He stopped
to kiss and pet the child, looking fatherly and human. I am sure the
little kiss was sweet and welcome after the howls and hoots of the crowd
and the sarcastic eloquence of Miss McConigle. I pity the police; they
are under orders which they have to obey. I have never heard that they
have delighted in doing their odious duty harshly, and the bitter
contempt of the people is, I am sure, hard to bear.
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.
