114 LAW OF EJECTMENT. 



country, to form a correct judgment as to whom he 

 should blame for the wretched cottages and villages he 

 passes. On many estates these are built on land which 

 is held from the head landlord on long leases, and sub- 

 let by his tenant. In such cases the landlord may 

 have no more control in the matter than the traveller, 

 who hastily concludes that, because So-and-so owns the 

 land, therefore he must be a heartless fellow to permit 

 such a state of misery to continue. 



Leaving Cork on the morning of 8th November, I 

 returned by railway to Mallow. Thence to Buttevant, 

 the country along the line is much in need of drainage. 

 After passing Buttevant northwards, the land improves 

 on to the county of Limerick, where the railway soon 

 after enters the " golden vein." And here " waste " 

 land is seen — that is, land deserted by the tenant, and 

 unoccupied by the landlord. The law of ejectment is 

 somehow defective in permitting a tenant to leave his 

 land, and yet not giving the landlord power to enter to 

 it. If the tenant quits the farm himself, taking with 

 him stock and crop, and performing no act of tillage, 

 but only keeps a person in the house, the landlord, 

 before he can serve notice of ejectment, must allow one 

 year's arrear of rent to accrue. The ejectment cannot 

 be enforced for six months more, and the tenant may 

 redeem his farm any time during another six months. 

 In this way, the land may be, and often is, waste for 

 two successive years, rates and taxes accumulating all 

 the while.* 



* We have a law in Scotland, which might be very usefully introduced 

 into Ireland — that, where a tenant deserts his farm and leaves it un- 

 laboured, at the usual time of labouring, the landlord may obtain an imme- 



