ONE RESULT OF THE COERCION ACT--THE AGRICULTURAL LABORERS IN DOWN AND
ANTRIM--WHISKEY--RAIN IN IRELAND--A DISCUSSION ON ORANGEISM.
It is the eighth of March. The weather remains frightfully inclement;
the snow and sleet is succeeded by incessant rain storms. The Coercion
bill has become law and even in the north there seems a difference in
the people. There is a carefulness of expressing an opinion on any
subject as if a reign of governmental terror had begun. The loyalty
always so fervent is now intense and loud. The people here think that
there is an epidemic of unreasonableness and causeless murmuring raging
at the south and west.
In all that I have seen in Down and Antrim, the agricultural laborers
seem to be never at any time much above starvation; any exceptionally
hard times bring it home to them. In cases of accident, disease, or old
age, they have no refuge but the workhouse. There is a constant
struggle, as heroic in God's sight as any struggle of their Scottish
ancestors, to escape this dreaded fate. When it does overtake them,
however, the beggar nurses wait upon the sick beggars with a tenderness
that is inexpressibly touching.
Emigration is impossible to the laborer or the hand-loom weaver. They
have no money, they have nothing to sell to make money, and they are
utterly unwilling to be torn from the places where they were born to be
expatriated as beggars, and as beggars set down upon a foreign shore. I
am literally giving utterance to the opinions expressed to me.
I have heard these people loudly accused of extravagance; on enquiry was
told that they bought American bacon and drank tea, whereas, if thrifty,
they would be content with potatoes and buttermilk, or ditto and stir-
about. As the cow has disappeared, and potatoes have been known to fail,
I did not see the extravagance so clearly as I saw the parsimony that
would grudge the hard-worked laborer or the pale over-worked weaver any
nourishment at all.
The charge of spending on whiskey seems more likely by the frightful
amount of whiskey shops. Ireland's whiskey bill is going up into
somewhere among the millions. It is a fearful pity that this tax on the
industry and energy of the people could not be abolished. Truth compels
me to add that faces liquor-painted abound most among the well-dressed
and apparently well-to-do class whom one meets on the way.
The tenant-farmers, in some cases, complain of their rents, and would
complain more loudly but for fear of being classed with the Land League,
for they in the north are intensely loyal. As for the mere laborer, no
one seems to consider him or think of him at all.
The weather has been so inclement, the days all so much alike, rain,
hail, snow, sleet, high winds, and we were so busy coughing that the
days slipped by almost unnoticed. Refusing the tempting offer of a free
trip to see the beauties of Glengarriff, through the medium of a heavy
rain we started for Derry by train. Ah! it does know how to rain in
Ireland. Such a downpour, driven aslant by a fierce wind, so that,
disregarding the thought of an umbrella, we held on to the rail of the
jaunting car and were driven in the teeth of the tempest, smiling as if
we enjoyed it, up to the station.
Both sides of the road at the station were crowded with men in all sorts
of picturesque habiliments. If it had been near the poor-house we would
have thought that the population was applying for admittance _en
masse_. As it was, seeing the station likewise crowded, the platform
beyond crammed, all eager, expectant, waiting on something, we thought
it was some renowned field preacher going to give a sermon, or a
millionaire going to give largess. Not a bit of it. It was some person,
idle and cruel, who was bringing a couple of poor captive deer to be
hunted, and the hounds to hunt them, and the immense crowd represented
the idle and cruel who had assembled to get a glimpse of this noble and
elevating diversion. If it were possible for the deer and the man to
change places the crowd would be still more delighted.
Leaving Ballymena behind we panted through a completely sodden country.
Everything was dripping. In many places the waters were out, and the
low-lying lands were in a flood. Potatoes in pits linger in the fields,
turnips and cabbages in the rows where they grew, bearing witness that
even the last hard winter was many degrees behind the winters of Canada.
The land on this road is not so good as what I left behind; therefore
there were few gentlemen's houses, and the small farmhouses wore the
usual poverty-stricken and neglected appearance. There were more waste
hillsides devoted to whins, and flat fields tussocked with rushes as we
swept on through the dripping country, under the sides of almost
perpendicular rocks, down which little waterfalls, like spun silver,
fell and broadened into bridal veils ere they reached the bottom. Then
along the historical Foyle, "whose swelling waters," rather muddy at
this season of the year, "roll northward to the main," and so following
its windings and curvings we flashed into Derry.