coal is
to be drawn, and "duty" tribute in kind was levied as well. Thus the
tenant was obliged not only to cultivate the "ould masther's" land,
but to give him at Christmas tide a "duty" pig and "duty" geese and
fowls according to a fixed percentage. My friend, whose position
places his assertion above all doubt, assures me that in old leases it
is quite common to find a sum of money specified as the equivalent of
a "duty" hog; and other tribute of similar kind. The "ould masther,"
whose bailiffs looked sharply after "duty" of all descriptions,
himself dispensed the indiscriminate hospitality already described,
and "masther" and man floundered in the slough of debt and poverty
together, making light of occasional hardship. All this feudal
fellowship has gone with the old chieftains, whom the people profess
to admire, and compare regretfully with the new men who expect to pay
and be paid. But I am reminded that I have omitted to mention an
important factor in the older polity of Ireland. The opposite ends of
the social chain were brought together by that time-honoured ensign
and instrument of authority, one end of which was in the master's hand
and the other in the man's ribs or across his shoulders. It was "the
shtick" which kept things together so far as they were kept so at all.
The descendants of the masters say little or nothing about the good
old custom of their forefathers in "laying about them with their
rattan;" but the Retainer has not forgotten the ungentle practice
which stimulated him to exertion in his youth. To hear the Retainer
one would believe that the great smoother of difficulties, stimulant
to exertion, and pacificator of quarrels was the "shtick." The idea of
one of the tribe "processing" his chief for assault was never dreamt
of in the good old times; for the recalcitrant one would have been
"hunted out" of the county by the indignant population. To the
Retainer the old time has hardly passed away, for it is not long since
he actually recommended a "domineering Saxon" on the occasion of a
domestic disturbance to "take the shtick to 'um, your honour. Sure the
ould masther always did. And when he had murthered 'um they was as
saft as silk." It is curious that the wand of the enchanter during the
Golden Age of "Ould Ireland" should prove to have been the
all-persuasive, all-powerful "shtick."

XIII.

CROPPED.

GORTATLEA, CO. KERRY, _Monday, Dec. 6th._

Having heard agrarian outrages re