The landlords of Ireland, outside Ulster, are becoming seriously alarmed.
They say that this winter rents will not be paid without evictions, and that evictions will be impossible through the strength of the National League. The Committees affiliated to this body do not kill anybody ; but they claim the right to make life unendurable by cutting off all who disobey them from human intercourse. No one is permitted to sell anything to a Boycotted person, to buy anything from him, to carry his letters, or to perform any office of human kindness. He is excommunicated as completely as a heretic in the Middle Ages, and must yield or fly. If a man, for instance, pays rent when the Committee wishes rent not to be paid, he becomes a leper. There is no legal redress against this scientific cruelty, for the only legal offence committed under the ordinary law is conspiring to annoy or libel ; and besides the immense difficulty of proof, juries will not convict. The control of the country is, therefore, passing from the hands of the Government to those of the League, whose condemna- tion is, in fact, a sentence to solitary confinement without food. So complete is the system, that the Parnellite Members fear the Crimes Act will be restored, and recommend moderation ; but the people are too delighted with their power. The strangest fact now as ever in Ireland is that there is no resistance from within. Thousands who detest the oppression yield without even a protest.
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