tenants and the Smith-Barry Tipperary tenantry in the fight which is to come on.”  Surely no humiliation was ever greater than this!—­no decree of secret council or pitiless Vehmgericht were ever more ruthlessly imposed, more servilely obeyed!  Can we say that the Irish are fit to be called freemen, or able to exercise the real functions of Nationality, when they can suffer themselves to be hounded like sheep and rated like dogs for the exercise of their own judgment and the performance of their duties as honest men and good citizens?

If the mere presence in Ireland of Lady Sandhurst and Mr. Stansfeld dismayed Mr. Balfour and scattered his myrmidons as the forces of the Evil One fly before the advent of the angels, could they not have used their semi-divine power for these humiliated rent-payers?  Instead of complacently listening to bunkum—­which, if they had had any sense of humour would have made them laugh; any of modesty would have made them blush—­could they not have brought their inherited principles of commercial honesty and manly fidelity to an engagement to bear on these irate Campaigners, and have reminded them that the very core of Liberalism is the right of each man to unrestricted action, provided he does not hurt his neighbour?  But Home Rulers are essentially one-sided in their estimate of tyranny, and things change their names according to the side on which they are ranged.  To boycott a man, to mutilate his cattle,[F] to commit outrages on his family, and finally to murder him outright for paying his rent or taking an evicted farm, are all justifiable proceedings of righteous severity.  But for a landlord to evict a tenant from the farm for which he will not pay the covenanted rent—­will not, but yet could, twice over—­is a cowardly, a brutal, a damnable act, for which those slugs from behind a stone-wall are the well-deserved reward.

Here is an instance of the vengeance sought to be taken by wealthy tenants evicted for non-payment of rent.

“Lord Clanricarde writes to the Times to corroborate the statement that an infernal explosive machine had been found in a cottage at Woodford, in Ireland.  His lordship quotes as follows from the account of an eye-witness:—­

’When possession was taken of the sub-tenant’s house, No. 1, there was the usual crowd crowding as close to our party as the police would allow; but it was remarked that on our approach to houses Nos. 2 and 3, close together, and which concealed the infernal machine, the crowd kept well away out of hearing, while the Woodford leaders were on a car on the road, but out of danger like the others; but all well in sight of any destruction that might befall the officers of the law.  This house, No. 3, when last examined in June, was found vacant, door not locked, but open, and used as a shelter for cattle.  Finding it locked now, X. detached the lock, pushed the door open, and he and I and others went inside.  The house was empty, but a pile of stones was heaped up in the