The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1892-01-22

I
lonely if 1 should pass through it
again sometime and find the winsome,
witty thieves all gone. 1 have known
for long time that st. Patrick BAN
ished the snakes from Ireland and l
know now how he did it and where
he sent them. He locked them all up
in an iron box telling them he would
let them out tomorrow" then he
sunk the box i'm the middle of one of
the three little black lakes in the Gap
of DunlOe and tomorrow never came!
The country around the Lakes of
Killarney is hilly and bleak and bar
rem, but the Lakes themselves, with
their
banks and braes
Emerald isles and winding ways
are Economically and picturesquely
beautiful. They are not SO large as
the English or the Scottish lakes, but
they are wilder and quieter and more
varied.
From Killarny to Glengariffe is a
days journey by coach. For the first
two hours the way skirts the lakes and
is cool and shady and beautiful. The
vegetation is surprisingly, almost
tropicslly luxuriant, especially in the
way of mosses and ferns which grow
in greater prOfusiOn, variety and
beauty than ever saw elsewhere.
All this beauty ends, though, when
the road leaves the lake and turns
southwark, into the bleak and windy
and deserted mountains. For miles
there is no sign of human habitatiOn,
except an occasional wretched hut by
the road side, from which issue hun
gry-loOking battered children to follow
the coach mile or more begging for
pennies. AtnoOn the villageOf Kenmare
is reached, but after it is left behind
the country seems to grow even more
desolate and deserted. In all that
long days journey we met fewer than
half dozen people, except tourists
like ourselves. The country seems alb
solutely fOrsaken. At one place on
the road we passed family that had
been recently evicted. There were
the father, the mother and eight
children, and they were living in a
sod house, 6 by 10 feet, with the dirt
roof so low that man could not stand
erect under it. with no windows, with
only hole in the roof for the escape
of the smoke from the peat fire, and
with no floor except the natural sod.
They had been evicted because they
were behind with their rent, and their
few chickens and pigs and cows, as
well as this years crop were held by
the landlord until the rent should be
forthcoming!
Dreary az the country is, however,
and wretched as are most of the few
people who yet remain in it, 1 am
told that the condition of things is
perceptibly improving. And even
strong home-rulers admitted to me
that the cessation of the contributions
from America-which followed the
publication of the Parnell-O'Shea
scandal-was largely responsible for
this improved condition. So long as
these contributions continued agita-
tors were constantly travelling about
stirring up such bitter feeling among
the people that any sort of cOmpro-
mise between the tenants and the
landlords was out of the question.
Now, however, that the funds are no
longer forth coming, the agitator has
ceased from troubling and the tell
ants and landlords are "getting to-
gether." The tenants find that they
would better pay reasonable rent
than be set out in the road, and the
landlords find that they would better
accept a reasonable rent than have
their lands lie idle. The land laws
recently passed, providing means by
which an obstinate landlord may be
compelled to reduce his rent to liv-
ing figure, and providing a way by
which tenant may buy the land he
occupies are proving very efficaceOus
and are doing much to relieve the sit
uation. Absentee landlordism has
been at the bottom of all Ireland's
woes. With that curse removed, as
it will be by the gradual division of
the land into small holdings owned
by the men who occupy them, peace
and plenty will come again to this
distressed country. And it will never
come any other way. Home rule, in
the form it is being demanded by the
present agitation, is a delusiOn and
an impOssibility. 1t is a delusion be-
cause, if granted, it would bring a
sword rather than peace, for the rea-
son that the real causes of the distress
in Ireland are economic, not political.
1t is an impOssibility because home
rule for Ireland, to mean what its adj
vOcates say it shall mean. must be
followed by legislation antagonistic
to English INTERESTS house divided
against itself. 1t is remarkable, by
the-way, how dead Parnell* is here
politically since his marriage with
Mrs. O'Shea. The city of Queens
town, for example, has supported him
almost unanimously heretofore, but
a resident of the place, himself a