The fact of the matter is, and I would be false to my own conscience if I hesitated to say it, these people have been kept drained bare; the hard years reduced them to helpless poverty, and now the only remedy is to get rid of them altogether. The price of these military and police, the price of these special services rendered to unpopular landlords to aid them in grinding down these wretched people, spent to help them would go far to make prosperity possible to them once more. If they had a rent they could pay and live, the millstone of arrears taken from about their necks, I believe they would become both loyal and contented. Empty stomachs, bare clothing, lying hard and cold at night through poverty is trying to loyalty.
The turbary nuisance is the great oppression of all. Want of food is bad, but want of fuel added to it! Forty years ago renting land meant getting a bit of bog in with the land. When there is a special charge for the privilege of cutting turf and the times so hard there is much additional suffering.
In the famine time people getting relief had to travel for the ticket, travel to get the meal, and then go to gather whins or heather on the hills to cook it, and the hungry children waiting all the time. A respectable person said to me the famine was worst on respectable people, for looking for the red ticket and carrying it to get meal by it was like the pains of death.
Wherever I went through Leitrim I saw people, scattered here and there, gathering twigs for fuel or coming toward home with their burden of twigs on their backs. I declare I thought often of the Israelites scattered through the fields of Egypt gathering stubble instead of straw. A tenant who objects to anything, who is not properly obedient and respectful, can have the screw turned upon him about the turf as well as about the rent.
XXVIII.
THE MANOR HAMILTON WORKHOUSE—TO THE SOUTH AND WESTWARD—A CHANGE OF SCENERY—LORD PALMERSTON.
Before leaving Manor Hamilton, I determined to see the poor-house, the last shelter for the evicted people. I was informed that it was conducted in a very economical manner. It is on the outskirts of the town. On my way there I went up a little hill to look at a picturesque Episcopalian church perched up there amid the trees, surrounded by a pretty, well-kept burying-ground. The church walls were ornamented with memorial slabs set in the wall commemorating people whose remains were not buried there. A pretty cottage stood by the gate, at the door of which a decent-looking woman sat sewing. I addressed a few questions to her as to the name of the pastor, the size of his flock, &c. Her answers were guarded—very.
I made my way down the hill, and over to the workhouse. The grounds before the entrance were not laid out with the taste observable at Enniskillen. Perhaps they had not a professional gardener among their inmates. At the entrance a person was leaning against the door in an easy attitude. I enquired if I might be allowed to see through the workhouse. He answered by asking what my business was. I informed him that I was correspondent for a Canadian newspaper. He then enquired if the paper I wrote for was a Conservative paper. I replied that I would not describe it as a Conservative paper, but as a religious paper. He then said the matron was not at home, and I prepared to leave. I enquired first if he was the master. He replied in the affirmative, and then said he would get the porter to show me round. "You will show her through," he said, to a stout, heavy person sitting in the entry.
This gentleman, who brought to my mind the estimable Jeremiah Flintwinch, accordingly showed me through the building. We passed the closed doors of the casual ward, where intending inmates were examined for admittance, and casuals were lodged for the night. Every door was unlocked to admit us and carefully locked behind us, conveying an idea of very prison-like administration. The able-bodied were at work, I suppose, for few were visible except women who were nursing children. There was a large number of patients in the infirmary wards. One man whose bed was on the floor was evidently very near the gate we all must enter. He never opened his eyes or seemed conscious of the presence of a stranger. I noticed a little boy lift the poor head to place it easier. I saw no one whom I could imagine was a nurse. The kindness and tenderness of the beggar nurses in the sick wards of the workhouse at Ballymena struck me forcibly. The absence of anything of the kind struck me forcibly in Manor Hamilton.
The children in this workhouse were pretty numerous. They demanded something from me with the air of little footpads. The women were little better. I was told, pretty imperatively, to look in my pockets. One woman rushed after me half way up stairs as if she would compel a gift. Coming back with my throat full of feelings, I was directed to a little desk behind the door, where lay the book for visitors: I was shown the place where remarks were to be entered. I wrote my name standing, as there was no other way provided. I was hardly fit to write cool remarks. The locked doors, the nurses conspicuous by their absence, the importunate beggars, the absent matron, the whole establishment was far below anything of the kind I had yet seen in Ireland. One woman had made her appearance from some unexpected place, and explained to me with floury hands, that if she were not baking she would herself show me through the house.