Chapter 8

Now the line of demarcation between the people trained by ages to stand with open hand expecting a gift, and those to whom a gift is an insult is hard to find sometimes. A young lad, a sharp boy, had been my guide to two or three places and carried my bag for me. I offered him pay, for pay had been expected from me by every one with whom I came in contact from the moment I landed. Tears came into the poor lad's eyes with mortified anger. One feels bad to hurt anyone's feelings, and between those who have a desire for a gift and are hurt if they do not get one, and those to whom offering a gift is the worst form of insult, one is sometimes puzzled to know what to do.

I find a very strong feeling in some places where I have been in connection with the contempt which some owners of the soil feel for the cultivators of it. A landlord--lately an attorney in a country town-- who has succeeded, most unexpectedly, to a great estate, takes no pains to conceal the contempt in which he holds his tenants. He sauntered into a shop, also the post-office of the town, and in the course of conversation informed them that his tenantry were a lazy lot of blackguards. Two of his tenants were present standing in the shop. He did not know them, but they knew him. To the eyes of an outsider like myself the tenants seemed the more gentlemanly of the two parties. This gentleman, it was explained to me by his tenants, was not a specimen of the usual landlord, who, whatever the fault of the land law might be which they believed in and ruled their conduct by, they were gentlemen who would not degrade themselves by such an utterance.

The idea is brought forward to me again and again that the best landlord clings to the power to oppress, absolute unquestioned power to do as he likes with his tenantry though he might never exercise it. The Protestants of Derry, Donegal, Tyrone, farmers with whom I have had the opportunity to converse, all refer to this fact. The good landlord considers it an infringement of his rights as a landlord, to take away a power he is too kind to use, although he will admit that some have used it unmercifully.

A recent speech of Lord Lifford's complains that things are now claimed as a right that used to be regarded as a favor on the part of the landlords. There is a strong, deep feeling among the best of the tenants against such utterances as these and the spirit behind them.

XIX.

LANDLORD AND TENANT--THE LAND QUESTION FROM BOTH SIDES.

As far as I have travelled yet, in the mountains of Donegal, through Derry, Antrim, Tyrone and Down, I have seen no trace of what Dr. Hepworth lays to the charge of the Irish--laziness, never cultivating a holding up to the line or into the corners. What excited my wonder again and again, is the fact that up to the boundary ditch or hedge, into the corners, up to the very edge of the rocks the tillage extended. I saw men dig up little fields entirely with the spade among the sudden rocks of Port-a-dorus. Some of the patches a horse with a plough attached could not turn in, yet they were tilled; there was not a spade's breadth left in any corner. And they paid high rent for this ground, rocks and all. They fell behind in famine time--not so very far--and humbly grateful were they for the help that came from outside in that time, and a mercy that forgave a little of the rent. I saw men digging on the mountain-side on the Leitrim estate, and wondered how they could keep their footing. As far as I have seen, it is a slander on the people to say they are averse to labor. On the contrary, they are very laborious, and singularly uncareful for their personal comfort. I heard a fellow- countryman at Moville talk of Paddy's laziness. I pointed out to him how carefully mountain-side and rough bog were cultivated. He admitted it, but spoke of want of rotation of crops and absence in many instances of fall-ploughing. This, I humbly consider, is want of skill, or maybe want of means--not laziness.

Every one says that the country depends almost solely on agriculture; agriculture rests on farm labor; farm labor pays rents high enough to produce periodical famine. The L90,000 rental of one estate, the L40,000 of another, is all produced by these lazy people. If there were any spot so rocky, so wild, that it was under no rent, one might think them lazy if they failed to make a living out of it, but they make a living and help to support a landlord, too, out of these rocks and morasses. I hope to see life farther south, and see if these lazy people exist there. They do not exist in the north so far as I have seen.

It seems to me that the tenant-farmers have been out of sight altogether. Now they have waked up, and there is no power to put them to sleep again. I am more than astonished to find not one intelligent person to defend the Land laws. There is no possibility of understanding previous apathy from an American standpoint unless we think of the thoughtlessness with which the Indians have been treated. The thoughtless landlord has looked upon his own needs according to the requirements of his station, not thinking whether the tenant could pay so much or not, and, whether, if the rent was raised, it left the means of existence behind. I met with very estimable people, who were taking a very high rent; higher than any man could honestly pay, and at the same time laughing at the poverty-stricken devices of their tenants. They did not think.

It must be borne in mind that there was a famine in the land but a short time ago, that these thousands and thousands of people who are under eviction now have no money and no place to go to but the ditch-back, or the workhouse. The workhouse means the parting with wife and children. These things must be taken into consideration, to understand the exasperation of mind which is seething through the whole country.

