looked
over some documents and found that the individuals in Lisburn who
had received notices to quit held property to the value of 3,000 l.,
property raised by themselves, or purchased by them with the sanction
of the landlord. In one case the agent himself went into the premises
where buildings were being erected, and suggested some changes. In
fact the improvements were carried out under his inspection as an
architect. Yet he served upon that gentleman a notice to quit. Some
of the tenants paid the penalty for their votes by surrendering their
holdings; others contested the right of eviction on technical points,
and succeeded at the quarter sessions. One of the points was, as
already mentioned, that a dean and rector could not be legally a land
agent at the same time. It was, indeed, a very ugly fact that the
rector of the parish should be thus officially engaged, not only in
nullifying the political rights of his own Protestant parishioners,
but in destroying their tenant-right, evicting them from their
holdings, which _they_ believed to be legal robbery and oppression,
accompanied by such flagrant breach of faith as tended to destroy all
confidence between man and man, and thus to dissolve the strongest
bonds of society. Sad work for a dignitary of the church to be engaged
in!

In April, 1856, there was another contested election. On that
occasion the marquis wrote to a gentleman in Lisburn that he would not
interfere 'directly or indirectly to influence anybody.' Nevertheless,
notices to quit, signed by Mr. Walter L. Stannus, assistant and
successor to his father, were extensively served upon tenants-at-will,
though it was afterwards alleged that they were only served as matters
of form. But what, then, did they mean? They meant that those who
had voted against the office had, _ipso facto, forfeited their
tenant-right property._ Many other incidents in the management of the
estate have been constantly occurring more recently, tending to show
that the most valuable properties created by the tenants-at-will are
at the mercy of the landlord, and that tenant-right, so called, is
not regarded by him as a matter of _right_ at all, but merely as a
_favour_, to be granted to those who are dutiful and submissive to the
office in all matters, political and social. For instance, one farmer
was refused permission to sell his tenant-right till he consented to
sink 100 l. or 200 l. in the shares of the Lisburn and Antrim rail