some years refused to pay their rents, but have still kept the land,
the women have learned to dress. But the owners of the land--say that
they are ladies with no man in the family--have wanted bread, and have
been kept from starvation only by surreptitious supplies delivered in
the dead darkness of the night. These supplies have of necessity been
rare and scanty, for the most honest tenant dared not face the
vengeance of the League by openly paying his just due. Did not Mr.
Dillon, on August 23rd, 1887, say, "If there is a man in Ireland base
enough to back down, to turn his back on the fight now that Coercion
has passed, I pledge myself in the face of this meeting, that I will
denounce him from public platform by name, and I pledge myself to the
Government that, let that man be whom he may, his life will not be a
happy one, either in Ireland or across the seas." With such a
formidable organisation as this, what individual would have the
courage to stand out for abstract justice to a landlord? It would have
been, and it has been, standing out for his own destruction. Hence,
for no fault, no rack-renting, have proprietors--and especially
ladies--been treated as mortal enemies by those whom they had always
befriended--for no reason whatever but that it was an easy victory for
the Campaigners to obtain. Women, with never a man to defend them,
could be more easily manipulated than if they were so many stalwart
young fellows, handy in their turn with guns and revolvers, and man
for man a match even for Captain Moonlight. If these ladies dared to
evict their non-paying tenants they would be either boycotted or
"visited," or perhaps both. Besides, who would venture to take the
vacant land? And how could a couple of delicate ladies, say, till the
ground with their own hands? The old fable of the dog in the manger
holds good with these Campaigners. Those who will not pay prevent
others who would; and the hated "landgrabber," denounced from altar
and platform alike, is simply an honest and industrious worker, who