The Evictions in Kerry.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 188, 22 January 1887, Page 8

The Evictions in Kerry.

Pictures are drawn of Lord Kenmare as a dreadful ogre, devouring his fellow countrymen. His appearance certainly does not suggest any such unpleasant tastea. A fair man of middle height and size with strongly marked Hibernian features, he appears more interested in the completion of his mansion and the preserving of his park tban in the political and social questions of the day. To be perfectly frank, Lord Kenmare is a kindly, easy-going man, anxious for the good opinion of his tenants, and who leaves the actual management of hiß estates in the hands of his agent. He remembers with a sigh the time when he held an unassailable seat for the country, when the holder of the Kenmare estates was supreme among the people, when tenants seemed to think it a privilege to pay rent, and no turbulent and irreverent spirits disturbed the patriarchal peace of Killarney. Now all is changed. A Killarney innkeeper sits in the House for the division of the country, the peasants cock their hats defiantly in the awe-inspiring presence of landlord or agent, they no longer flock in gleeful procession with the song and dance of the golden age to deposit their half-yenrly offerings in the office of the estate, they loudly proclaim in the market places that Jack is as good as his master, and will only pay his master such sum as is convenient or else none at all. Lord Kenmare, fallen on evil days, as he sits by his turf fire, *pn only sigh, shrugh hie shoulders, and wonder what the country ia coming to. Lord Kenmare receives his visitors with that homely courtesy which i<3 common to all Irishmen, whether peers or peasants He expresses his anxiety to furnish every information to the English people which will euabla them to form a correct judgment of the Irish question. From tho Dromore estate thVroad leads | along the high lands above the deep kerry bays, the wild gorse covered hills, rich in ; autumn colours on the one hand and the Atlantic, stretching away to the sky line in tones ot bluieh grey, on the other. In the words of Bishop Heber, " Every prospect pleases and only man is" dirty. The loveliness of nature in South-West Kerry id as indescribable as the squalour of the miserable people who squat upon its stony fields. About halfway between Kenmareand Waterville ie Sneem, famous for possessing the worst, the dirtiest inn in all Ireland. For our sins we were condemned to lunch there upon the vilest bacon and eggs that can be imagined, attended by a damsel whose gold lace and furbelows were no less conspicuous than her personal slovenliness. A mongrel cur and a young cockerel, rejoicing in the various strata of cfreat depth and richness deposited on the carpet, kept us company during our meal. Our interest in this unique establishment was crowned by the presentation of a bill which would have done credit to Claridge'a or the Hotel Bristol. Those who drive to Waterville would do well not to stop for lunch at Sneem. In passing through the country one is chiefly struck by the density of the population. In the wildest mountain districts, where even heather will not grow, where the long extent' of brown bog is broken only by jutting rocks, ecattered boulders, and glaoial drift, you will find people as thickly planted as in the richest agricultural districts of England. Along the roads, away up on the hill sides, far off in the almost inaccessible recesses of the morass, they have built their poor hovels, and from morn till night toil on tiny patches which by their own labour they have reclaimed. Go where you will in SoufchWest Kerry, the landscape is dotted with tiny clouds of blue turf smeke, which tell of the despairing struggle of the peasant against unkind nature and still unkindor man. The richest soil in Europe could not support such a population by purely agricultural pursuits, let alone a soil where not a blade of grass will grrow without months and years of patient tillage. It may bo regarded as certain that in all the district from Kenmare to Killorglin, nine-tenths of the people could not live in the smallest comfort if they received the land for nothing, on the present system of cultivation. Above Waterville—which lies at the head of a small bay close to the Island of Valentia, where the Atlantic cables come ashore— the scenery is wonderfully fine. Those who have Been a sunset here in the far west will not soon forgot it. Over the ocean a fiery glow of

scarlet, tinging the rugged edges of heavyclouds, on the horizon north and south, of the hidden sun a limpid expanse of mauve and green and yellow, all in tones more delicate than ever the hand of the* deftest painter mingled on pis palette. But the east is yet more glorious. A low line of hills', heather clad, begins to glow from crown to foot, as though heated io a furnace. First the Igorse brown is touched with purple, then the whole hill sides melt into a broad band of dull crimson, which brightens and brightens till the range is ablaze with fervent colour. The sun passes, the tints slowly fade, the glory has gone from heather and f fom rock, and the hills show cold and grey in the moonlight. Words are powerless to convey any sense of the surpassing beauty of the sunset. It vras a scene to be reverently remembered rather than spoken of. The climate of this district, it may be mentioned, is very mild.