Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1859-06-03 00:00:00

THE NORTHERN TIMES, FRIDAY, JUNE 3, 1859

it is also too late. M. KOSSUTH'S plausible admonitions
in favour of England's neutrality are obviously given
only under an apprehension,---which is without any
foundation at present,—that should she interfere, it
will be in support of Austria. But when he says to
an excited multitude,—",Let the people of England
watch with care and solicitude the progress of events,
and should it so happen—as he trusted most sincerely
it would—that the friends of oppressed nationalities
would take advantage of the present opportunity to
throw off the trammels of despotism, let it not be
recorded that Great Britain denied to give them her
sympathy." And although he does less vehemently
add that no further than that should Britain inter-
fere, one cannot but entertain a strong misgiving,
lest such sympathy should, not remain a passive, but
became an active principle, and thereby embroil this
country with one or other of the present belli-
gerents.

Were there nothing more than what we have here
already :stated, it would be a case which evidently
required England to be cautious and circumspect in
her conduct. If foreign agitators like M. KOSSUTH
are allowed to have the run of the country, uninter-
rupted and uncontrolled,—if they are to be permitted
to go about advocating the cause of revolution, and
promoting the interests of one side of the war, whilst
the country is professedly neutral—that is, neither
on one side nor the other,—it will only be by a miracle
that our avowed neutrality can ever be preserved.
This would be so, we repeat, under any circumstances.
It stands with reason, that if a spirit is aroused
among the people, hostile to one party in the war,
and favourable to the other; and that if the feelings
of the people are enlisted on the side of " the friends

of oppressed nationalities," so to encourage them

to " take advantage of the present opportunity to
throw off the trammels of despotism,"—such
" despotism " being the rule and governance of one
of the Powers engaged in that war, and with whom
the country is not only at peace, but in close
amicable relations,--that our neutrality
nation will not be of very long continuance.
This, we say, would be the natural operation
of cause and effect under any circumstances.
But how much greater must be the force of its influ-
and, indeed, how much more reason is there
to suspect its 'objects,—when the principal agitator
himself has a deep personal interest in the issue.
And this, it is now evident, is M. KOSSUTH'S case.
Among the items of latest news from Austrian-
Lombardy, is one which shows that Hungary, as
well as Italy, is to be the arena of a revolutionary
war. AProclamation, printed in German, Italian,
and French, addressed to the Hungarians serving in
the army of Austria, has, we learn, been put in
circulation among them, in which occurs the follow-
ing passage,—" The great Franco-Sardinian army,
after having freed Italy from the Austrian yoke, will
enter into Hungary in order that your country may
become free as quickly as possible. The French
and Piedmontese are consequently your allies and
your brothers. Do not fight against them, for it
would be almost a suicide. Pass over to ours side ;
we will meet you with the Hungarian tricoloured
flag. If you cannot come to us unite with the
Italian troops in the service of Austria as soon as
they shall revolt." Now this certainly throws a
vivid light upon M. KOSSUTH'S present proceedings.
It is obviously intended to produce a revolt in
Hungary. The Hungarian exile's words are to be
immediately verified. " The friends of the oppressed
nationalities,"—that is,, M. Kossuni and his parti-
zans,—are going to " take advantage of the present
opportunity to throw off the trammels of despotism."
Nor have we any objection in the world to this being
done. Only we have nothing to do with it. It is
their own affair—not ours. If England is to remain
neutral, she cannot possibly have anything to do
ith it. But see how great is her danger of being
entangled in these hostilities, if such a course of
agitation in support of Italian and Hungarian
revolution is to have its perfect work among the
English people. Liberty of speech is, doubtless, a
very fine thing. And it would ill accord with
England's freedom, some people would be ready to
say, to put any check on such a liberty—even in the
case of a foreign agitator. But it is a liberty,
nevertheless, which is full of mischief, as it is at
present being indulged. We very much question if it
would be tolerated, under similar circumstances, even
in an Hungarian Republic—were one established—
with M. KOSSUTH as its President.
But one thing is evident,—that if our neutrality
is to be abandoned—if we are to be embroiled
in this war—it will be much less- likely to be
done by the Government, than by the people them-
selves

as a

enees,

THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
IN IRELAND.

