A BIRD'S EYE VIEW OF IRELAND'S CONDITION.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 4342, 24 March 1882, Page 3

A BIRD'S EYE VIEW OF IRELAND'S CONDITION.

Tho state of Ireland at the end of January is thus desoribed by the correspondent of the 5. A. Register :—

Irish landlordism must bo bad indeed when announcements are mado by the sooiety papers that Lord Lansdowne has let his town mansion to Lord Bosebery for a term of years, and intends shutting up Bo wood, h» magnificent family scat in Wiltshire. He is to live in a smaller house till his Irish tenants think proper to resume paying their rents. I was present a few nights ago at an address, delivered by Mr Gibson, the Conservative Attorney- General for Ireland, in the course of which he stated that k.lics who had beea delicately brought up and been accustomed to consider their prOßpecU in life seoore, wero at this moment endh.g their poverty \a the workhou??. A friend of mine who is inspector of fancies for an Jneuranoe Com* pany in Ire];., d informs nic that the state o£ the country i* worse than anything he hat ever road ofc Bulgaria in its wont days of Turkish misrule. He writes to tat regarding a tour of several days which he has just matte* in tho Counties of Cork and Limeriok. Of Limerick town be cays that it is splendidly built, with handsome quuys, but the dead** and-alive appearance of all ho saw, com* bined with the absence of shipping, sickened him. A land agent on whom he ■ called showed him hit six-shooter, without whioh he never goes out, as his life has been threatened ropeatedly. From Limerick he travelled by the night expreas to Cork, and in the asms compartment wero several landlords returni ing from the Conference which bad been held that day in Dublin. They were all armed with pistolsr-mostlysix-shootors— and the next morning the first thing he road 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 oa his way home from celebrating divine service. 'The only oonceivable reason for the attack was that after being warned he had continued to deal at the shop of a boycotted shopkeeper. New kinds of outrage are being invented from day to day, adapted, as one might say, to the character of the district. In Dublin, garotting has come into fashion a 9 a safe and speedy means of carrying on the vendetta. Two caEes occurrod in one night last woek r and the victims in both wore so badly hurt that they had to be taken to tho hospital. Process-servers have been virtually frightened, out of their business. '/ he two poor fellows, fiither and son, who disappeared in the vicinity of Lough Mask, are as yet unavenged, and no clue can bo obtained to thoir murderers. Another process-server, whs had gono casually into a roadside beor-housc, fell into tho hands of a drunken mob returning from a Land Laoguo hunt, and was mauled within an inc't of his life. His assailants rushed upon him with their Rhillelughs, and fchoßO who had not sticks run out for stones to> pelt him with. Ho received eight frightful wounds on the head, and his life is considered in danger. A proceas-eerror nnmed Abram w')3 sitting in his own bouse about 10 o'clock, when ho was fired at tinough the window t-.t:d mortally wounded. The tame man wu irutally assaulted not many weeks ogo, and lost an eye in consequence. Near Ballyhana, a member of the same dangerous and unfortunate profession waß fired at and wounded, but not fatally. Ther^lmvtf been suspicious, deaths tunoni; oardrivtrs who took employment from t ho police, or from the Emergency Oomrnittoo. Siuco L'ind League hunts oamo imo vogue, gauiekeeiMTH havo found their duties more exciting ihan ever. Where they vunturo to object to Iho proceedings of the trespassers, they are goncrally answered withy it pot shot from a pistol. Ore kooper who wus thus find at hu» judiciously doclined to identify his assailant*.