Chapter 19

Sir Allan thought the Land League much to blame for the present miserable state of affairs. Men well able to pay their rents, and supposed to be willing to pay their rents, were prevented from paying from a system of terrorism inaugurated by the Land League. Some instances were given. One was of the man who had the mill which we passed on the road, who being behind in his rent, was willing to pay but dare not do it. Certainly by the busy appearance of the mill and by the style of his dwelling-house it did not seem to be inability that kept him from paying. Another instance was that of a man holding a large farm, on which he had erected a fine house, which I saw in passing, a very nice residence indeed, with plate glass windows, and carpeted throughout with Brussels carpets, I am told. The large fields were waving with a fine crop; there were some grand fields of wheat, the stack yard had many stacks of last year's grain and hay. This man had given his son lately L2500 to settle himself on a farm. It certainly would not be poverty that prevented him paying his rent, for there was every evidence of wealth around him. I heard of men, who, having paid their rent, could not get their horses shod at the blacksmith's shop. For breaking the rules of the Land League they were set apart from their fellows.

I can well imagine that serious embarrassments must arise to landlords when their rents, their only income, are kept back from them. How I would rejoice to know that landlord and tenant were reconciled once more, that lordship and leadership were united in one person.

Sir Thomas Butler informed me that, "when a landlord dies and his son succeeds him the Government do not charge him succession duty on his rental but on Griffith's (or the Poor Law) valuation of his estate, plus 30 per cent. If his estate is rented at only 10 per cent over the valuation, he has to pay Government all the same, and is consequently over charged 20 per cent because in the opinion of the Government authorities, the fair letting value of land is from 25 to 30 per cent over Griffiths valuation, and they charge accordingly." (I suppose it is founded upon this law of succession duty that when a tenant dies the widow has the rent raised upon her.) "Under the Bright clauses of the Land Act of 1870 the Government is authorized to advance to the tenant two-thirds of the purchase money for his holding. At first the Treasury fixed 24 years' purchase of the valuation as the scale they would adopt, and under that they lent 16 years' purchase to the tenant, who at once remonstrated that their interest was a great deal more. After numerous enquiries, &c., the treasury changed the 24 years into 30 years, and consequently let the tenants 20 years value of their valuation, they finding the other ten years, clearly showing that in the opinion of the tenants themselves and the Government land was worth 30 years' purchase of its valuation. What is the proposal now by the tenants and agitators? That they should clearly only pay at the rate of Griffith's valuation, which, a few years ago, they themselves asserted was fifty percent below the selling value, and which valuation was taken when wheat, oats, barley, butter, beef, mutton and pork were much below the present value. Landlords have not raised their rents in proportion. My own estate in 1843 had 116 tenants, in 1880 it had 105 tenants on 5,760 statute acres. The difference in the rent paid in 1880 over that paid in 1843 is L270, barely six percent on the whole rental, which is almost 16 percent over valuation. Over L2,000 was forgiven in the bad years after potato famine, and over L1,000 has been lost by nonpaying tenants, and a considerable sum has been expended in improvements without charging the tenant interest; in some cases the cost has been divided between landlord and tenant. It is a very common practice in Ireland to fix a rent for a tenant and to reduce that rent on the tenant executing certain improvements. No improving tenant, or one who pays his rent, is ever disturbed in possession of his farm--it is only the insolvent one that is put out, and by the time the landlord can obtain possession of the farm it is always in a most delapidated condition. An ejectment for non-payment of rent cannot be brought till a clear year's rent is due, and usually the tenant owes more before it is brought, and he has always from date of decree to redeem the farm by paying what is due on the decree with costs. The landlord has, in case of redemption by the tenant, to account for the profits he has made out of the land during the six months. When dilapidation and waste have taken place no compensation for the loss can be obtained by the landlord from the the tenant. In cases of leases, the landlord finds it quite impossible to enforce the covenants for good tillage and preservation of fences, buildings, &c. Poor rates, sanitary, medical charities, election expenses, cattle diseases and sundry other charges are paid by the poor rate, which is levied on the valuation of house or farm property, consequently the funded property-holder, banks, commercial establishments pay far less in proportion to business done than the landholder, who cannot make as much out of a L50 holding as a banker or publican ought to do out of a house valued at L50. The present agitation against rents is political, and the rent question has been brought prominently forward by the leaders with the view of getting the farmers on their side as the great voting power. It would have been quite useless their endeavoring to enlist the farmers without promising them something to their own advantage; but the interest in the land is only a veil under which the advances for total separation from England can be made, and will be thrown aside when no further use can be made of it."

