27-6-1881 Times. IRISH AGITATION SCENES. Dublin June 14th. >From being one of the same, commonplace transactions of every day life, an auction in Ireland has come nowadays to be an event of great local excitement--set, as it is, in a scene unique in all its wild, sensational surroundings. An auction at which a squadron of Cavalry, a regiment of infantry, a posse of Police, and several thousands of the general public, with bands and banners, assist, is something out of the familiar "going, going, gone" transaction. I propose to sketch from the original one of these very remarkable scenes. The auctioneer puts up and knocks down to the highest and best bidder green fields and tilled land with growing crops, the tenants having refused to pay any rent unless they get a certain reduction, which the landlord refuses to give. When matters come to this stage, it is the law of the Land League that the tenant shall, on principle, allow his farm to go under the hammer of the auctioneer sooner than yield to the landlord, and the result is that when the auction comes off under these circumstances the sale is one of wild excitement. The typical auction scene from which I shall sketch came off one day this week in the town of Thurles, County Tipperary. To the end that these auctions shall not fall through for lack of bidding, the Landlords organization, called "The Property Defense Association", the headquarters of which is in Dublin, despatches some of its members to bid for farms and cattle, and so to force the hand of the tenants or their friends, who in some instances buy in the farms. In other instances, however, the association men have been declared the purchasers. Of course this is the great exciting element in the business. The scene in this Tipperary auction opens in the Court House in Thurles. Cavalry and Infantry and Police are massed near the building; there are processions of farmers, mounted and on foot, with bands playing and banners waving, and troop in from the outlying districts. The Court House is packed with the vast gathering of the peasantry of all conditions. The excitement is intense, but thought all there runs a rich vein of fun and humour. The Sheriff of the County---a dapper little man, who tries to appear at his ease, but fails---stands on a elevated bench with his riding whip in his hand, designed for duty as the official "hammer". He is constrained to act as his own auctioneer, for none of the regular auctioneers of the district would undertake the job for any money. Near the Sheriff are Police officers and magistrates, and, with a view to contingencies, Constabulary men, with loaded rifles and sword bayonets on them, are posted in various parts of the building. For the rest, the place swarms with peasantry, men, women, children, who groan, shout, threaten, crack jokes, laugh, and talk fiercely and comically all through the wild scene. The Sheriff, assuming the role of auctioneer, takes off his hat, and, in an excess of complacency, opens business by addressing the surging crowd before him as "Ladies and Gentlemen". This brings down the house in an uproarious round of laughter, and there is a brisk popping of jokes on all sides at the expense of the Sheriff, who is so amazingly good tempered, that he laughs at all the fun poked at himself. He says, smiling all over, that it is now his duty to put up for public competition the interest of one "Phil" Kennedy in his farm, on which £33 are now due to the landlord for rent. The terms are cash down and no auctioneer's fees. What shall he say for this desirable farm?. Somebody on the floor of the court authorizes him to say one shilling, whereat there is great laughter. The Sheriff adds to the fun by courteously thanking the gentleman for the offer. Anything to make a beginning. The representative of the Property Defense Association, who is standing near a party of armed policemen for obvious reasons, bids £5, whereat there is fierce groaning and a wild chorus of threats rings through the building. The spirited bidder of the original shilling advances on the latest bid by another shilling. The Property defense man then puts the figure up to £20. "Is there any advance on £20"? asks the Sheriff, raising the end of his whip, hammer fashion. There is no more bidding, but there is a great deal of raillery from the crowd, and the Sheriff, with the end of his whip, knocks down the farm to the bidder of £20. All kinds of jokes now come up from the crowd, and there is a point to most of them. Thus, one voice wants to know who's going to manage the farm for the purchaser, and the voice hopes the gentleman will give a "house warming" when he comes to take possession. The Sheriff pockets the proceeds of the sale, and puts up in succession several more farms. The net result of the days auctioneering is that the tenant's interest in fine farms are bought by the representative of the Property Defense Association, and that in two instances the tenants buy in their interests by paying the amounts of rent due by them. What the gentleman who bought the interests in the five farms will do with his purchase remains to be seen. As matters stand just now in Ireland, he is somewhat in the position of the man who won a white elephant at a bazaar. This auction was closed by an open air demonstration, the Parish Priest in the chair, at which the proceedings of the day were spoken of as " a splendid triumph for the popular cause".