UNDER HOME RULE. (continued 4)

I asked him how he accounted for this extraordinary state of things. He said:—

"As an Irishman I am bound to answer one question by asking another. Was there ever a free and prosperous country where the Roman Catholic religion was predominant?"

I could not answer him at the moment, but perhaps Father O'Mahony, who knows so much, may satisfy him on the point. Or in the absence of this eloquent kisser of the Blarney Stone some other black-coated Corker may respond. Goodness knows, they are numerous enough. All are well clothed and well fed, while the flock that feed the pastor are mostly in squalid poverty, actually bending the knee to their greasy task-masters, poor ignorant victims of circumstances.

Among the many nostrums offered to Ireland, nobody offers soap. The greatest inventions are often the simplest, and with all humility I make the suggestion. Ireland is badly off for soap, and cleanliness is next to godliness. Father Humphreys, of Tipperary, boasts of his influence with the poor—delights to prove how in the matter of rent they took his advice, and so on. Suppose he asks them to wash themselves! The suggestion may at first sight appear startling. All novelties are alarming at first; but the mortality, except among old people, would probably prove less than Father Humphreys might expect. He would have some difficulty in recognising his flock, but the resources of civilisation would probably be sufficient to conquer this drawback. Persons over forty might be exempted, as nothing less than skinning would meet their case, but the young might possibly be trained, against tradition and heredity, to the regular use of water. But I fear the good Father will hardly strain his authority so far. An edict to wash would mean blue ructions in Tipperary, open rebellion would ensue, and the mighty Catholic Church would totter to its fall. The threat to wash would be an untold terrorism, the use of soap an outrage which could only be atoned by blood. And Father Humphreys (if he knew the words) might truly say Cui bono? Why wash? Is not soap an enemy to the faith? Do not the people suit our purpose much better as they are? Thigum thu, brutal and heretic Saxon?

Killaloe (Co. Clare), April 27th.

No. 15.—THE PERIL TO ENGLISH TRADE.ToC

s the great object of public interest in the city of Limerick is the Treaty Stone, a huge block of granite, raised on a pedestal on the Clare side of Thomond Bridge, to commemorate the Violated Treaty so graphically described by Macaulay, and to keep in remembrance of the people the alleged ancient atrocities of the brutal Saxon—so the key-note of Ennis is the memorial to the Manchester Martyrs, erected outside the town to commemorate the people who erected it. That is how it strikes the average observer. For while the patriotic murderers of the Manchester policemen, to wit, O'Brien, Allen, and Larkin, have only one tablet to the three heroes, the members of the committee who were responsible for this Nationalist or rather Fenian monument have immortalised themselves on three tablets. But although party feeling runs high, and the town as a whole appears to be eminently disloyal and inimical to England, there are not wanting reasonable people who look on the proposed change with grave suspicion, even though they nominally profess to support the abstract doctrine of Home Rule. Naturally, their main opinions are very like those I have previously recorded as being prevalent in the neighbouring counties of Limerick, Cork, and Kerry. They believe the present time unseasonable, and they have no confidence in the present representatives of the Nationalist party. They believe that the Irish people are not yet sufficiently educated to be at all capable of self-government, and they fail to see what substantial advantages would accrue from any Home Rule Bill. More especially do they distrust Mr. Gladstone; and although in England the Nationalist leaders speak gratefully of the Grand Old Man, it is probable that such references would in Ireland be received in silence, if not with outspoken derision. A well-known Nationalist thus expressed himself on this point:—

"Gladstone's recent attack on Parnell was one of the meanest acts of a naturally mean and cowardly man, whose whole biography is a continuous story of surrender, abject and unconditional. Parnell was his master. With all his faults, Parnell was much the better man. He was too cool a swordsman for Gladstone, and, spite of the Grand Man's tricky dodging and shifting, Parnell beat him at every point, until he was thoroughly cowed and had to give in. What surprises me is that the English people are led away by a mere talker. They claim to be the most straightforward and practical people in the world. Answer me this:—Did you, did anybody, ever know Gladstone to give a straightforward answer to any one question? Straight dealing is not in him. He is slippery as an eel—with all his 'honesty,' his piety, his benevolence. But as he reads the Bible in Hawarden Church, the English believe in him. They have no other reason that I can see. Have you heard any Irishman speak well of Gladstone? No, and you never will. How long in the country? Five weeks only? You may stay five years, and you will not hear a word expressing sincere esteem. About separation? Well, most of the unthinking people, that is, the great majority, would vote in favour of it to-morrow. All sentiment, the very romance of sentimentality. I have been in England, I have been in America, and you could hardly believe the difference in the people's views. The Irish are not practical enough. 'Ireland a nation' is bound to be the next cry, if Home Rule become law under the present leaders of the Nationalist party."

"But how about the pledges, the solemn and reiterated pledges, of Michael Davitt and the rest?"

"I suppose you ask me seriously? You do? An Irishman would regard the question as a joke. The pledges are not worth a straw. Their object is to deceive, and so to carry the point at issue. Would John Bull come with an injured air and say, with tears in his voice, 'You said you'd be good. You promised to be loyal. You really did. Did you not, now?' Don't you think John would cut a pretty figure? Davitt knows where to have him. He knows that a quiet, moderate, reasonable tone fetches him. Parnell, too, knew that the method with John was a steady, quiet persistence without excitement. John listens to Davitt, and says to himself, 'Now this is a calm, steady fellow. Nothing fly-away about him. No shouting and screaming there. This is the kind of man who must boss the show. Give him what he wants.'

"Look how Morley was taken in. And so, no doubt, was many another.

"If England trusts the assurances of these men, and if the bill under present conditions becomes law, we shall have two generations of experiment, of corruption, of turmoil, of jobbery such as the British Empire has never seen.

"Yes, I am a Home Ruler—at the proper time. But Home Rule in our present circumstances would mean revolution, and, a hundred to one, the reconquest of Ireland. And in the event of any foreign complication you would have all your work cut out to effect your purpose."

A gentleman from Mallow said, "The Gaelic clubs all over the country are in a high state of organisation, and a perfect state of drill. The splendid force of constabulary which are now for you would be against you. The Irish Legislature, from the first, would have the power to raise a force of Volunteers, and the Irish are such a military nation that in six months they could muster a very formidable force. I am a Unionist, a Protestant too, but I find that my Catholic and Home Rule friends, that is, the superior sort, the best-read, the most thinking men, agree with me perfectly. But while I can understand Irish Home Rulers, even the most extreme sort, I cannot understand any sensible Englishman entertaining such an insane idea. As manager of one of the largest concerns in Cork I have made many visits to England, and I found the supporters of Mr. Gladstone so utterly misinformed, so credulous, so blankly ignorant of the matter, that I forbore to debate the thing at all. And their assumption was on a level with their ignorance, which is saying a good deal."

Mr. Thomas Manley, the great horse dealer, a famous character throughout the three kingdoms, said to me, "The Limerick horse fair of Thursday last was the worst I ever attended in forty years. There is no money in the country. The little that changed hands was for horses of a common sort, and every one, I do believe, was bought for England and Scotland, tramcar-horses and such like. Home Rule is killing the country already. I farmed a thousand acres of land in Ireland for many a long year, and since I went more fully into the horse-dealing business I kept two hundred and fifty acres going. I have horsed the six crack cavalry regiments of the British army, and I know every nook and corner of Ireland; know, perhaps, every farmer who can breed and rear a horse, and I also know their opinions. Give me the power and I would do four things. Here they are:—

"I would first settle the land question, then reform the poor-laws, then rearrange the Grand Jury laws, then commence to reclaim the land, which would pay ten per cent.

"The Tories should undertake these measures. They would then knock the bottom out of the Home Rule agitation. The people are downright sick of the whole business. They expected to be well off before this. They find themselves going down the nick."

Mr. Abraham P. Keeley said: "There is much fault found with the landlords, but they are by no means so much to blame as is supposed. Put the saddle on the right horse. And the right horse is the steam horse. The rapid transit of grain and general farm produce has lowered the value of land more rapidly than the landlords could lower the rent. Every year the prairie lands of America are further opened up by railways; India and Egypt and Australia are now in the swim, and Ireland, as a purely agricultural country, must suffer. A curious illustration of the purely rural condition of the country was mentioned the other day. Nearly all the great towns drink the water of the rivers upon which they stand. Cork drinks the Lee; Limerick drinks the Shannon; you can catch trout from the busiest quay in Limerick. Now, the towns of England don't drink their own rivers. You don't drink the Rea at Birmingham, I think?"

I was obliged to admit that the pellucid waters of the crystal Rea were not the favourite table beverage of the citizens of Brum, but submitted that Mr. Joseph Malins, the Grand Worthy Chief Templar, and his great and influential following might possibly use this innocent means of dissipation.

Mr. Thomas Manley continued: "The tenant farmer has cried himself up, and the Nationalists have cried him up as the finest, most industrious, most honest, most frugal, most self-sacrificing fellow in the world. But he isn't. Not a bit of it. The landlords and their agents have over and over again been shot for rack-renting when the rents had been forced up by secret competitions among neighbours and even relations.

"Ask any living Irish farmer if I am right, and he will say, Yes, ten times yes.

