that he has not a still poorer countryman as a hanger-on, it may be
added that when an Irishman is not a borrower he is almost certain to
be a lender--the advice of Polonius being abhorrent to the spirit of a
free-and-easy, happy-go-lucky people. When a man in these parts gets
or keeps out of debt himself, he is mostly engaged in encouraging
others to get into it. Often he has little or nothing himself, but
acts after the Irish fashion as deputy _gombeen_ man for the pleasure
of the thing, and also for a commission well and duly paid. This
determination towards borrowing and lending is not confined to any
particular class, but is characteristic of all. As the peer, who would
never have put his hand into his own pocket to pay for improving his
property, suddenly awakes to the value of drainage when the Government
offers a million and a half at one per cent., so did the _gombeen_
man, who would never have dreamed of lending more than a pound at a
time to a peasant, extend his credit four or five fold when the Land
Act of 1870 gave him the first instalment of proprietary right in the
land he occupied. The instalment was a very small one, but it was at
once discounted by the _gombeen_ man, whose rate of interest enabled
him to run extraordinary risks. As the poor pay dearly for everything,
so do they pay an extravagant interest for money. There was once a
fashionable West-end usurer, who, pretending to know nothing about
arithmetic, met his clients on the subject of percentage with "I don't
understand figures, but my terms are a shilling per pound every month.
It is easy to reckon up without going into sums on slates." This poor
innocent was charging just 60 per cent., but his terms were lavishly
liberal as compared with those of the _gombeen_ man. Instead of a
shilling per month the latter charges a shilling a week for every
sovereign advanced, and then "Begorra, it's only the name of a
sovereign," which being interpreted signifies that an advance of one
pound, less charges, only amounts to 18s. 10d., and that upon this sum
a shilling interest must be well and duly paid weekly. Any failure
entails a fine, and a failure to pay off the original sovereign
borrowed within six months is very heavily fined indeed. I am told
that the _gombeen_ man actually puts on cent. per cent. for this
failure of redemption; but, on my principle of believing only a
percentage of all I hear, and of taking a liberal discount off all I
see, I doubt this enormity. Concerning the shilling interest per week
on a pound there is, however, unhappily no room for doubt, and for
small unsecured loans 260 per cent. per annum is still the ruling
figure.
This enormous rate of interest, however, is now only exacted on the
very smallest loans, for the old-fashioned _gombeen_ man has lost his
customers for larger sums. In old times he was the only means of
obtaining such little sums as five and ten pounds on personal
security; but since 1870 the banks have entered into competition with
him, have undersold him, and, in fact, "run him out of the market,"
except for sums under four or five pounds. The unfortunates who are
short of a sovereign or two must look up their old friend in the back
shop smelling of bacon, tallow, pepper, tea, and whisky, just as their
social superiors seek the intrepid sixty per cent. man of St. James's,
whose snuggery is perfumed by the best Havannahs that other people's
money can buy. But when the soul of Mike rises to the sublime
conception of a loan of five pounds he dismisses the old-fashioned
usurer, and hies him to one of the branch banks which abound in every
petty townlet in Western and Southern Ireland. When I say "abound" I
mean to be taken literally. What would be thought in England, I
wonder, of four banks in a town like Ennis, or of two in pettifogging
places like Kilrush or Ennistynon--mere hamlets of some two thousand
inhabitants? Yet these three places have eight branch banking
establishments among them. It must not, however, be supposed that Mike
gets his paltry four or five pounds on his promissory note without
further security. Nothing of the kind. Mike must go through as much
artful financiering to raise his five pounds as the Hon. Algernon
Deuceace to raise his "monkey." His bill must be well backed by his
friends, Thady and Tim. Now, Thady's name on the back of a five-pound
bill is not good for much. He is but a peasant, like Mike, not a
farmer, properly so called, and even as two blacks will not make a
white, so will the joint credit of Mike and Thady not rise to the
height of five one-pound notes. But they have a potent ally in Tim,
who married Thady's wife's cousin. Tim is a prudent man, has worked
hard at his farm, and, as a rule, has a matter of twenty or thirty
pounds on deposit note at the bank, receiving for the same interest at
the rate of one per cent. per annum. His name at the back of a
five-pound bill is therefore a tower of strength, and, in fact, floats
the entire speculation. In commercial phrase, he "stands to be shot
at" while his own deposit money, on which he receives one per cent.,
supplies the funds for the bank to lend Mike and Thady, at ten or
twenty per cent., for there is no pretence made of doing very small
bills at anything approaching ordinary rates. In fact, the peasant
cultivator, having acquired under the Land Acts now in force a species
of proprietory interest in the soil, has a sort of credit which,
backed by a friendly and innocent depositor, can be made an engine for
raising ready money in a small way. This help from the banks is so far
good that it has relieved the decent peasant from his ancient
bloodsucker, the _gombeen_ man. Admitting that with charges and fine
for renewal and so forth the loan ultimately costs Mike fifteen or
twenty per cent, he is vastly better off than he was under the old
system. He gets money to buy pigs to fatten for sale, or manure for
his bit of arable land, and if the rate appears high, it is wondrously
merciful as compared with that to which he was formerly accustomed.
