AND PROTESTANTISM. 

(Vol. Ii. P. 68. )

I fear that all the "Nationalist" clergy in Ireland are not as carefulas Father Keller to avoid giving occasion for this impression that Irishautonomy would be followed by a persecution of the Protestants. But alittle more than three years ago, for example, the following circularwas issued by the Bishop of Ossory, and affixed to the door of thechurches in his diocese. Who can wonder that it should have beenregarded by Protestants in that diocese as a direct stirring up ofbitter religious animosities against them? Or that, emanating directlyas it did from a bishop of the Church, it should be represented asemanating indirectly from the Head of the Church himself at Rome?

 "_Kilkenny, April 16th, 1885. _

 "REV. DEAR SIR, --May I ask you to read the following circular for the people at each of the Masses on Sunday, 19th April?

 "The course to be adopted for the future by the Priest of the Parish to whom notice of a Mixed Marriage is given by the Minister, or the Registrar, is as follows:--he makes the following entry on the book of Parochial announcements, and reads it three consecutive Sundays from the Altar:--

 "'The Priests of the Parish have received the following notice of a marriage to be celebrated between a Catholic and a Protestant. [Here read Registrar's notice in full. ] We have now to inform you that the law of the Catholic Church regarding such marriages is: that the Catholic party contracting marriage before a Registrar or other unauthorised person is, by the very fact of so doing, Excommunicated; and the witnesses to such marriage are also Excommunicated. '

 "I should be very much obliged if, as occasion may require, you would explain the effects of this Excommunication from the Altar. 

 "You will please take notice that the Registrar or Minister is bound legally to send the notice of marriage referred to above, and also, that in reading it out _in the form, and with the accompanying remarks above_, you incur no legal penalty. 

 "I feel sure that with your accustomed zeal you will do everything in your power to prevent abuses in regard to the Sacrament of Matrimony, which is great in Christ and the Church, and to induce the faithful to prepare for receiving it by Prayer, by works of Charity, and by approaching the Sacrament of Penance to purify their souls. --Yours faithfully in Christ, [Image: Cross] A. BROWNRIGG. "

 "MY DEAR BRETHREN, --We have been very much pained to learn, within the past month, that marriages between Catholics and non-Catholics have increased very much in this city of Kilkenny. Many _evil-disposed_ persons, utterly unmindful of the prohibitions of the Church, and regardless of the dreadful consequences they bring on themselves, have not hesitated to enter into those _unholy matrimonial alliances_ called "Mixed Marriages, " which the Catholic Church has always _hated and detested_. Those misguided Catholics, who do not deserve the name, have not blushed to go, in some instances, before the Protestant Minister, in other instances, before the Public Registrar, to ask them to assist at their marriage with a Protestant. By contracting marriage in this way, they run a great risk of bringing on themselves and on their children, should they have any, the _maledictions_ of Heaven instead of the blessings of religion. In order to put a stop to this growing abuse, and to prevent it from spreading like a contagion to other parts of the Diocese, we beg to remind the faithful of certain regulations which, for the future, shall have force in the Diocese of Ossory in reference to the Catholics, who so far forget themselves as to contract such marriages. 

 "1. In the first place, any one who contracts a "Mixed Marriage" without a dispensation from the Holy See and before a Protestant Minister or a Registrar is, by the very fact, guilty of a most grievous mortal sin by violating a solemn law of the Church in a most grave matter. 

 "2. The Catholic who assists as witness at such marriage also commits a most grievous sin by co-operating in an unlawful act. 

 "3. Both the Catholic party contracting the marriage and the Catholic witnesses to it cannot be absolved by any priest in the Diocese of Ossory, unless by the Bishop or by those to whom he grants special faculties. 

 "4. In order more effectually to deter people from entering into _those detestable marriages_, the penalty of _Excommunication_ is hereby attached to that sin both for the Catholic _contracting_ party as also for the Catholic _witnesses_ to such marriage. 

 "5. The notice which the Protestant Rector or the Registrar is legally bound in such cases to send to the Parish Priest of the Catholic party, will be read from the Altar for three consecutive Sundays, and thus the _crime_ of the offending party brought out into open light before his or her fellow-parishioners. 

 "6. For the rest, we hope the sense of decency and religion of the Catholic people and their Pastors shall be no more hurt by any Catholic entering into those marriages, so full of, misery and evil of every kind for themselves, their children, and society at large. --Yours faithfully in Christ, [Image: Cross] ABRAHAM, Bishop of Ossory. 

NOTE H. 

TULLY AND THE WOODFORD EVICTIONS. 

(Vol. Ii. P. 149. )

Since the first edition of this book was published certain "evictions"mentioned in it as impending on the Clanricarde estates have beencarried out. I have no reason to suppose that there was more or lessreason for carrying out these evictions than there usually is, not inIreland only, but all over the civilised world, for a resort by thelegal owners of property to legal means of recovering the possession ofit from persons who fail to comply with the terms on which it was putinto their keeping. Whether this failure results from dishonesty or frommisfortune is a consideration not often allowed, I think, to affect theright of the legal owner of the property concerned to his legal remedyin any other country but Ireland, nor even in Ireland in the case of anyproperty other than property in land. But as what I learned on the spottouching the general condition of the Clanricarde tenants, and touchingthe conduct and character of Lord Clanricarde's agent, Mr. Tener, led meto take a special interest in these evictions, I asked him to send mesome account of them. In reply he gave me a number of interestingdetails. 

The only serious attempt at resisting the execution of the law was madeby "Dr. " Tully, one of the leading local "agitators, " to the tendency ofwhose harangues judicial reference was made during the investigationinto the case of Mr. Wilfrid Blunt. Tully had a holding of seventeenacres at a rent of £2, 10s. , the Government valuation being £4. Heearned a good livelihood as a boat-builder, and he had put up a slatedhouse on his holding. But in November 1884 he chose to stop paying thevery low rent at which he held his place, and he has paid no rent sincethat time. As is stated in a footnote on page 153, vol. Ii. Of thisbook, a decree was granted against Tully by Judge Henn for three years'rent due in May 1887, and his equity of redemption having expired July9, 1888, this recourse was had to the law against him. 

