Dublin Notes.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXI, Issue 23, 5 October 1894, Page 25

Dublin Notes.

(From contemporaries.)

Accohding to a statement made to-day the Paris Funds when realised will amount to a more considerable oum than was originally anticipated. The time for appaal will be expired within two months from the judgment, and as there will be no appeal the funds will after certain preliminaries come into the possession of Mr Justin McCarthy.

The explanations that have been given in the House of Commons with regard to the night attack upon Irish harvesters near the Red Lion, Potter's Bar, on 21st July, and the attempt to burn the house about them are not at all satisfactory. These men were subjects of a cruel outrage which would have been visited with penal servitude had a land-grabber in Ireland been the victim. In England the offence was disposed of by small sentences and fines imposed by the magistrates. This looks very like as if an attack npon mere Irish waa not looked upon with the eyes with which crime is ordinarily regarded.

One element of the cost to the community ot maintaining tha so-called "rights" of a landlord like Olanricarde was exposed in the House of Commons on inquiry by Mr Sexton. Last year it cost the country £2,093 to provide special police protection for the grabbers — " the prosperous new tentanta "—on the Clanricarde estate. Ninety-two extra police had to be provided to protect forty-two of the grabbers. This is only part of the eviction Bill, a good deal of which falls upon the imperial taxpayer.

In reply to Mr Healy, the Chief Secretary stated that the total number of evictions since the passing of the Land Act of 1881 waa 33,000. Between October, 1881, and October, 1887, there were 24,100 ordinary evictions, and from Ist October, 1887, to 30th Jane, 1894, there were 8,975. Questioned further by Mr Healy, Mr Morley

expressed the opinion that this number covered the service by registered letter. But it is quite plain that it only refers to actual ejectments by the Sheriff, of which there were over four thousand in the years 1891 and 1892, two of the years referred to. The actual determina'ion of tenancies must have been cloae on 40,000, since Mr Balfour made eviction easy. la the two years referred to the notices served under the Evicted Made Easy Clause of the Land Act of 1887, numbered 10,334. These nearly all resulted in the loss of tenant right, and, therefore, the confiscation of improvements, even in the cases where the tenants were left ia occupation. The figures supplied to Mr Morley, therefore, barely half represent the havoc made of tenants' property since 1887.

Orangemen at Polloksbawa, three miles from Glasgow, gr^ve a fin exhibition on Saturday August 11, of how they maintain " law and order " Tbey had a '' walk " with banners and swords, and — quarrelled. The police arrested two of the fighters, and instead of assis'ing the officers of the law tha other brethren attacked the constables and forced them to release the law's prisoners. The police, only three in number, were Bavagely beaten by a crowd of the Orangemen. Qaite a riot ensued ; shopkeepers felt it necessary to close their premises ; and the town was turned into an Orange carniva^ One of the leaders named Heaney, who belongs to Govan, Qot content with his followers kicking the police, ÜBed a Urge sword upon Constable Blyth, and with the weapon wounded him severely on the hands and back,

A rather exciting scene occurred in the central hall of the House of Commons when the Peers were pouring out after the division; Dr Tanner, who was evidently under the inflaence of considerable emo'ioo, waited at the entrance of the Lords' passage until the Marquis of Clanricard appeared in the distance. It was evidently expected that he bad somo strange purpose in view, as a number of persona were wa'ching him narrowly. Wben Dr Tanner saw Lord Olanricarde he approached him, said something which could not be heard, and wdich had a startling offjct on his lordship. He moved away from Dr Tanaer, who followed him along, and told him in accent*

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now load enough to be heard that he " was the scum of the earth,' and that he "waa living on the blood of his tenants." Curiously' enough, the Peers, who were coming out id a thick stream, Beemed to be unaware of what was happening. Lord Clanncarde krpt edging away from Dr Tanner, wno followed him, repeating again and again the words given and others of like effect. Finally, Inspector Horsley <nme up, Lord Clanncarde got behind him, and so evaded any further attention on tbe part of irate member for Mid-Cork. It was suggested that Lord Olaoricarde would claim the protection of the House of Lords at its nest meeting, but this is unlikely, as the L-rds could not enforce any reprmacd they may desire to pass on Dr Tanner. All Irishmen will welcome the Marquis of Dufferin's new collection of his famous mother's "Songs, Poemi, and Verses." Tbe volume is sore of a place amongst the classics of poetry, and will be peculiarly treasured by the Irish race, fur it was in transcribing tbe romantic and pathetic realities of Irish life that Helen, Lady Dufferin, achieved her greatest successes as a poetess. Her " Lament of the Irish emigrant," " I'm sitting on the style, Mary," " Terences Farewell," and " Katey'a Letter " are three well-known poems that have been set to music, and sang at countless Irish concerts all the world over. She was passionately attached to her son, now the Marquis of Dafferin and A»a, British Ambassador at Paris. Altogether, the present Lord Daffarin, a brilliant Irishman himself, has good reason to be proud of his Sheridan ancestry, and to boast of the fact that the Iriih Bheridans hare enriched English literature with no lesa than twenty-seven authors, and more than two hundred works. Tbe greatest Sheridan of them all-Bichard Brinsley-is, of course, not forgotten in Lord Duff jrin'n memoir of his mother. The following charact.r-skotch of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, which Lord Dnffenn gives us in the present volume, is far and away the finest and the most eloquent estimate of the personality and the career of the lllustrons Irish ora'or, dramatis', and wit that has ever been penned :— " That he had failings-when was genius without them ? cannot be denied, but their results have bean absurdly magnified. Ha was addicted to wine-as who was not in those days?— but in his case the nervous temperameat which made him what he was rendered its effect upon his brain and constitution exceptionally deleterious. At the end of his life he was involved in pecuniary difficulties ; but these arose partly from a calamity for which he was not responsible, and partly from an iaeradicable and apparently here.!.tary inability to attend to what is called " business." He began life without a sixpence; he made a disinterested marriage; from a feeling of chivalrous delicacy, which won for him the admiration of Dr Johnson, he would not allow his wife to sing in public, though in this way he might have aided £2 000 a year to his income ; he was the boon companion and frk-nd for forty years of men who lived in the greatest wealth and splendour— rha- is to say, he was sarrounded with every temptation to exiravagaace ; an 1 yet, when, after his death, hlBh l 8 affairs were inquhed in'o, his debts were found to amount to a comparatively trifling sum. Hif, too, wis a gambling age, but, though fond of betting on political events, he never touched a card or handled the dice-box. Oa the other hand, let it be remembered, that even when administering to the amusemeat of his contemporanes, aod writing for a pleasure-seeking public, at a period of considerable license, he has nsver sullied his pages by an impure allusion, a gross joke, or an unworthy sentiment ; while duncg his long Parliamentary career it was always on the side of justicr, of liberty, and of humanity -in whose sacrei cause he sacrificed repeated opportunities of emolument, and some of life's moat valued prizes-that he was found fighting. Succeeding gen rations of bis countrymen may well afford, therefore, to forget the pathetic infirmi. ties which dimmed the splendour of Sheridan's later yeare, out of respect for one of the greatest speakers that have ever enhanced the House of Commons, and in gratitude for the gift his genius has beqaeathed them in hia own tiro immortal comedies and the mcomparable " Critic."