remain a dead letter, and is only dragged from its hiding-place, when the Viceregal power has been intrusted to a man of more political honesty than his predecessors.

But though Lord Clarendon may enforce the law against the peasant, dare he put that which would punish the priests into operation?Their influence in the House forbids the supposition.

Mr O'Connell managed the power which he had created with his wellknown skill and discretion; but since the sceptre has fallen into the hands of his feeble successor, the real props of agitation have openly assumed the position which they have long, though secretly filled. To them every "ruined rascal" who betakes himself to the "last resource" of patriotism must now address himself. Formerly, the candidate was expected to pay (say £2000) for his seat; now, it may be secured by the utter abandonment of principle, and unbounded submission to the will of the Donors; then, aspirants with some appearance of propriety and decency of conduct were required; now, both qualifications may be dispensed with. The more degraded the man, the more fit he will be considered "to do those acts which the less vile refuse to execute;" he may be a blackleg, a swindler, or an open adulterer, and it will be no bar to his advancement in the eyes of the Roman Catholic bishops, who, while they profess to admire virtue, have no objection, if it secure their purposes, to patronise vice; and who, while they preach peace and goodwill, tolerate, if they do not approve, the encourager to murder. In what other country in the world could men have acted as it is admitted those priests have acted, without being reached by the strong arm of the law? of what other Christian church than that which is ruled over by the "bigoted M'Hale," and the "vulgar and vindictive Higgins," would they have been allowed to continue members?

The Irish Roman Catholic priests are said to have unbounded influence over their flocks, and we believe it: yet can a more conclusive evidence of their unworthiness be adduced than the state in which we find the people subjected

to their spiritual care, and who are so fatally obedient to their dictates? A dignitary of the church, Archdeacon Laffan, contrasts the pusillanimous conduct of the cowardly Saxon, who bears his sufferings with patience because he can do nothing like a man," with the gallantry of his truehearted Tipperary boys, who remove those who inconvenience them by the bullet! Can we then be surprised at the criminal conduct of the unfortunate persons consigned to such teaching? When such men are placed in authority over those who proclaim God's word, can we be astonished to read the account given by the priests' own organ, The Tipperary Vindicator, of the posthumous honours paid by the well-instructed and Christian people of Tipperary to the memory of departed worth? What a testimony do the facts recorded bear, to the zeal and efficacy with which his doctrines have been promulgated and enforced by the meek and christian Laffan!

A few months ago, we read the following description of the proceedings which took place at the funerals of Fogarty, Rice, and Hayes, the executed murderers of the late Mr Clarke. There was no doubt of their guilt, no declaration of their innocence, and no grounds whatever to question the justice of the verdict which condemned them to die. They were not men roused by oppression to execute "the wild jus tice of revenge." No; they were regular matter-of-fact men of business; hired bravos, ready to perpetrate any murder they were paid for committing, and who had never been injured by the person they deprived of life. In other countries, the carcasses of such wretches would have been shunned; contact with them would have been considered a pollution; and assisting at their obsequies as little better than participation in their crimes: but not so in "virtuous and moral Tipperary," the vineyard consigned to the spiritual labours of the venerable and apostolic Laffan. "The bodies of the unfortunate men," says The Vindicator,

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were conveyed in funeral procession to the homes of their respective relatives. .. They were laid out and waked as if they had not been strangled by the rope of the hangman. They were surrounded by those who

