EXTRAORDINARY BOYCOTT.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10043, 18 July 1910, Page 3

EXTRAORDINARY BOYCOTT.

A case that came before the Dublin Courts the other day brought into prominence one of m n astonishing boycotts that Lel«..u has witnessed of recent years, 'lha victim was Mr Charles Calrke, of Hdycross, Tipperary, a ladijrj and large employer of labour. Mr Clarke is described as a modal landlord, and in the words of tiia enemies was "remarkable for his great popularity amongst his tenants and the people of the surrounding district, and well known for his generosity." But thi3 open-handed, popular Irishman came into conflict with the League nearly three years ago, aud a bitter conflict has been going on ever since. He promised to divide and sell 200 acres of his untenanted land when he had been paid for the property he had sold to his tenants under a perfectly amicable arrangement. The League said he bad to sell 600 acres at once or there would be war. Mr Clarke refused, and war was immediately declared, The conspirators "drummed him cut of bed at dead of night; they attacked his house under cover of the dark with every circumstance of terror and alarm, drums dinning and fifes shrieking, and the mob howling; they broke his windows, battered his door; left his lawn like a ploughed field; assaulted the police, piured volleys of stones on the gate lodge, terrifying the coachman's wife and children, and behaved generally like fiends." The machine was given another turn Every shopkeeper in Thurles refused Mr Clarke goods. The tradesmen did so, much againtt their will, io: he WB3 an ideal customer, whose cheque accompanied his order, but the terror or the League was cotkpellng.Not one of Mr Clarke's thirty or forty servants could buy anything in the neighbourhood, but Mrs Clarke'cat that knot by setting up a shop in her own house, and disp2nsing goods across the counter to the families in her husband's employ. 3even policemen lived in the house for fourteen months. When this inoffensive Irishman went out to dine a police escort accompanied him; when his wife went out calling police cyclists accompanied her carriage. Servants going to the station for goods had to be protected, Mr and Mrs Clarke kept' the flag flyjng, and eventually got a verdict in Dublin against eight of their enemies for conspiracy and boycott. The conspiratos, it should be mentioned, were not landless men, but substantial farmers, who were apI parently impelled by sheer cupidity.