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with his comrades and co-religionists more unmercifully than might have been expected.[1]
- ↑ "It appears that as one means of abolishing the class of middlemen, proprietors in many cases on the expiration of a lease, set the land to the occupying tenants, letting to the middleman that part only of the farm which he retained in his own hands. And to avoid the operation of this system many middlemen have sought to remove the competitors for a renewal, and have ejected all their sub-tenants previous to the lapse of their own interest. This has not infrequently caused much suffering and outrage."—Ibid. p. 1029.
Evidence of Thomas Ware, Esq., Land Proprietory Vice-chairman of Board of Guardians, and Magistrate.
"What steps do they take to prevent it? — They are generally obliged to yield to it, the remedy afforded by law is so difficult of attaining. . . . . At the time that the Subletting Act was in force in this country, my father and I jointly let a small lot of ground to a Roman Catholic clergyman; there was as strong a clause inserted in the lease against subletting as the skill of the legal man could devise. . . . He gave a part of the ground to his brother, and a part to his sister. His sister got a license, and opened a public-house upon the premises. I did not like this getting on. My immediate tenant retained in his own hand one small field, containing probably an acre or an acre and a half of land. I brought an ejectment against him for a breach of covenant in subletting. I had a record in court upon it, and it was with extreme difficulty that I was able to sustain the case, though I proved that the county rate was paid in three separate payments—one by the brother, one by the sister, and a third portion for the small field he kept as a colourable possession in his own hand. I succeeded in getting a verdict, but it was afterwards set aside, and an order for a new trial came down—and all this arising from the impossibility on my part to prove that those lettings had taken place by written agreement. It was set up by him, 'I put in my brother as my steward or caretaker, and lent my sister