It Was Decided To Hold The Sale On The Bridge, So I Was Piloted Through The Military, Through A Living

Lane of police, through the surging crowd, to a house that was supposed to command the situation, and found a

Position at an upper window by the great kindness of the clergyman who had taken me in charge.

It is something awful to see a vast mass of human beings, packed as closely as there is standing room, swayed by some keen emotion, like the wind among the pines. It is wonderful, too, to see the effects of perfect discipline. The constabulary, a particularly fine body of men, with faces as stolid as if they were so many statues, bent on doing their duty faithfully and kindly. They formed a living wall across the road on each side of an open space on the bridge, backs to the space, faces to the crowd, vigilant, patient, unheeding of any uncomplimentary remarks.

The cause of all this excitement was the seizure of cattle which were to be sold for rent due to Cecil White, Esq., by his tenants, at the manor of Newtown.

The crowd here was far greater than at Omagh the day of the Land League meeting. The first roll of the drum had summoned people from near and far in the early morning. I am not a good judge of the number in a crowd, but I should say there were some thousands, a totally unarmed crowd; very few had even a stick. There were few young men in the crowd - elderly men and striplings, elderly women and young girls, and a good many children, and, of course the irrepressible small boy who did the heavy part of the hissing and hooting. These young lads roosted on the Court House wall, on the range wall of the bridge so thickly that the wonder was how they could keep their position. The crowd heaved and swayed at the other end of the bridge, a tossing tide of heads. The excitement was there.

I could not see what was going on, but a person deputed by the clergyman before mentioned, came to bring me to a better station for seeing what was going on at the other end of the bridge. The crowd made way, the police passed us through, and we got a station at a window overlooking the scene. Out of the pound, through the swaying mass of people, was brought a very frightened animal. If she had had no horns to grip her by, if she had had the least bit of vantage ground to gather herself up for a jump, she would have taken a flying leap over the heads of some and left debtor and creditor, and all the sympathizers on both sides behind her, and fled to the pasture. She was held there and bid for in the most ridiculous way. All that were brought up this way were bought in and the rent was paid, and there the sale ended

There might have been serious rioting but for the exertions of the Catholic clergy.

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