But there is an awkward side even to the business which enables the
principal Irish banks to pay large dividends. So long as care is taken
that Mike and Thady do not overdo the accommodation bill system,
perhaps no very great harm is done in extending the advantage of
moderate credit to the humblest cultivator; but when competition is
sharp in a petty townlet between two rival banks, the tendency towards
a mischievous extension of credit is almost irresistible, and bank
managers are at last driven to look sharply after their clients on
market days, lest the ready money which is their due should be
deflected to other purposes. The provision man, who has supplied bacon
and other necessaries, is on the alert to secure something on account;
and if, as is most probable, he has been giving credit somewhat
recklessly, he is pinched for money, despite the high rate of profit
he has been charging to cover his risk. For some time past the game of
credit has been going on gaily; but since the commencement of the
present agitation both banks and _gombeen_ men have distinctly
narrowed their operations, and the landlord is now the almost
universal creditor. The harvest-money has either gone to pay advances
or to settle accounts with tradesfolk, so that an awkward future is in
preparation for all but the prosperous tenants, of whom there is no
lack in counties Clare and Limerick. Whatever the details of the
forthcoming Land Act may be when it has passed the ordeal of both
Houses of Parliament, the work of passing it will take time, and at
least another half-year's rent will accrue before it takes the shape
of law. Now, with all the talk of Griffith's valuation, there has
been, except in a few cases, no hint of paying that sum "without
prejudice" into court or into any bank whatsoever; and the cash held
by both farmers and peasants runs, in the opinion of many well
qualified to judge, sore risk of diminution before any comprehensive
measure can pass through Parliament. Even the well-to-do farmers will
be called upon to expend their balance in hand in many ways which they
will find difficult to resist. Not only the provision merchants, but
the drapers and milliners of Limerick, Ennis, and Galway, will hold
out allurements to those in possession of ready money. To put the
case briefly, there is great danger that, without any intentional
dishonesty on their part, the cultivators, great and small, of Western
and South-Western Ireland will hardly be in as good a position for the
discharge of their liabilities six months or a year hence as they are
at present. The three "F's" will hardly wipe off existing debt, and
the result of a division of the population into two sharply defined
classes of debtors and creditors is viewed by many thoughtful people
with considerable apprehension.
XII.
THE RETAINER.
CORK, _December 4th._
In describing the character of the Western and Southern Irishman
nothing would be more unfair than to leave out of the estimate his
curious faithfulness to some persons, and the tenderness with which he
cherishes the traditions of the past. In no country in the world is
the superstition concerning the "good old times" more fervently
believed in than in Western and Southern Ireland. And in the opinion
of the mass of the people the good old times extended down to a recent
date. One is asked to believe that before the period of the potato
famine Ireland was the abode of plenty if not of peace, and that
landlords and tenants blundered on together on the most amicable
terms. It is hardly necessary to state that the golden age of Ireland,
like the golden age of every other country, never had any real
existence. It is like the good old-fashioned servant who from the time
of Terence to our own has always lived in the imaginary past, but
never in the real present. The belief in a recent golden age is,
however, so prevalent in Ireland that I have thought it worth while to
investigate the grounds on which it is based and the means by which it
has been kept fresh and green.
