Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1882-02-10
Massey ON THE IRISH QUESTION:

NASBH ON THE IRISH QUESTION.
THE EVILS OF LAEDLoBDIsM-TH BEFINED
wBETCHEDNEss UF THE PEAsANTRY -PICT-
UREs OF MISERABLE POVERTY.
On Sunday evening, Jan. 20, Mr.. d. Il.
Locke, otherwise and more generally known
as the Rev. Petroleum V. Nasty, who has re-
Gently returned from a visit to Ireland, deliv-
cred a lecture in Music hall, Boston, on
How Ireland is Ruled" The Boston Herald
gives the following abstract OF his discourse
In the four weeks that Mr.. Locke was in the
south of Ireland, he visited and was inside Of
15s cabins. His hrst visit, he said was to an
average district in the county OF Cork, the
Galtee mountains, about II miles from the
village of Michestown. Having made a
very shortspeech in Cork the Saturday before,
he was favored with guard of honor, con-
sstng of two of the Irish constablery. One
of the cabins which he entered the lecturer
described as simply horrible. The idea, he
said that human beings, made in Gods image
having the power to think, to reason, and to
act, could live, even exist, in such a hovel
was incredible. Wading through mud and
slush coming over his shoe tops, he bent his
head and entered. The room, if SO it could
be called, by any stretch of imagination, was
so low that he could not stand erect. The
cold, bare earth that constituted the floor was
damp and slippery, as the rain came trick
ling down through the open thatch and form
ed little pools on the ground. Near sug-
gestion of fire were huddled a woman and
four children, the eldest not more than 8
years of age As he entered they all arose,
He was horriied to see that they were with
out stockings and shoes and their clothing
was SO torn and ragged that it afforded no
warmth whatever. The mother and her lit
tie girls were blue with cold Their features
We're pinched with hunger Their whole ap-
pearance indicated the want and suffering
they had been enduring for years. Over in
one corner of a room was what they called
bed. 1t consisted of four posts driven into
the ground. On striugers were laid few
rough boards and on these boards were dried
leaves and heather, covered with few old
potato sacks. There is where this family of
six persons slept. There was no window in
the house, the only light and ventilation be.
ing furnished by the door and the cracks in
the thatohed roof As for meat, that is some
thing they never dream of eating. Only once
year do they dare to hope to taste it. On
Christmas day they manage,i If they can, to boil
the half Of pigs face and they mix their stir
about with buttermilk 10 make a gorgeous
feast. That is the only meat they ever have,
and the pleasure of this indulgence is destroy
ed by the terrible remorse that always follows
extravaganza. Two meals of potatoes a day
that is the diet they are born to, live upon
aud die upon. As to their clothing, that is
something too horrible TO talk about. Iu
ride of five miles-from the door of his hotel
in Cork to Barney castle-Mr. Locke counted
over 500 women barefooted, whose feet had
never known a stocking or shoe. These wo-
men are tolerably well of, for about a city
like Cork there is occasionally some little
work which they can get to do, and there are
more strangers to beg from, to say nothing of
the well. to-do citizens who extend charity to
these unfortunates. These women did have,
as a rule, skirts under their miserable cotton
gowns, which afforded some warmth but up
in the mountains, or, for that matter, in any
OF the agricultural districts the regular dress
of the women consists (God help them y of
single slip of worn cotton, commencing at the
shoulder, and ending an inch below the knee.
The legs and feet are bare, with nothing be-
tween to shield them from the elements, on a
wet earth floor when within DOORS and ankle
deep in mud when out. But in the villages
this poverty is discounted. 1t is difficult, the
lecturer observes, to imagine anything worse
than nothing but English landlordism has
made even thai possible. In the villages the
agents found that they could wiring a few
pence more a week out of the poor -wretches;
and so they took a cabin, say, nine feet from
the earth floor to the square of the walls, and
they put in another floor, making two stories
such as they were-out of one. And they
huddle family in the lower story, for which
they exact 10 pence week, and another in
the upper story, just under the thatch, for
which they mercifully take but 10 pence
week. 1t is as though premium had been
offered to ascertain on how little human be-
ing could exist, and very skillful man had
taken that premium after many years of eX-
perimenting. The food and clothing are the
same as in the country, the only difference
being that the country tenant has better air,
that commodity being one Of Gods gifts
which landlord cannot exact rent for, though
he would do it if he could. The lecturer re-
lated q most touching incident of inhumanity
which came under his notice in the village of
Bantry. In the most wretched of cabins, in
a room so low that only in the precise middle
could one stand upright lay a man dying of
consumption. His wife and six children were
in the room and huddled about an apology
for a fire.
'what rent do you pay for this room ?"
"Tinpence a week"
"How can you pay even that rent with your
husband sick ?"
81 haven't paid it for four weeks"
"What will happen to your"
"We shall be turned out Saturday night"
"Turned out? Your husband dying You
and your children ?"
"Yis, sor. The agent must have the
rent"
My lord has a gorgeous castle at Bantry, a
magnificent town house in London, another
| in Paris and another in Florence, and another
the Lord only knows where. In the beauti-
full bay is his splendid yacht, and close by an
English gunboat, with her improved arma-
ment They lay lovingly together, this yacht
and the gunboat. The gunboat and its ac-
cessories enable my lord to evict this woman
in safety The gunboat and soldiers on shore
are his rent collectors. Surely this great lord
will not pitch this poor woman aud her dying
husband and helpless children out into the
rain, for the miserable matter of tenpence a
week All, but he will, though. If it was