The House Where The Eviction Was To Be Held Was A Miserable Hovel, Whose Roof Did Not Amount To Much, Sitting Among Untilled Fields, With A Small Dung Heap Before The Door.

It was shut up, silent and deserted.

The bailiff, a gentleman who, if ever he is accused of crime, will not find his face plead for him much, broke open the door and began to throw out the furniture on the heap before the door. Here are the items: One iron pot, one rusty tin pail, two delf bowls, - I noticed them particularly, for they rolled down the dungheap on the side where I stood, - one rheumatic chest, one rickety table, one armful of disreputable straw, and one ragged coverlet. This was supposed to be the bed, for I saw no bedstead; there was no chair, no stool, or seat of any kind. The sub-sheriff with the bailiff's assistance fastened the door with a padlock. He handed the agent a tuft of grass as giving him possession, and the eviction was over.

The agent - a large-featured man - seemed undecided as to whether he would view the transaction in a humorous light or as a scene where he was chief sufferer. He came forward and offered some rambling remarks addressed to nobody in particular. He drew our attention to the condition of the roof which needed renewing, to the fields that were uncropped. This was certainly shiftless, but when he mentioned that the man had gone to England "in the scarcity" to look for work, and was lying sick in an English hospital, we did not see how he could help it. He told us how bad the man was; how he pitied his wife, who was, he said, worse than himself. She was not present, being from home when her poor furniture was pitched out. He lamented over the fact that this man had sent him nothing of his wages, while another man had sent him as much as thirty pounds. He then went into details of these evicted tenant's married life; how his wife and he lived, and how they agreed; and rambled off into general philosophic remarks rather disagreeable and nasty.

No one seemed to pay any attention, although he looked from one to another for an answering smile of appreciation to his funny attempts to justify himself and amuse his hearers. Some one asked him how much rent was due; he said ten or eleven years. Two years were due, as we found by the law papers on returning to Ballina. He then made an attack on the poor men standing there, asking why they were not at home working, and telling them what they should be doing. While he lectured these men in a joking voice, he turned his eye from one to another of those present as if he were seeking for applause.

These men, not heeding the agent, were presenting a petition to the sub- sheriff. I drew near to learn what it was. They were thin, listless looking witted men. One could not help wondering when they had last eaten a square meal. Half-starved in look, wretched in clothing, stood like criminals awaiting sentence, with dreadfully eager eyes and parched lips that would not draw together over their teeth, before the plump rosy sub-sheriff. They asked for some meal on credit which the sub- sheriff refused. I asked them if they owed any rent. No, they did not owe a penny of rent, they said. Remember there was only one harvest between them and the famine year. They had also put in the crops in their little holdings, they said, "but as God lives we have neither bite nor sup to keep us till harvest time." The sub-sheriff asked why they did not go to a certain dealer. They said the terms were so hard that they could never pay him. "How much would keep you till the crops come in," he asked. Two hundred of Indian meal for each they said. Finally he promised them one hundred each on credit, even if he had to pay it out of his own pocket. "That is what you will have to do," said the agent.

We left and drove home. We saw the police, hot and tired, march past to their barracks after our return. These men had a long march, loaded down with arms to protect the bailiff, the stalwart agent, the rosy sub- sheriff from a crowd of five hunger-bitten peaceable men and three ragged women. The whole crowd might have been put to flight by any one of the three with one hand tied behind him.

I forgot to mention that the agent offered to one of the women there all the tenant's poor things that were thrown out, which was an honest and honorable proceeding on his part, and very generous.

XXXIII.

A SEVERE CRITICISM JUSTIFIED - PROCESS SERVING BY THE AID OF THE POLICE - THE WHITE HORSE OF MAYO - PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP.

I am glad to see by the papers that the state of the workhouse at Manor Hamilton has been censured by the doctors, and deliberated about at a meeting of guardians. It is certainly the worst conducted workhouse I have seen as yet in Ireland, and it says with a loud voice, woe to the poor who enter here. It was told me on this twenty-seventh day of May that if I really wanted to see a disturbance a serious collision was apprehended between the constabulary and the people, at some distance from Ballina. I have been led to distrust the accounts of disturbances that appear in the papers, or at least to admit them with caution. I was assured that now at least I should see the wild men of Mayo, for they had assaulted the process server and stripped him of his clothing, taking his processes from him, some days before, and they would be out in thousands this day to oppose the serving of the processes.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 52 of 106
Words from 51885 to 52893 of 107283