The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1881-12-08
Nasby In Exile.
IAN extract from Nasby's letter in the Toledo
Blade.1

OOEht DCPts ' NOSNs
To write of Ireland and Irish affairs
is simply TO put upon record grinding
oppression on the one hand, and pas
sive submission, with occasional
flashes Of resistance, on the other. 1t
is history in each case of one family
receiving land from king which the
king never owned, and leasing it to
the real owners, fora, moderate rent
to begin with, and increasing the rent
mercilessly as The disposessed 'owi1er,
now tenant, made it valuable by the
labor of his own hands.
A SAMPLE BRICK. -
To know something of what land
lordism really is, and how it all came
about, read the following little history
of the Barony of Farney:
In 1905 Lord Essex, who had lob
tained" grant of the Barony of Far
ney, leased it to Evar Mcmahon at q
yearly rent of g25O. And this was
doubtless mighty comfortable rent,
for understand, under crotOn grants
the grantee was only charged for
arabic land, the bog and mountain
land adjacent, then esteemed WORTH
less, being thrown in.
Mcmahon sublet it to poorer men,
and they so improved it that fourteen
years later the same land was let for
e1 500, and in 1886 thirty-eight ten
ants were compelled to pay rental of
E2,O23.
Under the strong hands of the orig
inal owners, the robbed peasantry,
who found themselves tenants on
their own lands, this piece of property
was mounting up in value very rap
idly.
The Earl of Essex died in 1886, A.
d. His" estate went to his sisters.
There is in English families always
somebody to inherit, and in case there
should not be the Crown steps in and
takes it, that the proceeds of the rob-
berry may not go out of the race. The
two sisters married and had children,
of course, and in 1890, when the two
came together to divide their plunder,
it was found that the rentals had risen
to s2,626. Then the rentals began to
be put up SO as to produce something
like.
The two daughters had children to
be educated and provided for, marriages
were getting to be common in the
family, and the debts of the young
sters had to be paid. And so in 1858
this estate, which started so modestly
at 9250, yielded $4,000.
How? Easily enough. The land
in this stolen estate, as said, was
nine-tenths of it, bog and stone, and
only the arabic land, some $500 acres,
was set down in the lease, all the bog
and mountains adjacent, for miles
around, being thrown in. BY judi
ciously evicting the tenants from the
arabic land and converting it into
cattle and sheep walks, and compell-
ing the tenants to go upon the bog
and stone land, which they were COM
PEELED to reclaim and drain, the origi-
nal 2, 500 acres of arabic land silently
grew into "a 900 acres, and 81 families
had multiplied to population of 49,
800!
Can there be any way of making a
great estate SO delightful as this? 1t is
a pleasant thing to have a Govern.
ment steal land and give it to you
and then protect you with bayonets
while you are compelling the original
owners to improve it for you.
Bear in mind this fact. The plum.
derers never put penny upon this
land. They never dug a ditch, dug
out stone or cut a square foot of bog
The cabins the tenantry lived in they
built themselves, and every improve.
ment, great and small, they made
themselves.
And this process of swindling, rob
bing, confisication, spoliation and plum
der went on until this estate which
commenced at g250, 1906, now yields
the enormous revenue of &60,O00, OIL
$500, 900 per annum!
| Which is to say the laborers on this
estate have been yearly robbed of theil
labor, and starved and frozen, that
one family in England may live in
wasteful luxury. This is all there is
of it.
ANOTHER INSTANCE OF ROBBERY.
| About the same time that Essex gol
his grant of AZ 900 acres exclusive ot
bog and waste) from the plunder OF
the Earl of Desmond's estates. There
lived in London at the time a youne
lawyer named Boyle, who was prob
ably the worst man then living. He
had been horse thief, forger, and
murder had been charged to him
Raleigh was in prison and wanted
money, and Boyle offered him 91, 500
for his grant, which Raleigh accepted
Boyle paid him G5Oo on account, and
promptly swindled him out of the
balance.
Boyle being serviceable to the Court
(such men always arej was created
Earl of Cork, and got from James
patents for his plunder. Then he pro
ceeded to marry his children into no
BILE English families, the Duke o.
Devonhire being one of his descend