Chapter V (3)

"He now, it being again seed-time, took a more effectual way of
crippling the tenant than before. He seized on the farm implements
and stock, of which the dunghill was in his eyes the most important.
He had it, without a legal sale, carried away to his own farm-yard,
even to the very rakings and sweepings of the road and the yard near
which it lay. This he did that Ring might have no manure for his
potato ground, knowing that crops so planted would not easily afford
the rent; and that, when no rent was forthcoming, an ejectment would
soon follow. Other things--a plough, and a horse, and some
furniture--were sold, and Ring was once more involved in litigation.
These things were bought in with his own money, save the dung-heap,
which the landlord would not give him a chance of buying in; and
thus Ring was obliged to pay his rent before it was due, with all
the expenses of a distraint and sale--the most expensively conducted
of any distraints and sales under the British crown. He thought to
recover damages for all this loss; but he was not able to pay his
rent in addition to all this, when it became due; and thus, by some
hocus-pocus of the law, the two cases became so mingled together as
to be inextricable."

From this statement it would appear that this Mr Shee distrained illegally, that the tenant sought the protection of the law, and that he obtained damages to the amount of L12. This may appear an inconsiderable sum; but when it is considered that an officer entitled a "replevinger," resides in almost every town, that the stock or implements were not removed from the premises, and that Ring, if he exerted himself, could not be deprived of their use for a _second day_--we must admit it was a fair remuneration for his trouble. Well--but this Mr Shee, with the knowledge of his former misconduct, and its punishment before him, again seizes: and this time he commits a _felony_, as well as an illegal act; for he carries off the tenant's manure, and appropriates it to his own use, without going through any legal form whatever. The tenant obtained justice before; but now (with a still stronger case) he refuses to bring his action, which, in the quarter-sessions court, would have cost him 2s. 6d. He is quite aware of his rights, for he defended them successfully before; yet for some reason or another, _studiously concealed_, he now remains inactive.[40]

* * * * *

Is every person so silly as to believe that this Mr Shee, who was more than once successfully prosecuted for assaults and illegal acts, would not again be brought to justice for such a serious breach of the law as that of forcibly carrying off another man's property. The criminal prosecution would only have cost one shilling; and can we believe he would a _third_ time subject himself to an action for illegal distress, with the rent-days specified in the lease well known to him?

But all the assertions of this paid maligner sink into insignificance compared with what follows. We know not which to be most amazed at--the recklessness, or the stupid ignorance of the man.

"It would be too tedious to give a detailed account of every
lawsuit that now followed; but from that time, _the summer of 1842,
up to the summer assizes of 1843_, the landlord proceeded in the
courts for a warrant of ejectment against Ring _nine times_. On the
first eight cases he was defeated; but he succeeded on the ninth.
He had thirteen other lawsuits of various kinds with the same
defendant, during which he sold his furniture five times and his
horse twice. In all, _he had twenty auctions of sale previous to
midsummer of this year_. Part of the furniture was in several of
these instances only bought back by the agent, Mr James Coyne,
handing money privately to Ring to pay for it. This is the agent
formerly spoken of, who at last gave up his situation out of sheer
disgust at the odious work he was called on to perform.

"The crop of 1842 was seized on and sold at seven different times.
It was much more than sufficient to pay the rent, even though the
manure was carried away in the spring by the landlord; but those
seven different seizures, with seven different sales, with a number
of men receiving at each of the seven seizures 2s. 4d. a-day, as
keepers to watch the crop from the day of distraint to the day of
sale--those seven seizures on a crop which might have been all
seized and sold at one time, with only one set of
expenses--resulted, as they were intended to do, in nearly doubling
the rent. Moreover, the crop being distrained on while growing, was
cut down by people whom the landlord employed, although the tenant
and his family were standing unemployed; and to such work-people the
landlord can give any wages he chooses, to be deducted from the
tenant, up to 2s. 6d. a-day! even though the harvest wages of the
district be 8d. or 10d. a-day![41]--even though the tenant, who is
thus not allowed to give his own labour to his own farm, may, to
avoid starvation, be compelled to work to another employer for the
fourth part, to wit, 7-1/2d. a-day, of what the law obliges him to
pay for workmen on his own farm.

