The Press.
London, England, 1853-12-03 00:00:00

LORD ST. GERMANS AND Co.

Lonn Sr. GERMANS and his subordinates are cer-
tainly not very creditably distinguishing themselves
in Ireland. Under the official signature of his Ex-
cellency the operation of the " Crime and Outrage
Act " was most injudiciously suspended in certain
districts of Ulster. Scarcely had the proclamation
to that purpose appeared in the Dublin Gazette when
Ribbonism broke forth with unusual fury. Land-
lords, Liberal and Tory, were conspired against ; a
clergyman was fired at in his own house ; and other
plots and crimes came suddenly to light with start-
ling effect. It will be a question for future con-
sideration who was the party at the Castle directly
responsible for that most ill-timed suspension of the
"Crime and Outrage Act "?
The former experience of Lord Sr. GERMANS AS
Chief Secretary, in the days when he aided in prose-
cuting and imprisoning OCoNNELL, seems thrown
away upon the Viceroy. Since then he has changed
his convictions along with his political connections.
In his law officers we can have no confidence. Mr.
BREWSTER, the Attorney-General, was once an ultra-
Tory, and belongs to that peculiar description of
Irish barrister of which Mr. WILLIAM KEOGH is a
representation. Volatile without eloquence, vehe-
ment without passion, with a truculent tongue and a
browbeating deportment, within the last few days
Mr. Attorney-General BenwsTEß received from the
eloquent lips of a junior member of the bar such a
castigation as will make the Attorney-General think
twice before he attacks any one else. At the close of
his spirited reply to Mr. littEwsTen the bar vehe-
mently cheered Mr. ExtrAsr, and the Lord Chan-
cellor never interfered, but allowed the Attorney-
General to flounder out of the scrape in which his
virulence had involved him.

And here we may add that, according to the reports
in the journals, a political confederate of Mr. WIL-
LIAM KEOGH seems in an unpleasant predicament.
The battle of Oaulstown, in Westmeath, in which
Mr. MAOAN (Brigadier M.P. by the influence of Mr.
Keoon) led on five hundred men against the Kelly
faction, and in which an unfortunate person lost his
life, far eclipses Ballingarry. We should much like
to read Mr. Kitoon's "opinion on the case," if there
should be any proceedings taken in it. When he
reads of these ferocities of Faction or Ribbonism we
take for granted that he reeals his foreboding of "the
long nights of November."

CAPITAL, LABOUR, AND THE FRANCHISE.

TO THE EDIToR OE "THE PRESS."

Sir,—No one can be indifferent to the present ac•
tion of the various interests and classes among
each other, and to the collision of the different ideas
and theories which make up that strange farrago of
odd thoughts called by courtesy the seienee Of 1)46 •
cal economy. It would seem as if we were about to
reap some of the fruits of a system of Whig-Radical le-
gislation which has dealt with human beings as mere
counters and machines. We are in the midst of age-
neration born and bred on the new principles, and have
to learn yet how to construe their actions and tenden-
cies. The severance between employer and employed
is just beginning to show in its completeness, and
threatens even at the prestnt moment to split into a
chasm right across the whole structure of society.
All London rubbed their eyes with astonishment one
morning lately to find its cabstands empty. The whole
kingdom runs a risk that some other morning soon no-
body will find anybody to do anything. This no likely to

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