ar should be
ejected at Petty Sessions, because it was a great hardship for the
tenant of such a holding to have L2, 10s. costs put upon him.

I ended with:--

'There is a case in this county in connection with which there is likely
to be very considerable disturbance. A man had a farm put up for sale
and a Nationalist bought it at a very low figure, on the understanding
that he was to keep it for the man's family; but as soon as he got it he
turned Conservative and kept it.'

BARON DOWSE--'Turned what?'

MYSELF--'Conservative.'

BARON DOWSE--'Rogue, I would say. You would not say that Conservatives
are rogues?'

Since that was a debatable point on which the Commission had no
jurisdiction to inquire, I returned no answer.

As the distress was alluded to above, I may lighten the recent
seriousness of my observations by an anecdote on the topic.

In 1880 the Duchess of Marlborough organised a fund for supplying the
people with meal. The Dublin Mansion House did the same, but their meal
was of a coarser description.

A Blasquet Islander was asked how he was getting on, and made answer:--

'Illigant, glory be to the Saints. We're eating the Duchess, and feeding
two pigs on the Mansion House.'

This recalls the story of the Englishman who inquired of a Kerry man
which measure of English legislation had proved most beneficial for
Ireland.

'The Famine (of 1879) was the best, beyond a shadow of doubt,' was the
reply, 'for I fattened and sold ninety fine turkeys on the strength of
it.'

In 1880 some Kerry men did a very good stroke of business. They sent a
cargo of potatoes from Killorglin to Scotland and brought them back as
imported Champion seed, selling them for six times the original price.

About this period Mr. Leeson-Marshall, who had been away from Kerry and
coming back found some cottages near Milltown still only half built,
observed:--

'Good God, aren't those houses finished yet?'

'Well, sor,' was the reply, 'the contract's finished but the houses
aren't.'

And it has been my life-long experience that ninety-five per cent, of
all the penalties in contracts are worthless, as the contractors
themselves are only too well aware.

Being a land agent, I wish to provide some account from another pen of
my stewardship, for which said stewardship I was falsely called 'the
most rack-renting agent in Ireland.'

Out of Mr. Finlay Dun's book, from which I have previously quoted, I
condense the