SATED WITH HORRORS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVII, Issue 37, 3 January 1890, Page 11

SATED WITH HORRORS.

+ (United Ireland, November 2.) Thebe is ro other civilised or half civilised country in which the savageries of the last week's eviction campaign in the desolate region of Falcarragh would be patiently endured. The man that dared emulate in England the atrocities of Olphert in Ireland would be universally shunned and execrated as a monster. The Government that dared abet him in bis work of wanton cruelty would be driven from power by a storm of indignation. The Septennial Act would not save them for a day from the fierce wrath of the people. It is idle to write thus. Such outrages dare not be attempted in England. Can anyone fancy for a moment a force of one hundred and fifty English soldiers, armed to the teeth, deputed by the Government to guard a gang of ruffians in their work of wrecking and burning an English hamlet and savagely maltreating the inhabitants 7 In England the idea is too startling to be entertained, in Ireland the reality is too common to be wondered at. Surely the iron has eaten into the soul of the Irish people, constant suffering has scared their hearts, or the recent atrocities of Falcarragh dared not be attempted. We will not dwell again on the misery of these poor victims, whose only crime is their poverty. Their lot is a hard one at best. Bare shelter and hard work and poor food are the most that they can hope for in this world. Not much it seems to ask ; yet even that little is denied them. One would have thought their very poverty would have protected them, that cruelty and greed would have passed them by and found worthier victims. Surely the peasant poet's mournful dirge on " man's inhumanity to man " never found theme more piteous — " See yonder pale o'er-laboured wight, So abject, poor, and vile, Who begs a brother of the earth To give him leave to toil ; And see his haughty fellow worm The poor petition spurn, Unmindful, though a weeping wife And helpless children mourn." The scenes that disgraced last week's manhunting in the wilds of Falcarragh aie bo startling as to be almost incredible. At the house of a man named Devir, the chief huntsman, Hewson, and his bloodhounds kept howling that the wretched tenant who lay helpless on a sick bed should be thrown out on the roadside. They drew off at last, muttering and growling, only when the medical certificate of the army doctor declared that the eviction would mean murder. Vhen the bumble homestead of the poor Widow Cole was burst into by those devils in human form — the emergymen — the shrieks of women in agony, heard beyond the wide cordon of soldiers drawn round the building to preserve the sacred privacy of eviction, announced to the breathless spectatois that some exceptional savagery was in progress. A few moments later a soldier sneaked down, in a ebame-faced way, for lint, and plaster and medical appliances. " Then the wounded girl, Bridget Conaghan " (we quote verbatimtho description of an eye-witness), " was dragged out with her head Bplit open witn a blow of a crowbar, wielded by one of the emergencymen. The poor girl was helped down the lane by two policemen, with the blood streaming from a big gash just above the right ear. The whole fide of the face, neck and shoulder were covered with blood. She and her three companions were placed under arrest, though the emergencyman whom she identified as her assailant was allowed to go about his business." Such is the merciful and impartial administration cf the law in Falcarragh. Scarcely less piteous was the scene at the house of the tenant, Magee, whose twin infant children were dragged from their bed by ihe emergencymen and carelessly thrown half naked on the bare earth in the biting air of October, their littie limbs blue with the cold, and their piteous wailing almost frozen on their lips, while their weeping mother was mercilessly hustled away from their side outside the wide cordon of police and soldiery. More inhuman still and more revolting, if that be possible, was the following incident vividly described by the special correspondentjof the Freeman on the spot :— "A rather long tramp brought us to the house of Manus M'Ginley, a little ' shieling ' on the roadside. The house was occupied by the tenant, and his father and mother. He only returned from gaol on Saturday last.aod now on Thursday he again had the bitter experience of an eviction. His wife, the tenant's mother, had been an invalid for seventeen years. To-day the emergencymen pitched her out on the street without a moment's hesitation. The poor old creature became so ill on being evicted that she seemed in danger of death. Father Boyle, who was present, deemed it necessary to administer the last sacraments, and a soldier was despatched in hot haste for Dr. Mclaughlin. The Doctor, on arriving, said the woman should not have been removed, as her life was in seriou9 danger. He spoke to Mr. Cameron, and suggested the necessity of having her put into bed in her son's housa again, as there was no bed in the little cabin to which she was carried. To this humane suggestion the Divisional Commissioner replied that he would try and get her into the workhouse, which, be it remembered is ten miles away. A very hear ti leas feature of the case was the refusal of pern: ission to the old woman's husband to go to her assistance. A kind-hearted policeman allowed him to pass the cordon, but by order of District-Inspector Hill be was immediately put back agaia, and would not be allowed to approach his invalid wife, who was lying in • fainting condition on the bare stones of the street within ten yards of him." We will not harrow our readers' feelings further by descriptions of such scenes. They are the commonplace of Irish evictions, borne for the most part with the same dull patience as the tortures of the victims in the savage lands where human sacrifice still prevails. The end crowrjei the evictore' work in Falcarra^b. In the sheer wantonness of triumphant cruelty— such cruelty as a savage might glory in — the emergencymen, by order of their masters, poured libations of petroleum on the ruined home 9of the evicted tenants, which their own bands had built, and burned them to the ground as an acceptable holocaust to the twin divinities of " Law and Order "

in Ireland. Even on evidenoe the most conclusive, it is hard to believe that »uch thing! are possible in a oivilited land— possible to be done, possible to ba borne. We have sapped full of these sorrows in Iroland antil our feelings have btcoma blunted. In EngUnd the hideontness of the thiag prevents credence. In that hour when we route ourselves by nnited effort to stimp out the foal curse— in that hour in which we first force on the conscience of the British elector the real meaning of eviction, the power of the Government that abets it and protects it, and has brought Coercion to the eviotors' aid, is at an end.