"It will give some proof of the exertions made by the tenant to pay
his way when I state, that, notwithstanding all the extraordinary
expenses of the seizures, and of the protracted and complicated
litigation, _the rent was paid by the autumn of 1842_. There as
nothing owing by Ring save a sum of L1 and odds, connected with the
expenses of a summons which had been decided against him on some
technical point of law."

Here it is stated, in the first place, _that from the summer assizes 1842, to the same period in 1843, Ring was nine times proceeded against by ejectment_. Now the landlord could only proceed by ejectment in the quarter-sessions' court, or in the superior courts. The quarter-sessions' courts are held but _four times_ in the year, namely, in January, April, July, and October. The sessions were only held _three times_ within the period during which Ring is said to have been _nine times_ sued by ejectment; and consequently, if Mr Shee were even inclined, it would be impossible for him to have proceeded more than _three times_ against him in the sessions court. But if he instituted his suit in the superior courts, (if defence were taken, as clearly was the case,) he could only have proceeded twice, "for the ejectment served at November should be tried at the spring assizes, and the one served subsequently at the summer assizes;" and the production of any process from the superior courts, or the proof that such was had recourse to, would effectually bar the landlord from proceeding in the inferior courts. He could not proceed in both at the same time; and thus we see that it would be impossible for any landlord, however oppressive, _to have proceeded by ejectment more than three times within the period in which this veracious compiler of grievances positively asserts Shee proceeded nine times_. Next, he says, "the crop of 1842 was sold seven different times," and "altogether he had _twenty auctions of sale_ before midsummer of 1843." Now, any proceeding by distress, pending the progress of the ejectment, would have vitiated it and upset it; for the law does not allow two different modes of proceeding for the same debt at the same time; and in no courts is such scrupulous regard paid to the rights of the tenant as in the quarter-sessions courts. But no decree can be granted in ejectment cases until _a clear year's rent_ shall have been proved to be due; and yet we find this man, Patrick Ring, who, it is asserted, _owed no arrears of rent up to 1842, and the sale of whose crops and stock paid his rent up to autumn 1842_, evicted in summer 1843, when only _half a year's rent could have accrued due_; and this, too, by a Roman Catholic assistant barrister, (Mr O'Gorman,) a judge above any suspicion, and who, if we are to believe the statement contained in Ring's own letter, was not at all partial to his persecutor.

To show how tyrannically men may act with impunity, (if they be landlords,) he quotes the case of O'Driscoll, who struck a boy with his horsewhip; yet he is obliged to admit, that for doing so he was fined L3 by his brother magistrates, and dismissed from the commission of the peace by the lord-chancellor. To create the desired degree of prejudice against the Irish landlords, it is necessary to impugn the administration of justice; for people here would naturally enough say, when they read of such atrocities, "why don't those men so injured have recourse to the law?" Therefore it must be shown (at any risk) that the law is no impediment in the way of a tyrannical landlord. The falsehoods may not be immediately detected; and in the mean time the object may be achieved. Accordingly we find that a landlord can thus summarily dispose of an obnoxious tenant. This Mr Shee was fired at: our author has his doubts--although it appears, by his own account of the trial, that slugs were lodged in his hand, and that his hat was perforated--and he adds--

"But, if really fired at, and therefore much frightened, as he
doubtless would be, _it was not a loss to him_. With the facility
which the law in Ireland gives him as a landlord, he at once threw
those tenants into jail with whom he had been involved in
litigation. Consequently, before they could prosecute him for
damages, or before they could be witnesses in another case, they
had themselves to be tried for attempted murder!

"Patrick Ring was one of those arrested; and though several
hundreds of people, some of them gentlemen of rank and property,
knew that he had been in the Catholic chapel for an hour before and
an hour after the time the shot was alleged to have been fired, and
that at the distance of two miles, yet he was kept in prison, in
solitary confinement, not allowed to see any friend, nor even a
lawyer, for several weeks. He was not even examined before a
magistrate. This last fact in the administration of the law is, I
believe, peculiar to Ireland only. Whether it is consistent with,
or contrary to law, I cannot say. In England we consider it but
justice to the accused and the accuser, to bring them face to face
before a magistrate at the earliest opportunity. But in this case,
the landlord (_and I am told such a thing is quite common in all
such cases_) put Pat Ring in prison, kept him there three weeks in
close confinement, apart even from a legal adviser, and then
allowed him to go out without even taking him before a magistrate,
or offering any evidence against him.