As the leading spirit of the agitation, Tully had put a garrison intohis house of twelve men and two women. He had dug a ditch around it, taken out the window-sashes, filled up the casements and the doorwayswith stones and trunks of trees. Portholes had been pierced under theroof, through which the defenders might thrust red-hot pikes, pitchforks, and other weapons, and empty pails of boiling water upon theassailants. A brief parley took place. Tully refused to make any offerof a settlement unless the agent would agree to reinstate all theevicted tenants, to which Mr. Tener replied that he would recognise no"combination, " but was ready to deal with every tenant fairly andindividually. Finally the Sheriff ordered his men to take the place. Ladders were planted, and while some of the constables, under theprotection of a shield covered with zinc, a sort of Roman _testudo_, worked at removing the earthern ramparts, others nimbly climbed to theroof and began to break in from above. In their excitement the garrisonhelped this forward by breaking holes through the roof themselves to getat the attacking party, and in about twenty minutes the fortress wascaptured, and the inmates were prisoners. Two constables were burned bythe red-hot pikes, the gun of another was broken to pieces by a hugestone, and a fourth was slightly wounded by a fork. One of the defendersgot a sword-cut; and Tully was brought forth as one too severely woundedto walk. Upon investigation, however, the surgeon refused to certifythat he was unable to undergo the ordinary imprisonment in such casesmade and provided. 

The collapse of the resistance at this central point was followed by ageneral surrender. 

After the capture of Tully's house, Mr. Tener writes to me, "I found itbeing gutted by his family, who would have carried it away piecemeal. They had already taken away the flooring of one of the rooms. " ThereuponMr. Tener had the house pulled down, with the result of seeing astatement made in a leading Nationalist paper that he was "evicting thetenants and pulling down their houses. "

"Yesterday, " Mr. Tener writes to me on the 9th of September, "I walkedtwenty-five miles, visiting thirty farms about Portumna. Except in twoor three cases, the tenants have ample means, and part of the live stockalone on the farms, exclusive of the crops, would suffice to pay all therents I had demanded. On the farms recently 'evicted, ' I found treblethe amount of the rent due in live stock alone. "

As to one case of these recent evictions, I found it stated in an Irishjournal that a young man, who had been ill of consumption for two years, the son of a tenant, was removed from the house, the local physicianrefusing to certify that he was unfit for removal, and that he died afew days afterwards. The implication was obvious, and I asked Mr. Tenerfor the facts. 

He replied, "This young man, John Fahey, was in consumption, but did notappear to be in any danger. Dr. Carte, an Army surgeon, examined him, and said there was no immediate danger. The day was fine and he walkedabout wrapped in a comfortable coat, and talked with me and others. Hisfather, a respectable man, made no attempt to defend his house; and athis request, after the crowd had gone away, my man in charge permittedthe invalid and the family to reoccupy the house temporarily because ofhis illness. There was no inquest, and no need of any, after his death. His father, Patrick Fahey, had means to pay, but told me he 'could not, 'which meant he 'dared not. ' I went to him personally twice, and sent himmany messages. But the terror of the League was upon the poor man. 

"An interesting case is that of Michael Fahey, of Dooras. In 1883 hisrent was judicially reduced about 5 per cent. , from £33 to £31, 5s. Hishouse and all about it is substantial and comfortable. His father, aboutthirty years ago, fought for a whole night and bravely beat off a partyof 'Terry-Alts, ' the 'Moonlighters' of that day. For his courage theGovernment presented him with a gun, of which the son is very proud. Pity he did not inherit the pluck with the gun of his parent!

"I had been privately told that this tenant would pay; but that he wouldfirst produce a doctor's certificate that his old mother could not bemoved. He did give the Sheriff a carefully worded document to show this, but it was so vague that I objected to its being received by theSheriff. Upon this (not before! mark the craft of even a well-disposedIrish tenant in those evil days), I was asked to go into the house. Iwent in and entered the parlour. There the tenant told me he would paythe year's rent and the costs, amounting to £50. He had risen from hisseat to fetch the money, when, lo! Father Egan (the priest upon whosehead the widow of the murdered Finlay called down the curse of God inthe open street of Woodford) appeared in the doorway. He had come in ona pretence of seeing the old mother of the tenant, who had (for thatoccasion) taken to her bed. The bedroom lay beyond the parlour, and wasentered from it. The tenant actually shook with fear as Father Eganpassed through, and I thought all hope of a settlement gone, whensuddenly the officer of the police came in, passed into the bedroom, andtold Father Egan he must withdraw. This Father Egan refused to do, whereupon the officer said very quietly, 'I shall remove you forthwithif you do not go out quietly. ' Upon this Father Egan hastily left. Thetenant then went into the bedroom and soon reappeared with the £50 inbank-notes, which he paid me. All this was dramatic enough. But thecomedy was next performed in front of the house, where all could see it, of handing to the Sheriff the alleged doctor's certificate, and of mysaying aloud that 'in the circumstances' I had no objection to hisreceiving it! After this all the forces proceeded to take their luncheonon the green bank sloping down to the Shannon in front of thefarm-house. There is a fine orchard on the place, and it recalled to mesome of the farms I saw in Virginia. 

"I had gone into the house again, and was standing near the fire in thekitchen, where some of my escort were taking their luncheon. It is alarge kitchen, and perhaps a dozen people were in it, when in cameFather Egan again and called to the tenant Fahey, 'Put out thosepolicemen, and do not suffer one of them to remain. '

"The sergeant instantly said, 'We are here on duty, Father Egan, and ifyou dare to try to intimidate this tenant, I shall either put you out orarrest you. '

"'Yes, ' I interposed, looking at the sergeant, 'you are certainly hereon duty, and in the name of the law, and it is sad to see a clergymanhere in the interest of an illegal, criminal, and rebellious movement, and of the immoral Plan of Campaign. '

"'Oh!' exclaimed Father Egan, 'the opinion of the agent of the Marquisof Clanricarde is valuable, truly!'

"'I give you, ' I said, 'not my opinion, but the opinion of Dr. Healy andDr. O'Dwyer, bishops of your Church, and men worthy of all respect andreverence. And I am sorry to know that some ecclesiastics deserve norespect, but that at their doors lies the main responsibility for themisery and the crime which afflict our unhappy country. I feel sure ajust God will punish them in due time. '

"Father Egan made no reply, but paused a moment, and then walked out ofthe house. 

"At the next house, that of Dennis Fahey, we found a still betterdwelling. Here we had another mock certificate, but we received the rentwith the costs. "

NOTE H2. 

BOYCOTTING THE DEAD. 

(Vol. Ii. P. 151. )

The following official account sent to me (July 24) of an affair inDonegal, the result of the gospel of "Boycotting" taught in that region, needs and will bear no comment. 

Patrick Cavanagh came to reside at Clonmany, County Donegal, about twomonths ago, as caretaker on some evicted farms. He died on Wednesdayevening, June 20th, having received the full rites of the Roman CatholicChurch. The people had displayed no ill-will towards him during hisbrief residence at Clonmany, and on the evening of his death his bodywas washed and laid out by some women. On Thursday two townsmen dug hisgrave, where pointed out by Father Doherty, P. P. 

