vernment and parliament not to abolish tithes, and the appearance of the former, in its own person, to enforce payment of arrears, rather inflamed than mitigated exasperation. In his charge to the Grand Jury, Mr. Baron Foster, after stating that there were no fewer than twenty-five persons accused of murder, added, "but gentlemen, this still is not all; for there have been murders committed in this your county, for which no accusation whatever has been brought forward against any individual; and allow me to observe on this, that in my opinion the absence of accusation, under such circumstances, speaks worse, by far, the general character of the state of the county, than even do perhaps the indictments that may be preferred in the case of the others, because it evinces that, however strong the desire might exist in the human mind to bring offenders of this kind to justice, still intimidation is found to prevail over every such natural feeling or desire." There was difficulty in finding a petty jury, though a penalty of 50l. was inflicted for absence. John Ryan, being tried for the butchery at Carrickshaugh, the Jury had to be discharged, being unable to agree upon their verdict. William Voss was arraigned on the same charge. The Jury acquitted him. John Ryan was put to the bar on a second indictment, and a second time the Jury was unable to agree. The law officers of the crown gave up the prosecutions in despair, and murders of unmingled atrocity remained unavenged. In celebration of this triumph over law, justice, and humanity, the county of Kilkenny blazed with bonfires, announcing to the world the joy of its people, not that the

innocent had escaped conviction, but that the guilty had escaped punishment. The Jurors, too, received their well-earned share of popular applause. While a proprietor, who was known to be hostile to the existing combination, or to the crimes by which it was supported, could not procure labourers to cut down his harvest, the peasantry hastened in crowds to the fields of the "acquitting jurors," and reaped them for nothing-the expression of their gratitude for being allowed to commit murder with impunity; and thus the most important element in the constitution of a criminal tribunal gave its sanction to crime, if that crime were only committed in resisting the execution of the law.

Crime, accordingly, prospered. The clergyman of Borrisokane, in the county of Tipperary, having

The following account appeared in the Irish newspapers of the middle of August, and is a good example of the feelings of the people. "Last Tuesday (Aug. 14) a singular scene occurred at Jerpoint in this county (Kilkenny) the seat of William H. Hunt, Esq. one of the jurors favourable to the acquittal of the Carrickshaugh prisoners, and a county magistrate. A large field of wheat, conand his neighbours from the surrounding taining 40 acres, had become fully ripe, parishes of Knocktopher, Ballyhale, Carrickshaugh, Hugginstown, Cashill, Knockmayland, &c., assembled, to cut The Carrickshaugh it down for him. men mustered 1,300 reaping-hooks, and were allowed the honour of marching first into the field. headed by Mr. Conway, of Ballyhale, who read an appro priate address to Mr. Hunt, expressive of their admiration of the sense of impar

tial justice by which he was distinguished, and their conviction that his liberal sen timents concerning that odious and griev ous oppression, the tithes, accorded with those of millions of the people of Ireland. To this Mr. Hunt made a suitable reply. A band accompanied the party from Knocktopher; but, on the suggestion of

found it necessary to seize and sell some cattle belonging to refractory debtors, the combination prevented an auctioneer from acting, and purchasers from bidding. The cattle were offered back to the owners at the low price offered for them; but this was scornfully refused. They must have blood, the more especially as the attendance of military at the sale had prevented violence there. A driver, accompanied by a son of the clergyman, conducted the cattle to a neighbouring fair. On the public road, and in broad day-light, the non-payers of tithe murdered the driver; and, although his companion did survive, it was only by mistake-they left him for dead upon the high-way. Another clergyman was shot dead on his own lawn, while overlooking the labours of his servants. To secure the tithes, certain proceedings are necessary in surveying and valuing. The persons employed

some gentlemen who acted as harveststewards, they ceased playing until they entered the field, lest it should be seized on as the characteristic of an illegal assemblage. A poetical address was presented to Mrs. Hunt, who gratefully responded, and then the work began in earnest. The stewards counted 1,700 reapers and 800 binders engaged in the frolic; amongst the latter were farmers with their wives and daughters who had never worked a day for themselves. While Mr. Hunt invited about sixty of his friends who acted as stewards to dine

with him at Jerpoint, the Carrickshaugh boys invited the rest to cut down the wheat of Mr. Conway of Ballyhale, now ripe also. About 700 reapers volunteered, and by the time Mr. Conway returned home from Mr. Hunt's dinner

party, he found all his wheat cut, bound,

and stacked!

