WHAT IS AN IRISH LANDLORD?

AMID the varied foes that now menace him, the many dangers which now surround him, the Irish landlord is threatened with extinction, as a class, if not as an individuak His last remaining chance of continued existence appeared to lie in the Property Defence or Protection Association, but as it is averred that the 'wild birds' have not gained much from their 'Protection Act,' so in all probability this well-intentioned measure may not do more than defer for a time the period when the Irish landlord will be regarded as a curiosity of the past, a removed impediment in the onward path of liberty for a 'free and happy country.'

Before this extermination is effected, and some mummified specimen is placed in a museum ticketed as a species formerly met with, as was the Irish elk, we ask, What is an Irish landlord?

'More Hibernico!' We begin with those whom such a fate could never actually overtake; we name some of the most distinguished of the noble houses of the British Empire, magnates, who as an accidental attribute to their other qualities have become Irish landlords, bearing much the same relation to many of their class as does the favourite for the 'Derby' to his half-brother in the omnibus. The possessor of a large estate, with a fine castle or mansion beautifully situated by wild lake or mountain, but which, in the wealth of more splendid inheritances, is regarded as a possession of comparative insignificance, perhaps inhabited for a few weeks occasionally by some member of the family, who, in the event of good weather, enjoys the fishing and shooting, and thinks it a jolly place, but in 'fine soft weather,' as the people would say, is apt to depart after a short stay, with the settled conviction that it always rains in Ireland. The tenants regard their august landlord much perhaps as they do one of the saints, as a distant and invisible being, with power for good or ill to them—and is approached occasionally by addresses on family events, or by petitions for abatement of rent in bad seasons.

'Præsens divus habebitur,' 'his honour,' the agent, who, possessed of as much power, and generally more capacity than the surrounding gentry of the county, works the estate in a liberal and efficient manner, with ample means at his command for outlay and improvement, is himself provided with a good residence, adds the initials J.P. to his name, hunts regularly, or drives good horses, and in every respect occupies the position of a country gentleman, and who, unless he should be so unfortunate as to become hopelessly unpopular with the tenants, enjoys the estate free from many of the vexations pressing on a resident owner.

Then we come to the Irish nobles themselves, some descended from the ancient and kingly families of barbaric times, others through marriage grafted on a noble Irish stock, powerful and wealthy lords of the soil, who, though they probably have interests and ties in England, and may occupy a high position in London society, yet regard Ireland as their home, and their estates there, their chief concern. These are the 'improving landlords'; on these estates is there the greatest advance; the importation of English culture during lengthy residences in Ireland raises their schemes in theory and brings them to maturity in practice. Thus through and beyond the work of the agent's office my lord's mind goes into everything, and much is done to benefit and raise the tone of the people.

The newly-erected chapel or neat church, the national school built or enlarged, classes for embroidery or lace-making, a clothing clubbetoken the care and interest of the great house. There is money to spend, and it is spent for the most part well and judiciously, and in the form of a gift is received with fervent gratitude, and the donor overwhelmed with blessings. As an incentive to self-help the result may be disappointing. Paddy dreads exertion much more than poverty; rags and dirt are no disgrace, and a better and rather more well-to-do appearance than his neighbours is rather to be deprecated, as diminishing his claim to a little assistance, sure.'

The family who hid their blankets up the chimney when footsteps were heard approaching, express the general opinion of the undesirability of seeming too well off. There is always, however, reason or excuse for giving in one form or another, and the features of the demesne of such landlords represent the history of the people rather than the taste and pleasure of the possessor; the carriage-drive winding up a once bleak hill, now clothed with wood, was made and planted to give work after the famine year'; the garden was laid out, the shrubbery walks made, in such and such bad seasons.

Associated with these great Irish landlords are those of English blood, possessed of estates in Ireland through marriage, or descended perhaps from a General of Elizabethan times, to whom a grant of land was made-families who have at least made Ireland the country of their adoption, and whose estates there, share fully the outlay and care given to their English possessions, having an intimate knowledge of the character and wants of their people, and spending some part of the year among them with mutual benefit and pleasure.

Irish peers too are there of lesser degree, and, with less money to spend, sprung from an old family of Irish stock, decorated with a brand-new title from some grandfather Chief Justice perhaps, possessing the income and occupying much the position of a smaller English squire. Some, content with that position, living in a homely, unpretending way in the old family house, doing good around them on the lines of kindliness and sympathy; others, however, seem to be carried

off their feet altogether, in their efforts to emulate the higher ranks of their order, in everything but their solid merits. On such estates there is neither the will nor the way to effect much that is useful; the struggle to keep up appearances, and not to appear too Irish, seems all absorbing. An occasional visit to London gives a power of talking about Ascot and the theatres, and a knowledge of the fashions, which is withheld from their stay-at-home neighbours. The lady furnishes her drawing-room from Maple's, and adorns it with crewel work; the rest of the house remains in the normal Irish condition of rough domestic comfort and much litter, proving the cousinship to the untitled chieftain' head of the old family, and proud to omit the prefix 'Mr.' as too modern and foreign an appendage to the native 'O'. Here the large rambling old house, scantily furnished, the prevalence of nettles and rag-weed in the park, and the many 'bad places' in its surrounding stone wall, betoken straitened means, the result probably of several generations of large families and mortgages to correspond, to which add the circumstance, that the father 'kept the hounds' and 'open house,' with right Irish hospitality and recklessness. There is now no money to lay out either on themselves or others; they have no theories of improvement, and no means of carrying them out if they had, but there is still a warm Irish welcome in that ramshackle old house; numbers of poor are fed from the kitchen, and sit on the door-step waiting to tell their tale and receive aid in domestic troubles, advice and medicine in illness. The sons of the family are generally very unwilling to leave the 'ould place,' or if impelled to seek their fortunes elsewhere, have a way of returning for long and indefinite periods, finding always their bite and sup, and managing to keep a surprising number of horses and dogs. In appearance scarcely distinguishable from the farmers, they avoid society of any kind as much as possible, and are rarely visible, either at home or abroad, in company with the ladies of the house, who, delighted to pay or receive visits, will, with good horses and most out-of-date carriages and toilettes, drive any distance in any weather to see friends or make acquaintances.

