The Sun.
London, England, 1853-09-01 00:00:00

TEE QUEEN IN IRELAND.

It is impossible to read without a lively satisfaction
the records that have reached us of the Queen's visit to
Ireland. Nothing is more strange in a country where
all seems strange than the instantaneous manner in
which the presence of the Sovereign appears to dispel
those mists of ignorance and prejudice whiChliad arisen
at the bidding of professional agitators. It is in vain
that the wisest and most prudent statesmen in the em-
pire—many of them Irishmen by birth or by descent—
endeavour to devise remedies for the distress and suffer-
ings of the Irish people—lreland will not be convinced
or reasoned into loyalty. With our fellow-subjects in
that division of the empire the actual presence of the
Sovereign seems requisite to insure attachment to her
person and to her throne. All-the enormous sacrifices
which have been made from the Imperial resources in
the hour of Ireland's direst tribulation go for nothing,
or, by some curious process of distorted logic, are
twisted into injuries or insults. LaWs which were
passed mainly at the suggestion of those who had
the deepest interest in the welfare of the country
are received as acts of tyranny and oppression. We
have often wondered why this should be, for cer-
tainly there is no living statesman of the present
generation who has had any other object at heart than
the welfare of the Irish people and the tranquillity of the
country. Strange_ as the result may appear, it is still
stranger that the mere presence of the Queen should
awake in every heart the liveliest sympathies, and call
forth expressions of unbounded attachment from the
people, who but a few days before were sedulously en-
gaged in traducing every act of her Ministers, and en-
deavouring at least to bring her Government into disre-
pute and contempt. This anomaly might of course be
explained in many ways ; we prefer that explanation
which is the most obvious, the most flattering to our
Irish fellow-subjects, and we believe the most true. Is
it not probable, when we compare, on the one hand, the
expressions of loyalty and attachment which the presence
of Queen Victoria elicits immediately her foot has pressed
the Irish soil with the unceasing vituperation on the
other which, in her absence, a certain portion of the
Irish press and a certain section of the Irish popu-
lation so sedulously pour forth upon her Govern-
ment, that we must draw a broad distinction be-
tween the Irish agitators and the Irish people ?
Nor, when we find how futile the efforts of the
professional politicians have been to alienate the
affections of the people from their Sovereign, is it con-
sistent with truth or with propriety to make a nation
answerable for the acts of comparatively a few persons,
whose obscene trade it is to make the passions and igno-
rance of the people subservient to their own selfish ends.
Certainly, in the reception Queen Victoria has met with
in Dublin we can see very little trace of that unpopu-
larity and disaffection which, as the agitators would
have us believe, prevail so extensively throughout Ire-
land against her person and her throne.
Nothing could be more graceful or well-timed than
the presence of the Queen in Dublin upon an occasion
such as that of the Irish Exhibition. It is an evidence
of her wish to foster and encourage those enterprises
which may tend to promote the intellectual and moral
development of the Irish people. Industry is intelli-
gence. It is scarcely a stretch of language to say that
it is morality as well. What more likely to strengthen
the springs of industry in an imaginative and enthu-
siastic people than the spectacle of those grand results
which the united industry of the world has produced ?
Why should Ireland lag behind in the honourable race ?
'ln many branches of manufactures she has already at-
tained an excellence which the looms of any other
country in Europe may strive in vain to excel. Why
should not the same powers of mind which have already
realised such results be directed to the development
of those arts and sciences which tend so much to the pro-
motion of human happiness ? In some respects we
should be disposed to think that the natives of Ireland
would outstrip their fellow-subjects in the other districts
of the empire. The same fervent energy which inspired
the glowing periods of Burke, or thrilled in the tender
strains of Moore, might surely be turned to other, if not
to nobler uses. It was with unmitigated pleasure that
we read the following sentence in the report which we
yesterday received, and which we will here transcribe
without apology :—" The Queen has crossed the Channel
to see the first strong development of that remarkable
love of art and that sentiment and imagination carried
into useful production, which the practised observation
of Lord Granville enabled him first to discover and com-
ment on as the chief characteristic of the Irish Exhibi-
tion." We entreat our Irish fellow-subjects to believe
that Englishmen are not in a conspiracy to put down
talent. Most gladly do we welcome any evidence of it
which comes to us from foreign nations ; but how
much more so when we find it among our own
people--among those who are, or should be, bound to
us by the strongest ties and sympathies which can link
human beings together? We are very ready to
admit that the verdict of the world is against us
in those very respects in which Lord Granville declares
that the Irish have attained the highest excellence.
However great the praise accorded to our machinery,
and to the wonderful development of our manufacturing
industry in all its branches, it has been said—and we
doubt not with truth—that in imagination and taste we
do not equal the handicraftsmen of Continental Europe.
Can we not, then, work hand-in-hand with our own
fellow-subjects in another portion of the empire, who
can supply our deficiencies, and, in turn, profit by our
skill ? Surely, it would be more gratifying to derive the
requisite assistance from Dublin, from Belfast, from
Cork, than from Paris, or Lyons, or Vienna ? We
earnestly trust Irishmen may turn their serious atten-
tion to the arts of design, if it is indeed true that in
them their chief excellence and capacity exist.
We must not, however, conclude these few observa-
tions without more especial notice of that one point
about the Irish Exhibition which entitles the spectacle
to a peculiar respect. It must never be forgotten that,
but for the act of one patriotic Irishman, this magni-
ficent display—pregnant with consequences as yet un-
revealed—would never have had existence. Ireland
owes her Exhibition to the patriotism and public spirit
of Dargan, and it is no mean praise to a country that it
can produce men capable of such acts. Let us hope
that the Irish people may be induced to draw a com-
parison between the virtues of such a citizen and the
vices and selfishness of the demagogues whose daily
occupation it is to lead them astray.—Times.

