The Sun.
London, England, 1869-05-08 00:00:00

LAW AND roucE.

FRIENDLY SOCIETIES ACT.—On Friday the Court of
Common Pleas delivered a decision affecting the power of
appeal from a judgment of local magistrates under the
Friendly Societies Act. A dispute between an officer and a
member of a benefit society was adjudicated upon by a
bench of justices, and there was an appeal against their
decision. The judges of the Common Pleas on Fridayheld
that as in such a case the magistrates acted in the cha-
racter of arbitrators, their decision could not be reviewed
by a superior court.
MR. BIRLEY'S COSTS.—On Friday, in the Court of
Queen's Bench, Mr. Mellish applied on behalf of Mr.
Birley, M.P., for Manchester, for costs in the case
respecting his election, which was decided in his favour on
the previous day. The court granted the application.
A RAILWAY ACCIDENT.—A lady was on Friday
summoned before the Westminster police magistrate
for having infringed one of the bye-laws of the Metro•
politan District Railway Company by having alighted
from a train whilst in motion. It turned out
that the summons was not applied for until several
days after the company had been threatened with
an action for damages, the lady alleging that she had
sustained injuries solely through the moving on of the
train after it had once stopped. The magistrate charac-
terised the course which had been taken by the company
as discreditable, and dismissed the case.

THE AGRARIAN OUTRAGES IN IRELAND.

The special correspondent of the Daily News, who is
writing from Thurles, Tipperary, on the state of the
country, and the reason for the many outrages which have
recently taken place, contributes a long letter, calling
attention to the history of the land. "The English reader
ought to know," he says, " that in the early times through-
out all Ireland, and in comparatively recent times
throughout the greater part of it, there existed no such
thing as individual property in land. Rates, taxes, and
rents were unknowfi. The land belonged to the Sept or
Tribe, and not to the individual; and there was a code of laws
especially adapted to this state of society. The first great
collision after the invasion took place between the
system of land tenure in use amongst the native and the
feudal system which the Norman barons brought with
them. - It was not till the country had been re-
conquered under Henry VIII., Edward VI., Mary,
and Elizabeth, that the Irish code was superseded
and declared to be no law, but a lewd custom.'
The great Irish proprietors were dispossessed at
this period, and English law was substituted for Breton
law. If the revolution had stopped here it might have
been well for both countries. But, unfortunately for
Ireland, she was sucked into the whirlpool of the new
revolution in England, and at the close of the parlia-
mentary contest Ireland was left prostrate, bleeding,
exhausted, dying. It was whilst in this condition that the
people of Ireland received a further lesson from their
English conquerors on The Rights of Property.' The
Breton laws were by this time gone, and Ireland had been
annexed to England at this period for nearly 500 years.
But Cromwell's soldiers had arrears of pay due to them,
and speculators who had advanced money to the Govern-
ment to carry on the contest in Ireland against the royal
cause were clamorous for repayment of their advances. It
is said that it was the Protector's intenticn to make a
Yorkshire of Ireland, and the occa,ion and opportunity
were at hand. On the 11th of October, 1652, a ukase was
issued, announcing the confiscation of the Irish lands. On
the 26th of September following all the ancient estates
and farms of the people of Ireland were declared to belong
to the adventurers (or debenturers, as they are sometimes
called) and the army of England, and it was announced
that Parliament had assigned Connaught (then utterly
wasted by the soldiers of Coote) for the habitation of the
Irish nation, whither iley mast transplant, with their
ives and daughters and children, before the Ist
of May following (1654), under penalty of death
if found on this side of the Shannon after that
day. The difficulty of pressing a nation into a
fourth of its area was found very great, but the commis-
sioners, overwhelmed with a sense of their difficulties,
invited the officers and commanders of the army 'to join
them in lifting up prayers with strong crying and tears to
Him to whom nothir g is too hard, that his servants whom
He had called forth in this day to act in these great trans-
actions might be made faithful.' There was due to the
adventurers £360,000; to the officers and soldiers, for
arrears of pay, £1,550,000 ; and to other creditors, for
advances of money or supplies of provisions, £1,750,000.
The whole of these debts and claims was to be satisfied
by the confiscation of 2,500,000 acres of - land in
Ireland. On the 20th of July, 1653, the drawing of
allotments took place at Grocers' Hall, in London, Alder-
man Avery drawing for the adventurers, and Colonel
Ilewson, a military officer, drawing fur the soldiers.
Many a sad tale is recorded of the sufferings of the un-
happy Irish and Anglo-Irish who were driven across the
Shannon." At this period the u hole of Tipperary was
put into the bands of Cromwell's soldiers. "I find,"
writes the correspondent, "amongst the list of adventurers
to whom lands were allotted in this same barony of Elio-
garty the name of Margaret Shakespeare. It is a curious
revolution in the wheel of fortune to find a person of
the name of Shakespeare becoming an Irish proprietor
under an Act wldeh banished a Spenser from his lands in
Cork to Connaught. William Spenser, the grandson of
that Edmund who sang so sweetly while he was recom-
mending famine as the panacea for Ireland, was amongst
the transplanted ; and although he wrote to Cromwell to
intercede for him, and although Cromwell wrote to his
' Right trusty and well-beloved' commissioners for the
affairs of Ireland, pleading for mercy, he was driven from
Kilcolrnan with the ',lrishry' into the wilds of Connaught."
Having regard to this history the correspondent writes :
" The history of confiscation has been bequeathed from
ousted sire to son, and although there is not the slightest
design to get rid of the present proprietors on the plea
that they are in forcible possession, some excuse may be
alleged for the Irish tenantry if they have not the same
clear notion of proprietorial rights as persons whose
property has not been interfered with for a thousand
years. When Irish farmers simply ask for a mea-
sure to secure to them the value of their labour—and
such a measure, I hear on every side, would satisfy their
expectations—it is unblushing effrontery to be told by the
possessors of confiscated estates, by proprietors whose ,
title-deed was the sword, that what they ask for is confis-
cation and a destruction of the rights of property. A bill
securing the tenant in the possession of his land on pay-
ment of his rent would satisfy the people now. The
' masterly inactivity' of the landlords on this question
may lead to far wider demands."

