Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1886-11-25
WORSE THAN A SAVAGE.


NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.
IBy telegraph to the REcoRD-UNIoN.I
NEW YORK, November 24th.-T. P. Gill
cables to the Tribune from Dublin: One
case which crystallizes the whole meaning
ofIrish landlordism-a story which deserves
to become as famous in its way, if one may
say it without irreyerence, as that of Ahab
and Naboth's vineyard-was brought to
light yesterday at a Coroners inquest at
Tullamore. David Sherlock, well-known
Dublin barrister, is landlord of property in
Kings county, which he lately inherited
from his uncle. Five years ago this uncle
eyicted two women, Margaret and Annie
Byrne, mother and daughter, aged IS and
As respectively, from wretched little hold
ing for which "a year was racked out.
After eviction they were readmitted to their
cabin as care-takers, the wages being
penny week. The cabin had been "crow-
barred" but the women patched up the
roof as well as they could. They were not
allowed to farm their scrap of land, which
Law idle, or cut turf from their bog. But
with the aid of the little haggard in front
of the cabin they managed to raise some
fowls and produce. These, with the charity
of their priest, enabled them to keep alive.
Toward the end of September Sherlock
was shooting over his property, and his.
eye was Caught by number of geese and
turkeys in the haggard of the old woman.
He made the widow proposition, which
was that he would reinstate her in the
holding if she would give him nineteen
turkeys in satisfaction for the years rent
owed when she had been evicted five years
before. The poor old creature didn't know
that Sherleck's proposal was atrocious and
illegal. She did not understand that since
the rent was owing an Arrears Act had
been passed, which should have wiped off
her liability. She. only thought she was
about to get leave once more to till her
little farm, and was oyerjoyed.
Sherlock sent his steward for the turkeys,
and in few days sent him back with word
that two geese would also be necessary TO
make up the full amount of the rent. She
was then made TO sign an agreement that
the fowls were TO go in satisfaction of one
years rent of the two due at the time of
the eviction. She was also to make herself
liable for the rent for the five years during
which she had acted as caretaker, although
she was not allowed to use the farm dur
ing those years at all, and she was to for
felt all claims to the penny week care
takers wages, none of which she had ever
been paid. On these terms she was es-
tablished in the position of tenant once
again.
Weeks passed and the two old women
had nothing to live upon. They pawned
their bedclothes, and covered themselves
with a strip of cotton. as they lay at night
in their cabin, through the dismantled roof
of which the rain poured in. They pawned
their gowns, and the doctor deposed at the
inquest that neither of them wore clothes
enough to keep their bodies warm. Ten
days ago the daughter died. There was
no fuel in the cabin, for they were forbid
den to touch the turf, and the mother
walked mile across the bog to borrow
some from a neighbor. She was too weak
to carry it back and the neighbor helped
her.
The Coroner, having his suspicious, de-
termined to hold an inquest into the cir
cumstances of the daughters death. The
inquest was postponed in order to obtain
medical evidence, and during the post
ponement the mother died. Yesterday the
jury returned the following verdict: That
the deceased died of heart disease, sccelera-
ted by poverty and want caused by being
deprived of the value of nineteen turkeys
and two geese, their sole means of support"