I do not think the people here, generally speaking, have any idea of the amount or intensity of hidden feeling. I confess it frightens me. I stayed in a country place for a week. I boarded with a family who were much better off than their neighbors. They were favorites at the office of the landlord, and paid him their rent punctually. I often sat at the kitchen hearth as neighbor after neighbor came in in the evening and told in Irish the tale of some hard occurrence that had taken place. I understood enough to guess the drift of the story. I understood well the language of eye and clinched hand with which my host listened. The people who suffered were his people; their woe was his; he felt for them a sympathy of which the landlord never dreamed; but he never said a word. I thought as I sat there--silent too--that I would not like to be that landlord and, in any time of upheaval, lie at the mercy of this favorite tenant of his.

They talk of agitators moving the people! Agitators could not move them were it not that they gave voice to what is in the universal heart of the tenantry.

A gentleman connected with the press said to me to-day: "The fact is that any outrage, no matter how heart-rending, committed by a landlord upon his tenantry is taken little notice of--none by Government--but when a tenant commits an outrage, no matter how great the provocation, then the whole power of the Government is up to punish."

One great trouble among the people is, they cannot read much, and they feel intensely; reading matter is too dear, and they are too poor to educate themselves by reading. What they read is passed from hand to hand; it is all one-sided, and "who peppers the highest is surest to please."

The ignorance of one class, consequent upon their poverty, the insensibility of another class, are the two most dangerous elements that I notice. It is easy to see how public sympathy runs, in the most educated classes. There is great sympathy, publicly expressed, for Captain Boycott and his potatoes; for Miss Bence-Jones, driven to the degrading necessity of milking the cows; but I have watched the papers in vain for one word of sympathy with that pale mother of a family, with her new-born infant in her arms, set upon the roadside the day I was at Carndonagh. Policemen have been known to shed tears executing the law; bailiffs have been known to refuse to do their duty, because the mother's milk was too strong in them; but the public prints express no word of sympathy.

In the papers where sympathy with the people is conspicuous by its absence, there will be paragraph after paragraph about prevention of cruelty to animals. I had the honor of a conversation with a lady of high birth and long descent, and, as I happen to know, of great kindness of heart, a landlady much beloved by a grateful and cared-for tenantry. I remarked to her that justice seemed to me to be rather one-sided: "There is much difference unavoidably between one class and another, but there are three places where all classes should stand on an equality-- on a school room floor, in a court of justice, in the house of God." "I would agree with you so far," said the lady, "that they should be on a level when they come before God." I am sure there would be no agitation nor need of coercion if all the landladies and landlords were like this kind-hearted lady in practice.

Another instance of kindly thought on the part of another landlady. The famine left many a poor tenant without any stock at all; every creature was sacrificed to keep in life. This lady bought cows for her tenants who were in this sad plight. She left the cows with them until a calf grew up into a milking cow; then the cow was sold to pay the landlady the money invested. If the cow sold for more than was paid for it the balance was the tenant's, and he had the cow besides. "Thus," said the lady to me, "I benefitted them materially at no expense of money, only a little." This lady, who claims and receives the homage of her tenants for the ould blood and the ould name, has by these acts of inexpensive kindness, chained her tenants to her by their hearts. "It's easy to see," said one to me, "that the ould kindly blood is in her."

There have been many humble petitions for reduction of rent; many have been granted, more have been refused. The reasons given in one case were, a ground-rent, a heavy mortgage, an annuity, and legacies. The question whether one set of tenants was able to meet all these burdens, not laid on by themselves mind, and live, never was taken into consideration for a moment.

When I arrived in Ireland, I met with an English gentleman who took a lively interest in the purpose for which I crossed the sea, namely, to see what I could see for myself and to hear what I could hear for myself on the Land Question. He volunteered a piece of advice. "There are two different parties connected with the Land Question, the landlords and the tenants. They are widely separated, you cannot pass from one to the other and receive confidence from both. If you wait upon the landlords you will get their side of the story; but, then, the tenants will distrust you and shut their thoughts up from you. If you go among the tenants you will not find much favor with the landlords. You must choose which side you will investigate."

Considering this advice good, I determined to go among the people and from that standpoint to write my opinions of what I saw and heard. I made up my mind to tell all I could gather of the opinions and grievances of the poor, knowing that the great are able to defend themselves if wrongfully accused, and can lay the land question, as they see it, before the world's readers.

I hear many take the part of the landlords in this manner: "You are sorry for the tenants, who certainly have some cause of complaint; can you not spare some sympathy for the landlords who bought these lands at a high figure, often borrowing the money to buy them and are getting no return for the money invested?"

