"Pennsylvania Dutch," and other essays

by Phebe Earle Gibbons

In further conversation, Mr. O’Byrne lamented the degradation caused by liquor, and declared that the bulk of the Irish people cannot be induced to take any interest in lyceums or intellectual culture.

Nearly thus he described to me the aim of the farmers in the present agitation. It is fifty years or more since Griffith, an agent of the English government, made a valuation of Irish lands. Since then rents have risen in some cases one hundred per cent., and the Land League is trying to reduce them to Griffith’s valuation.

When tenants are evicted, others are forbidden to take them at the price demanded, and the evicted are supported by contributions to the Land League. I myself call it an agricultural strike.

Mr. O’Byrne says that there is much competition in renting farms, no other business being open to the people. This confirms the opinion of a publisher in Philadelphia, who had attributed the state of Irish affairs to the want of manufactures.

Mr. O’Byrne kindly made inquiry for me, and I found a farmer willing to take a boarder. To see him I went by rail to a certain station. Near by I entered a humble dwelling, where a man was working at his trade, besides being a petty government officer. He talked pleasantly on Irish affairs, and said that some landlords have granted a reduction in rent of twenty-five per cent. I repeated what an editor in New York had said of the present condition of Irish affairs,—that bad harvests, the competition of American beef and mutton, and the consequent decrease in the value of real estate had made the farmers unable to pay their rent.

The Irishman admitted that American meat is much cheaper than theirs, but said that it had not brought down the price of their own. He said that four or five landlords and agents had been killed; at this a woman present smiled; and a man added that it is a pity there were not more. This was the only sanguinary remark that I heard a poor Irishman make.

At the railroad station the train from the west was behind time, and the agent suspected disturbances. When it came it was mostly filled with soldiers, who called out for water; but who reported no immediate disturbance. At this station I was met by the farmer and his wife with whom I was to lodge, who took me home in their cart. I call him Maurice Collins. He was not very poor for an Irish cultivator. He was doubtless considered quite fortunate in owning a horse and cart, even if the cart had no box and no seats, but was simply a bed or frame. Upon it lay a great bag of corn-meal, upon which sat Mrs. Collins and myself. I steadied myself down-hill with one arm at her waist, while my right hand grasped a projection of the cart. I expressed surprise at the number of ruined and abandoned dwellings, for we were within ten miles of one of the largest towns in Ireland. Collins said that farms once separate have been thrown together. When the population of a country falls thirty-seven per cent. in about thirty-four years, or from over eight millions to about five, it is not strange that abandoned houses are found when built like these, of stone. Dwellings of mud and straw are more readily demolished. Collins’s house was on rather a sterile hill. To reach it we rose above the lower and more fertile ground. On our arrival a chair was brought out to enable us to alight from the cart. On entering the house we were followed by a young man, who staggered under the weight of the great five-bushel sack on which we had sat in the wagon.

There were twelve in the family,—six boys, one girl at home and one away, the old aunt, and the domestic. The living room had an uneven floor of earth. Within the front door stood the slop-barrel. A dresser of dishes stood on the left, and beyond it there was a red-painted, two-storied hen-coop. A hen and chickens occupied the lower story, and a setting hen the upper one. A second door faced the front door. It generally stood open, discovering a little muddy yard. A great settle or couch of wood stood on the same side of the room. Beyond it, on a low seat, sat a little fair, weak-eyed old woman, the aunt. She sat beside a small fire on the hearth, holding the baby. With her left hand she turned a crank and wheel, which by some invisible agency created an underground draught to kindle the fire. The fire was generally of coals. It bore no proportion to the fireplace, which occupied a large part of the third side of the room. I saw the girl hang over the fire a large Dutch oven, called here a bastible. It was a round iron vessel with a lid. On its top she kindled a fire of furze, and hung the bastible to bake the large cake within, made of flour not fully screened, sour milk, and soda.

At nightfall the barefooted little ones gathered to the blaze, although it was in the month of June. The babe in arms was Tim, the three-year-old Norah, and the five-year-old, in trousers surmounted by a red woollen frock and blue apron, was Dennis. At one end of the long fireplace stood the heavy cradle. A steep staircase, almost like a ladder with a railing, led to the rooms above, for this house, roofed with slate instead of thatch, had a loft with a board floor. Wet weather makes the uneven earthen floors inconvenient. The water gathers in little pools. The door to my room was at the foot of the staircase. There were only two apartments on the ground-floor.

The fourth side of the apartment was lighted by a small window and the doorway through which we entered the house. There were only two windows down-stairs, one in this room and one in mine. They were little iron-barred windows. I thought that they might be taxed, but I was mistaken. Collins told me that the glass came from England. They used to have glass-manufactories in this country.