V.
FROM MAYO TO CONNEMARA.
LEENANE, _Tuesday, Nov 2._
The meeting which took place on Sheehane Hill was only remarkable as affording an additional proof of the extraordinary faculty of selection possessed by Western Irishmen. Whether they intend to shoot a landlord or merely to hold a meeting to bring him to his bearings, they choose their ground with equal discrimination. In the former case a spot is selected at the descent or ascent of a hill, so that the carriage of the victim cannot be going at a sufficient pace to defeat the marksman"s aim, and a conveniently protected angle, with facilities for escape, is occupied by the ambuscade. In the latter, either a natural amphitheatre or a conspicuous hill is pitched upon for the gathering. To the picturesque Mayo mind a park meeting on a dead flat would be the most uninteresting affair possible unless vitality were infused into the proceedings by a conflict with the police, which would naturally atone for many shortcomings. The meeting at Tiernaur was held in the midst of magnificent scenery, and that on Sheehane was equally well selected. From the top of the hill, which is crowned by a large tumulus, the country around for many miles lay spread like a map; and, what was of more immediate importance, the small additional hill afforded a convenient spot for posting the orators and displaying the banners of the various organizations represented at the meeting. The demonstration, however, could hardly be represented as successful--not more than a thousand persons being present. It was weary waiting until the proceedings commenced, the only diversion being provided by a hare which got up in an adjacent field. In a moment greyhounds, bull-dogs, terriers, and mongrels were in pursuit, followed by the a.s.sembled people. The hare, however, completely distanced both dogs and spectators, and was in comparative safety several fields away from the foremost greyhound, when she doubled back in an unaccountable manner, and ran into the midst of the crowd, who set upon her with sticks, and killed her in the most unsportsmanlike manner. A man next held poor puss over his head as if she were a fox, and a voice went up "That"s the way to serve the landlords." This ebullition was followed by shouts of "Down wid "em!"
and the meeting on Sheehane became more cheerful. It was recollected that O"Connell once held a meeting on the same spot, and that the hare and the meetings were both mentioned by the prophet Columbkill.
Of the speeches it need only be said that what they lacked in elegance was made up in violence. The speeches made in the North were oddly designated "seditious," and every kind of reprisal was hinted at in the event of Mr. Parnell being arrested. If he were seized, not a landlord in Ireland would be safe except in Dublin Castle. This kind of thing, accompanied by shouts of "Down wid "em!" at every mention of the abhorred landlords, became very tedious, especially in a high wind and drifting rain. The meeting gradually became thinner and thinner, and finally faded out altogether. It is quite true that such gatherings may have a powerful effect upon the vivacious Celt, but if so, it is quite beneath the surface, for the people seemed to take little interest in the proceedings. To all outward show the oratory at Sheehane produced no more serious impression than that at Tiernaur on the preceding Sunday. Yet there is something in the air, for the first thing I heard on returning to Westport was that Mr. Barbour"s herdsman, who lives at Erriff Bridge, had been warned to leave his master"s service. The "herd" (as he is called here, as well as on the Scottish border) is in great alarm. He cannot afford to leave his place, for it is his sole means of subsistence, and if turned out in the world the poor fellow might starve. Now it is a disagreeable thing to think you will starve if you leave, and be shot if you remain at your work; but I hear that the "herd" has asked for protection and will try to weather it out. His master, Mr. Barbour, and Mr. Mitch.e.l.l hold each about half of the great farm formerly held of Lord Sligo by Captain Houstoun, the husband of the well-known auth.o.r.ess. Large numbers of black-faced sheep and polled Galloways are raised by Mr.
Barbour, who lives at Dhulough, in the house formerly occupied by Captain Houstoun.
I have just come from Westport to this place, the mountain scenery around which is magnificent. On the lofty heights of "the Devil"s Mother," a famous mountain of this country, the sheep are seen feeding almost on the same level as the haunt of the golden eagles who breed here regularly. I believe that the valley of the Erriff was once well populated, but that after the famine the people were cleared off nearly 20 square miles of land to make way for the great grazing farm now divided between two occupants. As I have stated in previous letters, the resentment of the surrounding inhabitants at this depopulation of a vast tract of country is ineradicable. In the wretched huts which appear at wide intervals on the sea-sh.o.r.e the miserable people sit over the fire and talk of the old times when they might go from Clifden to Westport and find friends nearly everywhere on the road, while now from the last-named place to this--a distance of 18 Irish miles--the country is simply wild mountain, moor, and bog, bating the little Ulster Protestant village, not far from Westport (a curious relic of "98), a few herds-men"s huts, and the police-station at Erriff Bridge. To those who, like myself, love animals, the drive is by no means uninteresting. As the car jolts along past "Hag"s Valley," a dozen curlews take wing, and a little further on the shrill cry of the redshank strikes on the ear. Now and then a hare will start among the bent-gra.s.s, while aloft the falcon rests poised on her mighty wing. But saving these wild animals, the beautiful blackfaced sheep, and black Galloway calves, the country has no inhabitants. What little was once cultivated has reverted to rough pasture, covered with bent or sedge and a little gra.s.s, or to bog impa.s.sable to man or any creature heavier than the light-footed fox, who attains among these mountains to extraordinary size and beauty.
But hares and grouse, and even stray pheasants from Mr. Mitch.e.l.l Henry"s woods at Kylemore, will not convince the fragment of population around the great grazing farms that things are better now than of yore; and there is some reason for believing that disturbance is to be apprehended in this part of the country. The warning to Mr.
Barbour"s unfortunate herd can hardly be a separate and solitary act of intimidation and oppression. The work of one herd is of no great matter. But the distinct warning given to the poor man at Erriff Bridge to give up his livelihood on the first instant is possibly part of a settled scheme to reduce great grazing farmers to the same condition as landlords. They are to be frightened away, in order that squatters may pasture their cattle on "the Devil"s Mother," as the Tiernaur people have done theirs on Knockdahurk. Nothing would surprise me less than a strike against anybody in this neighbourhood.
