The Express.
London, England, 1847-03-25 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, THURSDAY EVENING, MARCH 25, 1847.

the value would ke 11,360,4751. 7tem, with reamed to the empior
mod which the cultivates of the plant gave, and which was a moot
toprtantconsideradoe. It had been already shows that, independently
of windup, MR sere of analog gave employment, /or • year, to nineteen
persons, in manufacturing it into pecket-bandkerchkfe ; and, If
winners were added, there would be an addition of forte-Pine women,
snaking altogether exty-thrs, persons; but tame 1, ople might think
that an taaggrratN statement; thendore et it be aupponed lb.t terser,
of dm won it by squat to the employment and suppor: of one family
for the year, then the result would be, ouppoemg MU,' the one-
sixteenth of the lambi of Ireland to re in flax -there would be 841,5 I 8
families so supported : mad, taking each family at the usual menage
of Ore, the number of austained would be 4,407,594—eqnal
to about ont.tudi of the whole popuation of Ireland. Let diem con-
sider In bow email a degree the manufacture of tin had hitherto
ealninerd ; and then let them took at the means and capabilities of
Ireland- the immense water-power which was wasted ; but he hoped
that there would be a ...benne that would indoor the men of Ireland to
look to the water-power; fur if they did, the remunerative prices of
Las would be greatly incresek (liar, hear, and cheer,.)
It will be observed, that the amount tobe produced on
the estimate of Mr. Crawford, would be more than the pre-
sent consumption of the British islands. But I have au-
thority from French and Belgian spinners to state that the
trade m those countries would largely import our flan if we
had a surplus to offer, since it is much superior to the
Russian they now consume for the Fabrication of particular
Tame And the quantity of Hawed and oilcakes made from
it, the import of foreign countries, which are now consumed
by the eattle-feeders of 3reat Britain, could then be all had
at home, it being fully equal to the produce of the number
of acres which the shove estimate of tee would occupy.
From returns made by the booed of Trade to the society it
appears that we imported in 1814:
79,424 tons Las at Sid Value £3,971,200
619,947 quarter. fiat seed at 21.5. 1,389,131
85,690 tam oil cakes at 71.10..
£6,003,506
A vast RUM to pay every year for the products of a plant,
whore culture could be so adv intageouely conducted in Ire-
land, and with such benefit to her population.
Among the many cornets of Ireland's miserable condition,
the want of manufactures has often been numbered. Toils
is, of course, speaking on the general question, and in com-
parison with the striking features of English manufaesuring
industry. The linen trade is the single bright point presented
in this view of the 'water, serving more forcibly to show the
advantages of a steady productive employment. Sixty-two
large fsetories, with 7,860 horse power, and 13,600 aperatives,
are Continually employed in spinning yarn, while large quan-
tities are also purchased from the English and Scotch spin-
ners ; 70,000,000 yards of linen, on an average, are enormity
exported; the trade employs • capital of upwards of five
millions sterling; and the entire number of individuals,
directly and indirectly supported by it in all its brunches,
cannot be estimated at lea than 500,000, and is probably
_ _ _

This manufacture has now attained such a degree of per-
fection, that, in neutral markets, the Irish linens command
the almost exclusive sale, having struggled against the pro-
duce of the German and French looms until they have
gained the upperhand in almost all cases. Even in the finest
fabrics, damask and cambric, the proe' has been sur-
prising, the consumption of the latter having increased 160
fold in 17 years. In 1829, for every 1,000 dozens of French
cambric sold in the English market, 100 pieces of Irish were
sold ; in 1816, for every 1,000 pieces of French, there were
16,000 pieces of Irish sold. Seeing their inability to com-
pete with us in the open market, foreigners have imposed
heavy duties on our linens and Linea yarns in their awn
countries, and by this short-sighted policy are cramping the
consumption and injuring the consumers, endeavouring to
force a manufacture in which they cannot advantageously
en
greit as must be the changes which the general adoption
of the principles of free trade would produce, none would
tell more beneficially to this country than the unshackled
admission everywhere of our linen minufactures, their supe-
riority and cheapness ensuring them a monopoly is the ma-
jority of cases. Should continental governments be induced
by the example of England to relax their duties., our linen
trade would increase immensely. And the move made by
our own country in the admission of foreign agricultural
products into a free competition with our own will have this
important result—that it will lead all farmers to inquire, for
what kinds of culture ore our soil and our climate best
adapted ? No premium existing on the production of any
particular crop. this point at once becomes all-important. It
has been sac rtained, by 'analysis, that the quantity of
nitrogen (muscle-forming substance) in grain produced in
the southern and middle parts of Europe, and in the United
States of America, is greater per cent. than in that grain
u,der the most favourable areumetances in this country.
Our humid atmosphere, again, highly favours the growth of
grasses and herbage, of root., of flax, and hemp.
Countries with a spare population are most fitted for
the production of grain, since it takes the least
labour. Where a large labouring population exists, the cal-
tun of roots and of fibrous plants In the most profitable, as
it affords them a productive employment. Nature, then, at
once points out that it would be more fitting for Ireland to
turn her attention to the branches of culture before named
in connexion with the rearing and fattening of cattle, and
not to lay the stress on grain that at present is done by the
small farmers, . .

