its invention. Early attempts in any
artistic direction are apt to be crude, and when "Boycotting" was
first practised at Lough Mask it put on the guise of a general strike
of the country side against an individual, but its effect was purely
local. Since that time great progress has been made in shaping and
finishing what one of my informants defined as "a strictly
constitutional weapon." At this moment the arm of the skilful
"Boycotter" is long. It can stop the sale of the original victim's
potatoes in a northern town; it can keep Mr. Stacpoole from getting
rid of his horses in Limerick; and can actually prevent Mr. Bence
Jones from sending his cattle from Cork to England. The latter
gentleman is isolated on his estate at Lisselan, a place near
Ballinascarthy, between Bandon and Clonakilty, in this county, but his
isolation has not yet gone, in some respects, to the same brutal
length as that of Mr. Boycott. He is still permitted to receive and to
despatch his letters; and car-drivers have, perhaps by some oversight
of the "Boycotters," not yet been warned to avoid his house as if it
were a lazaretto, and to refuse to carry his visitors within miles of
his door. Perhaps he is considered by the mysterious persons who alone
exercise authority in Ireland just now as only a "tyrant" of the
second or third degree, and not as a first-class malefactor.

But, however this may be, I found none of the difficulty in reaching
Lisselan which accompanied my second visit to Lough Mask House. When I
started from Bandon this morning, that thriving town was wrapped in
slumber, although the sun was shining brightly out of a deep blue sky,
just flecked at the horizon with pearly-hued clouds. The ground was
hard and crisp, and the hoofs of the horses rang out merrily as I sped
in the direction of Clonakilty, through an undulating country mainly
devoted to pasture, some of which was rough and sedgy. As I approached
Ballinascarthy the quality of the land was visibly better.

Lisselan House lies in the midst of a charming pastoral scene. Beyond
the clean-cut lawn flows the silvery flood of the Arrigadeen, its
opposite bank is clothed with the bright green tops of white turnips
in the midst of which is penned a flock of sheep (Shropshire Downs),
and in the distance are green meadows and browsing kine. All would be
soft, peaceful, and Arcadian, were it not for the helmets of the 3rd
Dragoon Guards glittering in the sun as the patrol turns the