PROCESS-SERVING IN IRELAND.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—Your notice on the resistance to the law in the west of Ireland, in last week's Spectator•, would seem to imply that the• Executive neglect some obvious precautions for the prevention of bloodshed. This is a serious charge, and I am sure that you will be glad to hear that it is unfounded. You agree with the Times' correspondent in recommending that processes should be served by post. There are no two opinions as to the advisability of this step, but unhappily there are legal diffi- culties iu the way, which cannot be at once removed. Secondly, you suggest "that mounted police ought to be employed," for- " they can charge, as all experience proves, quite effectively, with- out bayonetting women." This recommendation of yours would,. like many other English remedies for Irish difficulties, be admir- able, if it were only practicable. The following quotation from the Times' correspondent's letter on Tuesday last will give you some idea of the scene of the cavalry operations you pro- pose :—" To intersect the country with a sufficient number of good hard roads, to reach the myriads of homesteads, would cost the great part of the value of an estate ; and the approach to an immense number of the farms is by a rough way of ruts, grass, and stones, called a bohreen,' which, in the English Fens, would be a drive, but here not always wide enough for the passage of a cart. Indeed, you can get at many of the farms only by a bridle-road or a pathway." Now, Sir, I know the district from which this was written, and it only differs from others in the hands of small tenants in being flat, and therefore' more accessible than most. If you picture to yourself a " bohreen " going up a steep mountain-side, and a party of cavalry attempting to force their way over such a road, pelted by women from the banks on either side, and attacked in front by a mob bent on "keeping a firm grip of the land," and armed with shillelaghs and stones, you will be able to guess at the probable fate of the " mounted police," and the process-server-
under their protection.—I am, Sir, &c. CELTIGUS.
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