Читать книгу The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent - Samuel Murray Hussey - Страница 15

Had I been able to obtain a reasonably large farm near Dingle, I should never have become a land agent, and I most certainly should never have given evidence before any Commission.

In default of adequate land accommodation, I embarked on my profession by becoming assistant land agent to my brother-in-law, the Knight of Kerry, who was agent to Sir George Colthurst. I lived with the Knight at Inniscarra in County Cork, not far from Blarney.

From that time onward I worked steadily, and as I take my ease at the Carlton to-day, I really feel I have done as much honest labour in my career as has any man.

In proof I may cite a day's record some years later, taken almost at random from my diary.

I began with an hour in my Cork office, went by train to Killarney, a journey of three and a half hours, where I spent three hours in my office, and then by train on to Tralee, a further one and a quarter hours, where I had an hour and a half in my office in that town, and then drove out to Edenburn, seven miles, to sleep. That done fairly often makes a decided strain on endurance and mental concentration, because the affairs at each place were of course for different landlords and needed the memorising of a fresh section of business all absolutely intrusted to me, whilst the train service in Kerry then and now is not calculated to promote mental tranquillity or facilitate business.

Having alluded to my diary, I had better explain that I kept no journal until 1852, and subsequently to that year it consisted merely of bald memoranda of my movements; therefore it has not been of the least use in preparing these reminiscences.

In 1846 I became a Government Inspector of Land Improvements and Drainage Works, and in that capacity went to Bantry, where I saw the appalling destitution caused by the famine, with which I shall deal in the next chapter.

I had made application for this post before I left Kerry, directly I had found my farm too small for my requirements, and I received the appointment from the Chairman of the Irish Board of Works. Practically speaking the pay was about a pound a day with allowances.

This post in no way interfered with my duties as a land agent then, but I afterwards resigned it owing to the increasing exigencies of my profession.

It may be as well to detail for readers other than Irish what are the avocations of a land agent, especially as the class in Ireland will probably soon be as extinct as the dodo.

The duties of an Irish land agent comprise a great deal of office work, drawing up agreements with tenants, receiving rent, superintending agricultural and all landlords' improvements, sitting as magistrate and representing the landlord when the latter is absent at poor-law meetings, road sessions, and on grand juries.

With very rare exceptions the salary has been five per cent, on the rents received. So the agent has been paid five per cent, on all the money he has put into the landlord's pockets, whilst an architect has always received five per cent. on all he took out of them, an arrangement which in the latter instance has not worked at all well for the landlords.

The tendency has gradually been to consolidate and amalgamate land agencies, for as the difficulty of getting rents increased, more competent men of experience and judgment were needed by the landlords. As a proof of the trust reposed in me, I may mention that at one time I received the rents of one-fifth of the whole county of Kerry—and that in the worst times.

Such a task is not one to be envied, however joyously a man may take up the burden of his daily toil, and of course the agents as the outward and visible signs of the distant or absentee landlords obtained the greater share of the hatred felt for the latter.

In the worst period Lord Derby received threats that if he did not reduce his rents, his agent would be murdered.

He coolly replied:—

'If you think you will intimidate me by shooting my agent you are greatly mistaken.'

That is exactly the reply the agents desired the landlords to make, but it did not conduce to making their own existences any the more secure or enviable.

Of course in the due working out of the Wyndham Act, land agents will be utterly ruined.

There are no openings for them because they are too old to commence learning another profession, and they will not get employment under the County Council because they belong to the landlord class and have unflinchingly fought the battles of the landlords.

The agents are a class who have devoted their time and risked their lives in order to get in the rents due to their employers, and there is not the smallest chance—save in a few isolated and exceptional cases—of their being kept on when the landlords will have only their own demesne in their own hands and employ some underling, such as a bailiff in England, to collect the stray rents of the few cottagers who may still chance to be tenants.

Judge Ross stated that there was no more deserving or painstaking class in Ireland than the land agents, and he considered it a great hardship that under the Wyndham Act they obtain no compensation.

By agreement in most cases they receive three per cent. of the purchase money, but that is a very poor sinking fund to provide for a middle-aged gentleman, who has probably a family to support; and absolute bankruptcy must be the result if there is, as on several large properties, an agent with a couple of assistants.

When the Ashbourne Act was passed in 1885, it was never contemplated that the purchases would be on a wholesale scale. As a matter of fact only a few estates were sold, and on the purchase price of one of those for which I was agent I received two per cent. It should be also borne in mind that the profession of a land agent in Ireland is on a far higher social plane than in England. In many cases the younger son or brother of the landlord is the agent for the family property; and in some instances this has worked uncommonly well. In other cases, gentlemen by birth conducted the business, or else the administration of several estates was consolidated and carried on from one office.

In every case the billet was regarded as one for life, only forfeited by gross misconduct, and the relations between landlord and agent have been nearly always of an intimate and cordial character. Each agent began as an assistant, obtaining an independent post by selection and influence, and few entered the profession unless they had reasonable prospects of a definite post on their own account in due course.

