"For thirty years," said this gentleman, "I have lived in the midst of these people--and in all that time I have never had so much as a threatening letter. But after this story was published of my throwing out a cradle with a child in it, I was insulted in the street by a woman whom I had never seen before. Two girls, too, called out at the eviction, 'You've bad pluck; why didn't you tell us you were coming down the day?' and another woman made me laugh by crying after me, 'You've two good-looking daughters, but you're a bad man yourself.'" Quite as instructive is the story given me on this occasion of the Tyaquin estate in the county of Galway. This estate is managed by an agent, Mr. Eichardson of Castle Coiner, in this county of Kilkenny. The rents on this Galway estate, as Mr. Richardson assures me, have been unaltered for between thirty and forty years, and some of them for even a longer period. For the last twenty-five years certainty, during which Mr. Richardson has been the agent of the estate, and probably, he thinks, for many years previous, there has never been a case of the non-payment of rent, except in recent years when rents were withheld for a time for political reasons. Large sums of money have been laid out in various useful improvements. Constant occupation was given to those requiring it, until the agrarian agitation became fully developed. On the demesne and the home farms the best systems of reclaiming waste lands and the best systems of agriculture were practically exhibited, so that the estate was an agricultural free school for all who cared to learn. When the Land Act of 1881 was passed, almost all the tenants applied, and had judicial rents fixed, many of them by consent of the agent. In 1887 the tenants were called on as usual to pay these judicial rents. A large minority refused to do so except on certain terms, which were refused. The dispute continued for many months, but as the charges on the estate had to be met, the agent was obliged to give way, and allow an abatement of four shillings in the pound on these judicial rents. Some of these charges, to meet which the agent gave way, were for money borrowed from the Commissioners of Public Works to _improve the holdings of the tenants_. For these improvements thus thrown entirely upon the funds of the estate no increase of rent or charge of any kind had been laid upon the tenants. When a settlement was agreed on, those of the tenants who had adopted the Plan came in a body to pay their rents on 3d January 1888. They stated that they were unable to pay more than the rent due up to November 1886, and that they would never have adopted the Plan had they not been driven into it by _sheer distress_. After which they handed Mr. Richardson a cheque drawn by John T. Dillon, Esq., M.P., for the amount banked with the National League.