towards him by a spirit of personal vengeance; and it appears that M'Dermott had made at the Board of Guardians the same false, malignant, and calumnious charges against Major Mahon which he has since published in his letter of denial. We have not space to recapitulate all this new evidence, nor is it necessary -our readers will all have read Lord Farnham's speech, and we are satisfied that no one who has read it can fail to couple the fate of Major Mahon with the enmity of M'Dermott. It is a sad epilogue to this tragedy, that a poor policeman, who was sent to make some local observations on the spot where Major. Mahon had fallen, was himself shot dead.

Does any one doubt that denunciations from the altar are frequent; and that, where directed to deadly purposes, they must be fatal? It would be, as we have already said, extremely unlikely that positive proof of such a fact could be obtained; for, hard as it would be to find a witness who should disregard his priest's spiritual authority, it would be still harder to find one prepared to pay the same mortal penalty that would inevitably visit such an informer. But Sir B. Hall stated, and Lord Farnham produced the details, of another case, in which the priest himself admitted the denunciation and its result:

He would read the evidence of a priest with regard to it before a coroner's jury in the county of Tipperary-it was the case of a very poor man named Callaghan, who had been murdered about six months since. The priest was asked at the examination-" Did you denounce the murdered man from the altar?"-Answer: "I did." Question: "When did you denounce him?"-Answer: "On Sunday, at mass." Question: "When was he murdered?"-Answer: "At five o'clock the same evening."-Debates, 7th December.

Sir Benjamin Hall added that he held in his hand proof of two other similar cases. And as to the general fact of these denunciations from the altar, the same Mr. D. Callaghan, at whose consistency we have already had occasion to smile, gave the House of Commons an argumentative defence of the priests, that had, we think, a very contrary effect from what the worthy member designed :

There was not a single Roman Catholic chapel in the country in which there were not many loyal and well-educated gentlemen members of the congregation; and he would ask the House, did they think, under such circumstances, that any Catholic clergyman would dare to make any observations calculated to lead directly to such a crime as assassination? (Hear.) Those who were acquainted with the custom knew that priests were in the habit of alluding to such affairs as were of local interest in their addresses to their congregations-to such things as the deaths or marriages, or such like matters. He would give an instance of the nature of those appeals. A neighbour of his,

a Mr.

a Mr. Burke, had thirty turkeys stolen on one occasion from his farmyard. A notice of the theft was sent to the priest, who announced the fact from the altar; and after condemning the robbery, which he said was a very bad thing, he observed, in conclusion, that if Mr. Burke gave more of his turkeys to his friends, he would have less to lose. (Much laughter.)'-Debates, 9th December.

The House laughed not so much, we dare say, at the pleasantry of the story as at the naïveté of the worthy member, who had involuntarily admitted that the priests were in the habit of denouncing offences from the altar; and that, in the case stated, the priest had made a joke of robbery, and even justified it, as a legitimate infliction on the illiberal owner. Here is, though on so infinitely smaller an occasion, the same principle and spirit, the same defence of wild justice,' that pervades Mr. M'Dermott's exculpatory letter. He too, after condemning the murder, which he said was a very bad thing,' observed in conclusion 'that Major Mahon had brought it on himself.' But what completes the proof is, that a Popish Archbishop, Dr. M'Hale, in a Jesuitical answer to a feeling and urgent remonstrance from the Earl of Arundel and Surrey, extenuates, indeed, the character of the denunciations, but admits the fact.

'Public denunciations of persons by name, whatever be their misdeeds, are not the practice in Ireland. The duties however of all, without exception, as they are contained in the code of Christian Morality, come within the legitimate sphere of the priests' instructions..... True, the Catholic pastors cannot subject the violators of justice or humanity not belonging to the Catholic Church to its rigorous penances and satisfaction, but that does not preclude the right of denouncing aggressions on the rights of justice and humanity belonging to his flock from any quarter.'

Mr. D. Callaghan's argument, that surely no priest would venture to use such language before any loyal and well-educated gentlemen, would not be in any case very conclusive; but it is just now a good deal worse than nothing.

