The State of Ireland.

Otago Witness, Issue 1585, 8 April 1882, Page 24

The State of Ireland.

The Home corespondent of a contemporary, writing on January 27th, says :— " ' Irish landlordism must be bad indeed when announcements are made by the' society papers that "Lord Lansdowne has let his town mansion to Lord Rpseb'ery for a term' of years, and inteiidp .shutting up Bowood, his magnificent' family seat in Wiltshire." 'He is "to live' in a smaller house till his. Irish tenarits' think pro- 1 per to resUirie paying their rents. Iwaspre ; sent 'a few, nights ago at an address delivered by Mr Gibson, ihe Conservative Att'orney1 general for Ireland, in the course of which he" stated that ladies who had been delicately brought lip arid been accustomed to consider their prospects 'in' life secure' were at this moment 'ending, their poverty in the' workhouse.' A 'friend, of mine who l ia inspector of agencies' for an Insurance Company in Irfeland informs me that the state of the country' is worsb" thari anything he has ever read of Bulgaria in' its worst days 'of Turkish misrule. He writes 'to me regarding a tour of' several days which he 'has just made' in the Counties" of Cork and Limerick. Of Limerick town he says that it is splendidly built, with handsome quays, but the dead-and-alive appearance of all he saw, combined with tho absence of shipping, sickened him. A .land agent on whom he called showed him' his sixshooter, without which ho nover goes out, as his life has been threatened repeatedly. From Limerick he travelled by the night express to Cork, and in the same compartment were several landlords returning from the conference which had been held that day in Dublin. They were all armed with pistols— mostly six-shooters— and the next morning the first thing he read in the papers was that one of them had been shot at within fifteen minutes of leaving the station. In the same district, in the week following, an Episcopal clergyman was shot at three times on his way homo from celebrating Divine service. The only conceivable reason for the attack was that after being v/arned he had continued to deal at the shop of a Boycotted shopkeeper. New kinds uf outrage aro being invented from day to day, adap ed, as one might say, to the cha-

racter of the district. In Dublin carottmg has come into fashion as a safe and speedy means of carrying on the vendetta. Two cases occurred hi one night last week, and the victims in both were so badly hurt that they had to be taken to the hospital. Process-servers have been virtually frightened out of there business. The two poor fellows, father and son, who disappeared in the vicmity of Lough Mask; are as yet unavenged, and no clue can be obtained to their murderers. Last taaturday another process-server, who had gone casually into a roadside beer-house, fell into the hands of a drunken mob returning from a Land League hunt, and was mauled within an inch of his life. His assailants rushed upon him with their shillelaghs^ and those who had not 'sticks ran 'out for stones to pelt him with. • He receive* eight frightful wounds on the head, and his life is considered in danger. On Sunday night a process-server named Abram was sitting m his own house about 10 o'clock when he was fired at through the window and mortally wounded. The same man was brutally assaulted not many weeks ago, and lost an eye in consequence. Near Ballyhana a member of the same dangerous and unfortunate profession was fired at and wounded, but not fatally. ' There have been suspicious deaths among cardrivers who took employment from the police or from the Emergency Committee. Since! Land League hunts came into vogue gamekeepers have found their, duties more excit&g' than. ever. Where they venture to object to the proceedings of the trespasser^ they [are generally answered with a pot-shot from] a' pistol. One keeper who .was thus, fired |it has judiciously declined to identify his assailants,