Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1912-07-26

C4AO III who is to be not MN%MS$*s
10 far off, having in M%$#
NDJ these days little to do W 8@s
N u except to scrutinize AII%$$S%$sSS%S&s
strangers at railway
stations and street corners. Although MI $S8
often frgid anG uncommunicative to MI
natives, the policeman is free enough
with strangers, and his information is MN $S
apt to be reliable about the country NM
generally, for, as he is never kept M&
long at any one place, his local know o>WNNW
edge is extensivs. 1t is true that he " IN
is apt to be biased against the peas l%S<MD
antry, because although peasants ~ "
son himself, his training and employ ~A<M
ment have mage the people hate him, NJ
for the comm$ln people have no use ~ AN
for the 'peelet," the constabulary \ ~ ~
are contemptuDusIy called by them.
Imagine the policemen the natural protectors
of life and property being hated by the people!
That is the condition in Ireland yet, and has been
almost from the beginning That does not
mean that tie Irish do not want to have life and
property projected. 1t means that they have so
long seen tie policeman identified with the pro-
lection of particular kind of life, to-wt: the
landlords and bailiff's, and particular kind of
property, toewit the landlords property in land,
that they overlook his other useful public serv-
ices. 1t is most unfortunate state of things.
The policeman has been made the buffer between
the English Government and the Irish people, and
the efcien& instrument of coercion of the latter,
UGlWSCtl
one. When home rule becomes an accomplished
fact, the Royal Irish Constabulary will be dis
banded. It will no longer be necessary to keep
an English garrison in Ireland.
The estrangement between the police and the
people is indeed remarkable. In the lawless dis
tricts of which there still too many the people
who could give information to the police will not
do So HeLce there is a good deal of unpunished
crime in those districts One of the worst coun-
ties in this respect is the county of Clare, the
r1r0II
to Parliament Here the old wounds of the agra
rian war have never closed up. During my stay
saw in one Of the papers pastoral letter OF
the Most Rev. rr Fogarty, Bishop Of Killaloe, Civ
ing blood-:urdling description OF outrages which
continued to be committed with impunity against
life and property in Glare. / visited Ennis, the
capital of the county. told that in one week
less than ehree shooting outrages had been
perpetrated in unoffending men. One of the vic
. Tins was al ex-soldier, who acting letter
carrier, and who shot in the highway in open
day. Although many people passed his wounded
body on the road, not would comfort or re
lieve him till She police came several hours after
wards. Theve passers by doubtless felt that II
they gave any help to the victim they might meet
the fate as himself. So helpless has British
law become in the county of Clare.
Sauntering round the streets fell in
with an old man who did not object to conversa-
6ion. He proved to be expoliceman. This
man die not mnce matters in detailing his views
county in Ireland" said he. when I joined the
force but the cursed Land League upon u.s.
and since then things have been different. Most
of the men you meet the road are Fenians or
Ribbonmen, and many of them are criminals.
| told him l thought this was too strong de-
scrption of his countrymen. He, however, stuck
so his opinion and took to an elevated spot at
the back of the Court House, from which he
pointed out the scenes of many seventeen
asaassinations, all more less successful but
for which only one ever brought to
Justice.
1t is not alone the malcontents and the secret
N1ociety men that refuse to tell the police what
they know about outrages Even the relatives of
the injured persons are often known to adopt
similarly uncommunicative attitude. To give In
formation to the police is to be branded as an
>'informer" which is the most offensive epithet In
the Irishmans vocabulary, being worse than that
of 'hangman" The stigma descends from father
endure it. My ex-policeman friend told me that
he himself had heard Glare mother, whose son
shot before her eyes. make the avowal that
she would rather see all her lying dead be-
side her than become q hated "informer." She
brought the secret to the grave with her.
/ asked my friend for his opinion as to why the
force was so unpopular He laid the blame un-
besitatngly upon the English Government The
Government have employed the police almost
clushively at evictions and other such unpopular
tasks, when they might have employed the regu
lar soldiers the militia. The result is that the