The first symptom of change of feeling was that on Thursday everycarpenter applied to had some excuse for not making a coffin for thebody of deceased. On Friday morning the grave was found to be filledwith stones, and a deputation waited on Father Doherty to protestagainst Cavanagh's burial in the chapel graveyard. He told them to gohome and mind their business. About 10. 30 A. M. On Friday the chapel bellwas rung--not tolled or rung as for service, but faster. The localsergeant of police went to the cemetery; when he arrived there thetolling ceased. He then went to Father Doherty, who told those presentthat their conduct was such as to render them unfit for residenceanywhere but in a savage country. He told them to go to their homes, andadvised them to allow the corpse to be buried in the grave he had markedout. After Father Doherty had left, the people condemned hisinterference, and said they would not allow any stranger to be buried inthe graveyard. When Constable Brady put it to those present that theirreal objection did not lie in the fact that Cavanagh had been astranger, he was not contradicted. 

The body was ultimately buried at Carndonagh on Saturday, several peopleremaining in the graveyard at Clonmany all through the night (Friday)till the body was taken to Carndonagh for burial. 

At Carndonagh Petty Sessions, on the 18th July 1888, Con. Doherty andOwen Doherty, with five others, were prosecuted for unlawful assembly onthe occasion above referred to. The first two named, who were theringleaders, were convicted, and sentenced to six weeks' imprisonmenteach with hard labour; the charges against the remainder were dismissed. 

NOTE I. 

POST-OFFICE SAVINGS BANKS. 

(Vol. I. P. 117; vol. Ii. Pp. 5, 12, 66, 95, 200, 248. )

As the Post-Office Savings Banks represent the smaller depositors, andcommand special confidence among them even in the disturbed districts, Iprint here an official statement showing the balances due to depositorsin the undermentioned offices, situated in certain of the most disturbedregions I visited, on the 31st December of the years 1880 and 1887respectively:--

 +-----------------+-----------------+---------------+ | OFFICE. | 1880. | 1887. | +-----------------+-----------------+---------------+ | | £ s. D. | £ s. D. | | Bunbeg, | 1, 270 6 7 | 1, 206 18 2 | | Falcarragh, | 62 15 10 | 494 10 8 | | Gorey, | 3, 690 14 4 | 5, 099 5 7 | | Inch, |[A] 8 11 0 | 209 7 5 | | Killorglin, | 282 15 9 | 1, 299 2 6 | | Loughrea, | 5, 500 19 9 | 6, 311 4 11 | | Mitchelstown, | 1, 387 13 2 | 2, 846 9 3 | | Portumna, | 2, 539 10 11 | 3, 376 5 4 | | Sixmilebridge, | 382 17 10 | 934 13 4 | | Stradbally, | 1, 812 14 8 | 2, 178 18 2 | | Woodford, | 259 14 6 | 1, 350 17 11 | | Youghal, | 3, 031 0 7 | 7, 038 7 2 | +-----------------+-----------------+---------------+ [A] This Office was not opened for Savings Bank business until the year 1881, the amount shown being balance due on the 31st December 1882. 

It appears from this table that the deposits in these Savings Banksincreased in the aggregate from £20, 329, 15s. 11d. In 1880 to £32, 347, 9s. 7d. In 1887, or almost 60 per cent, in seven years. They fell off inonly one case, at Bunbeg, and there only to a nominal amount. At Youghalthey much more than doubled, increasing about 133 per cent. Yet in allthese places the Plan of Campaign has been invoked "because the peoplewere penniless and could not pay their debts!"

NOTE K. 

THE COOLGREANY EVICTIONS. 

(Vol. Ii. P. 216. )

Captain Hamilton sends me the following graphic account of this affairat Coolgreany:--

In the _Freeman's Journal_ of the 16th December 1886, it is reportedthat a meeting of the Brooke tenantry, the Rev. P. O'Neill in the chair, was held at Coolgreany on the Sunday previous to the 15th December 1886, the date on which the "Plan of Campaign" was adopted on the estate, atwhich it was resolved that if I refused the terms offered they wouldjoin the "Plan. "

I had no conference at Freeman's house or anywhere else at any time withtwo parish priests. On the 15th December 1886, when seated in Freeman'shouse waiting to receive the rents, four priests, a reporter of the_Freeman's Journal_, some local reporters, and four of the tenantsrushed into the room; and the priests in the rudest possible manner (theRev. P. Farrelly, one of them, calling me "Francy Hyne's hangman, " andother terms of abuse) informed me that unless I re-instated a formerRoman Catholic tenant in a farm which he had previously held, and whichwas then let to a Protestant, and gave an abatement of 30 per cent. , norent would be paid _me_ that day. Dr. Dillon, C. C. , was not present onthis occasion, or, if so, I do not remember seeing him. 

On my asking if I had no alternative but to concede to their demand, theRev. Mr. Dunphy, parish priest, replied, "None other; do not think, sir, we have come here to-day to do honour to you. "

The Rev. P. O'Neill spoke as he always does, in a more gentlemanly andconciliatory manner, and I therefore, as the confusion in the room wasgreat, offered to discuss the matter with him, the Rev. O'Donel, C. C. , and the tenants, if the other priests, who were strangers to me, and thereporters would leave the room. This the Rev. Mr. Dunphy declared theywould not do, and I accordingly refused further to discuss the matter. 

After they left the house, one of the tenants, Mick Darcy, steppedforward and said, "Settle with us, Captain. " I replied, "Certainly, ifyou come back with me into the house. " The Rev. Mr. Dunphy took him bythe collar of his coat and threw him against the wall of the house, thenturning to me with his hand raised said, "You shall not do so; we, whoclaim the temporal as well as spiritual power over _you_ as well asthese poor creatures, will settle this matter with you. "

The tenants were then taken down to the League rooms, where two M. P. S, Sir Thomas Esmonde and Mr. Mayne, were waiting to receive the rents, which, one by one, they were ordered in to pay into the war-chest of the"Plan of Campaign. "

I have I fear written too much of this commencement of the war on theestate which has since led to over seventy of the tenants and theirfamilies being ejected, and has brought ruin on nearly all who joinedit. I have considerable experience as a land agent, but I know of noestate where the tenants were more respectable, better housed, or, as abody, in better circumstances than on the Brooke estate. They had akind, indulgent landlord, and they knew it; and nothing but the beliefthat, led by their clergy, they were foremost in a battle fighting fortheir country and religion, would have induced them to put up with thegreat hardships and loss they have undoubtedly had to suffer. 