If one may judge by the language used yesterday at Westport Fair, at which I was glad to discover more outward evidence of prosperity than had yet come under my observation in this part of Ireland, the landlords and their agents are determined to make another effort to get in their rents in January. Their view of the case is that the law must a.s.sist them: but whatever abstract idea of the majesty of the law may exist elsewhere is obviously foreign to those parts of Connaught which I have visited. It is urged day after day upon me by high as well as low, that if Sir Robert Blosse and Lord De Clifford can get in their rents without "all the king"s horses and all the king"s men,"
other landlords must try to do the same. To prevent misconception, I will aver, even at the risk that I may seem to "protest too much,"
that this argument is not thrust upon me by the Land League, but by persons who are proprietors themselves. It is held ridiculous, in this section of the country, that enormous expense should be thrown upon the county in order that the rents of certain landlords may be collected. There is, it must be admitted, a rational indisposition in the West to ascribe any particularly sacred character to rent as distinguished from any other debt. This is an agreeable feature in the Irish character. In some other countries there prevails a preposterous notion that rent must be paid above and before all things, as a species of solemn obligation. Until the other day there prevailed in Scotland the almost insane law of hypothec, which allowed a landlord to pursue his tenant"s goods even into the hands of an "innocent holder." But there is no argument in favour of the landlord which any other creditor might not advance with equally good reason. The butcher, the baker, the clothier, as well as the farmer, the dealer in feeding-cake and manure, have claims quite as good as that of the landlord, and, as they think, a great deal better. Tradesmen who have fed and clothed people, and others who have helped them to fatten their land and their cattle, think their claims paramount. It is of the nature of every creditor to think he has the right to be paid before anybody else. But the landlord, probably because landlords made the law, such as it is, has a claim which he can enforce, or rather just now seeks to enforce, by the aid of armed intervention. The civil bill creditor can only levy execution where anything exists to levy upon; but the landlord can turn his tenants out of doors and put the key in his pocket--that is, theoretically. But, it is argued, if this cannot be done without the aid of an army, it would be better for the majority of peaceable inhabitants if it were left alone. It is not easy to predict the state of popular feeling here in January next; but it is quite certain that attempts to evict, if made now, would be met by armed resistance. I have already stated that Mayo is armed to the teeth, and I have good reason for believing county Galway to be in a similar condition. This being fairly well known on the spot, it is quite easy to understand how any resolution to commence a landlords"
crusade is received by the public.
LETTERFRACK, CONNEMARA, _Wednesday._
At this pretty village, in the most beautiful part of the West of Ireland, I hear that the disinclination to pay rent and the desire to "hunt" grazing farmers out of the country have spread to the once peaceful region of Connemara. Three years ago crime and police were alike unknown. The people were poor, and preserved the sense of having been wronged. But theft and violence, saving a broken head now and then, were unknown.
Within the last two years a great change has come over this remote corner of Ireland. Police barracks have made their appearance, and outrages of the agrarian cla.s.s have become disagreeably frequent.
Formerly cattle and sheep were as safe on the mountain as oats in the stackyard. Now n.o.body of the grazing farmer cla.s.s is entirely free from alarm. At any moment his animals may be driven into the sea or his ricks fired. The population, if not so fully armed as that of Mayo, is arming rapidly. To my certain knowledge revolvers and carbines are being distributed among the peasantry of Connemara proper. This district--which including within its limits the pretty village I write from, as well as Clifden and Ballynahinch, lies mainly between the seash.o.r.e and a line drawn from Leenane to Carna--has, during the last twelve months become disturbed in such wise that it is impossible to shut one"s eyes to the fact that here, as in Mayo, a sort of dead set is being made against grazing farmers. It is true that life is not taken, and, it may be added, not even threatened in Connemara proper, but outrages of a cowardly and destructive kind are common. During last winter an epidemic of destruction broke out, the effect of which may be seen in the large amount added to the county cess to give compensation to the injured persons. The grand jury has levied altogether between seven and eight hundred pounds more than usual. So ignorant or reckless are the destroyers, that they take no heed of what is well understood in other places; to wit, that the amount of the damage done is levied upon the adjacent townlands. Thus the addition to the county cess in Lettermore is 10s. 11d. in the 1l.; in Carna, 8s. 9d.; and in Derryinver, 8s. 7d.--a cruel additional burden on the ratepayer. Some of the items are very large.
To George J. Robinson was awarded 181l. for seventy-six sheep and two rams "maliciously taken away, killed, maimed, and destroyed." To Hamilton C. Smith three separate awards were made--28l. for four head of cattle driven or carried out to sea and drowned; 21l. for fourteen sheep maliciously driven off and removed; and again 17l. 10s. for fourteen sheep similarly treated. Houses and boats have been burned, and even turf-ricks destroyed. The object in all cases seems to have been to "hunt" the injured persons out of the country in order that the neighbours might turn their cattle on to his grazing land, as has been done in Mayo. In one conspicuous case these tactics have proved successful. Michael O"Neil was awarded 120l. "to compensate him for ninety-six sheep, his property, maliciously taken or carried away and destroyed, at Tonadooravaun, in the parish of Ballynakill." This sum is levied off the fourteen adjacent townlands, among which is the unlucky Lettermore, just quoted as paying an enormous addition to the county cess. Michael O"Neil, who appears to have been a respectable man, not otherwise objectionable than as the tenant of more grazing land than was considered his share by his neighbours, has received his 120l., and is so far reimbursed; but he thought it better to obey the popular will than to attempt to stand against it, and gave up his farm accordingly. Such deeds as the frightening of "decent people" out of Connemara by maiming cattle and burning houses, which must be paid for by the offending districts, speak more distinctly than any words could do of the ignorance of this part of the wild West. So wild is it that although the Roman Catholic clergy of Connemara adhere to the elsewhere-obsolete practice of holding "stations" for confession, there are many dwellers on the mountain who have never received any religious instruction. Chapels are few and remote from each other, and even the "stations" kept for the purpose of getting at the scattered population only attract those dwelling within reasonable distances.
The poor mountaineers in the neighbourhood of the Recess Valley and away over the hills seldom go far enough from home to rub shoulders with civilisation. Many of them have never seen bigger places than Letterfrack and Leenane, and those perhaps not fifty times in their lives.
