The Sun.
London, England, 1868-09-01 00:00:00

A HARD MAN.

The family of Scully has a bad name in
Tipperary. The greater number of them are
occupiers of land, only a few being owners.
Of these more than one' have earned an un-
happy notoriety for rigour in their mode of
doing what they liked with their own. As a
class, the landlords of Tipperary are not un-
popular. The old agrarian war has for some
time been suspended ; the Assize dock has of
late been almost empty, and rents have been
well-paid. The soil is proverbially prolific ;
cattle and corn have brought a good price ;
the fumes of Fenianism have passed away, at
least for a time ; and although the indomitable
spirit of the peasantry has always been ready
to flash out at market and fair on slight pro-
vocation, it has happily had little or none of
late from the gentry, who, tired of strife and
wiser grown in their generation, have, to do
them justice, been living more at home than
formerly, and trying, if possible, to live peace-
fully with all men. It is truly shocking to
find the truce between classes suddenly broken
by the wrong-headedness of one selfish man.
Most of the descendants of the soldiers of for-
tune whom Cromwell planted in the golden
plains that lie between the Barrow and the
Shannon, seemed wisely anxious to let the
weapons of landlordism rust on the walls,
provided they were not called on to surrender
them; and their tenants, when let alone, in-
stinctively fond of making money, making love,
and making fun, have recently given them
selves no active concern in the alteration of the
law regarding land. If asked from the altar
in an electioneering sermon whether they
would not vote for an advocate of tenant right,
every man of them would undoubtedly mur-
mur assent ; but on Monday morning each of
them was certain to be off at dawn to Clonmel,
Thurles, or Roscrea, to open or close a bargain
for stock; and Saturday night would be pretty
sore to find him tired with an active week's
work, in which not half-an-hour had probably
been devoted to the pondering of agrarian
anomalies, . far less plotting how to put an
end to them. Theoretically, the law remained
unchanged ; but practically, the edge ,of in-
justice had ceased to be felt, and there was
peace in the land. Suddenly an exceeding
bitter cry is heard, and once more all Tippe-
rary is astir. It is the curse of leaving a bad
law unamended that any mad man or any bad
man can take advantage of the right to put it
in force, to the detriment of his own class and
the distraction of a whole community. The
kinsman of the owner of Ballycohey was some
years ago stopped on the highway and slain
by certain of his enraged tenants whom he had
menaced with eviction ; and the story is told
that when asked about the occurrence by an
English traveller, the driver of the jaunting
car on which ho rode told him naively that " it
was a mistake ; for the people had found out
since that the man they shot was the best of
the family." We have never, that we recol-
lect, been so unhappy as to hear the name of
Mr. William Scully before, and of his character
and career we know nothing. But if it be true
that he Nought to compel towage of old

ing on his estate to accept the lease of which
a copy has been published, we can only say
with grief and indignation that, though not
justified, all is accounted for. From this
thoroughly lawless and anti-social document,
it appears not only that strict covenants were
sought to be imposed as to tillage, buildings,
wood, and game, but that the tenants were
required to enter into a compact to waive the
abatement of half the poor rate, specifically
guaranteed them by statute, thereby defeating
the public policy of the law ; and further, that
upon a notice to quit of twenty-one days
(Sundays being counted), they should surren-
der their farms, without attempting to sell or
remove any crops that might be unharvested
thereon. The like of this, we venture to say,
has never been heard of in any country bearing
the name of " civilized "or " free' It were
a farce to dwell upon its inhumanity, It is far
more to the purpose to brand, as it deserves,
its thorough barbarism. Could a people be
bullied into such a state of serfhood as bargains
of this kind contemplate the possibility of agri-
cultural progress or improvement must die;
for progress or improvement in this age of the
world are only possible by civilized and self-
respecting men. The planters of Carolina and
Georgia were not all bad-hearted men ; and
some of them were humane and gentle masters;
but the law which authorised them absolutely
to think and act for the cultivators cf the soil,
and which forbade the latter to assume the right
of thinking or acting for themselves, ate the
marrow out of the bones of agricultural indus-
try, and substituted nothing therefor but the
overseer's whip. The law in Ireland is inter-
preted by planters of the Scully type to autho-
rise a different sort of subjugation, through
the agency of an armed police. But the results
as regards physical and moral civilisation would
be the same. A three-weekly tenure of land
is palpably incompatible alike with the exist-
ence of tenant security and of decent culti-
vation. It has often been contended that no
shorter tenancy than one for a year, should in
any case be recognised by law, for merely agri-
cultural reasons ; and men of all parties who
have studied the social and political difficulties
of Ireland, concur in the desirableness of en-
couraging long leases and fee-farms, could sub-
letting be only prevented. But here is a man
who seeks to avail himself of the terror of eject-
ment, on the expiry of an old lease, where-
with the law invests him, to reduce his tenants
to a condition incomparably worse than that
of Russian serfs before emancipation: for these
were adseripti glebee, and by virtue of their
bondage they had a right to be supported
out of the produce of the land, from which,
without their own consent, they could not be
removed. The law of landlordism in Ireland
sanctions the claim of the proprietor to use up
the intelligence and industry of the occupier,
and then at three weeks' notice to send him
and his wife and his little ones into the ditch
or the emigrant ship, if he does not prefer the
risk of a felon's cell. It will not do to palter
or quibble over the bleeding corpses of the
innocent men done to death in resisting this
iniquity, about the case being exceptional, and
the general practice being different. Mr.
William Scully has made plain to every tenant
farmer in Ireland that he can never again lie
down in peace or safety, until a fundamental
change is made in the laws regarding land
He has chucked the.linch-pin out of the wheel
of public order ; and, for the present, the hope
of agrarian tranquility, with all that is pre-
cious dependent thereon, has broken down.—
Examiner.