Dublin Notes.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXII, Issue 52, 26 April 1895, Page 21

Dublin Notes.

(From contemporaries.)

The spring assizes, which opened on Friday, March 1, in the provinces, prove the oonntry to be in a most peaceful condition. At Drogheda Chief Baron Palles was presented with white gloves, At Snois Jndge Harrison complimented the grand jury on the absence of crime. At Tullamore Mr Justice O'Brien, in his opening address, ■aid the record for crime in that county— not merely for the short period of time since the winter assizes, bat for tbe corresponding period of last year— was so entirely inconsiderable, he might say so entirely insignificant, as not to require any allusion except the gene, tal expression of satisfaction at the state of things that has existed now in this county for a very considerable time. Similar satisfactory references to tbe peaceful state of the country were made by the judges in other places. Judgment was recently delivered in Dublin by the Court of tbe General Synod of the Church of Ireland in tbe petition of the Dean of Dromoie against the Bey James Hunt, rector of Donegore. The court unanimously found that tbe respondent bai in certain letters in the Belfast Irish News alleged tbat Article 31 of the Articles of Beliglon did not prohibit the sacrifice of the Mass, and that the Mass as celebrated in Catholic churches was not opposed to the Articles, and bad also io the same letters brought the Book of Common Prayer, the Articles, and tbe religious teaching of tbe Oburoh into contempt. The court therefore adjudged that, unless he unreservedly revoked and recanted tbe errors of which he had been guilty, sentence of deprivation must be pronounced; Mr Hunt said be unreservedly recanted, but the court was adjourned for two months in order that the recantation should be put in writing. The twenty-seventh report of tbe Irish Registrar General upon the population of Ireland, published in a Blue Book, is a sad testimony to tbe gradual, but rapid, extinction of the Irish people, at heme. The book consists of a series of tables dealing with births, marriages, and deaths in tbe Sister Isle for the ten years ending December, 1890. According to the report, Catholic marriages have fallen off during the period 17.1 per cent., but tbe principle causes assigned for tbe decrease in population are emigration and the prevalence of phthisis or consumption. More than a quarter of a million emigrants, chiefly from tbe South of Ireland, left the country daring the ten years which are covered by tbe report. By the pulmonary disease, usually termed " decline," more than half a million persons were carried off daring the ten years. The fioal result of the official report shows a population in Ireland of about 10 per cent, below that of 1880. A telegram from Naples gives tbe following information regarding the murder of a Dublin gentleman in that city :— Mr John Blake, native of Dublin, tbe chief engineer of the Naples Water* werks, who was so cruelly BUbbed in one of the busiest streets here on the 16th inst., and at tbe busiest hour of the day— 6 p.m. succumbed to bis injuries yesterday evening, February 21. He bad been removed to his own house a day or two before from the Pellegrine Hospital, when there was eveiy hope of bis recovery. Bat two arteries had been severed, and internal hemorrhage took pteee, which proved fatal. His funeral was attended by representatives of the Prefecture and Municipality, the Acting British Consul, tbe Director and all the employees of the Naples Waterworks Company, a company of firemen, a division of police, and numerous workingmen's dabs with their ensigns and banners. The balconies and windows along tbe route were filled with spectators, for the assassination of the much respected engineer has aroused tbe deepest sympathy, in the city. Mr Blake was interred in the Catholic cemetery after the corpse had received the Benediction in tbe fine old Church of St Anna Dei Lombardi. Mr Blake has left a young widow and two children to deplore bis loss. An ex-employee of tbe Waterworks Company, whom Mr Blake had lately dismissed, has been arrested on suspicion