The islanders of Clew Bay are almost as difficult to a.s.sist and to improve as the highlanders of Joyce"s country, Southern Mayo, and Great and Little Connemara; but for an opposite reason. The latter are thinly scattered on the fringe of the grazing farms, while the former are crowded together on islands inadequate to support them. This question of s.p.a.ce a.s.sumes a curious importance in Ireland owing to the want of other industry than such as is intimately connected with the land. With the exception of a few manufacturing districts in Ulster, which is altogether another country from Connaught, there are no industries in Ireland independent of the produce of arable land and pasture. What is to be enjoyed by the people must be got out of the land, and this in a country where n.o.body will turn to and work hard as a cultivator so long as he can graze, "finish," or "job" cattle, sheep, or horses. I was citing to a Mayo-man this defect of the so-called farmer, and was at once met by a prompt reply. The tendency to graze cattle, which is not hard work, and to "gad" about to cattle fairs, which are esteemed the greatest diversion the country affords, is an indication of the distinct superiority of the quick-witted Celt to the dull Saxon hind. An Irish peasant cultivator is a being of greater faculty of expansion than Wess.e.x Hodge. He is profoundly ignorant and absurdly superst.i.tious, but he is naturally keen-witted, and his innate gifts are brightened by contact with his fellow man. He is not a ploughman, for he often cultivates with the spade alone, and he has, besides his oats, his potatoes, his cabbages, and mayhap a few turnips, and a variety of animals, all of which he understands--or misunderstands. If a holder of twenty or thirty, or, still better, forty acres, he will have a horse, a cow, a beast or two, a few sheep, and some turkeys and geese. It is possible to have all these on fifteen acres or less of fairly good land, and then the Western peasant cultivator becomes a many-sided man by dint of buying and selling stock--that is, he acquires the sort of intelligence possessed by a smart huckster. This is held to be cleverness in these parts, and undoubtedly gives its possessor a greater "faculty of expansion" than the career of an Ess.e.x or Wess.e.x ploughman or carter. But what is peculiarly pertinent to the burning question of peasant cultivators and proprietors is the tendency, perpetually visible in the Western Irishman, to fly off at a tangent from agriculture to grazing.
According to an ancient and indurated belief in all this section of the country, animals ought to get fat on the pasture provided by nature. I am told that thirty years ago there was not a plough in existence from Westport to Dhulough, and that the turnip was an unknown vegetable in Connemara. The notion of growing turnips and mangolds in a country made for root crops was at first not well received. "Bastes" had done hitherto on the rough mountain pasture "well enough;" which signified that no properly fatted animal had ever been seen around the Twelve Pins.
Now that the Connemara man here and there has been taught to grow root crops for cattle he begins to yield, and feeds his beasts, sometimes, on roots instead of sedge. Thus far he has become a cultivator; but I have my doubts whether the hard work of tillage suits him well. To get good crops off a little farm is an undertaking which requires "sticking to work." It is not so pleasant by a great deal as looking at cattle and taking them to market. Hence the tilled part of an Irish farm in the West nearly always bears a very small proportion to that under pasture. It is only quite recently that artificial feeding for cattle has been resorted to, and compelled the farmer to grow root crops. Perhaps, in the present condition of the market for beasts and grain the nimble-minded Celt is. .h.i.tting the right nail on the head, and cattle and dairy farms are the future of the agriculturist, who will compete against American meat with English produce fed upon English gra.s.s and roots, and upon maize imported from the New World. I prefer, however, to leave this possibility for the discussion of Mr.
Caird and Mr. Clare Read, and to confine myself to the fact that the Western cultivator is far less a farmer than a cattle-jobber or gambler in four-legged stock.
The poor inhabitants of the islands between this place and Achill Point cannot certainly be accused of a tendency to gad about. Almost everybody blames their dull determination to remain at home. They are, I doubt, neither good fishermen nor good farmers--at least, I know that they neither catch fish nor pay their rent. Neither on Clare Island, Innishark, Innisbofin, nor Innisturk is there any alacrity in making the slightest attempt to satisfy the landlord. That these little tenants are only removed by a hairsbreadth from starvation at the best of times will be gathered from the facts that Clare Island with 4,000 acres, some of which is let at 10s. per acre, with common grazing rights "thrown in," is called upon to support nearly seven hundred souls. A glance at the picturesque outline of the island will tell of the proportion of "mountain," that is moor and bog, upon it, and it is at once seen that unless there is either good fishing or some other source of supply the land cannot keep the people. No better proof can be given than that of the greatest tenant, who pays 55l. a year for some five hundred acres. In Innisbofin and Innishark are at least 1,500 individuals, nearly all very small tenants, either on the brink of starvation or pretending to be so. It is nearly as impossible to extract any rent from them as from the twenty-three families on Innisturk, an island belonging to Lord Lucan, whose rents are farmed, so far as Innisturk is concerned, by Mr. MacDonnell, the sub-sheriff, who is said to have a bad bargain. Lord Lucan, of course, receives his 150l. yearly from his "middleman," who is left to fight it out with the people, and get 230l., the price at which the land is let, out of them, if he can. Just now he is getting nothing, and the situation is becoming strained. The people pay no rent, the sub-sheriff, is not only losing his margin of profit but cannot get 150l. a year out of them. They said they liked him well enough but would not pay a "middleman"s" profit, whereupon he offered to take the exact amount he contracts to pay to Lord Lucan, and forego his profit altogether; but this proposition, after being received with some amus.e.m.e.nt, was not declined exactly, but, in American language, "let slide." And nothing has been or can be done. For if it were attempted to evict the Innisturk people the evictors would be accused of hurling an entire population into the sea.
The more that is seen of the people of far Western Connaught the more distinct becomes the conviction that the present difficulty is rather social and economic than political. It is far more a question, apparently, of stomach than of brain. The complaints which are poured out on every side refer not in the least to politics. Very few in Mayo, and hardly anybody at all in Connemara, seem to take any account of Home Rule, or of any other rule except that of the Land League. The possibility of a Parliament on College-green affects the people of the West far less than the remotest chance of securing some share of the land. If ever popular disaffection were purely agrarian, it is now, so far as this part of Ireland is concerned. Orators and politicians from O"Connell until now have spoken of Repeal and Reform; but it is more than probable that the Connaught peasant always understood that he was to be emanc.i.p.ated from some of his burdens. All his ideas are dominated by the single one of land. He knows and cares for very little else. He is superst.i.tious to an astounding degree, and his ignorance pa.s.ses all understanding--that is, on every subject but the single one of land. And the land he knows of is that in his own county, or home section of a county. But his knowledge of this is singularly and curiously exact. Either by his own experience or by tradition he is perfectly acquainted with the topography of his own locality and with the history of its present and former proprietors and occupants. With perfect precision he will point out a certain tract of country and tell how, in the old, old time, it was, "reigned over" by the O"Flahertys, and then was owned by the Blakes, who disposed of part of their country to the present possessors. He knows perfectly well how the great Martin country came first into the hands of the Law Life Insurance Company, and then into those of Mr.
