The Sun.
London, England, 1869-10-25 00:00:00

CIIEBTER CATHEDRAL.

Very interesting and peculiar facts are coming to light
in the course of the restoration of this cathedral under
the superintendence of Mr. G. Gilbert Scott. For a
considerable time after tho beginning of the work,
last midsummer but one, very little progoss was
visible. The walls of the Lady Chapel and choir
tisles were found to be in a dangerous state, with an
utter absence of any true foundation. Thus several months
were spent in the process of underpinning. This has now
been accomplished throughout the eastern part of the
mthedral, from transept to transept. Now the progress
,f restoration begins to be very manifest. The exterior
uart of the Lady Chapel is completed as far as the cornice,
the roof remaining unfinished till all available evidence of
•.ts original form is obtained in a thorough examination of
the walls of the eastern end of the south choir aisle.
Here it has been ascertained, not only that the termina-
tion of the aisle was apsidal, but that the apse was carried
up to a great height in a most singular pyramidal roof,
luite unique in England. This will Le restored to its
original form, the south side of the Lady Chapel, with its
three early English windows and a toothed ornament of
extraordinary boldness in the lower hollow of the cornice,
being at the same time brought to view, and relieved from
the inferior architecture which has concealed it for nearly
300 years. The restorations of the south side of the nave,
the south porch, and the west end, with the groining
of the south nave aisle in stone, and the complete
renovation of the tower, have now made considerable pro-
gress both at the south porch, which is of perpendicular
lharacter, and especially in the tower, the rich decorated
panelling of which will soon assume its primitive beauty.
rho entire restoration of the cathedral, including the
-:loister on the north and the great south transept, cannot
be finished in less than four years; nor can the total cost
be estimated at less than £60,000. Of this about £31,000
has been subscribed, including the grant of £13,000 from
the Ecclesiacstical Commissioners.

I IVOTHER IRISH AGRARIAA MUIWER.

The Dublin Evening Mail expresses its disgust at the
latest agrarian murder in Ireland. This result (says our
contemporary) "marks the bloodstained course of the
vagabond preachers of sedition and internal discord in
Ireland. Mr. O'Brien's mangled remains are but one more
natural symbol of the Ribbonman's interpretation of
Mr. Bright's suggestion, that the proper remedy for Irish
grievances is to sweep away existing owners of property;
of Mr. 'Gladstone's `lrish ideas; and, above all, of the
decree that murder is only wrong when the wrong man is
murdered."

It would appear that Mr. O'Brien left for his own
house about eight o'clock on the evening of Wednesday,
and walked into Mohill, for the purpose of transacting
some business, which occupied his time until eleven
o'clock, when he left for home, little expecting the
melancholy fate that awaited him. When on the Hill of
Drumdoo, within sight of his own house, and also of the
police barrack of Curraterriff, and not quite a quarter of a
mile from either, he was brutally murdered. His body was
not discovered until about ten o'clock on Friday morning.
It was then found in a grass field, about one hundred
perches from the road which leads from Mohill to his
own house. It presented a most fearful spectacle,
the head and face having been beaten and mangled in a
shocking manner. The murderers, it is thought, lay in
wait for him on the roadside, and attac!:ed him there—
that he must have struggled to escape from them,
and that they came in with him at the end of the
grass field, where his progress was impeded by a
large quick-set fence. It is also supposed that he must
have been fired at, as, there is a small opening under the
right ear into which the finger can be introduced. There
was a small pistol, loaded, the stock broken from the
barrel, discovered at the scene of the outrage. "That
the outrage is agrarian," says the Mail, " there is not the
slightest doubt. Mr. O'Brien had had some difficulties
with tenants upon a property over which he acted as
agent for his cousin, Mr. Cornelius O'Brien, of the county
of Sligo."