§ MR. W. REDMOND (Fermanagh, N.)asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether his attention has been called to the following account of an eviction in Ireland, which is taken from a London paper:—
An eviction was carried out yesterday on the property of Mr. Montroy Gledstanes Fardross, Clogher, telegraphs our Dublin correspondent. Nearly 40 police were in attendance. The evicted family numbers six members. One, a blind boy, received the last sacrament last evening, and the father, an old man of 80 years, was so weak and ill as to appear utterly unconscious of what was going on around him. Another son besought the Sub-Sheriff (Mr. McKelvey) to delay the removal of the father from bed till the parish priest might be sent for, as the arrival of McKelvey had taken the family by surprise, but the officer was inexorable. The old man was then transferred from his bed to a cart, in which he was conveyed to the house of a son-in-law, where he received the last sacrament immediately afterwards from the parish priest;and, whether it is not in the power of the Government to refuse to allow the forces of the Crown to be used in evicting persons under such painful circumstances?
§ THE CHIEF SECRETARY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR) (Manchester, E.), in reply, said, he was making local inquiries, and had not yet heard the result. His experience was, however, that these sensational reports were invariably grossly inaccurate.