7 AUGUST 1880, Page 17

KERRY ESTATES AND AGENTS.

[TO THE EDITOR OF THE .SPECTATOR."]

SIR,—It would have been wiser if Mr. J. T. Trench had allowed your lenient criticism upon the despotic traditions formerly prevailing upon the Kerry estate of Lord Lansdowne to pass without comment. His appearance in print of your issue of July 31st is apt to provoke observations from those who are aware that what another correspondent terms "the grim reality " of the Trench tradition is still, in many of its most obnoxious features, as potent an agency of sorrow to the uountaineers of Kerry as ever it has been in the past. he ta. but a little while ago since the writer witnessed the "rent 11.1, rtin one portion of the vast Kerry estate. The realities 'ox,,,Trish tenant existence there observable, and the contrast betvt,en the trembling cottiers, many of them old widows, tender heir " corn-rents," and the jaunty, incipient

agents (young gen n who are sent to learn agent-wisdom at the feet of Mr. Trench), were indeed studies worthy of another Wilkie. The less Mr. Trench courts publicity, the

longer is his school likely to live.—I am, Sir, &c., SNEEM.