Tipperary boys were better marksmen,
some person in the crowd said, 'he would get it yet.'_" We should be
glad to know if this gentleman did afterwards "get it," or if Mr Collis
thought it necessary to communicate his own charitable suggestion, or
the benevolent intentions of his tenantry. How coolly they answer and
talk over those _little_ matters in "virtuous and religious Ireland!"
All the witnesses who have spoken to the point bear proof to the
idleness of the labourers, and their desire to work as little as they
can. Even Mr Balfe, the chairman of O'Connell's "Grievance Committee,"
acknowledges "that they expect to give labour for it (con-acre rent),
and they do not think they are bound to work well when that labour goes
to pay for their potato rent." While Mr Beere, after stating that
poverty is not the cause of crime in Tipperary, as respectable persons
are engaged in it, answers to the question--"What do you think is the
reason for those farmers having to do with every thing that is bad?" "I
think that many of them are driven to that line of conduct in order to
protect their property."--"Do you think that those farmers you speak of,
holding fifty or sixty acres, are compelled to encourage those
proceedings for fear of damage to their own property?" "I do,
positively."--"Does that lead them to give protection frequently to
known offenders?" "Yes, it does; they dare not refuse them."--"By what
class of persons are those outrages generally committed?" "They are
generally committed by the servant boys." And the Irish papers present
every day repeated instances of the same spirit:--

"On Tuesday evening last, a large armed party came to the house of
a farmer named Connolly on the lands of Ballinderry, county
Westmeath, within _a mile of the town of Moats_, and demanded why
he had turned away two servant boys he had, and directed him to
send off the two boys he had since. They then ordered the two men
in his employment to be off, or it would be worse for them--an
order, such is the state of the country, which was promptly
obeyed."

"On Wednesday night last, a threatening notice was posted on the
gate of a respectable farmer named Egan, ordering him at once to
dismiss two Connaught men he had employed, and to take back his
former labourers, whom he was obliged to dismiss for idleness."

"On the morning of the 16th, an armed party attacked the house of