UNDER A SOCTAL BAN IN IRELAND.

Thames Star, Volume XII, Issue 3754, 8 January 1881, Page 1

UNDER A SOCTAL BAN IN IRELAND.

The Daily News; having sent a special commissioner into Ireland, the following is a portion of his report:—A gentleman whose condition we have heard aygood deal of on this side of the Channel is Mr Boycott, Lord Erne's agent at Lough Mask. It was not easy to find out whether Mr Boycott was at home or abroad. "Nobody knew anything about him." An inquiry made concerning him in one of the larger shops drew every eye upon the stranger who put the question. Mr Boycott is held in the profound*;st disfarour, and people were curious to know what business the new comer conld have with him. When approaching Mr Boycott's house the Commissioner says he "came upon a sight which could not be paralleled in any other civilised country at the present moment." The spectacle was that of Mr Boycott and his wife driving sheep and doing other farm work, guarded and followed in all their movements by " two tall members of the Eoyal Irish Constabulary in full uniform and carbines loaded." The policemen kept a few yards behind Mr Boycott, and carefully followed "all his turnings and doublings," as with the help of his wife he got through his work.' Mr Boycott and his wife have to do their work for themselves. No one near the place will do anything for them. Farm labourers of all kinds have gone from them; the very laundress lately refused to wash for them. The butcher and the baker in the neighboring town protelt that they are afraid to supply them with meat and bread. Every tradesman and workman declares that he is per* sonally unwilling to refuse, but pleads that he dare not comply. Mr Boycott cannot sell his crop, even if he could get it in. No one would buy anything of him, no one would help the buyer, were there a buyer, to remove anything. There is a garrison if ten armed policeman ia Mr Boycott's house, and lie never moves out without an escort. One domestio;aervant alone remains to this perplexed qmA, much-to-be-pitied family. The isowion is complete. Mr Boycott is the agent for Lord Erne, and lie had to serve notices on Lord Erne's tenants. He came in for'the bitter anger of tho population all around, and they have put on him this strange and terrible sociul baa. Why does he hot leave the place, it may be • asked? Why do not his ten policemen escort him to Dublin, from which he might return once for rail to his own country, England? For one reason, he has his property in the place ; property which he bought in quiet days, when everything looked hopelul; and for'another, there is the reasou which a brave man would be likely to have—he undertook a certain duty for Lord Erne, and he does not wish to gire it up. He holds on the best he can.