there is a great mass of drift-weed on the rocks,
half of which is on the territory reserved by the middleman, and the
other on that half rented by the tenants. The latter must give their
master his day's work first to get in his weed, and take the chance of
seeing their own washed away during the night.

From Ballynakill--where the ribs rising in the green grass-land, like
waves in an emerald sea, tell of extinct cultivation, of depopulated
villages, and an "exterminated" people--to the supremely wretched
islands of Bofin and Turk, the record is fearfully consistent. A
people first neglected, and then crushed by evictions, has sunk quite
below the level of civilization.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: This prediction was literally fulfilled.]

VII.

MR. RICHARD STACPOOLE.

ENNIS, CO. CLARE, _Nov. 21st._

At the seat of war by Lough Mask, I was informed that it would be
sheer waste of time to go to Clare; that all was peaceful in the
county which Daniel O'Connell formerly represented in Parliament; that
at Ennis, under the shadow of the Liberator's statue, rebel commotion
was unknown. All was quiet. It was true that people did not pay their
rent, but that was all. I should waste my time, and so forth. But no
sooner had I set foot in Ennis than I found that the _jacquerie_ which
broke out in Mayo and Galway had reached county Clare, and that at
least one gentleman living close to the principal town is at war with
his tenants and the country side.

The condition of affairs at Edenvale is in many respects even more
curious than that at Lough Mask House. There is none of the pomp and
circumstance of open war. There is not a soldier or a policeman on the
premises. All is calm and pastoral. From a lodge so neat and trim
that it is a pleasure to look upon it, a well-kept road winds through
a well-wooded and beautiful park, in the centre of which, on the brink
of a lake, stands a large and handsome country house. All is
ship-shape, from the gravel on the path to the knocker on the door,
which is promptly opened, without grating of bolt or rattle of chain,
by a clean, well-dressed, civil servitor.

All such signs of peace, order, and plenty are very noteworthy after
one has been four or five weeks in Mayo and Galway, and convey a first
impression that law, order, and civilization generally are to the fore
in county Clare. The large and handsome drawing-room strengthens the
conviction that here at least life and pr