. .
Many of the difficulties urged against the extended culture
of flax have been smoothed away by the experience lately
acquired. Thus, in place of befog an exhausting crop, it
is now ascertained, by analysis, that the valuable fibre
which forma an article of clothing to so lame a nuent-er of
the human race, is almost exclusively supplied by the atmos
phere, and that by returning the refuse parts of the stem to the
soil, the farmer at once possesses the means of renovating it.
The production of food, some say, is much preferable to any
other culture; but here, again, we find,-that the seed of the
flax plant affords a large quantity of the moot valuable and
nutritive food for cattle, serving to build up their frames,
and adding to the supply of manure.
When the government, and politicians of all parties,—in
fact, every thinking man, is labouring to devise means to
turn to good amount the present awful crisis in the state of
Ireland, by planting the seeds of her future peace and pros-
perity, deeply and securely, that they may spring out of the
rains of her tamer laitosapfta.adition, I tiitras the extended
culture of flax, to connexion with the condition end pros-
pects of her linen manufacture, deserves serious attention
from those in power. In many ways the importance of the
subji et has been alluded to. bir R. Kane, in his " Indus
trial Resources of Ireland," the " 7 ernes Commissioner,
in his able letters, the " Peorlaw Commission Reports," all
speak to the benefit which Ulster has derived from this
branch of industry, and to the important effects which its '
extension would Module
If the growth of flax be fully developed, a foundation will
beat once laid for the extension of the linen trade, Ireland's
ancient, manufacture. Of our four great textile manufac-
tures, silk, cotton, wool, and linen, the latter is the only one
where the raw material could be all produced at home with
equal benefit to the manulacturer and the producer.
Although, in the foregoing remark., I have chiefly
kept Ireltind in view, I am of opinion that the
cultivation of this plant in England and Scotland
would also be attended with great advantages—lucrative to
the farmer, a great assistance in feeding his stock, and likely
to reduce the poor rates by the employment it would afford
to women and children.
As observed by a member during the late debate In the
House of Commons, it is more by a series of small measures, I
directed to the development of the internal resources of the
II country, that the foundation of Ireland's future peace and
prosperity can be laid, than by any one or t s o great and isce
lated measures. The evil lien too deep, and has too nume-
rous roots, for one or two to be sufficient: and while moral
improvement is projected, physical should have its full share
of attention. The mince, the fisheries, the reclamation of
waste lands, &c., &c., are among the most important sub-
jects to which the attention of government should be di-
rected; but none has greater claims or involves more import-
ant consequences than the extension of flax cultivation.
Belfast. LINVN.

IRELAND.
DUBLIN, MARCW 23.
The Freeman's Journal of this morning contains
letters from twelve counties: Mayo, Meath, King's
and Queen's counties, Cavan, :Monaghan, Wexford,
Lengford, Tipperary, Limerick, Kildare, Waterford—
to which I may add Armagh—in all which the ac-
counts are pacific. The informants generally appear
to have been Roman Catholic clergymen, and if there
had existed any disposition to turbulence their fears
would not have been suppressed. The sensation is
considerable, and all look to the promised relief, which
cannot be afforded one hour too soon.

In Cork, fever and mortality have had a return,
after a short respite. The number of deaths in the
workhouse, for the week ending on Monday, was 171,
while the number of patients, in and out of hospital,
was 2,292. Exclusive of the union workhouse mor-
tality, 101 paupers had been interred in the New
Cemetery, between the 14th and 21st. As might have
been expected, the other classes are beginning to suffer.
The Cork Exami,lrr names several respectable citi-
zens who have died in the plst week.
The President of the Royal Irish Agricultural
Society, his Grace of Leinster, has seta example
to the landed proprietors of Ireland, w • they should
not be slow to follow. He has intimated to his
poorer tenantry his readiness to supply them with corn
seeds sufficient to enable them to cultivate their
lands at a reasonable price, to be repaid at a time to
be arranged between the parties. Hie grace's phrase!
is " heresf er." The noble duke also pledges him-
self
to abate one whole gale's rent to any one of his
tenants who shall sow a competent portion of his
holding under green crops, such as turnips, parsnips,
cabbages, and beans. This is a most generous pro-
' posal, and will ensure the raising of an abundance of
green crops on his grace's large estates. He will
also supply the tenantry seeds for this descrip-
tion of crops without
The Marquis of Downshire has been presented with
an address from the agricultural labourers on the
Dowashire estates, thanking him for the constant
employment he has afforded them in this season of
destitution, by which they have been enabled to
maintain themselves and their families without having
recourse to relief committees or soup kitchens.
The emigration from Armagh is described by the
local journals as " immense. The classes proceeding'
to the colonies being the ablebodied, intelligent, and
energetic farming class, all of whom take property
considerable, in reference to their station, with them.
The Rev. Mr. Molony, a Roman Catholic clergy-

