THE STATE OF THE WEST.
OFFERING A REWARD FOR THE HEAD OF A BOYCOTTED HERDSMAN.
On Monday morning several written notices were found posted up at the village of Cashel, about two miles from Carrick-on-Shannon, signed "Captain Moonlight,” and offering a reward of £5 for the head of a boycotted farmer named John Leyden, who resides at Knockadalteen, and whose house was broken into a few days ago by a large number of undisguised "Moonlighters," who, after placing Leyden on his knees, and firing several shots over his head, forced him to swear that he would cease herding the farm of Scregg, which has been boycotted on account of the present owner paying a fine of £500 for the former tenant's interest in the farm.
Yesterday Leyden attended Mass at the Roman Catholic chapel of Drumlion, accompanied by an Emergency caretaker and an escort of three constabulary, who remained protecting him, with loaded rifles, in the chapel during the celebration of Divine service. The officiating clergyman, the Rev Michael Sommers, C.C., denounced those who were engaged in boycotting Leyden as the worst enemies of the cause of Ireland, and especially of the tenant farmers of the neighbourhood, who would be forced to pay all the expenses of the protection which had been afforded to Leyden. He alse remarked that the people of Ireland had for a long time been engaged in agitation to secure the three Fs, and now when they had gained this concession and other remedial measures they were prevented from enjoying them; by people who were not their friends, and whose deeds of violence could only tend to bring ruin and disgrace upon the country, whose people, he trusted, would prove true to the precepts of their religion putting down outrage and every other species of injustice by every means in their power.
The parishioners expressed the warmest approval of the rev. gentleman's observations, and are loud in expressing their sympathy with Leyden and their detestation of the system of annoyance to which he has been subjected. Two constables have been told off to protect Leyden’s house, and he has also received the assistance of an Emergency caretaker to assist him caring the farm.