In my time the landlord was the sole judge of the agent's qualifications, but the profession has become a branch of the Engineering Surveyor's Institution.

As may be imagined, there are now remarkably few candidates for the necessary examinations, because it is virtually annihilated.

Things were very different when I embarked without mistrust on a career which has landed me comfortably into my eighties, although under Government every appointment has to be compulsorily vacated at the age of sixty-five. No one starting now could anticipate any such result in old age, and so without affectation I can say autres temps autres moeurs, which may be freely translated as 'present times much the worst.'

More pleasant is it to turn to a few brief memories of Cork. It was a cheerful place at the time I am speaking of, for there was plenty of entertaining and truly genial hospitality. The general depression caused by famine, fever, and Fenians hardly affected the great town, and after those funereal shadows had once passed, Cork was as gay as any one could reasonably desire.

The townsfolk are very witty and clever at giving nicknames, as the following little tales will show.

When a citizen in Cork makes money, he generally builds a house, and the higher up the hill his house is situated, the more is thought of him.

Mr. Doneghan, a highly respectable tallow chandler, built a fine residence early in the nineteenth century, which he called Waterloo.

The populace said it should have been named Talavera (i.e. Tallow-vera), and as that it is known to this day.

Mr. Maguire, who was Member for Cork, and Lord Mayor of the City into the bargain, was very influential in the promotion of a gas company. With the money he made out of it, he reared a rather lofty mansion, which was promptly christened the Lighthouse.

All butter in Cork is sold at the wharves, and the casks are branded with the quality of the butter they contain. One man made a fortune out of the first class butter on its merits, and out of the sixth class butter, which he put in the first class casks and sold on the testimony of the brand on the wood. This became in time notorious to most people except the more unsophisticated of his clients, and when he embarked on bricks and mortar his house was generally known as Brandenburg.

One more and I have done with these baptismal sobriquets.

A lady on a Queenstown steamer had put her foot down the bunker's hole, and broke her ankle through the accident. She brought an action against the company, duly proved negligence on the part of the employés, and obtained substantial damages. These considerably assisted her in erecting a rather attractive mansion, which she decidedly resented being called Bunker's Hill.

Some people have their own ideas about the definition of a gentleman, as a certain rather diminutive racing man found to his cost.

It was at a meeting close to Cork, and he was standing next a burly farmer close to the rails when the horses were nearly ready to start.

Pointing to one disreputable-looking ruffian about to mount, he observed:—

'That fellow has no pretensions to be a gentleman-rider.'

The farmer caught him by the collar of his coat and the seat of his breeches, and shook him as a mastiff would a rat.

'Mind yourself, small man,' said he, 'that's a recognised gentleman in these parts.'

There was a mighty shindy, and when the farmer was told his victim was a prominent English peer, he retorted:—

'Well, that won't make him a judge of an Irish gentleman.'

In the last chapter I mentioned that the preacher I most admired was Archbishop Magee. I had the privilege of frequently hearing him in Cork, where he drew crowded congregations to a temporary church—the cathedral being under repair.

I never heard any one who so magnetised me from the pulpit, and I am by no means prone to admire sermons. There was a sort of mesmerism in the very eloquence of Magee which kept my eyes riveted on his lips—rather big, bulgy lips in an expressive, sensitive face. An hour beneath him sped marvellously fast, and more than once in Cork I have heard him preach for that length. The impression he made on me has never been effaced, and it was with no surprise I learnt in due course that he became Archbishop of York.

The late Lord Derby said that the most eloquent speech he ever heard in or out of the House of Lords was Magee's speech on the Church Act, the peroration of which—quoting from memory after many years—ran:—'My Lords, I will not, I cannot, and I dare not vote for that most unhallowed bill which lies on your Lordships' table.'

Have all Magee stories been told?

I am afraid so. Yet in the hope that a few may be new to some, though old to others—who are invited to skip them—here are just a small batch.

When he was a dean, he one day attended a debate on tithes in the House of Commons, and was subsequently putting on his overcoat, when a Radical Member courteously assisted him, whereupon he remarked:—

'I am very much obliged to you, sir, for reversing the policy of your friends inside, who are taking the coats off our backs.'

This was equalled by the wife of an Irish landlord who lost her purse in the Ladies' Gallery of the House of Commons.

Mrs. Gladstone, who had been sitting next her, after kindly assisting in the ineffectual search, observed:—

'I hope there was not much in it.'

'No, it was a nice little purse I had had for a long time, but thanks to your husband there was nothing in it.'

An Irish story of Magee's concerns an Orange clergyman in Fermanagh, who asked leave to preach a sermon by Magee. Now, this clergyman, who was an ambitious man, was rather ashamed of his mother, and would not let her live at the parsonage, but had taken lodgings for her in the town. Magee, moreover, always a moderate man, did not like Orange sermons, and most certainly had never composed one. As he good naturedly did not want to offend the other, he said he would give him a capital sermon to deliver if he—Magee—might select the text.

'Of course, of course,' assented the other; 'what is it?'

'"From that time His disciple took her to his own house."'

