SEEKING FOR TEST CASES.

Temuka Leader, Issue 809, 3 January 1882, Page 3

SEEKING FOR TEST CASES.

The special commission pf the London Standard, writing from County Cork, gives that journal an insight into the condition of some of the people in the South pf Ireland. His experience has been gained while travelling through portions of the country, with the lpgal advices of the Land League aud other gentlemen in search of test cases to bring before the Land Commission. Among numerous tases he gives the Standard the following graphic description of one which came under his personal observation :—" In order to obtain a case coming under one pf those classes, we proceeded to the cottages or cabins of some tenants higher up the mountain side. The huts there are perhaps the most repulsive shelters for, humanity that have survived in Europe since it ceased to be barbarous. The floors are made of damp earth, and the roofs are perforated with hojes, through which cats crawl in the vain quest for food/ The people subsist on potatoes, Indian meal, and sometimes a little buttermilk; meat they generally contrive to taste at Christ T mas. CD. (again I for obvious reasons withhold the nctual came), one of these tenants, held five acres, at a rental pf three pounds. He had a face even paler than that of A. 8., and he looked worse because his eyes were deep-sunken in swarthy orbits. It is remarkable, and it suggests curious reflections, that the women and children do not look pale and emaciated like the men, At 0. D.'s door, for example, lounged two of his ten children, two handsome, blushing girls, with bare feet, each the picture of health and mode&ty. C. D. and his father had won their little patch from the f urzy heath that ran by the side of it, on which huge stones still lay thickly strewn. They had enclosed and dug and carried up baskets pf earth upon their backs, out of which to make soil until at last the little shanty was erected, the simple furniture procured, and the family established. The son felt keenly that he should be compelled to pay a tax upon the results of their united energy and enterprise, and especially that he should have to pav rent for a very bad road, which waa cut beside his j-lot. But his rent also was much more than 20 percent, above the valuation, and his was not made a test case. He was left to the Land Court.''