The Sun.
London, England, 1847-04-12 00:00:00

IRELAND.
DUBLIN, APRIL B.—The most lamentable feature in
the reports from the country this morning is the increas-
ing disorganization and the more frequent occurrence of
sanguinary crimes. Some very shocking murders are
reported—one connected with the land eviction system
—another in which the possession of a small sum of
money was the object. This latter is a description of
crime hitherto very rare in Ireland. There is also an
account of an attempt—fortunately unsuccessful—to
murder a magistrate in the county of Limerick.
There are again more heart-rending reports of
the ravages of famine in some southern and western
counties.

- The accounts of the progress of tillage continue to be
favourable from most parts of the country, and this is
almost the only gratifying and hopeful feature in the
state of the country. Drainage works on an extensive
scale are also undertaken in various counties. Land-

lords, in many more cases, are suppl) ing seed to their

tenantry.
The reports of the grain crops are highly encouraging.
The northern agricultural reports state that the young
wheats are making great progress, that the breadth of
land sown with oats is much beyond an average, and that
the better class of farmers are prepari:,g to put down a
greater quantity of turnips, parsnips, and other green
crops than usual. Notwithstanding the perils attending
such a crop, a considerable brearithof potatoes has been
planted, chiefly by large farmers or country gentlemen;
but the culture of potatoes has been abandoned almost

entirely by the small occupiers.
In consequence of the refusal of several relief com-
mittees to undertake the duties assigned to them under
the Temporary Destitution Act, the Relief Commission-
ers, it is stated, are determined to avail themselves of
the powers conferred by the Act in re- constituting com-
mittees in the various localities where this very dis-
graceful conduct has been practised.
STATE OF THE PROVINCES.
From the northern division of Tipperary, the Dublin
Evening Post contains the following very gratifying
report :
" NENAGII, APRIL 6.—The relief committees in this
locality, twenty in number, are forming, and all goes on
well under the admirable arrangements of Mr. Hatchell,
inspector, whose kind and gentle deportment endears
him to all classes. American flour is rapidly pouring
into us every day from Limerick and Waterford. India❑
meal has fallen 61. per ton. The farmers are busily em •
ployed, and every effort made to cultivate the land.
Our excellent countryman, Mr. Stafford O'Brien, M.P.,
freighted a vessel at Glasgow, and brought over 1,2001.
worth of seed oats, which his active and intelligent
agent, Mr. Walker, is distributing amongst his tenantry
on the Ormonde estates. Thus are we going on with

the good work. All is tranquil here ; order is restored,
and the country, I earnestly hope, will soon prorper."
The following most heart-rending report of destitution
appears in the Waterford Chronicle:—
" DUNGARVAN, APRIL 5. —To whatever direction you
turn you are appalled by the most direful starvation,
and shocking dk aths. In the rural parts, the poor are
lying like rotten sheep ; in fact, they are melting down
into the clay by the sides of the ditches ; no roof to
shelter them from the cold or wet of the night, no
hand to relieve them, or reach a drink to the gasp-
ing, dying person. During last week, six or seven
persons were found dead on the road sides, in the
vicinity of this town. The bodies remain for whole
weeks in those places unburied. Fever and dyr.entry
are spreading here to an alarming extent, so much so
that our venerated and zealous pastor, Doctor llally,
ever alive to the spiritual and temporal wants of his
flock, lost no time in procuring the assistance of two
additional curates. What extraordinary fortitude and
zeal the Catholic priest must possess to support him in
the faithful discharge of so important and dangerous a
duty !"
" KING'S COUNTY. PARSONSTOWN WORKHOUSE,
APRIL 7.—We regret to announce the death of Mr.
Stack, the respected master of the workhouse of this
union ; he died this morning of fever, after an illness of
only about a week's duration ; and we are also deeply
concerned to learn that Mr. Richard Robinson, the clerk
of the union, has also been dangerously ill of fever for
about the same length of time."
LITIGATION.

The Dublin Evening Post gives the following very
gloomy picture of the condition of trade in Ireland:—
" We hear, on all sides, of the increase of litigation in
the Civil Bill Courts throughout the country. The num-
ber of processes for rent—a cheap and convenient mode
of clearing estates'—and for small sums on I 0 U's,
passed for meal and other necessaries, have increased to
an enormous extent. But in the higher courts, also, we
are likely to have a vast amount of litigation. 'We are
assured, by a correspondent, that already nearly two
thousand writs have been issued from the Court of
Queen's Bench alone for the term which commences next
week. Another very significant fact has been communi-
cated by the same correspondent. Judges' fiats, to the
number of six daily, on the average, are issued against
absconding debtors. In ordinary years, perhaps, the
number would riot exceed twenty for the twelve months.
We mention these facts as they have reached us, and we
rear that the information is too true. They afford la-
.

