The Irish standard., 1898-04-30
REVOLUTION BROUGHT ABOUT
By Unceasing Agitation Resulting
In Legislative Action.
WRETCHEDNESS AND SQUALOR.
How a Terrible Condition of AT.
fairs Was Remedied.

the Ave Maria has an interesting article
In its last issue on "The Irish Laborer at
Home" His contrasting pictures of the
condition of the laborer ten years ago
and to-day are very vivid. The change
for the better, he says, has been nothing
short Of revolutionary. OF the former
position of the laborer he writes:
Before the passage of the laborers' act
In 'S3 ireland was a country of cabins.
The eye of the tourist was shocked, and
he condemned Indignantly, but some
what unreflectingly, the barbarism that
he saw reigning everywhere. 1 venture
to say that if these tourists had, by
SOME stroke of superior power, been
forced to live in those cabins, and been
tas the Irish laborer was) morally
strait-waistcoated within them, each of
them would have been as ready to
shoulder pike as any Fenian that ever
took to the hills. And as we now see
that the government could have rene
died it, because it has done so, it would
not be outside the logical conclusion of
things that the incarcerated tourist
should bear hatred in his breast for gov-
ernment that could and ought to find
remedy, but was too occupied or too
needless to do so.
But the tourists condemnation was
unrefiecting. Tho cabin was hardly
the height Of man; it's walls were of
clay, occasionally kept in their place by
props thrust against them from the out
side. The thatch seemed, in wet wealth.
er, heap of manure pitched on the top
of these walls; in dry weather, disor-
derly heap Of dead and living grass.
Within, the furniture was moro rickety
and old than the strongest imagination
could conceive. Often there was no
chimney, only an opening in the wall or
the thatch, and the smoke from the peat
or the fagot or the furze or the dried
droppings Of cattle wandered about the
hovel, and, seeking an outlet stained the
inner roof with a gloss of ebony and
perfumed every garment and every arti-
Gle there. At the entrance might be
seen what Maynard Gilfil found in Dam
iel Knott's "prettiest place you ever see,"
"a small cowyard full of excellent man
ure, and leading right up to the door
without any frivolous introduction from
garden or railing" But why did they
stand it? Why did they not change it?
Or why did they not run away from it?
1t is a person who has not weighed the
surroundings and the infantile strength
of the poor man that would have asked
such questions. 1t is way in Ireland
to answer question by asking a ques-
tion; and taking advantage of that priv
ilege, we may be allowed to ask: What
could that poor laborer or cottier do?
1t would do him no good to run away,
for he found the same circumstances en-
listing everywhere. He could not build a
house for himself for two reasons, he
owned no land on which to build; andS
secondly, he had no money.
Who, then, was to blame for all this
Crs themselves were not to be blamed
for, as we have seen, they had not the
power to remedy it. The farming class
were and were not to be blamed. In
some places it rested with them to build
better dwellings for their laborers; in
others, it did not. The farming class
were divided into leaseholders and ten
ants-at-will The latter class certainly
had no inducement to build cottages on
their farms; as, after having built
them, they might any day, before the
passing of the recent land acts, be driv-
ell from their holdings, and leave cot
tage as we'll as land, without compensa-
ton, TO the landlord.
The landlords, as q rule, were SO ter
rified at the excessive increase in the
poor rates that the laborers We're hunted
from their estates, and any member Of
the farming class known to harbor them
even for night was threatened with
eviction.
In this way did matters stand fer
many a long year, nor dreamed Of
change. From Lady day to MicLaelmas,
hut more generally from Lady day, was
the laborers tenancy of this squalid
home. The house belonged to the farm
er. The laborer gave SO many days
work for the tenancy Of the hut and for
the -cst of his labor he was paid at a
certain fxel rate Of wages per week.
A sad day was that Lady day! There
was an almost universal moving Of
household goods. And when you remen,-
Der that their furniture was being shift
Cd thus from year to year. you can easily