ENGLISH FAIR PLAY.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XI, Issue 30, 23 November 1883, Page 9

ENGLISH FAIR PLAY.

The brutal treatment of Irish harvestmen in England would now seem to be an accustomed consequence of the annual visit of those hard-pressed toilers to a place " where there's bread and work for I■* ? verv time tlie hostility of the yokels and chawbacons breaks •out it shows that it has acquired a new force and wantonness. This we do not hesitate to attribute to the absurdly light punishment which is sparingly inflicted upon one or two of the criminals, and which almost amounts to an encouragement of, not to say a connivance in, the crime. The case which we report to-day is a fair instance of the anti-Irish feeling which moves the overfed yokel to attack unoffending Irish labourers, and which actuates the Bench in its treatment of the |accused. Three Irish harvestmen had gone to trodsham, a market town in Cheshire, for provisions, and when returning they were met by three English labourers who desired to know if the harvesters " wanted fight." The Englishmen did not wait for a reply, but wantonly hit one of the Irishmen, Flanneiy, a heavy blow on the eye, which knocked him down. The other two Englishmen then joined in the assault, and while one pinioned Flannery's hands, two pummelled him with all the savagery of enraged cowardice. The incident would be incomplete without some demonstration of that capacity for kicking a fallen foe which gentlemen of the aggressors' character so frequently exercise upon woman, tannery having been most terribly ill-used, fpll, and while on the ground one of the Englishmen deliberately kicked him. Yesterday FJanneiy appeared in the witness box at Eddisbnry Petty Sessions, and although three weeks have passed since the brutal assault was made upon him, he is described as having his face terribly cut up, and his body bruised and injured. The chairman having admitted that the assault was a brutal one, met it with the scandalously inadequate punishment of a month's imprisonment. This is a mere mockery of judicial chastisement. One of the magistrates present referred to other instances of brutal assaults upon Irishmen, and added that they had been completely driven by terror •ont of his district. Here, if a respectable trader or artisan is reasonably suspected "of intimidating any person, or preventing anyone from doing what he has a legal right to do,, he gets six months ; bnt in England a half-starved Irish labourer may be hammered and kicked to within an inch of his life, and one month is considered ample punishment for his assailant. Everyone knows the circumstances which have compelled Irish labourers to seek to earn a few pounds at the English harvest but the savage treatment to which they are now constantly subjected, and the uncontrolled hostility which, according to the Eddisbury magistrate, prevails in that neighbourhood, and which is indicative of the general anti-Irish spirit in England, suggests the immediate probability of our poorer countryman discontinuing altogether their annual visits across the Channel. This will certainly be -a material loss to them, but it is the more agreeable of two alternatives. — Dnblin Freeman.