Even this was hardly so cutting as his remark, when a bishop, to a clergyman of whom he did not think highly, but who upbraided him for not giving him a living.

'Sir, if it were raining livings, the utmost I could do would be to lend you an umbrella.'

Mention of Magee suggests an ecclesiastical tale concerning a most convivial attorney—George Faith by name—who had rather a red nose, which he explained was caused by wearing tight boots.

His father in old age got married a second time, and George was asked why his stepmother was like Dr. Newman.

The answer was because she had embraced the ancient Faith.

Among old time Irish members, Joe Ronayne, M.P. for Cork, was among the most diverting.

He was a railway contractor, and much wanted some additional ground at the terminus of the line, which the proprietor, Lord Ventry, would not sell.

The size of the coveted patch was only seven feet long by three broad. Mr. Ronayne grimly retorted:—

'That's very strange, for it is exactly the amount of ground I'd like to give him,' i.e. for his grave.

Another experience of Ronayne's was to the following tune.

He had obtained advances from a local bank for his railway contract to the satisfaction of both parties, and when asked by the manager for some wrinkles about the making of a railway, replied:—

'The best thing is to run it into a soft bank.'

He was a plucky chap as well as a witty one, for owing to some internal malady, from which he died, he had to have his leg amputated, at the same time resigning his seat for Cork.

Addressing the surgeon, he observed:—

'I cannot stand for the borough any longer, but I shall certainly stump the constituency as a county candidate.'

Poor fellow, he was all too soon an accepted candidate for his passage over to the great majority.

A certain attorney named Nagle used to do most of his work.

Speaking of another attorney this Nagle remarked:—

'He has the heart of a vulture.'

'I know what's worse,' was Ronayne's comment.

'Indeed!'

'Yes; the bill of an aigle' (which is the broad Cork pronunciation of eagle).

This Nagle was not remarkable for the extent of his ablutions.

At one period, when he was becoming an ardent Radical, an obsequious toady said:—

'You'll become a second Marat.'

'There's no fear that he will die in the same place,' promptly came from Ronayne.

On another occasion the two were waiting for the judges outside their lodgings during the Assizes.

Suddenly Ronayne, in the hearing of a number of acquaintances, called out:—

'You had better come away at once, Nagle.'

'Why should I?' indignantly.

'If you stop five minutes longer there's a shower of rain coming on and you might get washed.'

On a third occasion, Nagle told Ronayne he was going to invest some money in a mining exploration.

'Explore your own landed property, my dear fellow,' was Ronayne's advice.

'But you know I have not got any.'

'Good Heavens, you don't mean to say you have cleaned your nails?'

Though he was an out-and-out Fenian, Ronayne was as honest a man as I ever met, and he was considered one of the most amusing men in the House of Commons.

The attorneys in Cork at one time formed quite a small coterie, who divided all the business until it grew too much for them, one, Mr. Paul Wallace, being especially harassed with briefs.

At length a barrister named Graves came down from Dublin, and was introduced to Wallace by another attorney with the remark:—

'Counsel are very necessary.'

'Yes,' said Wallace; 'as a matter of fact, we are all being driven to our graves.'

At Kanturk Sessions, Mr. Philip O'Connell was consulted by a client about the recovery of a debt. He at once saw that the defence would be a pleading of the statute of limitations, so he told his client that if he could get a man to swear that the debtor had admitted the debt within the last six years, he would succeed, but not otherwise.

O'Connell went off to take the chair at a Bar dinner to a new County Court judge.

As the dessert was being set on the table, a loud knock came at the door, which was immediately behind the chairman.

'What is it?' cried O'Connell.

A head appeared, and the voice from it explained:—

'I'm Tim Flaherty, your honour, as was consulting you outside, and I want you to come this way for a while.'

'Don't you see I am engaged and cannot come?'

'But it's pressing and important.'

'I tell you I won't come.'

Then at the top of his voice Tim yelled:—

'Will a small woman do as well, your honour?'

The members of the Bar present, quite unaware of the previous conversation, exploded in a shout of laughter, and it was long before O'Connell heard the last of the invidious construction they put on the affair.

One of the interesting people I came across in the vicinity of Cork was Mr. Jeffreys, who up to his death in 1862 was the most enterprising and experimental landed proprietor in the county. He imported Scottish stewards, and people from far and near came to see his farms.

I should say that in the fifties he did more for agriculture than any other one man who could be named in Ireland.

He often said to me:—

'The system of small farms will not last long in Ireland, for the occupiers are sure to strike against rents.'

He did not live to see the fulfilment of his prophecy, but its effects were felt by his grandson, Sir George Colthurst, who inherited his property.

Most of his stories were very improper, but their wit excused them.

In the Kildare Street Club one day he saw a very pompous individual, and asked who he was.

'That's So-and-So, and the odd thing is he is the youngest of four brothers, who are all married without having a child between them.'

'Ah, that accounts for his importance—he is the last of the Barons.'

Finding him very meditative in the County Club at Cork one Friday, I asked him what was the matter.

'I am making my soul,' said he. 'I began my dinner with turbot and ended with scollops.'