through lessened receipts. The expenses of the landlord
have however increased, while his receipts have fallen off. In 1881
Edenvale paid out for labour L466, 0s. 1-1/2d., in 1887 L560, 6s.
3-1/2d., though less labour was employed in 1887 than in 1881. The wages
of servants, where any change appears, have risen. In 1881 a gardener
received L14 a year, in 1888 he receives 15s. a week, or at the rate of
L39 a year. A housemaid receiving L12 a year in 1881, receives now L17 a
year. A butler receiving in 1881 L26 a year, now receives L40 a year. A
kitchen maid receiving in 1881 L6, now receives L10, 10s. a year.
Meanwhile, the Sub-Commissioners are at this moment cutting down the
Edenvale rents again by L190, 3s. 2d., after a walk over the property in
the winter. Yet in July 1883 Mr. Reeves, for the Sub-Commission,
"thought it right to say there was no estate in the County Clare so
fairly rented, to their knowledge, or where the tenants had less cause
for complaint." In but one case was a reduction of any magnitude made by
the Commission of 1883, and in one case that Commission actually
increased the rent from L11, 10s. to L16. In January 1883 the rental of
this property was L4065, 5s. 1d. The net reduction made by the
Commissioners in July 1883 was L296, 14s. 0-1/2d.

After luncheon a car came up to the mansion, bringing a stalwart,
good-natured-looking sergeant of police, and with him the boycotted old
woman Mrs. Connell and her son. The sergeant helped the old woman down
very tenderly, and supported her into the house. She came in with some
trepidation and uneasiness, glancing furtively all about her, with the
look of a hunted creature in her eyes. Her son, who followed her, was
more at his ease, but he also had a worried and careworn look. Both were
warmly but very poorly clad, and both worn and weatherbeaten of aspect.
The old woman might have passed anywhere for a witch, so wizened and
weird she was, of small stature, and bent nearly double by years and
rheumatism. Her small hands were withered away into claws, and her head
was covered with a thick and tangled mat of hair, half dark, half grey,
which gave her the look almost of the Fuegian savages who come off from
the shore in their flat rafts and clamour to you for "rum" in the
Straits of Magellan. Her eyes were intensely bright, and shone like hot
coals in her dusky, wrinkled face. It was a raw day, and she came in
shivering with the cold. It was pathetic to see how