rent or value be apportioned and determined by Government, which would, I conceive, be equally just both to landlord and tenant. When the rent was once fixed, it should be obligatory on the tenant to pay it, or otherwise sell his interest and leave the farm; and in case of refusal to sell, the landlord should have the power to remove him by ejectment; but except for non-payment of rent, or in another case to be mentioned presently, the power of evicting should be withdrawn from the landlord. The other case to which I refer is when he would wish to obtain a piece of land for his own bona fide use, either to farm it or to erect mills or manufactories upon it, the landlord should have the power of taking it, provided he paid the tenant the marketable value thereof, or such fine, in case of dispute, as to the government valuator would appear just and fair.

But as regards those who lately purchased properties in the Landed Estates Court, it may be said the case is very different, inasmuch as they at the purchase paid the full amount the land was worth. The answer to this is, that notwithstanding their purchase, they have no more right to the tenants' improvements, then existing on the land, than the man who buys a stolen horse has a right to retain him when the owner is found.

That something should be done to prevent the evils daily arising from the unsatisfactory state of this vexed question, with the least possible delay, is most desirable. It is also better to give with seeming grace, and before it is too late, what eventually must be conceded, however reluctantly. That such will be

the case in regard to tenant-right there can be no rational doubt, for now, in Ireland,

"Another race arise,

Stretch their limbs, unclose their eyes,

Claim the earth and seek the skies."-Montgomery.

An able writer in the Popular Encyclopædie, published by Blackie & Son, London, Edinburgh, and Glasgow, says, in regard to property in land:

"The relations of landed property are among the most complicated and most important in civil society. Nevertheless, hardly any subject of law and politics has been investigated with so little profoundness. In no one has prejudice gained such an ascendancy and resulted in such important consequences. Writers have even gone so far as to call owners of land the only true citizens; and all others who chance to have no immediate share in the soil of the state where they reside, are

styled by them mere strangers-tenants at will-a homeless rabble, dependent on the good pleasure of their landlords-a class of people who, in affairs of common interest, are scarcely permitted to hear, and never to speak; whose duty is obedience to their natural masters, the proprietors of the land." Such,

as is well known, are the opinions of the majority of Irish landlords. If the commentators in question were of their own class, they could not explain them more faithfully. The article in question goes on to say"Kant has particularly shown that genuine property arises first in and by the State. Before him, men were led away by the customary ideas of positive law to regard the occupation of property as an act by which an object of nature becomes, once for all, united with the person of the possessor, in such a manner that every other person must abstain from the use of it, even though the owner should leave it unemployed, (if it be a piece of land wholly uncultivated) or be without the ability to use it (as if it includes a large district.) But there is no reason, aside from the positive law of the land, why one man should be authorised to bind for ever the will of others; and it is impossible in regard to the soil, because, in this way, it would be made for ever dependent upon the will of the first possessor, and others might be excluded from the very means of existence. Hence, private property in land is among the institutions which are first established by the State; but it must be observed that these still remain subject to alteration, whenever the good of the State seems to require it. Apart from the State, a man has no unalienable property but his own person, and a claim upon others for a regard to his personal dignity, which arises from the worth of his nature, and makes it unlawful for others to use him merely as the instrument of their own purposes, or to avail themselves of his powers, or the fruits of them against his will. Labour is, therefore, the foundation of property, apart from the institutions of the State; and its visible sign, that is, the alteration of form produced by it, gives notice to others that they are to abstain from the use of the article thus appropriated.

"In new States, established by successive conquests, a certain portion of the whole fell to the chief, who had to apply it to the support of his immediate attendants, another portion was assigned to the attendants themselves, and, after certain subdivisions and tithings, it was given up to the community as

E

common property. This common property was enjoyed, not unrestrictedly, but on condition of appearing to do military service." He then goes on to explain the meaning and origin of what was called thaneland, bookland, and feh-od, or feudal possessions, and continues :

"The intermixtures, substitutions, and modifications, which these relations subsequently underwent, it is not necessary for us to dwell upon. We need only show how, in the modern States of Europe private property in the soil may be traced to common property, and the clear evidence which it bears of such an origin, in order to prove that it depends upon a grant on the part of the community, and that hence the owners of landed property have no right in the soil, but what is permitted by the State. What they receive from the State is not an acknowledgment and confirmation of a right, which they before possessed independently of such acknowledgment, but the right itself. It is no arbitrary right, but it stands in close connexion with certain duties, and its existence and continuance are subject to the State legislation. The owners of landed property do not constitute the people, but only a single class, bound, like the rest, to devote their all to the promotion of the public good. Reason has no small voice in deciding what is actually contained in the existing rights. To sound reason it is evident that every person must be allowed some resting place on the earth; hence, as long as any place is left capable of affording support to another individual, the proprietors cannot arbitrarily deprive a fellow-being of that support. They are bound to use the soil in such a way as to promote the general good. These ordinances are imperiously demanded by the state of society; for the right of property in the soil has no other end than to promote the cultivation of it for the general good, and it is on such conditions only that the State has distributed the land among individuals. Hence the common good allows the State to repeal all laws which are a restraint upon the free use of the soil as tithes; to promote its distribution by breaking up entails, and to secure the cultivator, by not permitting him to be driven from the soil at the will of the landlord, or even by making temporary relations permanent. These ordinances concern the

