54 A LIFE'S WORK IN IRELAND. 



wholly or nearly passed away. If "where?" be 

 asked, it may turn out to have been in a district very 

 unlike most of the country. If " how often ?" it may 

 turn out to have happened very seldom, or even that 

 such a thing was never heard of before ; as in the 

 case of Mr. Scully's monstrous proceedings, which 

 caused the Ballycohey outrage. If it is asked 

 " whether all the facts are told ?" it may prove to be 

 like the Times' correspondent's blunder about Clon- 

 mel. He was told of land on a mountain that had 

 been wholly reclaimed by poor men, who were settled 

 on it by the late Sir "W. Osborne, and he wrote very 

 strongly and properly on the hardship of turning out 

 such men without compensation for what they had 

 done and the equitable rights such improvements 

 give. Of course, he was not told that the men who 

 reclaimed this mountain had so multiplied and got 

 into such misery, that when the famine occurred, the 

 owner had to buy them out and help them to emi- 

 grate, and that their land was relet to the present 

 occupiers, who had nothing to do with its reclama- 

 tion. In truth, every reason that makes hearsay 

 evidence inadmissible in a court of justice is still 

 stronger against its being believed on such a subject 

 as this. Many informants from whom the hearsay 

 is got have the strongest motives for misrepresenting 

 the facts, and, as their names are not given, know 

 well they can do so with impunity. It is a fact that 

 some of those the Times' correspondent (e.g.) allows 