On Monday, March 4, Mr John Morley introduced the second great measure of the session, the new Irish Land Bill. He said he wonld claim that it was a non-party measure. It oertainly had the sapport of Ulster, and he appealed to the Opposition to co-operate in passing a practical Bill that wonld meet the existing needs of the Irish farmer, and at the same time be just to the landlord as well as the tenant. He traced the history of preTions land legislation in Ireland, and showed how the necessity for a farther Bill had arisen in order that the tenants' improvements might be secured for him, and that the principle of fair rent might be preserved by allowing a revision of rents at shorter intervals than was originally contemplated. The Act of 1881 fixed the period between revisions at fifteen yean, bat the enormous changes in agricultural values within six yean showed that period was too long. They proposed to redact it to ten years ; to take farther securities that the tenant's own improvements should not be included in any way in the valuation for rtot ; and to extend to the rest of Ireland the Ulster Custom, which gave the landlord no right of pre-emption of ths tenant's holding. The Bill farther proposed to abolish several of the clauses of the Act of 1881, which denied to certain tenants the right of going into court to have • fair rent fixed. There was, farther, a clause which would, be traated, facilitate in a great many cases the restoration of the evicted tenants to their holdings. Mr Oar boo, who may be taken to represent the more hostile group of the Irish landlord*, spoke after Mr Morley, He argued that the Bill wosld confiscate what was part of the landlord's interest and property, but he did not wholly condemn it, and be even expressly approved of some of its clauses. Mr T. W. Bussell spoke strongly in fa four of the Bill, and another Ulster Unionist,. Ojlonel Sauoderson, made a speech that was on the whole friendly. Mr Olancy declared that the Bill was a good one. None of the Nationalists spoke. Messrs Healey, Sexton, and Vesey Kuox, all experts in land questions, were present, but they are evidently waitiog to spaak until they have considered the details of ths Bill. It was read a first time without a division, and the second reading has beeo fixed for Monday next. The Bill, jaJging from the outline of its provisions given by Mr Morley, is an equitable amendment of the Act of 1881, but its character is not at all as radical and sweeping as the limet woald have os believe. The main provisions, which are based on the report of the recent special committee, are the reduction of the term for fixing f«ir rents from fifteen to ten years, the farther safeguarding of the value ot the tenants' improvements, particularly by nullifying the eft ct of the decision in the famous case of Adams v Dunseath, and the fixing of the purchase arrangement on behalf of the evicted tenants embodied in the 13th clause of Mr Balfour's Bill of 1891. Mr Morley 's proposals for the protection of the tenant* improvements deserve tbe highest commendation. The interference with tbe decition in the Adams v Dunseath case is decidedly necessary, for by tbat decision the intention of Parliament that the tenant should pay no rent on his own improvements was defeated. The proviso for tha relief of tbe evicted tenants will not, we believer be considered as satisfactory as the other portions of tbe Bill. The principle is that a landlord should be enabled to sell to an evicted tenant, the purohaae-money being advanced by the Land Commission as if the tenant were in actual posssession of the holding. The defeot is tbat the sale is not made compulsory, and without eoaspalsory reinstatement or sale there will be no effectual solution of tbe difficulty. What prevented Mr Morley from adopting either one or tbe other is, no doubt, the conviction tbat the House of Lords would be inexorable in their opposition to such a proposal. The editor of the Church Times is at present vexing his righteous soul oft the subject of what he quaintly calls " Irish heresy." He has oartartttty some reason to be angry. Just as our High Church friends were trumpeting forth afresh that beautifully fine-drawn distinction (Without a difference between the Mass snd Masses, out came the Bishop of Sod or and Man to insist that the Church of England was " essentially Protestant," and tbat "it protested against Mass and prayers for tbe dead." This was bad enough, coming from

