The Express.
London, England, 1847-04-28 00:00:00

[WEDNESDAI

IRELAND.

DUBLIN, Aram 26.
I regret to inform you that his Excellency the Earl
of Besborough is dangerously ill. The disease is
dropsy on the chest, which, it is reported, has assumed
a very alarming character. To inquiries at the castle
to-day the answer was not very favourable.
Fever is rapidly spreading among the higher
classes. The deaths previously announced indicate
the diffusion of disease among the higher cloves;
and, in proportion to their zealous humanity and sense
of duty, are the chanoes of infection and of death. It
is stated that no lees than thirty gentlemen are lying
ill of fever in the counties of Roscommon and Galway.
The Mer, ury of yesterday announces the death of
one of the representatives for the latter county,ec=
T. B. Martin of Ballinahinch Castle. His
had been stated and contradicted last week, but it is
to be feared the last accounts are true. Sir John
Burke, of Marble-hill, will be a candidate, and will
probably be returned without opposition.
Death has also made a second vacancy in the Roman
Catholic episcopacy of Ireland, The Rev. Dr. Coen
died yesterday at his residence, Loughrea. He had
attained the patriarchal age of 90 years. His death
was caused by dysentery.
Bad though oar present proipecte be, we see

Y EVENING, APRIL 28, 1847.

glimpses of retrieval in the future. Much of the
old inactivity has yielded to energy and self-
reliance. As the tilling season draws to a close, the
greatest efforts are being made to compensate for put
neglect. The fine weather has reacted on the popular
despondency, and brought the listless and hopeless '
into the fields. In the south especially the past week
has been one of real agricultural movement. Lime-
rick, one of the richest counties in Ireland, is reported
to be full-sown--wheat beyond an average—oats and
barley a fair average, and potatoes in reasonable
abundance. " Crowds of people," says the Limerick,
Chrnn ;rt. e, " are now seen from morn to night in the
fieli..s." In all of Cork, with the exception of the
unhappy strip of coast where labour is leas active,
and in Tipperary, Clare, and Kerry, the accounts are
equally cheering. Should the two ensuing months
prove favourable, a large supply of early-planted
potatoes will be available for general consumption in
July.
Discontent, however, reigns in other parts of the
country. Between the 17th and the 22nd inst., five
special sessions were held in the county of Longford,
for five several baronies, and presentments for labour-
rate works passed to the amount of 31,3141. On
Tuesday last, a number of the reduced labourers in
that county, as infirm or incapable of full labour,
waited upon a deputy-lieutenant of the county, Mr.
bopping, and told him plainly, that unless they got
employ meat or food, they were determined to commit
plunder upon all sorts of property, as it was prefer-
able in their mixds to be shot then die of hunger.
Nothing of this deliberate nature seems to have oc-
curred in any other county, and perhaps it is this cir-
cumstance which has suggested to the gentry of
Longford to call on the high sheriff to convene his
bailiwick, "to remonstrate with the government on the
impolicy and danger of immediately withdrawing all
assistance by public works when other and sufficb nt
relief is not in operation for the support of the poor."
These philanthropic gentlemen forget or overlook the
fact that they might, if disposed, provide other and
sufficient relief, by bringing the temporary Relief Act
into operation. And their neglect to do ea, in the
face of such a social state, would appear to justify an
opinion very generally entertained in this country,
that government should have reserved to itself plenary
powers of giving effect to the act without the inter-
vention of the gentry.
A far more formidable demonstration than that at
Longford took place on Friday in the county of
Waterford. A body of about 2,000 men, farming
and mining labourers, proceeded to the house of the
protestant rector of Annestown. They complained of
destitution; he gave them a supply of bread, and they
departed. Rumour swelled the fact to a meditated
attack on the city, when the military were put under
arms, and the police threw out videttes to signal in-
vaaion when it approached. But none came.
Wexford Harbour is at length about to be sub-
jected to improvement. The celebrated contractor,
Mr. Deegan, has gone down to see what might be
done with the obnoxious bar in the present favourable
weather, and according to the Wexford Independent,
promises to commence the works on a large scale
before the summer solstice.

The greatest number of appearances ever known to
have been entered in the superior courts have been
entered this term. The Queen's Bench has the
largest number of declarations.

