AGRARIAN OUTRAGES.

Grey River Argus, Volume IX, Issue 656, 2 April 1870, Page 4

AGRARIAN OUTRAGES.

On January 1, Mr Crotty, a farmer, was shot near Ballincove, county Mayo, ■while returning on a car from the fail- at Westport. Some of his hair was shot off the top of his head, and the orOwh of his hat was blown away. The assassin, who was inside a hedge, walked coolly off.— -A shopkeeper named Walshe, residing in Shrule, a small town about ten miles from Tuam, was fired, at the same day, when returning from the market in the latter -town. A man came up to him when about half a mile from Tuam, and putting a pistol against Walshe's stomach, fired, and lodged the ball in the poor mau's body. The two men who were on the par let the villain escape. The reason, — still believed to be tho truo one—, for this desperate attack is, that he was a very large dealer in eggs. - As he had a great command of money, he was able to take a great deal of the trade out of other* dealers' hands, and, in consequence, there was a crreat deal of ill-feeling against him. His life, had been threatened before, and he had had protection from the Government. It is reported that he raised tho price of eggs to i£d each, and that it was to get rid of so formidable a rival he was shot. No arrest has been made, nor does there seem any likelihood, of any one being-made amenable, as the man himself said that the night Was so dark he would not be able to identify the person who shot him. He has since expired.— On 15th January a man named Higgins, residing at Swineford, county Mayo, was dragged out of bed by an armed party, who "combed" and " carded" hi? face and other. parts of his body, lacerating him severely, because ho offered to take some land from which tenants were to be evicted.— Threatening letters continue to spread alarm in the county Meath and other parts of the country. — On 16th January there was a meeting of the Protestant inhabitants of Dramdnff, county Fermanagh, to express sympathy with two men who had received threatening letters, althbugh they are neither landlords, agents, nor bailiffs. The conduct of the writer was denounced in indignant terms, and a resolution Hfloptedihat if they suffered any injury act j of retaliation would be resorted to. Jn view, of the inaccurate statements connected with tlje^e outrages which coh $ to us from Ireland, a contemporary says.

and not without reason : — " Why.is the Irish correspondence of the London papei-s. so often a tissue of fables ? We have ourselves been recently led into, three somewhat serious errors by tho minuteness of these fabulous inventions. First, there was the man (Mr O'Connor, «.f King's county), whoso nose was cut off by four ruffians. The outrage created the greatest sensation in England, till a few days later it appeared that Mr O'Connor had been afterwards seen in Dublin with a nose certainly not scarred or sewn on, though he might perhaps have received a blow on it in the encounter. Then the murder of Mr Walshe was reported falsely ns a murder committed from trade jealously, because he had greatly raised prices in the egg market by buying up the eggs on all sides. Now it appears that no such motive at all can have had anything to do with the matter. Mr Walshe himself in his dying moments entirely acquitted the persons suspected, and asserted that he believed himself to have been murdered by mistake for some one else, as he had no personal quarrol with any one."