"The Irishman has a land-hunger such as is unknown over the water. And why? Because the land is his sole means of living. We have no enterprise, no manufactures to speak of. The Celtic nature is to hoard. The Englishman invests what the Irishman would bury in his back garden, or hang up the chimney in an old stocking. So we have no big works all over the country to employ the people. And as we are very prolific, the only remedy is emigration. Down at Queenstown the other day I saw 250 Irish emigrants leaving the country. A Nationalist friend said, 'If they'd only wait a bit till we get Home Rule, they needn't go, the crathurs.' What's to hinder it? How will they be better off? Will the land sustain more with Home Rule than without it? And when capital is driven away, as it must and will be the moment we pass the bill, instead of more factories we'll have less, and England and Scotland will be over-run with thousands of starving Irish folks whose means of living is taken away.

"As an Irish farmer, and an Irish farmer's son, living on Irish farms for more than sixty years, having an intimate acquaintance with the whole of Ireland, and almost every acre of England, I deliberately say that the Irish farmer is much better off than the English, Scotch, or Welsh farmer, not only in the matter of law, but in the matter of soil.

"In many parts of England the soil must be manured after every crop. Every time you take out you must put in. Not so in Ireland. Nature has been so bountiful to us that we can take three, and even six, crops off the land after a single dose of manure. Of course the farmer grumbles, and no wonder. The price of stock and general produce is so depressed that Irish farmers are pinched. But so they are in England. And yet you have no moonlighting. You don't shoot your landlords. If the land will not pay you give it up and take to something else. An Irishman goes on holding, simply refusing to pay rent. His neighbours, who are in the same fix, support him. When the landlord wishes to distrain, after waiting seven years or so, he has to get a decree. The tenants know of it as soon as he, and they set sentinels. When the police are signalled the cattle are driven away and mixed with those of other farmers—every difficulty that Irish cleverness can invent is placed in the way. Then the landlord, whether or not successful in distraining, is boycotted, and the people reckon it a virtue to shoot him down on sight. Conviction is almost, if not quite, impossible, for even if you found a willing witness—a very unlikely thing I can tell you—even then the witness knows himself marked for the same fate. If he went to America or Australia he would be traced, and someone would be found to settle him. Such things have happened over and over again, and people know the risk is great. But about rack-rents.

"I have told you of Irish avariciousness in the matter of land, and have explained the reason of it. Rents have been forced up by people going behind each other's backs and offering more and more, in their eagerness to acquire the holding outbidding each other. Landlords are human; agents, if possible, still more human. They handed over the land to the highest bidder. What more natural? The farmers are not business men. They offered more than the land could pay. You know the results. But why curse and blaspheme the landlords for what was in many cases their own deliberate act?"

On Friday last I had a small object-lesson in Irish affairs. Colonel O'Callaghan, of Bodyke, went to Limerick to buy cattle for grazing on his estate. The cattle were duly bought, but the gallant Colonel had to drive them through the city with his own right hand. I saw his martial form looming in the rear of a skittish column of cows, and even as the vulture scenteth the carcase afar off, even so, scenting interesting matter, did I swoop down on the unhappy Colonel, startling him severely with my sudden dash. He said, "I'm driving cows now," and, truth to tell, there was no denying it. Even as he spoke, a perverse beast of Nationalist tendencies effected a diversion to the right, plainly intending a charge down Denmark Street, en route for Irish Town, and the gallant Colonel waiving ceremony and a formidable shillelagh, hastened by a flank movement to cut off this retreat, and to guide the erring creature in the right way to fresh woods and pastures new. I fired a Parthian arrow after the parting pair. "Appointment?" I shouted, but the Colonel shook his head. It was no time for gentle assignations. The cursed crew in front of him absorbed his faculties, and then he half expected to be shot from any street abutting on his path. Perhaps I may nail him yet. He has been attempting to distrain. If the Colonel refuses to speak I will interview his tenants. I have said I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil—with the readers of the Gazette. Dixi. I have spoken! There is much shooting on the Bodyke estates, and in Ennis they say that sixty policemen are stationed there to pick up the game. Nobody has been bagged as yet, but the Clare folks are still hoping. To-morrow a trusty steed will bear me to the spot. Relying on a carefully-considered, carefully-studied Nationalist appearance, an anti-landlord look, and a decided No-Rent expression in my left eye, I feel that I could ride through the most dangerous districts with perfect impunity. "Base is the slave that pays," says Ancient Pistol. That is my present motto. One touch of No Rent makes the Irish kin.

The English people should be told that nearly all Irishmen, whether Unionist or otherwise, are strong Protectionists. The moment Home Rule becomes law a tremendous attempt will be made to shut out English goods. "The very first thing we do," said to me an influential Dubliner I met here, "is to double the harbour dues; you can't prevent that, I suppose? The first good result will be the choking-off of all the Scotch and Manx fishermen who infest our seas. At present they bring their fish into Dublin, whence it is sent all over Ireland, competing against Irish fishermen. Then we'll tax all manufactured goods. We will admit the raw material duty-free, but we must be permitted to know what suits us best, and we must, and will, tax flour, but not wheat. We in Ireland, forsooth, must submit to having all our flour mills closed to suit the swarming populations of Manchester and Birmingham. They must have a cheap loaf. Dear me! and so flour comes here untaxed, having given employment to people in America, while our folks are walking about idle. Go down the river Boyne, from Trim to Drogheda. What do you see? Twelve mills, with machinery worth £100,000 or more, lying idle. One of those mills once employed fifty or sixty men. Now it employs none. Tax flour, I say, and so says everybody. We must have Protection, and very stringent Protection. Irish manufacturers must be sustained against English competition. Twenty years ago Dublin was a great place for cabinet work. Now nothing is done there, or next to nothing. Everything must come from London. At the same period we did a great trade in leather. The leather trade is gone to the devil. We did a big turnover in boots and shoes. Now every pair worn in the city comes from Northampton. Ireland and Irish goods for the Irish, and burn everything English but English coals. Give us Home Rule, and all these trades will be restored to us."

Thus spoke the great Home Ruler, who declined to permit his name to appear, as he said it might affect his business. His sentiments are universal, and, as I have said, his opinions are shared by the great majority of Irishmen, even though professedly Unionist.

A word of comment on the patriotic sentiments of my friend. I went to Delany, of George Street, Limerick, for a suit of Blarney tweed. He had not a yard in the place. He was indicated as the leading clothier and outfitter of the city, but the Mahony Mills were not represented amongst his patterns. He had Scotch tweeds, Yorkshire tweeds, West of England tweeds, but although the Blarney tweeds are said to be the best in the world as well as the handsomest, I had to seek them elsewhere. An English friend says, "The Irish politicians are rather inconsistent. They came into this hotel one evening, six of them, red-hot from a Nationalist meeting, cursing England up hill and down dale, till I really felt quite nervous. I hadn't got a Winchester like that. (I hope it won't go off.) They agreed that to boycott English goods was the correct thing, and of course they were for burning all but English coals, when the leader of the gang said, 'Now, boys, what will you drink,' and hang me! if they didn't every one take a bottle of Bass's bitter beer! Did you ever know such inconsistency?"

The quirks and quips of the Irish character would puzzle a Philadelphia lawyer. Spinning along the lane to Killaloe, with Mr. Beesley, of Leeds, and Mr. Abraham Keeley, of Mallow, balanced on opposite sides of a jaunting car, we came on a semi-savage specimen of the genuine Irish sort. Semi-savage! he was seven-eighths savage, and semi-lunatic, just clever enough to mind the cows and goats which, with a donkey or two, grazed by the way-side. He might be five-and-twenty, and looked strong and lusty. His naked feet were black with the dirt of his childhood, and not only black, but shining and gleaming in the sun. His tattered trousers were completely worn away to the knee, showing his muscular legs to perfection. The rags that clothed his body were confusing and indefinite. You could not tell where one garment ended and another began, or whether there were more than one at all. Cover a pump with boiling glue, shake over it a sack of rags, and you will get an approximate effect of his costume. His tawny, matted hair and beard had never known brush, comb, or steel. It was a virgin forest. He scratched his head with the air of the old woman who said "Forty years long have this generation troubled me;" and ran after the car with outstretched hand. I threw him a penny, upon which he threw himself at full length, his tongue hanging out, a greedy sparkle in his eye. My Irish friend instantly stopped the car.

"Now I'll show you something. This man is more than half an idiot, but watch him." Then he cried:

"Come here, now, I'll toss you for the penny."

The man came quickly forward.

"Now then, put down your penny, and call. What is it? Head or harp, speak while it spins!"

"Head," shouted the savage, and head it was.

He picked up the second penny with glee, and said with a burst of wild laughter. "Toss more, more, more; toss ever an' always; toss agin, agin, agin."

The car-driver was disgusted. "Bad luck to ye for a madman. Ye have the gamblin' blood in ye. Bedad, ye'd break Monty Carly, ye would."

Then looking at the gambler's black and polished feet, he said:—

"Tell me, now, honey, is it Day an' Martin's ye use?"

Ennis (Co. Clare), April 29th.