NOTE L. 

A DUCAL SUPPER IN IRELAND IN 1711. 

(Vol. Ii. P. 283. )

The following entry I take from the Expense-Book of the Duke of Ormond, under date of August 23, 1711:--

His Grace came to Kilkenny, half an hour after 10 at night. 

HIS GRACE'S TABLE. 

Pottage. Sautee Veal. 5 Pullets, Bacon and Collyflowers. Pottage Meagre. Pikes with White Sauce. A Turbot with Lobster Sauce. Umbles. A Hare Hasht. Buttered Chickens, G. Hasht Veal and New Laid Eggs. Removes. A Shoulder and Neck of Mutton. Haunch of Venison. 

_Second Course. _

Lobsters. Tarts, an Oval Dish. Crabbs Buttered. 4 Pheasants, 4 Partridges, 4 Turkeys. Ragoo Mushrooms. Kidney Beans. Ragoo Oysters. Fritters. Two Sallets. 

NOTE M. 

LETTER FROM MR. O'LEARY. 

(Vol. Ii. P. 291. )

In the first edition of this book I credited Mr. O'Leary with makingthis pungent remark about figs and grapes, because I found it jotteddown in my original memoranda as coming from him. In a private note heassures me that he does not think it was made by him, and though thisdoes not agree with my own recollection, I defer, of course, to hisimpression. And this I do the more readily that it affords me anopportunity for printing the following very characteristic andinteresting letter sent to me by him for publication should I think fitto use it. 

As the most important support given by the Irish in America to theNationalists is solicited by their agents on the express ground thatthey are really labouring to establish an Irish Republic, this outspokendeclaration of Mr. O'Leary, that he does not believe they "expect ordesire" the establishment of an Irish Republic, will be of interest onmy side of the water:--

 "DUBLIN, _Sept. _ 9, '88. 

 "My Dear Sir, --I am giving more bother about what you make me say in your book than the thing is probably worth, especially seeing that what you say about me and my present attitude towards men and things here is almost entirely correct. 

 "It is proverbially hard to prove a negative, and my main reason for believing I did not say the thing about figs and grapes is that I never could remember the whole of any proverb in conversation; but I am absolutely certain I never said that 'some of them (the National Leaguers) expect to found an Irish republic on robbery, and to administer it by falsehood. We don't. ' Most certainly I do not expect to found anything on robbery, or administer anything by falsehood, but I do not in the least believe that the National League either expects or desires to found an Irish republic at all! Neither do I believe that the Leaguers will long retain the administration of such small measure of Home Rule, as I now (since the late utterances of Mr. Parnell and Mr. Gladstone) believe we are going to get. My fault with the present people is not that they are looking, or mean to look, for too much, but that they may be induced, by pressure from their English Radical allies, to be content with too little. It is only a large and liberal measure of Home Rule which will ever satisfy the Irish people, and I fear that, if the smaller fry of Radical M. P. 's are allowed to have a strong voice in a matter of which they know next to nothing, the settlement of the Irish question will be indefinitely postponed. --I remain, faithfully yours, "JOHN O'LEARY. "

NOTE N

BOYCOTTING PRIVATE OPINION. 

(Vol. Ii. P. 293. )

This case of Mr. Taylor is worth preserving _in extenso_ as anillustration of that spirit in the Irish journalism of the day, againstwhich Mr. Rolleston and his friends protest as fatal to independence, manliness, and truth. I simply cite the original attack made upon Mr. Taylor, the replies made by himself and his friends, and the commentsmade upon those replies by the journal which assailed him. They all telltheir own story. 

 (_UNITED IRELAND_, JUNE 16. )

 Mr. John F. Taylor owes everything he has or is to the Irish National Party; nor is he slow to confess it where the acknowledgment will serve his personal interests. His sneers are all anonymous, and, like Mr. Fagg, the grateful and deferential valet in _The Rivals_, "it hurts his conscience to be found out. " There is no honesty or sincerity in the man. His covert gibes are the spiteful emanation of personal disappointment; his lofty morality is a cloak for unscrupulous self-seeking. He has always shown himself ready to say anything or do anything that may serve his own interests. In the general election of 1885 he made frantic efforts to get into Parliament as a member of the Irish Party. He ghosted every member of the party whose influence he thought might help him--notably the two men, Mr. Dillon and Mr. O'Brien, at whom he now sneers, as he fondly believes, in the safe seclusion of an anonymous letter of an English newspaper. During the period of probation his hand was incessant on Mr. Dillon's door-knocker. The most earnest supplications were not spared. All in vain. Either his character or his ability failed to satisfy the Irish leader, and his claim was summarily rejected. Since then his wounded vanity has found vent in spiteful calumny of almost every member of the Irish Party--whenever he found malice a luxury that could be safely indulged in. 

 "His next step was a startling one. We have absolute reason to know, when the last Coercion Act was in full swing, this pure-souled and disinterested patriot begged for, received, and accepted a very petty Crown Prosecutorship under a Coercion Government. As was wittily said at the time, he sold his principles, not for a mess of pottage, but for the stick that stirred the mess. Strong pressure was brought to bear on him, and he was induced for his own sake, after many protests and with much reluctance, to publicly refuse the office he had already privately accepted. Mr. Taylor professes to model himself on Robert Emmet and Thomas Davis; it is hard to realise Thomas Davis or Robert Emmet as a Coercion Crown Prosecutor in the pay of Dublin Castle. Since then there has been no more persistent caviller at the Irish policy and the Irish Party in company where he believed such cavilling paid. When Home Rule was proposed by Mr. Gladstone, he had a thousand foolish sneers for the measure and its author. When the Bill was defeated, he elected Mr. Chamberlain, Mr. Goschen, and Mr. T. W. Russell as the gods of his idolatry. Such a nature needs a patron, and Mr. Webb, Q. C. , the Tory County Court Judge who doubled the sentence on Father M'Fadden, was the patron to be selected. It is shrewdly suspected that he supplied most of the misguiding information for Dr. Webb's coercion pamphlet, and it is probable that Dr. Webb gives him a lift with his weekly letter to the _Manchester Guardian. _

 (_UNITED IRELAND_, JUNE 23. )

 MR. JOHN F. TAYLOR. 

 _To the Editor of "United Ireland. "_

 Sir, --You would not, I am sure, allow intentional misstatements to appear in your columns, and I ask you to allow me space to correct three erroneous observations made about myself in your current issue--

 1. The first statement is to the effect that I owe everything I have, or that I am, to the Irish National Party. I owe absolutely nothing to the Irish Party, except an attempt to boycott me on my circuit, which, fortunately for me, has failed. 

