OUR IRISH LETTER.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume 26, Issue 349, 26 December 1879, Page 5

OUR IRISH LETTER.

(FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.) DUBLIN, November 6, 1879. Once again I am to try to compress in as brief space as possible for transit round the world the principal events that have broken the monotony of life in this little corner of the globe during the mouth that has just passed, and once again in the att- mpt to give your readers an idea of what we are doing and thinking about here, I am forced to begin with the Land Question. It has taken forcible possession of the entire country we are thinking about and talking about, nothing else. We have mass meeting almost daily, sometime* in little bits of villages for whose names we have to eeaicb the geography, and in all places there are the great excited crowds of O'Connell's time to tell that the heart of the people is in the agitatien. The Jfreemari's Journal Land Commission is over at last, but not until it had excited a ferment throughout the country, and not until it had tempted one of the greatest of the English dailies, the Daily News, to follow its example with the reßnlt of confirming its most gloomy descriptions and anticipations. But it is not merely in mas> meetings throughout the country that the great land crisis was indicated. In all tbe poor law board*, or almost all, despite the •trenuous opposition of the aristocratic element, the local potentates. ex offii-io guardians, resolutions were adopted, and are being adopted, recognising the terrible condition to which the people are reduced, and calling on the government to provide some immediate and sufficient remedy. A very considerable section of the landlords themselves have endorsed those representations by granting substantial reductions, in some cases as much as 60 per cent, of the incoming rents On the 30th of last month there was a special meeting and a very large attendance of the Dublin Corporation, under the presidency of the Lord Mayor to consider the question. After a protracted debate, (the City Fathers are wonderfully fond of bearing themselves talk,) it was resolved by a majority of 25 votes ro two : first, that the Government should be memorialized to provide useful public works to give employment to the famishing people, and thus, if pos-ible, to enable them to tide over the food famine and tbe fuel famine that the winter threatens ; and secondly, that in tbe opinion of the council the present land system is one of the main factors in producing agricultural depression, and that a tenant propiietory is, in vi< w of lapidh increasing foreign competition, essential to agricultural prospt rity. The resolutions were moved by Mr. Gray, Lord Mayor elect, rr ember of Parliament for Tipperary and responsible proprietor and editor of the Freeman's Journnl. The members of Parliament who constituted what for want of a better name may be called the Irish party, have drawn up a memorial which is intended for immediate presentation to Government, setting forth that the establishment of public works is essential for the preservation of the people from famine. Indeed there are no few indications that the matter is passing from the domain of agitation to the domain of legislation. Loid Beacon*field's first lieutenant, tbe Chancellor of tbe Exchequer, and our jaunty Irish Secretary the hon. James Lowther (better known as Jem), have been touring through the country recently with the expressed purpose of examining into the truth of the rumours of prevalent distress amounting to impending famine, and already we have seen official announcements that the Government is disposed t j grant the prayer of the several memorials and establish public works of a useful character throughout the country, so that those who are waiting to labour may not be compelled to starve. The unfortunate •' Church S rplus" is, of course, to "!pay the piper." It is curious to note how in this matter i^e present Government has, so to speak, picked tbe pocket of Gladstone's policy. If they had their way the Irish Chuich would still hold its endowments and as a matter of course there would be no Irish Church surplus to distribute. But the present Government have the spending of the surplus which the Gladstone Government created in spite of them. A new system of intermediate education is established in Ireland, a matter apparently for imperial taxation, and the Government allocate one million of the Church Fund. The Irish national school teachers demand that their salaries shall be equalised with tb< se which their English and Scotch brethn-n receive from the Imperial coffers and, after a hard fight, the Government generously consents to pay the deficit out of the Church surplus. low again when the people are starving a great compliment is made of giving them work to do and paying them for doing it with their own money.

