diture to
which the distressed unions were exposed.

The terrible distress prevailing brought on a state of social calamity
and discord such as has seldom been witnessed in the history of the
world. As the year went on, the prospects of an abundant harvest
inspired hopes that peace and plenty would at last smile upon unhappy
Ireland, but these hopes were doomed to disappointment. The growing
crops became objects of contention between the miserable tenant, and, in
many cases, almost equally miserable landlord. The tenants sought to cut
and remove the crops clandestinely. Suddenly the corn would be cut over
a vast area of land, and carried away, as if by magic, beyond the bounds
to which any existing legal process on the part of the landlord might be
applicable. Rents were refused. Many of the farmers were unable to
pay, many were unwilling from dishonesty, and many considered that the
tenants had as good a right to the land as those from whom they rented
it. They talked of themselves as descended from the old families, the
natural lords of the soil, and of those who then claimed the rents as
the seed of the invader and the spoiler, whom it was just to deprive
of what he had no right to, unless conquest and force could confer
the right,--a doctrine that did not suit the popular interests. The
landlords, on the other hand, sternly evicted the tenantry; whole
town-lands were depopulated, the expelled tenants died of starvation on
the public roads, or crowded the workhouses, where they were supported
by rates levied on the industrious occupier. The poor-law was continued
upon a plan which protected the property of the rich English absentee,
and threw the burden upon the resident landlords who cultivated their
own land, and upon the farmer who rented land. The agents of these
absentees exacted the rents with bitter severity, and often the dwelling
of the wretched occupier was pulled down about his sick and starving
children, who frequently perished within the roofless walls. It was
civil war, without any of the redeeming manhood which strips even that
of its aspects of misery and horror. Frequently the police, armed as
regular cavalry and infantry, were called out to seize the corn in
process of clandestine removal, or to execute an eviction. On these
occasions, sometimes, the unarmed peasantry, maddened by despair, would
resist, and a conflict ensue in which victory did not always determine
on the side of arms and discipline