He is perfectly familiar with the condition of the country here, and as the accounts of this estate are kept minutely and carefully from week to week, he was able this morning to show me the current prices of all kinds of farm produce and of supplies in and about Ennis—­not estimated prices, but prices actually paid or received in actual transactions during the last ten years.  I am surprised to see how narrow has been the range of local variations during that time; and I find Mr. Considine inclined to think that the farmers here have suffered very little, if at all, from these fluctuations, making up from time to time on their reduced expenses what they have lost through lessened receipts.  The expenses of the landlord have however increased, while his receipts have fallen off.  In 1881 Edenvale paid out for labour L466, 0s. 1-1/2d., in 1887 L560, 6s. 3-1/2d., though less labour was employed in 1887 than in 1881.  The wages of servants, where any change appears, have risen.  In 1881 a gardener received L14 a year, in 1888 he receives 15s. a week, or at the rate of L39 a year.  A housemaid receiving L12 a year in 1881, receives now L17 a year.  A butler receiving in 1881 L26 a year, now receives L40 a year.  A kitchen maid receiving in 1881 L6, now receives L10, 10s. a year.  Meanwhile, the Sub-Commissioners are at this moment cutting down the Edenvale rents again by L190, 3s. 2d., after a walk over the property in the winter.  Yet in July 1883 Mr. Reeves, for the Sub-Commission, “thought it right to say there was no estate in the County Clare so fairly rented, to their knowledge, or where the tenants had less cause for complaint.”  In but one case was a reduction of any magnitude made by the Commission of 1883, and in one case that Commission actually increased the rent from L11, 10s. to L16.  In January 1883 the rental of this property was L4065, 5s. 1d.  The net reduction made by the Commissioners in July 1883 was L296, 14s. 0-1/2d.

After luncheon a car came up to the mansion, bringing a stalwart, good-natured-looking sergeant of police, and with him the boycotted old woman Mrs. Connell and her son.  The sergeant helped the old woman down very tenderly, and supported her into the house.  She came in with some trepidation and uneasiness, glancing furtively all about her, with the look of a hunted creature in her eyes.  Her son, who followed her, was more at his ease, but he also had a worried and careworn look.  Both were warmly but very poorly clad, and both worn and weatherbeaten of aspect.  The old woman might have passed anywhere for a witch, so wizened and weird she was, of small stature, and bent nearly double by years and rheumatism.  Her small hands were withered away into claws, and her head was covered with a thick and tangled mat of hair, half dark, half grey, which gave her the look almost of the Fuegian savages who come off from the shore in their flat rafts and clamour to you for “rum” in the Straits of Magellan.  Her eyes were intensely bright, and shone like hot coals in her dusky, wrinkled face.  It was a raw day, and she came in shivering with the cold.  It was pathetic to see how she positively gloated with extended palms over the bright warm, fire in the drawing-room, and clutched at the cup of hot tea which my kind hostess instantly ordered in for her.