Berridge, and how the latter gentleman came down to Ballynahinch, of the traditional avenue, extending for forty miles to Galway. More than this, he knows how an island was bought by its present owner with so much on it due to the above-named society. Moreover, he knows the site and size of the villages depopulated by famine, emigration, or the "exterminator," and in many cases the very names of the former tenants. He is a man of one idea--that the country was once prosperous and is now wretched, not in consequence of natural causes but of oppression and mismanagement. When he shouted in favour of Repeal he meant Land. When he applauded Disestablishment and Denominational Schools he meant Land, Land, nothing but Land. At last his dominant feeling is candidly expressed when he cries out against landlords, "Down wid "em!"
In one of those neat remarks, distracting attention from the real point at issue, for which Lord Beaconsfield is justly famous, he expressed an opinion that "the Irish people are discontented because they have no amus.e.m.e.nts." Like all such sayings, it is true as far as it goes. Despite dramatists, novelists and humorists, Ireland is singularly barren of diversion. In a former letter I pointed out that the only relaxation from dreary toil enjoyed in Mayo is found at the cattle-fairs, and little country races to which they give rise. There are no amus.e.m.e.nts at all at Connemara. One ballad-singer and one broken-legged piper are the only ministers to public hilarity that I have yet seen. Nothing more dreary can be imagined than the existence of the inhabitants. When by rare good luck a peasant secures road-work or other employment from a proprietor at once sufficiently solvent and public-spirited to undertake any enterprise for the improvement of the country, he will walk for a couple or three hours to his work and then go on with it till dinner-time. But it is painfully significant that the word "dinner" is never used in this connection. The foreman does not say that the dinner hour has arrived, but "Now, boys, it is time to eat your bit o" bread." The expression is painfully exact; for the repast consists of a bit of bread and perhaps a bottle of milk. Indian corn meal is the material of the bit of bread, a heavy square block unskilfully made, and so unattractive in appearance that no human being who could get anything else would touch it. Then the man works on till it is time to trudge over the mountain to the miserable cabin he imagines to be a home, and meet his poor wife, weary with carrying turf from a distant bog, and his half-clad and more than half-starved children. Luckily the year has been a good one for drying peat, and one necessity for supporting human life is supplied. What the condition of the people must be when fuel is scarce is too terrible to think of.
I esteem myself fortunate in being enabled to describe what the life of the Connemara peasant is under favourable circ.u.mstances. His abject misery in years of famine and persistent rain, when crops fail and peat cannot be dried, may be left to the imagination. Potatoes raised from the "champion" seed introduced during the distress last year are, if not plentiful, yet sufficient, perhaps, for the present, in the localities to which a good supply of seed was sent; but I should not like to speculate on the probable condition of affairs in March next.
I have also spoken of such a peasant as has been fortunate enough to obtain work at nine shillings a week, esteemed a fair rate hereabouts. But in truth there is very little work to be had; for the curse of absenteeism sits heavily on the West. Four great landed proprietors, who together have drawn for several years past about 70,000l. from their estates in Mayo, Galway, and Clare, have not, I am a.s.sured, ever spent 10,000l. a year in this country. As with the land itself, crop after crop has been gathered and no fertiliser has been put in. The peasant is now aware of as many of such facts as apply to his own locality, and this knowledge, coupled with hard work and hunger, has aroused a discontent not to be easily appeased. To him his forefathers appear to have led happy lives. It would be beyond my purpose to discuss whether the good old times ever existed, either here or anywhere else. My object just now is simply to reflect the peasant"s mind, after having endeavoured, so far as is possible in this place, to verify the facts adduced by him, and I may add generally admitted by others.
The peasant looks lovingly on the tradition of the old time when the native proprietors dwelt among their people, without reflecting that it was the almost insane recklessness and extravagance of the hereditary lords of the soil which led to the breaking up of their estates among purchasers who had no kind of sympathy with the inhabitants. But good or bad, as they may have been, the names of the Martins, the O"Flahertys, the Joyces, and the Lynches are still held in honour, although their descendants may have disappeared altogether, or remained on a tenth or twentieth part of the vast possessions once held by their family. Some of the present representatives, however, are unpopular from no fault of their own. To cite a typical case.
There is a large estate between this place and Clifden, the present holders of which should hardly be held responsible for the faults of their ancestors. A very large part of it has been sold outright and is in good hands. The remainder is strictly settled on a minor, and is mortgaged, in the language of the country, "up to the mast-head."
Naturally the guardians of the minor are unwilling that the estate should be sold up, all possibility of improvement and recovery sacrificed, and themselves erased from the list of the county gentry.
Landlords have as much objection to eviction and compulsory emigration as tenants, and are as much inclined to cling to their land, hoping for better things. Thus arises a state of affairs against which the peasant at last shows signs of revolt. Physically and mentally neglected for centuries by his masters, he has found within the last fifty years neglect exchanged for extortion and oppression. To prevent the sale of the property, the owners or trustees must pay the interest on the enc.u.mbrances. Moreover, they, being only human, think themselves ent.i.tled to a modest subsistence out of the proceeds of the property. To pay the interest and secure this "margin" for themselves there are only two ways--to wring the last shilling out of the wretched tenants, to first deprive them of their ancient privileges, and then charge them extra dues for exercising them, or to let every available inch of mountain pasture to a cattle-farmer, whose herds take very good care that the cottier"s cow does not get "the run of the mountain" at their master"s expense.
This "run of the mountain" appears to have been the old Irish a.n.a.logue of the various kinds of rights of common in England, which have for the most part been lost to the poorer folk, not always without a struggle with the neighbouring landlord or lord of the manor. I hear from almost every place a complaint that within thirty or forty years the "run of the mountain" has been taken from the people and let to graziers. On the legal merits of the case I cannot at this moment pretend to decide, but inasmuch as this addition to an ordinary holding survives on some estates, there appears strong ground for believing that the practice was general. Where the cattle-run remains it is mapped out as a "reserve" for a certain townland, and is greatly prized by the peasants. It may therefore be imagined that those from whom it has been taken by the strong hand are bitterly resentful, and even where the change was made so long as twenty-five or thirty years ago nourish a deeply-rooted sense of wrong. It is absurd to suppose that when the act of spoliation took place village Hampdens could spring up on every hill-side in Connemara. Owing to the neglect of those who were responsible for their condition, they were the most ignorant and superst.i.tious people in the British Islands. Landlords were not yet awakened to a sense that their tenants should at least be taught to read; and Connemara was esteemed, I am told, as a kind of penal settlement for priests who had not proved shining lights in more civilised communities. The latter reproach can no longer be brought, for the zeal and activity of the local clergy are conspicuous; and where the children are within any reasonable distance of a school they come readily to it, and prove bright and apt scholars. But when the "run of the mountain" was seized upon by many proprietors, the people were mentally, if not bodily, in a swinish condition. The idea of any right which a landlord was bound to respect had not dawned upon them, and, if it had, prompt vengeance would have descended on the village Hampden in the shape of a notice to quit, and he whose conception of the world was limited to his native mountains would have been turned out upon them with his wife and children to die.
