XIV.
THE PEASANTRY—DEARTH OF CAR DRIVERS—A PRESBYTERIAN MINISTER'S OPINION OF THE LAND LAWS—PADDY'S LAZINESS—ILLICIT WHISKEY.
After dinner at Cardonagh, went down to the establishment of Mrs. Binns, an outlying branch of the great factory of Mr. Tillie, of Derry. Saw the indoor workers, many in number and as busy as bees. Some of them were very, very young. Mrs. Binns informed me that the times were harder in this part of the country than a mere passer-by would ever suspect; that the clothing to be worn when going out was so carefully kept, from the ambition to look decent, that they appeared respectable, while at the same time sorely pinched for food. The employment given in this factory is all that stands between many households and actual want. The machines here are not run by steam, but by foot power. I noticed weary limbs that were beating time to work! work! work! Mrs. Binns, a kind motherly woman, spoke earnestly of the industry, trustworthiness, self-denial, loyal affection for parents, and general kindliness that characterized the Irish peasantry.
This testimony to the qualities of the Roman Catholic peasantry has been the universal testimony of every employer who spoke to me on the subject. I have met with those who spoke of the native Irish, as they spoke of the poor of every persuasion, as lazy, shiftless and extravagant. These people talked from an outside view, and looked down from a certain height upon their poorer neighbors. Invariably I found the most favorable testimony from those who came into nearest contact with these people. As far as personal danger is concerned, having neither power nor inclination to oppress the poor of my people, I feel free to walk through the most disturbed districts as safely as in the days of Brian Boru.
To come back from that stately king down the centuries to the present time, I had intended to go from Carndonagh to Malin, and afterward to Buncrana, and from thence to Derry, having nearly gone round Innishowen. But this was not to be. Regular mail cars did not run on the days or in the direction in which I wished to go. I deliberated with myself a little, heard the comments of the people on the events of the day—the regrets that a greater force had not gathered and a greater demonstration been made. The women especially who had been forced to remain at home on the occasion of to-day regretted it very much. My car- man must return home to plough on the morrow; could not by any means go any further with his car just at present. I do think he is afraid. Another car in this little place is not to be had in the present state of police demand, for they are going out for further evictions on the morrow.
I retained the car and driver I had brought with me, and returned to Moville. My driver, a rather timid lad, told me he would not like to drive the police to these evictions and then return after dark the same way; he would be afraid. He would not drive the police, he said, on any account; he thought it wrong to do so. I noticed that, on pretence of showing me more of the country, he brought me back to Moville another way. Whether he thought I was likely to be taken for Mrs. Doherty, of Redcastle, who was one of the evicting landholders at the present time, or only for a suspicious character, I cannot say.
I was very glad afterward that I had not been able to carry out my original intention of going to Malin, for some of the evictions there were of a most painful character. It was better that I was spared the sight. In the case of a Mr. Whittington, whose residence, once the finest in that locality, is now sorely dilapidated, his wife, with a new born babe in her arms, and a large family of little children around her, were evicted. Is there not something very wrong when such things can be? Of course, when the bailiff carried out the furniture to the the roadside he was jeered and hooted at.
All the sympathy of the press is on the side of the landlords, and none but the very poor, who have suffered themselves, have pity, except of a very languid kind, for scenes such as this.
There are evictions and harassments flying about, as thick as a flight of sparrows through Innishowen at present.
At Moville I had the pleasure of an interview with the Rev. Mr. Bell, the Presbyterian minister of that place. He has studied the subject of the land laws in general and as they affected his own people in particular. Mr. Bell admits that there is great injustice perpetrated under the Land Law as it stands; that the Land Law of 1870 gave relief in many instances, and was intended to give more, but that numerous clauses in the bill made it possible to evade it, and it was evaded by unscrupulous men in many cases. "The necessity of a large measure of land reform, we admit," he says; "we must get this by constitutional means. Real wrongs must be redressed by agitating lawfully, persistently, continually and patiently, till they are redressed constitutionally. We must remain steadfast and never give in, but never transgress the law in any case or take it into our own hands. The Parnell agitation goes beyond this, and when they travel out of the safe path of using constitutional means, into something that leads to confiscation of property and robbery of landlords, and a concealed purpose, or only half concealed, of separation from England, we cannot follow them there."
Mr. Bell instanced many cases of gradual prosperity and attainment of wealth among his flock, but they were exceptional cases, and there were better farms in the case for one thing, and leasehold tenure for another, combining with their industry and thrift to account for the success.
I had conversation with another gentleman of this congregation, who, like many others, believed firmly in Paddy's laziness and carelessness at home. I am very tired of these statements, for any one can see the thrifty way mountain sides, scraps amid rocks, strips of land inside the railway fences, and every spade breadth is cultivated. It is not fair for a man who has means to judge a poorer man from the outside view of his case. There was a strange inconsistency in this gentleman's opinions, for while he declared laziness to be the cause of poverty and not the oppression of rent raised above value, yet when peasant proprietorship was mentioned as a remedy, he declared he would not take the farms as a gift and try to raise a living out of them.
I heard some lament the prevalence of stilling illicit whiskey in Innishowen. The excuse for doing so was to raise money for help in the prevailing poverty. They said the manufacture on the hills, whiskey being so easy to be had, nourished drinking customs among men and women alike, and what was made one way was lost one hundred-fold in another. A priest, recently deceased, a certain Father Elliott, had devoted talents of no mean order and great loving-kindness to the work of stemming this great evil. At his funeral there were between three and four thousand members of the temperance bands, which were the fruit of his labors. He died of typhus fever, and I heard his name mentioned with respectful regret by all creeds and classes.