66 a who "attacked" and "burned a house to the ground!!" The stack of turf, to be sure, it is said, was very large one." The dimensions of the house are not specified. Another thing is not specific, which, though not directly noticed, may have had a serious influence upon the proclamation:-It is not mentioned (as is related in the well-known story of the culprit who implored a royal pardon for having thrown a man's hat into the river, but omitted to state the su. perfluous fact that the wearer's head was in it) that, at the time when Mr Ledger's house was set on fire, be tween two and three o'clock in the morning, its owner, a brave Protest. ant gentleman, with two stout sons and two good friends, were sleeping in it. The Geraldine's well-known apology for burning a church,-"I thought the bishop was there," diverted from him the anger of an English monarch. Why may not the good intentions of the house-burners have had a similar effect in propitiating the favour of the Irish executive ? "Burn every thing English except the coals," was an aphorism of Swift. The conclave in Dublin Castle seem to have embodied the spirit of it in their proclamation. The crime for which they offer a reward is that of attacking and destroying "a house," a crime which, however it is considered, was of far greater magnitude than that of burning even a Roman Catholic's turf stack; BUT THEY WHO BURNED THE HOUSE MEANT TO TAKE THE LIVES OF THREE PROTESTANTS,— Englishmen, perhaps; and this, though not "put in the bill," may have had its influence in diminishing the charges, of causing their offence to be seen through the proper medium, and distanced into an equality with that to which the very large turf stack" fell a victim. From a very able speech delivered by Mr Dartnell of Limerick, at a meeting to revive the Orange institution, we learn that this proclamation was the second notice given by the Irish Government of the price at which they estimated Protestant life. Mr Ledger had been attacked on a former occasion, in the course of last year, when his house was entered by an armed party. He and his two sons made a most gallant resistance; and, although dreadfully wounded, they repulsed their assailants, and suc VOL. XLV. NO, CCLXXXI, ceeded even in making prisoners. Mr Leger must have been a person of very conciliatory habits, for he was assisted by some of his Roman Catholic neighbours, who came to his relief, and were mainly instrumental in making the prisoners, whom he, at the Spring Assizes, prosecuted to conviction. Believing his Roman Catholic friends entitled to the reward for their apprehension, he applied for it; and with much difficulty, and after long delays, procured for two, out of the eight, a bounty of fifty shillings each, which, on his remonstrating, he was informed-but it is better to cite the words read by Mr Dartnell from the Under-Secretary of the. Irish Government, "I am directed to observe that the sum already paid as a reward to the persons who seemed instrumental in saving your lives, cannot be augmented." Protestant!" has sometimes been a "Five pounds for the head of a sets another value on them, "five cry in Irish party fights;-the Castle pounds for three." Mr Dartnell has explained this most flagitious transaction, if his information, which we have no reason to doubt, is correct. The repeated attacks on Mr Leger were owing to his having been denounced from the altar by a priest. How could the Government dare to protect one thus banned? It is, perhaps, unnecessary to observe that, in the second attack, when he was roused from deep sleep to defend his life, by flakes of fire from his burning roof falling on his face, he had no Roman Catholic friends to succour him, the significant shabbiness of the fifty-shilling affair had effectually warned them off. Mr Leger heart and brave sons; and, as the may thank God, who gave him a stout following extract will show, he may be thankful that the registration of his good muskets was not informal : "A Paternal Government. It is but a few days since we recorded the particulars of an attack on the house of Mr Holmes in the Glen of Aherlow, county of Tipperary, and the gallant defence made by his son, a young lad. In consequence of the outrage, a chief constable of police from a neighbouring station was, last week, directed to repair to the spot-to investigate the circumstances? no;-to obtain some clue to the apprehension of the perpetrators of the outrage? no ;-to offer a reward for their apprehension ?-no; but who attacked" and "burned a house to the ground!!" The stack of turf, to be sure, it is said, was "a very large one." The dimensions of the house are not specified. Another thing is not specific, which, though not directly noticed, may have had a serious influence upon the proclamation:-It is not mentioned (as is related in the well-known story of the culprit who implored a royal pardon for having thrown a man's hat into the river, but omitted to state the su. perfluous fact that the wearer's head was in it) that, at the time when Mr Ledger's house was set on fire, be tween two and three o'clock in the morning, its owner, a brave Protest. ant gentleman, with two stout sons and two good friends, were sleeping in it. The Geraldine's well-known apology for burning a church,-"I thought the bishop was there," diverted from him the anger of an English monarch. Why may not the good intentions of the house-burners have had a similar effect in propitiating the favour