Land hunger is a disease that does not attack the tenants alone. The poor man hungers for land to have the means of living; the rich man hungers for land because it confers rank, power and position. As soon as men have realized fortunes in trade they hasten to invest in land. That is the door by which they hope to enter into the privileged classes. Men accustomed to "cut things fine," in a mercantile way, are not likely to except a land purchase from the list of things which are to pay cent. per cent. The tenant has created a certain amount of prosperity, the new landlord looks at the present letting value of the land and raises the rent. This proceeding extinguishes or rather appropriates the Tenant Right. The landlord thinks he is doing no wrong, for, is he not actually charging less than Lord So-and-so, or Sir Somebody or other? which is perhaps very true. All this time the tenant knows he has been robbed of the result of years, perhaps of generations of hard and continuous labor. It is impossible to make such a landlord and such a tenant see eye to eye.

A gentleman asked a lady of Donegal if she would shut out the landlord from all participation in profits arising from improvements and consequent increase in the value of the land. I listened for the answer. "I would give the landlord the profits of all improvements he actually made by his own outlay; I would not give him the profits arising from the tenant's labor and means." Now I thought this fair, but the gentleman did not. He thought that all profit arising from improvements made by the tenant, should revert to the landlord after a certain time. I could not think that just.

As a case in point, a brother of Sir Augustus Stewart said to a Ramelton tenant:

"My brother does not get much profit from the town of Ramelton."

"He gets all he is entitled to, his ground rent, we built the houses ourselves," was the answer.

These people are safe, having a secure title, not trusting to the Ulster Custom or the landlords' sense of justice.

I have not been much among landlords. I did sit in the library of a landlord, and his lady told me of the excessively picturesque poverty prevailing in some parts, citing as an instance that a baby was nursed on potatoes bruised in water, the mother having hired out as wet-nurse to help to pay the rent. There was no cow and no milk. I had a graphic description of this family, their cabin, their manner of eating. The mother cannot earn the rent any longer and they are to be evicted. I was told they were quite able to pay, but trusting to the Land League had refused.

Naturally what I have seen and heard among the poor of my people, has influenced my mind. I could not see what I did see and hear what I did hear of the tyranny wrought by the late Earl of Leitrim, and the present Captain Dobbing, or walk through the desolation created by Mr. Adair, without feeling sad, sorry and indignant.

XX.

LORD LIFFORD--THE DUKE OF ABERCORN--WHOLESALE EVICTIONS--GOING SOUTH-- ENNISKILLEN--ASSES IN PLENTY--IN A GRAVEYARD.

On the banks of the Finn, near Strabane, was born the celebrated hero Finn ma Coul. I think this just means Finlay McDougall, and, therefore, claim the champion as a relative. Strabane lies in a valley, with round cultivated hills, fair and pleasant to the eye, swelling up round it. Near it is the residence of Lord Lifford. I have heard townspeople praise him as a landlord, and country people censure him, so I leave it there. His recent speech, in which he complains of the new Land Bill, that, if it passes into law, it will give tenants as a right what they used to get as a favor from their landlords, has the effect of explaining him to many minds.

Leaving Strabane behind, went down or up, I know not which, to Newtown- Stewart, in the parish of Ardstraw (_ard strahe_, high bank of the river). In this neighborhood is the residence of the Duke of Abercorn, spoken of as a model landlord.

The Glenelly water mingles with the Struell and is joined by the Derg, which forms the Mourne. After the Mourne receives the Finn at Lifford it assumes the name of the Foyle and flows into history past Derry's walls.

At the bridge, as you enter the town of Newtown-Stewart, stands the gable wall of a ruined castle, built by Sir Robert Newcomen, 1619, burned by Sir Phelim Roe O'Neil along with the town, rebuilt by Lord Mountjoy, burnt again by King James.

Upon a high hill above the town, commanding a beautiful view of the country far and wide, stand the ruins of the castle of Harry Awry O'Neil (contentious or cross Harry), an arch between two ruined towers being the only distinct feature left of what was once a great castle. This castle commanded a view of two other castles, owned and inhabited by two sons or two brothers of this Harry Awry O'Neil. These three castles were separate each from each by a river. Here these three lords of the O'Neil slept, lived and agreed, or quarrelled as the case might be, ruling over a fair domain of this fair country. I do not think the present generation need feel more than a sentimental regret after the days of strong castles and many of them, and hands red with unlimited warfare.

Towering up beyond Harry Awry's castle is the high mountain of Baissie Baal, interpreted to me altar of Baal. I should think it would mean death of Baal. (Was Baal ever the same as Tommuz, the Adonis of Scripture?) In the valley beyond is a village still named Beltane (Baal teine--Baal's fire), so that the mountain must have been used at one time for the worship of Baal. The name of the mountain is now corrupted into Bessie Bell.

