better paid than Archbishop Cullen, in Ireland, is a
piece of monstrous injustice; but that a respectable
Tuscan and his wife should now be expiating, in
Florence, by four years of brutal and infamous labour
at the galleys, the crime of having possessed and
read the Holy Scriptures and the English book of
common prayer, is a thing perfectly just and
righteous. In other words, abuse and intimidate
unceasingly an established religion that gives you liberty
to think, and breath to spare for bullying; but to a
religion which in the power of its predominance
stifles your utterance, confiscates your earnings, robs
you and tramples on you, submit without murmur or
questioning. And the pen from which this argument
proceeded, was probably still wet with the ink into
which it dipped to express that glorious doctrine of
equality on which the latest agitation-shop has just
been opened in Dublin. "That religious freedom,
equal, impartial, and universal, shall be extended to
all, of whatever religious denomination, and that all
shall share equally in the ecclesiastical resources of
the State, according to the religion in which they
were born, or which their consciences may lead them
to profess"!

Another proposition in the same argument, used
by way of enforcing the claim of equality, it will
be charitable to treat as the slip of a too fluent
pen. For if we were to accept as gravely intended
the remark that the majority of the Irish people had
reason to believe themselves "robbed," not only of their
religious endowments but also "of their estates" by
the "miserable minority" now ruling them, we might
appear to drag the writer into some sort of complicity
with a crime which he doubtless abhors as much as
we do. Perhaps the worst agrarian murder, in that
foul and bloody series for which Ireland is infamous,
is that now fresh and reeking from the ground.
Occasionally there have existed palliations for even that
worst atrocity to which man can be goaded by
oppression; but the equities in this case had not been
denied, nor had any cruelty or inhumanity been
committed. The property in relation to which the
bloody revenge was taken, had just passed through
the Incumbered Estates Court into possession of an
owner who enjoyed, and could exert, something more
than merely the name of its landlord. Here was no
case of a nominal owner, with the means of the poor
and the waste of the rich, with the duties of one
condition and the necessities of the other, such as have
been the curse of that unhappy land. A substantial
resident purchaser had been found for the estate; but
meeting on the threshold of his purchase some difficulty
in obtaining recognition of his new rights, he had
instructed his agent—not to injure, harass, or dispossess
a single tenant, not to alter in any way the terms or
conditions of one of the holdings,—simply to take legal
steps to compel the acknowledgment of what was not
only justly and undeniably his, but what it was most
the interest of the recusant holders themselves to
acknowledge for his. The agent, a kind good man, known
well throughout the county for his gentleness and
forbearance, is driving with a friend in a gig from the
assize town where those necessary steps have been
taken. He holds the reins loosely, the horse is slowly
ascending a hill, and he is speaking to his companion;
when the latter, hearing a shot fired, sees the whip
fall from his friend's hand, observes his words
suddenly cease, while his face inclines a little forward;
and, as the startled man turns quickly round to see
whence the shot proceeded, his unhappy friend falls
dead at his feet, with the back part of his head
shattered, and bearing the marks of twenty-seven slugs
that had passed through the top of his brain. It was
not a lonely neighbourhood; within a few yards were
several houses, and at no great distance stood a railway
station; but vain were all cries for help, or
attempts to find trace of the murderer. The body
still lay where it fell, when the gig was again
overtaken; its pockets untouched; and the large sum of
unrifled money in them bearing terrible evidence of
the character of the organisation to. which he had
been sacrificed.

Now, it is in the presence of such fearful events as
this that the language quoted from the organ of the
Irish priesthood assumes a significance too startling,
which it would be better that it should not
possess. Instead of the peculiar condition of Ireland
offering any excuse for the heated language of its
professing advocates, it only aggravates the imprudence
and wickedness to the greatest degree. Even where
a real case of oppression exists, the oppressor should be
spared, if the sparing him is necessary to sparing his
victims the crimes of revenge and blood. Here there
was as little pretence for any such imputation, as
there was a call for the ardent exponent of religious
equality to animate his argument by implying that its
establishment should include not only a restitution of
church revenue to the Catholic priests, but a transfer
of Irish land to the Catholic cultivators of the soil.
There are representations as provocative to the lust
of vengeance, as others are to propensities of another
kind; but there is no pander so infamous as the man
who recklessly inflames animosities which he cannot
control,—for he panders to the intercourse of Death
and Sin.

The locality of this murder, it ought at the same
time to be stated, adds no new feature of
aggravation to the existing state of Ireland. The place
where it occurred has been long proverbial for
similar atrocities; whereas in other districts, there
cannot be a doubt, vast beneficial changes are in
operation, not less active or assured because they are
silent and unobtrusive. Emigration is doing its
work. Scotch agricultural colonists and capitalists
have been entering Ireland by one portal, while the
native Irish were leaving by others; and the result
in many quarters is already perceptible in less
crowded poor-houses and better-paid rents, much
increase of briskness in markets, and an evident
dullness in the trade of agitation. Ireland just at present,
in short, is by no means an exception to the increased
activity and prosperity everywhere else observable.
In the Irish linen market there has been great
improvement; and from that quarter, as from all
other parts of the three kingdoms, what we hear of the
condition of the working class is more favourable
than at any former time. To say this, of course is
also to say that the manufacturing districts are
flourishing, that great contracts are in progress, that
prices are rising in the markets, factories increasing,
docks full, ship-yards busy, and speculation alert and
bold in all the directions of enterprise. What portion
of this healthy energy is attributable to our
progress in the arts; in what degrees it is to be divided
between our noble inventions, our abolition of
restrictive laws, the freedom of commercial
intercourse we have so largely promoted, or the gold
discoveries which have startled the world at the
very time when it is best able to turn them to
striking account; every one in these kingdoms
is now eagerly waiting for Mr. Disraeli to explain.
Let no one else attempt it. The words of Mercury
are harsh while we wait for the songs of Apollo.

Turning to subjects, therefore, that men not
absolutely inspired may meanwhile properly discuss, let us,
in conclusion, note one or two incidents awaiting the
reader of our month's Narrative which he will find very
worthy of attention. At last there appears to be a
probability, if not of finding our gallant Franklin and his
comrades, at any rate of knowing with some degree of