of the Irish executive? "Burn every thing English except the coals," was an aphorism of Swift. The conclave in Dublin Castle seem to have embodied the spirit of it in their proclamation. The crime for which they offer a reward is that of attacking and destroying "a house," a crime which, however it is considered, was of far greater magnitude than that of burning even a Roman Catholic's turf stack; BUT THEY WHO BURNED THE HOUSE MEANT TO TAKE THE LIVES OF THREE PROTESTANTS,Englishmen, perhaps; and this, though not "put in the bill," may have had its influence in diminishing the charges, of causing their offence to be seen through the proper medium, and distanced into an equality with that to which the very large turf stack" fell a victim. From a very able speech delivered by Mr Dartnell of Limerick, at a meeting to revive the Orange institution, we learn that this proclamation was the second notice given by the Irish Government of the price at which they estimated Protestant life. Mr Ledger had been attacked on a former occasion, in the course of last year, when his house was entered by an armed party. He and his two sons made a most gallant resistance; and, although dreadfully wounded, they repulsed their assailants, and suc VOL. XLV. NO, CCLXXXI, ceeded even in making prisoners. Mr Leger must have been a person of very conciliatory habits, for he was assisted by some of his Roman Catholic neighbours, who came to his relief, and were mainly instrumental in making the prisoners, whom he, at the Spring Assizes, prosecuted to conviction. Believing his Roman Catholic friends entitled to the reward for their apprehension, he applied for it; and with much difficulty, and after long delays, procured for two, out of the eight, a bounty of fifty shillings each, which, on his remonstrating, he was informed-but it is better to cite the words read by Mr Dartnell from the Under-Secretary of the Irish Government, "I am directed to observe that the sum already paid as a reward to the persons who seemed instrumental in saving your lives, cannot be augmented." Protestant!" has sometimes been a "Five pounds for the head of a sets another value on them, "five cry in Irish party fights ;-the Castle pounds for three." Mr Dartnell has explained this most flagitious transaction, if his informa tion, which we have no reason to doubt, is correct. The repeated attacks on Mr Leger were owing to his having been denounced from the altar by a priest. How could the Government dare to protect one thus banned? It is, perhaps, unnecessary to observe that, in the second attack, when he was roused from deep sleep to defend his life, by flakes of fire from his burning roof falling on his face, he had no Roman Catholic friends to succour him, the significant shabbiness of the fifty-shilling affair had effectually warned them off. Mr Leger may thank God, who gave him a stout heart and brave sons; and, as the following extract will show, he may be thankful that the registration of his good muskets was not informal: "A Paternal Government.-It is but a few days since we recorded the particulars of an attack on the house of Mr Holmes in the Glen of Aherlow, county of Tipperary, and the gallant defence made by his son, a young lad. In consequence of the outrage, a chief constable of police from a neighbouring station was, last week, directed to repair to the spot-to investigate the circumstances? no;—to obtain some clue to the apprehension of the perpetrators of the outrage? no ;—to offer a reward for their apprehension ?-no; but "For the first time," the Government has as its non-official, but absolute dictator and counsellor, the individual who was also consulted as counsel by the Ribbon Society, and who is bound by the most solemn engagements, and, we add, by motives of personal interest, to effect, if in his power, a repeal of the union. It is, we own, a very unlikely thing, that any government would, knowingly, favour a treasonable society; but, with whatever views, the Irish government has certainly served the interests of the Ribbon Society. Promotion has been given to constabulary officers, who made either their ignorance or their duplicity manifest, by expressing doubts of the existence of such a confederation. We are informed, that individuals connected with the Irish Government have uttered wilful untruths for the purpose of preventing Parliamentary enquiry; and while they thus leave treason free to mature its plans, they diminish the available force for the defence of the country and support of law, by disarming the yeomanry; and they inform loyal subjects of the crown, that if they are in danger, and require the protection of the police, it is not to be granted to them unless they can pay for it. Want of protection caused many to join the treasonable societies of the last century, until the Orange institution was formed, to give a security which the laws without its aid had not been able to afford. Our Government now constrain the Orangemen to dissolve their societies, and then say, that whoever is in danger must pay for protection, if he require it. Government measures are often more mischievous in their supposed significancy than in their direct tendency or intention. The amount in " shillings" which came into the Police Treasury since the order was made, cannot be a very material item in the receipts of that establishment, and has not to any considerable extent diminished the burden of taxation; but the "order" may have had its