I turn to the administration of the new Irish Land Code, of which I have described the distinctive features. The County Courts of Ireland, I have said, were entrusted with the task of carrying out the Land Act of 1870; the principal duty of the judges was to determine rights, under the Ulster and analogous Customs in the south, and to declare the sums to be paid to tenants, when leaving their holdings, for compensation for improvements, and in respect of disturbance. As evictions were by no means frequent, in the period between 1870 and 1879, the litigation before these tribunals, under these different heads, though by no means trivial, was not excessive; the applications on the part of tenants were not very numerous; there was ample time to consider the law, whether in the subordinate or the appellate Courts; and though there was much difference of opinion as to the amount of compensation to be given to suitors, the administration of the Act was not seriously impugned,[88] and, on the whole, was reasonable and just. The most remarkable circumstance in the inquiries held before the Courts was, certainly, the extravagance of the claims put forward, on account of tenants' improvements, circumscribed as these were by the limitations of the law; everything in the nature of an agricultural work was called an improvement, from repairing an old fence to cleaning an old drain; hours and days were lost in endeavours to disentangle the truth, and to arrive at sound and legal conclusions. I could fill scores of pages with descriptions of demands of this kind, usually pressed with reckless and hard swearing; they ought to have been a warning, as unhappily they were not, not to break down the restrictions contained in the Act of 1870, and not to extend legislation, in this direction, against the rights of the landlord. I confine myself to a single example: I tried a case, in 1895, in which a tenant's claims, under the Act of 1870, were L1130; I cut these down to L164; after deducting L155 found due to the landlord, I adjudged to the tenant a sum of less than L10; and there was no appeal from the decision I pronounced.[89]