Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1886-09-26

estate surrounding IL. Iie HAS nuu huNh
trouble with his tenants and some of the lands
are living idle. One Of his tenants not long
since refused to pay the rent demanded OF
him and he was evicted. The young lords
agent tried to get another tenant, but when a
tenant is turned out on such grounds 1t
would not be safe for another man to a k
the property. The lands of this tenant were
left idle for a year or two, and n short time
ago he was reinStated upon his own terms.
As we drove from CarE to Blarney other
empty houses were pointed out to us, and one
driver told us that these were idle on account
of such evictions.
The country drives through Ireland are
very beautiful, and about Cork they are like
driving through continuous gardens. Inc
roads are piked and they are as smooth as a
hoor. The green fields arc separated from
them by walls of stone n hedge and greet
trees, the trunks of which are covered with
WV, hang over them. Now and then VA
pass the entrance TO the mansion OF some
great lord, who has his porter's lodge beside
il, and who owns his acres often by the tens
of thousands.
Along these roads about Cork, and here and
there scattered over the landscape, are
numerous one-Story cabins, Of stone or OF
stucco, washed with a coat of glaring white
wash. They are usually Of one low story and
an attic, and their roofs are of matched
straws. This thatch, i'll many instances, Is
old and broken. The grass grows In it, and
the moss springs up all over 1t. h edge OF
the roof is often 10 higher than q mans head,
and many of these huts have but one room.
Few have more than two. They belong to
small tenants, men who have from one TO
thirty or forty acres of land, at n rent of
from s. to $40 per acre for it. Think of pay
ing S4OO a year rent for forty acres of land,
with a cabin hardly fit for a hog pen on it,
and you have the condition of these people.
Nearly the whole of ireland is rented out
by landlords who live in England, and who
spend their money there. Many Of them
never come to Ireland at all. Others have
never seen their estates, and there are many
who get from $4,000 to S2OO,WU a year in
rents. These rents are collected by agents,
and land in Ireland rents from S. to $50
per acre. A good average would perhaps he
IS or Sc per acre. Some rent as high as S45
per acre.
Speaking of large estates, three men own
estates in Ireland of more than 100000 acres
each, and fourteen own estates of from 90
600 to 100000 acres each. The whole of Ire
land is not as large as Ohio, and it is owned
by a very few men. The workers Of the
country in the fewest instances own the land
they till. The products of the country are
shipped out of it, and tho money earned by it
is spent abroad. A member of parliament,
whom 1 met ut Belfast during the riots, tells
! me that from $50, 900, 900 to SG0,OOO,OW Is sent
to England in payment of Irish rents yearly.
[ have heard il estimated elsewhere ut $780,
100000 q year. But the $4,000, 600 is striking
enough. What state in tho Union could stand
such a draw year after year! 1t is no wonder
that the laboring classes Of Ireland are the
poorest in Europe and that their condition of
living is the worst.
Tho country of Ireland resembles in its
natural character many of tho United
States. 1t is made up of gently rolling hills
i'm the south and those along the coast rise into
low rocky mountains. About Cork 1t Is a
garden, and as far as yon can see rich crops
fill your eyes n the latest Of cattle and
sheep dot tho landscape. The fields look like
those of q model farm. They are generally
rectangular in shape and are, as 4 rule, small,
seldom being over five or ten acres in extent
| and often only one or two. These fields are
separated by stone walls about two to four
feet wide at the bottom and banked up with
| Garth, SO that in many cases the stones are
not seen and the fields seem to bc separated
by walls of green grass, which are often as
high as four feet. On many of the walls
hedges are planted and in some of them small
trees grow. There are no wooden fences on
the farms of southern Ireland, and tine only
wire l have seen is here and there n strand or
two on stakes about a foot high, running
along tho tops Of tho walls which line the rail-
ways.
These fences add greatly to tho beauty OF
the landscape and make it look totally differ
ent from an American one. They take up,
however, q great deal of valuable land, and
in most cases have as much space allotted to
them as the woven rail fences. Often there
is a deep ditch running around the fields III
side the walls, and in such cases the fence
and ditch wastes a strip of land from ten to
fifteen feet wide all around it. 1t is in this
waste of land in fences that some people find
all the troubles Of Ireland. 1t is certainly a
great waste, but l imagine Ireland'S chief
troubles come from other causes.
Before l left America q leading editor, who
makes it his rule to spend 100 days every
year abroad, asked me why l wanted to go to
ireland, Us there were no antiquities there"
This is q mistake. Ireland is rich in ruins,
and you find old castles everywhere. Blarney
is only one of hundreds, and old monasteries,
and there is n greater number of ruined
abbeys here than in England