"We may easily conceive circumstances which would warrant the
landlord to suspect this man, so as to have him taken up, and which
might ultimately turn out to be so weak as to prevent the
production of any evidence whatever. Had the landlord merely put
Pat Ring in prison, and let him out again after finding, through a
period of three weeks, that he could get no evidence against him,
there would be little to complain of, save that the law should not
compel the magistrates to bring the accused up for examination, or
that the prison authorities should not let the prisoner have an
interview with a legal adviser; but the landlord did much more.
_While Pat Ring was in jail, the landlord sent and made a wreck of
his house and farm; took the roof, thatch, and wood off the barn,
stable, and dwelling-house, save in one small portion of the
latter; and every handful of the thatch and wood so pulled down
was carried away to the landlord's own premises._ The doors and
windows he also carried away; pulled down the gates of the
farm-yard and the garden, and the garden-wall. These gates were
iron, and had been erected by the tenant a few years before at
considerable expense. The houses were also all of his own erection;
the thatch and timber of the roof, carried away by the landlord,
was Pat Ring's own property; _and all was taken away, and the whole
place wrecked, without any warrant whatever for so doing; without
any right whatever, save the right which, by the laxity of the law
and the dominancy of a faction, a landlord, belonging to that
dominant faction, may create for himself; without any authority
whatever, save the power of his own high hand, against which the
law is powerless_.

"Pat Ring, after being kept in prison for three weeks, apart from
every friend and adviser, and apart from every human creature, save
the spies with which every prison in Ireland abounds--(persons who
are kept there at the public expense, and who are put to sleep with
such men as Pat Ring; and who, pretending to make a confidant of
the fresh prisoner, tell tales of the assaults and murders which,
as a trap, they profess to have been concerned in--they urging the
new prisoner to confess all, to split on his accomplices, and take
the reward of L100 at once,--except such companions as these, some
of whom I saw produced as witnesses for the Crown at the Kilkenny
assizes, thus learning from their own mouths the nature of their
diabolical employment)--excepting these, to whom, as Pat Ring
declares, he indignantly answered again and again that he had
nothing to confess, he saw no human being during his
incarceration--was liberated, and went joyfully home; but when he
went there, alas! his home was a ruin."

We suppose we need scarcely point out the absurdity of such a statement as this. Some magistrate _must_ have committed this man; the jailer could not receive him without a committal, nor set him at large[42] without a discharge; although, from the account given, the inference may be easily drawn that, on his own will, Shee had thrown Ring into prison. If falsely imprisoned, he had his action against the magistrate who committed him. The committal, which the jailer holds for his own security, would discover the person who had acted so illegally. If any man acted as Shee is said to have done in this instance, the law is not to be blamed--for it forbids such conduct: the government officers who permitted it to be violated, are the really guilty parties. And here again we may ask--why were not the government called on to explain the conduct of their officials, by Lord John Russell, who read and recommended the book to the attention of Sir Robert Peel? But in addition to the necessity of having Ring thrown into jail, to exhibit the power of the landlords, it was necessary, for our author's purposes, that he should be put out of the way, in order to account for an apology given by the editor of a local newspaper to this Mr Shee.

"An action was brought against the proprietor of the journal for a
malicious libel, in calling this gentleman a 'notorious landlord.'
A man who had, in two years and a half, had above two hundred
disputes with his peasantry, not half of which I have yet even
alluded to, but all of which, alluded to and related, had occurred
previous to that time--such a man, to prosecute for being called
'notorious,' had good confidence.

"But he had also a good case. It would be scouted out of
Westminster Hall, but it was a good case in _Ireland_. An English
judge, after hearing evidence for the defence in such a
case--evidence in justification--would not sum up to the jury, or,
if he began his summary, the jury would stop him with an intimation
that their minds were made up! _But to the Irish jury--the special
jury of landlords before whom this case was about to be
brought_--the proprietor of the Irish newspaper looked forward with
a certainty of being convicted on a criminal charge, the punishment
of which would have probably been one or two years' imprisonment
and a heavy fine.