It appears, that on Sunday, the 14th November, on the racecourse of Cashel, was held what was called a Tenant-right meeting, at which 15,000 of the peasantry were assembled. We conclude from the day chosen for this exhibition, it was intended that no Protestant should be present; and a Mr. Maher observed upon the absence of landed proprietors in these decorous and loyal terms:

Some of them were, perhaps, so sanctimonious that they would rather spend some hours listening to a stupid preacher than come and listen to the important truths inculcated at the meeting. (Loud cheers and laughter.) He esteemed it a consolation to the people of the country, that the members who at the hustings last August pledged themselves to sustain the tenant-right, had taken the first public opportunity of

VOL. LXXXII. NO. CLXIII.

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coming

coming forward to support that pledge. They would be supported by others, and they would form in the House of Commons, if he might be allowed so to designate it, a constitutional Irish brigade-(cheers)→ who would fight the constitutional battle of Ireland, and he hoped with the same success that the Irish brigade in a foreign land formerly fought their enemies. (A Voice" A cheer for Fontenoy." Loud cheers.)'-Times, 17th November.

But if there were no landed proprietors or Protestant gentlemen, there was a full muster of priests, who appear to have composed the majority of the assemblage who were above the rank of peasants. There were four Roman Catholic Members of Parliament-Mr. N. Maher, who acted as chairman, Mr. Scully, Mr. Keating, and Mr. J. O'Connell, styled in the report 'the lion of the day.' At that meeting Mr. Scully proposed the first resolution, which was seconded by a priest, very ostentatiously called the Venerable Archdeacon Laffan, who, in his introductory harangue, spoke thus

He rose with a feeling of deep sensation. He looked around him, and he saw an assemblage of his brother Tipperary men-the good and noble-hearted, though, perhaps, excitable Tipperary men (cheers), who were called by the Englishmen murderers (groans). The Saxon scoundrel, with his belly full of Irish meat, could well afford to call his poor, honest, starving fellow-countrymen savages and assassins; but if the victualling department of John Bull suffered one-fifth of the privations to which the Tipperary men were subject, if he had courage enough, he would stand upon one side and shoot the first man he would meet with a decent coat upon his back. (Cheers.) But the Saxon had not courage to do anything like a man-he growls out like a hungry tiger. (Hear, hear, and laughter.) Look to that fertile valley, teeming with luxuriance and beauty, beneath our eyes-taking in the richness of the district, from the Devil's Bit and from Barnane to the princely Shannon-inhabited by as fine a race of men, and by as lovely and virtuous a race of women, as any to be found in the world with all this richness, all this beauty, and all this goodness, what was it that made Tipperary so often a scene of blood? The cause was evident to all men's eyes-landlordism was the demon that blasted what was meant for happiness; landlordism, which without mercy would level the hovels of the poor man-which had sent the bone and sinew of the land to fertilize the forests and prairies of America-which had sent the poor man to starve in workhouses, or to die by the roadside beneath the canopy of heaven, and under the rain which God had sent to fertilize the earth. (Hear, hear.)'-Ibid.

On the first day of the session Sir Benjamin Hall, in the speech we before referred to, stated this case, and asked

• The Honourable Members who were present at that meeting, when the Rev. Archdeacon used the language he had read, did they stand by tamely, or did they join in the cheers which it was said greeted this

inflammatory

inflammatory harangue of one of their own priesthood? He quoted that speech in order to give those gentlemen an opportunity of coming forward and stating the course which they pursued on that occasion.'Debates, 24th November.

To this appeal Mr. N. Maher replied, that

'had this venerable clergyman finished his speech in the same strain in which he commenced it, he should have felt it to be his duty to have reprimanded him. But the venerable gentleman had concluded his speech by advising the people to obey the law, to maintain peace and order, and to hand over traitors to the executive if they knew them; and this was the reason why he (Mr. Maher) had refrained from reprimanding him.'-Debates, 24th November.

