In Ireland, however, at least one-fifth, and usually more of the indictments, are for cattle driving, for attempts to burn crops, hayricks, and stables, for killing and maiming cattle, and for writing threatening letters. The authorities are very severe in their efforts to suppress the land troubles, and sometimes half the population of a village will be indicted for using popular methods of persuasion to compel the large landowners to sell their farms. A great many threatening letters are written, for which there is a heavy penalty, and when some ranchman who has refused to divide up his pastures into farms and sell them to the “landless” finds his fences broken down and his cattle scattered all over the country, every suspected person is indicted for moral effect. There are very few convictions. The people who are engaged in the outrage will not testify against each other and there are no other witnesses.

In Ireland there are very few cases of robbery or burglary. Petty larceny is the principal item in the list of offenses. Grand larceny, embezzlement, forgery, and similar crimes are infrequent.

The largest buildings in the county towns of Ireland are workhouses, almshouses, and insane asylums, and they are always well filled. I visited an insane asylum at Killarney, which is an enormous building, well arranged and equipped with all modern conveniences, under the direction of Dr. Edward Griffin, and surrounded by a beautiful garden and hedges in the midst of an estate of sixty acres. It was opened in 1852. The number of inmates in 1908 was 619, of whom 299 were women and 320 men. During the last six or seven years the number of women has largely increased. The average age of the inmates is about thirty years. There are more young men than old men in the institution. Dr. Griffin told me that many causes lead to insanity. Whisky, however, has little to do with the condition of the inmates. In 1907 only five men and two women were there for that cause. Tea has a large number of victims, destroying the nervous system by excessive use. The largest proportion come from the country districts, especially from the seacoast, comparatively few from the towns and cities. The greatest number are of the farming and laboring classes, who made up three-fourths of the inmates received last year—common laborers and poor farmers with two acres of land and two cows. Those from certain districts are generally related, predisposition to insanity being manifest in many families. The farming class, coming from the moors and mountains with their barren soil and great privations, are inclined to insanity because of their impoverished conditions of life. Their only food is often tea, bread, and tobacco. The first treatment at the asylum is to give them plenty of nourishing food and build them up. They are furnished meat every day except Friday. Religious delusions have disturbed the minds of many who fear that they are damned forever and cannot enter heaven. They are hard to cure and the slowest of recovery. The influence of the chaplain in these cases is most beneficial. Under his ministration they receive temporary consolation, but after he has left they often relapse into their former melancholy.

The principal cause of insanity among those who come from the barren moors and desolate mountains is not so much their isolated condition or impoverished life, but their strange delusions. The mountain peasants are very superstitious and imaginative. They believe in fairies and bogies and hear strange voices in the air around them. They believe in leprecawns, which are little men that come out of the ground. They imagine that the fairies and goblins can come through the key-holes of their rooms in the asylum; they are ever hearing strange voices and seeing strange specters as they did upon the moors and mountains.

Of both men and women now in the institution at Killarney more than two hundred have come back to Ireland after a sojourn in America. The superintendent says that the dissipations and excitement of their experience in the United States have caused their mental breakdown after the quiet life and habits of the early days in Ireland. But hereditary predisposition exists in almost every case and in time would have caused the same affliction even though they had remained at home. Hereditary influence and generations of poverty and privation are the general causes of insanity. Very few recoveries are found among those who have been born of insane parents. Most of those dismissed are soon back again, broken down as before by poor nourishment, poverty, and want. The number of readmissions is very large. There are two chaplains, one of whom is Rev. Mr. Madden of the Protestant Church of Ireland. There are very few Protestant patients, however, only twenty being in the asylum at present, the population of the district being largely Roman Catholic. The Roman Catholic chaplain, Rev. D. O’Connor, is in constant attendance.

XXVIII
THE EDUCATION OF IRISH FARMERS

In connection with the breaking up of the big estates into small farms and the introduction throughout Ireland of the system of peasant proprietorship, the government has wisely provided for the education of the farmers so that they may enjoy a larger reward for their labors. There was some scientific farming on the large estates, but until recently 95 per cent of the tenants throughout the country have been simply scratching the land to raise a few potatoes and vegetables to supply their tables and “laving the pig to pay the rint,” as the saying goes. But now things are different. A department of agriculture has been organized, in some respects upon the lines of that in the United States, and after frequent consultation between Sir Horace Plunkett, who was the leader of the movement, and our own Secretary Wilson at Washington. The question of agricultural education was taken up seriously, and what is known as the “recess committee,” formed by Sir Horace Plunkett, during the winter of 1896, suggested a definite plan. The committee consisted of himself, Lord Mayo, Lord Monteagle, John Redman, T.P. Gill, and others.

They presented to the government a project for state aid toward the development of agriculture and mechanical industries with a minister responsible to parliament in charge, assisted by two councils—one for agriculture, the other for technical instruction, composed of gentlemen in touch with public opinion and familiar with the weaknesses and the requirements of the farmers and the small manufacturers. The act was passed by parliament in 1899 and a capital sum of $1,000,000 and an annual appropriation of $830,000 was made for its support.

The department was promptly organized with Sir Horace Plunkett, the leader of the movement, at its head, and various other branches of the public administration not originally contemplated were placed under his jurisdiction, including the quarantine of animals, the regulation of railway freights on agricultural products, county fairs and markets, the enforcement of the pure food and drugs laws, the fisheries, the collection and publication of statistics, the suppression of frauds in weights and in the sale of agricultural requirements and products, the colleges of science and art, the art galleries, the Royal Museum and library, and all technical education throughout the island. The department very naturally took up first the work of aiding the development and introducing improvements in agriculture, horticulture, forestry, dairying, the breeding of horses, cattle, sheep, swine, poultry, and bees; the protection of game and fish, the cultivation of flax, home and cottage industries, such as spinning, weaving, lace-making, and similar household arts; the improvement of cooking and household economy, nursing, and various other occupations and industries pertaining to the common people and of the utmost importance for their health, happiness, and prosperity.