You will owe two years' rent next month (September), and I now write you this circular letter to point out to each, individually, the position of the tenants under eviction, and even at this late hour to give them an opportunity of saving their holdings, to enable them to do so, and with a view to settlement, I am now prepared to allow 20 per cent. all round, on payment of a year's rent and costs.
Under no circumstance will I forego payment of costs, as they must be paid in full.
If this money be paid forthwith, I will arrange with my brother, the purchaser, to restore the four holdings purchased by him at sheriff's sale to the late tenants.
After this offer I disclaim any responsibility for the result of the evictions, and the loss attendant thereon, as it now remains with you to avert same.
All the evictions have since been carried out, and the Land Corporation men are at work upon the estate! Whom has all this advantaged? The tenants?--Certainly not. The O'Grady?--Certainly not. The peace and order of Ireland?--Certainly not. But it has given the National League another appeal to the intelligent "sympathies" of England and America. It has strengthened the revolutionary element in Irish society. It has "driven another nail into the coffin" of Irish landlordism and of the private ownership of land throughout Great Britain.
Such at least is the opinion of Mr. Kavanagh. If I were an Englishman or a Scotchman, I should be strongly inclined to take very serious account of this opinion in forecasting the future of landed property in England or Scotland.
GREENANE HOUSE, THOMASTOWN, _March 5th._--The breakfast-room at Borris this morning was gay with pink coats. A meet was to come off at a place between Borris and Thomastown, and bidding fare-well to my cordial host and hostess, I set out at 11 o'clock for a flying visit to this quaint and charming house of Mr. Seigne, one of the best known and most highly esteemed agents in this part of Ireland.
My jarvey from Borris had an unusually neat and well-balanced car. When I praised it he told me it was "built by an American," not an Irish American, I understood him to say, but a genuine Yankee, who, for some mysterious reason, has established himself in this region, where he has prospered as a cart and car builder ever since. "Just the best cars in all Ireland he builds, your honour!" Why don't he naturalise them in America?