The Black Hills union. [volume] (Rapid City, Pennington County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1889-1904, 1897-11-19
PROSECUTED BY RELENTLESS
LANDLORDS.
Maud Come, the Irish Joan of Arc.
Tells of the Suffering Of Her
CountryWomen - Brutal Acts Of
Landlords.
Yes said Miss Maud Come, tn

of Ireland are terrible. They see their
sons dragged off to prison by the con-
stabulary, their husbands evicted, their
children starving and their parents
homeless.
Prayers are poWerless. tears are Of
no avail, expostulations only bring forth
jeerS and curses. England has destroyed
all Irish manufactures: they have over
ridden the country with $4,000 soldiers,
or twice the force of the standing army
of the United States.
In addition to these there are $1,000
armed c~onstables. who go about with
rifle and bayonet, making arrests and
eVictiOnS.
THE government has turned the peo-
pie away from the good farming lands
and driven them to the mountain sides
and boys. From first to last the policy
of England has been that of eXtermlna-
ton.
AT the present time Ireland is a land
OF heroineS and martyrs. Whenever a
tenan is evicted from one farm. there
is nc place in all Ireland where he may
find another.
There is a law f~orbidding tenants to
harbor any person whomsoever under
their roof, either for pay or as an act of
charity.
Neither fathers. mothers. relatives
nor friends may be given shelter in dis
tress, no matter how pressing the cir
cumstanceS.
Let me mention a case that came
under my own observation in County
Clare. In this county there is a land
lord named Dunsmore, who owns a
great many farms.
O one of these farms lived a family
named Grannen, consisting of ar old
couple and a grown up son.
O the adjoining farm lived the Ri
leys. with their daughter Kate. She
wa a pretty lass. black haired, blue
eyed and CHEEKY as a May morning.
They say that truth is stranger thar
fiction. 1t is certainly more terrible at
times. The landlords son in hunting
and riding over the FARMS, saw Kate
Riley and promptly fell in low with her.
But Kate had seen too many evic-
tons and too much starvation and suf-
fering at the hands Of the landlords to
fall in love with one of that ilk. The
young man was persistent, but with
all his persistence there was a conde-
scension that filled Hates mind with
age. The u man had never pro-
posed marriage, and probably never in
tended to.
He had not haunted the neighbour
hood of the Riley farm long before he
discovered that Kate had a decided
weakness for stalwart John Grannen.
This intensified matters. The landlord
began to harass the Rileys in every
possible way.
Finding that his tenants were pa
tient under suffering. the landlord
raised the rent some 20 per cent. This
was practical eviction.
But the poor family struggled along
as best they might, striving with might
and main to meet the unjust burden
put uDon them.
"At last there came a time when they
could not pay the monthly rental. They
were given three days in which to pay
it. At the end of this time. in spite of
prayers and e~ntreaties. they were
turned out. Their scanty furniture was
piled in the public road, and that night
they slept on the ground, because their
neighbors We're forbidden by English
law to harbor them.
"On the following morning John
Grannen and Kate Riley were married
in the open roadway, in front of the hut
from which the Rileys had been evicted.
'Grannen had saved up a little money,
so ne too his wife and her parents to
Dublin, simply because they could tind
no nearer refuge.
Here during the following year both
the old people died. Then with his wife
IN very delicate health Grannen came
back to County Glare and the old farm
where his parents lived.
Not dreaming that the landlord
would object, the old people received
their son and his wife with open arms.
n awful news was carried to the
ioiiNioIu. Lie majesty OF the English
law was being violated. On the even
ing OF the second day after the arrival
OF the young people the constables ap-
peared at the Grannen hut and began
a process of eviction.
Ine furniture was ruthleSsly tum-
oiled through the doorway and the kitch-
en- utensils through the window. Young
Mrs. Grannen was lying very i'll on a
bed. She was ordered to get up. She
could not do it.
THE c%onstables. nice. gentle beings
that hey are. would have dragged her
from the bed had it not been for her
husband. With the assistance of some
sympathetic bystanders he carried bed
and all out to the roadside, where she
lay moaning and calling upon heaven
to help her.
The neighbors sympathized deeply
with the Grannens. but were afraid to
oHer them shelter. knowing it would
mean immediate eviction.
Tina night the poor oman's child
was born. Her husband built a fire by
side of the mattress, and the neigh
bors did what they dared in the way CT
comforting the distressed family.
me poor mother lay as one lead for
almost two weeks. Then one night when
the watchers were doing. she sprang
TO her feet with a loud cry and darted
away in the darkness.
"She ran into a stream of water and
tried to drown herself. She was Brought
back and bound with ropes. But she
q no more attempts to escape. She
had become a gibbering lunatic.
"She was not violent. She would sit
shd smile and weep by turns. refusing
to recognize her baby in any way. And
whe Its poor little life went out she
did not appear to realize it.
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