"The boys" were further anxious to know if their friend Mr. Smithwick, of Kilkenny, had any wheat ripe, declaring they would go forty miles to cut it for nothing, and that they would drink no beer but his during the harvest,”

in performing these duties, required every where the protection of the military. In the beginning of September proceedings of this kind were to be adopted in the parish of Wallstown, in the county of Cork; the peasantry assembled to resist ; they attacked the military; the latter had to fire in self-defence. Four of the peasantry were killed, and several others wounded. Not a lament had been raised by the political guides of Ireland over butchered land-holders and murdered clergymen ; but now O'Connell sent forth a letter "To the Reformers of Great Britain," invoking vengeance for the slain violators of the laws. "Brother Reformers," said he, “there is blood on the face of the earth! blood human blood, profusely shed! Will it sink into the earth unnoticed and unregarded, or will it cry to heaven for retribution and vengeance? There is blood-more blood on the face of the earth! It is Irish blood-the blood of the latest Irish, slain in that continued conflict of oppression which has already endured seven centuries! British oppression! which appears as fresh and unsatiated in its appetite for human gore, as if it had been imported only yesterday, and had

never before snuffed the air tainted with Irish blood. There is blood on the face of the earth-the once green fields of Wallstown are red with the latest Irish blood! Said I the latest? Alas? before these lines meet the eye of any one British reformer, another massacre may have been perpetrated,—another tale of slaughter may have been added to the dark catalogue of crime, and a more recent enormity may have thrown the butchery of Wallstown into comparative oblivion. They have been buried,

they are sweltering in their graves! Their funerals were numerously attended, but no funeral cry was heard. They were buried in sorrow, but in silence. No man's lamentation, no woman's wailing, was heard! unless, when nature, yielding to the force of suffocation, made the mother's heart, as it were explode in one wild scream, or the widow's single shriek, or the orphan's convulsive sobbing, broke upon the ear. They have been buried in silence and in sorrow. Men grieved over their graves, but shed no tears. There was determination, dark, taciturn, profound. There were thoughts of vengeance, and wild schemes of retribution. But no, they shall not, the survivors shall not be left to what has been called the wild justice of revenge; no, if there be real justice to be found upon earth, I will seek it for them, nor shall I, as I do confidently hope, seek it in vain." Where was this man's head

or heart, when, day after day, he had witnessed "blood-more blood -more Irish blood" shed on the earth, drawn from the murdered bodies of peaceful, respectable, and virtuous citizens, as if the appetite of his banded ruffians "for human gore had been imported only yesterday and had never before snuffed the air tainted with innocent blood"-while his whole life was spent in defending or palliating their atrocities, and encouraging all the ignorant and angry feelings which were degrading his countrymen into the most brutal miscreants on the face of the earth.

Even under the new act, the posting of notices for payment of the arrears was obstinately resisted. A party of armed police being engaged in this duty, in a parish in the county of Kilkenny, in the beginning of October, the police were compelled to fire, and two persons were killed.

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FTER the rising of Parlialic attention were the registration of the new constituency under the reform bill, and the other preparations for the general election, which, it was understood, was to follow, soon as the registration was completed. The candidates were in the field, and their canvasses concluded, while the registration was going on. The registration itself proceeded very quietly. Although numerous, indeed, were the questions which arose on the interpretation of the act, and the difficulties which occurred in proving value, the professional gentlemen, to whom this judicial duty was entrusted, made it, in general, a rule, to decide doubts in favour of the claimant. They chose to run the chance of admitting a man who had no franchise, rather than exclude a man who, at bottom, might have a good one. It was only in cases where an election was to be contested, that the particular claims were examined with much accuracy. The opposing candidates then became opposing litigants, and the process of registration was, in some instances, drawn out to a great length. It would serve no good purpose to record the decisions of particular barristers on particular points, both because different barristers, in different places, often

gave opposite judgments on the

terminations could not become matters of authority. It is only decisions of election committees, that can give an authoritative interpretation to the vague and clumsy phraseology of the reform act.

Before the previous steps had been so far advanced as to allow a dissolution, the progress of the negotiations regarding the separation of Belgium from Holland had placed Great Britain in an attitude of hostility against the Dutch. Holland having refused to consent to the terms which were imposed upon her, or to surrender the citadel of Antwerp-which would have been beginning to execute a treaty, she had not acceptedAustria, Prussia, and Russia refused to concur in employing hostile measures to enforce her assent. France, again, had the same interest with Belgium; and France and England had bound themselves by a convention to bring both armies and fleets to bear on the king of Holland, if, by the 2nd of November, he did not declare his compliance with their demands. In pursuance of this agreement, on the 6th November an embargo was laid on all Dutch vessels in British ports. The trade with Holland was instantly stopped, and British shipping in that country became