The Express.
London, England, 1847-09-16 00:00:00

IRELAND.

DUBLIN, SEPT. 14.
The testimony from all quarters is concurrent as to
the destitute and diseased condition of the people—
that is to say, that portion of them which in former
years subsisted upon the produce of casual labour and
con-acre potato tillage. They are suffering extreme
destitution at this moment, and their position must
deteriorate to worse. In truth, it is this year the
real pressure will fall upon them. In 1816 the
labour-rate afforded them employment; in 1846-7,
the Temporary Relief Act came between them and
annihilation. The government has very properly and
wisely withdrawn itself from the position which for
two years it has been obliged to occupy, and
has left the labouring population to the re-
sources of independent labour and the amended
poor law. In two provinces out of the four
there may almost be said to be no independent la-
bour. Neither the gentry nor the farmers are able
to afford it. And the poor law is neither calculated
to supply nor worked to supply the deficiency. The
poor have, and the disposition is one of great encou-
ragement, an abhorrence to enter the workhouse, and
the guardians have a manifeA interest to augfnent
that abhorrence. Besides the guardians and the
gentry do not combat the persuasion of the poor, that
government will undertake to provide labour for
them as soon as it shall be seen that the usual re-
sources are inadequate for that purpose. And
thus it is that the prospects of the country
are full of gloom—and the position of the
poor full of misery present and prospective, from
which they can be relieved by the combined ex-
ertions of the landlords and occupiers of land alone.
If the landlords set the example, I believe the other
class will discharge its duty.

Fever and dysentery prevail to a very great extent
amongst that class of the population which might be
supposed most protected from attacks of that nature
as well as amongst the poor. I hare Leard of several ,1
deaths among the class of gentry in Dublin of a severe
species of dysentery—a mitigated cholera. Females in
that rank are especially open to attack. I believe it pre-1
rails amongst the poor in a still greater ratio, though
I rejoice to find, from the reports of the sanitary
state of both unions, that fever, the other scourge of
the poor, is not increasing. In the North union the
hospital accommodation "is ahead " of the require-
ments of the union, and although the full complement
remains in hospital, it is because the applications for
admission have become so limited, that the conva-
lescent are allowed to remain in the house, as there is
is no convalescent hospital; a want, by the way, to
which the rector of St. Nlichan's, one of our
poorest districts, properly calls the attention
of the sanitary committee, the eases of relapse
being, he says, fatal beyond the others. The number
of fever patients in hospital in both the Dublin unions
is I,2o—viz., 610, north side; 599 at the south. In
the country, fever is quite as indiscriminate in its
attacks as in the metropolis. I have seen a letter to-
day from the west of Ireland, which describes fever as
being very prevalent in Castlebar and Westport.
Tralee, I find by the accounts to-day, is visited most
severely by disease.
The people of Maryborough have adopted a strong
resolution, stigmatising in terms of great indignation
the apathy manifested in rendering out-door relief to
the destitute in that union, where, from the condition
of the workhouse, the law contemplates the affording it.
Sir John Burke, Bart., whose sudden illness I
mentioned in my despatch yesterday, died this morn-
ing, at seven o'clock a.m. Sir John was formerly in
the army.

It is now the middle of September, and though the
bay of Galway is crowded with herrings not a Clad-
dagh man will launch a boat. Galway is supplied
with abundance of herrings from Costello and Great
Man's bays, but not one comes from its own bay
which flows up to the town, the Claddagh men not
enduring anybody to take fish "in their own bay."
The people of Galway seem indignant at this apathy,
which they characterise as infatuation, and very
loudly intimate that they will be very heedless to all
the appeals of the Claddagh men for assistance in the
severity of winter—appeals now almost annual.

ANTI-LANDLORD MOTEMENT.—The following signifiamt
and startling p►per is being patsed front band to band
among the tenant-farmers and peasantry of Tipperary

- - -
A public meeting (convened be requbition, nonthrofuly signedl of
the trnint-farmery. Lthourtra, and people at large of the county Tip-
perary, sift be hoiden at Holy Croe., on Sunday, the 19th of Septem-
ber, 1817, fur the purpore of evitablishing a league of tenant-fanners,
and of taking such other measures as may be thought limitary and
effective to protect themselces from the general ejectment intended by
the landlord.; to provide and secure themeehres and their families
against the danger of another famine, and to obtain a fixed and firm
right of property and poesession In their farms on buck pica-
lions as will enable them to live In independence and cainfort. Last
year there was an eximmith failure of the potato crop, the umal and
pole source of subebtenct to the farmer. A universal dearth and
desolating general famine followed the failure. This Year, from want
of seed, want of meana, and general fear of another failure, the potato
hns not been planted to any extent The stock and means of the
farmers have been greatly reduced, and In many canon taken away
altogether, by the demands and defirlency of last year ; and they are,
in consequence, utterly unable to pay this year the ordinary
nub and extra mdinary taxes. In the face of this fact, the
landlonis are determined to require and enforce full ply-
meat of the usual rent.; and if those rents be not paid,
to take the land into their own hard.,, or lit it in large tracts.
In public and private In parliament, through the mews, and at public
meting', they have declared that the tillage farmers of Ireland must
be completely cleared oat and got rid of. tinder those eirenmstaimes,
the tenant-farmers must now determine how to act, and what coarse
to follow. One and all, let them come to the Holy Cross on the 19th
of September, and then and there determine and declare, be OMENS
agreement, In full meeting asessnbled, what that course is to be, Ed
in what manner they are resolved to act. The question between
landlord and tenant mast now at last be fully and finally settled ; It
shall be waled. It shall be settled at Holy Chen, on Sunday, toe 19th
September. The tenant-farmers and people of Tipperary bare now,
If they choose te use them, the power and opportunity In their own
bands of iguana that question for ever. The labourers also, as well
as the farmers, an requested and bound to attend; they have • direct
=I interest in the matter as etrong and clear as that of the •
—the rate of wages and extent of employment, their future
condition, their subsistence, Independence, and eery lithe, are all at
stake, and all to be determined on as well as those of the farmers ; for
U the farmers obtain eeearitv in their holdings at reduce,' an.l her
rent., which will enable them to make Improvement.% the employ-
ment of labour will Increase, and rates of wages wit rise; but
If the fanners lose their lands the labourers *ill tree their Uri%
at sink into wretched paupers depending on the workhouse.
The interest and proitheete of the townsmen sod truant
elapses are Intimately bound up with those of the O.
piers of land, the extent of businece—the certainty of employ-
ment, the amount of profits, whether of trade or profecional prac-
tice, are all hued on the amount of dividable means in the hands of
the tenant-farmers. And, finally, the future state and condition of
jrgian 1, her independence, and very exigence, ate staked on the pro-
'creation, recurity, and preepeelly el theme who occupy and cultivate
her roil a. farmers and labourite. All her help and hope b in them—
they constitute her piopie—bae lay people: for the town population
of Ireland is tits it the lisdlortix, with few exceptions, I
are alienk 6111•111111, ftabowLimoo. bt qina furtherance, therctore, o

