The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1881-12-08

AZ NSHo vie -fHIIl10e sbfuSh AiOi"nus
Now, q loss of crop in any other
country of the world Is not so serious
a matter, for there is always the accu-
mutations of previous prosperous years
to fall back upon. Tits simply an in
convenience, and that is all.
But in Ireland it is quite another
thing, for there are no accumulations.
The landlord keeps the. tenant down
to his two mesis of potatoes per day,
and when the, crop failsit is simply
starvation or living upon charity.
And the charity Ireland has to depend
upon from England, where the pro-
ceeds of the labor of the country goes,
may be judged from the fact that Vic
toria, Queen and Empress of more
force and fraud than any royal nuis-
ance who ever wore a crown, sub
scribed to the last Irish famine fund,
exactly e10O! or in American money
$481! Just think of that! $481 for
100000 starving people! A Queen
with enormous estates, with a revenue
a thousand times more than she could
possibly spend were she not the most
penurious of women, with an estate
and an enormous appropriation for
every child she. bore, which gave her
a premium for breeding. BY the way,
with true English thrift, she made
the most of her Opportunities in this
direction. ,, {..
America has given more to Ireland
in her famine seasons than all Eng
land, and manya merchant in this
country has sent ten times the amount
to the starving Irish than has the
Queen who assists in robbing them,
and shares in the plunder.
From the first ofJanuary to the mid
die of April, 1S47, the number of deaths
in the Cork work-house was 2,l30-
all from starvation, and Cork is only
one of many Cities and country dis
tricts with work-houses.
In Cork alone there were 5000
homeless people from the country beg
ging for something to eat, any
thing. They filled their stomachs
with cabbage leaves, turnip-tops,
everything, and when this was not
attainable they crawIed to the. work
house to die.
EvICTIoNs AND CONSULTATIONS.
The English landlord found after
a while that sheep and cattle raising
was more profitable than diversified
farming, and with that calm, sublime
disregard for the rights of the people
which is characteristic of the ruling
classes in England, eviction became
fashionable. The policy pretty much
all over Ireland was to clean out the
population and consolidate a thousand
small farms into one large one.
Between the years 1s41 and 1861
twenty years, there were destroyed in
Ireland 27o,000 cabins, representing a
population of 1900, 900, all driven to
the work-house, TO exile or death.
The process was very simple one
A process of eviction was served, the
tenant and his family would be pitched
out into the road, and the cottage be
! leveled to the ground. This was
originally done with crowbars, but
crowbars were too slow. A mechani.
cal genius, who was a landlord and
had great deal of eviction to do, in.
vented machine to facilitate the pro-
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Of ropes, and pulleys, and iron dogs.
and all that sort of thing, which could
be run up beside cabin and tear the
miserable structure down in o few
minutes and save u great deal in the
way of labor.
This is the only labor saving
machine Irish landlordism has evel
produced.
MONEY FROM AMERICA.
In my last l mentioned the fact
that America was paying the rent to
the English landlords. Between the
years of ls49 and 1864, the Irish in
America sent to their friends in Ire
land the enormous som of Ella, 600, 900
or, in American money, S65, 900 900
This, however, is what was sent in
drafts. Probably there was as much
more sent in money and other ways
that cannot be traced.
With a fair system of governing
the lands Ireland would be self sup.
porting, and this enormous drain
upon the resources 81 America would
be checked. fit all went to the reliel
of the people for whom it was de
signed; l should not so much care, but
when a landlords pimp discovers
that tenant is receiving American
letters he Immediately goes to the
postoffice and bank and ascertains
how much he or she is receiving, and
the rent is raised to just to that
amount. So you see all the money
sent by the Irish in America to the
Irish in Ireland is absorbed by the
landlords, whose. yachts and castles,
and town-houses and mistresses and
gambling tables are so frightfully ex.
pensive. America has contributed
hundreds of millions of dollars to the
support of these excrescencies, these
miners and sappers of industry.
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