BOYCOTT, the refusal and incitement to refusal to have commercial or social dealings with any one on whom it is wished to bring pressure. As merely a form of "sending to Coventry" or (in Gladstone's phrase) "exclusive dealing," boycotting may be legally unassailable, and as such has been justified by its original political inventors. But in practice it has usually taken the form of what is undoubtedly an illegal conspiracy to injure the person, property, or business of another by unwarrantably putting pres sure on all and sundry to withdraw from him their social or busi ness intercourse. The word was first used in Ireland, and was derived from the name of Captain Charles Cunningham Boycott (1832-97), agent for the estates of the Earl of Erne in County Mayo. For refusing in 1880 to receive rents at figures fixed by the tenants, Captain Boycott's life was threatened, his servants were compelled to leave him, his fences torn down, his letters intercepted and his food supplies interfered with. It took a force of goo soldiers to protect the Ulster Orangemen who succeeded finally in getting in his crops. Boycotting was an essential part of the Irish Nationalist "Plan of Campaign," and was dealt with un der the Crimes act of 1887. The term soon came into common English use, and was speedily adopted into many foreign lan guages.