holdings, which _they_ believed to be legal robbery and oppression,
accompanied by such flagrant breach of faith as tended to destroy all
confidence between man and man, and thus to dissolve the strongest
bonds of society. Sad work for a dignitary of the church to be engaged
in!

In April, 1856, there was another contested election. On that
occasion the marquis wrote to a gentleman in Lisburn that he would not
interfere 'directly or indirectly to influence anybody.' Nevertheless,
notices to quit, signed by Mr. Walter L. Stannus, assistant and
successor to his father, were extensively served upon tenants-at-will,
though it was afterwards alleged that they were only served as matters
of form. But what, then, did they mean? They meant that those who
had voted against the office had, _ipso facto, forfeited their
tenant-right property._ Many other incidents in the management of the
estate have been constantly occurring more recently, tending to show
that the most valuable properties created by the tenants-at-will are
at the mercy of the landlord, and that tenant-right, so called, is
not regarded by him as a matter of _right_ at all, but merely as a
_favour_, to be granted to those who are dutiful and submissive to the
office in all matters, political and social. For instance, one farmer
was refused permission to sell his tenant-right till he consented to
sink 100 l. or 200 l. in the shares of the Lisburn and Antrim railway,
so that, as he believed, he was obliged to throw away his money in
order to get his right.

The enormous power of an office which can deal with property amounting
to more than half a million sterling, in such an arbitrary manner,
necessarily generates a spirit of wanton and capricious despotism,
except where the mind is very well regulated and the heart severely