These are Sir Thomas Butler's sentiments and opinions. His opinions, formed from his standpoint, are worthy of consideration. With a lingering look at bonnie Dunany, we bade adieu to Lady Butler and the two baronets, and were driven back to South Gate over another and more inland road.

XLVI.

THE EAST AND THE WEST--LANDLORDS AND LANDLORDS.

For good and sufficient reasons the railway carriage whisked through the rich country, carrying me from Castle Bellingham to Rath Cottage by the Moat of Dunfane. There is one beautiful difference between the North and the West; the North is full of people, the hill sides are dotted thickly with white dwellings--so much for the Ulster Custom. It pleases the people to tell them that the superior prosperity of their northern fields is due to their religious faith. Some parts of Lord Mount Cashel's estate, when sold in the Encumbered Estates Court, did not pass into hands governed by the same opinions as to the rights and duties which property confers as are held by Mr. Young, of Galgorm Castle. Their tenants complain of rack rents as bitterly as if they lived in the west. They are looking eagerly to the new law for redress. In fact when they find their tenant-right eaten up by a vast increase of rent they consider their faith powerless in the face of their landlord's works.

I do not think any one can pass through this country without noticing a vast difference which is not a religious difference, between one property as to management and another, between one part of the country and another. In some parts the tenants build the houses, whatever sort of houses they are able to build; they repair them as they are able, and the landlords get the rent of them. If by any means they can improve them, the landlord improves the rent to a higher figure.

I was over one property in the County Antrim, the property of a man who combines landholding as a middleman, with trade in linen fabrics and manufacturing or bleaching, or both. I cannot say that this gentleman is excessively popular, but he is exceedingly prosperous. His private residence, as far as taste goes, a taste that can be gratified regardless of expense, is as perfectly beautiful within its limits as the property of any lord of the soil which I have come across. Indeed, the arrangements made at such cost, kept up to such perfection, spoke of one who owed his income to trade and not to his land alone. His hot- houses, heavy with grapes, rich with peaches and nectarines, and fragrant with rare flowers, were verily on a lordly scale. It was his tenement houses that attracted my attention chiefly. They were well- roofed, slated in almost every instance; not a roof was broken that he owned. The cottages were rough cast and washed over with drab; they were covered with roses that were in as rich bloom as if they were blooming for gentry. Truly the tenants planted them, but a tenant who plants roses is not living in a state of desperation as to the means of existence. When he sent men to wash over the tenement houses, and the good wives trembled for the roses. "The gardener shall come and arrange them again and see that they are not harmed in the least," he said.

They tell me that this gentleman, being a trader with a commercial mind, takes for his tenements the utmost they will bring. If so, when he builds the houses, and keeps them in thorough repair, it is surely doing what he will with his own. Others who do not build, who never repair, surely raise the rent on what is, strictly and honestly speaking, not their own.

There is a difference between this gentleman, whose tenants say, "He will send his own gardener to fix up the roses again after the white, or rather gray washing," and the lord in the West whose tenants say, "If he saw a patch of flowers at the door, he would compel us to grub it up as something beyond our station."

The agent on the Galgorm estate told me that during twenty-five years, when he was in Lord Mount Cashel's land office, there was but one eviction, and that man got four hundred pounds for his tenant right before he left the yard. This is one man's testimony of one landlord.

Ulster, as a whole, has had more evictions, pending the Land Bill, than any other of the provinces. It is true that she has more people to evict. Her rent-roll during the last-eighty years has risen from L124,481 to L1,440,072. One million, three hundred and fifteen thousand five hundred and ninety one pounds of a rise.

XLVII.

THE CENTRAL COUNTIES--SOME SLEEPY TOWNS.

Away from the North once more, this time direct southwards; paused on the Sabbath-day in the neighborhood of Tandragee, and went to a field- meeting at a place called Balnabeck--I wonder if I spell it right? This gathering in a church-yard for preaching is held yearly as a commemoration service because John Wesley preached in this same graveyard when he made an evangelistic tour in Ireland. Although this is only a yearly service, and a commemoration service of one whom the people delight to honor, they made it pretty much a penitential service. There were no seats but what the damp earth afforded, no stand for the officiating minister but a grave; it was not, therefore, a very attentive congregation which he addressed. The speaker, a Mr. Pepper, had emigrated from thence when a lad to America. He now returned to the people who had known him in earlier days. It was certainly listening under difficulties, and we were obliged to leave, by limb-weariness, before the service was over.