No. 16.—CIVIL WAR IN COUNTY CLARE.ToC

he name of Bodyke is famous throughout all lands, but few people know anything about the place or the particulars of the great dispute. The whole district is at present in a state of complete lawlessness. The condition of matters is almost incredible, and is such as might possibly be expected in the heart of Africa, but hardly in a civilised country, especially when that country is under the benignant British rule. The law-breakers seem to have the upper hand, and to be almost, if not quite, masters of the situation. The whole estate is divided into three properties, Fort Ann, Milltown, and Bodyke, about five thousand acres in all, of which the first two comprise about one thousand five hundred acres, isolated from the Bodyke lands, which latter may amount to some three thousand five hundred acres. Either by reason of their superior honesty, or, as is sometimes suggested, on account of their inferior strategic position, the tenants of the Fort Ann and Milltown lands pay their rent. The men of Bodyke are in a state of open rebellion, and resist every process of law both by evasion and open force. The hill-tops are manned by sentries armed with rifles. Bivouac fires blaze nightly on every commanding eminence. Colonel O'Callaghan's agent is a cock-shot from every convenient mound. His rides are made musical by the 'ping' of rifle balls, and nothing but the dread of his repeating rifle, with which he is known to be handy, prevents the marksmen from coming to close quarters. Mr. Stannard MacAdam seems to bear a charmed life. He is a fine athletic young man, calm and collected, modest and unassuming, and, as he declares, no talker. He has been described as a man of deeds, not words. He said, "I am not a literary man. I have not the skill to describe incident, or to give a clear and detailed account of what has taken place. I have refused to give information to the local journalists. My business is to manage the estate, and that takes me all my time. You must get particulars elsewhere. I would rather not speak of my own affairs or those of Colonel O'Callaghan."

There was nothing for it but to turn my unwilling back on this veritable gold mine. But although Mr. MacAdam could not or would not speak, others were not so reticent, and once in the neighbourhood the state of things was made plainly evident. The road from Ennis to Bodyke is dull and dreary, and abounds with painful memories. Half-an-hour out you reach the house, or what remains of it, of Francis Hynes, who was hanged for shooting a man. A little further and you reach the place where Mr. Perry was shot. A wooded spot, "convaynient" for ambush, once screened some would-be murderers who missed their mark. Then comes the house of the Misses Brown, in which on Christmas Eve shots were fired, by way of celebrating the festive season. From a clump of trees some four hundred yards from the road the police on a car were fired upon, the horse being shot dead in his tracks. The tenantry of this sweet district are keeping up their rifle practice, and competent judges say that the Bodyke men possess not less than fifty rifles, none of which can be found by the police. Said one of the constabulary, "They lack nerve to fire from shorter distances, as they think MacAdam is the better shot, and to miss him would be risky, as he is known to shoot rabbits with ball cartridge. At the same time, I remember Burke of Loughrea, who was shot, had also a fine reputation as a rifleman, but they settled him neatly enough. I saw him in the Railway Inn, Athenry, just before he was killed, with a repeating rifle slung on his back and a revolver on his hip. I saw him ride away, his servant driving while Burke kept the cocked rifle ready, the butt under his armpit, the trigger in his hand. He sat with his back to the horse, keeping a good look-out, and yet they shot both him and his servant as they galloped along. The horse and car came in without them. To carry arms is therefore not a complete security, though no doubt it is, to some extent, a deterrent. But my opinion is that when a man is ordered to be shot he will be shot. Clare swarms with secret societies, and you never know from one moment to another what resolutions they will pass. I don't know what the end of it will be, but I should think that Home Rule, by giving the murderers a fancied security, would in this district lead to wholesale bloodshed. The whole country would rise, as they do now, to meet the landlord or his agent, but they would then do murder without the smallest hesitation."

His companion said—the police here are never alone—"The first thing Morley did was to rescind the Crimes Act. When we heard of that we said 'Now it's coming.' And we've got it. Every man with a head on him, and not a turnip, knew very well what would happen. The police are shot at till they take no notice of it. Sometimes we charge up the hills to the spot where the firing started, but among the rocks and ravines and hills and holes they run like rabbits, or they hand their arms to some fleet-footed chap to hide, while they stay—aye, they do, they actually stand their ground till we come, and there they are working at a hedge or digging the ground, and looking as innocent and stupid as possible. They never saw anybody, and never heard any firing—or they thought it was the Colonel shooting a hare. We hardly know what to do in doubtful cases, as we know the tenants have the support of the Government, and it is as much as our places are worth to make any mistake under present circumstances. The tenants know that too, so between them and Morley we feel between two fires."

The trouble has been alive for fifteen years or so, but it was not until 1887 that Bodyke became a regularly historic place. The tenants had paid no rent for years, and wholesale evictions were tried, but without effect. The people walked in again the next day, and as the gallant Colonel had not an army division at his back he was obliged to confess himself beaten at every point. He went in for arbitration, but before giving details let us first take a bird's eye view of his position. I will endeavour to state the case as fairly as possible, premising that nothing will be given beyond what is freely admitted by both parties to the dispute.

The Colonel, who is a powerfully-built, bronzed, and active man, seemingly over sixty years old, left the service just forty years ago. Four years before that his father had died, heavily in debt, leaving the estate encumbered by a mortgage, a jointure to the relict, Mrs. O'Callaghan, now deceased (the said jointure being at that time several years in arrear), a head rent of a hundred guineas a year to Colonel Patterson, with taxes, tithe rent-charges, and heaven knows what besides. In 1846 and 1847 his father had made considerable reductions in the rents of the Bodyke holdings, but the tenants had contrived to fall into arrears to the respectable tune of £6,000, or thereabouts. Such was the state of things when the heir came into his happy possessions.

A Protestant clergyman said to me—"Land in Ireland is like self-righteousness. The more you have, the worse off you are." Thus was it at Bodyke.

Something had to be done. To ask the tenants for the £6,000 was mere waste of breath. The young soldier had no agent. He was determined to be the people's friend. Although a Black Protestant, he was ambitious of Catholic good-will. He wanted to have the tenants blessing him. He coveted the good name which is better than rubies. He wished to make things comfortable, to be a general benefactor of his species; if a Protestant landlord and a Roman Catholic tenantry can be said to be of the same species at all, a point which, according to the Nationalist press, is at least doubtful. He called the tenants together, and agreed to accept three hundred pounds for the six thousand pounds legally due, so as to make a fresh start and encourage the people to walk in the paths of righteousness. When times began to mend, the Colonel himself a farmer, commenced to raise the rents until they reached the amount paid during his father's reign. The people stood it quietly enough until 1879, when the Colonel appointed agents. This year was one of agricultural depression. A Mr. Willis succeeded the two first agents, but during the troubles he resigned his charge. The popular opinion leans to the supposition that his administration was ineffective, that is, that he was comparatively unused to field strategy, that he lacked dash and military resource, and that he entertained a constitutional objection to being shot. The rents came under the judicial arrangement, and reductions were made. Still things would not work smoothly, and it was agreed that bad years should be further considered on rent days. This agreement led to reductions on the judicial rent of 25 to 30 per cent., besides which the Colonel, in the arbitration of 1887, had accepted £1,000 in lieu of several thousand pounds of arrears then due. After November, 1891, the tenants ceased to pay rent at all, and that is practically their present position. The Colonel, who being himself an experienced farmer is a competent judge of agricultural affairs, thinks the tenants are able to pay, and even believes that they are willing, were it not for the intimidation of half-a-score village ruffians whose threatened moonlighting exploits, when considered in conjunction with the bloody deeds which have characterised the district up to recent times, are sufficient to paralyse the whole force of the British Empire, when that force is directed by the feeble fumblers now in office.

That they can pay if they will, is clearly proved by recent occurrences. Let us abandon ancient history and bring our story down to date. The number of incidents is so great, and the complications arising from local customs and prejudices are so bewildering that only after much inquiry have I been able to sort from the tangled web a few clear and understandable instances, which, however, may be taken as a fair sample of the whole.

New brooms sweep clean. The new agent, Mr. MacAdam, began to negotiate. Pow-wows and palavers all ended in smoke, and as meanwhile the charges on the estate were going on merrily, and no money was coming in to meet them, writs were issued against six of the best-off farmers; writs, not decrees, the writ being a more effective instrument. One Malone was evicted. He was a married man, without encumbrances, owed several years' arrears, had mismanaged his farm, a really good bit of land, had been forgiven a lot of rent, and still he was not happy. A relative had lent him nearly £200 to carry on, but Malone was a bottomless pit. What he required was a gold mine and a man to shovel up the ore, but unhappily no such thing existed on the farm. The relative offered to take the land, believing that he could soon recoup himself the loan, but Malone held on with iron grip, refusing to listen to the voice of the charmer, charmed he never so wisely. The relative wished to take the place at the judicial rent, and offered to give Malone the house, grass for a cow, and the use of three acres of land. Malone declined to make any change, and as a last resort it was decided to evict him. On the auspicious day MacAdam arrived from Limerick, accompanied by two men from Dublin, whom he proposed to instal as caretakers in Malone's house. The Sheriff's party were late, and MacAdam, waiting at some distance, was discovered and the alarm given. Horns were blown, the chapel bell was rung, the whole country turned out in force. Anticipating seizure, the people drove away their cattle, and shortly no hoof nor horn was visible in the district. A crowd collected and, observing the caretakers, at once divined their mission, and perceived that not seizure, but eviction, was the order of the day. They rushed to Malone's house, and, with his consent and assistance, tore off the roof, smashed the windows, and demolished the doors. The place was thus rendered uninhabitable.

