TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES.
Sir,-In order to show you how quickly the advent of Mr. Gladstone and his Home Rule Ministry of disorder to power has raised the drooping spirits of lawlessness and disaffection, which had been almost entirely quelled by five years' continuance of law and order under Mr. Balfour's wise and firm rule, I enclose an extract from a recent letter received by me from my agent in county Cork. He is a near relative of mine, and belongs to a well-known and highly-esteemed family in the south of Ireland. He and his elder brother are both kind and considerate landlords to their tenantry, having shown them many acts of kindness and forbearance during the past six or eight years. But all such kindnesses are thrown to the winds and ignored now that moonlighters and rebels see their opportunities for ill-doing given back to them by the displacement of a Ministry of law and order and the accession of a misguided Home Rule Ministry to power.
Between now and February next I much fear threatening and "bloody" letters will be as rife as they were in 1881-82 and subsequently.
My agent writes me as under:-
"Tempora mutantur, &c. The threatening letters are beginning again. I got a 'bloody' one the other day, my brother and employer likewise, and, worst of all, my aged mother was threatened by a letter signed 'Jack the Ripper.' Nice people for Home Rule the Irish peasantry are!"I enclose my agent's letter in full to verify the above extract, but not for publication, and likewise my own address card.
Trusting you will find room to admit this latest phase of Irish lawlessness, which ignores even the Irishman's creed of "Honour to Womanhood,"
I remain, Sir, yours obediently,
A CORK LANDLORD.
Finsbury-park, London, N., Sept. 9.
