Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1888-02-03
LIFE IN IRELAND.
E!icfors and Evicted-Countess of Kings
ton, KNOWN as the Galtee She-Wolf.

The tenants of Lady Kingston. ter
riDiy rack-rented, have asked for
reduction Of 20 per cent on their rents.
This her ladyship has refused
them, and old women, widows, pow
erty-stricken farmers of absurd little
holdings of ten or twelve acres, are
all to be turned out of their homes.
Their cattle and crops have already
been seized because they cannot raise
the money, S15 or $50 per acre, to pay
ter rents in full. For weeks evic-
tons have been threatened, and OSul-
Ivan has closed out his business and is
sacrificing his time and fortune in
order to make his practical protest on
behalf of the poorer tenants, to whom
eviction Is tragedy indeed.
1t was not yet 9 o clock, and we had
no difficulty in getting into this house,
going down a dingy alley, across
yard, up ladder, and finally crawl
ing into an upper room. Nearly
everything had been removed from
the house; only few straw beds for
tie family to sleep on, and a few pots
and pans for cooking. All was dark
inside and silent. A peat fire glow
cred on the hearth, over it sat two
men and three boys, roughly dressed.
sixth was sleeping in corner. Sew
eral pitchforks and clubs stood near
the door. A huge kettle of tar was in
corner of the Fireplace, and a second
kettle of boiling meal.
I'VE will feed the Emergency men
well, you see" said one of the men.
Tons of stones, enormous trunks of
trees aud logs were piled, tied and
nailed about the doors and windows,
an impenetrablc thicket of branches.
filled the wind0 S. 1t was siege,
and it looked like one. At 9 o'clock
the inmates assemble, the fire is
stirred, the tar and meal set to boil,
the fortress is made more secure, and
with hated breath, watching, waiting,
listening, they wait for coming OF
the red-coated soldiers, the regiment
of police, the mounted Sheriff, and his
squads of bailiffs and emergency men.
We went on down the street. In the
| market-place people were buying and
selling, but strange atmosphere OF
repressed excitement seemed to en-
velop everything and everybody.
Nov and then large wagonet be-
longing to the Countess of Kingston,
drawn by splendid, spanking gray
horses, dashed by filled with armed
police on their way to their barracks
in the Kingston Arms, Il big old hotel
just outside the castle gates.
We followed tie wagonet as it
crossed tue market place, and about Il
couple of blocks distant came upon the
castle square, beautiful square, with
avenues of trees, velvcty stretches of
grass, surrounded by fine old stone
houses, that is placed directly be-
fore the pOnderous gateways of the
dcmesne. This little ncighborhood
might be called the Kingston colony.
The occupants of the house are all
supporters and defenders of the Coun-
tess. The Kingston Arms swarms
with police. just outside the castle
gate, in Il commodious and picturesque
| mansion of brown stone, lives the
agent. His two young lady daughters
and couple Of young men in blue
and pink tennis tannelS were playing
tennis in the opera square. Police
men marched around the house and
one with 4 gun paced before the iron
barred gate of the castle. There was
one store called 4 general provision
store, where the inhabitants of this
| colony deal, for there is not a shop in
| all MltchcllstOWn where yard of cot
| ton, Il pound of beef, an ounce of tea
could be purchased for the use of Lady
! Kingston, her police or her bailitfs or
agents. Here flowers grew in the win
| duwS. lace curtains showed, ladies APP
| pcared in the doors, young women i'll
| fashionable gowns were sketchimg,
writing, reading in the squares; pianos
we're playing. Life here was different,
! separate from, mlOrOnistic to, that
other life going on III the market
| place, 90 ne ON in those dismant!cd,
| DulrIc;ld;d homes, where men and
women were waiting i'll the smoky
rooms, cavy with the fumes of tar, to
! be cvicted. In these charming old
| stone houses, with their arched door
| ways and pleasant stoOps, live the
| gentry of MitcEcllStown, the families
| OF army officers, clergymen. and 9TH
| ers, kind of high-ciaSs almshouSe
| given to the inmates with an annuity
of $50 year.
| The Countess of Kingston is q stern,
unyielding woman, childless, of mid
die aye, married to her second hus-
band. She is hated and feared by her
tenants and hates and fears them in
return. To the last penny she has
always cxacted her rents. Even in
! time Of famine, sickness, extreme di s.
asters, her people have had to pay
every penny, or if they did not we're
turned out into the roads.
1t was she who last winter had a
family of eight children, all sick with
| the measles, evicted and turned out
into Il fierce storm of rain and wind
and hail Sho was never knO to
visit one of her tenants, or to look in
their homes. WHen she used to ride
out in the country roads, all hers, be-
side the miserable shauties, window
| less, chimneyless, with mud floors
and broken doors, all hers. the ten
ants, men, women, and children, hers
| in body and almost soul, their rags
| flying, would rush out to their stone
| fences and humble out unwilling eX-
! presSions of pleasure at seeing her,
wishing her long life to rule over
! them and deal fate to t EN-, staring
anxously to see if she seemed pleased.
She never noticed the children nor
| saw tAlttb bACy utiu SCuOOLS. one
nored the moral and physical welfare
| of the 800 human souls intrusted to
| her protection, but ruled them never
thcless as completely as if the time was
| feudal. The agenteollected the rents.
If the people had no money lie dumped
| them out into the road, pulled the
howell down, and put her ladysmp's
| cattle to Craze on the dIsmantled
| farm. She was called the Galtee She
Wolf. 1t was she who looked down
on Us, frowning, from her fine castle,
w ere she lives in pcrilous isolation,
protected by police, never daring be-
You'd her castle gates, suspicious and
suspected, unrelenting, while just be-
You'd her gate, across the tops of the
| trees. Is this quaint, half bleak.
| half cheerful old town of hers, with
its mighty, struggling life, flashing
into fierce and stubborn resistance
equal to her own.
20, cried Flo, her very mouth wa
tering, sit must be grand to be n
Countess and live in such 4 castle. ;"
is it? To live under police pro-
lection, to hear only talk of evictions
| and resistance, to see regiment of
men quartered in fine old hotel. to
have them fed from her own kitchen,
to be like fierce warrior-queen or a
she-wolf springing on the fold, to be
at war with the people who had been