expansion to three lives.
The effect of this fatal policy of giving away all power of
supervision and management has been made manifest in the past, and is
yet visible on those portions of the estate the three-life leases of
which have not yet fallen in. The gross rental of Lord Kenmare's
estates in Kerry, Cork, and Limerick, amounting altogether to 118,606
acres, is 37,713l., against Griffith's valuation of 34,473l., but the
distribution of this sum is very unequal, especially since the rents
of the yearly tenants were raised in 1876, in some cases to the by no
means unfair extent of 50 per cent. above the poor-rate valuation.

The 3,300 tenants on Lord Kenmare's property have been mainly put upon
the land by middlemen who made a great profit out of their three-life
leases. The lands of Mastergechy, Knockacrea, and Knockacappul are all
let at an immense reduction on Griffith's valuation, but to middlemen,
who realise from 200 to 300 per cent. on their investment. Despite
these drawbacks, Lord Kenmare is an "improving" landlord, and has laid
out in the last ten months some 7,000l. on his property. The pretty
tile-roof cottages outside of Killarney are a reproach to the town
itself, over which Lord Kenmare, after the manner of many other Irish
landlords, has no kind of control.

VALENTIA, CO. KERRY, _Dec. 12th._

In a previous letter I alluded to the length of time it had taken the
Land League agitation to make itself felt in Kerry, and to the
swiftness with which, when once ignited, the far south-west of Ireland
blazed into open disaffection. The causes of this slowness to light
up, immediately followed by a fierce and sudden flame, are by no means
obscure. Kerry has always been the last place to follow a popular
movement, and the last to relinquish it.

As the French Revolution and its effects on Ireland were not heard of
in Kerry till long after the establishment of the Empire, so was Ross
Castle, on the lower lake at Killarney, the last stronghold subdued by
Ludlow; and so also was Kerry the last stronghold of Fenianism.
Moribund in the other parts of Ireland until Nationalists and Land
Leaguers were united, by the prosecution of Mr. Parnell, Fenianism
still lingered and lingers on in Kerry. In the pot-houses of Tralee,
Castle Island, and Cahirciveen the embers of Fenianism have smouldered
since the outbreak of 1867. Slow to learn, Kerry has been slow to
forget, and when once the emissaries of the Land League a