"He might have hoped for a verdict in his favour had the case stood
for a common jury, or for a special jury in any of the counties
where he was known, or where his paper circulated. When it was
intimated to him that the trial would not take place in Kilkenny,
he urged that the venue might be laid in Waterford, or Tipperary,
or Wexford, or Carlow, or in the Queen's County, where something
was known of each of the parties; but no, the venue was laid in the
county of Dublin, where the gentlemen who would form the special
jury were all of the landlord class, and nearly all belonging to
the dominant church-and-state party. _In that county nothing was
known of either plaintiff or defendant_, save that the first was a
distinguished Protestant partisan and that the other was a
Catholic, and proprietor of a liberal newspaper. Of their private
characters nothing was known.

"Still the defendant resolved to go to trial, and justify the
epithet 'notorious' as applied to the landlord. He intended taking
several of the worst-used tenants up as witnesses; and he also
obtained the official records of the petty sessions, quarter
sessions, and assize courts, to put in as evidence to show the
overwhelming amount of litigation carried on by the landlord with
his tenantry. He resolved on doing all this, _though sure of being
condemned to imprisonment and a fine by the special jury_; he
judged, from the well-known reputation of that class of men, and
from what he had seen other newspaper proprietors receive at their
hands for publishing the oppressive conduct of landlords; but he
resolved on justifying by evidence, in the hope that a public
trial, at which such witnesses as the persecuted tenants of
plaintiff would appear, would draw public attention to their
unfortunate condition. _He had chosen Patrick Ring and John Ryan,
the worst-used of the tenants, and one or two others_, as
witnesses; but what was his dismay when he found Patrick Ring once
more thrown into jail, as also the
others, at the instance of the landlord, on the charge of
attempting to shoot him!

"Thus, without his witnesses, the defendant, after incurring the
expense of about L100 in preparing his defence, was glad to get out
of the case in any shape. He made a public and most humble apology,
paid all expenses, and the prosecution was dropped. As soon as this
was effected, Patrick Ring, but for whose imprisonment on an
accusation of murder the trial would have gone on, 'was again
allowed to walk out of jail, without having undergone any
examination--without having had any evidence produced against
him.'"

The juries of the county Dublin are certainly the most independent, and least likely to be prejudiced in favour of a landlord, that can be found. They are in a great measure composed of wealthy merchants, who reside in the neighbourhood of the city; and every one knows that a judge's summons would have procured the attendance of Ring at the trial; but it was necessary to find an excuse for this abject apology.

We cannot, in the present instance, impute the conduct of this truth-telling authority to ignorance; we must attribute it to his wish to make the British public believe that all those civil bill processes were at the suit of landlords against tenants--to the desire or the necessity he felt himself under of sacrificing all principle to the objects for the accomplishment of which he was employed. He _must know_ that nineteen-twentieths of those civil bills are actions for debts brought by shopkeepers against their customers, or by one peasant against another--for money lent, or for the price of provisions sold them: he _must know_ (if he knows any thing) that perhaps not fifty, out of the whole 4318, are for rent; and that, where rent is at all sued for by process, it is only in cases where the landlord takes the tenant's I O U, in order to give him more time for what was long since due. The landlord _can at any time distrain_ for his rent; what object, then, would he have in incurring expense, and encountering delay, to procure a decree, which, when obtained, would _only restrict his former power_? All this does he know; and yet he quotes the number of processes issued by the most litigious people on earth against each other, as a proof of the tyranny of the landlords, and as the fruitful source of poverty and crime.

We have to apologise for the length of our remarks on those two productions. The one contains, we doubt not, the sincere opinions of a well-meaning, but very silly gentleman; while the other bears upon its unprincipled statements the stamp of premeditated dishonesty. Yet it is upon authorities such as these that the Irish gentry are to be condemned, and their estates confiscated; upon authorities such as these that the interests of men, whose greatest crime is attachment to British connexion, are to be sacrificed to greedy agitators, and a ferocious and idle people. Sir Robert Peel may, _perhaps_, without danger, give an extension of the franchise--the corporations are all, with one solitary exception, (Belfast,) as revolutionary as they can be made; and the Roman Catholic bishops may not be able to obtain political ascendancy over any more counties than those already subject to their sway; but we would call on him to pause and consider well before he disgusts the best friends of England, by lending attention to the unfounded statements of revolutionary priests, promulgated by mercenary writers; or the legislative quackeries of a disappointed, dishonest, and despicable faction.

