Ireland 123 



husband. The skill of the great surgeon, aided by a powerful 

 constitution, enabled Mr. Bayley eventually to recover, 

 though terribly disfigured, and he lived for many years 

 afterwards. A feeling of satisfaction cannot be repressed 

 that the ruffian who fired the shot was captured, convicted, 

 and hanged on the charge of " attempted murder," 



In the early days of the Land League the Peace 

 Preservation Act was still in force, and in consequence 

 there were no arms in the hands of the peasantry. When 

 Mr. Gladstone, however, came into power in 1880, he 

 allowed the Act to lapse in spite of a letter from the Duke 

 of Marlborough, who was just then vacating the office of Lord 

 Lieutenant, and who strongly urged the extreme importance 

 of maintaining it. I was aide-de-camp to the General 

 commanding the Dublin district at the time, and when on 

 a visit of inspection at Athlone we were informed that 

 20,000 arms were withdrawn from that armoury alone 

 within a few days of the Act being withdrawn. It must 

 be borne in mind, too, that nearly the whole of these arms 

 had been taken at different times by the police in the 

 course of years, during the periods in which various 

 districts had been proclaimed for disaffection and excep- 

 tional crime. People being again entitled to possess arms, 

 everyone who could show any title to them had them at 

 once restored to them, to become ready tools of oppression 

 against anyone who dared to pay his just rent or his just 

 debts. 



Before this, from the want of firearms, the land- 

 leaguers had recourse to the system of " carding," a fearful 

 form of torture, and almost as deadly in its effects as 

 shooting. There was perhaps little to choose between 

 either method of strikinc: terror into the hearts of their 



