at that moment a
commission was put in operation, under which it was the intention of
the Government to transfer the soil of the country at a reduced price
to the very men among whom the mutineers are to be found. How do the
tidings of such a commission operate upon the ears of Irishmen at
large? He is told that under the fear of the Landleague his rent
is to be reduced to an extent which is left to his imagination;
and then, that he is to be freed altogether from the incubus of a
landlord! He is, in fact, made to understand that his cherished
Landleague has become all-powerful. And yet he hears that odious men,
whom he recognises only as tyrants, are filling the jails through the
country with all his dearest friends. Demanding concessions, and the
continued increase of them, and having learned the way to seize upon
them when they are not given, he will not stand coercion. Abated rent
soon becomes no rent. When it is left to the payer of the rent to
decide on which system he will act, it is probable that the no-rent
theory will prevail.

So it was in 1882. Tenants were harassed by needy landlords, and when
they were served with forms of ejectment the landlords were simply
murdered, either in their own persons or in that of their servants.
Men finding their power, and beginning to learn how much might be
exacted from a yielding Government, hardly knew how to moderate their
aspirations. When they found that the expected results did not come
at once, they resorted to revenge. Why should these tyrants keep them
out from the good things which their American friends had promised
them, and which were so close within their grasp? And their anger
turned not only against their landlords, but against those who
might seem in any way to be fighting on the landlords' side. Did a
neighbour occupy a field from which a Landleaguing tenant had been
evicted, let the tails of that neighbour's cattle be cut off, or the
legs broken of his beasts of burden, or his sheep have their throats
cut. Or if the injured one have some scruples of conscience, let the
oppressor simply be boycotted, and put out of all intercourse with
his brother men. Let no well-intentioned Landleaguing neighbour buy
from him a ton of hay, or sell to him a loaf of bread.

But as a last resource, if all others fail, let the sinner be
murdered. We all know, alas! in how many cases the sentence has been
pronounced and the judgment given, and the punishment executed.

S