The Express.
London, England, 1849-05-30 00:00:00

WEDNESDAY EVE WING. MAY 30. 1849.

wondered at if a redaction to conciliate parliament
should be found, as Mr. COBDEN described it, to be
ten pc r cent. of soldiers aid two per cent. of
officers ? '
The Times professes an anxiety, most neural and
intelligib:e, to have this subject of military expendi-
tors and organisation discussed exclusively in parlia-
ment, and as little as possible in the country. The
two great classes of officers are, in fact, more
or less of parliamentary c3nut 'ion. A reformer
cannot make a remark without seeing a military belt
or a sword-knot pceping nut in rejoinder. Mi-
litary expenditure is 'Ake the ballot or triennial
Parliaments, a question ta
int which thre,-fourths ef par-
liament are personally ereeted, and interested
against economy and against what should be the po-
pular aim. Men may roar their lungs
.out in the
House of Commonsbefine they make any impression;
the " services are there in power ;" and it is only by
enlightening the country, by informing the non-nti'l-
tory aid tax-paying climes, that any thing like reduc-
Ilea se readjustment can be arrived at.
Financial reformers, therefore, cannot follow the
advice of their antagonists, by confining their efforts
la a conversation got up at the fag end of a session,
at moments when not three score members are °Dogre-
-1 Owl there. These may be very canvenient ministerial
Imamate for passing estimates, or large instalments
of estimates; but were discussion limited to such mo-
gnats, such company, tb e country would learn little and
profit less. If, indeed, there be one subject in which
the country at large isalled to busy and inform itself,
it is this question of expenditure, and, above all, of
those great items of military expenditure which
can swell by a million a yea-, during ten consecutive
years of profound peace, parliament blindly en-
couraging such financial suicide, whilst the countl,
remained in utter apathy and ignorance of the leak
which the vessel bad sprung, and which was fart
sinking it.