 2. The second is to the effect that I made "frantic efforts" (these are the words, I think) to enter Parliament, and besieged Mr. Dillon's house during the time when candidates were being chosen. I saw Mr. Dillon exactly twice, both occasions at Mr. Davitt's request. Mr. Davitt urged me to allow my name to go forward as a candidate, and it was at his wish and solicitation that I saw Mr. Dillon. 

 3. It is further said that I begged a Crown Prosecutorship. Fortunately, Mr. Walker and The M'Dermot are living men, and they know this to be absolutely untrue. I was offered such an appointment, and, contrary to my own judgment, I allowed myself to be guided by Mr. Davitt, who thought the matter would be misunderstood in the state of things then existing. I believe I am the only person that ever declined such an offer. 

 As to general statements, these are of no importance, and I shall not trouble you about them. --Yours very truly, JOHN F. TAYLOR. 

 _P. S. _--The introduction of Dr. Webb's name was a gratuitous outrage, Dr. Webb and I never assisted each other in anything except in the defence of P. N. Fitzgerald. J. F. T. 

 _To the Editor of "United Ireland. "_

 Dear Sir, --As my name has been introduced into the controversy between yourself and Mr. Taylor, I feel called upon to substantiate the two statements wherein my name occurs in Mr. Taylor's letter of last week. It was at my request that he called upon Mr. John Dillon, M. P. I think I accompanied him on the occasion, and unless my memory is very much at fault, Mr. Dillon was not unfriendly to Mr. Taylor's proposed candidature. This visit occurred some three months after Mr. Taylor had, on my advice, declined the Crown Prosecutorship for King's County, a post afterwards applied for by and granted to a near relative of one of the most prominent members of the Irish Party. With Mr. Taylor's general views on the present situation, or opinions upon parties or men, I have no concern. But, in so far as the circumstances related above are dealt with in your issue of last week, I think an unjust imputation has been made against him, and in the interests of truth and fair play I feel called upon to adduce the testimony of facts as they occurred. --Yours truly, MICHAEL DAVITT. 

 Ballybrack, Co. Dublin, June 19, 1888. 

 _To the Editor of "United Ireland. "_

 Sir, --As this is, I believe, the first time I have sought to intrude upon your columns, I hope you will allow me some slight space in the interests of fair-play and freedom of speech. Those interests seem to me to have been quite set at naught in the attack, or rather series of attacks, upon Mr. Taylor in your last issue. Mr. Taylor's views upon many matters are not mine. He is far more democratic in his opinions than I see any sufficient reason for being, and he is very much more of what is called a land reformer than I am; but on an acquaintance of some years I have ever found him an honourable and high-minded gentleman, and as good a Nationalist, from my point of view, as most of the members of the Irish Parliamentary Party whom I either know or know of. Of some of the charges made against Mr. Taylor, such as the seeking for Crown Prosecutorships and the like, I am in no position to speak, save from my knowledge of his character, but I understand Mr. Davitt knows all about these things, and I suppose he will tell what he knows. But of the main matter, and I think the chief cause of your ire, I am quite in a position to speak. I have read at least a score of Mr. Taylor's letters to the _Manchester Guardian_, and I have always found them very intelligently written, and invariably characterised by a spirit of fairness and moderation; indeed, the chief fault I found with them was that they took too favourable a view of the motives, if not the acts, of many of our public men, but notably of Messrs. Dillon and O'Brien. You may, of course, fairly say that I am not the best judge of either the acts or the motives of these gentlemen, and I freely grant you that I may not, for my way of looking upon the Irish question is quite other than theirs; but what I must be excused for holding is that both I and Mr. Taylor have quite as good a right to our opinions as either of these gentlemen, or as any other member of the Irish Parliamentary Party. But this is the very last right that people are inclined to grant to each other in Ireland just now. Personally I care very little for this, but for Ireland's sake I care much. Some twenty years ago or so I was sent into penal servitude with the almost entire approval, expressed or implied, of the Irish Press. Some short time after the same Press found out that I and my friends had not sinned so grievously in striving to free Ireland. But men and times and things may change again, and, though I am growing old, I hope still to live long enough to be forgiven for my imperfect appreciation of the blessings of Boycotting, and the Plan of Campaign, and many similar blessings. It matters little indeed how or when I die, so that Ireland lives, but her life can only be a living death if Irishmen are not free to say what they believe, and to act as they deem right. --Your obedient servant, JOHN O'LEARY. 

 June 18, 1888. 

 _To the Editor of "United Ireland. "_

 Dear Sir, --I observe that in your last issue, amongst other things, you state that Mr. Taylor accepted a Crown Prosecutorship in 1885. I happen to know the precise facts. Mr. Taylor was offered the Crown Prosecutorship of the King's County, and some of us strongly advised him to accept it. There were no political prosecutions impending at the time, and it seemed to me that a Nationalist who would do his work honestly in prosecuting offenders against the ordinary law might strike a blow against tyranny by refusing to accept a brief, if offered, against men accused of political offences or prosecuted under a Coercion Act. I know that a similar view was entertained by the late Very Rev. Dr. Kavanagh of Kildare, and many others. However, we failed to influence Mr. Taylor further than to make him say that he would do nothing in the matter until Mr. Davitt was consulted. I, for one, called on Mr. Davitt, and pressed my views upon him; but he was decided that no Nationalist could identify himself in the smallest way with Castle rule in Ireland. This settled the question, and Mr. Taylor declined the post, which was subsequently applied for by Mr. Luke Dillon, who now holds it. --Faithfully yours, JAMES A. POOLE. 

 29 Harcourt Street. 

 EDITORIAL NOTE. 

 _"United Ireland, " June 23. _

 We devote a large portion of our space to-day to the apparently organised defence of Mr. J. F. Taylor and his friends, and we are quite content to rest upon their letters the justification for our comments. When a gentleman who avows himself a disappointed aspirant for Parliamentary honours, and who owns his regret that he did not become a petty Castle placeman, is discovered writing in an important English Liberal paper, venomous little innuendos at the expense of sorely attacked Irish leaders which excite the enthusiasm of the _Liarish Times_, it was high time to intimate to the _Manchester Guardian_ the source from which its Irish information is derived. The case against Mr. Taylor as a criticaster is clinched by the fact that his cause is espoused by Mr. John O'Leary. The Irish public are a little weary of Mr. O'Leary's querulous complaints as an _homme incompris_. So far as we are aware, the only ground he himself has for complaining of want of toleration is that he possibly considers the good-humoured toleration for years invariably extended to his opinions on men and things savours of neglect. His idea of toleration with respect to others seems to be toleration for everybody except the unhappy wretches who may happen to be for the moment doing any practicable service in the Irish cause. 

