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grants, and the source of the Whitefeet association that prevailed in that part of the country?—I do very much consider so; there were 1126 of those poor people who were evicted, with the idle colliers going about, left idle in a part of two parishes, and all that within about six miles of each other.

"How does it happen you are able to speak with so much accuracy and confidence on the numbers?-Knowing the barony so uncommonly well, and I have gone through the collieries making the inquiry, and knowing the greater part of all the families that were evicted.

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Do you know them by name?—Yes, I have their names. Are you able to trace what has become of them in the course of the last four years?—Yes.

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State generally what has become of them. Do they continue wandering about?-I have known on one estate, which is near me, and which I had regulated for a gentleman, there has been a great many of the old people turned off that became beggars, and a good many of them died of want.

"Do you mean died from want?—A kind of distress; being turned out of their houses, and many of them became beggars and died; more of them are labouring in different parts of the country, but the old people in general died: I can state to the Committee the number that died to my own knowledge.

"When those people are ejected, is it customary for them to remain lurking about the place where they formerly resided? When they are ejected they are generally put in by the agents at 6d. per week, and left a little while until it is convenient for them to remove, generally perhaps a quarter of a year, or two months, and then they become paupers; because, according to the Subletting Act, they can get no land; at least it so happens in my neighbourhood.

"You have stated a great number of people were evicted; are all those who were evicted, except those who have died, remaining in the neighbourhood of the place where they lived? -But very few.

"What has become of the rest ?—I do suppose some of them are in Dublin; many have got off into the country and county Kildare, at service.

"The Committee are not to understand the whole, nor anything like the whole that were evicted, remained as disturbers or vagrants in the county?-I believe they do; some of them I know myself, and indeed I believe those that do remain are the most troublesome; that is my opinion."-Minutes of Evidence, House of Commons, Nos. 7256-87.

The Rev. Mr. O'Connor, parish priest of Maryborough, after stating that certain tenants in the Queen's County were ejected by their landlords because they refused to send their children to a Kildarestreet school, goes on to say:

"Those persons were all turned out of their houses; most of them went towards the colliery district, and have become leaders of the Whitefeet. When men become reckless of character and principle by intolerable misery, they disregard every moral obligation."-Ib. No. 3189.

Matthew Barrington, Esq.

"Have you in your experience of Ireland known great misery suffered by those persons who have been ejected from their properties, from having no provision made for them when they have been turned off their land?—I have, certainly. I knew one instance which led to a desperate murder on Lord Stradbrook's estate at Bilboa: the farm was out of lease, and during the lease a great number of people had been allowed to reside on it. Mr. Blood, the gentleman who was murdered in Clare last year, took possession of the farm as agent of Lord Stradbrook, dispossessed the tenants, and levelled their houses, and they were thrown out on the road; the succeeding tenant was immediately after murdered."-Ib. No. 14.

If the landlord, instead of proceeding by ejectment, adopts the milder course of distraint, the fate of the cottier-tenant is only one degree better.

George Bennett, Esq.

"Will you explain to the Committee the different effects of

proceeding by distress against a number of small farmers and against the large farmers; suppose a number of mere peasants, occupying tenements by the road side, what would be the articles against which the distress of landlord would proceed? -Against a mere cottage-tenant it would be their furniture and their pig, and, if they have one, their cow, but that they would not be likely to have.

“Then the effect of a distress upon a small farmer is infinitely more severe than it is acting upon a large farmer; does the proceeding by distress, as against the small farmers, frequently extend to the sale of the potatoes, and the actual means of support of their family?-They may distrain the potatoes.

"Are you aware whether, in point of fact, it does frequently take place in those small sub-divisions of land?—I have known many instances where they have been distrained; I cannot say that that is the general custom in the country to distrain all the food and all the property of the peasantry, it is not the general custom, but there have been instances of it.

"Then do you conceive that this increasing sub-division of land, and the effect which that produces upon the mode of recovering rent, has had any connexion with the disturbances that have lately prevailed in Ireland?—I do think that it has a very great connexion with the disturbances.

"You have described the usual modes of proceeding of landlords to recover their rent,—what are almost the necessary consequence of those proceedings, with regard to the interest of the landlord; does not the ruin of the tenant naturally follow?-Certainly; if the landlord proceeds by that severe mode of distress."-Minutes of Evidence, House of Commons, 1824, p. 86.

There is so much permanent misery in the southern and western parts of Ireland; the mass of the country population are in such a state of depression and suffering; they have so little either to hope or to fear, that they are ready at almost any time to break out

into disturbances, in order if not to repeal, at least to weaken that law which they have always been accustomed to consider as their enemy. Thus Mr. Barrington, after having stated the manner in which persons ar sworn in by the Whiteboys, is asked

"You seem inclined to think that they go through the country to swear the people as a matter of business?—I have no doubt they do.

"The parties who do this are sometimes, as was the case in Clare, not more numerous than eight or nine individuals?—If you trace back any disturbance to its origin in any of these counties, you will find that it arose from some trifling circumstance. In the county of Limerick it arose from the local cause I have mentioned on the Courtenay estate, and in Clare it was chiefly occasioned by the Caseys.

"What was it that led to it in the county of Clare?—The want of potato ground; and just previously there had been several contested elections, which brought the people much together, in addition to the extreme excitement of an election.

"Had the individuals composing these gangs been conspicuous before, as persons committing breaches of the law?No; they had rather been a quiet family: three of the brothers were executed. Soon after the disturbance was at its height they were apprehended, and each offered himself as an approver. It was not thought prudent to take either of them, but another man of the name of Sheehan was taken as an approver against them; each offered to betray all his companions. The great object should always be to have an approver in every case, as nothing destroys confidence or breaks up a gang so much.

"Your testimony goes generally to the inflammable state of the community, that they are ready prepared, and want nothing but ignition?-To a great extent it is so; and the peaceable and well-intentioned people are always compelled to join. I do not mean to give such a character to the whole population of Ireland; but I take it, that if there were twenty bad men in

a barony, they would set the whole county in a flame, unless they were checked.

"Then if there are so few that excite these disturbances, can you give us any reason why it is that they are not arrested? It is not known that they do excite them until after the disturbance is got to its height; you can generally trace back the disturbance to such a cause.”—Minutes of Evidence, House of Commons, 1832. Nos. 38-41; 45-6.

There is a saying mentioned by Fielding, that "when children are doing nothing, they are doing mischief." This remark may probably in most cases be extended to men at least, among the peasantry of Ireland, the want of employment is the cause of crime, not only by creating poverty, and making them dependent on land for their subsistence, but also by affording opportunity and leisure for the commission of outrage. Men who worked during the daytime would be little inclined to spend their nights in Whiteboy expeditions.

It might be supposed, from what has been said, that the disposition to outrage varies directly with the misery of the people; that in proportion as the inhabitants of any district are ill-fed, clothed, and housed, oppressed with heavy charges, and scantily provided with employment for hire; in the same degree disturbances and Whiteboy crimes abound. This, however, is not the case; there appears to be a certain pitch of wretchedness which breaks the spirit, and produces a dull lethargic languor; by which people are incapacitated from having recourse to the active measures required for waging the Whiteboy warfare*. The fol

* It was probably a perception of this fact which led Colonel Rochfort, a magistrate of the Queen's County, to express the following opinions :Do you think it reasonable to expect permanent tranquillity in Ire

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