This having been happily effected, the Sheriff's party arrived an hour or so late, in the Irish fashion. Possession was formally given to the agent, who was now free to revel in the four bare walls, and to enjoy the highly-ventilated condition of the building. The crowd became more and more threatening, and if they could have mustered pluck to run in on the loaded rifles, Sheriff, agent, and escort must have been murdered without mercy. The shouting and threatening were heard two miles away. But the tenants had taken other measures. A firing party was posted on a neighbouring hill, and as the Sheriff left the shelter of the walls a volley was poured in from a clump of trees four hundred yards away, one bullet narrowly missing a man who ducked at the flash. The riflemen were visible among the trees, and the Sheriff returned the fire. Several policemen also fired into the clump, but without effect, and their fire was briskly returned from the hill, this time just missing the head of a policeman covered by a bush, a bullet cutting off a branch close to his ear. The police then prepared to charge up the hill, when the firing party decamped. No arrests were made, although the marksmen must have been dwellers in the neighbourhood. A policeman said, "We know who they are; you can't conceal these things in a country place; but we have no legal evidence, and although we saw them at four hundred yards, who will accept our identification at such a distance? And of course no jury would convict. We have no remedy in this unfortunate country. So long as Gladstone and such folks are bidding for the people's votes so long we shall have lawlessness. But for the change of Government all would long have been settled amicably. But I heard a young priest say to the people, 'Hold on a bit till the new Government goes in.'"

To return to the Malone affair, Mr. MacAdam applied to the police for resident protection not for himself, but for the caretakers, whom he now proposed to instal in a farmhouse in the occupation of one of the Colonel's servants, and from which no one had been evicted. The authorities refused protection on the very remarkable plea that the situation of the aforesaid premises was so dangerous! so that had the place been quite safe, they would have consented to protect it. MacAdam determined to carry out his plan, with or without protection. He left Limerick at midnight with an ammunition and provision train of seven cars, with two caretakers and four workmen, with materials to fortify the place. He had previously given the authorities notice that he meant to occupy Knockclare, the house in question, and before he started they sent a police-sergeant from Tulla, a twenty miles drive, to formally warn him off, for that his life would assuredly be taken, and the officer also demanded that he should be permitted to personally warn the caretakers of the risk they ran. This was granted, but the men stuck to their guns. At the eviction a man had funked, frightened out of his seven senses. The police declined all responsibility, but offered to guard the farm for a shilling per man per day. MacAdam thought this proposal without precedent, and left the police to their own devices, driving along the twenty miles of hilly road, with sorry steeds that refused the last hill, so that the loads had to be pushed and carried up by the men. This was at eight or nine in the morning, after many hours' toilsome march. The fun was not over yet. Like the penny show, it was "just a-goin' to begin."

The crowd turned out and with awful threats of instant death menaced the lives of the party, who, with levelled rifles, at last gained the building. The people brought boards, and showed the caretakers their coffins in the rough. They spoke of shooting, and swore they would roast them alive that night by burning the house in which they were sheltered. A shot was fired at MacAdam. A sergeant with one man arrived from Tulla police-barracks and urged the party to leave before they were murdered. MacAdam would hold his post at all risks. Later eight armed policemen arrived, and then two carmen started to go home. A wall of stones blocked the road. They somehow got over that, and found a second wall a little further on. Here was a menacing crowd, and the police who followed the car drew their revolvers, and with great determination advanced on the mob, saving the carmen's lives, for which they were publicly praised from the Bench. But the jarveys returned, and by a circuitous route reached Limerick viâ Killaloe, thanking Heaven for their whole skins, and vowing never to so risk them again. The County Inspector who refused the party police protection explained that he did so "out of regard for the safety of his men." He said, "I had more than Mr. MacAdam and his party to consider. I must preserve the lives of the men in my charge."

At present the two caretakers hold the citadel, which is also garrisoned by a force of sixteen policemen regularly relieved by day and by night, every man armed to the teeth. Now and then the foinest pisintry in the wuruld turn out to the neighbouring hills and blaze away with rifles at the doors and windows of the little barn-like structure. The marksmen want a competent instructor. Anyone who knows anything of shooting knows the high art and scientific knowledge required for long-range rifle practice. These men are willing, but they lack science. Knowledge to their eyes her ample page, Rich with the spoils of time, has ne'er unrolled. Mr. Gladstone might bring over from the Transvaal a number of the Boers whose shooting impressed him so much to coach these humble Kelts in the mysteries of rifle shooting. Such a measure would perceptibly accelerate the passage of the Home Rule Bill.

Such is the state of things in Bodyke at this moment. Colonel O'Callaghan has had no penny of rent for years—that is, nothing for himself. What has been paid by the tenants of Fort Ann and Milltown has been barely sufficient to meet the charges on the estate. The Colonel thinks that the more he concedes the more his people want. He has had many narrow escapes from shooting, and rather expects to be bagged at last. He seems to be constitutionally unconscious of fear, but the police, against his wish, watch over him. In the few instances in which Mr. MacAdam, his agent, has effected seizures, the people have immediately paid up—have simply walked into their houses, brought out the money, and planked down the rent with all expenses, the latter amounting to some 20 or 25 per cent. They can pay. The Colonel, who lives by farming, having no other source of income, knows their respective positions exactly, and declines to be humbugged. The tenants believe that they will shortly have the land for nothing, and they are content to remain in a state of siege, themselves beleaguering the investing force, lodged in the centre of the position. The fields are desolate, tillage is suspended, and the whole of the cattle are driven out of sight. Armed men watch each other by night and by day, and bloodshed may take place at any moment. The farming operations of the whole region are disorganised and out of joint. Six men have been arrested for threats and violence, but all were discharged—the jury would not convict, although the judge said the evidence for the defence was of itself sufficient to convict the gang. A ruffian sprang on MacAdam with an open knife, swearing he would disembowel him. After a terrible struggle the man was disarmed and secured, brought up before the beak, and the offence proved to the hilt. This gentleman was dismissed without a stain on his character. MacAdam asked that he should at least be bound over to keep the peace. This small boon was refused. Comment is needless. How long are the English people going to stand this Morley-Gladstone management?

I have not yet been able to interview Colonel O'Callaghan himself, but my information, backed by my own observation, may be relied on as accurate. The carman who drove me hither said "The Bodyke boys are dacent fellows, but they must have their sport. Tis their nature to be shootin' folks, an' ye can't find fault with a snipe for havin' a long bill. An' they murther ye in sich a tinder-hearted way that no raisonable landlord could have any objection to it."

I have the honour of again remarking that Ireland is a wonderful country.

Bodyke (Co. Clare), May 2nd.

No. 17.—RENT AT THE ROOT OF NATIONALISM.ToC

he tenants of the Bodyke property stigmatise Colonel O'Callaghan as the worst landlord in the world, and declare themselves totally unable to pay the rent demanded, and even in some cases say that they cannot pay any rent at all, a statement which is effectually contradicted by the fact that most of them pay up when fairly out-generalled by the dashing strategy of Mr. Stannard MacAdam, whose experience as a racing bicyclist seems to have stood him in good stead. The country about Bodyke has an unfertile look, a stony, boggy, barren appearance. Here and there are patches of tolerable land, but the district cannot fairly be called a garden of Eden. Being desirous of hearing both sides of the question, I have conversed with several of the complaining farmers, most of whom have very small holdings, if their size be reckoned by the rent demanded. The farmers' homes are not luxurious, but the rural standard of luxury is in Ireland everywhere far below that of the English cottar, who would hold up his hands in dismay if required to accommodate himself to such surroundings. Briefly stated, the case of the tenants is based on an alleged agreement on the part of Colonel O'Callaghan to make a reduction of twenty-five per cent. on judicial rents and thirty-seven and a half per cent. on non-judicial rents, whenever the farming season proved unfavourable. This was duly carried out until 1891, when the question arose as to whether that was or was not a bad year. The tenants say that 1891 was abnormally bad for them, but that on attending to pay their rent, believing that the reductions which had formerly been made, and which they had come to regard as invariable, would again take place, they were told that the customary rebate would now cease and determine, and that therefore they were expected to pay their rents in full. This they profess to regard as a flagrant breach of faith, and they at once decided to pay no rent at all. The position became a deadlock, and such it still remains. They affect to believe that the last agent, Mr. Willis, resigned his post out of sheer sympathy, and not because he feared sudden translation to a brighter sphere. They complain that the Colonel's stables are too handsome, and that they themselves live in cabins less luxurious than the lodgings of the landlord's horses. There is no epithet too strong to express their indignation against the devoted Colonel, who was described by one imaginative peasant, who had worked himself up to a sort of descriptive convulsion, as a "Rawhacious Vagabone," a fine instance of extemporaneous word-coining of the ideo-phonetic school, which will doubtless be greedily accepted by Nationalist Parliamentarians who, long ago, exhausted their vocabulary of expletives in dealing with Mr. Gladstone and each other.