I had an opportunity on the morrow of seeing the handsome weaving of damask. The looms are very complicated and expensive affairs, and do not belong to the weaver but to the manufacturer. The pattern is traced on stiff paper in holes. Was very much interested in watching the process of weaving; of course did not understand it, and therefore wondered over it. The web was two and a half yards wide, was double damask of a fern pattern. The weaver, a young and nice-looking man, with the assured manner of a skilled worker, informed me proudly that he could earn three shillings a day--75 cents. Out of this magnificent income he paid the rent of his house--which was not a palace either--and supported his wife and family. His wife, a pretty and rather refined looking young woman, had a baby, teething sick, in the cradle. It must wail, and mother could only look her love and coo to it in softest tones, for if she took the little feverish sufferer up the pirns would be unwound and the husband's three shillings would have a hole in it, so both wife and baby had a share in the earning of that three shillings--baby's share the hardest of all.

Called in to see another weaver of damask to-day; he could earn fifteen pence a day. He was a melancholy little man, of a pugnacious turn of mind, I am afraid. He said that fifteen pence a day was but little out of which to pay rent and support a wife and family. Thinking of the wife and baby at the other house, we said that seeing the wife wound the bobbins, cooked, kept house, nursed and washed for her family that she earned her full share of the fifteen pence. Would not be surprised to hear that there had been a controversy raging on this very subject before we came in, the man's face became so glum and the woman's so triumphant. It was an enthusiastic blessing she threw after us when we left.

Visited a great thread factory, where the yarn is made ready that is woven into double damask, and thread for all purposes supplied to all parts. In whatever part of Ireland the tall factory chimney rises up into the air the people have not the look of starvation that is stamped on the poor elsewhere. Still, if we consider a wage of seven to twelve shillings a week--twelve in this factory was the general wages--and subtract from that two shillings a week for the house and three shillings a week for fuel the operators are not likely to lay up large fortunes. As they have no gardens to the houses owned by the factory, nor backyard accommodation of any kind, the cleanliness and tidy appearance of houses and workpeople are a credit to them. But when times grow hard, and the mills run half time, and not even a potato to fall back upon, there must be great suffering behind these walls.

There are large schools, national schools, in this village, and the children over ten years of age, who work in the factory, go to school half time. They are paid at the rate of two-pence halfpenny a day for the work of the other half of the day--that is equivalent to five cents. The teachers of the schools informed me that, when the little ones came in the morning, as they did on alternate weeks, that they learned well, but when they came in the afternoon they were sleepy and listless. On that morning they had to rise at five o'clock.

The schools which I have seen in Ireland, for so far, are conducted on the old plan; children learn their lessons at home, repeat them to the teachers in school, who never travel out of record, are trained in obedience, respect to superiors, and in order, more or less, according to the nature of the teacher. They still adhere to the broad sound of A, which has been so universally abandoned on the other side of the water.

The factories at Gilford are very remunerative; great fortunes, allowing of the purchase of landed estates and the building of more than one castlelike mansion have been made in them. From Tandragee to Portadown, in Armagh, which we travelled in a special car, took us through the same green country waving with crops, and in some places shaded heavily with trees. In the environs of Gilford--as if that very clean manufacturing town set an example that was universally followed--all the houses are clean and white as to the outside, further away the dreadful-looking homes abound. Portadown, all we saw of it, just passing through, is a clean and thrifty little town.

We would have liked to linger in Armagh a little while, but we must hurry down to the South. Got a glimpse of Armagh Catholic cathedral--a very fine building, not so grand, however, as the Cathedral at Sligo. Took notice of a very fine memorial window, with the name of Archbishop Crolly on it. I remember him very well, saw him frequently, got a pat on the head from him occasionally. He seemed partial to the little folks, when we played in the chapel yard--a nice place to play in was the chapel yard in Donegal street. He was then Bishop Crolly, and I was a very small heretic, who loved to play on forbidden ground. Walked about a little in Armagh between the trains, saw that there were many fine churches and other nice buildings from the outside view of them, and passed on to Clones. The land as seen from the railway is good in some places, poor in others, but in all parts plenty of houses not fit to be human habitations are to be seen.

Clones is a little town on a hill, with a history that stretches back into the dim ages. It has a round tower that threatens to fall, and will, too, some windy night; an abbey almost gone, but whose age and weakness is propped up by modern repairs, as, they say, the tenure of some land depends on the old gable of the abbey standing; a three-story fort, that, as Clones is built on a hill and the fort is built on Clones, affords a wide view of the surrounding country. Clones has a population of over two thousand, has no manufactory, depends entirely on the surrounding farming population, does not publish a newspaper, and is quietly behind the age a century or two. The loyal people who monopolize the loyalty are in their own way very loyal. It is delightfully sleepy, swarming with little shops with some little things to sell; but where are the buyers? If a real rush of business were to come to Clones I would tremble for the consequences, for it is not used to it.