man in the west of Clare, enumerates in a letter to
the Clare Journal the names of fifteen individuals of
various ages, who had, within a few days, died of
starvation in the parish of Kilmurry Ibrickane.
Inquests had been held on the bodies. In Armagh,
one of the most prosperous of the northern counties,
the local paper contains accounts of two deaths by
starvation; and 1,000 persons present themselves
daily for relief at the soup kitchens.
The Dublin Corn Exchange continues to be very
badly supplied, notwithstanding the recent arrivals
of corn and flour at our quays in large quantities.
The manifest object of this is to maintain prices;
but though on fine samples this was done to-day, yet,
on every sort of grain, flour, and meal not of first
quality, there was a reduction of 6d.per barrel on the
quotations of last Friday. I was assured to-day by a
gentleman connected with one of our banks, that the
speculators were beginning to feel alarm, and that I
should not feel surprised if, in a space of three weeks,
I saw a fall in prices to a very serious extent.

RETCSAL TO wont ON FARMIL—The government officer
of inspection over the Relief Works at Killarney has felt it
necessary to threaten with dismissal all those employed on
the public works in that di:triet, who shall refuse farm
labour when offered, and the cheek clerks who shall refuse
instantly to remove any man who shall be required by a
farmer to also to be dismissed. It would seem from this that
at Ki!larney, at least, some men preferred the public works
to private, but inaependent labour.

SCOTLAND.

EDINBURGH MARCH 22.

Scotland has at last furnished one defender of the
Lord Advocate's Registration and Marriage Bills,
and he is a minister of the Established Church. At a
meeting of the presbytery of Paisley, where the
measure was strongly denounced, the Rev. Patrick
Brewster said.
"That there was a very great necessity for the introduc-
tion of legislative enactment on the subject of these bills,
affecting as they did the lives and property of the people.
In drawing up such bills, we need not now expect that as
much respect will be paid to vested rights as heretofore ;
and, while he highly respected pariah schoolmasters as a
clam, he thought they had not, in very many cases.
time to discharge the duties of registrars under the new
act, and he was not therefore prepared to condemn the
bill as unjust in principle. The marriage bill provides
that manage may be solemnised by parish ministers, by
dissenting ministers of all denominations, according to
the forms attended to by the Society of Friends, and per-
sons of the Jewish religion, and also by the parish registrar.
Persons, therefore, who wish to solemnise marriage in a re-
ligious manner, have the fullest opportunity by the bill to
do so, while on the other hand it was perfectly proper that
individuals who did not recognize the truth of Christianity
should have the opportunity of attending to a legal form of
contracting marriage. He did net see that the bill led to
the conclusion that there was nothing sacred in marriage.
It leaves every person at liberty to contract marriage in the
form they think best, and be thought the provisions of the
bill would lead very many to prefer being married by a mi-
nister. He sympathised with the promoters of these bills,
as they had to legislate for a whole community, and to dis-
pose of questions in which vested rights were involved.
Mr. Brewster's remarks bad no effect—the presby-
tery petitioned against both measures ; and, as every
presbytery of the Established Church will do the
same, and as steps are further being taken to induce
every parochial kirk-session to follow the example,
the machinery, if properly worked, may produce, in
round numbers, a thousand petitions. The different
town councils and other burghs' bodies will pro-
bably give the bills their support ; they seem sunk
in apathy; but poasibly the unusual spectacle of
schoolmaster agitation will arouse them. Should there
be any difficulty with the measures in the House of
Lords, a return of the various offices held by parish
schoolmasters would settle the question so far as they
are concerned. One of these functionaries, who lives
not far from Edinburgh, is elder, precentor, session-
I clerk, poor-law inspector, clerk to tie road trustees,
and collector of mad assessment. Perhaps, after all,
the poor man's aggregato income, including fees, free
house, and garden, is not large, but let him serve the
state by educating the children of the pariah ; and,
doing that well, he must, under the new regime, aug-
ment his temporalities.
The town council of Paisley has petitioned for a
national system of poor-law assessment, and the fol-
lowing are the statistics brought forward in support
of the claim for alteration :—ln 1826, their assess-
ment was 1,6011.; in 1846, 3,233/. In 1845-6, there
were 7,622 shops and warehouses; but of these there
were 5,623 at and below 51. of rental, leaving about
5,000 housholders untaxed. It was calculated that if
a rental rate were levied over the whole country, it
would amount to Is. per pound ; and if restricted to
Scotland, 31. Allusion was also made to the posi-
tion of country proprietors who derived benefit from
the vicinage of their property to towns, and yet were
under no obligation to give corresponding support to
the poor in such localities.
The shipping trade is exceedingly brisk in Glas-
gow.* About forty vowels are taking in goods and
passengers fur fefefgr. Nato, and the fsrri rats are un-
precedently numerous.
The increase in the price of whisky has led to—or,
more correctly, has aggravated—its adulteration. In
Glasgow the Excise has seized between 3,000 and
4,000 gallons as being below standard ; but more
deleterious mixtures than mere dilution are suspected.
A girl named Elizabeth Yates has been sentenced to
thigh, by the High Court of Justiciary, for the murder
of her illegitimate child, a male infant of some
eleven months of age. The jury unanimously recom-
mended her to mercy. Although pleading "Not
Guilty" at her trial, the prisoner made a contrary
declaration on being first apprehended.
' From that document it appeared that she was 24 years of
age, • native of IA ith, and unmarried. On the 12th of
March, 1846, s.e was delivered of • male child, whose father
was a man of the name of Maeintyre, who only allowed her
the sum of ls. lid. per week for three weeks. He denied that
he was the father of the child, which she supported by the
produce of her own labour; but, in consequence of the wnrk
getting slack at the pottery where she was employed, she was
turned off. Oa Friday, January 28, she proceeded to Black-
burn, for the purpose of inducing Macintyre to support the
child, where she arrived next day, but he refused to give her
anything, and denied that the child was him, telling her never
to came back to him again. She left Blackburn on Tuesday,
and proceeded towards Edinburgh. She arrived at Her-
miston about the gloaming,
:where she went down to the
side of the canal, and, stripping the child of its clothes, put
him into the canal, and held him under the water till the
breath was out. He did not struggle long, so he was too
weak. She then lifted him out to sec if he was dead, and
then put him in again, taking the clothes away, and throw-
ing them into a plantation. The declaration then pro-
ceeded to Fay that the devil was busy with her at the time,
and from Macintyre denying her, and refusing to give any-
thing in support of the child, she thought it was well to put
lit out of the world,