THE administration of justice in the remotest parts
of the British empire is a subject of paramount
importance to the people of England. We have a
practical illustration of this in the time and attention
which have been bestowed by Parliament on Law
Reform. Ireland has not been overlooked in the
popular solicitude to secure to her Majesty's subjects
the full measure of justice to which they may be
entitled. Chancery and Common Law Reforms in
that country were preceded by the Incumbered
Estates' Court Act; and all that the debtor and
creditor interests asked was freely conceded, the
Legislature reserving to itself the enforcement of the
popular principle of " Judge ye by the very right,
and let not sham or false nrotenee_ilefatii-j-u.Qtjr.e.,::
Equity and Law reforms. It is the very letter of
the law of the present day ; and where abuses are to
be found in the practice or decisions of the Irish
Courts, the responsibility rests with those who are
entrusted with the administration of the law in
Ireland. The practice of ruling by precedent in cases
which are to be decided by " the Very Right," can
no longer be tolerated. The sense of right which
prevails in these days is far different to that which
passed current fifty years before a MONAHAN, a
LEFROY, a NAPrEit, or that perambulating name of
SMITH, adorned the Irish penal. " The Very Right"
is the law which is to govern every case henceforth ;
and where judges overlook the high morality of the
statute, it remains for juries to uphold it by their
verdicts

Unfortunately, there are no jury-boxes in our
Courts of Equity. There sits a man, and on his
individual decision the fate of the subject depends.
That man may be a Bomba in his way, consigning
widows and orphans to destitution, locking up
men as idiots, lunatics, and defaulters; and still the

crafty knave, the designing usurper of property, the
habitual perjurer, and the embezzling receiver,

revel in perfect safety under his paternal wing-
We may be told
_that these things cannot be done
now; and that as'the Incumbent Estates 'Court has
swept upwards of 1,300 old suits- out of the' Irish
Court of Chancery, all fraudulent proceedings have
been brought to an end. But this does not appear
to be the case. We published in the NORTHERN
TIMES, of the 23rd ult., a letter from Mr. MAILLARD,
and another, to-day, from Mrs. CATHERINE WINTER,
describing a state of things in the Irish Courts of
Chancery and Law which, if correct, are certainly
without a parallel in the history of legal abuse and
oppression. And it may be, that their case is only
one out of hundreds which yet remain to be brought
to light. It is scarcely to be believed, that a
Chancellor, sitting on his bench, would allow
receivers, in a * suit in which minors had been
represented as adults, to remain in the receipt of
minors rents without accounting for the money they
had taken,--charges of false personation, and o f
perjury, to be repeatedly brought before him,
without inquiring publicly into such charges and
affording the complainants some relief. We flatter
ourselves that such things cannot be done in
England,- and we hope we are not -deceived. We
are certain, however, if Mr. MAIM. ARD had served
ejectments for rent in this country, as he states he
has done in Ireland, that no Judge would have
allowed a third party to take defence in an action
brought by the devisees and representatives of a
lessor against the tenant in possession under that
lessor's lease ; and we question, if an English Judge

found a man coming into Court and stating that he
had received the rent reserved in a lease, which
Me to the representative of the lessor
would not have dealt summarily with the
intruder. The law is very clear on this subject, and
is known to every man of business ; and how the
Irish Bench could have been overtaken in the fog which
Mr. MAILLARD describes, we can'not understand.
The Chief Justice, MONAHAN, is too good a man, and
too upright a Judge, to suffer any craft to prevail
over right in a simple. matter a fact ease such as
this. Few men stand higher in public estimation,
both as a lawyer and a man of honour ; and we feel
convinced that, should Mr. MAILLIRD succeed in
carrying his case before Parliament, as he seeks to
do, this worthy Judge will not be named in his

