certificate of
deposit for a hundred pounds sterling! This tenant held eleven Irish, or
more than seventeen English, acres, and his yearly rent was L11, 16s.
6d.

The people before this agitation began were generally quiet, thrifty,
and industrious. They were great sheep-raisers. An old law of the Irish
Parliament had exempted sheep, but not cattle or crops, from distraint,
with an eye to encouraging the woollen interest in Ireland.

As to the sale of tenant-right in Ireland, he told me a curious story.
One woman, a widow, whom he named, owed two year' rent on a holding in
Ulster at L4 a year. She was abundantly able to pay, but for her own
reasons preferred to be evicted, and, finally, by an understanding with
him, offered her tenant-right for sale. A man who had made money in
iron-mines in the County of Durham was a bidder, and finally offered
L240 for the holding. It was knocked down to him. He then saw the agent,
who told him he had paid too much. The woman was then appealed to, and
she admitted that the agent was right. But it was shown that others had
offered L200, and the woman finally agreed to take, and received, that
amount in gold, being fifty years' purchase!

CHAPTER X.

DUBLIN, _Thursday, March 1._--This has been a crowded day. I left
Portumna very early on a car with Mr. Tener, intending to visit the
scene of his latest collision with the "National" government of Ireland,
on my way to Loughrea. It was a bright spring morning, more like April
in Italy than like March in America, and the country is full of natural
beauty. We made our first halt at the derelict house of Martin Kenny,
one of the "victims" of the famous "Woodford evictions," so called, as I
have said, because Woodford is the nearest town.[13] The eviction here
took place October 21st, 1887. The house has been dismantled by the
neighbours since that time, each man carrying off a door, or a shutter,
or whatever best suited him. One of the constables who followed us as
Mr. Tener's body-guard had been present at the eviction. He came into
the house with us, and very graphically described the performance. The
house was still full of heavy stones taken into it, partly to block the
entrances, and partly as ammunition; and trunks of trees used as
_chevaux defrise_ still protruded through the door and the window. These
trees had been cut down by the garrison in the woodlands here and there
all over the property. I asked if the law in Irela