I hear on very good authority that the purchaser of part of one of the old estates has acquired an unpleasant notoriety in his management of the land. I am compelled to believe that in the old period the peasants enjoyed their little holdings at a very low rent. Moreover these holdings were not all "measured on "um," as one of my informants phrased it, but were often composed of two or more patches, bits of productive land, taken here and there on the rough mountain. Doubtless this arrangement had its inconveniences, but the people were accustomed to it, and also set great store by the run of the mountain, which they had, it seems, enjoyed without let or hindrance from time immemorial. The first act of the new management was to "sthripe the land on "um," that is to mark it out into five-pound holdings, each in one "sthripe" or block. This arrangement, which to the ordinary mind hardly appears unreasonable, was considered oppressive by the tenants, who submitted, however, as was then the manner of their kind. They had still the mountain, and could graze their cow or two, or their half-dozen sheep upon it, and they naturally regarded this privilege as the most valuable part of their holding, inasmuch as it paid their rent, clothed them, and supplied them with milk to drink with their potatoes. In these days of alimentary science it is needless to remind readers that, humble as it appears, a dinner of abundant potatoes and milk is a perfect meal, containing all the const.i.tuents of human food--fat, starch, acids, and so forth.
Thus many of the tenants were, as they call it, "snug." Satisfied with little, they rubbed on contentedly enough, only the more adventurous spirits going to England for the harvesting. Then came serious changes. The rent of the five-pound holdings was raised to seven pounds, and the mountain was taken away. The poor people protested that they had nothing to feed their few animals upon on the paltry holdings of which a couple of acres might be available for tillage, a couple more for gra.s.s, and the remaining two or three good for hardly anything. An answer was given to them. If they must have the mountain they must pay for it--practically another rise in the rent. To this they agreed perforce, and even to the extraordinary condition that during a month or six weeks of the breeding season for grouse they should drive their tiny flocks or herds off the mountain and on to their holdings, in order that the game might not be disturbed at a critical period. I hear that for the last year rents have fallen into arrear, and that the beasts of those who have not paid up have just been driven off the mountain.
I have cited this case as one of the proofs in my hands that the country is not overpopulated, as has been so frequently stated. I drove over part of the estate mentioned, and questioned some of the people as to the accuracy of the story already told to me, and the agreement was so general that I am obliged to give credence to it. To talk of over-population in a country with perhaps half-a-dozen houses per square mile, is absurd. What is called over-population would be more accurately described as local congestion of population. The people who in their little way were graziers and raisers of stock have been deprived of their cattle run, and having no ground to raise turnips upon, cannot resort to artificial feeding. What was originally intended to serve as a little homestead to raise food on for themselves is all they have left, and it is now said that they are crowded together. It would be more correct to say that they have been driven together like rats in the corner of a pit. As one steps out of one of their cabins the eye ranges over a vast extent of hill, valley, and lake--as fair a prospect as could be gazed upon. Yet the few wretched inhabitants are cooped within their petty holdings, and allowed to do no more than look upon the immense s.p.a.ce before them.
Where there is so much room to breathe they are stifled.
GALWAY, _Tuesday, Nov. 9th._
On the long dreary road from Clifden to this place, the greater part of which is included in the vaunted "avenue" to Ballynahinch, there is visible at ordinary times very little but mountain, bog, and sky. Of stones and water, and of air marvellously bright and pure, there is no lack, and some of the scenery is of surpa.s.sing grandeur, especially on a day like yesterday, so fair and still that mountain and cloud alike were mirrored on the surface of a legion of lakes. It was only when one reached the clump of trees which in these wild districts denotes the presence of a house of the better sort that any symptoms of disturbance were seen. All was calm and bright on Glendalough itself, but no sooner had I entered the grounds of the hotel than I became aware of the presence of an armed escort. Presently Mr. Robinson, the agent for Mr. Berridge, the purchaser of the "Martin property" from the Law Life Insurance Company, came out, jumped on his car with his driver, and was immediately followed by the usual escort of two men armed with double-barrelled carbines. A few minutes later I heard that Mr. Thompson"s "herd" over at Moyrus, near the sea-coast, had been badly beaten on Sunday night, or rather early yesterday morning; and there were disquieting rumours of trouble impending at Lough Mask. If the Moyrus story be true, it is noteworthy as marking a new line of departure in Connemara. Hitherto actual outrages have been confined to property; persons have only been threatened, and few but agents go in downright bodily fear. I have not heard why Mr. Thompson is unpopular; but can easily understand that Mr. Robinson has become so. The management of 180,000 acres of poor country, in some parts utterly desolate, in others afflicted with congested population, can hardly be carried on without making some enemies. Moreover, I have no reason to believe that the vast "Law Life" property has, since it pa.s.sed out of the hands of its ancient insolvent owners, been either more wisely or liberally administered than in the wild, wicked days when the Martins "reigned" at Ballynahinch, and boasted that the King"s writs did not run "in their country."
Before leaving Connemara I resolved to give a detailed account of the condition of the peasants of the sea-coast at the conclusion of a phenomenally good season followed by a fair harvest, thinking that a better impression would be obtained now than in periods of distress. I regret to say that the effect of several excursions from Letterfrack and Clifden has been almost to make me despair of the Connemara man of the sea-coast. I hesitate to employ the word "down-trodden," because it has been absurdly misused and ignorantly applied to the whole population of Ireland. I may be pardoned for observing in this place, once for all, that my remarks are always particularly confined to the place described, and by no means intended to apply to districts I have not yet visited, still less to Ireland generally--if a country with four if not five distinct populations should ever by thoughtful persons be spoken of "generally." What I say of the inhabitants of the sea-coast of Connemara does not, I hope most sincerely, apply to any other people in the British Islands. They are emphatically "down-trodden"--bodily, mentally, and in a certain direction morally.
