St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1914-05-06

date for $4.25. The gombeen man ar
gued that my father paid $3.50 and
that he was only charging me eighty
one cents extra, or 144 per cent in
terest per annum. During the twenty
years my father was bringing up his
family, he paid interest at this rate.
Here is a writ that was issued
against a poor farmer. The amount
is $S7.75, and here is the pass book
which proves that $18.25 of that is in
terest. You will also note that the
gombeen man charges this customer
1897 for seven stone Of flour; on the
same date the cooperative society's
price was $2.25."
So the gombeen man was robbing
everybody as he tried to rob Paddy
Gallagher and his friends.
An Old Mans Story.
The story that we get in Dun
glow tallies with the account which
Sir Horace Plunkett and his col
leagues in Dublin gave us of the situa-
ton. But as scientific investigators
we are anxious to get as much mate
rial from original sources as possible.
So on Sunday afternoon 'it is u.s. for
a jaunting car and ride into the
country in search of fundamental
facts. We hear of a patriarchal citi-
zen five miles out who they say is as
honest as the day is long. We find
Donald O'Boyle otherwise Shane
O'ge) in a habitation which from out
ward appearances hardly merits the
name of cottage. But when warm
hearted Irish hospitality invites us
inside we find a neat, clean, COM
Portable place, that is indeed home to
the family which has been for genera
tions the tenants Of a line of nom
evicting landlords. Shane O'ge, with
his son, his daughter-in-law, and some
shy, blue-eyed little grandchildren,
welcomes US warmly. The mother is
feeding the children mashed potatoes
and milk from a bowl (about all many
Irish children get to eat). To them
this is much more interesting than
discussion of the gombeen man.
Yes, he and his father knew well
the gombeen man. WED buy Of the
trader but we'd not know the price at
ALL" he said. TT would do us no
good. We'd have to pay in the end
what he'd ask us anyway when he
had the money. 1t was hard to get 1t
round here-we mostly had to go over
and work in the Scottish harvests to
get any at all. When we had the
money we would ask what we owed
and the trader would tell us what it
was. We never knew what the items
we're. We never dared to ask. He
would say, How dare you dispute my
books? And it's more than one poor
man I've seen kicked out for asking
a civil question. But everybody says
they charged the highest price the
stun had been from the time it was
bought until we paid for it and / guess
that's the truth, and Of course the
added interest, though / don't know
how much. And so of course, we paid
what they asked-and enough it was
though we never knew much about ii.
They let US get meal or anything else
on credit without money for they
knew 1t meant more to them in a high
price besides interest. Things are diff
ferent now; they're lot better"
Cooperative Credit conquering.
Things are different in Ireland now.
The farmers themselves are driving
out the gombeen man. Cooperative
credit associations have changed all
this. AS that eminent Irishman, Sir
Horace Plunkett, says in his book on
Ireland in the New Century: The
exact purpose OF these organizations
Is to create credit as a means Of intro
ducing capital into the agricultural In
dustry. They perform the apparent