The Express.
London, England, 1847-10-16 00:00:00

STATE OF THE COUNTRY.
A man named Philip Nash, • bailiff' to the Rev. Thomas
Westropp a clergyman resident near Limerick, was shot
i.:id on Monday night at a place not three miles from that
city, and within about bid( a mks of a police station. The
man we walking along the road in company with two friends
when the swot was fired, and he fell pieced with II gangs.
He died in leer than two hours.
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The state of Clare almost rivals that of Tipperary. The
farmers must have armed protection for the carts which
convey their produce to market, and on their way home-
wards the parties who cart it are alines: invariably attacked.
There are not fewer than five instances of such attacks in
this day's Limerick papers in which carters were pelted
with stones on their homeward route from Ennis market.
One of the parties thus attacked was in the employ of Mr.
Bridgman, late M.P. for Ennis. The man now lies ill of
wound, received. Another instance of a farmer's horse being
shot, which had carried corn to market, is also recorded.
The pirates of Mayo have just been disappointed of a prey.
The Kate Thorn, laden with Indian corn and dour, lay off
Eagle Island on the 4th instant. Six boats put out from
shore, with from six to ten men in each, and made for the
vessel,manifestly with the intention of boarding her. They had
attained a very alarming proximity when a breeze sprung
up, and bore the expected prersafely from among the "Achill
wreckers," You will be grad to hear that, notwith-
standing the destitution, fever is decreasing in this county.
The King's County seems determined to maintain that re-
putation for restlessness attaching of late years to it. To-day
ws have accounts thence of an attack upon the house of a
man named Hearn, into which shots were fired, fortunately
without doing any damage to the residents. The house of
Mr. Samuel Drought was also fired into at night, and the
owner wounded, slightly as it happened. Arms were plun-
dered in more than one instance, and property carried away;
and in the ewe of a Mr. Hughes, *receiver under the Court of
Chancery, who had made a seizure for rent due, to which,
however, a replevin is entered, notice from " Copt Starlight,"
or some men of equal rank, is i-sued, to the effect that Mr.
Hughes is looked alter ; and that whoerershall send corn to
be ground at the mill of a Mr. Abernethy, who sometimes
acts for this receiver, will be shot.
Frawley, a bailiff, who ionic weeks since was beaten while
serving law notices in Clare, for a land agent of Dublin, has
died of the injuries received.
Notwithstanding the advice and remonstrance of Arch-
deacon Fitzgerald, P.P., Ballingary, the meeting of peasant
labourers took place on Monday, et the Hill of Garryfine,
whence they proceeded in a tumultuous body to Brume,
firing shots in the village, and drove the stock of Robert
Fethereton, Esq , a magistrate; broke the gate, and drove
the stock of Rev. George alassy, of the glebe : also the stock
of Rev. Mr. Ryan, P.P. of Rockhilf, and tore up and
trampled the turnip field of a farmer near Kearney in the
same neighhourhoed. Many of those marauders were armed.
Some of the cattle has been since restored.
• On Sunday morning last, notices were found posted on the
chapel gates of Broadford and Callaghan's-Mille, calling on
the people of the adjoining parishes to meet on Thursday
next, at Clunerk, near Broadford. The notices which the
police removed were as follows :—" Take notice, that every
man in the parish of Kilsiely is expected to meet at Clunerk,
in the parish of Killuran, on Thursday next. Any man
stopping back let him mark the consequence. Dated this
9th day of October, 1847." Notwithstanding the Roman
catholic clergy strongly denounced the impropriety of such
conduct at the chapels on Sunday last, it is understood the
meeting will take place. It is difficult to give an opinion as
to the object of such meetings • but from the feeling at pre-
sent in the country, it is feared co good will result from
tumultuous assemblages. Several notices have been posted
up along the line of railway at Thurles, threatening " that
no horse should work on the line without receiving 4s. a
day hire."

