IRISH DISAFFECTION.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 61, 16 December 1907, Page 3

IRISH DISAFFECTION.

! CATTLE-DRIVIXU CONTINCES. London, December 13. Sixteen persons were bound over at Ballinasloe to keep the peace in respect to cattle-driving. A "WHITH BOY" PUNISHED. FOUR MONTHS' IMPRISONMENT. Received December IS, 4.34 p.m. London, December 14. Thomas Smyth was sentenced to four months' imprisonmnet at the Wickbnv Assizes on • charge of " White Boyism." He delivered a letter which threatened a woman's life unless she surrendered two farms which she had recently purchased. Seeing the woman was not afraid, he fired two shots over her head.

The '* White Iloys" was the n unc given to members of an association of the peasantly in Ireland, which lirst took an organised form in the county of Tipperary in the reign of (!e->rge 111.. and for a long series of years was the source of agrarian outrages—the members were so called in conse.ri 'r.ee of their wearing white shirts in their nightly expeditions.

THE GOVERNMENT'S ATTITCDE. ' SPEECn BY MR. BIRSELL. Received Deeeml>er 15, 4.34 pin. London ,Decemlier 14. The Hon. Mr. Birrell, Secretiry for Ireland, replying to a landlords' deputation at Dublin, declared that cattledriving was illegal and indefensible from every standpoint He denied the Covernment stood by with folded anus and had taken no active steps towards suppression. Of 225 persons bound over, none had offended again. The graziers had failed to assist the police. The agitation would not lie allowed to affect the price of land. Legislation might noon he forthcoming.;he said, to break np Roscommon and Oalw.iv grass lands, and so increase those on the soil. The Government had refrained from enforcing the Crimes Act for reasons which they were unite prepared to stitc at the proper place and time. J

' THE GLEXSHIRY LODGE Ol"T RAGES- ' I A COMMITTAL. Received Decemlier 15, 4-14 p.ni. London, December 14. Vn. Minnie Walsh and her son Percy KValsh have been committed for trial Dn the charge cabled on toe 9th in-t. This is another phase of the Glenfchiry Lodge case —i.e.. the explosion in at Lord Ashtown's shorting lodge. Mrs. Minnie Walsh and Percy, her fifteen-year-old son, were charged at Dublin with conspiracy to obtain from lord Ashtown and Chenerix Trench, his •gent, and from a relative, money by false pretences; also with conspiracy to Incite Patrick Cahill. J. Ward, and others unknown to Mow up a building at Woodlawn, Lord Ashtown's GaHvay aeat. Minnie Walsh wrote to Lord A-li-town, warning him of coming danger, and after the late outrage at Glenshiry Lodge she wrote that the authors were Galway men. Anonymous letters, al- i Wged to be in Percy Walsh's writ inn. were produced. Mr. Trenrh denied that lie or Lord Ashtown prompted \T~r-. .Walsh's letters. It has been alleged that Lord A-h iown himself caused or connived at the explosion, in order to sustain statements Contained in hi* publication Grievances from Ireland." That was. in sitbatance, the the defence to a claim for compensation brought by Lord A.«htonn against the County of Waterford. but Judge Fitzgerald, after hearing some remarkable evidence, found that the explosion was a malicious outrage, ami that there was no foundation for the ' allegation of the defence. Lord A«lilown was awarded £l4O damages. Mnch has" been written about Lord Ashtown, both pro. and con. Here is Bp pen-picture of his mode of life as a . boycotted landowner from the pngc< of tte "Standard":— "Lord Ashtown lives a few miles away in County Galway. I walked round his estate with him the other day, and he carried a loaded rifV* over bis shoulder. We were followed by an aimed policeman at a distance of a few yards. When he drove me to the nation, the policeman followed the carriage on a bicycle. Lord Ashtown is under police protection, and is known in the locality as the 'arch exterminator of Woodlawn.' He does not eom-

plain; be simply shoulders bis rifle, an.! allows it to hp understood in the neighbourhood that if on a dark ni<riit

Bees anyone lurking behind a licd::e. and if, on challenge, that person does Hot eonie forth, it will be a bad job for him. And as he has more than a lorn] reputation as a dead shot, he is perbip« in le*s danger than many others." It was Lord Ashtoivn who was tin* of the .speech in which Mr. Kelly, a magistrate, was said tit hue uttered an incitement to mnrder. The tharje against Mr. Kelly was that he Urged the men of Woodlawn to wit liord "Ashtown "on a stretcher" like Qfolu Blake (who was murdered "lion fplfig to Mass in 1882). Th>' evident of reporters and of others present iris Mnflicting, and the jury found Mr. Kelly not guilty.