a very great sub-division
of holdings, while the exercise of the franchise by the forty shillings
freeholder until the year 1829 provided an additional inducement to the
landlord to multiply the number of tenants on his land, since by doing
so he increased the number of votes under his control, and, _pari
passu_, his political influence.

After the famine, when it was found that one-third of the Irish
landlords were bankrupt, the Encumbered Estates Court Act was passed to
cope with the situation which had arisen of a country full of numerous
landlords saddled with land which, owing to mortgages, debts, and
incumbrances, was inalienable. Under the Act the Court was empowered, on
the petition of any person sufficiently interested, to sell the
encumbered estate and give an indefeasible title, so that persons who
before had a claim on the estate should now have a claim only on the
purchase-money. It was a piece of strong legislation in its disregard of
vested rights and in the manner in which it set aside express contracts
under which creditors had a claim on the land which could only be
disturbed by paying off that claim.

In the event the rush of creditors to this Court--created to afford
relief from the delays of Chancery in effecting alienation--was so great
that, as a result of the consequent fall in prices, land became a drug
in the market, and properties in many instances did not realise enough
to meet the mortgages. To the landlords ruined in this manner succeeded
a new class, who bought up bankrupt estates, often with borrowed money,
as a commercial speculation, and caring nothing for the tenant or his
welfare, looking only on the business side of the transaction, raised
rents arbitrarily to such a pitch that the tenantry were unable to meet
their liabilities. Wholesale evictions ensued, and in this wise arose
the condition of things in which the _Times_--never an unfriendly critic
of the landed interest--was constrained to admit in 1852 that "the name
of an Irish landlord stinks in the nostrils of Christendom."

By an Act of 1858 the Encumbered Estates Court was replaced by the
Landed Estates Court, which had power to carry out the sale of, and give
an indefeasible title to, any interests in land, whether hypothecated or
not, and after the passing of the Judicature Act of 1877 the name of the
Court became the Land Judges' Court.

The disfranchising clauses of the Emancipation Act, and the consequent
disappear