he fact stated to me, that in no case so far have any of them been
deterred and driven off from the holdings confided to them. A great part
of the Luggacurren property of Lord Lansdowne is now worked by the
Corporation; and Mr. Kavanagh was kind enough to let me see the
accounts, which indicate a good business result for the current year on
that property. This is all very interesting. But what a picture it
presents of social demoralisation! And what is to be the end of it all?
Can a country be called civilised in which a farmer with a family to
maintain, having the capital and the experience necessary to manage
successfully a small farm, is absolutely forbidden, on pain of social
ostracism, and eventually on pain of death, by a conspiracy of his
neighbours, to take that farm of its lawful owner at what he considers
to be a fair rent? And how long can any civilisation of our complex
modern type endure in a country in which such a state of things
tolerated by the alleged Government of that country has to be met, and
more or less partially mitigated, by deviating to the cultivation of
farms rendered in this way derelict large amounts of capital which might
be, and ought to be, far more profitably employed in other ways?

Mr. Kavanagh, after serving the office of High Sheriff thirty years ago,
first for Kilkenny, and then for Carlow, sat in Parliament for fourteen
years, from 1866 to 1880, as an Irish county member. He has a very large
property here in Carlow, and property also in Wexford, and in Kilkenny,
and was sworn into the Privy Council two years ago. If the personal
interests and the family traditions of any man alive can be said to be
rooted in the Irish soil, this is certainly true of his interests and
his traditions. How can the peace and prosperity of Ireland be served by
a state of things which condemns an Irishman of such ties and such
training to expend his energies and his ability in defending the
elementary right of Paddy O'Rourke to take stock and work a ten-acre
farm on terms that suit himself and his landlord?

In the afternoon we took a delightful walk through the woods, Mr.
Kavanagh going with us on horseback. Every hill and clump of trees on
this large domain he knows, and he led us like a master of woodcraft
through all manner of leafy byways to the finest points of view. The
Barrow flows past Borris, making pictures at every turn, and the banks
on both sides are densely and beautifully wooded. We cam