h characterises Irishmen when
back-sliding into unimaginable cruelties. Should a boycotted man enter
chapel, the whole congregation rose as with one accord and left him
alone in the building. Considering the sensitive and pious disposition
of the average Irishman, such ostracism was even more poignant than it
would be to an Englishman.

Only two families in Kerry, possibly in Munster, at Christmas 1885, had
the courage to resist the National League police, commonly called
moonlighters. These two were the Curtins and the Doyles. The Curtins had
to be under constant police protection, were insulted wherever they
went, and their murdered father was openly called 'the murderer.' As for
the Doyles, the Board of Guardians was urged to harass his unfortunate
children, who were both deaf and dumb.

The same Board of Guardians was most lavish in its relief to any man
evicted for declining to pay his rent. In one case they gave a man
fifteen shillings a week--or treble the ordinary out-of-door relief--for
over six years.

Sir James Stephen, a man of acute discriminations, who has done more
justice to the Irish problem than any one else, wrote:--

'The great difficulty the Land League and the National League have had
to contend with is that of hindering the neighbouring farmers, peasants,
and labourers from frustrating the strike against rent by taking up
vacant farms, however they came to be vacant. Boycotting never succeeded
unless crime was at its back. The Crimes Act cut the ground from under
the feet of the boycotters, not so much by its direct prohibitions of
the practice as by making it unsafe to commit outrages in enforcing the
law of the League. The Land League and the National League were nothing
else but screens for secret societies whose work was to enforce the
League decrees by outrage and murder.'

Whenever the 'History of Modern Ireland' comes to be written, that
glowing outburst of truth ought to be quoted.

There were some evictions carried out at Farranfore on the estate of
Lord Kenmare, by the sub-sheriff, Mr. Harnett, and a force of military
and police numbering about one hundred and thirty.

During the eviction of one Daly, horns were blown and the chapel bell
set ringing. These appeals drew about three thousand people to the
place, who groaned and threw some stones, besides growing so menacing
that the Riot Act had to be read, upon which the whole crowd moved off.

This brought a characteristic effus