They do not commit either murder, adultery, or theft, but they are fearfully addicted to lying--the vice of slaves. Their prevarication and procrastination are at times almost maddening. I have seen men and women actually fencing with questions put to them by the excellent priest who dwells at Letterfrack, Father McAndrew, who was obliged to exercise all his authority to obtain a straight answer concerning the potato crop grown on a patch of conacre land. Did they have any "champion" seed given to them at the various distributions of that precious boon? "Was it champions thin?" was the reply. ""Deed, they had the name o" champions." The woman who said this in my hearing only confessed under very vigorous cross-examination that "the name o"
champions" signified four stone weight of the invaluable seed which has resisted disease in its very stronghold. Now in very poor ground the yield of this quant.i.ty should have been twelvefold, or about 5 cwt. of potatoes. ""Deed, and it wasn"t the half of it. The champions was planted too thick, sure; and two halves of "um was lost." Taken only mathematically this statement would not hold water, but it was not till after a stern allocution that the fact was elicited that much champion seed had been wasted by over-thick planting--a habit acquired by the people during successive bad years. As these poor people prevaricate, so do they procrastinate. The saddened man who said, in his wrath, all men are liars, would have found ample justification for his stern judgment on the Connemara sea-coast at the present moment; but the Roman centurion immortalised in Holy Writ would make a novel experience. He might say "Go," but he would have to wait a while before the man went, and if he cried "Come" would need to possess his soul with patience. Yet the people are not dull. In fact the dull Saxon is worth a hundred of them in doing what he is told, and in doing it at once. This simple fact goes far to explain the unpopularity of English land-agents. Prepared to obey their own chief, Englishmen, especially if they have served in the army, expect instant obedience from others. Now that is just what they will not get in Clifden or elsewhere in the neighbourhood. Almost everybody is as fearfully deliberate in action as in untruth, and the Saxon who expects instant attention and a straightforward answer, and is apt to storm at procrastinators and shufflers, appears to the poor native as an imperious tyrant. Now the native is always as civil as he is deceptive. About the middle of my journey yesterday, I discovered that the pair of horses who were to bring me twenty-six Irish miles from Clifden to Oughterard had been driven ten miles before they began that long pull. Of course the poor creatures dwindled to a walk at last, and I sank into pa.s.sive endurance lest the driver might inflict heartless punishment upon them. My remarks on arriving at Oughterard, where an excellent team awaited me, were vigorous in the extreme; but I am bound to admit that they were accepted in a thoroughly Christian spirit.
My long car-drives from Letterfrack and Clifden were directed mainly towards the spots mentioned in a former letter as of specially evil reputation for agrarian crime, and as being heavily amerced by the grand jury. A very slight acquaintance with them excites amazement that cess, rent, or anything else can be extracted from the utterly wretched cabins looking on the broad Atlantic. A large number of these are built on the slope of a lofty peninsula rising to 1,172 feet from the sea-level, and marked on the maps as Rinvyle Mountain. It is better known to the natives as Lettermore Hill, and forms part of the Rinvyle estate, one of the enc.u.mbered properties alluded to in my last letter. The hill-folk, who appear, on the best evidence procurable, to have had hard measure dealt to them by the Mr. Graham who bought part of the old Lynch property, declaim against the "new man," as others ascribe every evil to the middleman; but others again hold that the old proprietors, who remain on the land, fighting against enc.u.mbrances, are the "hardest of all," and that the whips of cupidity cannot compare with the scorpions of poverty. Be this as it may, the present holder of Rinvyle is by no means personally unpopular, and has helped the district lately in getting subscriptions and a Government grant for building a pier, extremely useful both as a protection to fisher-folk, and as providing labour for the still poorer people. It is also only fair to state that much of the local congestion of inhabitants at Rinvyle is due to the kelp-manufacture. The kelp-trade was at one time very prosperous, and employed a large number of people in collecting, drying, and burning seaweed. At that period it was the object of proprietors on the seaboard to attract population to their domains, on account of the royalty levied on kelp, which exceeded by far the rent asked for a little holding. While some proprietors were wiping off the map great villages, containing hundreds of families, like that of Aughadrinagh, near Castlebar, the holders of the sea-coast encouraged people to settle on their estates. No reasonable person can blame them for doing so. The proprietor was poor, and saw that a large accession to his means might be secured by attracting kelp-burners. He made a good thing of it. The people paid about 3l. or a little more a year for their cottage and little, very little, paddock, not bigger than a garden; about 11s. a year for the "right to gather seaweed," and one-third of the proceeds of the kelp they made as "royalty" to the landlord. It should be added that the owners of Rinvyle were not themselves dealers in kelp, like some middlemen along the coast, and that their "people,"--save the mark!--could sell to whom they pleased, but the lords of the seash.o.r.e took their third of the proceeds. Within comparatively recent times kelp has been worth 6l. and 7l. per ton. Putting the "royalty" at 2l. per ton, and the production of each family at a couple of tons per annum, we arrive at the position that the landlord drew, in rent and royalty, about half his tenants" summer earnings. The tenants obtained about 8l. clear per family for the summer"s laborious work in collecting, drying, and burning seaweed. The rest of their living was made either out of a conacre potato patch, for which they were charged a tremendous rent, or eked out by the excursion of one member of the family to England for the reaping season. It was not a prosperous life, except in comparison with that which has succeeded it. For the last few years kelp has been almost thrown out of the market, and such small prices are obtainable that it is not worth while to collect it. But the population originally attracted by kelp remains to starve on the rocks of Rinvyle.
Lettermore Hill, rising directly from the sea level, is a magnificent object glittering in the sun. It is "backed" rather like a whale than a weasel, and includes some good rough mountain pasture, as well as green fields near its base. As one approaches it a ring of villages is seen delightfully situated, high for the most part above the sea and the green fields, and lying back against the huge mountain. It is natural to suppose that here resides a race of marine mountaineers seeking their living on the deep while their flocks and herds pasture on the hill. But no supposition could be wider of the actual fact.
