sectarian animosities, has produced effects, which a conciliatory spirit, and the knitting together all classes in the performance of their social duties, can alone efface. A few incidental consequences which have flowed from the penal code, may however be noticed. The want of an intermediate class of yeomanry, and of resident gentry, may we conceive be traced to the catholic laws. Prohibited as the catholics were from acquiring property in land, in a country where the mass of the population belonged to that sect, no yeomanry could exist. Tribes of serfs and helots were indeed created; but it is in vain to seek for the delightful examples which exist in England, of farmers cultivating their small but hereditary estates, transmitted to them from remote generations. The growth of a catholic gentry, was impeded by the same causes. We are acquainted, it is true, with many representatives of catholic families who have risen, and who are rising, to power and eminence; possessed both of the inclination and of the means of benefiting their country. But the numbers of such men would have been augmented a thousand fold, if they had been freed from the restraints of cruel and unjust laws. The chasm which at present exists in Irish society would then have been filled up, and we should not, as at present, have to lament the want of that useful order of the community, the depository of the greatest human virtue and human happiness-of that order which is ever found "With hearts resolved, and hands prepared, By the popery laws, a monopoly of power was granted to the protestants; and this, like most other monopolies, has proved injarious to those who enjoyed its privileges, as well as to those excluded from them. The whole class of protestants was raised above its proper level, to an unnatural elevation. He that would have made an excellent farmer, was induced to act as an ignorant magistrate; the youth destined by nature as a clerk for a counting-house, was sent as a speculator to the bar; the advocate who by industry might have risen to professional honour, became a needy and trading politician; and the country gentleman, who might have diffused civilization and happiness around his residence, was seduced to the levees of the castle, to sell his independence for a coronet or a pension. In short, the elevation of the privileged sect was as unnatural as the depression of the excluded classes; and both tended to destroy that beautiful gradation through which all that is highest and lowest in society is brought to "blend, soften, and unite." Between the two extremes a great gulf has been fixed, which the catholics could not pass. The political power, honour, and patronage, which, fairly distributed, would have given to all the community a direct interest in maintaining the established order of things, has been been parcelled out among one tenth part of the population, and has become the source of continued jealousy and heart-burning. If the severity of a criminal code could in itself prevent crime, the Irish would long since have been one of the most civilized nations in Europe. There has not been in any country a more prodigal expenditure of punishment, or a more careless estimate of human life; yet offences have multiplied with a most melancholy rapidity, as will appear from the following view of the commitments and convictions in Ireland during the four years succeeding 1815*, as compared with the state of crime in England and Wales during the same period. From the examination of this table it will appear, that, great as has been the increase of crime in England, the increase in Ireland has been even more rapid. Had the commitments increased in the same ratio with those in England, they would have amounted in 1818 to 10,516 only; and in the same proportion the convictions would not have exceeded 4214; but, comparing these numbers with the actual returns, we find an actual excess of 3513 commitments, and 1163 convictions. We have seen that the total number of persons committed is pretty nearly the same in both islands, and is consequently much greater in proportion to the smaller population of Ireland. The number of convictions is less in the proportion of four to seven. Hence it must follow that in Ireland a prisoner has a much greater chance of acquittal, than his brother in iniquity, the British felon. It must also necessarily follow, either that most incautious commitments, or most improper acquittals, take place in Ireland, and that there is less certainty in the administration of the laws in the one island than in the other. That this arises in many instances from a reluctance to prosecute, we are prepared to admit; but a reluctance to prosecute is almost always proportionate to the severity of the laws. Whenever a punishment exceeds what the majority of the people consider to be the character of the offence, a reluctance to prosecute will show itself. This is peculiarly the case in Ireland, where the character of an informer, or a prosecutor, is held in peculiar horror. So far from Return from the inspectors of prisons; ordered to be printed, sessions 1821: and Report on criminal law, appendix. repressing repressing crime, extreme rigour of punishment seems frequently to have been the signal for new violations of the law." Even where the law had been administered with the greatest severity, new disturbances broke out. In the county of Westmeath, an assassination was committed in the face of an entire congregation in open day*." The 15 and 16 Geo. 3. c. 21, commonly called the White Boy Act, created a long series of capital felonies, and was intended, no doubt, to preserve the public peace; yet under the terrors of such severe enactments, offences against the public peace have multiplied. These laws "have served to harden the hearts of the peasantry, to alienate them from the established order of things; to throw them back on their own devices, and make them place their only confidence in wild schemes of future retaliation +."It has been well stated, with reference to Ireland, in a publication proceeding from a most respectable society, that "the predominant qualities of the depraved part of the population, are, first, a disposition to mischievous combination; secondly, a restless desire of change and innovation; and thirdly, a daring or rather a desperate contempt of death. The subject of a capital execution is considered as a hero, the victim of tyrannical law, or commiserated as a martyr to principles which sway the minds of a great majority of the spectators +." In this statement we most cordially agree, and feel convinced that strict prison discipline and hard labour would be more operative as a mode of preventing crime, than the present sanguinary but inefficient