There was a strange inconsistency in this gentleman's
opinions, for while he declared laziness to be the cause of poverty and
not the oppression of rent raised above value, yet when peasant
proprietorship was mentioned as a remedy, he declared he would not take
the farms as a gift and try to raise a living out of them.
I heard some lament the prevalence of stilling illicit whiskey in
Innishowen. The excuse for doing so was to raise money for help in the
prevailing poverty. They said the manufacture on the hills, whiskey
being so easy to be had, nourished drinking customs among men and women
alike, and what was made one way was lost one hundred-fold in another. A
priest, recently deceased, a certain Father Elliott, had devoted talents
of no mean order and great loving-kindness to the work of stemming this
great evil. At his funeral there were between three and four thousand
members of the temperance bands, which were the fruit of his labors. He
died of typhus fever, and I heard his name mentioned with respectful
regret by all creeds and classes.
XV.
A GLIMPSE INTO THE PAST - THE DERRY OF TO-DAY - PURCHASING TENANT
RIGHTS - NIBBLING AT THE TENANT RIGHT - INSTANCES OF HARDSHIP - "LIBERTY OF
CONTRACT."
At Moville I heard that there were some who had become peasant
proprietors by purchasing out and out their holdings, and that they had
bitterly repented of so doing; for they had tied a millstone about their
necks.