The Bodykers have one leading idea, to "wait yet awhile." Home Rule will banish the landlords, and give the people the land for nothing at all. The peasantry are mostly fine-grown men, well-built and well-nourished, bearing no external trace of the hardships they claim to have endured. They are civil and obliging, and thoroughly inured to the interviewer. They have a peculiar accent, of a sing-song character, which now and then threatens to break down the stranger's gravity. That the present state of things is intolerable, and cannot last much longer, they freely admit, but they claim to have the tacit sympathy of the present Government, and gleefully relate with what unwillingness police protection was granted to the agent and his men. They disclaim any intention of shooting or otherwise murdering the landlord or his officers, and assert that the fact that they still live is sufficient evidence in this direction. Said one white-headed man of gentle, deferential manner:—

"The days o' landlord shootin' is gone by. If the Boys wanted to shoot the Colonel what's to hinder them? Would his double-barrel protect him, or the four dogs he has about him, that he sends sniffin' an' growlin' about the threes an' ditches. If the word wint out he wouldn't live a day, nor his agint nayther. An' his durty emergency men, that's posted like spies at the house beyant, could be potted any time they showed their noses. An' couldn't we starve thim out? Couldn't we cut off their provisions? Why would we commit murther whin we have only to wait till things turn round, which wid the help of God will be afore long. We're harassed an' throubled, always pullin' the divil by the tail, but that won't last for ever. We'll have our own men, that ondershtands Oireland, to put us right, an' then O'Callaghan an' all his durty thribe'll be fired out of the counthry before ye can say black's the white o' my eye; an' black curses go wid thim."

The caretakers are not accessible. Stringent orders forbid the giving of information to any person whatever. This is unfortunate, as a look at their diaries would prove amusing. They must feel like rabbits living in a burrow bored in a sporting district, or the man in the iron mask, or the late respected Damocles, or the gentleman who saw the handwriting on the wall. Their sleep must be troubled. They must have ugly dreams of treasons, stratagems, and spoils, and when they wake, swearing a prayer or two, they doubtless see through the gloom, Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin (I quote from memory), in lurid letters on the ceiling of their stronghold. Their waking visions and their daily talk must be of guns and pikes, of graves and coffins, shrouds and skeletons. Perhaps they, like Mr. MacAdam and some others, have received missives sprinkled with blood, and ornamented with skulls and cross-bones, those famous national emblems which the Irish tenant sketches with a rude, untutored art; bold, freehand drawings, done in gore by hereditary instinct. It may be that they see the newspapers, that they learn how the other day the house of a caretaker at Tipperary was, by incendiaries, burned to the ground, the poor fellow at the time suffering from lockjaw, taking his food with difficulty, owing to his having some time previously been shot through the face. Or they may read of the shooting case at Castleisland, and how Mr. Magilicuddy suggests that such cases be made public, that the people may know something of the present lawlessness of the country, or of the narrow squeak of Mr. Walshe, a schoolmaster, living just outside Ennis, who barely escaped with his life from two bullets, fired at him, because his wife had been appointed mistress of the girls; or the sad affair of Mr. Blood of the same district, who being an admittedly kind and amiable man, is compelled to be always under the escort of four armed policemen for that he did discharge a herdman without first asking permission from the local patriots. Or they may meditate on the fate of the old man near Clonmel, who was so beaten that he has since died, his daughter, who might have aided him, having first been fastened in her room. These and a hundred similar instances of outrage and attempted murder have crept into print during the last few days. Red ruin and the breaking-up of laws herald the Home Rule Bill. And if the premonitory symptoms be thus severe, how shall we doctor the disease itself?

The other day I stumbled on Mr. Lynn, of Dublin, whom I first met at the Queen's Hotel, Portadown, County Armagh. He said, "We ought to know what the Home Rule Bill will do. We know the materials of which the dish is composed, we have seen their preparation and mixing, we now have the process of cooking before us, and when we get it it will give us indigestion."

The Bodykers have a new grievance, one of most recent date. They had found a delightful means of evasion, which for a time worked well, but the bottom has been knocked out of it, and their legal knowledge has proved of no avail. To pay rent whenever a seizure was effected was voted a bore, a calamitous abandonment of principle, and a loss of money which might be better applied. So that when MacAdam made his latest seizures, say on the land of Brown and Jones, these out-manœuvred tenants brought forward friends named Smith and Robinson who deeply swore and filed affidavits to the effect that the cattle so seized belonged to them, Smith and Robinson to wit, and not to the afore-mentioned Brown and Jones, on whose land they were found. Here was a pretty kettle of fish. Colonel O'Callaghan, or his agent, were processed for illegal distraint, and the evidence being dead against the landlord, that fell tyrant had on several occasions to disgorge his prey, whereat there was great rejoicing in Bodyke. The new agent, however, is a tough customer, and in his quality of Clerk of Petty Sessions dabbles in legal lore. He found an Act which provides that, after due formalities, distraint may be made on any cattle found on the land in respect of which rent is due, no matter to whom the said cattle may belong. The tenants are said to have been arranging an amicable interchange of grazing land, the cows of Smith feeding on the land of Brown, and vice versâ, so that the affidavit agreement might have some colour of decency. The ancient Act discovered by the ardent MacAdam has rendered null and void this proposed fraternal reciprocity, and the order to conceal every hoof and horn pending discovery of the right answer to this last atrocity has been punctually obeyed, the local papers slanging landlord and agent, but seemingly unable to find the proper countermine. No end of details and of incident might be given, but no substantial increase could be made to the information, given in this and my preceding letter. The tenants say that the landlord perversely refuses the reductions allowed in better times, and the landlord says that as a practical farmer he believes that those upon whom he has distrained or attempted to distrain are able to pay in full. He declares that he has not proceeded against those who from any cause are unable to meet their obligations, but only against the well-to-do men, who, having the money in hand, are deliberately withholding his just and reasonable due, taking advantage of the disturbed state of the country and the weakness of the Government to benefit themselves, regardless of the suffering their selfishness entails on innocent people.

In striking contrast to the turbulence of the Bodyke men is the peaceful calm of the Castleconnel people. I have had several pleasant interviews with Lady de Burgho, whose territory embraces some sixty thousand acres, and who, during a widowed life of twenty-two years, has borne the stress and strain of Irish estate administration, with its eternal and wearisome chopping and changing of law, its labyrinthine complications, its killing responsibilities. Lady de Burgho is, after all, very far from dead, exhibiting in fact a marvellous vitality, and discoursing of the ins and outs of the various harassing Land Acts, and the astute diplomacy needful to save something from the wreck, with a light, airy vivacity, and a rich native humour irresistibly charming. The recital of her troubles, losses, and burdens, the dodgery and trickery of legal luminaries, and the total extinction of rent profits is delivered with an easy grace, and with the colour and effervescence of sparkling Burgundy. To be deprived of nine-tenths of your income seems remarkably good fun; to be ruined, an enviable kind of thing. Lady de Burgho commenced her reign with one fixed principle, from which nothing has ever induced her to deviate. Under no conceivable circumstances would she allow eviction. No agent could induce her to sign a writ. "I could not sleep if I had turned out an Irish family," says Lady de Burgho, adding, with great sagacity, "and besides eviction never does any good." So that this amiable lady has the affections of her people, if she handles not their cash. And who shall estimate the heart's pure feelings? Saith not the wisest of men that a good report maketh the bones fat? Is not the goodwill of the foinest pisintry in the wuruld more to be desired than much fine gold? Is it not sweeter also than honey or the honeycomb?

Certain mortgagees who wished to appropriate certain lands offered liberal terms to Lady de Burgho on condition that she would for three years absent herself from Ireland, holding no communication with her tenants during that period. Lady de Burgho objected. She said, "If I accepted your terms my people on my return would believe, and they would be justified in believing, that I had been for three years incarcerated in a lunatic asylum." Tableau! Three American gentlemen visiting Castleconnel told Lady de Burgho that the success of the present agitation in favour of Home Rule would be the first step towards making Ireland an American dependency, a pronouncement which is not without substantial foundation. The feeling of the masses is towards America, and away from England. To the New World, where are more Irish than in Ireland (so they say) the poorer classes look with steadfast eye. To them America is the chief end of man, the earthly Paradise, the promised land, the El Dorado, a heaven upon earth. Every able-bodied man is saving up to pay his passage, every good-looking girl is anxious to give herself a better chance in the States. Nearly all have relatives to give them a start, and glowing letters from fortunate emigrants are the theme of every village. The effect of these epistles is obvious enough. Home Rule, say the Nationalists, will stop emigration. That this is with them a matter of hope, or pious belief, is made clear by their conversation. They give no good reason for their faith. They are cornered with consummate ease. The plausibilities gorged by Gladstonian gulls do not go down in Ireland. They are not offered to Irishmen. "Made in Ireland for English gabies" should be branded upon them. The most convincing arguments against the bill are those adduced by Home Rulers in its favour. Here is a faithful statement of reasons for Home Rule, as given by Alderman Downing, of Limerick, and another gentleman then present whose name I know not:—

"When you allow the Irish Legislature to frame its own laws, disorder and outrage will be put down with an iron hand. We have no law at present. Put an Irish Parliament in Dublin, and we would arrange to hang up moonlighters to the nearest tree. Everybody would support the law if imposed from Dublin. They resent it as imposed by Englishmen in London."

"I am not in favour of handing over the government of Ireland to the present leaders of the Irish party. I believe that, once granted Home Rule, they would disappear into private life, and that we should replace them by better men. What reason for believing this? Oh, I think the people would begin to feel their responsibility. Do I think the idea of 'responsibility' is their leading idea? Perhaps not at this moment, but they will improve. You think that the people may be fairly expected to return the same class of men? Perhaps so. I hope not. I should think they would see the necessity of sending men of position and property. Why don't they send them now? Simply because they won't come forward; that class of men do not believe in Home Rule."

