The Irish standard., 1889-07-13
WORK OF DETERMINATION.
Smith -Barry's Vaccinations on the
Pcnsonhy Estate to Be Made g.
Powerful Lever for the
OVERTHROW Of THE TORIES

OVERTHROW Of The lORitS'
An United Ireland Correspondent Pictures
4 loo Familiar Phenomenon OF Irish
Life Under Present Rule.
The railway journey flom Cork to
Youghal enables the visitor to witness
within an hour one of those startling
antithesis which lend so painful an
interest to the face of the Irish land
scape-ar anti thesis OF enchantment
on the one hand. and Of poverty and
misery on the other. AS he rolls past
the voluptuous scenery amid which
Cork and it's lovely suburbs are em-
bosomed. past the groves, the villa
crowned hills, the shining river, the
languid bay, whose lips the trees bend
down to kiss, bis eye is arrested by one
spot more charming than all che rest.
In the wontlrous scene there be is told
great landlord has one OF his pleasure
houses. There within jealous fringe
OF trees is a park, the beauties of which
words may not tel]-a park in which
Diana might have hunted groves in
which the priestesses of Daphne might
have held their revels for this country
above the Lee is more like the isles Of
Greece than Il bit of hungry Ireland.
In the midst OF the park is stately
mansion. Ii eyer there was an earthly
paradise this is such a spot. Yet the
owner of it is so very wealthy, has COM
mand of so many other resources for
extracting the JOY and glory of life, that
ne but sits occasionally by it's delights.
rhe place is t'ota, one of the residences
OF MI. Smith Barry, M. Z. AT the end
of the railway journey you come to
Youghal, and a brief drive from You
ghal brings you to Il place, all the con-
ditions Of which furnish as great a
contrast to those Of the bewitching Fota
as if you had been suddenly plunged
from Dante's heaven to a circle OF tue
inferno. Alas it is too familia: 8
phenomenon Of Irish life to need ces~
cription. 1t is a rack-rented and
poverty stricken estate. Here genera
tions OF spirit broken people have
wrestled fvr half subsistence with a
soil as lean as themselves, and have
spent not merely joYless lives, but lives
in whicn terror has taken the place OF
joy. These people are not the tenants
of the lord Of Fota, and one would
think that this rich man, If he did not
bring them comfort and surcAase OF
pain, would at least have left them
alone. It seems incredible that if he
thought of them at all amid the engross-
ment of his radiant life be should think
of them otherwise than with pity. Yet
such is the perversity of human nature,
when it is closed with safety, the chief
trouble of these poor peoples lives has
come to them from the hands Of this
rich man. One of the morbid passions
of his soul, one Of the intensest aims of
his life is to bring them desolation and
ruin. He has
SWORN TO DESTROY THEM.
If ho had his will their rooftrees would
be ablaze and they would be scattered
to the ends Of the earth. This is the
mission upon which he is at this very
momenC engaged. These very days the
money which he derives from tenants
of his own and other Irish tenants else
where in Ireland he is spending on a
crovbar aud battering-cam expedition
to render them homeless and to estab-
Iish on their fields the silence as we'll
as the barrenness of the desert. Nay,
If a great change had not come among
the elements of society in Ireland, this
enyious and malignant man would sue
ceed in his fell work, as he would have
succeeded half a score Of years ago, and
in pure wan tonness the whole popuIa-
tion Of an Irish countryside would be
sacrificed to the vicious whim of Mr..
Smith-Barry. The countryside would
be swept as clear as if a Conemaugh
food had passed along it. But the Lord
has raised up a friend for the widow
and the orphan, and since the plan Of
campaign stepped between the helpless
and their enemies. the schemes of the
rich man were bafl3d and confounded.
The story Of Smith -Barry's mach1na-
! tions Oh the Ponsonby estate is now
we'll known. It will be better and
better known before this fight is over.
Parliament will ring with it, and so
will every hustings in England, and. it
will be used as one Of the most power
full levers by which the defeat of the
government which fathers Smith Barry
will be broughta about. How the tenants
and their landlord, Ponsonby. after
prolonged struggle, were on the point
Of ratifying settlement; and how
Smith Barry at the last moment stepped
in and taking the estate out of the
wretched Ponsonby's hands, swore to