Dublin Notes.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XX, Issue 17, 12 February 1892, Page 21

Dublin Notes.

("From the National Papers.)

Wb make revolutions quietly now-a-days. Nobody in Dublin seems to be particularly interested in the fact that electric wires are being laid down in tubes all over the city, and in a short time the artificial daylight will be beaming the street lamps and shop w ndows. In lO'Connell street the work is already far advf need. Bight down under the centre of the broad pathway the thin line of the tamed and obedient lightning is being laid. Electricity as nn illaminant will be foUowed quickly as a motor, and life in oar city revolutionised. J An extraording scene took place on Sunday, December 13, in St Mary a Protestant Episcopal Church, Newry. About two years ago the communion cloth, with the letters « J.H.8.,' worked in monogram form, was presented to the rector, Bey Samuel Smartt. The vestry objected to the monogram, but tbe rector had throughout refused to remove the cloth. The climax in the contentious proce lings was reached this morning, when a dozen parishioners entered the church, crossed the chancel rail, and were removing the cloth when the rsctor appeared on the scene. He also seized the cloth, and a tug-of-war ensued, the rector still holding on by the cloth, which was ultimately pulled into the vestxy. Here tbe monogram was promptly cut off and burned in the stove. The rector, wearing his robes, rushed into the stoat, and returned with a constable, who duly took tbe names of the offending parishioners. lue rector intends instituting leeal proceedings forthwith. 5 5

Mr G W Hastings is the Unionist M.P. for East Worcestershire. He is one of tbe superfine pauy who hold that the Irish are as low as Hottentots in the scale of civilisation, and should be governed on Hottentot principles. The Irish being, according to the go Bpel8 pel of Mr Hastings, M.P., both ignorant and dishonest, they are not fit to govern themselves. Now, this superior person's right to reflect upon the character of the J-ish p- jple is made conspicnous by his appearance in a London police court charged with having « fraudulently misappropriated several thousand pounds balonging to the trust estate of Major Brown." The accused has been remanded without bail. When charged at Bow street, the hon gentleman said he was not guilty of any intention to defraud. That assertion will be tested when he stands on trial in the dock.

The Orange-Parnellite alliance in Cork continues to grow apace and thß cordiality between the coalition is deepening. At the last meeting of the Cork Corporation the annual election of two members for the Harbour Board, in succession to Mr B Cronin and Alderman Hooper, who retired by rotation, took place. There waa no opposition to the re-election of Mr Oronin, and for the seat vacated by Alderman Hooper the coalition put forward a Mr Pike, a bitter opponent of the late Mr Parnell, and one of the Orange candidates at the Cork election in 1885, The Nationalists nominated Mr B A Atkins one of the most respected Protestants in Cork, and an ardent and ut selfish worker in the Nationalist cause for very many yee's. Eleven Parnellites and seven Tories supported Mr Parnell's old opponent, and defeated the Nationalist candidate by three vote*. There could hardly be a greater object-lescan for misguided persons than the election of Mr Pike, who bitterly reviled Parnell in 1885.

The lriih Textile Journal prints an instructive letter from Mr James Canning on flax cultivation in the South of Ireland. We have more than once mentioned this important subject in these columns and commented on the success that attended the experiments which were being made on a large scale in the C juuty of Wexford In the Textile Journal Mr Canning has kept the result of the experiments before readers closely connected with the flax trade. He is now in a position to announce the price brought by Wexford-grown fibre The crop raised on the fifty acres of rich slob land, on which the experiment has been made was reported excellent in quality It was claimed that it had been successfully pulled, though by inexperienced labourers, and that the straw was packed in proper condition. Some tons of the flax was sent to Courtrai, to be Bteeped in tbe Lys, and to be finished by the continental system. This was sent back and sold in Belfast, and with business men the market quotation will be the strongest evidence of quality. Mr Canning writes that the Wexford flax grown from home-saved seed, and seeded before being shinned was sold last week at LlO4 per ton. PP '

The opinions of the experts through whose hands the flax passed are also encouraging. At Courtrai, the fibre was valued at a higher rate than it brought in Belfast, and the Belgian dresstrs described the Wexford straw as the best-conditioned they had received for the season. The years during which the seed and the flax were he states, grown, were notably and exceptionally unfavourable. 'The pulling of the crop was delayed (from causes that would only attend an initial effort) for some days. If taken from the land eight day* sooner, it is calculated by the dressers that the flax would have been mors valuable by 25 per cent. Mr Bafferty, J.P., of Monaghan the owner of the flax, is convinced that fibre of the finest quality is to be

grown in the South. Mr Patton, a Belfast man, who saw the working of the Wexford consignment at the Lys, states that the straw has given the highest yield on the river for the season, and states that the factors would purohata any quantity of such flax at LlO a ton in Ireland. The average of the Wexford crop has been five tons to the Irish acre, which would mean LSO, exclusive of the valuable seed crop which has been successfully saved.

Probably, the deceased Duke of Devonshire was the most respectable of the Irish landlords. He evicted no tenants through whim or caprice, and while his agents kept a steady eye on tbe rent xoll and increased it by every means in their power, it cannot be said that their principal tolerated any of the questionable transactions whioh have made the name of Irish landlords so detested. Possessed of enormous properties near Bandon, in County Cork, and about lasmore, in County Waterford, the most controverted public act of territorialism perpetrated for the late Duke was his grabbing of the several fisheries of the Blackwater from Liimoro to Youghal, after eleven years' litigation and innumerable trials against impoverished cotmen. It was in the great case of Devonshire t>. Foote, which decided that by virtue of a Patent from King John to the Monki of St Oarthagh the salmon of the river to the sea belonged to the Duke, that his counsel, the late Isaac Butt, Q. 0., made so distinguished a mark. It was noted of Mr Butt (who held a permanent retainer of «300 a year from the house of Devonshire) that he perused the crabbed and contracted old parchments in Norman-French and mediaeval Latin which formed the root of the ducal title to the Blackwater with as much ease as A B C, and of these manuscripts nearly a cartload went to the making of the plaintiff's case, all of which that great lawyer had at his finger's ends. It was chiefly through Butt's mastery of the documtnta that the common man is now shut out from free salmon fish, ing on the fifteen miles of the tidal waters up from Youghal. On land the Dnke of Devonshire rather made up for the stringency of bis views as to his picturesque waterway.