effect in another direction-it was issued in the autumn of 1837, and, before the summer of 1838, as the evidence of Mr Atkinson has proved, the Ribbon Society had detachments told off from its militia, organised under the name of Polishers, and placed under orders to bring all whom terror and injury would overcome, within the lines of the conspiracy. We are done. Our task is not ended, although our limits are overrun. To the wise we think we have spoken sufficiently plain. The outrages in Ireland are not "desultory and driftless." Injuries to person and property are visitations of war. Threats, assassinations, are warnings of judicial vengeance or acts of military execution. In short, the "Agrarian system," as the conspiracy is daintily styled, is a rebellion which is, at little other expense than the destruction of its adversaries, and the utter debasement and demoralization of its instruments, safely and surely working out its ends. It has the aid and counsel of Roman Catholic priests. It has the advantage, great though indirect, of Government connivance, if not co-operation. It has not yet the cordial support of the Irish people. It retains multitudes in its service by no other influence than of brute force and ter "Circular. His Excellency has established the rule, that it is only in cases of urgent necessity that protection is to be afforded to individuals, by placing men of the force in their premises. When individuals receive such protection, they will, in future, be obliged to provide the men with lodging, bedding, and fuel; and to pay for each man a sum not exceeding one shilling per night," &c. &c. "Constabulary Office, September 7, 1837." SOME ACCOUNT OF HIMSELF. BY THE IRISH OYSTER-EATER. FASCICULUS THE SEVENTH. "I never uses a hanimal so, Cos that I thinks below me ; But if I had a donkey what wouldn't go, EQUESTRIAN reader, have you ever done any thing in horse flesh? We do not desire to be construed to enquire whether you may possibly be engaged in the cat's-meat line, or to insinuate that you are a costermonger, but simply, in the ordinary acceptation, of the bargain and sale of that noble animal, the horse. Are you on the turf? Then I need not explain, to your erudite comprehension, the art and mystery to give and take the long odds knowingly, to make a "book," to "handicap," and to "hedge." You know a thing-or, it may be, two; you can stick the best friend you have in the world in the sale of a charger, or of a thoroughbred mare "to carry a lady;" you are aware of the trivial distinction between sweepstakes and beefsteaks-in short, you are "up to ginger." Enough; I know you, as the pickpocket said to the dealer in handkerchiefs! "I say, Tim, what's the name of the day of the week?" "Auction day," replied Timothy, whose conceptions of the Roman hebdomadal nomenclature were less vivid than those arising immediately out of his learned profession. "Auction day," repeated Timothy, with emphasis, rubbing, as he said it, a couple of curbs in the hollow of his left hand, with the palm of his right. "Busy day, d'ye think?" Timothy redoubled the friction of his palms, as if to intimate, by that particular hieroglyphic, what a very busy day auction day was likely to be. It was in the sporting coffeeroom of the Connaught Rangers' Imperial Hotel, in St Stephen's Green, that this remarkable conversation took place, on the-I love to be particular about dates on the fourteenth day of ; and this reminds me that I am bound, in courtesy, to indulge the ignorant reader in a digression of and concerning St Stephen's Green. St Stephen's Green is the most Costermonger's Song. spacious square in Europe-or, for all I know of to the contrary, any where else having in the middle a large green meadow, cut as artificially as possible into disagreeable promenades, and surrounded on all sides with a visible horizon of bricks and mortar. In the centre of the green meadow is a pedestal-on the top of the pedestal the image of a horse-and on the top of the horse, a likeness of a kingly crown rides on the whole apparatus, bearing the same relation to the space wherein it is enclosed, as a midge might be supposed to bear to an elephant. This the Dublin architects do for effect. By the same rule, a colossal monument to the undying Nelson is hemmed in by a long-winded double row of brick and mortar; and when the great pyramid comes to Dublin, it is to be deposited, by the same rule, in the canal docks-all for effect! There is no great uniformity in the structures that circumscribe the amplitude of St Stephen's Green; on the contrary, they possess, in an eminent degree, all that picturesqueness of effect which is ever the result of variety. You build your house four stories high, a friend to the right pushes his edifice up to six, while your neighbour to the left sits down modestly contented with three. Here, you see a neat Magdalene Asylum, with, under its left wing, a battered old house of too good reputation; there, a gorgeous palace rises from a terrace of steps as long and as lofty as Jacob's ladder; next door to it, the original cabbage shop. This is the town mansion of his Grace the Archbishop of Dublin; that, of Flanagan the tripe-scourer. Here domiciles the gripe-gut Chancellor Hannibal, whose jolter-headed progeny have at last, we congratulate tax-payers, attained to all the public plunder which it is intended to bestow upon them, for the sake of the man who "never had nor made a friend;" and there--which is |