mourned for them with as keen a sympathy, and as tender an affection, as if they had died each on his humble pallet of straw; hundreds flocked around the corpse-houses from all directions; and we shall leave others to conjecture whether the sight was calculated, in the present alleged state of the country, by the advocates of a Coercion Bill, to induce tranquillity, or to rake up the fires of desperation and revenge. They had funerals. The funeral of Fogarty took place on Saturday. It was attended, we understand, by some thousands, who followed his remains to the grave in crowds more numerous, with feelings more interested, than if he had otherwise gone out of the world. Hayes and Rice were buried on Sunday. There were forty cars, a strong body of equestrians, and a vast crowd of pedestrians accompanying the former. The latter was attended by one of the largest funeral processions remembered for a long time in the district through which the remains were conveyed." What a lesson are we taught by those revelations! "Funeral honours paid to convicted murderers!" and the demoralisation so wide-spread, as to induce the attendance of even the more respectable class of farmers, whose presence was attested by the "forty jaunting cars and the large body of equestrians," who swelled the ranks of the admirers of assassination. Some say that the Irish criminals are few, others, that the mass of the population is tainted with the fatal leprosy: in either case the conduct of government should be to repress crime with a strong hand, and with a celerity which would strike terror into the hearts of the malefactors. The government have to deal with a revolutionary priesthood and a demoralised people, and it is not by such paltry expedients as their present measures, that the one can be checked in their career, or the other awed into submission; and to enact remedial measures while all laws are openly set at defiance, would be but a ridiculous farce. The ministry must be aware, although they have dishonestly concealed the fact, that the same spirit of outrage which is evinced by acts of assassination in the five counties they have alluded to, is prevalent in all the

other midland and western counties, and is rapidly extending itself towards the north. Neither are those outrages now perpetrated solely against those who transgress the agrarian code in respect to the management of their estates. Assassination is found a safe, ready, and efficient remedy for every violation of the popular will. Mr Baily was shot, because, as chairman of a board of guardians, he refused indiscriminate out-door relief. Mr Hassard, because he prosecuted a steward for theft; a widow had her brains beaten out because she was about to marry another husband; and a man named Burns was murdered at Belturbet, merely because he thought fit to change his religion. There is a spirit of anarchy abroad, which nothing but strong and decisive measures can arrest, and which nothing short of martial law will enable the executive to cope with.

Our space will not permit us to comment as fully as the importance of the subject would require, on the other remedial measures suggested for the benefit of Ireland by men who argue that, because such would be beneficial in other countries, therefore they must be well adapted for that apparently incomprehensible island. We will merely say that it is an error to suppose that the waste lands of Ireland can be cultivated with success by the state, or with any degree of advantage as regards the location of the superabundant population. The expense of their reclamation would amount to much more than the price at which the very best ground can be purchased; and it would be manifestly absurd to undertake, at the public expense, such an immense and profitless work, while three-fourths of the richest soils in the country are in a state of semi-cultivation; and where, by judicious advances, which are sure to be repaid, an equal amount of employment may be afforded by the landlords without any loss to the state. Neither do we conceive that the location of the peasantry on properties under the control of the government is at all judicious; experience teaches us the reverse. On the estates of the Crown in Roscommon, agrarian outrages in that county had their origin. From mismanagement or other

causes which we have not heard explained, the tenants on the Crown lands were permitted to run many years in arrear; and now they refuse to pay any rents whatsoever, on the ludicrous pretence "That Queen Victoria never took out administration to King William the Fourth!" And thus they have been allowed, by their successful resistance to the Crown, to encourage others in a similar course of conduct towards her Majesty's lieges, who are, in their eyes, but the subordinate owners of the soil.

The difficulty of dealing with the subject of emigration, when the task is undertaken by men who are not practically acquainted with the state of Ireland, and the feelings and habits of the Irish people, is made manifest by the speeches delivered on the scheme in parliament. Mr Hawes, when the question was brought forward last session, refused to sanction any government system, on the grounds that voluntary emigration was proceeding at too rapid a rate already; and that it would be much better to keep the people at home. Now, while we advocate a measure which would remove a certain portion of the population, who can have no permanent occupation afforded them on account of the numbers congregated in particular localities, and who consequently must become a charge upon the resources of the country, we quite agree with the under-secretary of the colonies, that nothing can be more lamentable or more ruinous to the prosperity of Ireland than the removal of those persons who emigrate at their own expense. But, paradoxical as it may appear to the honourable gentleman, the system which we consider absolutely necessary, would act as a most effectual check to the abandonment of their country by the industrious and comparatively wealthy, which he so justly laments. Those industrious and well-conducted men ought to be the "thews and sinews" of the land; but they are driven from their homes by the insecurity of life and property in their wretched country. They cannot extend their operations in proportion as they acquire wealth. They dare not venture to enlarge the size of their farms, although they see

