, that
improvements have never been made by the landlord upon Irish estates.

My companion had meant to put me down at the railway station of
Attanagh, there to catch a good train to Kilkenny.

But we had a capital nag, and reached Attanagh so early that we
determined to drive on to Ballyragget.

From Attanagh to Ballyragget the road ran along a plateau which
commanded the most beautiful views of the valley of the Nore and of the
finely wooded country beyond. Ballyragget itself is a brisk little
market town, the American influence showing itself here, as in so many
other places, in such trifles as the signs on the shops which describe
them as "stores." My salmon-fishing companion put me down at the station
and went off to the river, which flows through the town, and is here a
swift and not inconsiderable stream.

An hour in the train took me to Kilkenny, where I met by appointment
several persons whom I had been unable to see during my previous visit
in March.

These gentlemen, experienced agents, gave me a good deal of information
as to the effect of the present state of things upon the "_moral_" of
the tenantry in different parts of Ireland. On one estate, for example,
in the county of Longford, a tenant has been doing battle for the cause
of Ireland in the following extraordinary fashion.

He held certain lands at a rental of L23, 4s. Being, to use the
picturesque language of the agent, a "little good for tenant," he fell
into arrears, and on the 1st of May 1885 owed nearly three years' rent,
or L63, 12s., in addition to a sum of L150 which he had borrowed of his
amiable landlord three or four years before to enable him to work his
farm. Of this total sum of L213, 12s. he positively refused to pay one
penny. Proceedings were accordingly taken against him, and he was
evicted. By this eviction his title to the tenancy was broken. The
landlord nevertheless, for the sake of peace and quiet, offered to allow
him to sell, to a man who wished to take the place, any interest he
might have had in the holding, and to forgive both the arrears of the
rent and the L150 which had been borrowed by him. The ex-tenant flatly
refused to accept this offer, became a weekly pensioner upon the
National League, and declared war. The landlord was forced to get a
caretaker for the place from the Property Defence Association at a cost
of L1 per week, to provide a house for a police protection party, and to
defray the expenses of that p