embers of which profited by their
amenities--I, of course, mean solicitors--because some one put a
question to me on the subject only the other day.

My answer is, that none of the solicitors were in the Land League, and
they did not instigate outrages; but they drew comfortable fees for
defending the perpetrators.

Swindlers and murderers never agree, for they practise distinct
professions.

We were fighting a Land War, and though I have kept back land questions
as much as I can, in order not to weary the reader with what never
wearies me, I have one or two examples to give which cannot be omitted
if I am to portray the true facts.

My firm was agent for an estate in Castleisland, the rent of which, in
1841, was L2300. I exhibited the rental, showing only three quarters in
arrear. By 1886 it was cut down by the Commissioners to L 1800, and the
landlord sold it for L30,000, for which the tenants used to pay four per
cent, for forty-nine years, to cover principal and interest.

There was a tenant on that estate named Dennis Coffey. He took a farm at
L105 a year; the Commissioners reduced that rent to L80. He purchased it
for L1440--eighteen years' purchase, for which his son has L42 a year
for forty-nine years. The father had purchased a farm for fee-simple of
equal value for L3000, which he left to two others of his sons. So that
one son, by paying half what he had covenanted to pay, and which he
could pay, gets a farm equal in value to what his father paid L3000 in
hard cash for. The man who is paying rent has his farm well stocked; the
others are paupers, and one died in the poorhouse.

That may belong to to-day, and not to the period of outrage with which I
have been dealing; but it duly points the moral, and is the outcome of
those times.

At the Boyle Board of Guardians in 1887, upon a discussion over the
Kilronan threatened evictions, Mr. Stuart said:--

'There was one of these men arrested by the police. His rent was L4,
12s. 6d., and, when arrested, a deposit-receipt for L220 was found in
his pocket.'

This case had been freely cited at home and in America as a typical
instance of the ruthless tyranny of Irish landlords.

My friend and neighbour, Mr. Arthur Blennerhassett, addressed the
following letter to Mr. W.E. Gladstone, then Prime Minister:--

'Sir--I beg respectfully to call your attention to the following
statement. In 1866, Judge Longfield conveyed to my uncle, under what was
called an ind