Neither the fields beneath nor the mountain above belong in any way to the villages which form a belt of pain and sorrow half-way up its side, drooping at Derryinver to the sea. One of these villages, Coshleen, surely as wretched a place as any in the world, is unapproachable by a wheeled vehicle. The pasture land in front is walled off, and, together with the mountain behind, down almost to the roof of the cabins, is reserved to the use of a great grazier living far away. Below, near the sea, stands Rinvyle Castle--whence the name Coshleen, the village by the castle--the ruined stronghold of the O"Flahertys who ruled this country long ago, either better or worse than the Blakes, who have held it for some generations, and under whose care it has become a reproach to the empire. There is a little arable land farther down Lettermore Hill, which, being also called Rinvyle Mountain, might well receive the third name of Mount Misery.
This bit of arable land is let to the surrounding tenants on the conacre principle--that is, the holders are not even yearly tenants, but have the land let to them for the crop, the season while their potatoes or oats are on the ground. By letting this conacre land in little patches, a high rent is secured, which the tenants have no option but to promise to pay. Apparently it is these wretched people who, maddened by the sight of a stranger"s flocks and herds pasturing above and below them, have risen at times and driven his animals into the sea. All the notice he has taken of the matter is to make the county pay his loss, and leave the county to get the amount out of the offending townlands if it can. He is not to be scared, for he lives far away, and apparently his herds are not much afraid either--at present, that is. How any compensation money is to be got from the hundreds of miserable people who inhabit Coshleen and Derryinver I cannot conceive. They have, it is true, potatoes to eat just now, and may have enough till February; but their pale cheeks, high cheek-bones, and hollow eyes tell a sorry tale, not of sudden want but of a long course of insufficient food, varied by occasional fever.
With the full breath of the Atlantic blowing upon them, they look as sickly as if they had just come out of a slum in St. Giles"s. There is something strangely appalling in the pallid looks of people who live mainly in the open air, and the finest air in the world. Doubtless they tell a good story without, as I have already said, any very severe adherence to truth; but there can be no falsehood in their gaunt, famished faces, no fabrication in their own rags and the nakedness of their children. I doubt me Mr. Ruskin would designate the condition of Mount Misery, otherwise Lettermore Hill, as "altogether devilish."
The cabins of Connemara have been so frequently described that there is no necessity for telling the English public that in the villages I have named anything approaching the character of a bed is very rare. A heap of rags flung on some dirty straw, or the four posts of what was once a bedstead filled in with straw, with a blanket spread over it, form the sleeping-place. Everybody knows that one compartment serves in these seaside hovels for the entire family, including the pig (if any), ducks, chickens, or geese. Few people hereabouts own an a.s.s, much less a horse or a cow, and boats are few in proportion to the population. Such a cabin as I have rather indicated than described is occupied by the wife of one John Connolly, of Derryinver. When I called the husband was away at some work over the hill, and the two elder boys with him, the wife and seven younger children remaining at home. I had hardly put my foot inside the cabin when a "bonniva," or very little pig, quietly made up to me and began to eat the upper-leather of my boot, doubtless because he could find nothing else to eat, poor little beast. Besides the "bonniva," who looked very thin, the property of the entire family consisted of a dozen fowls and ducks, some potatoes, a little stack of poor oats, not much taller than a man, and a still smaller stack of rough hay. An experienced hand in such matters, who accompanied me, valued the stacks at 2l.
15s. together. This was all they had at John Connolly"s to face the winter withal, and I was curious to know what rent they paid for their little cabin and the field attached. An acre was quite as much as they appeared to have, and for this they were "set," as it is called here, at 3l. per annum, and, in addition, were charged 2s. 6d. for the privilege of cutting turf, and 5s. 6d. for the seaweed. This toll for cutting seaweed is a regular impost in these parts, sometimes rising for "red weed" and "black weed" to 11s. The latter is used only for manuring the potato fields, the former being the proper kelp weed, and must be paid for whether it is used or not. As a matter of fact, Mrs.
Connolly"s place a.s.signed for cutting red-weed is the island of Innisbroon, some four or five miles out at sea, and as her husband has never been worth a boat she has paid her dues for nine years for nothing. The seaweed dues in fact have for several years past represented merely an increase of rental. It should not, however, be forgotten that when kelp was valuable the lords of the soil took their third part of it when it was burnt, in addition to the first tax for collecting the weed, a most laborious and tedious operation.
It may be asked, and with some appearance of reason, why, if people are hungry, they do not eat what is nearest to hand. That one owning a dozen fowls and ducks and a stack of oats, be the same never so small, should be hungry, seems at a superficial glance ridiculous. But the fact is that this is just the flood time of harvest, the oats are stacked and the potatoes stored, but there is a long winter to face; and, what is more depressing to hear, these people who rear fowls would as soon think of eating one as of flying. They do not even eat the eggs, but sell them to an "eggler," and invest the money in Indian corn meal, a stone of which goes much farther than a dozen or a dozen and a half of eggs. Those, and they are greatly in the majority, who have no cow are obliged to buy milk for their children, and find it difficult and costly to get enough for them.
In equally poor case with the cottiers is the woman who keeps the village shop at Derryinver. Those who know the village shops of England and the mingled odour of flour, bacon, cheese, and plenty which pervades them, would shudder at Mrs. Stanton"s store at Derryinver. It is a shop almost without a window; in fact, a cabin like those occupied by her customers. The shopkeeper"s stock is very low just now. She could do a roaring trade on credit, but unfortunately her own is exhausted. Like the little traders during English and Welsh strikes, her sympathies are all with her customers, but she can get no credit for herself. She has a matter of 40l. standing out; she owes 21l.; she has sold her cow and calf to keep up her credit at Clifden, and she is doing no business. When I looked in on her she was engaged in combing the hair of one of her fair-skinned children, an operation not common in these parts, where the back hair of even grown women in such centres of commercial activity as Clifden has a curious knack of coming down.
It is part of the tumble-downishness of the neglected West. At some remote period things must have been new, but bating Ca.s.son"s Hotel, at Letterfrack, there is nothing in good order between Mr.
Mitch.e.l.l-Henry"s well-managed estate at Kylemore and Galway. At Clifden and all through the surrounding country things appear to be decaying or decayed. The doors will not shut, and the windows cannot be opened; the bells have no handles, and if they had would not ring; the wall-paper and the carpets, the houses, the land and the people seem to be all very much the worse for wear. The dirt and slovenliness are unspeakable. I tried to write on the table of the general room of a well-known inn, or so-called hotel, the other day, and my arm actually stuck to the table, so adhesive was the all-pervading filth. The white flannel cloaks and deep red petticoats of Connemara women are picturesque enough on market-day in Clifden, but, like Eastern cities, they should be seen from afar. I have a shrewd suspicion that the blight has gone beyond the potato, and it is not very difficult to see how it strode onward. The little towns of the West depend entirely upon the surrounding country for their subsistence, and, when the peasantry are poor, gradually undergo commercial atrophy. Just at this moment they are in a livelier condition than usual, somewhat because the comparatively well-to-do among the peasants have taken advantage in many places of the popular cry to pay no rent, and have, therefore, for the moment a little ready money. But there is no escaping the saddening influence of a general aspect of dirt and decay.