FOOTNOTES:

[29] Ireland--The Landlord and Tenant Question--Lord Normanby's Speech--Mr Wiggins's Book, "A Cry from Ireland."

[30] One would think there were no poor-houses.

[31] Scotland has been more favoured in this respect. Ample details on the point mentioned, and on every other relating to its physical, moral, and economical state, may be found in the New Statistical Account--a work which places the country under great obligations to the clergy of the Established Church, who have furnished the accounts of their parishes, and which display, in general, a range of intelligence in the highest degree creditable to their order.

[32] Taken from the last census. Average rent of land per acre[32] in each county of Ireland.

_Ulster._
Antrim L0 16 0
Armagh 0 11 8
Cavan 0 13 7-1/2
Donegal 0 6 0
Down 0 16 0
Fermanagh 0 13 7
Londonderry 0 12 2-1/2
Monaghan 0 13 3-1/2
Tyrone 0 14 6

_Leinster._
Carlow L0 15 0
Dublin 0 18 0
Kildare 0 13 0
Kilkenny 0 17 0
King's County 0 12 0
Longford 0 12 3
Louth 0 16 0
Meath 0 18 0
Queen's County 0 14 0
Westmeath 0 13 7
Wexford 0 14 0
Wicklow 0 12 0

_Munster._
Clare L0 11 0
Cork 0 13 7
Kerry 0 6 1
Limerick 0 18 8
Tipperary 0 17 8-1/2
Waterford 0 12 0

_Connaught._
Galway L0 12 1
Leitrim 0 10 7-1/2
Mayo 0 8 6
Roscommon 0 13 0
Sligo 0 10 8

[33] The plantation acre, containing more than 1:3:0 statute.

[34] In a letter, signed "an Irishman," published by the _Times_, the writer adduces as a proof of the _extortion_ of Irish landlords, that he has known a tenant in the north, whose lease was about to expire, receive L270 for his interest in fourteen acres of land.

[35] We read in the _Times_ a few days since, that the men employed in opening the navigation of the Shannon at Rooskey had struck for an advance in wages--they had 1s. a-day, and demanded 2s. Those who were willing to continue were forced by armed men to abandon their work, and threatening notices were served on the contractors; yet in this very neighbourhood it is stated in the poor-law report that able-bodied men were willing to work for 6d. a-day, but could not procure employment. It is always thus:--when there is no employment, it is an excuse for their idleness, when there is, they won't work but at the most extravagant wages. To show that 1s. a-day was fair wages, we shall give an account of the quantity of provisions which can be purchased at Rooskey for one shilling.

14 lbs. of potatoes, 0 1-1/2
2 do. oatmeal, 0 2
2 do. bacon, 0 7-1/2
3 quarts of milk, 0 1
-------
Total, 1 0

[36] _Irish Landlords, Rents, and Tenures, &c._ Published by Murray, Albemarle Street.

[37] Doctor M'Hale declared publicly, that, if it so pleased him, he would place two _cow-boys_ in the representation of Mayo.

[38] At the trial of the men for the murder of Mr Brian the other day, at the Wexford assizes, the people cheered so loudly when the witnesses hesitated or doubted, that a woman, the principal evidence, declared "she would tell nothing more." The judge was obliged to order the court-house to be cleared, and the accused were acquitted.

[39] A landlord requires no such warrant--he can distrain without any authority.

[40] In case of replevin, the valuation of the stock or crop seized is left to the _tenant himself_, so that sometimes he may value stock worth 50s. at only 20s., and they _must_ be restored to him, on giving security for what he sets them down as worth. The landlord cannot interfere.

[41] The law never allows the landlord _more_ than the wages paid in the neighbourhood, in case he is obliged to employ men to save the crop.

[42] A man committed can only be discharged on bail, or by the bills being ignored by the grand jury.

* * * * *

_London, March 15th, 1844_]

_Edinburgh: Printed by Ballantyne and Hughes, Paul's Work._