SCOTLAND.
EDINBURGH, SEPT. 14.
Notwithstanding many and repeated symptoms of
mitigation, fever still continues its ravages in Edin-
burgh and Glasgow. The recurrence of other matters
for a time has withdrawn attention from it, but the
state of the hospitals proclaims its presence with un-
equivocal voice. With cheap provisions, work plen-
tiful, clear sky and bracing wind, we have fever
amongst us just about as much as when the loaf was
high and the streets were broiling. It is true, water
is wanting, and its absence is calculated to propagate
disease ; but otherwise we have nothing save the
ordinary provocatives of fever, and therefore to these
must we mainly look as the feeders of pestilence.
The sanitary question has begun to be agitated, and
no consideration should be allowed to inter-
fere with its thorough investigation and com-
plete settlement. No amount of attention to the
present victims of fever within the infirmary should
be allowed to interfere with comprehensive precau-
tions for the future; but yet it is here, and here alone,
that delusion centres. Instead of regarding fever as
a thing that under existing circumstances will infalli-
bly be a regular visitant, people vainly imagine that
it is a temporary infliction, and that danger departs
with the epidemic of the season, and it will be no-
thing short of the trumpet-tongued mortality of a
fever, which, like the present, threatens to settle down
into a permanent incubus, that will rouse the com-
munity to a proper sense of duty. But with sanitary
let there be infirmary reform. By an infirmary is
meant a large establishment where disease can be
extensively and skilfully treated; vet Edinburgh,
with a large population, has only one hospital
for its own poor, and for those of whole
districts adjacent. On the north it shares
Fife with the Dundee Infirmary ; on the west it
divides West Lothian with the Glasgow ; on the
south it has no aid except Dumfries, and on the east,
as Berwick can hardly be said to have extensive ac-
commodation, it divides border patients with New-
castle. Now, why should this be? If the Edin-
burgh infirmary be crowded; why not open a new
hospital in another quarter of the town, say for a
county hospital? For just now, although country
parishes subscribe to the infirmary they are inter-
dicted from sending patients. Why fill up the
grounds of the present hospital with tents in summer
and brick sheds in winter ? Or why run to every
vacant lecture room in the neighbourhood for conva-
lescent apartments? The old mistake that this is
temporary disease has had time to be corrected ; and
certainly the common sense that is applicable to all
extensions should be applicable to infirmary- architec-
ture, viz., that when an oldhouse in a bad site is filled,
a new house in a good site should be erected. The
mere fact that this would break down some medical
school patronage is a small matter.
As a corollary to the whole, the fever bill of Glas-
gow was last week 759, being an increase of 72. The
Edinburgh was 546, the daily average of new appli-
cants having for some time been 30. The average
number of inmates had wont to be 277, now it is 740;
the latter, of course, including convalescent patients.
The Duke of Sutherland has promised to give to
his fishermen two prizes, consisting of a boat, oars,
sails, and fishing-lines, for the greatest quantity of
cod, ling, &r., caught and cured within the period
from September current to July, 1948.
A few days ago a meeting was held here of the
Committee of Baronets for Nova Scotia Rights, Lord
Carnwath in the chair. The object sought to be
obtained is the revival of the rights of such baron's
as had grants of 16,000 acres with their titles, by
means of the legal process called " a petition of
right ;" and also grants oat of the 12,271,031 acres
still vacant, and at the disposal of the crown, in that
province, fur such baronets created from 1637 to the
union as, in consequence of the civil wars and the
destructions foils% ing thereupon, failed to obtain the
stipulated territorial qualification of 16,000 acres
each with their titles. The report read by the
secretary, Sir Richard Brouii, was to the effect that
the opinion of counsel, and the general feeling both
in Britain and America, was in favour of the restora-
tion of their privileges, not merely as a matter of
right to the baronetage, but as calculated to be of
great service to imperial and colonial interests.
Allowance must. however, be made for the imagina-
tive turn (of mind) of the soi-disant barcnet.