The Valley Virginian. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1865-1895, 1881-12-08
sorrowful Condition of the Irish Poor

Sorrowful Condition of the Irish Poor
ssNasby" in the Toledo Blade.
left Cork day before yesterday for the vi
iage OF Bantry, in county Cork, seme fort
miles distant, owned and controlled by m
Lord Bantry, who is, or at least ought to be
one of the richest men in Ireland
| Leaving the main street, which is, like al
the streets of Irish villages, made up of small
stores, or shops as they are there called, you
walk up rather steep hill, through crooked
street, and you find yourself in the midst o
the regulation Irish cabns-miserable struc
lures of stone piled one upon the other, no
even daubed with plaster with no windows al
a rule, though the more pretentious ones hav'
a single pane of glass in the wall somewhere
However, as that pane is almost invariably
broken. its principal use is the extra ventila
ton it affords
The cabin is of the same size as those OIL
farms, say from ten to twelve feet wide by fif
teen or sixteen in length. In the country
however, they do have the space above to the
matched roof; but the land is more valuable
In the villages, and my lord Bantry's ex
penses in London and Paris are enormous He
must get more money out of the villagers, and
he makes two stories out of the wretched how
ell, and by crowding in two families makes
double rent The first floor is not above five
feet six inches in height, and the upper is a
good foot shorter. In neither floor can an or
binary man stand upright.
We went up the miserable stairs in one of
them, and gained the still more miserable den
above. 1t was more like coffin than room.
and the idea of coffin was brought iorcibly
to the mind as you glanced at the wretched
occupants. On miserable bed of dried leaves
covered with potato sacks, on the one side, was
the emaciated form of man dying OF starva-
ton and consumption. He had about forty
eight hours of life in him. Upon my word, |
felt happy to see he was so near death. For,
having an excellent reputation, having always
been good man, he was certain to go, after
death, where there would not be the slightest
possible chance of meetin G my lord Bantry.
In the other corner was fiat stone, upon
which consumptive fire of peat was burn
ing, the smoke filling the room. Huddled
around this fire were five children, under the
watchful eye OF a very comely women. The
children were barefooted and stockingless, and
clad in the most deplorable rags, while the
neither, also barefooted, wass clothed in the
regular cotton slip, without a particle of I'M
aerclothing of any kind or description And
into that garrett poor as it was, came other
women, not clothed sufficiently to be decent,
TO boil their potatoes at the wretched fire.
They haye a practice of exchanging fires in
this way, that none shall be wasted"
What do you pay for this apartment 2"
''Tenpence a week, sor ~
care you in arrears for rent ~
Eyes, sor. He pointing to her husband) has
been sick, sor, for months, sor, and could not
work.
what willy do if he dies %
eve shall be put out, sor."
There was no burst of anguish, with no
special tone OF anger or nantes tatlon of emo
ion. To be put OUT is the common lot Of
;he Irish iabsrer and the Irish wife, and they
expect it.
AnG within mile of that wretched spot, OF
that dying man and starving children, my
ord Bantry has the most beautiful castle, with
luxurious furniture, and filled with pampered
1unkeys, his stables crowded. with the most
wonderful horses, and his table groaning I'M
Ter the weight of the luxurles of every C lime
Surely not for tenpence week will he tear
his woman from the side Of her dead husband
md throw her with her helpless children out
into the cold and wet street.
Yes, but he will though
For this family is but one of many thousand
IN the land which a bad king stole from the
people who owned it, Were this the only
case, he might recent, but should he do it in
his this case he would have to do it for 9TH
FRS, and tenpence week from thousands ag-
yregates very large sum and my lords
expenses are very high for it costs
money to run castle and there is his house
in London, his house in Paris, and his house
n Rome, and his house the Lord knows
where and then his yacht is rather expen
,ive, as his officers and men must be paid to
say nothing of the larder and wines necessary
10 entertain his friends and then there is the
errible' expense of entertaining his friends
rom London during the shooting season, and
losses at play, and all that.
Clearly the widow F Flanagan must either pay
her rent or be pitched out into the street to
make room for some other widow who can
pay, for while at least; and when she can't
pay there are others who can.
1t Is needless to add that there is in Bantry
bay splendid English gunboat, armed, as in
times of war, with FURNISHED guns, with bombs
of all sorts of explosive power, and ritied
guns which would knock poor Bantry INTO a
cooked hat in ten minutes, with fine looking
armed to the teeth, which, with the
military on shore, would make it very warm
for the widow Flanagan and her friends
should they presume to interfere with my
lords land agent and bailiffs and the soldiers
behind them. The widow has nothing to do
but to bow her head and submit and pray
hat some relief may come to her from some
where But where is it to come from? Not
from my lord, for, as l said, he has his private
expenses to meet not from his agent, for he
was selected for his especial fondness for pitch
ing women and children into the street not
from England, for England looks upon every
country it has anything to do with as either to
be plundered or traded with not from the
about them, for they in the same
boat with the widow
What became of her finally | don't know.
| am altogether too soft-hearted to stay any
length of time where such things are to be
seen every half hour.
If | ever leaned toward the doctrines taught
by the Universalists, contemplation OF the
system of Bantryism has entirely convinced
me that they are erroneous. If there is not a
lake of fire and birthstone, a very wide, and
very deep, and very hot one, there ought to
be, and when the British House of Lords meet
there there will always be a quorum. And
my lord will lift up his eyes to the widow
Flanagan ana beg for drop Of water to cool
his parched tongue. But he won't get it. He
doesn't deserve it.
THE C. s. 0. & SOUTH WESTERN R. RIO
day the G. & 0. will run its trains into Gin
cinnati and Louisville cia Lexington, KY, and