The first fact which strikes the observer is that since the potato
famine the West and South have been going through a period of
transition still in progress. Under the authority of the Encumbered
Estates Court a vast area of land has changed hands, and the new
proprietors have only in rare cases succeeded in securing the
affection of their tenants and neighbours, who sit "crooning" over the
fire, extolling the virtues of the "ould masther" and comparing him
with the new one, very much to the disadvantage of the latter. It is
not remarkable that such comparisons should be instituted. The people
have very little to do, and do that in a slovenly, slip-shod way, and
they have therefore plenty of leisure for gossip. As they are ignorant
of everything beyond their own county, it is only natural that the new
proprietor or lessee should be discussed at great length, and all his
acts and deeds be fully commented upon. And it is not remarkable that
the judgment should be adverse to the new man. He is generally North
Irish, Scotch, or English. The two former are hated at once, at a
venture; but the "domineering Saxon" is given a chance, and with a
little tact and good temper can secure, if not affection, at least
toleration.
But it is not easy to get the good word of the people, even when one
is neither a "tyrant" oneself nor the lessee of an "exterminator"; for
the ways of the most just and generous of the new men do not suit
those of the natives like the system, or rather want of system, of the
old chiefs. Even when a demesne only is leased by a "foreigner," and
all risk of quarrelling with tenants is thus avoided, it is hard work
to achieve popularity. As I drove up the avenue of a dwelling thus
inhabited, I asked the driver what he and the country-side thought of
the new tenant of the old house. "A good man, your honour," was the
cold answer; followed by an enthusiastic, "Och, but it was the ould
masther that was the good man! Sorra the bite or sup any one wanted
while he was to the fore!" Now, the "ould masther" was, I understand,
a worthy gentleman, of good old county family, who lived in the midst
of his tenantry for several months every year, and "kept up his old
mansion at a bountiful old rate," like a fine old "Celticised Norman,"
as he was. Like the descendants of the early settlers described by Mr.
Froude, he and his had retained their popularity by concessions to
Celtic habits, not in religion or personal conduct be it understood,
but in letting things go on easily, in a happy-go-lucky way, without
any superstitions concerning the profuse employment of soap and water
by their dependents. Probably no lady of the house had for many
generations entered the kitchen, which apparently served as a focus
for the country folk. The stone floor was a stranger to hearthstone
and to water, except such as might be spilt upon it; and was either
slippery or sticky here and there, according to the nature of the most
recent deposits. The table and dressers were in such a condition when
taken over by the "domineering Saxon" that washing was abandoned as
hopeless, and scraping and planing were perforce resorted to. But
overhead, firmly fixed in the beams of the ceiling, hung many a goodly
flitch of bacon, many a plump, well-fed ham. Under the shadow of this
appetising display might be found at any time during the day about a
score of persons who had no business there whatever, but found it
"mighty convanient" to look in about meal times for the bite and sup
my car-driver so regretfully alluded to, and to sit round the fire
smoking a pipe and talking for hours afterwards.
It was in the larder attached to this fine old kitchen that I met a
glorious specimen of the fine Old Irish Retainer, faithful to the
memory of the "ould masther," who had left him an annuity of eight
shillings per week, and not unmindful of the virtues of the new one,
who keeps him on the establishment as an interesting "survival," and
lodges, feeds, and clothes him, in order that he may not be obliged
to divert any portion of his income from its natural course towards
Mary Molony's shebeen, to the purchase of the prosaic necessaries of
life. The Retainer, who was enjoying the occupation of turning some
hams and bacon in salt, and inspecting the condition of some pigs'
heads in highly spiced pickle, was a singularly good-looking man,
with, well--I will not say "clean"--cut features and a generally
healthy look, speaking wonders for the vigour of constitution which
had successfully withstood sixty odd winters and an incalculable
quantity of the poisonous new whisky of the country. He was interested
in the subject of obtaining sundry rounds of salt beef for
Christmastide, holding that roast beef is but a vain thing, good
enough for Saxons, no doubt, but not to be compared with corned beef
or bacon and cabbage. The Retainer spoke kindly of his new master, but
at the mention of the old one at once kindled to fever heat. "Thim was
times, your honour. Niver a week but we killed two sheep, or a month
that we didn't kill a baste. And pigs, your honour. If we didn't kill
a pig every day, as your honour says, we killed a matther of four
score every sayson. And there was lashings and lavings of mate for
every one. And the ould masther said, says he, 'As long as it's
there,' says he, 'all are welcome to a bite and a sup at my house. As
long as it's there,' says he. And he was the good man, your honour."