I humbly submitted that this would prevent their coming forward in future, and that if Home Rule were admittedly bad under the present leaders, there was really no case to go to a jury, as there was no evidence before the court to show that the leaders would be dropped. On the contrary, there was every probability that the victorious promoters of the bill would be returned by acclamation. Further, that if Home Rule be gladly accepted as a pearl of great price, to drop the gainers thereof, to dismiss the men who had borne the burden and heat of the day, would be an act of shabbiness unworthy the proverbial gratitude and generosity of the Irish people.

Alderman Downing would only exclude them from Parliamentary place, and would not exclude all even then. The bulk of them might be found some sort of situation where decent salaries would atone for the dropping. Would that be jobbery? "Ah, you ask too many questions."

Let it be noted that although the greater part of the Irish Nationalist members are everywhere rejected beforehand by superior Home Rulers, as unfit for an Irish Parliament, they are apparently for that very reason sent to the House of Commons as the best sort to tease the brutal Saxon. The bulldog is not the noblest, nor the handsomest, nor the swiftest, nor the most faithful, nor the most sagacious, nor the most pleasant companion of the canine world, but he is a good 'un to hang on the nose of the bull.

The Great Unknown said:

"You must admit that English Rule has not been a success. Home Rule is admittedly an experiment—well, yes, I will accept the word risk—Home Rule is admittedly, to some extent, a risk, but let us try it. And if the worst comes to the worst we can go back again to the old arrangement."

The speaker was a kindly gentleman of sixty or sixty-five years, and, like Alderman Downing, spoke in a reasonable, moderate tone. Doubtless both are excellent citizens, men of considerable position and influence, certainly very pleasant companions, and, to all appearance, well-read, well-informed men. And yet, in the presence of Unionist Irishmen, the above-mentioned arguments were all they ventured to offer. Arguments, quotha? Is the hope that the ignorant peasantry of Ireland will return "the better class of men," who "do not believe in Home Rule" an argument? Is the as-you-were assertion an argument? What would the Irish say if Mr. Bull suggested this movement of retrogression? We should have Father Hayes, the friend of Father Humphreys, again calling for "dynamite, for the lightnings of heaven and the fires of hell, to pulverise every British cur into top-dressing for the soil." We should have Father Humphreys himself writing ill-spelt letters to the press, and denouncing all liars as poachers on his own preserves. We should have Dillon and O'Brien and their crew again leading their ignorant countrymen to the treadmill, while the true culprits stalked the streets wearing lemon-coloured kid gloves purchased with the hard-earned and slowly-accumulated cents of Irish-American slaveys. The Protestants would be denounced as the blackest, cruellest, most callous slave-drivers on God's earth. And this reminds me of something.

Doctor O'Shaughnessy, of Limerick, is the most wonderful man in Ireland. His diploma was duly secured in 1826, and Daniel O'Connell was his most intimate friend, and also his patient. The Doctor lived long in London, and was a regular attendant at the House of Commons up to 1832. Twice he fought Limerick for his son, and twice he won easily. The city is now represented by Mr. O'Keefe, and Mr. O'Shaughnessy is a Commissioner of the Board of Works in Dublin. The Doctor has conferred with Earl Spencer on grave and weighty matters, and doubtless his opinion on Irish questions is of greatest value. His pupil and his fellow-student, Dr. Kidd and Dr. Quain (I forget which is which), met at the bedside of Lord Beaconsfield, and medical men admit the doctor's professional eminence. His eighty-four years sit lightly upon him. He looks no more than fifty at most, is straight as a reed, active as a hare, runs upstairs like a boy of fourteen, has the clear blue eye and fresh rosy skin of a young man. He would give the Grand Old Man fifty in a hundred and beat him out of his boots. He might be Mr. Gladstone's son, if he were only fond of jam. The Doctor said several hundred good things which I would like to print, but as our many conferences were unofficial this would be hardly fair. However, I feel sure Doctor O'Shaughnessy will forgive my repeating one statement of his—premising that the Doctor is a devout Catholic, and that he knows all about land.

"The Protestants are not the worst landlords. The hardest men, the most unyielding men the tenants have to meet are the Roman Catholic landlords, the new men."

Here is some food for thought. These few words, properly considered, cover much ground. The Doctor is a Home Ruler, an ardent lover of his country, one of the best of the many high-minded men I have met in Ireland. Were such as he in the forefront of the battle, John Bull might hand the Irish a blank cheque. The consciousness of trust is of all things most binding on men of integrity. But for Mr. Gladstone to hand the honour of England to Horsewhipped Healy and Breeches O'Brien, showing his confidence in them by permitting it to be taken round the corner—that is a different thing. I forgot to mention a remarkable feature in the history of Limerick City, a parallel of which is found in the apocryphal castle in England for which the unique distinction is claimed that Queen Elizabeth never slept there. And so far as I can learn, Tim Healy has not yet been horsewhipped in Limerick.

Bodyke (Co. Clare), May 2nd.

No. 18.—HARD FACTS FOR ENGLISH READERS.ToC

ort is a quiet wayside country town about forty miles from Limerick, a little oasis of trees and flowers, with a clear winding trout-stream running all about it. The streets are wide, the houses well-built, the pavements kerbed and in good condition. Trees are bigger and more numerous than usual, and the place has a generally bowery appearance such as is uncommon in Ireland, which is not famous for its timber. Trees are in many parts the grand desideratum, the one thing needful to perfect the beauty of the scenery, but Ireland as compared with England, France, Holland, Belgium, or Germany may almost be called a treeless country. Strange to say, the Home Rule Bill, which affects everything, threatens to deprive the country of its few remaining trees. A Scotsman resident thirteen years in Ireland said to me:—

"The timber you see lying there is not American, but Irish. The people who have timber are in many cases cutting it down, because they foresee a state of general insecurity and depression, and they need all the cash they can command. But there is another reason for the deforesting of the country, which is—that if Home Rule becomes law, the landowners are disposed to believe that no allowance will be made for the timber which may be on the land when the land is sold to the tenant under some unknown Act to be passed at some future day." This fits into the point raised by a tenant farmer living just outside the town, an extraordinary character said to rise at seven o'clock in the morning. He said:—

"They say the farmer is to get the land—but what then? Somebody must own the land, and whoever has it will be reckoned a bloody tyrant. Won't the owner be a landlord? No, say they, no more landlords at all, at all. But isn't that nonsense, says I? If ye split up the land into patches as big as yer hand and give every man a patch, wouldn't some men have twenty or a hundred, or maybe a thousand patches in five years? An' thin, thim that was lazy an' wasteful an' got out o' their land would be for shootin' the savin', sthrivin' man that worked his way up by buying out the drones. For wouldn't he be a landlord the moment he stopped workin' all the land himself. An' that would be sure to happen at wanst. Lord Gough is landlord here, an' ye'll not better him in Ireland. Look at the town there—all built of stone an' paved, wid a fine public well in the square, an' a weigh-house, an' the groves of lilac an' laburnums all out in flower an' dippin' in the wather; where ye may catch mighty fine trout out iv yer bedroom window, bedad ye may, or out of yer kitchin, an' draw them out iv the wather an' dhrop thim in' the fryin' pan off the hook with the bait in their mouths, an' their tails waggin', finishing their brakefasts thimselves while they get yours ready! Throth ye can. None iv us that has any sinse belaves in Home Rule. 'Tis only the ignorant that'll belave anything. No, we're quiet hereabouts, never shot anybody, an' not likely to. Yes, the Protestant Church is iligant enough, but there's very few Protestants hereabouts. It's the gentry an' most respectable folks that's Protestants. Protestants gets on because they kape their shops cleaner, an' has more taste, an' we'd sooner belave thim an' thrust thim that they'd kape their word an' not chate ye, than our own people. Yes, 'tis indeed quare, but it's thrue. The very priests won't deny it. An' another thing they wouldn't deny. The murtherin', sweatin' landlords that'll grind the very soul out of ye—who are they? Tell me now. Just the small men that have got up out of the muck. 'Tisn't the gintry at all. The gintry will wait a year, three years, five years, seven years for rint. The man that bought his farm or two wid borrowed money won't wait a day. 'Out ye go, an' bloody end to ye,' says he. Ye don't hear of thim evictions. The man that sint it to the paper would get bate—or worse.

"An' some of the little houldhers says, 'Pat,' says they, 'what'll we do wid the money whin we've no taxes to pay?' 'Tis what they're tould, the crathurs. God help them, but they're mighty ignorant."

Those who ridicule the assertions of Protestants and Catholic Unionists with reference to the lack of liberty may explain away what was told me by Mr. J.B. Barrington, brother of Sir Charles Barrington, a name of might in Mid-Ireland. He said, "Someone in our neighbourhood went about getting signatures to a petition against the Home Rule Bill. Among others who signed it was Captain Croker's carpenter, who since then has been waylaid and severely beaten. Another case occurring in the same district was even harder. A poor fellow has undergone a very severe thrashing with sticks for having signed the bill when, as a matter of fact, he had refused to sign it! Wasn't that hard lines? Both these men know their assailants, but they will not tell. They think it better to bear those ills they have than fly to others that they know not of. They are quite right, for, as it is, they know the end of the matter. Punish the beaters, and the relations of the convicted men would take up the cause, and if they could not come on the principal, if he had removed, or was awkward to get at, they would pass it on to his relations. So that a man's rebelling against the village ruffians may involve his dearest friends in trouble, may subject them to ill-usage or boycotting. A man might fight it out if he only had himself to consider; but you see where the shoe pinches."

