The Sun.
London, England, 1852-08-02 00:00:00

THE LASH EL ECTIOVS .
Irish pot in h.,
Roman Catholic prieeehoee en: lief. te.;t:' 1, u-
cUnii weuei eppear to have rem hid ire OM :x lo an A-
d eke which wa• delivered is seee'h age :Iv
. to
the electors of the county of Crteees.y. It is nee tee'
"(pieta blasphemies of Dr. are mete rbseustine
Chien whets which have free utt. rei oth, r martianCetholic trusts threugheut this btu his station
gives Lruf~3ld point ass meanieg to them all, • Betoe,
p'"Z‘Galway acdrees it was will open to this-more tern-
m among
his sect to speck
of the profanity 'acid
viole nee of an isolated priest here and 'there as of the
acts
of individuals which were viewed with horror-
and disgust by the general body of the Roman Ca-
thole, priesthood in Ireland. The sp-- h
pchowever,
of Dr. ht'
„ale e cuts away this ground of defence
from a
frombeneath their feet. The various orators
eeo4o whose election addresses we culled se me
je,tice fragments the other day find, if • not their
ill() loathe), at least their excuse in the conduct of him
wiatut cll their Archbishop. We see this result
of aPPr'hension and regret, opt certainly on arsenal
those 69,.:, Persons who have so entirely lost sight of their
"" ° (lice /14 to d.-gra e d Ives and theit• vocation
uy the
ei language and prenices electieneering agents
.'theorst class b., fer the sake of the gorwr4l tran-
quillity,e ' -'
Tee s. ` :tee which has hen set rolling in Ire.
h lid Will
e. cereeely riot be leit quir,t the peiet to which
hui been urged by Dr. el.flele and his • ellewe
There are plows, of zsaltta on this side or St. Ge-tree's
seismal who will he reedy to teke up the challenge
which they have flung down, and, whet) ceteeee,
remis=s, there c.an be nu doubt into which scale the in-
,elligenee and propene, of the British emplre still be
the:ten. We are able to fores,e, but we are p :werloss
to avert, the coes,quences of a contest between the ultre
2,alots of either creed. There are thousands,
nay millions, of men in Great Britain who
asked no better than to leave their Roman • Cu-
th°lic f bow-subjects •is full possession of civil
and religious liberty, but when they are com-
pelled to fall in under one banner or the other, there can
be little hesitation as to the choice. The leaders of the
Catholn party in Ireland, by their conduct
'throughout the recent elections, hive thrown from them
the tacit support or this patee—powe,ful as it was for
defenoe, if not tor attack. We remember well when the
late Sir R )bert Peel said, in hie place in the Hone of
Conamous, "If the choice is fore, d upon me—if I am,
cornpelled to determine whether I shall give in my alle-
giance to Queen Victoria or to Mr. Smith O'Brien, the
Mockery King of Munster, I ask no time fir r flaction;
my determination is made." The analogy is pertect in
the present instance. The great bulk of the English rt.-
lien asked no better than to leave their It men Catholic
fellow-subjects in full possession of all 'their rights and
liberties; but if we are driven—however much against
Our will—to elect whether we will step down into tPe
field as champions of the English Church or quietly put
our heads under Dr. M'Hale's belt and dance as he may
Pipe to us, our choice is quickly made. Wo will have
nothing whatsoever to do with the doctrines and disci-
pline of Rome as they may be delivered to, us by
an Lish priest. We detest these doctrines in themselves,
and we are the more averse to them when we witness
the barbarism, the blasphemy, and the bloodshed which
they produce in prac:ice.