This was it. The present tenant's Celticised predecessor, whose glory
still fills the land, lived the life of an African chief. When ox,
sheep, or pig was slain, the choice morsels of the animal were perhaps
reserved for the chieftain's table, and the remainder of the carcase
was distributed among the tribe assembled in that part of the kraal
called the kitchen. Odds and ends of food were always on hand; and if
there was not much to eat at home there was always something to be had
at the chieftain's tent. Outside of the kitchen door was the stable
yard, knee deep in the accumulated filth of years, and the garden was
a wilderness. "But, your honour," said the Retainer, "it was the foine
gentleman he was, and it tuk three waggons to carry away the empty
champagne bottles when the new masther came, and long life to him and
to your honour; and I wish your honour safe home and welcome back."
Thus far the Retainer, who is fairly well cared for, and ought to be
satisfied whether he is or not; but it is otherwise with the
surrounding public. As the old order changes and gives place to the
new, the poorer tenants have seen one privilege depart from them after
the other. To the new occupant, however much inclined he may be to
deal liberally, nay, generously with the country folk, it appears
preposterous that a score or more of loafers should assist his
servants in "eating up his mutton." The new comer is prepared to deal
handsomely with the people, who with all their faults have endearing
qualities almost impossible to resist; but the fact is that he does
not understand the situation till it is too late. A good Scotch or
English housewife going into her kitchen and finding it so
inexpressibly dirty that her feet are literally rooted to the ground,
is apt to express a very decided opinion, despite the presence of a
dozen or more of gossips smoking their pipes round the fire; but her
remarks are hardly likely to be taken in good part, and she is classed
as a "domineering" person forthwith. And a general misunderstanding
can only be averted by timely concessions and the prompt dismissal of
English servants who neither can nor will live with their Irish peers.
And yet it cannot be fairly said that anybody is to blame. The
"foreigner" cannot endure to be kept in bed till late in the morning,
and hence easily acquires the reputation of a "tyrant." And the small
tenants feel the loss of the African system, under which they never
actually went short of a meal. As the right of mountain pasture and of
cutting turf have vanished on some estates, so has the privilege of
living at free quarters disappeared on others, to be replaced by no
compensating advantage. This is one of the features of a period of
transition during which, without ill-will on either side, the gulf
between rich and poor is becoming perceptibly wider.
Inasmuch as I am just now contradicted by peers in the columns of the
_Daily News_ itself, and attacked--I must add, in very courteous as
well as brilliant style--by a leader writer of the _Irish Times_, and
held up to public opprobrium at Sunday meetings, I thought it well to
submit the foregoing to a friend, born and bred in Ireland, before
committing it to print. Where, except so far as the retainer is
concerned, I was obliged to depend so much on hearsay evidence, I
thought it just possible that I might have selected an extreme case
instead of a fair type of what I have ventured to call the African
system. I am quite reassured. My friend, who is an accomplished and
experienced Irishman, tainted only by a very few years' residence in
England, assures me that I have considerably understated the wild,
wasteful profusion, slothfulness, and dirt of the old-fashioned
chieftain's kitchen. He assures me that families are now abroad in the
world without an acre of land or a halfpenny beyond their earnings,
who, within his recollection, have been "ruined by their
kitchen,"--literally eaten up by hungry retainers and tenants. He
mentioned one family in particular, whose income sank from 12,000l. to
nothing a year under the ancient system which united almost every
possible defect. The tenants were not, it is true, charged a heavy
rent in money, because civilisation had not advanced quite so far as
the commutation of all dues into cash; but "duty work" was as strictly
exacted on the lord's farm as it is now on some estates when coal is
to be drawn, and "duty" tribute in kind was levied as well. Thus the
tenant was obliged not only to cultivate the "ould masther's" land,
but to give him at Christmas tide a "duty" pig and "duty" geese and
fowls according to a fixed percentage. My friend, whose position
places his assertion above all doubt, assures me that in old leases it
is quite common to find a sum of money specified as the equivalent of
a "duty" hog; and other tribute of similar kind. The "ould masther,"
whose bailiffs looked sharply after "duty" of all descriptions,
himself dispensed the indiscriminate hospitality already described,
and "masther" and man floundered in the slough of debt and poverty
together, making light of occasional hardship. All this feudal
fellowship has gone with the old chieftains, whom the people profess
to admire, and compare regretfully with the new men who expect to pay
and be paid. But I am reminded that I have omitted to mention an
important factor in the older polity of Ireland. The opposite ends of
the social chain were brought together by that time-honoured ensign
and instrument of authority, one end of which was in the master's hand
and the other in the man's ribs or across his shoulders. It was "the
shtick" which kept things together so far as they were kept so at all.
