Dublin Notes.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVI, Issue 5, 25 May 1888, Page 9

Dublin Notes.

(From the National papers.) A most painful shock was felt throughout the country on Wednesday morning, March 28, when the news of the death of Mr. Edmund Dwjer Gray was made known. The event was totally unexpected, at least by the outside world. There had been no intimation of the hon. gentleman's illness, and the public only became aware that he had been Buffering from a bad asthmatic attack when they learned also that he had succumbed to it. Hence the shock of pain and su prise was keen indeed. Mr. Gray bad long been subject to such attacks, but no one dreamed for a moment that they wonld have terminated thus tragically. There is a feeling of profound sympathy for his stricken family, to whom Ihe blow must be a stupifying one. The public, too, and the staff of the great establishment over which he so long and ably presided, will not easily recover from it ; and it will be no light task to supply the void in politics and newspaper management which his taking off creates. The patriotic Bishop of Cloyne has endeared himself still more to his flock, as well as to the Irish people at large, by his letter to Canon Keller, in which his Lordship says :: — •' The suppression of your meeting is, as you say, a conclusive proof that the Government is determined to prevent every expression of opinion on the part of the tenants against the barefaced patronage of the landlords. When will all this end 1 It seems evidently the intention of the present rulers to drive the people to desperation in order to afford them an opportunity of a still more cruel enforcement of the iniquiious Coercion Act." Seventeen summonses have been issued against a number of reßpectable shopkeepers and others in the town of Newmarket-on-Fergus, County Clare, some of whom are Poor Law Guardians, for alleged whistling and shoutiDg and using insulting language towards several members of the Royal Irish Constabulary on the 28th February, and against others for unlawfully discharging fireworks on the public highway on 6th March. The alleged offences were committed on the occasion of the release of Mr. Cox, M.P. The bands at Carrick-on-Shannon were ordered not to play through the town. The authorities took this action in consequence of the imprisonment of Messrs. Matthew J. Barrett and Thomas Costello for contempt of court in refusing to give evidence before the Star Chamber Court. Bodies of police, numbering in all 200, patrolled the streets. The publicans were ordered by the magistrates to keep their premises closed. The band, however, succeeded in leaving their room unobserved, and having procured boats, they played on the water in the vicinity of the prison whpre Messrs. Barrett and Costello are confined. They continued sailing about near the priori, playing vigorously for some minutea. The police, in the meantime liaving obtained boats, gave chase to the musicians, and were led by District-Inspector ( arter. The bandsmen, being incumbered with their instruments, were handicapped considerably, but, nevertheless, they gave the police a chase which created much amusement. The police, after a pull of about ten minutes, reached the bandsmen, and fiist seized the big drum, and told the musicians to consider themselves under arrest for "unlawful assembly." An important difficulty, however, remained to be got rid of. The prisoneis refused to exhibit an obliging spirit, and declined to faciliate their own removal to prison. This annoyed the police not a little, and the process of towing their prisoners to land created much ridicule. The prisoners were bailed out, after having been charged before Dr. Bradshaw, J.P, Copies have been issued to Parliament of the report of Mr. T. W. Grimehaw, Registrar-General, giving the emigration statistics of Ireland for Ihe year 1887. The number of emigrants who left Irish ports in 1887 was 83,202, an increase of 19,786 compared with 1886, the number of males being 43,378, or 11,237 more than in the previous year, and of females 30,924, an increase of 8549. Of the total number of emigrants, 82,923 were natives of Ireland, the remainder belonging to other countries. The emigrants were contributed as follows from the four provinces : Munster, 27,078 ; Ulster, 24,654 ; Connaught. 16,927 ; and Leinster, 14,234. The total number of natives of Ireland who left the Irish ports from May, 1851 (the date at which the collection of these returns commenced), to December, 1887, is 3,197,419-namely, 1,629,877 males, and 1,504,542 females. With regard to their destinations, the United States ie still the centre of attraction. There is also a slight increase of emigration to New Zealand and Canada, but the number of departures for Australia show a decrease Of the males who left Ireland in 1887 the number wboße occupation is not specified was 4375, which included 3258 children under 10 years of age. Of the females who emigrated, 28,539 were returned as servants, 2946 as house-keepers, and 301 as dressmakers and milliners, the unspecified including wives and children. I wish I {Truth) could teach, all Irish publishers, and Irish tradesmen, to g® about their business in a businesslike manner, and push their wares in the only way in which wares of any kind can be pushed — viz., by " buld adveitigement." I declare, when anything Irish appears, it is as hard to find as a needle in a bundle of hay. The intending purchaser has to light a candle to look for it, and give himself endless trouble. Now, when an Englishmen has anything to sell, he makes known the fact. Indeed it is mainl7 for this purpose that newspapers, blank walls, and railway stations exist. Just look at the Blarney tweeds. With the exception of a few knowing men who had travelled in the Sister country, no Englishmen had ever heard of them till Mr. O'Briea went to gaol. Whereas now, if you -walk down Pall Mall or fct. James's street, you'll find a man pickinp his teeth on the steps of nearly every one of the clubs in a pair of Blarney trousers. Very likely he does not know they are from Blarney, but the tailor does, and finds his profit in the knowledge. Borne curious leaflets are being circulated at and about Chester, with a view to show that Home Rule ought not to be granted to Ireland. Leaflet 1: "In the year 697 A. D., St. Adamnan was travel-

ling with his mother on his back, and saw two armies fighting., The mother observed a woman, with a reaping-hook in her h«nd dragging another woman oat of the opposite battalion, on which ahe prayed her son to exempt all women from such encounters." The moral of this would be, I {Truth) should think, that women were from ancient times, exempt in Ireland from making war. But here are the comments of the leaflet. It is (1) an instructive proof of the grotesque absurdity of ancient Irish history (how about English history of the same date 1 ) (2) It exposes the hollownets of all that pseudo-patriots have said about national sentiment. (How f). (3) It depicts the character and habits of these uahappy islanders from a rery early period (how about habits of the English at the lame period ?). (4) The fact helps us to account for the ityle and quality of the persons cho93a by the Irish to be sent as their repressntatiTei in the British Imperial Parliament I Another leaflet is headed " The Irish Standard of Christian Perfection." It states that an Irish Catholic convert sought to win over an English officer, but the officer replied that not only were theft and murder rife amongst Irish Catholics, but that their priests were accomplices in these crimes. The convert betook himself to his priest, " a leading ecclesiastic in one of the largest towns in Ireland," who said, "You would not be for expecting everybody to rise to the standard of Christian perfection, i.e., to abstain from assassination ?" From the above veracious tale the leaflet draws the following conclusions. 1. That Irish Catholicism is not a trustworthy form of Christian faith. 2. That Ireland has become the headquarters of a murderous heresy, and is a byword and a reproach to European civilisation.