NOTE O. 

BOYCOTTING BY "CROWNER'S QUEST LAW. "

(Vol. Ii. P. 312. )

The following circumstantial account of this deplorable case of EllenGaffney preserved here, as I find it printed in the _Irish Times_ ofFebruary 27, 1888. 

"In the Court of Queen's Bench, on Saturday, the Lord Chief-Justice (SirMichael Morris, Bart. ), Mr. Justice O'Brien, Mr. Justice Murphy, and Mr. Justice Gibson presiding, judgment was delivered in the case of EllenGaffney. The original motion was to quash the verdict of a coroner'sjury held at Philipstown on August 27th and September 1st last, on thebody of a child named Mary Anne Gaffney. 

"The Lord Chief-Justice said it appeared that Mary Anne Gaffney, thechild on whose body the inquest was held, was born on the 23d July, andthat she died on the 25th August, 1887. A Dr. Clarke, who had been verymuch referred to in the course of the proceedings, called upon the localsergeant of the police, and directed his attention to the body, but thesergeant having inspected the body, came to the conclusion that therewas no need for an inquest. The doctor considered differently, and thesergeant communicated with the Coroner on the 26th August, and on thenext day that gentleman arrived in Philipstown. He had a conferencethere with Dr. Clarke and with a reverend gentleman named Father Bergin, and subsequently proceeded to hold an inquest upon the child in apublic-house--a most appropriate place apparently for the transactionswhich afterwards occurred there. The investigation, if it might be socalled, was proceeded with upon that 27th of August. Very strongaffidavits had been made on the part of Mrs. Gaffney--who applied tohave the inquisition quashed--her husband, and some of the constabularyauthorities as to the line of conduct pursued upon that occasion. EllenGaffney and her husband were taken into custody on the day the inquestopened by the verbal direction of the Coroner, who refused to completethe depositions given by the former on the ground that she was notsworn. That did not take him out of the difficulty, for if she was notsworn she had a right to be sworn, and the Coroner had no right toprevent her. The inquest was resumed on the 1st September in thecourt-house at Philipstown--the proper place--and a curious letter wasread from the Coroner, the effect of which was that he did not considerthat there was any ground for detaining the man Gaffney in custody, butthe woman was brought before a justice of the peace and committed fortrial. She was in prison from August 27th until the month of December, when the lucky accident of a winter assize occurred, else she might bethere still. At the adjourned inquest the Coroner proceeded to read overthe depositions taken on the former day, and it was sworn by fourwitnesses, whom he (the Lord Chief-Justice) entirely credited, that theCoroner read these depositions as if they were originals, whereas anunprecedented transaction had occurred. The Coroner had given theoriginal depositions out of his own custody, and given them to areverend gentleman who was rather careless of them, as was shown by theevidence of a witness named Greene, who deposed that he saw a car on theroad upon which sat two clergymen, and he found on the road the originaldepositions which, presumably, one of the clergymen had dropped. Thedepositions were handed to a magistrate and afterwards returned to thepolice at Philipstown, who had possession of them on the resumption ofthe inquest. If the case stood alone there it was difficult tounderstand how a Coroner could come into court and appear by counsel toresist the quashing of an inquisition in regard to which at the verydoor such gross personal misconduct was demonstrated. No doubt, he said, he did not read them as originals but as copies, and it was strange, that being so, that he did not inform the jury of what had become ofthem, and he complained now of not being told by the police of theirrecovery--not told of his own misconduct. On the 1st September, EllenGaffney applied by a solicitor--Mr. Disdall, and as a set-off theCoroner permitted a gentleman named O'Kearney Whyte to appear--for whom?Was it for the constituted authorities or for the next-of-kin? No, butfor the Rev. Father Bergin, who was described as president of the localbranch of the National League, and the Coroner (Mr. Gowing) alleged asthe reason why he allowed him to appear and cross-examine the witnessesand address the jury and give him the right of reply like Crown counselwas, that Ellen Gaffney stated that she had been so much annoyed byFather Bergin that she attributed the loss of her child to him--that itwas he who had murdered the child. It was asserted that Father Berginsat on the bench with the Coroner and interfered during the conduct ofthe inquest, and having to give some explanation of that Mr. Gowing'sversion was certainly a most amusing one. He said it was the habit toinvite to a seat on the bench people of a respectable position inlife--which, of course, a clergyman should be in--and that he askedFather Bergin to sit beside him in that capacity. But see the dilemmathe Coroner put himself in. According to his own statement he hadpreviously allowed this reverend gentleman to interfere, and to berepresented by a solicitor because he was incriminated, inculpated, oraccused, and it certainly was not customary to invite any one sosituated to occupy a seat on the bench. He (the Lord Chief Baron) didnot believe that Father Bergin was incriminated in any way, but that wasthe Coroner's allegation, and such was his peculiar action thereafter. The Coroner further stated that no matter whether he read the originalsor the copies of the first day's depositions, it was on the evidence ofSeptember 1st that the jury acted. If that was so he placed himself in afurther dilemma, for there was no evidence before the jury at all on thesecond day upon which they could bring a verdict against Ellen Gaffney. In regard to the recording and announcing of the verdict it appearedthat the jury were 19 in number, and after their deliberations theforeman declared that 13 were for finding a verdict one way and 6 foranother; that Mr. Whyte dictated the verdict to the Coroner, and theCoroner asked the 13 men if that was what they agreed to. Mr. Whyte'sstatement was that the jury, through the foreman, stated what theirverdict was; that he wrote it down, and that the Coroner asked him forwhat he had written, and used it himself. But in addition to that, whenthe jury came in the Coroner and Mr. Whyte divided them--placed themapart while the verdict was being written--and then said to the 13 men, "Is that what you agree to?" Such apparent misconduct it was hardlypossible to conceive in anybody occupying a judicial position as did theCoroner, and especially a Coroner who had an inquisition quashed before. What he had mentioned was sufficient to call forth the emphatic decisionof the court quashing the proceedings, which, however, were alsoimpeached on the grounds of its insufficiency and irregularity, and ofthe character of the finding itself. It was not until the Coroner hadbeen threatened with the consequences of his contempt that he made areturn to the visit of _certiorari_, and it was then found that out often so-called depositions only one contained any signature--that of Dr. Clarke's, which was one of those lost by the clergyman, and not beforethe jury on the 1st September. He (the Lord Chief-Justice) had tried toread the documents, but in vain--they were of such a scrawling andscribbling character, but, as he had said, all were incomplete andutterly worthless except the one which was not properly before the jury. Then, what was the finding on this inquisition, which should have beensubstantially as perfect as an indictment? "That Mary Anne Gaffney cameby her death, and that the mother of this child, Ellen Gaffney, isguilty of wilful neglect by not supplying the necessary food and care tosustain the life of this child. " Upon what charge could the woman havebeen implicated on that vague finding? He (his Lordship) couldunderstand its being contended that that amounted argumentatively to averdict of manslaughter; but the Coroner issued his warrant and sentthis woman to prison as being guilty of murder, and she remained incustody, as he had already remarked, until discharged by the learnedjudge who went the Winter Assizes in December. Upon all of these groundsthey were clearly of opinion that this inquisition should be quashed, and Mr. Coroner Gowing having had the self-possession to come there toshow cause against the conditional order, under such circumstances, mustbear the costs of that argument. 

