Irish Disturbances

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 5, 1871

Irish Disturbances.

A LONDON correspondent of the New York Times writes: “I am sorry to say that matters are again wearing a very unpleasant aspect in the sister island. There have been some bad murders, or agrarian outrages, as they are politely called, lately. An old farmer who owned a bit of land which he had given his tenant (who was also his nephew) notice to quit was killed at his own fireside by a pistol shot through the window; the nephew has been arrested. Another farmer going home with his wife was offered a lift in a passing car; he accepted, and had hardly seated himself when one of the men on the car sprang down and brained him with a stone. The victim in this case, who was not killed outright, had been guilty of bidding more than somebody else at a sale of land. Yet another farmer, on his way to mass, was shot dead by three men armed with revolvers. Here again the outrage is described as agrarian, but it will be observed that in each of these cases the attack was made, not by tenants on a landlord, but by farmers on each other. It is not enough that the landlord should be compelled to part with his lands under various restrictions and conditions, but the competition of farmers against farmers is interdicted under the penalty of instant death, without the benefit of judge, jury or priest. A man bids at a sale and the rival he bids against shoots him like a dog as he goes home, and thinks he has a perfect right to do so, while the people look on at these abominable deeds paralyzed or sympathetic.”