A decent man in Ennis thus expressed himself anent the Bodyke affair. (My friend is a Catholic Nationalist.) "The Bodyke men are not all out so badly off as they seem. But their acts are bad, for they can pay, and they will not. No, I do not call the Colonel a bad landlord. We know all about it in Ennis; everybody agrees, too. The farmers meet in this town and elsewhere. Two or three of the best talkers lead the meeting, and everything is done their way. The more decent, sensible men are not always the best talkers. Look at Gladstone, have ye anybody to come up to him? An' look at his character—one way to-day an' another way to-morrow, an' the divil himself wouldn't say what the day afther that. But often the most decent, sensible men among these farmers can't express themselves, an they get put down. An' all are bound by the resolutions passed. None must pay rent till they get leave from all. What would happen a man who would pay rent on the Bodyke estate? He might order his coffin an' the crape for his berryin, an' dig his own grave to save his widow the expense. Perhaps ye have Gladstonian life-assurance offices in England? What praymium would they want for the life of a Bodyke man that paid his rint to the Colonel?"

The "praymium" would doubtless be "steep." Boycotting is hard to bear, as testified by Mr. Dawson, a certain Clerk of Petty Sessions. He said:—"The Darcy family took a small farm from which a man had been evicted after having paid no rent for seven years. The land lay waste for five years, absolutely derelict, before the Darcys took it in hand. They were boycotted. Their own relations dare not speak to them lest they, too, should be included in the curse. A member of the Darcy family died.

"Then came severe inconveniences. Friends had secretly conveyed provisions to the Darcys, and, at considerable risk to themselves, had afforded some slight countenance and assistance. But a dead body, that was a terrible affair. No coffin could be had in the whole district, and someone went thirty miles and got one at the county town by means of artful stratagem. Then came the funeral. It was to take place at twelve one day, but we found there would be a demonstration, and nobody knew what might happen. The corpse, that of a woman, might have been dragged from the coffin and thrown naked on the street. In the dead of night a young fellow went round the friends, and we buried the poor lady at four in the morning."

The laziness of the Irish people was here exploited with advantage. A great French chief of police, who had made elaborate dispositions to meet a popular uprising, once said, "Send the police home and the military to their barracks. There will be no Revolution this evening on account of the rain." A very slight shower keeps an Irishman from work, and you need not rise very early to get over him. A police officer at Gort said to me, "The people are quiet hereabouts, but I couldn't make you understand their ignorance. They do just what the priest tells them in every mortal thing. They believe that unless they obey they will go to Hell and endure endless torture for ever. They believe that unless they vote as they are told they will be damned to all eternity. But oh! if you could see their laziness. They lie abed half the day, and spend most of the rest in minding other people's business. Before you had been in the town half-an-hour every soul in the place was discussing you. They thought you had a very suspicious appearance, like an agent or a detective or something. Laziness and ignorance, laziness and ignorance, that's what's the matter with Ireland."

The farmers of this truly rural district distinctly state that they do not want Home Rule. They only want the land, and nearly all are furnished with Tim Healy's statement that "The farmer who bought his own land to-day would, when a Home Rule Parliament was won, be very sorry that he was in such a hurry." Just as the men of Bodyke are getting the rifles for which Mr. Davitt wished in order to chastise the Royal Irish Constabulary, by way of showing these "ruffians, the armed mercenaries of England, that the people of Ireland had not lost the spirit of their ancestors." Well may a timid Protestant of Gort say, "These men are deceiving England. They only want to get power, and then they will come out in their true colours. All is quiet here now, but the strength of the undercurrent is something tremendous. The English Home Rulers may pooh-pooh our fears, but they know nothing about it. And, besides, they are quite safe. That makes all the difference. The change will not drive them from all they hold dear. I do not agree with the nonsense about cutting our throats in our beds. That speech is an English invention to cast ridicule on us. But we shall have to clear out of this. Life will be unendurable with an Irish Parliament returned by priests. For it will be returned by priests. Surely the Gladstonian English admit that? To speak of loyalty to England in connection with an Irish Parliament is too absurd. Did not the Clan-na-Gael circular say that while its objects lay far beyond anything that might openly be named, the National Parliament must be first attained by whatever means? Then it went on to say that Ireland would be able to command the working plant of an armed revolution. Do you not know that the Irish Army of Independence is already being organised? What do you suppose the men who join it think it means? Did not Arthur O'Connor say that when England was involved in war, that would be the time? Did he not say that 100,000 men were already prepared, and that at three days' notice Ireland could possess double that number, all willing to fight England for love, and without any pay? If the English Home Rulers lived in Galway they would remember these things as I do. You think the Bill can never become law. If you could assure me of that, I would be a happy man this night. I would go to my pillow more contented than I have been for years. I and my family would go on our knees and thank God from our hearts."

Mr. Wakely, of Mount Shannon Daly, said:—"I live in one of the wildest parts of Galway, but all went on well with us until this Home Rule Bill upset the country. Now I am completely unsettled. Whether to plant the land or let it lie waste, I cannot tell. I might not be able to reap the harvest. Whether to buy stock to raise and fatten, or whether to keep what cash we have with a view to a sudden pack-up and exit, we do not know. And I think we are not the only timid folks, for the other day I took a horse twenty-four miles to a fair where I made sure of selling him easily. I had to take him back the twenty-four miles, having wasted my trouble and best part of two days. The franchise is too low, that is what ruined the country."

Another desponding Galwegian found fault with the Liberal party of 1884. He said, "They were actuated by so much philanthropy. Their motto was "Trust the people." We know what was their object well enough, They let in the flood of Irish democracy. The Radicals got forty, but the Nationalists gained sixty, and then part of the Radicals—the steady, sensible party among them—ran out a breakwater to prevent both countries being swamped. A break-water is a good thing, but there was no necessity for the flood. They cannot altogether repair the damage they have done. Look at the Irish members of twenty years ago, and look at them now. Formerly they were gentlemen. What are they to-day? A pack of blackguards. Their own supporters shrink from entrusting them with the smallest shred of power. Mr. Gladstone must be as mad as a March hare. The idea of a Dublin Parliament engineered by men whom their own supporters look upon as rowdies would be amusing but for the seriousness of the consequences. Have you been in Ennis? Did you see the great memorial to the Manchester murderers—'Martyrs' they call them? Their lives were taken away for love of their country, and their last breath was God save Ireland! That's the inscription, and what does it mean? Loyalty to England? Would such a thing be permitted on the Continent? Why, any sensible Government would stamp out such an innuendo as open rebellion. It teaches the children hatred of England, and they are fed with lies from their very cradle. Every misfortune—the dirt, the rags, the poverty of the country, are all to be attributed to English rule. Take away that and the people believe they will live in laziness combined with luxury."

The lying of the Home Rulers is indeed unscrupulous. An Irish newspaper of to-day's date, speaking of the opening of the Chicago Exposition, says that "it is fitting to remember that our countrymen have in the United States found an asylum and an opportunity which they have never found at home, that there they have been allowed untrammelled to worship God as they thought right," clearly implying that in Ireland or in England they have no such liberty. A car driver of Limerick, one Hynes, a total abstainer, and a person of some intelligence, firmly believed that England prevented Ireland from mining for coal, which disability, with the resulting poverty, would disappear with the granting of Home Rule. Everywhere this patent obliqueness and absurd unreason. A fiery Nationalist in white heat of debate shook his fist at an Ulsterman, and said, "When we get the bill, you'll not be allowed to have all the manufactories to yourselves," an extraordinary outburst which requires no comment. This burning patriot looked around and said, with the air of a man who is posing his adversary, "Why should they have all the big works in one corner of the island?" In opposition to the melancholy carman was the dictum of Mr. Gallagher, the great high-priest of Kennedy's tobaccos. He said—

"The poverty of Ireland is due to the fact that she has no coal. Geologists say that tens of thousands of years ago a great ice-drift carried away all the coal-depositing strata."

"Another injustice to Ireland," interrupted a sacrilegious Unionist.

"And doubtless due to the baleful machinations of the Base and Bloody Balfour," said another.

It is easy to bear other people's troubles. He jests at scars who never felt a wound. That the Irish nation has untold wrongs to bear is evidenced by a Southern Irish paper, which excitedly narrates the injuries heaped on the holy head of Hibernia by the scoffing Yankee, the wrongful possessor of the American soil. A meeting of distinguished Irish emigrants, who have from time to time favoured the States with their notice, was recently convened in New York, not on this exceptional occasion to metaphorically devour the succulent Saxon, nor to send his enemies a dollar for bread, and ten dollars for lead, nor yet to urge the Gotham nurses and scullerymaids to further contributions in favour of patriot Parliamentarians, but to protest with all the fervour of the conveners' souls, with all the eloquence of their powerful intellects, with all the solemnity of a sacred deed, against the irreverent naming of the animals in the Central Park Zoological Gardens after Irish ladies, Irish gentlemen, Irish saints. Misther Daniel O'Shea, of County Kerry, stated that the great hippotamus had actually been named Miss Murphy! A hijeous baste from a dissolute counthry inhabited wid black nagurs, to be named after an Oirish gyurl! Mr. O'Shea uncorked the vials of his wrath, and poured out his anger with a bubble, the meeting palpitating with hair-raising horror. Some other animal was called Miss Bridget. And Bridget was the name iv an Oirish saint! This must be shtopped. Mr. O'Shea declared he would rather die than allow it to continue. No further particulars are given, but it is understood that the viper had been christened "Tim Healy," the rattlesnake "O'Brien," the laughing hyæna John Dillon, and so on. The Chairman wanted to know why the Yankees did not call the ugly brutes after Lord Salisbury and Colonel Saunderson? Nobody seemed to know, so eight remonstrants were appointed a committee of inquiry.

