The Irish standard., 1886-11-13

tbRHCSSA0 0IltCt bouOOoOAAoaoA OVoAAO NCcSS>eko
with good chimney Of brick, a slate
roof, a front yard, and a fenced potato
patch in the rear. Facilities for the
gradual purchase of such cottages are
given, and although the laws affecting
the holding Of real estate are still
bungling, and the fees for taking titie
are much too large, energetic and saw
ing men in the laborer, artisan and TEN
ant farmer class have much better
chance than heretofore, The whole
legal apparatus Of Ireland is said by
good authorities to be vastly greater
than there is need Of, aud great
drain on people of all classes is the re-
suit All farmers are reputed fond OF
litigy, and the Irishman is no excep-
ton, but csimes are pretty much con-
fined to the semi-political agrarian Va
riety, and there is little for the judges to
do. Nevertheless the men OF the law
are humorous and well paid, often put
to great straits, it is said, to make some
show of earning their salarles. A ma
tionai Legislature would be likely to
put the knife into this nest Of furred
cats. III the peasant does not look for
ward with any exaggerated hope to the
future under another form OF govern
ment he is a firm disbeliever in the
knowledge of parliament or its viii. 10
help him. He and his forefathels have
been alternately duped aud browbeaten
too often to allow him to place any faith
in government by proxy and froma dis
tance. The contrast is edifying be-
tween these humble men and the ordi-
nary Briton Of London, who wants to
kick somebody because he has been dis
turbed in one Of his most cherished
dreams, namely, that he knows all
mems business better than they do
themselves. The Duke of Devonshlre,
whose eldest son is Lord Harrington,
owns an immense estate to the left
hand as we cross the gap of the Mael-
downa Mills and Che Earl Of Lismore a
comparatively small property OH the
right. The latter has an enviable re-
putation for leniency towards tenants,
importing blooded stock, aiding farm
ers in this way and that, looking con-
tinually to the good OF the public. The
father Of the chief OF Liberals in Par
Lament has no good will from the
countryside; he is an absentee, and for
the enormous sum which he takes from
the island every year-it is reckoned at
more than $500, ,000--makes little, if any
return. Southwark over the slope Of
Maeldowna into Lismore one plunges
into q wooded gorge belonging to the
duke which is one of the loveliest SPOTS
i'll Ireland, reminding the traveller Of
Swiss valleys, with the pines reaching
high up the precipitous sides OF the cleft
and water brawling far below. Lower
down, the trees form tent OF verd ure
dripping with the constant rain, and
as we bowl round one turn Of the we'll
kept road after another the scene is
constantly changing from the grand
lose to the picturesque. The last touch
is Lismore Castle, with it's many win
doWs, towering from a cliff above the
placid Blackwater and looking down
that stream on a landscape by Birket
Foster. Here William Congreve, the
pride of English dramatic literature, is
said to have been born, with what truth
nobody can now tell. He went to
school in Kilkenny and to college in
Dublin. The castle was built when
King John was a prince only, and has
suffered the usual proportion of seiges
and burning. Lismore was once owned
by Sir Walter Raleigh. It is not to be
confounded with Lismora in Linnhe
Loeb, Argyllshire, where the Book of
the Deau' was written in Highland
Gaelic by James bicGregor. Many
places in both istand have ''big fort, :"
and, therefore, many have been called
in Gaelic lis-more. It is a pretty little
town, remarkable for the size and beau
tyofits trees and she gentle somnolency
of it's meadows, though, as we passed
through, it was being stirred into half
waking by the arrival of circus,
need l say to be American.
The English manager of shows who
should dare to play the civis Britannicus
sum upon Irish audiences would waste
his venerable crown upon the desert
if he got food for his men
and prevender for his horses. It was
at Lismore that we heard of Mount
Melleray, q convent of Cistercian
monks, who settle on a waste moor of
Knuc- -Maeldowna about half a century
ago, and, like their similars of La
Trappe, devoted themselves to hard
work. silence and meditation. That is
why we stop at Cappoquin, the head
water OF navigation on the far-famed
BlackWater, where that stream, t1ow-
ing eastward from Lismore, parallel
with. the coast, turns abruptly towards
thegsouth rand the Atlantiic tic, e L he drive;