was pay
only

complaint. ,
But what will be said of the Stipendiary Magis-
trates of the Queen's County, who refused, as both
Mrs. WINTER and Mr. MAILLARD allege, to take
their bailiffs informations, and to give them the
protection of the police when seeking to recover the
cattle they had sold by auction for non-payment of
rent, from the hands of a mob ? In April, 1857,
they seized and sold over £6OO worth of cattle ; and,
from that time to this, they have been suffered to
remain in the possession of a mob, or those who
employed them ! This is a charge of so formidable
a character that Parliament must investigate it—and
in the presence of the accusers. 'Mob law must not
be suffered to run riot in any portion of her Majesty's
dominions, more particularly where mere questions
of civil, right are to be decided. If Mr. MAILLARD
had no right to destrain, the persons whose property
he destrained could have speedily relieved them-
selves of the presence of his bailiffs and their em-
ployer. And if they did not do this in the fourteen
days the cattle were under seizure, on what grounds
did the Magistrates refuse Mrs. WINTER and Mr.
MAILLARD the protection of the police ? The
public have a right to expect a [distinct answer to
this question. - '

Meanwhile, it is quite certain that in this case
there is enough to put the country on its guard, and
to urge the public to see that such things cannot by
any passibility. occur. Where an individual suffers,
there is abundant room for hundreds to be
victimised. The widow's and the orphan's mite
must be placed beyond the reach of those who have
hitherto made it their prey ; nor should any
member of the community be left without summary
means of redress, where he finds his name has been
used without his knowledge or consent, for the pur-
pose of defrauding him of his property. Mr.
MAILLARD is quite right when he says that such
offenders cannot be given into the custody of the
Police when the offence has been committed in the
Court of Chancery or any of the superior Courts. In
such cases you must incur several pounds expense for
a hearing in court, where every circumstance
is gone into, with the exception of the actual
offence committed. For instance, a man may
swear in Chancery that he is the executor
of a deceased person, in whose will his name was
never mentioned ; and in this way large properties
may be made away with, and yet the perjurer and
felon cannot be taken up without the express leave
of the court. In the Fraudulent Trustees' Act this
unwarrantable principle is to be found. It matters
not what number of frauds the parties that Act
deals with have committed, they cannot be
apprehended without the express sanction of the
Attorney-General or the judge of the court in which
they have occurred. This is a glaring and unpar-
donable defect in the law, and it would be hard to
find a case in which it is more clearly exemplified
than in Mr. MAILLARD'S. Had there been no
courts between him and the persons of whom he
complains he could have dealt with them summarily,
and have settled in an hour a question which, it ap-
pears, has taken the Irish Chancery and Law Courts
over thirty years to decide. 'Whether Mr. ntILLARD
is right or, wrong recannotygptmitamv
tl
from the injustice and oppression of which he
complains, we think he is entitled to the utmost
amount of public support we can give him, more
especially when he only asks to have his case judged
by " The Very Right."

_ -
The Herald states that the address in answer to her
Majesty's speech will be moved in the House of Lords by
the Earl of Powis.

This day (Friday) Sir John Lawrence will be presented
with the freedom of the city in a gold bor. Mr. Alderman
Cnbitt has given notice of a motion for presenting the free-
dom of the city to the Earl of Elgin.

The Half-yearly Meeting of the Peninsula and Oriental
Steam Navigation Company was held yesterday. The
report was adopted. The Chairman stated that the cost
of coal this year amounted to £614,000. Tho application
of the new principle of superheating steam would in
future reduce the cost of coals one-third, and effect a com-
plate revolution in steam working.

SUDDEN DEATH.—Yesterda
Griffith y morning a joiner, named
G Davis, who resided in Lawrence-street, died
sudde
l ate nly. l
lie had a bad cough, and had been drinking to
excess ly