re than twenty English
acres. This he held at a yearly rental of L8, 15s., being 9d. over the
valuation.

In August 1886 he was evicted for refusing to pay one year's rent then
due. At that time the crops standing on the land were valued by him at
L60, 13s. He also owned six beasts. In other words, this man, when he
was called upon to pay a debt of L8, 15s. had in his own possession,
beside the valuable tenant-right of his holding, more than a hundred
pounds sterling of merchantable assets. He refused to pay, and he was
evicted.

This was in August 1886. But such are the ideas now current in Ireland
as to the relations of landlord and tenant, that immediately after his
eviction Egan sent his daughter to gather some cabbages off the farm as
if nothing had happened. The Emergency men in charge actually objected,
and sent the damsel away. Thereupon Egan, on the 6th of September,
served a legal notice on Mrs. Lewis, his landlady, requiring her either
to let him take all the crops on the farm, or to pay him their value,
estimated by him, as I have said, at L60, 13s. Two days after this, on
the 8th of September, more than a hundred men came to the place by night
and removed the greater portion of the crops. Not wishing a return of
these visitors, Mrs. Lewis, on the 16th of September, sent word to Egan
to come and take away what was left of the crops; one of the horses
employed in the nocturnal harvest of September 8th having been seized by
the police and identified as belonging to Egan. Egan did not respond;
but in July 1887 he brought an action against his landlady to recover
L100 sterling for her "detention of his goods," and her "conversion of
the same to her own use "!

The case was heard by the Recorder at Kilmainham, and the facts which I
have briefly recited were established by the evidence. The daughter of
this extraordinary "victim" Egan appeared as a witness, so "fashionably
dressed" as to attract a remark on the subject from the defendant's
counsel. To this she replied that "her brothers in America sent her
money."

"If your brothers in America sent you money for such purposes," not
unnaturally observed the Recorder, "why did they allow your father to
sacrifice crops worth L60 for the non-payment of L8, 15s.?"

"They were tired of that," said the young lady airily; "the land wasn't
worth the rent!"

That is to say, a farm which yielded a crop of L60, and pastured several
head of cattle, was not worth L8, 15