In the valley at the foot of the mountain is the grand plantation that stretches miles and miles away, embosoming Baronscourt, the seat of the Duke of Abercorn, and the way to it in the shade of young forests. There are nodding firs and feathery larches over the hills, glassing themselves in the still waters of beautiful lakes. Lonely grandeur and stately desolation reign and brood over a scene instinct with peasant life and peasant labor some years ago. The Duke of Abercorn was counted a model landlord. His published utterances were genial, such as a good landlord, father and protector of his people would utter. Some one who thought His Grace of Abercorn was sailing under false colors, that his public utterances and private course of action were far apart, published an article in a Dublin paper. This article stated that the Duke had evicted over 123 families, numbering over 1,000 souls, not for non- payment of rent, but to create the lordly loneliness about Baronscourt. His Grace did not like tenantry so near his residence. Those tenants who submitted quietly got five years' rent--not as a right, but as a favor given out of his goodness of heart. They tell here that these evictions involved accidentally the priest of the parish and an old woman over ninety, who lay on her death-bed. He had called upon the priest personally and offered ground for a parochial house; he forgot his purpose and the priest continued to live in lodgings from which he was evicted along with the farmer with whom he lodged. Of the evicted families 87 were Catholics and 36 Protestants. If they had been allowed to sell their tenant right they might have got farms elsewhere. Of those cleared off seventeen who were Protestants and six who were Catholics got farms elsewhere from His Grace. Some sank into day laborers, some vanished, no one knows where.

People here say that the reason why there are Fenians in America and people inclined to Fenianism at home is owing to these large evictions-- clearances that make farmers into day laborers at the will of the lord of the land. The people feel more bitterly about these things when they consider injustice is perpetrated with a semblance of generosity. Nothing--no lapse of time nor change of place or circumstances--ever causes anyone to forget an eviction. Now they say that the Duke of Abercorn holds this immense tract of country on the condition of rooting the people in the soil by long leases, not on condition of evicting them out; therefore, he has forfeited his claim to the lands over and over again. This article, published in a Dublin paper, was taken no public notice of for a time, but when sharply contested elections came round, the Duke and four others, sons and relations, were rejected at the polls because of the feeling stirred up by these revelations. Such is the popular report of the popular Duke of Abercorn.

Omagh is a pretty, behind-the-age country town. The most splendid buildings are the poor-house, the prison, and the new barracks. The hotels are very dear everywhere; they seem to depend for existence on commercial travellers and tourists. Tourists are expected to be prepared to drop money as the child of the fairy tale dropped pearls and diamonds, on every possible occasion, and unless one is able to assert themselves they are liable to be let severely alone as far as comfort is concerned, or attendance; but when the _douceur_ is expected plenty are on hand and smile serenely.

Left Omagh behind and took passage for Fermanagh's capital, Enniskillen of dragoon celebrity. The road from Omagh to Enniskillen showed some, I would say a good deal, of waste, unproductive land. Land tufted with rushes, and bare and barren looking--still the fields tilled were scrupulously tilled. The houses were the worst I had yet seen on the line of rail, as bad as in the mountains of Donegal, worse than any I saw in Innishowen. I wonder why the fields are so trim and the homes in many cases so horrible. Not many, I may say not any, fine houses on this stretch of country.

Arrived at Enniskillen on market day, towards the close of April. The number of asses on the market is something marvellous. Asses in small carts driven by old women in mutch caps, asses with panniers, the harness entirely made of straw, asses with burdens on their backs laid over a sort of pillion of straw. I thought asses flourished at Cairo and Dover, but certainly Enniskillen has its own share of them. The faces of the people are changed, the tongues are changed. The people do not seem of the same race as they that peopled the mountains of Donegal.

A little while after my arrival, taking a walk, I wandered into an old graveyard round an old church which opened off the main street. Underneath this church is the vault or place of burial of the Cole family, lords of Enniskillen--a dreary place, closed in by a gloomy iron gate. A very ancient man was digging a grave in this old graveyard, sacred, I could see by the inscriptions, to the memory of many of the stout-hearted men planted in Enniskillen, who held the land they had settled on against all odds in a brave, stout-hearted manner. None of the dust of the ancient race has mouldered here side by side with their conquerors. There was a dragoonist flavor about the dust; a military flourish about the tombstones. A., of His Majesty's regiment; B., officer of such a battalion of His Majesty's so-and-so regiment; C., D., and all the rest of the alphabet, once grand officers in His Majesty's service, now dust here as the royal majesties they served are dust elsewhere. Went over to the ancient grave-digger, who was shovelling out in a weakly manner decayed coffin, skull, ribs, bones, fat earth--so fat and greasy-looking, so alive with horrible worms. He was so very old and infirm that, after a shovelful or two, he leaned against the grave side and _peched_ like a horse with the heaves.

"How much did he get for digging a grave?"

"Sometimes a shilling, sometimes one and six, or two shillings, accordin' as the people were poor or better off."

"How were wages going?"

"Wages were not so high as they had been in the good times before the famine. A man sometimes got three-and-six or four shillings then; now he got two shillings."

"And board himself?"

"Oh, yes, always board himself."