ke the present, _he
induced them to desist from further injury to me._'

If we had contemporary accounts of all the other romantic scenes which
have fascinated so many readers, the 'Realities' would lose much
of their gilding. Indeed, in most cases the internal evidence is
sufficient to convince us that the sensationalist has been laying on
his colours pretty heavily. In the sketch of the Farney rent campaign,
however, I am willing to accept Mr. Trench as a faithful historian. It
is a most suggestive narrative, because it shows what mischief could
be done by driving the agricultural population to desperation. A
general strike against the payment of rent would convulse society.
If the war which raged in Farney had spread all over the island, the
landlords would be in serious difficulty. The British army might then
have become rent collectors, as they had been tithe collectors in
1831.'

Mr. Shirley resolved, after much deliberation, to enforce his legal
rights to the utmost. The bailiff was sent to warn the backward
tenants to come in with the rent, and he everywhere received the same
answer--'We will pay no rent till our grievances are redressed.' Now
all the missiles of the law were showered on the recusants--notices
to quit, _latitats_, processes for arrears, &c. Grippers,
process-servers, keepers, drivers, were in full requisition. The
grippers were to arrest all tenants against whom decrees had been
obtained at the quarter-sessions; the keepers were employed to watch
the crops that had been seized; and the drivers were to bring the
cattle, sheep, horses, or pigs to pound. These constituted the
landlord's army, having the police as a reserve, and the military if
necessary.

On the other hand, the tenants organised a body called the 'Molly
Maguires'--stout young men dressed up in women's clothes, their
faces disguised and besmeared in the most fantastic manner. These men
waylaid and maltreated the officers of the law so severely, that in a
short time no money could induce a gripper, process-server, driver or
bailiff to show his nose on the estate. In this dilemma, Mr. Shirley,
as commander-in-chief, ordered his lieutenant and his subordinates
to go forth, with a body of police, and drive in all the cattle they
could seize on the lands of the defaulting tenants. The expedition
started one fine morning, led on by the mounted bailiff, a fat man,
trembling like a hare at the thought of encountering the 'Molly
Maguire