The Express.
London, England, 1851-04-22 00:00:00

SWEEPSTAKES.

Preslaw

IRELAND.

Drai.tx, Arnu..2l..

The election of a successor to Mr. Fagan, of Cork,
takes place this week. The nomination has been
fixed for ‘Vednesday next, and as yet Mr. Serjeant
Murphy is the only candidate whose address is be-
fore the electors. The learned serjeant has arrived
in ('ork, and is carrying on a vigorous CtIIIVAMi.
The following is the requisition issued fur the
approaching meeting of Roman eatholies :
We, the undersigned, request an aggregate meeting of
the eatholies of Ireland, in the City of Duldin, on Tuesday,
the 29th inst., fur the purpose of petitimin4 the imperial
parliament against the Ecclesiastical Titles Assumption
Bill, and the Religious Houses Bill, and to adopt such other
measures a. may he best caleulated to protect the religious
rights sad liberties of the eatholies of the Cuited King-
dom.

It is generally expected that the meeting will be a
failure.
The Lord Mayor went in state yesterday to
Christ Church Cathedral, accompanied by a large
number of the aldermen and town councillors in
their robes. A novel mode of doing honour to the
festival of Easter was exhibited here by the crews
of a squadron of Austrian and Greek corn ships, now
lying in the river. Having obtained the permission
of the authorities for the purpose, they tired salutes
of 21 guns each at eight o'clock in the morning and
at noon yesterday.
The experiment of the pendulum in illustrating the
earths motion on its axis was performed with com-
plete success in the theatre of the Royal Dublin So-
ciety on Saturday. The pendulum employed was 23
feet in length, with a Ivan 141 b. weight, and the de-
tleetion in an hour was found to exceed twelve

degrees.
Large numbers of the working. classes now attend
at lectures in Trinity College University—a circum-
stance altogether novel. This was particularly the
ease in a course of lectures on botany which has just
been brought to a close, and during which the audi-
ence was composed largely of prretical horticulturists
and working gardeners.
Au inquest was held in the Richmond Bridcwell,
on Saturday, on the body of an unfortunate gentle-
man—Mr. 'thomas Blake, a native of Tower-hill in
the county of Mayo—who died a lunatic, and in a
state of extreme *destitution. It was stated at the
inquest that the deceased exhibited the most marked
appearance of starvation and utter neglect when
taken into the institution, and his daughter, an only
child, stated that she was unable to contribute any-
thing to the expense of his burial, declining at tfie
same time to give her address. The deceased was a
solicitor, and most respectably connected.

DUBLIN POLICE.
1111 MD Pot.tee-orrice.—On Saturday Michael Minahan
was charged by Edward Spence with an assault.
The complatnant said he was employed to circulate papers
in the neighbourhood of Old Kilmainham, one of which he
left at the prisoner's residence, and having proceeded to the
next house, he was followed by 31inahan, who knocked him
down, anal called hint a bloody Orangeman," fur leaving
such a paper.
Mr. Charles Fitzgerald appeared for the prisoner, and
admitted that be was guilty, of the offence complained of,
but that he committed it under excitement at receiving a
paper which contained language calculated to produce such.
The document alluded to was then read. It was issued
from the Priests* Protection Society, and purported to he a
proclamation from the converts connected with the society
to the Homan catholics of Ireland, stigmatising their reit-
glen as auti•Christian and idolatrous, cud stated that the
Pope inculcated the practice of idolatry, by ordering them
to revere a manufactured blinking image of the Virgin
Mary at Rimini.
Mr. Porter, the presiding magistrate, said he belonged to
a church of which the Queen was the head—not in a spiri-
tual, but a protective sense—and the people to whom that
document was addressed regarded the Pope as their spiri-
tual head ; and he conceived, if a document of a similar
character and tendency treated of the Queen in the same
language, it could not be looked upon otherwise than in-
salting to the feelings of the protestant community. It
would not be deemed argumentative, but abusive, being
addressed to the feelings and not to the sense. lie wished
those persons who were inclined to enter into polemical
controversy to luiderstand that the last thing which could
be banished from men were their feelings. Certainly kicks
and abuse would not do it. Ile thought publications of
that kind could only tend to establish bad feeling among all
slums of religionists.
The complainant said he was a long time without em-
ployment, and wanted to make out a livelihood honestly.
Mr. Porter—Forcing such papers on persons of a dif-
ferent religion is not an honest way of earning your bread.
However warm men might be about matters of religion in
other countries, I am happy to say that there was very little
of that bitterness in Ireland.
Complainant—l did not know that there was anything in
it which would hurt the feelings of anybody.
Mr. Porter—You should have been acquainted with the
natant of the papers before you circulated them. I think
the ue of such words as " blinking image of the Virgin
Mary" were quite unjuatifisble, and you should not have
bees wrpeised at receiving the treatment you complain of.
I de not think it is the way to speak of a person who is
Wad is the Scriptures, which all Christians believe, as
"Messed mous' wows, and that all generations shall call
her Mewed and I, as a protestant, do not approve of such
lisspuege. Under the dressetenees, therefore, I will im-
pose- a Ise of harpists es the rimer.

811aTIMELD MaRIZT.—The select committee have
referred the proposed bills of the government aad corpora-
tion, together with those for the incorporation and enlarge-
meat of Islington Market, and. the bill for the proposed
metropolitan market, to be conadetid by one and the same
massaittee.