more poignant, the sooner would the beleagured family capitulate. Mrs Dormer, the wife of the tenant who is shut out of his land, and whose crop of barley is rotting on the field in November, though he owes nothing to the landlord this woman, who has herself a family of young children, and who is the sister of Pat Ring, went many times to the beleagured house to offer relief, but was not permitted to approach it with anything in her hand. She was allowed to approach the window when she carried nothing, that she might hear the sufferings within, and so urge her brother to surrender. She listened to the sickly wailings of the mother and children, and at last on the fourth day heard the horrible fact from the mother that the children in desperation had drank their own urine. At this moment she seized a dish of some sort which lay in the yard, and filling it quickly from a pool of stagnant water in the yard, broke the window with her hand, before she could be prevented by the officers, and gave the unwholesome water to the family, which they drank greedily. Perhaps she would have done more, but she was compelled by the officers to desist. The landlord was informed of what she had done, and he promised that she would live to repent it. The crop of Dormer rotting in the field in November, and his potatoes poor and meagre for the want of manure, because he is not allowed a road to his field, tell whether the landlord forgets his promises. The sufferings of the family and of himself now worked on the father until he could hold out no longer. He opened the door. He had a pitchfork in his hand, and he shewed it to the bailiffs. He bade them keep off-said he would not touch them if they did not touch him-but that the hunger of himself and family had made him desperate-that he had potatoes in his store in the field, and potatoes he would have; and he bade them prevent him at their peril. They did not offer to prevent him; they waited until they saw him take the potatoes, and then they informed the landlord. On that instant a criminal warrant was sent for from Kilkenny. It arrived; so did also a party of the armed constabulary, who occupy the barrack built by the landlord on the estate, and the door was at once forced open, and Pat Ring was taken and lodged in gaol on a charge of robbery accompanied with threats of violence. He had stolen his own potatoes, they being under distraint, and he was in due course of time tried at Kilkenny for the felony. The jury refused to convict for a crime committed under such circumstances, and he was acquitted. This case has now reached the month of July 1843. At that time he was once more in prison for the non-payment of costs incurred in defending himself against the landlord. These were paid, and a new decree for some other costs was got against him. There was also a warrant for his ejectment obtained. At this time his family were ill of typhus fever, and had been for several weeks. The sheriff refused to execute the ejectment while they so suffered. The landlord was exceedingly anxious to eject as early as possible, because (let the English reader mark this peculiarity of Irish tenures) a tenant, though ejected, may recover possession; the law says he may redeem within six months. Now Ring had an action for damages pending against the landlord, a very simple action, which could have been easily tried, and in which a jury could not have hesitated to award ample damages. To this, at the summer assizes, the landlord, through his law agents, pleaded that he was not ready to go to trial; consequently it was put off until next assizes, to wit, March 1844. If, therefore, Ring could have been ejected in July, or early in August 1843, the six months in which he could redeem possession of his land would have expired before the trial of the case postponed to March 1844-a case which promised to put Ring in a condition to redeem his land by payment of his debt to the landlord. We need not proceed farther with those cases of injustice. The landlord now under notice has proceeded in litigation and expenses until he is no longer in the management of his estate. Others in Ireland, less tyrannical than him, but not more wise in the management of their estates, have brought Ireland to a condition unparalleled in the history of nations. It would be vain to speculate on what the future may be, we can only say that the present (end of 1847 and beginning of 1848) is deplorable. Law set at defiance; rates uncollected; and rents unpaid. INDEX TO THE WHISTLER AT THE PLOUGH. A road labourer, 41. A stage-coach company, 48. A tale of a punch in the head, 272. ture, tenants, and labourers, 141. Address to tenant farmers, model of, 153. Agricultural distress in 1836, 151. Agricultural labourers, the distance grass Agricultural improvements first borrow- Agriculture may be both ornamental Ainsworth, Peter, Esq., 165. from Africa, but wasted in dung Andover, letter from, 256. Apple pies, 18. Artisans and farm labourers, their com. Autumn flowers, 16. Axiom of Mr Cobden, 261. Axiom of Sir John Sinclair on the Battlefield of Naseby, 378. Bearwood, family of the late Mr Walter Beet-root sugar, 308. Benett, John, Esq., M.P., 61. Berkshire, weeds in, 22. Berkshire and Lothian compared, 23. Biel estate, East Lothian, 173. Birth-place of William Cobbett, 296. Birth-place of the Duke of Wellington Black and white requisite between Black, John, Esq., of the Morning Black rod, deputy usher of, 146. Blackstone, Esq., M.P., 127. Bloodhounds and poachers, 278 Bones of Thomas Paine, 305. Charlton in Wiltshire, its landlord, Chiltern Hundreds, 15. Clover produced without being sown, 198. Borders of Scotland compared with Cobbett, the late W., his grave, 299. Poland and Russia, 148. Boston, Lord, 13. Bournes in Wiltshire, 393. Bowring, Dr John, M. P., 162, 163, 164. Breaking machinery in Hampshire, 263. Brooks, John, Esq., 83, 162, 164, 165. Brotherton, Joseph, Esq., M.P., 163. Buckingham, 12. Buckingham, Duke of, 21. Cobbett, late W., farm at Normandy, Cobden, Richard, Esq., M.P., v, vii, Cold spring of 1845, 245. Commerce in 1842, 92. Commons, and people living on them, Commons unfairly divided, 103. Convicts and paupers, 256. Convicts' fare at Portsmouth, 264. Convicts in Bermuda, 39. Buckinghamshire, farmers of, and Van Cookham, Berkshire, 23. Buckinghamshire, 215. Amburgh, 226. Buckinghamshire, wages in, 18. Buckinghamshire, morals in, 18. Burdett, Sir Francis, 13. Corn against cattle and cattle against Corn in Egypt, 246. Corn prices for fifty years, 322. Burke, the burial-place of the Right Correction, House of, at Petworth, 400. Butcher's meat, comparative consump- Butter merchant of Islington, 199. Buxton, Mr, governor of the Socia- Canada flour, and farmers' dinner Capital extends the productiveness of Capital, rent paid from, 179. 182. Capital laid out on land, estimated per- Cattle-dealer in Teesdale, 201. Cottage allotments destroyed at Hey- Cottages built by the Duke of Wel- Cottages, flowery cottages emblems of Cottages on Earl Spencer's estate, 376. Cranbourne, Dorsetshire, 27, 156. Dangan Castle, 185. Daughters and sons of farmers, what becomes of them, 389. David Keele, a Wiltshire labourer, 381. Dialogue between a farmer and the Digging and trenching, 216. Distress of agriculturists, opinions of Distribution of league tracts, 84. Doughty, the late venerable weaver Douglas Jerrold, 417. Down farm, near Andover, 256. Dupree, George, Esq., M.P., 14. Education in Scotland, 25. Ewes and lambs at Strathfieldsaye, 124. Expense and profit of trenching, 218. Famine years of 1816 and 1817, their Farm labourers, effect of the poor law Farmers, hospitality of, 55, 193. Farmers should be travellers, 130. Farming in Oxfordshire, 127. Fitzwilliam, the Right Hon. Earl, 157. Fonthill Abbey, 61. Fox hunt in Dorsetshire, 229. Frome, Somerset, town and trade Funeral of the Squire, 343. Germany, manure how applied in, 11. Giant child and his grandmother, 286. Goldsmidt, Sir Isaac Lyon, 116. Great Marlow Workhouse, 23, 156. 23. Hertfordshire, ramble in, 238. Hop-growing, an account of, 265. Human food and cattle food, 391. |