Living much as do their tenants on the produce of their farms, and entirely dependent on the same conditions of agricultural prosperity or depression, bad seasons and low prices must tell very heavily on these landlords; they have no margin for such reverses, and a preponderance of bad years inevitably sinks them altogether. How many of these needy and embarrassed owners did sink after the terrible famine years' is now a matter of history, as is the mode by which it was sought that newer and more solvent possessors should become their substitutes.

The land jobber has sprung from these ruined fortunes, generally a shrewd speculator of the middle class of his country, sometimes an English capitalist of much enterprise. Under this rule a great deal of

money is laid out, and a great deal of profit is claimed in return— rents, of which the former possessor would never have contemplated the possibility, are not only asked, but paid, and are undoubtedly frequently justified by the money expended, and the bettered condition of the farms, but Paddy has a lurking preference for the easy-going, out-of-elbows ways of the 'ould family;' he dislikes compulsory improvement in any shape, even should there be no awkward legal threats in the background, as an alternative to paying an increased rent for advantages he was quite willing to forego.

We have then the tenant-farmer landlord, who, in the enjoyment of a long lease on favourable terms, has by a mixture of shrewdness and good fortune raised himself a good deal, in purse at least, above the rest of his kinsfolk; they entertaining mixed feelings of fear and envy of their prosperous relative, as he becomes a town councillor, a J.P., and now an M.P. Paying very grudgingly, or even evading payment, if possible, of his own head rent to the owner of the soil, this proprietor sub-lets his lands, not only at a much higher rate, but on a much more ready money scale of payment. On the large dairy farms a very high price has to be paid by the sub-tenant in advance, before the season commences, and six months after he has pocketed this money, the tenant-landlord will write excuses, or proceed to 'unpleasantness' with my lord's agent, on the subject of his own rent-his own much lower rent, and due a year back.

Such landlords too have been known to enact the part of the ' unjust steward,' when, while withholding their own rent, they gained an easy popularity at the 'land meeting,' by announcing an abatement of 5 per cent. from their, often extortionate, claims over those in their power. These unfortunates are well aware, that, except under such conditions, they are not likely to have much done for them by the landlord with whom they have to deal, and they do not expect it, or delude themselves for a moment with the belief that the tale of woe which would gain the ear of the English landlord, or of his honour,' the agent, would excite any sympathy here, and for the most part they forbear to press complaints of which there is no likelihood of redress.

Such landlords do not attempt to improve' any one but themselves, and the dilapidated thatch and broken windows of the mud cabins in the hands of a tenant-landlord often contrast in a village with the substantial slated houses built by the actual landlord for his labourers, and which they do not object to inhabit, provided that they may assimilate them as nearly as may be in dirt, and consequent comfort, to the cabin.

The tenant-landlord is generally a rich man, but he does not care to appear so. His mode of living differs but little from the rest of his kin; possibly his daughters, on their return from the convent boarding-school, decline to learn much of the business of the dairy, and

set up a piano and fancywork in the best room, a waggonette and driver in livery has perhaps replaced the outside car, but on the whole, to be rich, and to seem poor, is the safest course, and it is no doubt one great secret of the success of the present 'agitation,' that it has appealed so adroitly to the prevalent tone of mind of the middle and lower classes of Ireland, to their love of money, as money, and their indifference to the use of money to elevate their condition.

This brief sketch of Irish landlordism cannot be closed without bringing before us that class of owners of land, or of interest in land, who, while their entire subsistence (may be) depends on the realisation of such interest, have little or no power or responsibility connected with it. We name those unfortunate ladies whose unhappy condition now calls forth the sympathy of England, widows with slender jointures on Irish estates, the sole means of support for themselves and of education for their children, women of all conditions dependent on charges on land, and who, up to the time of the commencement of the strike against rent in Ireland, have lived in comfortable circumstances and quite apparently above the reach of want.

That this agitation against rent, excited by needy adventurers and seditious mischief-makers (whose only hope of doing well for themselves depends on what chance they may get of filling their own empty pockets with other men's dues), has been only too successful with a credulous people, always ready to embrace a grievance, is now a matter of fact; and consequently we have au revers de la médaille, a sad and harrowing tale of loss, persecution and suffering'-the modest income becoming more and more uncertainly paid, till it dwindles even to a fraction of the sum due, the consequent privations and losses, the sale of personal effects and treasured mementos, the failing health, or increasing infirmity, caused or aggravated by the want of comforts or even necessaries, the wearing anxieties of debt and deferred hope, nay, in some cases the added torture of brutal annoyance caused by 'boycotting' and similar terrorism.

Faint is the description which reaches us, compared with the terrible reality, but as we picture to ourselves in any degree the misery and ruin which have been caused by the baneful influence of the withering blight of 'agitation' now desolating Ireland, whatever opinion may be held as to the mode of cure of the disease, shall we not own that these hapless sufferers are the innocent victims of its dreadful ravages?