’Sir—­I beg respectfully to call your attention to the following statement.  In 1866, Judge Longfield conveyed to my uncle, under what was called an indefeasible title, the lands of Inch East, Ardroe and Inch Island, and previous to the sale, Judge Longfield caused them to be valued by Messrs. Gadstone and Ellis, and in the face of the rental, he certified that the fair letting value of Inch East and Ardroe was L230, and that the fair letting value of Inch Island was L75, now in hand.  On the strength of will, my uncle purchased the lands valued at L305 for L6200, and your sub-Commissioners have just reduced the rental of Inch East and Ardroe at the rate of from L230 to L170 a year.

I therefore request you will be pleased to take some steps to recoup me for the L60 a year I have lost by the action of the Government, and I may say this can be partially done by abandoning the quit rent and tithe rent charge, amounting to L34, 5s. 4d., which I am now forced by the Government to pay without any reduction.

A. BLENNERHASSETT.’

The Right Honourable W.E.  Gladstone.

The oracle of Hawarden was as dumb to this as to my effusion to a similar purport already mentioned.  Not even the proverbial postcard was sent to Tralee, so the verbosity of Mr. Gladstone was strangely checked when he found himself pinned down to facts by Irish landlords.

Whilst landlords and their families were literally starving, and agents were collecting what they could at the peril of their lives, the real land-grabbers, the no-renters, were accumulating money, and investing it in land.

I sent the following series of sales to the Times to show the real value of land:—­

  (1) The interest on Lord Granard’s estate, the valuation of which was
  five guineas, was sold for L280, and the fee-simple subsequently
  bought for L80.

  (2) On one of his own farms for which the tenant paid L65 annual rent,
  the tenant’s interest fetched L750 and auction fees.

  (3) A farm at Curraghila, near Tralee, annual rent L70, Poor Law
  valuation, L51, 10s., area stat. 73 acres.  The tenant’s interest was
  sold for L700.

  (4) Tenant’s interest on a farm in County Tipperary, on Lord
  Normanton’s estate, at yearly rent of L30, was sold for L600, and the
  fee-simple purchased for L450.

  (5) Tenant’s interest at Breaing, near Castleisland, held at the
  annual rent of L51, 10s., was sold for L550.

  (6) At Abbeyfeale, County Kerry, tenant of a small farm, at annual
  rent of twenty-four shillings, sold his interest for L55.

All the sales, save the Tipperary one, were in a district in which, prior to the Land Act of 1881, tenant-right was unknown.

Poetry is always congenial to an Irishman, probably because it has licences almost as great as he likes to take, and has a vague, irresponsible way of putting things, much akin to his own methods.