ToomEvAitA was seven &ye ago a populous and
busy village in the mart of Tipperary. It contained
some thriving trader., and a considerable number of
artisans lab were, and holders of small farms in the
neighbourhood—as a community, not much removed
from the ordinary condition of those around them,
but fir from being identified with the destitute
dwellers in the hapless regions which famine and dis-
ease have marked out for their own. A few comfort-
able houses might be teen in each little street, the rest
of the habitations being of the prevailing sort in ell
the smaller towns of Muoster—cabies built in part of
stone and in part of clay, and rooted with thatch.
In this humble and remote village there dwelt a
week ago several hundred fsmiliee. Their number
had been recently augmented by the extirpations
which had taken place from properties adjacent of
the poorer class of tenantry. Many had emigrated,
many had sought refuge in the workhouse, many bad
perished,but some had sought and fund shelter in
the lowly, but not inhospitable, cabins of Tocmevara,
where they awaited opportunities of shifting to other
quarters abroad, if not at home. As in all communi-
ties of the size and sort, there were doubtless
acme lees tractable end docile tempers than the
rest. Some there may probably have been less ready
with punctual rack rent than landlord economy
might desire. We have seen it stated that two
individuals were guilty of eLtering. legal defences to
actions of ejectment brought against them, on two
several occasions; and it has even been insinuated as
a proof of the savage spirit of the people of the place
in general, that one of them was known to keep—a
bell-dog !
But admitting fully all that may be reasonably in-
ferred as to the forensic and ferocious character of
certain persons from their indulgeree in such un-
heard of practices as are thus indic_ted, we think it
will probably be confessed by all who read the
narrative we published yesterday of the circum-
stances that took place in the ill-fated vi:lage alluded
to, that the bulk of its inhabitants were neither a
very lawless, very resentful, or even a very impatient
lor easily exasperated people. We venture to affirm
that in no other country of Chris.endom could such a
series of transactions have occurred at intervals during
the same day on the ume spot, without a desperate and
sanguinary struggle,—unless indeed the executors of
the stern process of law had been backed by an over-
whelming force, which here does not seem to have been
the case.
Between dawn and dusk, on Thursday last, one
hundred and thirty herniae., consisting of five
hundred and sixty-seven individuals, were forcibly
driven out of their dwellings in the village we have
named; ard, lest they should regain a temporary
shelter in them, they were in one or two instance'
made fast against intrusion, while all the rest were
on the same day levelled to the ground!
Not a blow was struck, not a life of the authorised
destroyers was put in jeopardy. The streets of the
weeping village were piled with the broken turniture
and scattered bedding. of the outcasts. Childhood's
cry and the wail of age, the moan of sickness and the
stifled sob of manly strength, minrled as they rose
accusingly to heaven from that revolting scene. Ore
sturdy and half-frenzied man, who was not in any
way a defaulter, was seen to kneel amidst his weeping
family, as if to call down imprecations upon the =ju-
dos and cruelty of which they had been made the
=offending victims; but his wife's hand covered hie
lips, and her prayer was that the authors of their
matey might be forgiven. In the ditches along the
roads& in the outskirts of the town, num-
bers might be seen hastily putting up such
temporary huts as the ruins of their former
habitations supplied them with the means of
constructing ; and in these kennels—for to give them
any better name were mere affectation—scores of
families, we understand, now lie. A few bailiffs,
smiled by a small party of police, executed, under
the orders of the sheriff, these memorable deeds.
Yet hardly a symptom of violence was betrayed, and
the constabulary were only called on to interfere on one
oxaaion, when a new occupant was supposed to have
emne to take possession of one of the evacuated houses.
But the reproaches of the exterminated were soon
silenced, the bustle of destruction gradually subsided ;
and their work being done, the ministers of justice
departed, leaving nearly half the ground on which
Toomevara had that morning stood a heap of dust and
ashes..
Well might Sir ROBERT PEEL, when lately treat-
izzieflike scenes in another part of Ireland, ask
rin Algeria or in ficinde, after the march cf
simpering armies, anything worse could by possi-
bility be found ? Bat the scenes of Balling to which
Sir Rosner PEEL adverted had not the feature which
chiefly characterizes the evictions of Toomevara.
The five hundred and sixty-seven persons evicted on
Thursday last were all either the tenants or sub-
tenants of one man, and he was a clergyman of the
established church ! What comment should we add?
What comment can add anything to the naked narra-
tive of these fearful facts? What an epitome of
national misery and misrule is here !
Talk of tranquillity, talk of security for property,
talk of safety from revengeful crime ! Why, what ex-
pectation is it rational to form that any of these indis-
pensable conditions of progress or prosperity will ever
be lasting when such accumulated hardship and undis-
criminating cruelty as this may be perpetrated under
the sanction of law, without anyotherremedyor redress
than such as sounds like mockery in its very name ?
Until some means be Lund to staunch such frightful
wounds as any reckless individual of the all-favoured
class in Ireland may at his individual caprice inflict,
parliaments and statesmen may promise peace, but
there will assuredly be in Ireland no peace.

Wa suspect that the owners and occupiers of land
in England will only become aware of the fell im-
portance of self-rehance after a somewhat sharp
period of probation. At present they do not exhibit
much comprehension of their position or knowledge
of their means of improving it. The crops of lest yesr
having been greatly deficient in the southern half of
the country, and free importation of corn hasprevented
famine prices. That much and severe distress has
been the eons-pence smongfarmers, evecially where
too little capital is employed, cannot be questioned.
But does any rational man suppose that to restrict
the importation of grain could remedy that dis-
tress P Or it it could, can any one in his sober
senses believe that the community would lister to a pro-
posal foe re-establishing the food•monopoly? Yet we
fled that "clubs" are formed in some of the western
counties for effecting such public objects as "the im-
position of a fixed duty on foreign corn and cattle."
But mixed with such unattainable objects are others,
of a more real and practical character. Such is the
case in Hampshire, where a society called " the
Hampshire Agricultural, Industrial, and Electoral
Protection Society," bas been formed. Several ef the
defined objects of this society strongly mark the die.