THE OTHER SIDE OF CAPTAIN BOYCOTT.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume IX, Issue 923, 5 March 1881, Page 6

THE OTHER SIDE OF CAPTAIN BOYCOTT.

A special correspondent to the Dublin Freeman gives the popular version of the case of Captain Boycott and the causes of the enmity against him. He states that Captain Boycott is brave to a fault, and is also eccentric. He says his rules in his dealings with the laborers were punctilious to a harsh and Quixotic degree. The laborers state that, instead of summoning them, he used to fine them himself Id. a fowl for every hen that trespassed on his grass farm ; that a man was fined if he left a spade or shovel in the wrong place; fined if he left a gate open; fined if he took a short cut across a field; fined if he was two minutes behind the ring of the bell, with the result that a man employed at 9s. a week sometimes found himself only entitled to 7s. after his week’s labor. His dogmatic and domineering tone with the people appears to have been another prolific cause of enmity against him. “He treated his cattle better than he did us,” said one of his tenants; “he never had anything but a curse for us.” A certain amount of gratuitous “ duty work ” was done upon his farm by the tenants for some time after his appointment as agent for Lord Erne, but his unpopularity led to a refusal to continue the duty work any longer.