The English agriculturist, we are told by the English papers, will have good reason to complain of favouritism. The English Times is indeed very vehement in offering its customary prescription, which like a Holloway's pills and ointment it ceemH to consider a universal panacea for eveiy form of Irish grievance. "Let the liish," it says graciously, " emigrate and be happy." Within what is but a brief 6pan in the history of a country, emigration has leductd the population of Ireland by about one half ; and here we aie again in tre close of 1879 on the ve»y brink of another famine. The result is- not encouragirg of future experiments in the same diiection. Ihf most Hey. Dr. Croke, Archbishop of Cashel. has just written a vigoious letter in condensation of a poliej which would setk to drive a people wholesale from the country rather than alter the laws that prevent them living in comfoit at home. Before pasting from this dismal subject, I may be permitted to vouch, on my personal knowledge, for the fearful condition of the country, and for the bleak piospect before the peasantry. I was down in the extreme west of Ireland, the Atlantic verge of Connaught, and had an opportunity of personally inspecting the crops in several districts. The potatoes are at least half black. In very few cases has the corn been gathered into the hagyard ; in some, it is still standing and green ; and in almost no instance has the peat fuel been got in from the bogs. Hut it will never do to fill up my whole letter with such miserable truths, though I fear I shall have to reveit to the subject again in futuie despatches. We have been making a determined effort recently to revive the old poplin trade of this country. The Duchess of Marl borough has enteied heart and soul into the project, and her example has, of course, bpeu followed by the leading ladies of the city. Mrs. Gray, the wife of the Lord-Mayor elect, has declared that the state coaches for the ensuing year shall be lined with no other material. On the 29th ult., a gnat meeting of all interested was held in the Mansion House— the Lord-Mayor piesiding— to consider the best means of reviving and fostering the industry. There was a general shifting of blame from one s°tof shoulders to another in the course of the discussion — the manufacturers accused tbe great merchants of not encouraging the sale, the merchants accused the ladies of not buying, and finally all appealed to be unanimous that the fault lay with the autocrats of fashion, the despotic men-milliners of France, who wont allow the ladies tr> wear Irish poplins, and the boldest even ventured to suggest a revolt against the long-etablihhed tyianny. It is curious, however, that when tbe trade was at its highest, as now when it is at its lowest, Ii eland was and is the worst market for this cheap aud beautiful national fabric. India >vas declared authoritatively at the meeting to be the best maiket. I wonder, do they send much to New Zealand ? I do not know if I am permitted in this letter to wander outside exclusively Irish intelligence, but I will venture on a digression of a few words to inform your readers that there was a feaiful row the other day in the Mansion House in London, and that the Lord-Mayor himself, sitting in judgment, was very near being subjected to personal violence by the virtuously indignant crowd . his offence being ihat he had tbe temerity to discourage the exhibition in shop windows of photographs of naked Zulu women for the delectation <<f bi.i moial Londoners. Must Ico fess I sometimes feel strongly disposed to envy the " special correspondents " who have th< ir head-quarters in Loudon They have surh a constant succession of pleasurable horrors to sum up to their readers. 1 here is a great dearth of sensational crime in Ireland. A month or two ago I narrated the exploits of a gang of plate-glass-window-breakers in Dublin. They pleaded guilty a few days since to the charges against th m and wire sentenced, fo the no small surprise and indignation of the Dublineis Mr. Justice Lawson, hy whom the case was triec, con-idered that this inauguration of a system of wanton outrages was sufficiently punished by a fine of £10 on each of the offenders. I wonder will the forgers get off so lightly. We had a succession of ingenious and daring forgeries in Dublin about a fortnight ago. Ten pound notes of the National Bank were imitated with such minute care and such exquisite skill, tha the mo-t cunning and practiced eve found it difficul' ro d-iect ihe slightest difference bei ween them and the real nous. AH kinds of peisous were deceived and defrauded. A z<-alous piitsf who received two pounds subscription from a generous benefactor who happened to have no smaller change than a ten pound note, which foitunately the priest was able to change : a good natured Jew who discounted several such notes at a heavy per centage for a young tourist who was on his way to London where he would have much difficulty in having them changed. Tbe amount realized by the fraud has not been ascertained, but the perpetrators, two young men named Cross and Passet, are at present in custody awaiting trial, and fuither particulars will probably be forthcoming before my next dispatch. Only a few days ago all Dublin was startled by a most pitiful tragedy. Amongst the mo.-.t popular of high-class pianists in our city, feoth as a composer and a performer, was Mrs. Joseph Robinson. Her husband was a professor of music of considerable eminence and resided at 3 Upper- Fiuwilliam street, one of the most fashiouable quarters of Dublin. People used to wonder at the mystery of her sudden and total disappearances for tome months at a time from society, of which 6he was such an ornanv-nt. Tbat mystery was solved at the inquest held on her dead body last Saturday at her husband's house. The unfortunate lady was subject to fits of insanity. At her eighteenth year the terrible infliction had come upon her, and though only 48 years of age she had been on six different occasions an inmate of a lunatic asylum. Her mania was a belief that she could fly ; she had just returned from her last visit to the asylum having been pronounced cured. Early on the morning of the Ist inst.. one of the servants going out into the back yard was amazed at seeing her mistress perched high on the extreme verge of the roof, waving her hands wiMly in ihe air. All at once with a great cry she leaped out into space, an 1 fell prone on tbe stone pavement .-ixty feet below. She never bi<a hud once aftei she t<ll. It wasastiauge sad storj throughout. 1 hay given you nothing but •' doleful dumps " from beginning to tbe end of this letter, but I will try to do better next time, and with this promise I must conclude.