one who on the continuity theory might have been expected to say something more satisfactory, even if not quite so true. The cup. however, wat not yet full ; but now the required drop or drops would wf££ K tTe « Pro * id6d# An B lioanißn » « "in 'all communion', with Irish episcopal Protestantism, or as it is amusingly called « the 2Z!\ ♦ !h! hh ud*.u d *." J FM IMinfc " nin S «" very distinction that ™«ES lu V° iUIMi UIM Qpon ' * nd Myi0 * " ih%t Artiole 31 does not prohibit the Sacrifice of the Mass," this marvellous •• Church " has by sentence of its highest court condemned and sentenced to deprivation one of its incumbents I -If this is allowed to pasi without protest," ,\?*t- I'l * moit Seriooß Vwtfio" will arise as to the position of the Irish Church (Ho) and itg relation with ourselves." Farther f^rJ"!" Uma 7 * aacaMar y £or ""I'l* Bishops not by individual and ill-considered action, but after serious deliberation, to do for Ireland what Archbishop Plunket has so rashly and misckitvouily attempted to do for Spain." This wonld be a comical proceeding ; nor could anything better be devised to make " confu■ion worse confounded." On the appointment of the Rev Denis O'Hara to the Congested Districts Board the Government, his colleagues, and, above all and beyond all, the poor people for whose benefit ihe Board was •stabSr!r ™i endo *ed, "c to be most heartily congratulated. In Father OHara the Most Rev Dr O'Donnell will find an able and worthy coadjutor, and the new appointment will be a further pledge to the Board of the confidence of the country. In experience, ability, and above all in determined zeal, Father O'Hara seems in a ■pedal manner " by the hand of nature marked, quoted, and signed " for tbe duties he will be now called on to discharge. They will be to him a labonr of love. His inclination and extraordinary aptitude for ■noh duties have been already conspicuously displayed. It is scarcely a figure of speech to say that he has been himself a tkorcughly efficient and successful Congested Districts Board in the districts that have been fortunate enough to secure his spiritual and temporal ministrations. From 1876 to 1887 his sphere of duty lay in Ballaghaderreen, in the county of Mayo. The amount of religious and benevolent work he contrived to compress into these deven yeare is almost incredible. He was ore of the very first that set land purchase going in Ireland when purchase was practical!* the ter ants' only refuge from the capricious raising of rents and cxrcution of ejectments. He worked the Bright clauses, as the Americana say, for all they were worth in tbe world. Under bis auspices tbe Edmondstown property waa sold to 300 tenant proprietors. He induced the neighbouring shopkeepers to go security for the fourth of the purchase money, which it was then necessary for the tenants to find. Every farthirg of that advance has since been paid. In ■pite of the unprecedented depression that has since supervened, these proprietors are, considering the extent of their holdings and the condition of their neighbours, in a relatively prosperous position. On the sphere of bis spiritual mission we do not presume to intrude. But in the domain of politics he always proved himself a thoroughgoing patriot priist, a staunch supporter of Home Rule, an uncompromising opponent of Coercion. The appreciation of bis patriotism is beat proved by the fact that be has twice by unanimous election in •pite of personal reluctance been forced into the position of delegate for the county of Mayo on the OoudcU of the National Federation. Father O'Hara is of the class of men whose services Ireland requirej. By him the poverty-stricken people of Ireland will be effectively represented on the Congested Districts Board. He has an almost unrivalled knowledge of their grievances and an almost unrivalled setl of their redre B s. It is by the introduction of such men that the local administration of Ireland is purifiad and made effective. The Government have done well by the people in this first-class appointment. . The latest intelligence that can be imparted regarding the bear supposed to be prowling about Newry is that h« is still uncaptured. On Friday he wae seen in tbe vicinity of Camlougb, County Armagh, and was pursued by several of the residents of the district. His footprints were traced to the lake, In close proximity to which Bruin was sheltered from obs?rvatioo. A shot was fired by one of the pursuers

tomTirSl- i reP ° rfc diCd aWay Wh ' n tl ""8'My" toted from his hiding place, crossed the lake-almost entirely frozen and a distance O f abont half a mile—nd escaped. On Saturday mornwg Mr M. Nesbitt, of Sandy Street, Newry, had a very narrow escape from the bear, which attacked him on the Bathfriland road, jrr m ., W J Qtlidethe tOWD ' lt Beem » th * ■» " "'l* m pital called at the residence of Mr Nesbitt, who is a plumber by £?2i X \ hhimh w im . t0 « ecut « -a™ "pairs in the water pipes con2JS- W . i inßtltotion - AB th ° «<* was urgent Mr Nesbitt immediately proceeded to the hospital, rectified tbe existing defects •nd was returning towards home again when Bruin suddenly . p ,. D g from the side of the road and made at him. Fortunately by a Blight recession in his movements be evaded tbe animal, and nn !T a £ W u-:/ 11 ! be Bpeed he coald exert « The brnt « P««ned him, and MrNesbitt only considered himself oat of harm's reach when he safely gained a field having scaled a wall six or seven feet high. In an interview MrNesbitt said he never before experienced such a shock, and were it not for the presence of mind which he maintained, HTV'J' 'H-** wall that Berved n • barrier a*»inßta *» inßt hi » * icio « assailant he believed tbe animal would have devoured him. His relation of the entire occurrence was perfectly clear and intelligible, and few acquainted with Mr Nesbitt-a man of great respectability -would doubt his veracity. He lost no time in communicating with the police anthonties, and the extraordinary incident when brought to the knowledge of the residents created quite a sensatioo. Up till now the peregrinations of the beast were confined to a radius far out n the rural districts, but its intrusion into the borders of a populous town was regarded with alarm. Search parties were constituted, and proceeded in pursuit of Bruin. Parties went in different direohons tracing the marks of the brute, which were identified as the indents of a bear, but they came not in sight of the troublesome one, and a second day's investigation had no results. The country is being scoured by the police and civilians, but Bruin has not been captured. Reports from tbe country to the authorities show that the damage done by the grisly has been very considerable. In one instance a fl>ck of sheep was attacked by the baast, one bein? killed and many of the others mangled.