O'ComneaL.—lt was rumoured yesterday in Dublin,
and the rumour was believed in quarters likely to be well
informed, that Mr. O'Connell would return homewards from
Lyons, instead of proceeding onwards to Rome. The hon.
and learned gentleman's health does not, it is said, render it
prudent for him to advanoe further on his journey. On the
other band our Paris correspondent writes that," on the 22nd
inst., Mr. O'Connell, accompanied by his son, a physician,
and his servants, embarked at Lyons for Valence, en board
one of the steamers. Mr. O'Connell Is to remain in the
month of France until be is auSciently strong to proceed on
his journey tit' Rome."
STATE OT‘Till CoineTßY.—On Monday last, a country
man having come into Athenry to take his place on the
public works, and Ending that be was one of those excluded
under the recent order, he proceeded to the house in which
the relief committee were trembled, and broke the windows.
He was immediately taken before • magistrate, and com-
mitted. Very great destitution is represented to exist in
this district ; disease is also making sad havoc amongst the
people.—A presentment sessions was held in Ger on Mon-
day last, when Lord Gort took occasion to lecture the pea-
santry upon the recent wholesale plunder of Mr. LAWs
property. from whom 174 sheep were taken. " If such," rid
his lordship," is the fateof gentlemen who are straining every
nerve for your relief, they will become disgusted, leave you
to your fate, and you will be eventually starved." The new
relief ant has been put in operation in the Gott union,
and • rare struck amounting to 13,0001., equal to Is.
in the pound en the valuation. The temporary relief act has
been put in operation in the town of Galway also; 35 paupers
died in the workhouse there doting the met week. Sheep
and cattle are stolen every night throughout the county of
Clare, and in many districts of Limerick. The gentlemen of
the latter county hare subscribed largely to a reward fund,
for information us to the parties who attacked Mr. Wall-
plate recently, near Csstleoonnell.
M Unirtit3.•--The papers to-day contain accounts of two
murders of a character nearly similar, though perpetrated in
localities far apart from each other, the one in Meath, the
other in county Cork. In the county of Meath, • men
named Molloy was murdered by his own brother sided by
one or two others. The cause instigating to the crime was
that the murdered man, the elder of the two promised the
younger a portion of • farm of land be occupied, upon the
marnage of the latter. But when that event took place he
refused to perform his promise. Hence the younger man
became ringed, slew kis brother with a hatchet, and, in
conjunction with an accomplice, carried the body in a seek a
distance of fourteen miles, and flung it into the canal,where
it was discovered afiereerral days. The murderer and two
persons charged as accomplices have been arrested. In the
other case, in Cork, the victim was a man named Sheehan,
and the murderers, his brother and his sister-in-law. The
cause of the murder was that the victim had issued execution
against his brother on foot of certain promissory notes of
his fur a sum of 501.

SCOTLAND.
EDINBURGH, Aran. 25.
In the matter of the Marriage and Registration
Bills, " the Campbells are coming" forward briskly,
four of the members of that ancient clan having an-
nounced by advertisement that, " believing these
bills to be very objectionable in principle and detail,
they will bring them ander the oonsideration of the
commissioners of supply of the county of Argyll, at
the ensuing general meeting, on 30th inst."
A meeting has been held of the Glasgow Assccia' -
tion for Procuring the Simplification, Abridgment,
and Economisation of the Titles of Heritable Pro-
perty and Mortgages in Scotland, when, as might
have been inferred from the recent deputation
to the Lord Advocate, the association ap-
proved of the five new bills introduced by his
lordship in reference to these matters. The
association farther resolved that their favourable de-
cision should be made public, and that they should
earnestly recommend to the various public bodies
throughout the country, the expediency of giving the
bills their prompt and energetic support, by petition
and otherwise. _ .

For some years past, Scottish proprietors, cope-
daily those in the neighbourhood of large towns,
have been shutting up roadways and footpaths, which
use and wont at least had made patent for centuries,
and to such an extent did this proceed, that a board
for the resistance of such encroachments was formed
in Edinburgh, the present lord-provost being at its
head ; and since its establishment complaints have
very much ceased to be made. Unfortunately, how-
ever, they have now revived, as we observe that a
public meeting has taken place in Renfrew, for the
ofpreventing Mrs. Campbell, of Blythawood,
purpose
Tinthng up a footpath leading from the town of
Renfrew to the junction of the rivers Clyde and Cart.
Several members of council attended, arrangements
were made for raising subscriptions, and it is antici-
pated that a similar meeting will be summoned in
Paisley.
Leith still continues crowded with shipping,. an
unusually large number of foreign vessels giving
variety to the scene. Grain, too, continues to be
I largely ex , 2,000 quarters being named as the
quantity in four days, while within the
same period about half the quantity came in coast-
' wise. A number of Ayrshire cattle have also been
shipped for Sweden—and while talking of the marine
commerce of the east, two matters call for notice on
ihe opposite coast. The first is the commencement of
the herring fishery in the west, which the Ckatgate
Citizen has often and earnestly declared is there com-
menced, and particularly at Bs/huitrae, at seasons
destructively premature. The subject is worthy of
the attention of comparative physiologists, as the
extinction of this national branch of industry, which
the adzes predicts is no trifling matter. The second
is the disoove7 of oysters at Loch Goil--hur in size
and excellent in quality (the Citizen being judge), a
circumstance which will materially add to the indus-
trial resources of the Strsnraer fishermen, and will
oheapen natives in the Glasgow restaurants.

RIIPRIMINTATION OP BIZWICIIIRIII.—WO understand
that the report which bas been for some time current, to the
an* that it is t►e Intention of Sir Hugh Campbell to retire

from the representation of the county of Berwick, on the
occasion of the approaching general election, is well founded.
Our readers generally will concur with us in sincerely re-
' Fretting this determination on the part of the hon. baronet.
At the same time we are glad to be able to anosoce that
the vat of the elect.srs will be solicited on precisely
similar principles by the Hon. Franc:, Scott. at present
M.P. foe the comty of Itnxburgh. Mr. Sett to well
ksown throughout this distri.tt of Smtland as • man of
independent character and great talents for business. He
is also a member of a family which has been inti-
mately and honourably connected with Berwickshire for
many generations. It is accordingly most gratifying to
know that he will come forward aasured of the cor-
dial support of almost eery landed proprietor in t`te
county, and that the MT, of hi. Persia.. a. Mete par iamen-
tary representative will be highly acceptable to a Test main-
rittof every class of the constituency. We think it very
sntikelthat any serious opposition wall be offered to his re-
turn. The report which ha. been industriously circulated
that Lord John Hay will be brought forward as the nominee
of the government, is, we believe, wholly without founda-
tion. We are not yet able to announce who in likely to he
Mr. Scott's successor in the representation of Rosborghshire.
—Berwick Warder.