Reprimand him! Mr. Maher, we believe, might just as well have bidden adieu to Tipperary and Parliament as have interrupted-let alone, to use one of their own phrases-reprimanded the sacerdotal incendiary-and, as it is, we shall not be surprised if even this hypothetical use of the expression reprimand to the Venerable should cost Mr. Maher some future trouble. But is the lame and impotent conclusion-the hollow, unmeaning, unheeded verbiage, the poor transparent pretence of advising the people to be peaceable and orderly, and to eschew murder as a very bad thing'-to be set off against the exciting, intoxicating incendiarism with which they had been previously maddened? The great anatomist of the human heart, when describing a consummate orator endeavouring to stir up the Roman mob to insurrection and murder, makes him say,

Good friends! Sweet friends! let me not stir you up

To such a sudden flood of mutiny!

Why, friends, you go to do you know not what!'

And, having for his own safety employed this artful deprecation, he exclaims apart,

Now let it work:-Mischief, thou art afoot

Take, then, what course thou wilt.'

It took the course he intended, and the infuriated populace rushed to the designated massacre. And, let it be recollected, that at the moment this other Roman invective was spoken, Tipperary-the excitable'-that is, the brutal and sanguinary Tipperary-infamous for an hundred murders-was red and reeking with the blood of landlords and magistrates-some scarcely buried, others still lingering of their wounds, between life and death! The doctrine urged in exculpation of those priests would amount to an admission that murder, rebellion, treason, might be preached with impunity, provided some general expressions of humanity and morality are interlarded, however awkwardly, in the inflammatory discourse. And this obliges us

to notice another and very peculiar case of the same kind, which has been, we think, too tamely dealt with. On the 10th of December Mr. Baillie Cochrane complained in the House of Commons that Dr. Ryan, the Roman Catholic bishop of Limerick -a county next to Tipperary in site and ill deeds-had recently published a Charge, in which he says:

· The high classes, forgetful of Christian obligations and the duties which religion prescribes for their performance and guidance, trample on those who are placed under them, and reconcile with justice and mercy to treat them like cattle. Cold and callous to the voice of humanity-dead to the ordinary feelings of commiseration-untouched by the cries of famine and pestilence-the wailings of hunger, the lamentations of women and children, and the terrible condition of the poor man himself—they exercise over their victims a system of heartless cruelty, calculated to bring down the vengeance of Heaven on their own heads.'-Debates, 9th December.

Mr. Cochrane added:

'Was it not monstrous that a man professing to be a minister of God should denounce the higher classes in this manner to an exasperated and starving people? He did not care whether in the eye of the law a person making such remarks was an accessory to murder before the fact, but in the eye of Heaven he was so, and an instigator to the crime.'

On the next day, however, Mr. Monsell, member for the county of Limerick, came forward to vindicate the character of Bishop Ryan from being in any way an instigator of crime, as he had, on the contrary, always exerted himself, and even exposed himself to obloquy, by his persevering and candid endeavours to maintain the law; and he called on Mr. Labouchere and Lord Lincoln, formerly Secretaries in Ireland, to confirm this eulogium, which they, as well as Lord Morpeth, did without knowing Dr. Ryan individually, but having been officially acquainted with his excellent character. Mr. Augustus Stafford bore similar testimony from personal acquaintance; and the explanation given of the censured passage was, that it was part of a charge (at a Confirmation, it seems), in which, having begun with thus censuring the landlords, he afterwards proceeded with equal severity to blame the tenants-saying:

'But while thus viewing the state of the upper classes in society, let us not forget the middle or the low-let us descend a step, and view the opposite side of the picture. There are many complaints urged by the tenant against the landlord. The tenant considers his position deplorable, and attributes his misfortunes to the landlord. I ask, are the tenants themselves what they ought to be? Do they act conjointly with the landlord, and while consulting their own interests and happiness, take a friendly part in his? Quite the reverse. Are not many of the tenants knavish, indolent, and apathetic, and care not about the