3-070-829 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Irish Land League Agitation: attack on a process server, 1881. 'Our Special Artist in the disturbed agricultural districts of the West of Ireland contributes another Sketch of the perils that frequently beset a process-server when employed in the legal execution of his duty...some [agents] have been very cruelly treated by furious mobs of the peasantry, at the instigation of the Irish Land League. In the Court of Queen's Bench...motions were made to dispense...with service of the writs in actions to recover rent. The lands were chiefly in the county of Tipperary. In one case the plaintiff's solicitor received from the local process-server, William Daly, a letter stating that he was laid up in the infirmary with a broken head, received in the discharge of his duty. He therefore could not serve the processes, nor would he try to do so, because he had been beaten in the town of Tipperary on April 5...the local solicitor...wrote, "We can get nothing done here now, as a reign of terror exists." In consequence of the lawlessness that prevails in the locality, by reason of the action of the Land League, personal service of writs and processes could only be effected by chance, and with great risk to the process-server. The motions were granted'. From "Illustrated London News", 1881.