mentable evidence of the effects upon trade of the pro-
Tacted sufferings of the country. The shopkeepers and
small traders, in all parts of Ireland, have been utterly
paralysed. The large wholesale houses in Dublin and
in other large towns have, from prudence and necessity,
greatly limited their operations. In fine, business is at
a stand, and the constant Cry is. There is no money
to be had.' Most happy should we be to press nt a less
unfavourable report; but, for the present at least, facts
will not warrant us in doing so. One thing satisfactory
and creditable to the parties we can siatii, namely, that
amongst the wholesale hous a, gen. rAly, there is great
fOrbearance. The struzgling shopkeeper is not forced
to extremities; and, consequently, notwithstanding the
unparalleled severity of the pressure, there are compa•
ratively few bankruptcies or even compositions."
ATROCIOUS AND VINDICTIVE MURDERS.
Monday morning, about eight o'clock, immediately
titer three policemen had left the house of Philip liouri-
4an, at Ball)cullen, near Glen-Bevan, in this county, for
their station at Ctoom, three armed men entered his
habitation in search of Hourigan, who, fortunately for
nimself was out, having gone a little before to the house
a brother, about three or four fields off. The in-
truders turned upon his wife, as she sat by the fire to
prepare breakfast, and deliberately fired at her, inflicting
mortal wound in her breast. Not content with this
barbarous deed, they struck the dying woman on the
head with their guns, until she lay apparently dead upon
the floor. They next turned into a room where the son
of the unhappy couple lay on a sick bed, and dragged
the lad, about eighteen years of age, about the house,
and then commanding him to stand against the bed-post,
another shot was levelled at him, which entered his head,

ind he fell at once an easy victim before his murderers.
Having glutted their vengeance by the immolation of
mother and son, these ferocious miscreants departed, re-
gretting they had not got the husband and father, to
complete the tragic spectacle. Hourigan's little daughter
would assuredly have been the third victim, as they were
determined to spare no human being in the house to tell
the catastrophe, only that she, providentially, was in
the out-offices milking the cow for her pcor mother.
This little girl came in as the murderers departed, and
saw them going off, but unperceived by them, and sus-
pecting no harm, the first objects she beheld inside
he ther
door were her mother in the agonies of death, and
brother a naked corpse ! The affrighted child gave the
alarm, but before any friend or neighbour came in Hou-
rigan's wife breathed her last. The distracted father
soon found his peaceful home the abode of desolation and
mourning—his wife and son in one half hour mangled
and bloody corpses, and no one to point out the accursed
murderers, or trace their route, though seen to pass the
river Maigue, after the satanic outrage, and without any
disguise on their persons. The afflicted and persecuted
man, Philip Hourigan, at last assizes, brought to convic-
tion four persons for having in November, 1846, attacked
his dwelling by night, and assaulted him barbarously in
the presence of his wife and children. They broke his
skull. These fellows were ;sentenced to seven years'
transportation, the judge having first designed to double
that penalty, so gross did the outrage appear to him.
Hourigan's life was threatened since this prosecution,
and the magistrates found it requisite to have police in
the house at night for his protection. But the unfortu-
nate man was doomed by those who regard not law or
mercy, and watching the departure of the police on the
above morning, the murderers accomplished their in-
fernal purpose, and as they could not sacrifice Hourigan,
they butchered in cold blood those most dear to him, the
unoffending mother and son.—Limerick Chronicle.
BARBAROUS MURDER.—On Monday night a most
cruel and savage murder was committed in the county
Kilkenny, at a place called Bishop's Hall-gate, within
about three miles of this city. The murdered man was
a steward of Mr. Milward's, and was proceeding from
Waterford to his own home, at Ballynamorahan, where
he was attacked. It appears that he left this city about
six o'clock on the previous evening, and when
within half a mile of home he called at a public-house
kept by a man named John Halligan. He left Halli-
gan s at nine o'clock, and went in the direction of his
own house ; but when within forty perches of it he was
attacked and murdered.' He was found on Tuesday
morning, and his head and face were so mutilated that
he was only identified by his clothes. He was robbed
of 41. Walsh was a most inoffensive and peaceably-dis-
posed man. No trace of the murderers has yet been
discovered.— Waterford Freeman.
ATTEMPT TO MURDER JOSEPH WALLPLATE, ESQ.,
J . P CASTLE•CONNELL —TIuS day (Wednesday), at
about half-past eleven, as Mr. Wallplate was pro-
ceeding to a farm of his, near Woodlands, from which
he had dispossessed the late tenants a few days ago, be
was attacked by tato men, armed with pistols, near
Doonas. The men jumped over a wall on the road, and
Mr. Wallplate, seeing their intent of attacking him,
seized one of them and tore the coat from his back. He
then seized a large stone and threatened the other, when
two shots were fired at him. One took effect under the
left breast, the other hit him somewhere in the face.
Doctors Griffin and Kidd, who were visiting the Rev.
Mr. Sconlan, who is in fever, passed about ten minutes
after the occurrence. Mr. Wallplate was taken across
the river to his own residence. The police went in pur-
suit of the assassins.—Limerick Examiner.
MONSTROUS HAVOC.—About 1,500 pauper labourers
entered the town of Gort, on Monday, and paraded the
streets, exclaiming, occasionally, they should have "blood
or bread," to the great horror of the inhabitants. They
eventually retired without any outrage on person or pro-
perty ; but their threats were not idly meant, for during
the night 154 sheep, the property of William Lahiff,
Esq., of Gort, at pasture, near the lands of Bunnahort,
were killed, and carried away ! On Tuesday morning
Head-Constable M`Carthy, of Gort, arrested seven of the
suspected principals in this daring onslaught upon private
property.—Limerick Chronicle.
THE CORN MARKETS—IMPORTS.
NEWRY, APRIL 7.—The reaction in the article of
Indian corn meal continues, and the price is now 14s. 6d.
per cwt. for both descriptions of white and yellow.
Wheat, oats, flour, oatmeal, &c., remain without altera-
• lion,