COMMISSION SIONID BY THE LORD LIEUTENANT OF
LANARK. —W. Jolly, Gent., to be lituteaaut of Royal
Laaorkahire Militia.

Mouta.—Wick, Caithaem, has this week been thrown
into a state of great excitement, by the commission
of one of these diabolical crimes which ate fortu-
nately of extremely rare occurrence in this comity, and,
indeed, in the north of Scotland. Isabella Gunn, an old
woman, apparently about 60 years of an, living in Achow
of Swiney, in the parish of Lutheran, has been made the
victim of a mostlatrettous, yet evidently deliberate, murder.
Her residence is at the end of the free school of Anew,
situated about 200 yards from any other dwelling. On the
mornings of Sabbath, a school is taught, and it is customary
on that, as on other mornings, for some of the children togs to
her room for fuel to kindle the school fire. Accordingly, en the
morning of Sabbath lest, one of the scholars went fur that
purpose, and was surprised to find no reply given to the
customary salutation. Another of his schoolmates speedily
followed, and discovered the body of the unfortunate =a
I tare lying under • quantity of straw. whin had been mind
over her. She was dead! The alarm war immediately
raised, and forthwith a number of the neighbours assembled
They found that the crime of murder bad been that morr-
lag committed upon the lonely woman, and judged that it
could not have been of very late occurrence, as the bogy
was yet warm. The foul deed had evidently been com-
mitted by means of strangling, as • piece of rope was
found round the neck of the deceased. There were marks
of violence on other parts of the face, one in particular
on the chin, where, to all appearance, au iron instau-
ment hat been applied. On one of the hands there was
also a blue mark. Several small sums of money, amounting
in all to upwards of two pounds, were found on different
parts of the deceased's person, and lying between the body
and the chest. A considerable time aeo, a forcible attempt
was made to break into the house of the unfortunate woman,
who has of late been living very retired, !main refused to
domicile with any other individual. Is the district, she was
reputed to have been worth a little money; but, as she was
of very penurious habits, and, to all outward appearance, in
pinny, abe was admitted lately upon the poor's roll. It is
said that, since the attempt was made to rob her, she gene-
rally slept throughout the day, and sat up during the night.
A young man has been apprehended and lodged In gaol,
under suspicion of being connected with the murder.—John
o'Groat Journal.