up to the mast-head."
Naturally the guardians of the minor are unwilling that the estate
should be sold up, all possibility of improvement and recovery
sacrificed, and themselves erased from the list of the county gentry.
Landlords have as much objection to eviction and compulsory emigration
as tenants, and are as much inclined to cling to their land, hoping
for better things. Thus arises a state of affairs against which the
peasant at last shows signs of revolt. Physically and mentally
neglected for centuries by his masters, he has found within the last
fifty years neglect exchanged for extortion and oppression. To prevent
the sale of the property, the owners or trustees must pay the interest
on the encumbrances. Moreover, they, being only human, think
themselves entitled to a modest subsistence out of the proceeds of the
property. To pay the interest and secure this "margin" for themselves
there are only two ways--to wring the last shilling out of the
wretched tenants, to first deprive them of their ancient privileges,
and then charge them extra dues for exercising them, or to let every
available inch of mountain pasture to a cattle-farmer, whose herds
take very good care that the cottier's cow does not get "the run of
the mountain" at their master's expense.

This "run of the mountain" appears to have been the old Irish analogue
of the various kinds of rights of common in England, which have for
the most part been lost to the poorer folk, not always without a
struggle with the neighbouring landlord or lord of the manor. I hear
from almost every place a complaint that within thirty or forty years
the "run of the mountain" has been taken from the people and let to
graziers. On the legal merits of the case I cannot at this moment
pretend to decide, but inasmuch as this addition to an ordinary
holding survives on some estates, there appears strong ground for
believing that the practice was general. Where the cattle-run remains
it is mapped out as a "reserve" for a certain townland, and is greatly
prized by the peasants. It may therefore be imagined that those from
whom it has been taken by the strong hand are bitterly resentful, and
even where the change was made so long as twenty-five or thirty years
ago nourish a deeply-rooted sense of wrong. It is absurd to suppose
that when the act of spoliation took place village Hampdens could
spring up on every hill-side in Connemara. Owing to the neglect of
those who were respon