The Temuka Leader TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 1882. COERCION IN IRELAND.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1009, 26 September 1882, Page 2

The Temuka Leader TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 1882. COERCION IN IRELAND.

If the new Coercion Act which has been rec.’iitly passed docs not fame Irishmen nothing will. Under that Act any one outside his home after 9 o’clock at night is thrown info gaol, and kept there until ho can explain his reason for being out at {hat hour. In the

county of Kerry alone there aic thirty in gaol for this offence. The Freeman’s Journal says that in a place called Castlemartyr, in Kerry, two blacksmiths named O’Dea and Morrison were sentenced to one month’s imprisonment with hard labor for refusing to shoe the horse of the Rev. T. G, Turpin. It appeared that the rev. gentleman was in the habit of getting his horse shod in i forge in Mildleton, but on this day brought it to the forge of the accused, who refused to shoe it, telling its owner to take it where he always got his work done. This was all that occurred, but the local Bench, composed of landlords of course, thought it was “ boycotting,” notwithstanding that there was no previous attempt at “ boj’cotting” and that the police swore that the men had never before violated the law, and they were sent to gaol for one month for this. This is vigorous, strong, unblushing tyrranny, calculated to tame the most turbulent spirit. According to the same paper eight men and four young girls, daughters of one Lawrence Buckley, a well to-do fanner and landed proprietor, were charged at the Tralee petty sessions with resisting (he police. It appeared that some men were assembled on a road where they sometimes held sports, and the Misses Buckley were looking on at their own gate. The police ordered the people to leave, and, according to their evidence, the order was not immediately complied with, and the result was a prosecution. One of the police named Reilly gave his evidence in such a contradictory manner that he was censured by the Bench, and yet although it was proved for the defence that neither resistance was offered nor intimidation used and that the young people were in tb® habit of meeting in the place in question and sometimes indulging in dancing, the men were sentenced to one month’s imprisonment with hard labor and the young girls to one fortnight’s inprisonment with hard labor. In this Colony the greatest care is exercised in imprisoning young women. We have seen young women who had been guilty of theft, and other serious offences dismissed with a caution, so as not to send them to prison and run the risk of being demoralised by contact with the criminals whom they would have for companions there. We have seldom seen any of our Judges or Magistrates inflicting imprisonment on young women of good previous character for the first offence, but the administration of the law in Ireland and in this colony is different. Here our Magistrates are not landlords, whose whole object is to crush the poor under foot ; there the administration of the law is entirely in the hands of the landlord class, and they do administer it with a vengeance. Wc do not believe that the framers of the Coercion Act ever contemplated the possibility of innocent girls being punished in this way, but apparently its provisons are elastic enough to be twisted about anyhow, and so the landlord class make use of it for their own ends. The imprisonment of the men is had enough, but it is nothing compared with the treatment of these young girls. But the after-piece was better than all. After the sentence was passed the eldest of the girls stated that she was not there at all, but neither her statelier the corroborative evidence of her friends bad any weight until a conconscientious constable admitted that she was inside the gate leading to her father’s house. 'lbis made the Bench cancel the order for her imprisonment, but strange to say they did not comment on the constable who had previously sworn that she was present. Oh no, Ifc was too good a constable to be snubbed in that way. While treated so harshly it is hard to expect much peace, prosperity, or contentment to exist in Ireland.