Mr. Fred. Moorhead, who, instructed by Mr. O'Kearney Whyte, appeared forthe Coroner, asked whether the Court would require, as was usual whencosts were awarded against a magistrate, an undertaking from the otherside--

The Lord Chief-Justice. --That is not to bring an action against theCoroner, you mean?

Mr. Moorhead. --Yes, my Lord. I think it is a usual undertaking whencosts are awarded in such a case. I think you ought--

The Lord Chief-Justice. --Well, I don't know that we ought, but we mostcertainly will not. (Laughter. )

Mr. David Sherlock, who (instructed by Mr. Archibald W. Disdall)appeared for Ellen Gaffney. --Rest assured, we certainly will bring anaction. 

THE END. 

 * * * * *

FOOTNOTES:

[1] I have the authority of Mr. Hennessey, "the best livingIrish scholar, and a Kerryman to boot, " for this spelling. I am quiteright, he says, in stating that the people there pronounce the names ofGlenbeigh and Rossbeigh as Glenbéhy and Rossbéhy in three syllables. "Bethe, " pronounced "behy, " is the genitive of "beith, " the birch, ofwhich there were formerly large woods in Ireland. Glenbehy and Rossbehymean the "Glen, " and the "Ross" or "wooded point" of the birch. 

[2] A letter received by me from a Protestant Irish gentleman, long an ardent Nationalist, seems to confirm this. He writes to me (June15), "There is a noble river here, with a convenient line of quays for unloading merchandise. But every sack that is landed must be carried out of the ship on men's backs. The quay labourers won't allow a steam crane to be set up. If it is tried there is a riot and a tumult, and no Limerick tradesman can purchase anything from a vessel that uses it, on pain of being boycotted. The result is that the labourers are masters of the situation, and when they catch a vessel with a cargo which it is imperative to land quickly, they wait till the work is half done, and then strike for 8s. A day! If other labourers are imported, they are boycotted for 'grabbing work, ' and any one who sells provisions to them is boycotted. "

[3] An interesting account of this gentleman, and of hisconnection with the earlier developments of the Irish agitation, givento me by Mr. Colomb of the R. I. C. , will be found at p. 38, and in theAppendix, Note F. 

[4] See Appendix, Note F. 

[5] The name of this blacksmith's son learned in the Law of theLeague is given in Lord Cowper's Report (2. 18, 370) as Michael Healy. While these pages are in the printer's hands the London papers chronicle(May 25, 1888) the arrest of a person described to me as thismagistrate's brother, Jeremiah Healy, on a charge of robbing and settingfire to the Protestant church at Killarney!

[6] Mr. Colomb sends me, June 30, the following interestingnote:--The letter of which I gave you a copy was produced in evidence atKerry Summer Assizes, 1867. J. D. Sheehan, Esq. , M. P. , is the same manwho was arrested on the 12th February 1867, and to whom the foregoingletter, ordering the rising in Killarney, is addressed. He was kept incustody for some time, and eventually released, it is believed, on theunderstanding that he was to keep out of Ireland. He came back in 1873or 1874 and married the proprietress of a Hotel at Killarney. Hisconnection with the Glenbehy evictions is referred to on page 10, and inNote F of the Appendix I give an interesting account, furnished me byMr. Colomb, of his activity in connection with the case of the MissesCurtin at Firies. 

[7] In the time of Henry VIII. These cities waged actual warwith each other, like Florence and Pisa, by sea and land. Limerick wasthen called "Little London. "

[8] It was on the 17th October 1886 that Mr. Dillon firstpromulgated the Plan of Campaign at all at Portumna. 

[9] Mr. Ponsonby's account of this affair will be found in theAppendix, Note G. The Post-Office Savings Bank deposits at Youghal, which were £3031, 0s. 7d. In 1880, rose to £7038, 7s. 2d. In 1887. 

[10] As to the ability of these tenants to pay their way, onefact which I have since ascertained sufficiently supports Mr. Tener'scontention. The deposits in the Postal Savings Banks of the three purelyagricultural towns of Portumna, Woodford, and Loughrea, which in 1880, throwing off the shillings and pence, were respectively, £2539, £259, and £5500, rose in 1887 to £3376, £1350, and £6311, an increase ofnearly £3000. 

[11] Mr. Tener, to whom I sent proofs of these pages, writes tome (July 18): "I shall soon execute the decree of the County-Court JudgeHenn against Father Coen for £5, 5s. , being two and a half year'srent. "

[12] At a hearing of cases before Judge Henn some time after Ileft Portumna, the Judge was reported in the papers as "severely"commenting upon the carelessness with which the estate-books were kept, tenants who were proceeded against for arrears producing "receipts" incourt. I wrote to Mr. Tener on this subject. Under date of June 5th hereplied to me: "Judge Henn did not use the severe language reported. There was no reporter present but a local man, and I have reason tobelieve the report in the _Freeman's Journal_ came from the lawyer ofthe tenants, who is on the staff of that journal. But the tenants aredrilled not to show the receipts they hold, and to take advantage ofevery little error which they might at once get corrected by calling atthe estate office. In no case, however, did any wrong occur to anytenant. "

[13] The town and estate proper of Woodford belong to Sir HenryBurke, Bart. The nearest point to Woodford of Lord Clamicarde's propertyis distant one mile from the town. And on the so-called Woodford estatethere are not "316 tenants, " as stated in publications I have seen, but260. 

[14] Martin Kenny, the "victim" of this eviction, is the tenantto whom the Rev. Mr. Crawford (_vide_ page 118) gave £50 for certaincattle, in order that he (Kenny) might pay his rent But, although he gotthe £50, he nevertheless suffered himself to be evicted; no doubtfearing the vengeance of the League should he pay. 