It is a significant feature of the present agitation in Ireland that all parties are nearly agreed so far as the Connaught peasant cultivator is concerned. That anything approaching agreement on any part of the complex Irish problem should be arrived at is so remarkable that I am inclined to hearken to the popular voice.
Whatever may be done for the benefit of other parts of the country, something must, it is thought, be attempted for the counties of Mayo and Galway. So far as I have been able to arrive at facts and opinions, it is not altogether a question of rent. A general remission of rent in these two counties would merely have the effect of enriching those farmers who are already "snug," but would leave the peasant cultivators exactly as they are at present. It is quite true that in some of the most wretched places I have seen the rent is extravagantly high; but while exclaiming against attempted extortion, I cannot shut my eyes to the fact that for the last two years the attempt has been in the main abortive. Everybody is not so deep in his landlord"s books as the irreconcileable Thomas Browne, of Cloontakilla; but a vast number of poor tenants owe one and a half and two years" rent. I speak of those whose holdings are "set" from 3l. to 8l. per annum. The rent has not impoverished them this year at any rate; they have had a fair harvest, their beast or few sheep have fetched good prices, and yet they are miserably poor. It is quite true that two very bad years preceded the good one, but allowing for all this there is no room for hope that under their present conditions of existence they will ever be better off than they are now--when they are practically living rent free.
Letting for the moment bygones be bygones between landlord and tenant, what is to occur in the future? Hunger is an evil counsellor, and there would apparently always be hunger and consequent discontent among the little cultivators of Connaught, even if the land were given to them outright. The fact is that, despite the a.s.sertions of demagogues, the holdings on which the people now live cannot support them, and, in fact, never have supported them. It is, as I remarked in one of my previous letters, the harvest money from England and the labourers" wages brought from Scotland which have kept body and soul together after a poor fashion. The annual migration of reapers and labourers has been a matter not of enterprise, but of necessity; for on the summer savings, varying from 10l. to 15l., the family entirely depend. It is, therefore, an absolute mistake to speak of the Mayo and Galway men as peasant cultivators living on the produce of the soil they cultivate. It cannot be done. I have talked to scores of these people, and have invariably found that a decent cabin with properly clad inhabitants depended upon something beyond the food produced on the spot. Either the father went to England for the harvest, or the boys were working in a shipyard on the Clyde, or the girls were in America and sent home money. On the seash.o.r.e, among the wretched people who send their children out on the coast to pick sh.e.l.l-fish worth fourpence per stone, I found here and there a household such as I have described really depending on money earned far away. I have thought it well to put the case somewhat strongly because it is sheer absurdity to expect that a living for a family can be extracted from five Irish acres of land in Connaught. In very good years, and when credit is abundant, not so unusual an occurrence as might be supposed, it is just possible for the peasant to struggle on; but he can never be said to live. His land is exhausted by the old Mayo rotation of "potatoes, oats, burn," and he has no manure but guano and seaweed.
It is like inhaling fresh air to turn aside from poorly nourished people and land to look, from the window of Ca.s.son"s hotel at Letterfrack, on two bright green oases rising amid a brown desert of bog. Turnips and mangolds are growing in great forty-acre squares.
Dark-ribbed fields of similar size show where the potatoes have been dug, and men are dotted here and there busily engaged with work of various kinds. The green oases at the mouth of the magnificent pa.s.s of Kylemore are the work of Mr. Mitch.e.l.l-Henry, M.P. for the county of Galway. When Mr. Henry first went salmon-fishing in the river Dowris, which flows from Kylemore Lake into the sea at Ballynakill Harbour, Kylemore was a mountain pa.s.s and nothing more. Now it not only boasts a castle, but is the centre of extraordinary activity, the first fruits of which are seen in the villages of Currywongoan and Greenmount already alluded to as forming conspicuous objects in a landscape of strange grandeur. Mr. Henry, who was an eminent surgeon before he became a great landowner, has gone about the work of reclamation with scientific knowledge as well as vigorous will, and now has a great area in the various stages of conversion from bog into productive land. When he began to reclaim land at Kylemore the neighbouring gentry smiled good-humouredly, plunged their hands into their (mostly empty) pockets, and wished him joy of his bargain. Now the Kylemore improvements are the wonder of Connemara. The long unknown mangold is seen to flourish on spots which once nourished about a snipe to an acre. Root crops are very largely grown, and it is to these that the climate and reclaimed bog of Connemara are more particularly favourable; but there is abundance of grain at Currywongoan, at Greenmount, and at the home-farm at Dowris.
Neighbouring proprietors are thinking the matter over, and are wondering whether an Irish landlord ought, like an English one, to do something to employ and encourage his poor tenants, and help on with improvements those inclined to help themselves. Even the tenants themselves on the Kylemore Estate are beginning to wake up under the care of a resident landlord inclined to set them in the way of improving their condition. With the run of the mountain in addition to holdings varying from twelve to forty and fifty acres in extent, Mr.
Mitch.e.l.l Henry"s people are learning by example, are breaking up land, and every year increasing the area under the plough. It would thus seem that the Connemara peasant is not unteachable, if only some patience be shown and fair breathing s.p.a.ce allotted to him.
Mr. Mitch.e.l.l Henry"s idea of reclamation was purely scientific at first, and has only by degrees been developed into a large enterprise.
He was struck by the fact that the bog lies directly on the limestone, as coal, ironstone, and limestone lie in parts of Staffordshire, only awaiting the hand of man to turn them to practical account. Draining and liming are all that bog-land requires to yield immediate crops. The main difficulty is of course to get rid of the water, which keeps down the temperature of the land until it produces nothing but the humblest kind of vegetation. All the steps of the reclaiming process may be seen at Kylemore. The first thing to be done is to cut a big deep drain right through the bog to the gravel between it and the limestone. Then the secondary drains are also cut down to the gravel, and are supplemented by "sheep" or surface drains about twenty inches deep and twenty inches wide at top, narrowing to six inches at the bottom. This process may be called "tapping the bog,"