I was quartered in the most loyal corner of all the loyal places in Clones. Every wall on which my eyes rested proclaimed that fact. Here was framed all the mysterious symbols of Orangeism, which are very like the mysterious symbols of masonry to ignorant eyes. There was King William in scarlet, holding out his arm to some one in crimson, who informed the world that "a bullet from the Irish came that grazed King William's arm." On the next wall is the battle of the Boyne, with some pithy lines under.

"And now the well-contested strand successive columns gain, While backward James' yielding band is borne across the plain; In vain the sword that Erin draws and life away doth fling, O worthy of a better cause and of a nobler king! But many a gallant spirit there retreats across the plain, Who, change but kings, would gladly dare that battlefield again."

I read that verse, like it, transcribe it, and turn to study the handsome face of Johnston of Ballykillbeg, who is elevated into the saint's place alongside of King William on many, many cottage walls, when the hostess appears. Noting the direction of my glance, she informs me of the martyrdom which Mr. Johnston has suffered from Government. She has a confused idea that Mr. Johnston is at present returning good for evil by holding our gracious Queen upon the throne in some indirect way.

After carefully finding out what my religious opinions are, she informs me of evangelistic services that are held in a tent at the foot of the hill on which Clones sits. These services are not, she says, in connection with the "Hallelujahs" or the "Salvations," but are authorized by the Government, and are under the wing of the Episcopal Church. Of course tent services under the wing of the Episcopal Church are worth going to, so we attend.

The service is quite as evangelical as if it were preached by "Hallelujahs." There is a very large audience, and the people seem very attentive. My hostess is much affected. She tells me that if she can work hard and manage well and be content with her station, reverencing her betters as she ought to do, she hopes to get to heaven at last. Almost in the same breath she informs me that all the people of Mayo will go to hell, if any one goes, for that is their _desarvings_. Yes. The Mayo people are sure to be damned. "God forgive me for saying so," adds my hostess, as a saving clause. I am afraid the evangelistic services have failed as yet as far as my hostess is concerned; and Mayo, beautiful and desolate Mayo, may be glad that the keys of that inconveniently warm climate are not kept by a Clones woman whom I know.

There are few who have not something to be proud of. My woman of Clones is proud of the fact that she entertained and lodged for a night the potato pilgrims--thirty-five of them--who went to Captain Boycott's relief down to Lough Mask. After she had mentioned this circumstance a few times, and did seem to take much spiritual comfort from the face, I ventured to inquire if she were paid for it. Oh, yes, she was; but if she had not been--she was all on the right side, she was that; and if she had the power would sweep every Papist off the face of the earth. She was wicked, she said, on this subject.

I did not believe this woman; her talk was mere party blow. The whole street about her was full of Papists, small and great. I do not think she would sweep the smallest child off the face of the earth, except by a figure of speech. There are those who really know what language means who are responsible for this bloodthirsty kind of talk. It means little, but it keeps up party spirit.

I thought of speeches which I heard on the 12th of July by ministers of the Gospel, with all the Scripture quotations from Judges, and Samuel, telling an inflamable people--only they were too busy with their drums and fifes to listen--that "God took the side of fighting men--Gideon meant battle--an angel was at the head of the Lord's host--Scotland was especially blest because it was composed of fighting men." Does the Gospel mean brother to war against brother for the possession of his field? How much need there is for our loving Lord to rebuke His disciples by telling them again, "Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of, for the leaders of my people cause them to err."

Clones takes its name from a word that may signify the meadow of Eois, or high meadow. It has a history that goes back to grope about Ararat for the potsherds thrown out of the ark. It has a very old and famous round tower, used at some time as a place of sepulchre, for a great quantity of human bones have been found in it. In one stone of this tower is the mark of two toes printed into the stone, or the mark of some fossil remains dislodged by a geological hammer.

As Clones sits upon a hill, and the fort sits on the highest part, it commands an extensive view. There is also an ancient cross in the market square, once elaborately carved in relief, but the figures are worn indistinct. There are the remains of an old castle built in among the modern walls and hidden out of sight. There are stories of an underground passage between the abbey and the castle. In fact, they came on this underground way when levelling the market space, but did not explore it. There is such a romance about mystery that it is as well, I suppose, not to let too much daylight shine in upon it.

Clones, with its abbey, was burned by De Lacy in the thirteenth century, which was, perhaps, its last burning.