[15] The valuation for taxes of this holding is £7, 15s. Forthe land, and £5 for the presbytery house. The church is exempt. 

[16] Of "Dr. " Tully Mr. Tener wrote to me (July 18):

 "Tully has the holding at £2, 10s. A year, being 50 per cent, under the valuation of the land for taxes, which is £3, 15s. As the total valuation with the house (built by him) is only £4, he pays no poor-rates. He was in arrears May 1, 1887, of three years for £7, 10s. Lord Clanricarde offered him, with others, 20 per cent, abatement, making for him 70 per cent, under the valuation--and he refused!"

Since then (on Saturday Sept. 1), Tully has been evicted after adramatic "resistance, " of which, with instructive incidents attendingit, Mr. Tener sends me an account, to be found in the Appendix, Note H. 

[17] Note H2. 

[18] Mr. Tener writes to me (July 18):

 "At Allendarragh, near the scene of Finlay's murder, Thomas Noonan, who lately was brave enough to accept the post of process-server vacated by that murder, was shot at on the 13th instant. It was on the highway. He heard a heavy stone fall from a wall on the road and turned to see what caused it. He distinctly saw two men behind the wall with guns, and saw them fire. One shot struck a stone in the road very near him--the other went wide. His idea is that one gun dislodged the stone on which it had been laid for an aim, and that its fall disturbed the aim and saved him. He fully identifies one of the men as Henry Bowles, a nephew of 'Dr. ' Tully, who lives with Tully, and Bowles, after being arrested and examined at Woodford, has been remanded, bail being refused, to Galway Jail. Before this shooting Noonan had served a notice from me upon Tully, against whom I have Judge Henn's decree for three years' rent, and whose equity of redemption expired July 9th. "

[19] I have since learned that my jarvey was well informed. SirHenry Burke actually paid Mr. Dillon £160 for the maintenance of histenants while out of their farms. This, two other landlords, LordsDunsandle and Westmeath, refused to do, but, like Sir Henry, they bothpaid all the costs, and accepted a "League" reduction of 5s. 6d. And 6s. In the pound (June 9, 1888). 

[20] Down to the date at which I write this note (June 9), Mr. Seigne has kindly, but without results, endeavoured to get for me someauthentic return made by a small tenant-farmer of his incomings andoutgoings. 

[21] Note I. 

[22] Note K. 

[23] While these pages are going through the press a Scottishfriend sends me the following extract from a letter published in the_Scotsman_ of July 25:--

 "In the same way I, in August last, when in Wicklow, ascertained as carefully as I could the facts as to the Bodyke evictions; and being desirous to learn now if that estate was still out of cultivation, as I had found it in August, I wrote the gentleman I have referred to above. His reply is as follows:--

 "'I can answer your question as far as the Brooke estate is concerned. None of the tenants are back in their farms, nor are they likely to be. The landlord has the land partly stocked with cattle; but I may say the land is nearly waste; the gates, fences, and farmsteads partly destroyed. I was at the fair of Coolgreany about three weeks ago, and the country looked quite changed; the weeds predominating in the land that the tenantry had under cultivation when they were evicted from their farms. The landlord has done nothing to lay the land down with grass seed, consequently the land is waste. The village of Coolgreany is on the property, and there was a good monthly fair held there, but it is very much gone down since the disagreement between the landlord and tenant. The tenants, speaking generally, in allowing themselves to be evicted and not redeeming before six months, are giving up all their improvements to the landlord, no matter what they may be worth. I have got quite tired of the vexed question, and may say I have given up reading about evictions, and pity the tenant who is foolish enough to allow any party to advise him so badly as to allow himself to be evicted. '

 "Those who read this testimony of a candid witness, and remember the cordial footing on which Mr. Brooke stood with his tenantry in Bodyke before Mr. Billon appeared amongst them, may well ask what good his interference did to the now impoverished tenantry of Bodyke, or to the district now deserted or laid waste. --I am, etc. , A RADICAL UNIONIST. "

[24] In curious confirmation of this opinion expressed to me bya man of the country in March, I find in the _Dublin Express_ of July19th this official news from the Athy Vice-Guardians:

 "At the meeting of the Vice-Guardians of the Athy Union yesterday, a letter was read from Mr. G. Finlay, Auditor, in which he stated that the two sureties of Collector Kealy, of the Luggacurren district, had been evicted from their holdings by Lord Lansdowne, and were not now in possession of any lands there. They were allowed outdoor relief to the extent of £1 a week each on the ground of destitution. The Auditor continued: 'The Collector tells me that they both possess other lands, and have money in bank. The Collector is satisfied that they are as good, if not better, securities for the amount of his bond now than at the time they became sureties for him. The Clerk of the Union concurs in this opinion. '

 "It was ordered to bring the matter under the notice of the Board. "

[25] _Explanatory Note attached to First Edition. _--After thischapter had actually gone to press, I received a letter from the friendwho had put me into communication with the labourers referred to in it, begging me to strike out all direct indications of their whereabouts, onthe ground that these might lead to grave annoyance and trouble forthese poor men from the local tyrants. 

I do not know that I ought to regret the annoyance thus caused to mypublisher and to me, as no words of mine could emphasise so clearly thenature and the scope of the odious, illegal, or anti-legal "coercion"established in certain parts of Ireland as the asterisks which mark mycompliance with my friend's request. What can be said for the freedom ofa country in which a man of character and position honestly believes itto be "dangerous" for poor men to say the things recorded in the text ofthis chapter about their own feelings, wishes, opinions, and interests?

[26] It may be well to say here that whatever prominence Mr. O'Donovan Rossa has had among the Irish in America has been largely, ifnot chiefly, due to the curious persistency of Sir William Harcourt, when a Minister, in making him the ideal Irish-American leader. In andout of Parliament, Sir William Harcourt continually spoke of Mr. Rossaas of a kind of Irish Jupiter Tonans, wielding all the terrors ofdynamite from beyond the Atlantic. This was a source of equal amusementto the Irish-American organisers in America and satisfaction to Mr. Rossa himself. I remember that when a question arose of excluding Mr. Rossa from an important Irish-American convention at Philadelphia, asnot being the delegate of any recognised Irish-American body, Mr. Sullivan told me that he should recommend the admission of Mr. Rossa tothe floor without a right to deliberative action, expressly because hispresence, when reported, would be a cause of terror to Sir WilliamHarcourt. 

[27] See Appendix, Note M. 

[28] Note N. 

[29] Note O.