“Boycotting” is a system devised by Mr. James Redpath, of America. It is this: The landlord, when he has made up his mind that he wants to rob a tenant of the land he once owned, and which he has, does not evict him in the Spring. He waits till the tenant has dug up the ground, planted it and tended it, and it is ready for the harvest. He wants to steal the crops as well as the land, and so just before harvest he gets out his process, and accompanied by the everlasting thirty constables, armed with carbines, he makes his descent. The process is served, the tenant and his family are pitched out into the street, and the place taken possession of.
Prior to the Land League, the villain had no difficulty in employing labor to secure the crop, thus giving the agent his percentage of the robbery, and enabling My Lord to indulge in fresh extravagances in London or Paris, or wherever he might be. But the Land League steps in now, and My Lord’s agent cannot find a man who will put a sickle into the ground. No matter what price he offers, or how sorely the laborer needs work, or how cheaply he would be glad to work for any one else, he will not work for this man at any price. Consequently the crops rot on the ground, and if the robbed tenant gets no benefit from his labor, My Lord in Paris, and his agent at home, do not.
I was in one cottage over the bay from Glengariff, in a cabin in which three men were sitting listlessly, waiting for work. They had nothing to eat but the everlasting potatoes, and would have given their lives, almost, for something to do that would keep the pot boiling, even though there was nothing but potatoes in it.
Enter My Lord’s agent.
“Come, men. I want you for a few days.”
“I want you on Captain ——’s place. I will give you two shillings a day.”
Ten pence a day is good wages.
“Is it on Mickey Doolan’s farrum?”
“Yes.”