the land uncultivated and lying waste around them. Death is the penalty they are certain to pay, if they take the ground from which others have been removed, no matter what may have been the cause of their expulsion. They therefore realise their property, and carry their capital and their industry to other countries, where they can freely use the one, and fearlessly enjoy the fruits of the other; while the idle and profligate ruffian who is the means of driving them from the land of their birth, revels in his crimes with impunity, and derives a legal support from the community which he oppresses-he either cannot, or he will not emigrate. Now, it is clear, that if a system were adopted by which men who become a charge on the public should have the option of leaving the country at the public expense-of course we mean exclusively at the expense of Ireland-and that at the same time the laws were so vigorously administered, as to prevent the possibility of their earning a livelihood by the commission of crime at home; the country would get rid of the worst and most irreclaimable culprits, and society be relieved from the crimes and the oppressions which they practise; industry would be protected, and prosperity would advance. Lord Clarendon may seek, by his wellintended advice and his remonstrances, to stay the march of crime; but his efforts will only evince his ignorance of the habits and prejudices of the people he has to govern. He may subscribe his money to communicate agricultural knowledge to those, whose poverty and misery lead him to suppose that they only require instruction to become industrious and happy; but he should know, that those persons to whom he so praiseworthily wishes to impart information, are in fact the best skilled agriculturists the country can produce. They compose the migratory hordes who annually proceed to Scotland and England. There is not a man amongst them above sixteen years of age, who has not practical experience in the very best systems pursued in those countries to which they resort; and we would "wager a ducat," that scores of boys may be found in Ennis and in Galway,

who could instruct his paid lecturers in the performance of the nicest operations of agriculture. The Irish Viceroy feelingly deplored the disappointment of his hopes with regard to the Irish Fisheries, when giving audience to the Clare deputation. "When I came to this country," said his lordship, "I indulged in the hope of promoting the prosperity of the Irish Fisheries; but I have been grievously disappointed. When the nets and gear were redeemed from the pawn-office, the men would not use them, or go to sea, unless they were fed; and when they were fed, they caught no fish." The same spirit which actuated the fisherman in this instance, actuates the agricultural peasant. He will not till his land, not because he is ignorant of the best method of doing so with success, but because he prefers idleness to industry, and gratuitous support to honest independence.

We respect Lord Clarendon's talents, and admire the honesty with which he has set about discharging the high and arduous duties of his office; but we tell him that the pacification of Ireland can never be effected by the powers now at his disposal, nor yet by the emasculated measures proposed by the ministry for the adoption of parliament. Neither need he calculate on any assistance in his efforts from the diplomatic devices of

her Majesty's advisers. Lord Minto may earwig the Pope; but the Pope's influence is set at defiance by the Irish bishops, when it happens not to be exerted in the furtherance of their own particular views. The present pontiff's predecessor issued his commands, that both priests and prelates should abstain from agitation, and avoid those political festivals where some of their body had covered themselves with such wellmerited disgrace; but his encyclical letter was treated as so much waste paper, and had only the effect of increasing the custom it was intended to abolish. The Viceroy can have no hope or expect no succour but from the efficiency of the laws, and their uncompromising administration. Military tribunals must be substituted for civil ones. No juror in the present state of the country will hazard his personal safety by the due discharge of his duties, when he sees no chance of obtaining adequate protection. Summary justice must supersede the ordinary law's delay; immediate punishment must follow upon conviction; agitation of every kind must be suppressed; and the disturbers of the public peace must be dragged forth and made amenable for their crimes, whether they be found beneath the smock frock of the peasant, or the cassock of the priest.