The other day we had to speak of Roman Catholic
'priests who in broad daylighestood up before assem-
blies of the ignorant peasantry and authoritatively de-
clared to them that to vote for any candidate but the
• one on whom the choice of the priests had fallen was to
incur eternal damnation. The same wretched blas-
Owners announced that they would retuse to perform
any of the rites of their Church in favour of those
Voters, or their families, who should give their suffrages
to
any but the priests' nominees. Their children should
out be baptizAl—the rite) of marriage should not be
solemnized for them—when they were lying on their
deathbeds they should be denied the last consolations of
religion—they should be cast out from the sanctuty
and stand accursed among their fellow countrymen,
if they refused to follow implicitly the orders issued to
them from the head-quarters of the &,-omen Catholic
__
party. This is no question of Derby v. M'Hale, or
ueliale v. Derby, wide us. It is an expression of hoe ,
nest indignation at one of the foulest a••enes which has
ever been known in the constitutional annals of this
country,. It would be the same thing to us whether the
candidates who have incurred the' hatred of the Roman
Irish priesthood had been men whose policy was in all
respects most averse to our own. We can see nothing
bat a system of intimidation which has rendered the
tneory of an elective Parliament a mere delusion
throughout Ireland. It is out of no affection for Lord
Derby that we call attention to the language and de-
nunciations of his unaerupuloue opponents. Dr. Miele
told the electors of GalitaY
under the other day that ocly
the following conditions could they make up their
minds to vote for any candidate who might support Lord
Derby's Administration
"D.) support him, if yen wish that' slr. Lacy should
aend some fashionable official of an Adonis to invade the
seared precincts of tare convent, and at any unseasonable
hour to examine into the morality of its consecrated le-
, ates.--(Crie,i Of • Never?) If you wish that your
Chapels should be wrecked—that your priests should be
form into prison—that the beet of heieven, under the
of bread and
insult,
Lordbe_ was on a late occasion, you win support
no.)
Government.—(Enthuateaue shouts of
every pei, , Gentlemen, if you wieh diet in this empire
4011
hhOuld enjoy treerktn but the God of
Heaver!) sad that -
the prooe.6. every proc,ssion should be lawiul but
Waxen • Cwilisrhi)tthi,a;,innwhsihc,hultdberatclue;sf
ou of
to come out' in' open day to
frret'etivit:e I:nh 0:1
bolas
p•--eCri:t eesfuti
Catholic melion.s, you will
support the Derby y G,,verocaent; and y.,u wish
that those houses of worship which were thronged
to suffecetion before the famiue—if you wish,
When
ne h th'ose houses are again filled up by the
growing population, for the growth of the potato is an
e.enblem of the growth of the people of Ireland, to have
them preserved—if you wish to have the founriatien-
stone of those chapels, which your piety may build up,
according to the ritual of the Catholic Church--if you
wish to bare your bishops and priests wear the robes of
their profession-eif you while that those priests and
bishops should not undergo a penalty for violating an
unrighteous law, then you will not support Lord Deiby."
It was but o few days since there appears-'d in the co-
lumns of the Times a letter from air. Lacy himself,
charging Dr. -with deliberate falsehood for so
• much of-the above tissue or blasphemy as had reference
to his own name. Dr. M'Hale knew right well that the
proposition of which he spoke was simply one of pre-.
caution with reterence to angle pent—namely, that
young women and girls should not be trepanned into a
Roman Catholic convent teed detained there by knee and
fraud. Can he suppose that the eases ef the Black Rook
Nunnery and ef Miss Talbot have left se little truce
up-on the recollection of us all that we can forgot what
the conduct of the Rowan priesthood in Eigland has
been with regard to these helpless person,?
We confess that, unless means be discovered to stay
this monstrous evil, the attempt to obtain a represents-
tiou of Ireland through the elective machinery yet known
to us is a perfect farce. Priest-ridden and ignorant as
the electors are in- too many districts of the ountry,
they would not have given their suffrages in favour.of
the candidates of the priest had they been permitted to
exercise anything like free choice. The proof of this
assertion is to be gathered from the very blasphemis
which we have very reluctantly brought under public
notice. The treasure of the•violence employed by the
priests is the measure of the voter's reluctance. You
don't bind a willing voter down in a cart—you don't
shut him neglecter sate watch in a dark room—you don't
threaten to retuse him the rights of the Church—you
don't invoke eternal damnation on his head. Wherever
• scenes such as these have occurred there is no true elec-
tion. The conscience of the voter has been coerced, teed
by agencies from which any but the most wicked arid
unprincipled men would recoil with horror. It is no
• light matter to mix up the Almighty in the proceedings
of an Irish election.—Times.