The descendants of the masters say little or nothing about the good
old custom of their forefathers in "laying about them with their
rattan;" but the Retainer has not forgotten the ungentle practice
which stimulated him to exertion in his youth. To hear the Retainer
one would believe that the great smoother of difficulties, stimulant
to exertion, and pacificator of quarrels was the "shtick." The idea of
one of the tribe "processing" his chief for assault was never dreamt
of in the good old times; for the recalcitrant one would have been
"hunted out" of the county by the indignant population. To the
Retainer the old time has hardly passed away, for it is not long since
he actually recommended a "domineering Saxon" on the occasion of a
domestic disturbance to "take the shtick to 'um, your honour. Sure the
ould masther always did. And when he had murthered 'um they was as
saft as silk." It is curious that the wand of the enchanter during the
Golden Age of "Ould Ireland" should prove to have been the
all-persuasive, all-powerful "shtick."
XIII.
CROPPED.
GORTATLEA, CO. KERRY, _Monday, Dec. 6th._
Having heard agrarian outrages reported one day and denied or
explained away the next, I thought it worth while to ascertain the
exact truth concerning the case of Laurence Griffin, of Kilfalliny,
co. Kerry. It had been reported at Cork that Griffin had been taken
out of his bed in his own house, that his ears had been slit, and that
he had been otherwise maltreated by a band of ruffians, on the night
of Monday last. Then it was roundly asserted that he had never been
attacked at all, and that he was a malingerer who had slit his own
ears, or persuaded his wife to slit them for him, with an eye to the
excitement of sympathy and charity; that winter was coming on; and
that, after all, the ear is not a very sensitive part of the human
form. To ascertain the exact truth there seemed to be only one
method--to see for oneself. Having seen the man, and assisted at the
application of a fresh dressing to his wounded ear, not _ears_, I must
confess myself incapable of entertaining any doubt as to his veracity.
His mutilated ear is not slit, nor is he "ear-marked" like a beast, by
a notch being cut in that organ. The upper and exterior convolution of
his left ear is cut clean off, so that its outline, instead off being
rounded at the top, is straight. The wound is of course still fresh
and sore, but is already showing signs of healing. The poor man has
evidently been not only barbarously mutilated, but nearly frightened
to death. With his pale face and half-grown beard, and his head bound
up, he is a pitiable object. Obviously he was nearly as much afraid of
me as of his midnight assailants, and was far too much bewildered by
the harsh tone of "the Saxon" to tell a smooth and coherent story. Bit
by bit, amid many interruptions, he told his pitiful narrative, only
one part of which I consider doubtful. He denied that, either by their
clothes or any other sign, he could identify any one of the men who
attacked him. I am obliged to believe that, despite their blackened
faces, he could have done so, were he not in fear of his life. The
hand of his enemies is still heavy upon him, for his wife cannot get
milk from the neighbours for her children. They are either afraid, or
say that they are, to give or sell to Laurence Griffin, his wife, or
his children. He is thrown out of employment, and may, so far as the
anti-landlord party are concerned, starve. The causes which led to
the outrage on this poor man afford such a curious picture of the
present state of county Kerry as to be worth narrating.