Mr. O'Shea also denounced the American people as unlawfully holding a country which properly belonged to the Irish, an Irish saint, St. Brengan, having discovered the New World in the sixteenth century!

Enough of Ireland's wrongs; there is no end to them. As one of her poets sings, "The cup of her bitterness long has overflowed, And still it is not full."

The great bulk of the intelligent people of Ireland regard Home Rule with dread, and this feeling grows ever deeper and stronger. The country is at present exploited by adventurers, paid by the enemies of England, themselves animated by racial and religious prejudices, willing to serve their paymasters and deserve their pay rather by damaging England than by benefiting Ireland, for whose interests they care not one straw. Ignorance manipulated by charlatanism and bigotry is, in these latter days, the determining factor in the destinies of the British Empire. Intelligence is dominated by terrorism, by threats of death, of ill-usage, of boycotting—the latter I am told an outcome of an old engine of the Roman Catholic Church, improved and brought up to date. Humphreys, of Tipperary, may know if this is true. It was from one of the "Father's" feculent family, in the heart of his own putrescent parish, that I heard of the local chemist who dare not supply medicine urgently needed by a boycotted person, who was suspected of entertaining what the learned Humphreys would spell as "Brittish" sympathies.

Gort (Co. Galway), May 6th.

No. 19.—INDOLENCE AND IMPROVIDENCE.ToC

r. James Dunne, of Athenry, is an acute observer and a shrewd political controversialist. He said: "The people about here, the poor folks such as the small farmers and labourers, have really no opinion at all. They know nothing of Home Rule, one way or the other. If they say anything, it is to the effect that they will obtain some advantage in connection with the land. Beyond that they care nothing for the matter. Not one has any sentiment to be gratified. They only want to live, if possible, a bit more easily. If they can get the land for nothing or even more cheaply, then Home Rule is good. They can see no further than their noses, and they cannot be expected to follow a long chain of argument. They believe just what they are told. Yes, they go to the priest for advice under all circumstances. They ask him to name the man for whom they are to vote, or rather they would ask him if he waited long enough. They vote as they are told; and as the Catholic priest believes that the Catholic religion is the most important thing in the world, which from his point of view is quite proper and right, he naturally influences his people in the direction which is most likely to propagate the true faith, and give to it the predominance which he believes to be its rightful due.

"The people round here are harmless, and will continue so, unless the agitators get hold of them. They are ignorant, and easily led, and an influential speaker who knew their simplicity could make them do anything, no matter what. No, I couldn't say that they are industrious. They do not work hard. They just go along, go along, like. They have no enterprise at all, and you couldn't get them out of the ways of their fathers. They'd think it a positive sin.

"Look at the present fine weather. This is a very early season. No living man has seen such a spring-time in Ireland. Two months of fine warm weather, the ground in fine working condition, everything six weeks before last year. Not a man that started to dig a day earlier. No, the old time will be adhered to just as if it was cold and wet and freezing. You could not stir them with an electric battery. They moon, moon, moon along, in the old, old, old way, waiting for somebody to come and do something for them.

"If they had the land for nothing they would be no better off. They would just do that much less work. They live from hand to mouth. They have no ambition. The same thing that did for their fathers will do for them, the same dirtiness, the same inconvenience. If their father went three miles round a stone wall to get in at a gate they'll do it too. Never would they think of making another gate. They turn round angrily and say, 'Wasn't it good enough for my father, an' wasn't he a betther man than ayther me or you?' If you lived here, you would at first begin to show them things, but when you saw how much better they like their own way you'd stop it. You'd very soon get your heart broke. You couldn't stir them an inch in a thousand years. What will Home Rule do for them? Nobody knows but Gladstone and the Divil."

A bystander said: "Down at Galway there was a man wid a donkey goin' about sellin' fish, which was carried in two panniers. Whin he had only enough to fill one pannier, he put a load o' stones into the other pannier to balance the fish an' make the panniers stick on, an' ride aisier.

"Well, one day an Englishman that had been watchin' Barney for some time comes up to him an' he says, says he—

"'Whin ye have only fish for one pannier why do ye fill up the other wid stones off the beach?' says he.

"'Sure, 'tis to balance it,' says Barney, mighty surprised an' laffin widin himself at the Englishman's ignorance. 'Sure,' says Barney, 'ye wouldn't have a cock-eyed load on the baste, all swingin' on one side, like a pig wid one ear, would ye?' says he.

"But this Englishman was one of thim stiff sort that doesn't know whin he's bate, an' he went on arguin'. Says he—

"'But couldn't you put the half of the fish in one pannier, and the other half in the other pannier, instead of putting all the fish in one, and filling up the other with stones?' says he. 'Wouldn't that balance the load?' says he. 'And wouldn't that be only half the load for the poor baste?' says he. An' Barney sthruggled a bit till he got a fair grip iv it, d'ye see, but by the sivin pipers that played before Moses, he couldn't see the way to answer this big word of the Englishman; so he says, says he, 'Musha, 'twas me father's way, rest his sowl,' says he. 'An' would I be settin' meself up to be bettherin' his larnin'?' says he. 'Not one o' me would show him sich impidence and disrespect,' says he. 'An' I'll carry the rocks till I die, glory be to God,' says he.

"Now what could ye do with the like iv him?"

Mr. Armour, who lived five years near Sligo, said:—"The Connaught folks have no idea of preparing for to-morrow. They are almost entirely destitute of self-reliance. So long as they can carry on from one day to another they are quite content. The bit of ground they live on is not half cultivated. In the summer time you may see two or even three crops growing up together. If they had potatoes on last, they got them up in the most slovenly way, leaving half the crop in the ground. They just hoak out with a stick or a bit of board what they require for that day's food, picking the large ones and leaving the small ones in the ground. Oats or something else will be seen half-choked with weeds and the growth from the potatoes so left. The slovenliness of these people is most exasperating. Of course they are all Home Rulers in effect, though not in theory. By that I mean that they have no politics, except to produce politicians by their votes. They know no more of Home Rule than they know of Heidsieck's champagne, or Christmas strawberries, or soap and water, or any other unknown commodity. They are precisely where their ancestors were, except for the crop of potatoes, which enables them to exist in greater luxury and with less trouble. Their way is to plant the potatoes, dig them as required, and live on them either with the aid of a cow or with the butter-milk of a neighbour who has a cow. No provision for the future is attempted, because the relatives are sure to provide for the worn-out and sickly. That shows their goodheartedness, but it does away with self-dependence. There are some things so deeply ingrained in the Irish character that nothing and nobody can touch them. The very priests themselves cannot move them. Although these people believe that the priests could set them on fire from head to heel, or strike them paralytic, or refuse them entrance into heaven, yet the force of habit is so great, and the dread of public opinion is so powerful, that the people, so long as they remain in Ireland, will never depart a hair's-breadth from the old ways."

A woman who washed and tidied her children would be a mark for every bitter tongue in the parish. A striking case came under my own observation. A woman of the place was speaking most bitterly of another, and she finished up with,—

"She's the lady all out, niver fear. Shure, she washes and dhresses the childer ivery mornin', and turns out the girls wid hats on their heads an' shoes on their feet. Divil a less would sarve her turn! She has a brick flure to her house, an' she washes it—divil a lie I tell ye—she washes it—wid wather—an' wid soap an' wather, ivery Sattherday in the week! The saints betune us an' harm, but all she wants now is to turn Protestant altogether!"

Four miles away is the village of Carnaun, and there I met Philip Fahy, with his son Michael, and another young fellow, all three returning from field work, wearily toiling along the rocky road which runs through the estate of Major Lobdell. The party stopped and sat down to smoke with me. The senior took the lead, not with a brogue but with an accent, translating from the Irish vernacular as he went on. "Long ye may live! We're glad we met ye, thanks be to God. Yer honner's glory is the foinest, splindidist man I seen this twinty year. May God protect ye! 'Tis weary work we does. That foine, big boy ye see foreninst ye, has eighteenpence a day, nine shillin' a week. 'Tis not enough to support him properly. I have a son in England, the cliverist lad ye seen this many a day. Sich a scholar, 'twould be no discredit to have the Queen for his aunt, no it wouldn't. No, he's only just gone, an' I didn't hear from him yet. I didn't tell ye where he'd be, for I wouldn't know meself. But me other boys is goin', for they tell me things will be afther getting worse. God help us, an' stand betune us an harm! Did ye hear of the Home Rule Bill? What does it mane at all, at all? Not one of us knows, more than that lump of stone ye sit on. Will it give us the land for nothin'? for that's all we hear. We'd be obliged av ye could axplain it a thrifle, for sorra a one but's bad off, an' Father O'Baithershin says, Howld yer whist, says he, till ye see what'll happen, says he. Will we get the bit o' ground without rint, yer honner's glory?"