CROPS AND Hors.—The Maidstone Journal says,
notwithstanding the most ungenial weather of the past
week, the College Hop Garden at Maidstone has
improved, and there can be no doubt that in some
portion of the ground there will be a tolerable
sprinkle. The high winds of the last few days have
done here, as elsewhere, considerable damage, and we
fear that, with so much rain, and so great a defi-
ciency of sun power, with the probable continuance of
cold nights, the crop will come down, not only much
less than has been anticipated, but greatly deficient in
quality. We last week remarked on the tardy growth
of the hop from the burr, and we now think that eo
great has been the arrest of growth in many grounds
that the hops cannot, even under the most favourable
circumstance, advance, beyond their present size. The
mould in some of the neighbouring gardens has in-
creased in spite of the application of sulphur though
from observation and experience we know that in many
instances the mould has been considerably checked in
its growth, if not entirely cured, by that substance.
CATCHING A THIEF.—A thief, who had on Thursday
got into a house in the Rue Folie Mericourt, being sur-
prised by some of the occupants, endeavoured to escape
by the the roof. The pompiers being informed of what
had taken place went in pursuit of the man, and one of
them throwing a rope at him with a running knot, like
an American lasso, caught him round the body with it.
The thief, however, at once drew out a knife, and cut-
ting the rope, got away into an adjoining house, and
made good his escape.
SALE OF A GIIILLOTINE.—On Saturday last a consi-
derable crowd was assembled on one of the boulevards

C Rheims to witness, the extraordinary sale of the guil-
lotine and its accessories, even to the very basket which
was used to catch the head of the unfortunate culprit.
The upset price was 20f., after which a voice in the
crowd offered 25f. The name of the amateur was anxi-
ously enquired for among the crowd, when suddenly a
young man came forward and bid 30f., at which, after
some little delay, it was knocked down, and when it
beam) known that it had been purchased in order to
make a bonfire of it, the crowd gave way to a loud burst
of applause, which in a short time after increased still
more on seeing it piled up and blazing, every one pre-
sent assisting to keep up the fire. Among the most
emergetio of them was a high functionary of the place.
Although the crowd assembled was Tory greet, every-
thing passed off with the greatest order.—ardignani.
The Interim Acting Committee for the promoting a
Great Industrial Exhibition for Scotland have come to
the resolution not to attempt to carry out the proposal
next year, as originally announced,—North British
Mail.