SCOTLAND.
EDINBUROH, OCT. 11.
Aberdeen is the moat public-spirited of all the
Scotch towns; while Edinburgh writes and Glasgow
talks, Aberdeen acts. The granite city was the first
to institute ragged schools, and it has now taken the
lead is forming a health of towns association. Not
only are cities overcrowded and generative of disease
from bad municipal arrangements, but the same evils
are extending to small towns and villages. The
county inspector of police for Mid-Lothian says: •
, . . . . .

to Dalkeiththere are sixteen low lodging-boners; most of them
are situated in narrow confined closes, and in thickly populated
part, of the town. The apartments are mostly small, some
not more than from twelve to fourteen square feet, and
having from two is eight beds to them year where so
many beds are planed, are fised on each side of the
apartment, with • kind of boa-bed al.ding from beneath.
At night there may be found in some of them from
sixteen to eighteen adults of both seam, btvideu children,
all congregated together. The wandering life of the chins that fre-
quent these houses tends very materially to spread contagion; many
of them being migratory infect others. In Patlthead there ore several
low lodging-houses; and, at the foot of the village, about fifty Irish
are loomed in tire small rooms: one of these is scarcely more than ten
square feet, and I believe that seven adults live and sleep therein. The
medical practitioner resident to the village Informed me, that this
alone tended to gureate and keep op lever. In Muoeiburgh and
Fisher-row there are do of a similar dmenption, most of them over-
crowded and dirty. I ern of opinion that these homes should be re-
gularly hemmed, and subject to frequent medical inspection, and
under the complete surreilLince of the ',Mice, with powers veined in
them by Law to enforce • proper code of regulations. U thn was done,
It would tr nd to prevent the spread of infectious diatoms, and thereby
improve the health of the public.
And in accordance so far with thus suggestion a model
lodging-house is to be set up in Dalkeith. In Aber-
deenshire, the county authorities have been dealing
with the kindred but still more difficult subject of
intemperance. In that shire there are 613 public-
houses, yielding a lieense revenue to government of
2,6061., and a rental to landlords of 4,6301. From
inquiry, it has been ascertained that the conversion of
these houses to other purposes would diminish their
rents to 4,1011., thus causing a loss of about 5001.
This consideration has induced the committee ap-
pointed to consider the question to suggest that the
number of alehouses should be in proportion to the
population as 1 to 650—a ratio which would reduce
the licenses from 613 to 200.

In Scotland we have no church-rate controversies,
the stipends of the established clergy being almost
wholiy payable by landlords, according to the cur-
rent price of grain, but in towns, where of course no
grain grows, their incomes are derivable from corpo-
ration funds, and the laws regarding payment being
not very definite bickerings arise ever and anon, and
seem to increase in direct ratio with the augmenta-
tion of dissent. Thus in Edinburgh, on two churches
being burnt, the council would only rebuild one, and
the other lies in ruins till the case is litigated. In
Dundee only two out of three edifices destroyed by a
similar calamity have been re-erected, and the minister
of the nnbuilt church has raised an action against
the town because they decline raising his stipend
from 10.51. to 3001. In Arbroath a petition was
laid before the council from the Kirk Session,
praying them, as representatives of the heritors, to
grant some necessary repairs on the parish church ;
which the council refused, intimating that the pro-
prietors of pews were the proper parties to whom to
apply for aid.
The appointment of a licentiate of the Free Church
(corresnding somewhat to a deacon in the English
church) tpoo the Hebrew chair in the Edinburgh Uni-
versity is a similar case of antagonism between
church and dissent. The university contains four
faculties, arts, law, medicine, and divinity.
The proprietors of the Glasgow Argus newspaper
have, it is said, resolved to discontinue its publication.
A correspondent of the Edinburgh Chronicle, indig-
nant at the reproach of Scotland being a poor country,
adduces the following statistics in refutation of the
calumny :

Table showing the relative position se to wealth which Scotland beam
in oomparivon with some of the principal states of Europe :
Proportion
_ . . Tlevenne. pcmolstlon pc! I.n.dividuaL

Engl4nl

ail:6667mi imam* l 2 is 6

g010:010...
.3 0

Irelmad
.f,000,000 -.1,000:000 . 0 12 I

s1,000:000...34;ood,000... I to 7

Holland i:600:000..
.5:231:000 1 16 5