be done with the Fergus "slob" if anybody could be found to do
anything. Companies were formed and concessions were obtained, but
nothing was done, although several square miles of magnificent
alluvial deposit sixteen feet in depth were to be had for the asking.

In 1843 The O'Gorman Mahon himself, as a county member, talked about
the grand lands to be reclaimed from the Fergus, and the county talked
about it; but nothing was done. This is the pleasant way of the West.
All take an interest in any possible or impossible enterprise; but
when it comes to finding some money and doing something, the scheme is
relegated to the limbo of things undone.

The principal riparian proprietors were Lords Inchiquin, Leconfield,
and Conyngham, mostly absentees. Lord Conyngham was naturally
indifferent, for his estate in Clare was to be sold in Dublin on
Tuesday, and his interest in the county thus had ceased. Lord
Leconfield is also an absentee, without even an address in the county.
Perhaps, as the three noblemen mentioned own between them 85,226 acres
in county Clare alone, without counting their other possessions, they
thought that at any rate there was land enough, such as it is, in the
county. Judging by the Government valuation the land held by them is
not of the best quality, for it is set down at 38,188l., and probably
is not let at very much more than that sum; but at the most moderate
estimate they draw, or rather drew, more than 40,000l. a year from
county Clare. When they were invited to share in reclaiming the rich
mud-banks of the Fergus, and thus add 10,000 acres of virgin soil to
the rateable value of the county, they declined with perfect
unanimity. They did more than this. When Mr. Drinkwater had bought out
the concessionees of 1860 and 1873--who had not struck a single stroke
of work--and was endeavouring to get the necessary Bills through
Parliament, he found himself confronted by the seignorial and other
vested rights of these great landowners, who appeared determined, not
only to do nothing themselves, but to prevent anybody else from doing
anything--unless he paid handsomely for their permission.

I do not cite this as an act of special iniquity. Their action was
only part of the general system of taking as much out of Ireland as
possible and putting nothing into it. A claim of 20,000l. and 5 per
cent. of the land reclaimed for manorial rights over a mud-bank could
hardly be overlooked by the Crown; and it is