The Express.
London, England, 1852-04-08 00:00:00

IRELAND.

DIAILIN". ANlit. 7.
The annual recurrence of Passion Week comes
round this yearolot, it is to be hoped, unaccompanied
by its soothing, salutary, and solemn influence amid
the bitterness of party strife and the dash of politi-
cal adversaries. If them might be any hope for miti-
gation, truce, or pause, it would be naturally looked
for among the conflicting children of one common
Christianity at the approach of this impressive com-
memoration. With these feelings, it is painfui to
read in the current week's Dublin Tahlet the head-
ing. in conspicuous type of a leading article
which, on perusal, turns out to be meant
' for en electioneering squib, but the substance of
which is of a nature to create no other sensation than
one of unmixed pain and disgust iu any well•regu-
lated mind. What reader, whose perceptions are
not quite blunted by the habitual indulgence in the
animosities of bigot rancour, can peruse an ad cup's's-
dam column of mere canvassing matter, headed thus,
" A New Candidate—the Slase of Pontius Pilate,"
without pronouncing it akin, if not to the blasphe-
mous, at least to the shockingly profane. That tho
awful narrative of the Divine Redeemer's sufferings
and death should be dcenwd the fittest incidents
during this sacred week to be seized on as " political
capital," and the last trial of our Blessed Lord turned
into a claptrap for the hustings of New Ross, is
something incredible. Yet the vile desecration is
carried out into a minute and detailed parody of tho
Passion. Sir Thomas Redington, a sinisTe and
even devout adherent of his ancestral faith, who dis-
putes the suffrages of the borough with an almost
equally consistent co-religionist, Mr. Duffy, is thus
assailed is tho Tablet :

Sir Thomas Redington is the slave who handed wester
to Pontius Pilate, when that eminently Whig crucifier of
the Sun of God washed his craven and loathsome fingers,
laying, " I am innocent of the blood of this just man."
"If thou lettest the cardinal go thou art not Ctesur's friend.
For whoever taketh upon him to rule Middlesex and Sur-
rey, u ordinary thereof, speaketh against Cnottr." Where-
fore, uwe have said, Clarendon became as Pilate. While
he sinned he tried to escape the responsibility of his guilt,
and Sir Thomas Redington was the conlidentisl slate who
cheered and consoled him and fetched the basin of water.
Every man of proper feeling, whatever his faith
or his politics, must emphatically protest against tho
languageand the illustration here put forth.
Mr. Cornelius O'Brien, formerly member for Clare,
declares himself, in the address in which he seeks
the suffrages of the electors once more, that he is a
stanch free-trader, and is in favour of tethint-right.
Mr. Otway Cuffe has addressed the electors of Kil-
kenny as an out-and-out opponent of the whigs, but
with such men as already are in the field for that
county it is quite useless for him to enter the lists.
The Northern Whig, one of the ablest and most
consistent as well as most moderato of the liberal
organs of public opinion in Ireland, has just been put
upon the index ezpurgatorins at Dublin Castle. The
announcement was contained in the following missive
to the editor:

" Sir,—l am to acquaint you that the Northern Whig
newspaper is no longer required to be furnished to this
office. You will, therefore, be good enough to stop it from
this date.—Your obedient versant, " Toutit.
" Chief Secretary's Ogee, the Castle, April 3, 18:12."