The constant use of the word "boycott" does (Sinn connote an accurate appreciation o Ў ce, Nor perhaps is it generally known that Captain Charles Cun-bingham Boycott, whose ordeal at the hands of {he Irish Nationalists in 1880 gave rise to the word, died as recently as 1897. The agent to the Earl of Erne, Captain Boycott was the first victim of the campaign which was intended to drive the landlords out of Ireland and which was eventually dealt with under the Crimes Act of 1887, when the late Earl of Balfour by his firm administration as Irish Secretary, earned the uncomplimentary title of "bloody." Captain Boycott with his wife was forced to take refuge in a loft for pressure was brought to bear' on his servants and his neighbours to cut him off from all amenities of life, His fences were destroyed, he was hooted and mobbed and his effigy was hanged and burnt. The Government sent a force of 900 soldiers to protect an emergency labour corps which gathered his crops. He weathered the storm and eventually secured another appointment as labd agent in Flixton, Suffolk, to Sir Hugh Adair. In that quieter atmosphere Captain Boycott lived the life of a simple country gentleman. He was much beloved for his quiet directness and unassuming personality, Well over six foot in height, with a we! trimmed grey beard, his straight soldierly figure in a blue-serge Norfolk jacket was a familiar sight in the streets of the neighbouring market town of Bungay to which he habitually repaired in a dogcart, His liveried coachman seemed to bear an extraordinarily marked facial resemblance to the favourite Dalmatian hound striding obediently won under the trap. Captain Boycott never bore any malice to the wreckers of his Irish career.
ran less obsessed with a grievance could hardly have been found. It certainly is ironical that so sinister a weapon of offence should have been first applied to such a man. And it will be noted that, on that original occasion, the boycott involved violence and hatred. Nor did it achieve its object,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.