Note 26 — Chapter XII

These are tales of the past. We must now look nearer home to find such barbarity. In the long series of atrocities which, within the last few months, have distressed Ireland (the shooting of landlords and burning of property), one incident has forcibly reminded me of pre-Christian days in Fiji, when a poor fellow having been put in charge of a house from which the tenant had been evicted, five or six men in masks entered the house, seized him and nailed him to the door by his ears, which they then cut off. And among the trifling incidents of daily life, we hear of ladies and clergymen being pelted with large stones, and pursued for long distances, solely for having ventured to examine the Protestant schools. Whether do you consider Ireland or Fiji the safer place of residence in this year of grace 1880?