hile it extorted the money from the farmer's pocket, it also
insulted his nationality and his faith.

[Sidenote: 1832--Difficulty in collecting the tithes]

The result was that a sort of civil war was perpetually going on in
Ireland between those who strove to collect the tithes and those from
whom the tithes were to be collected. The resistance was sometimes of
the fiercest character; the farmers and their friends resisted the
forces sent by the Government to seize the cattle of those who refused
to pay, as if they were resisting an army of foreign invaders. Blood
was shed freely and lavishly in these struggles, and the shedding of
blood became so common that for a while it almost ceased to be a matter
of public scandal. Sydney Smith declared that the collection of tithes
in Ireland must have cost in all probability about one million of
lives. Police, infantry, and dragoons were kept thus in constant
occupation, and yet it could not possibly be contended that those who
claimed the tithes were very much the better for all the blood that was
shed on their behalf. For when a farmer's cattle had been seized by
the police after an obstinate fight with the farmers and their friends,
and when the cattle had been driven off under the escort of infantry
and cavalry soldiers, the clergyman who claimed the tithes was not
always any nearer to the getting of that which the law declared to be
his own. The familiar proverbial saying about the ease with which a
horse may be brought to the water and the difficulty there may be in
getting him to drink when he has been brought there was illustrated
aptly and oddly enough in the difference between seizure of the
farmer's cattle and the means of raising any money on them when they
had been seized. The captured cattle could not in themselves be of
much use to the clergyman who claimed the tithes, and they would
naturally have to be sold in order that he might get his due, and the
question arose who was to bid for them. All the farmers and the
peasantry of the country were on the one side, and on the other were
the incumbent, a few of his friends, and the military and police. It
was certain that the soldiers and the policemen would not bid for the
cattle, and probably {209} could not pay for them, and the population
of the district would have made the place very uncomfortable for any of
the clergymen's friends who showed an anxiety to buy up the impounded
beasts. In some cases whe