, 1881-01-01
CASTE FIDELITY IN IRELAND.
From the Spectat0r.) L

kOluE on Oh tue EnOf@ Ot AOuSu @1b@N
which deserves more attention than it hss
received, and that is the strange. conference
of the population, their unswerving fidelity
to one another. Within o certain sEea,
the whole people OF all classes below the
middle, OF all occupations, fsrmersJfsbepi
Keepers. labourers, l~oaters, and Of, both
sexes, are united in determination to ex-
communicate Captain Boycott. The
farmers threaten him, the shopkeepers will
not take profit from him, the lsbourers
decline his wages, the loafers watch him
necessarily and evjlly, the women aud girls
curse him, his labourers, and his police
men, as they pass. The whole people 10
bound together in the effort to cosrce him,
till q carman ordered to drive to his house
refuses heavy pay, and at last, driven to
his wits end, asks his would.bs employer,
a stranger, understood to be friendly to the
people, whether he "wants to set the
whole country side agin' a poor carman."
Now, unanimity OF that sort complete una.
nimlty in a design which 10 not legal, end
not in harmony~with the temperament Of
the people, who are naturally kindly-is
excessively dificuls to produce, and one
would say, was specially difficult amopg
Irishmen.A They are much divided in
2 Observation-Disclosures, for instance, not
loving Land Leaguers-much inclined TO-
resist dictatiop, very eager for small
gains, and individually very brave. It 10
easy to say they are terrorised ; but sup.
posing Major SIR in Mayo again, and
threatening death or torture to anybody
who communicated with Captain Boycott,
every third boy in the barony would risk
bis life, but he would, somehow or other
find bis way to Boycott Farm. An Army
could not starve the owner out unless they
surrounded his house with an impossible
Gordon of %sentries !; and even then, those
s~entries would be eluded, or cajoled, or
made drunk, or killed, or made powerless
in some way. What enables the people,
when they choose, so to combine that no
body can be tempted or coerced into
breaking their unwritten decree, not even
those who, like the herdsmen, risk starva-
ton in consequence of it7 Clearly, it lie
not only terror, but opinion in some torm,.
acting with a pressure which no individu.
al or minor group of individuals TO- compe-
tent to resist.
ADlSS uUWeFot' Il" OhlJ puouiuS sHU QucS'
ton one step back. What makes popular
opinion 50 irresistible in ireland, where
every other form of influence acts so
uncertainty, and with such an impression
of hesitation /? Erglishmen would not
yield to it in that way, or Frenohmen'
or even Italians outside the Neapolitan
provinces. There would be differences
aud resistances, and outbursts of individu-
alism, and even small treacheries, which
would in a very short time sap the uuani-
nifty. This man would be aggrisved by
the dictation, that man would be greedy
for money, and the other man would be as
perverse as a mule, till somebody or other
would communicate with the agent under
ban, Just as somebody or other, in defiance
of law, always does communicate with the
interior of English prisons. The men who
watch would be bribed, or animals taught
to run to the house with food, or a system
of secret signalling set up, as has been
done a hundred ltimes for the benefit of
prisoners watched and hated, e.g., during
the Reign of Terror by the immense
majority of the population. We believe
that the explanation is to be sought not
In the strength, but in the weakness OF the
Irish character,-in the existence ia it Of
certain servile qualities, gradually strength.
ened by centuries Of oppression, till they
have become instincts. One Of these qusli-