punishments. Whilst the laws of Ireland are severe in the punishment of crime, they are singularly deficient in the means of preventing it. Here the vigour of the legislature seems to have failed altogether; the whole of its power being reserved for its sting. It is true, that the Peace Preservation bill, brought in by Mr. Peel, (a most wise and beneficent measure, when well administered,) effects somewhat towards this object. But the peculiar object of this act was remedial; it was framed as a mode of suppressing disturbances, not of preventing them, and it was never intended to be applied to districts remaining in a state of tranquillity. A really efficient police is what is most peculiarly wanting for Ireland; a police that would render the commission of crime difficult, and escape impracticable. This we are convinced might be attained at a lighter expense, and with less complicated machinery, than that which has given motion to the preventive water guard. Parliamentary Debates, Speech of Mr. Peel, July 8th, 1814. †Thoughts on Education, p. 43. Remarks on Penitentiaries. This we do not despair of seeing introduced, wherever the happiness and morals of the people are considered equally important with the duties of custom and excise, and when vice and wretchedness are admitted to be evils as strongly to be guarded against as the introduction of a bale of Bandana handkerchiefs, or of a cargo of smuggled tobacco. In order to make any police efficient, steps should be taken to reform the magistracy. That such a reform is necessary, few persons acquainted with Ireland will deny; we refer all obstinate sceptics, and all those who are uninformed, to the declarations of an ex-chancellor of Ireland (Mr. Ponsonby), who declared that "he found the state of the magistracy any thing but what it ought to be. In one county he found among the magistrates a man who had been waiter at a country inn; a man who in that capacity had frequently waited behind the chairs of the members of the grand jury." Mr. Ponsonby was actually engaged in the reform of the magistracy, when the administration of which he formed a part was dissolved. The legislature has by no means been negligent in providing means for the suppression of actual disturbances, and measures of extraordinary rigour as they are called, or of extraordinary severity as we are inclined to term them, have repeatedly been resorted to. The Insurrection Act is considered by many to be the specific for all local diseases in Ireland. By this statute, any individual found out of his house after a certain hour, was liable to be transported for seven years. By this statute (now expired) the trial by jury was suspended, and the liberties of the people of Ireland were placed at the mercy of those magistrates, whom Mr. Ponsonby described as "any thing but what they ought to be." We do not ourselves conceive that the mere task of suppressing tumults among a wretched peasantry is a difficult one; force and pressure will always produce a temporary calm; these are the vulgar remedies of ordinary statesmen: but the more liberal and enlightened legislator will endeavour to remove the causes of irritation, by which alone any permanent tranquillity can be secured +. These observations apply with peculiar force to the separate local jurisdictions of Ireland. A vigorous reform must be effected among the Dogberry and Verges tribes of chartered magistracy, who, appointed in many instances by wretched corporations, are independent of the chancellor, and of public opinion, and make the office of justice of the peace subservient to party views or to personal emolument. Nor do we confine our observations to the criminal code only; Parliamentary Debates, April 26, 1816. "In order to allay sedition, it is necessary to expell the matter of sedition."-Lord Bacon. alterations alterations should also be made in the civil administration of the laws. The judicial fees in the superior courts have, in the last year, been abolished; the receipt of all fees of a similar nature, and especially of fees paid to magistrates, should be strictly prohibited; these fees being objectionable, not only as burthens on the poor, but as degrading to the administration of justice, and as casting doubt and suspicion on authorities which ought to stand highest in public confidence. The amount of taxation imposed on all legal proceedings, is an impediment to justice in a rich country, and a denial of it in a poor one. It would be difficult to reconcile the principle of the Stamp Acts with the maxim of Nulli vendemus justitiam. If a peasant only feels the laws in their inflictions and punishments-if he finds them strong against him, but not available for his protection-how can he be expected to regard them with confidence? It is in vain to tell him that the law is equal to all; he cannot believe the assertion, when he finds that a fulfilment of the promises of justice can only be claimed, under a condition which he cannot perform. Law, indeed, like killing game, seems in Ireland to be reserved for those who possess a certain qualification in property; and neither an action can be brought, nor a partridge killed, unless the client and the sportsman inherit an estate of one hundred pounds a year. It is true, in some cases, cheap and summary remedies have been introduced; but in many instances, the poor are still abandoned to despair, and the court of chancery. The Irish peasantry, looking with horror on both alternatives, endeavour to procure for themselves a wild sort of justice; becoming at once parties, judges, and executioners. Thus, every doubtful will, or disputed case of intestacy, becomes the source of feud and violence; and Captain Rock and Lieutenant Starlight volunteer their services in aid of the venerable doctors of civil law, and the learned judges in the courts of equity. If, then, it is thought desirable to supersede the novels and extravagants of the White Boys and Threshers, and to appeal to consistorial courts, masters in chancery, and vicars-general, an economical reform must be effected throughout all the Irish courts of justice. The progress of population in Ireland has been, and still is, most extraordinary. În 1695, the population was calculated to be 1,034,102; in 1731, 2,010,221; in 1791, 4,200,000; in 1804, 5,400,000; and in 1821, 7,000,000. Of these seven millions, 500,000 probably belong to the established church; 500,000 may be Protestant dissenters; and the remaining 6,000,000 Catholics. The great mass of the people are not only agriculturists, but landholders holding very small farms, and raising by their own labour the food which supports their families. The people are, consequently, scattered over the face of the country; the towns and villages |