In a letter to the Times of Thursday, Mr. T.
W. Russell gives a most striking and valuable account of his experiences at Kilrush, County Clare, where he witnessed some of the evictions on the Vandeleur estate. Mr. Russell takes the cases in which he saw the evictions carried out one by one, and gives us the facts. In the first, which he says is typical, the tenant, Michael Connell, held seventy-two acres at a rent of £33 13s., or 9s. 4d. an acre, the Government valuation being £33. Connell owed two and a half years' rent, £84 2s. 6d., due March 31st, 1887. Captain Vandeleur, in effect, says to this man,—' Give me one year's rent due up to March 31st, 1886, less 32* per cent., and plus £2 7s. 6d. law costs, and I will wipe out six months' arrears, and not ask the year due up to March 31st, 1887, until arrangements can be made.' In other words,
the landlord says Give me, instead of £84 28. 6d., the sum of £22 14s. 3d., plus law costs, and you may stay in.' This offer Connell refuses, though he has probably paid as large a sum to the " Plan," and though, as Mr. Russell noticed, " there was hay enough standing in the fields to pay the entire rent demanded."
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