New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1880-07-19

4
| rate Of 1000 a day. Already the advance guard
| are sending over their wages to their destitute
| families. 1t Is noteworthy fact that the " rail-
| way servants" and the shippers Temark-in
| language not sanctioned by the church-that these
| croppersD seem to have changed their characters
since this agitation began, you know" These
peasants were treated like cattle every year by
the railway companies here and the agents of the
| steamboats, to England This year, instead OF
touching their hats TO every liveried railway guard
or porter they instantly resent nsolent language,
! and are ever ready with a knOck-down blow
when any attempt is made to "hustle them round"
| They refuse to 90 into cattlecars and they stand
up for their rights every way. Until within
year has been the custom in the West Of Ireland
| for the peasant to touch his cap to every social
SUPERIOR and to stand uncovered in the street IL he
spoke to a landlord or magistrate. The agitators
have advised them to refuse to touch their hats or
talk with uncovered heads to any man, and these
first lessons in republicaaism have been very
generally put into practice
The potato crop promises an excellent harvest.
In the East of Ireland the early potatoes are ripe,
but this fact does not lessen the destitution in the
West. In the South and Southwest of Ireland. IN
the limestone region the early potatoes are neatly
quite ripe; but IN Galway, Sligo, Mayo and Dom
egai they will not be ready for digging until the
ern coast counties that will need assistance for the
next five or six weeks.
TIE FAMINE FEVER AND IT'S Causes
The dreadful famine fever" has broken out in
the County Mayo and in isolated instances else
where in the West. The doctors disagree" as
usual to its name, for, while say that it Is
the real famine fever" others insist that it is
only typhus fever.' But they all agree that by
whatever namei should be called it has been brought
on by inadequate dist-that is to say, by semi
starvation-I shah not waste my inadequate space
to discuss this novel scientific presentation of the
ancient problem of tweedledum and tweededee.
The present chief habitat of the famine is Charles
town and Swinford, in the County Mayo. Ameri-
cans will ask why semi-starvation should have ex-
listed long as there funds in the hands of tho
relief committees to feed the hungry. 1t was not
the fault of the committees. Ten famines-or
eleveu-have devastated the West Of Ireland dur
ing the present century or the Irish reformers
prefer to express it, " since the union with Eng
land" While the English people have voluntarily
contributed for the mitigation Of these famines, the
English Government has always looked on with
Mooch-liko indifference to the sufferngs OF
the peasantry. In the presence of an Irish
riot the British Government is a raging
| lion, in the presence Of IRISH
famine it is a rheumatic snail The CHASTITY expert
ence Of 1847 warned the Irish committees that they
must anticipate three possible dangers-that the
English Government would do nothing at all that
the charitable funds would be inadequate; and that
the peasantry would be fed up to June only to per-
ish miserably In July and the first two weeks of
August. So, they were economical in their dis
bursements to the verge of stinginess. But they
were wise in their action. If Gladstone had been
| defeated the horrors of 1S47 would have been
peated on smaller scae for there Is nothing surer
| in English politics than that Disraeli. who sneer-
| ngly said in 1S47 that there were worse things
| than an Irish famine, would have done nothing to
! prevent one In 1880. Now the amounts dishursed
to the local committees although large in the aggre
| gate did not enable them to give more,
an average than two stones (2S ft) of Indian meal
week. not to each family in real Distress but to
AS many families in acute distress they could re-
leve. Twenty eight pounds of meal had to support
family Of from five to ten persons. These fami-
| lies had no milk, eggs, no potatoes no bread no
| accommodating that they could eat with their
Indian meal. 1t was Winter and they could not
! even do as some OF the poor wretched creatures
have done since Spring-gather nettles and boil
them with the meal. They either had not meal
enough to make it into bread or they don't know
| how to cook it--so they made it into a thin I'M
savory stirabout not solid and strengthening. like
| Scotch porridge, but watery and unsubstantial as
| poorhouse Cruel. Barefooted, without underclOth-
| ing without Notwithstanding in cabins that the
| rain often entered and the wind swept through
cabins with the cold and slippery earth for a
| foor-is it any wonder that their strong
constitutions soon broke down under diet of
| gruelf The dreaded disease that DESTROYED more
| men in both American armies than bullets and
| prapeshot soon appeared in these cabins, and now
the fever is spreading rapidly, for there is not vital
| \ "a IL rNf fhA nnff
sist its attacks. But shall write you on this new
| disaster in my next letter.
To-day we have news from the Counties Clare
Mayo and Sligo that the potato blight has appeared
| there. Nobody can tell yet whether 1t is local or
whether this is the first shadow of a coming calanl-
| ity 1t all depends the weather. If the rains
| that we have had here in Dublin continue and
spread the greater part Of the coming crop will be
a total failure. But no such apprehension is gener-
! ally entertained
| EvICIoNs GOING on.
The landlords are vigorously at work all over the
West in serving processes of ejectment and evIct-
| ing families. This last the third
of bad crops in the West of Ireland. The contrbu-
tons of the landlords to the relief Of Irish distress
in these years is tabuated in the official returns
lust published. They show that in 1877 there were
| 400 evctous; in 1873 there were S34 evictions I;
in 1879 there were 1,069 evictions Only six
months Of this year have passed, and yet the land
| lords have already evicted 1,696 famne-stricken
| families lin the province of Ulster $50; in Nun
ster. 495; in Leinster, IL; IN Connaught, 232 IT
is worthy of note that evctons have been most nu-
merous where no public opinion has been created
against the landlords, that wherever the Land
League is strong the landlords have been afraid to
turn starving families into the roadside This fact
will be quickly notced throughout Ireland. and the
result will be that the tenantry Of Ireand-that is
four-fifths of her people-wil be consolidated
and direct ted by the leaders of the ant-landlord
| movement. JAMES REpPATH.