whole community; so that persons who are destitute of landed property have as good a right to be heard on this subject as the lauded proprietors."

The above is so explicit, reasonable, philosophical, and true,

that comment would be utterly superfluous. It comes home to the understanding of every one. When ascendancy and prejudice shall have become extinct and they are gradually wearing away—and men shall be got to view this question, and deal with it in a proper spirit, discarding for the landlord the claim of being considered something beyond the ordinary elass of mortals, and regarding the occupier as something better than a squatter or a serf, opinions such as the above shall form the basis of an adjustment of this vexed question-namely, the proper relations to each other of landlord and tenant in Ireland.

CHAPTER VIII.

Burt, Inch, and Upper Fahan.

We will now make a short circuit through the various parishes, for the purpose of noting some particulars necessarily omitted in the previous chapters, and we will commence with Burt.

Six miles north-west of Derry is the small parish of Burt, which contains, according to the Ordnance Survey, 10,673 statute acres. As in the Muff district, the living is a perpetual curacy, in the patronage of the Dean of Derry, to whom the tithes go. The curate's net income is £83 yearly. In the Roman Catholic divisions it forms part of the union of Burt, Inch, and Upper Fahan. There is a Presbyterian Meetinghouse in Burt, which is in connection with the General Assembly. On the shore of Lough Swilly stand the ruins of the castle of Burt, in a tolerably perfect state of preservation. This castle consisted of a square keep, with semicircular towers projecting from two of the angles, and it was strengthened with an outward wall. It is supposed to have been built by one of the O'Dohertys in the 15th century. It seems, too, to have been the principal residence of Sir Cahir, for though Elagh was restored to him, it had previously been partially dismantled by his father. Previous to the erection of the present Catholic Chapel of Burt, mass was celebrated in the ruin on the summit of Greinan Hill. There is a neat parochial house at Burt for the Catholic curate; it is at the very base of the Hill of Greinan. The population of this parish was, according to the census of 1861,* 2,723.

* The population of each of the parishes is taken from the census returns of 1861.

Inch district comprises the island of that name. It contains 3,099 statute acres. Population, 972. A castle, built by the O'Doherty in the 15th century, stands on this island. Here, it is said, he confined O'Donnell, one of the rival chieftains of Tyrconnell, who had been made prisoner in his own house.

His keeper having released O'Donnell from irons, he made himself master of the castle which had been his prison. He was then besieged by his rival, Rory, whom he killed by throwing down upon him a large stone from the battlements. This castle was granted with the island to Chichester, being part of the forfeited barony of Inishowen. In 1641 the island was held by the insurgents, from whom it was taken and garrisoned for the king. In 1689 General Kirk, with two ships laden with supplies for the garrison of Derry, unable to pass the army of James at Culmore, sailed into Lough Swilly, and encamped on the island, where he remained for 15 days, and again entering Lough Foyle relieved the almost famished citizens. The island is about a mile distant from the mainland of Burt, and the same distance from Fahan Point and Rathmullan. Its surface is rugged towards the north, but more level towards the south, where the land is in a fair state of cultivation. Inch House is the only seat. In 1813 a battery was erected on the north point facing Rathmullan, which with that on the latter shore completely commands the lough.

The living is a perpetual curacy, in the patronage of the Dean of Derry. The district was erected in 1809, when seven townlands were separated from the parish of Templemore. The curate's salary is £83. The church is a small but neat edifice. In the Catholic divisions the parish now forms part of the union of Burt, Inch, and Upper Fahan.

It

The castle of Inch is similar in architecture and design to the castles of Burt and Aileach, and all three were probably erected at the same period. The two former are in a more perfect state of preservation than the latter, of which only a portion of one of the semicircular towers now remains. stands on a commanding eminence of 248 feet elevation above sea level, in the townland of Elaghmore, and on what I regard as the site of the ancient palace of the Kings. This place, of an elevation about the same as Tara's, with all the signs of occupancy and of cultivation from a remote period, seems more likely to have been used as a Royal seat, and more suitable for that purpose than that which has of late come to be regarded