" EARLY YEARS OF THE PRINCE CONSORT."-
Her Majesty has been graciously pleased to present a copy
of this work, with the royal autograph on the fly-leaf, to
the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford.

Mrs. Langford, at Lynn, a few days beck adminis-
tered strychnine to her household. The baby, who had taken
some, died. The jury returned a verdict that Mrs. Langford
was of unsound mind. Niece then, however, Mr. Langford
has died, the result of the poisoning. Proceedings ero
being taken against Mrs. Langford.

At the annual general meeting of the Reform Club
held on Thursday it was resolved by a large majority to
appoint a political committee, designed to watch over and
advance the interest of the Liberal party. A good
deal of dissatisfaction exists in the club in consequence of
the admission of anti-Liberal members, who have, it is said,
used their connection with the club to discredit and oppose
the principles of the party.
It is stated that Mr. Stansfield is to be offered the
post of Permanent Secretary to the Treasury, in the room
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Seargeant Barry, the Solicitor-General for Ireland, is to suc—
ceed Mr. Justice Lawson as Judge of the Irish Court of
Common Pleas. Mr. Justice Lawson takes his pension as
well as his salary as one of the Irish Church Commissioners.
The post of Irish Solicitor-General will fall to either Mr.
Dowse, Q.C., or Mr. Sherlock, Q.C.
THE NATIONAL AR3IOIIRY IN THE TOWER.
Attention has been more than once called to the unsatis-
factory condition of the national armoury in the Tower of
London. The Builder . now announces that Mr. J. E.
Plauch6, Somerset Herald, has been appointed by the
Government to arrange the collection. An order has been
sent to the Tower that he is to have all assistance
necessary, and he has already made a preliminary survey
previously to reporting to the Government what lie con-
siders should be dote. With Mr. Planch4 for superinten-
dent, and a proper use of the funds which the sight-seeing
public and art-loving students furnish, and will, of course,
supply to a greater amount than ever, we might hope soon
to have one of the finest collections of arms and armour in
the world.

THE STAFFORD ELECTION PETITION. —lii the mat-
ter of the Stafford election petition, Llr. l'oellin, M.P, was
examined, and denied very strenuously having been guilty
of bribery. Mr. Pochin stated that the tlection in 1863
Icost him about X:1,200, and out of that sum he supposed
about £2,000 was spent in practices which he considered
were improper then, and no doubt would be illegal now.
Mr. Fellows was his agent in 1865 as well as at the last
election. But having once been bitten, he was very care-
ful this time. He o:i that occasion had such an experi-
ence of what contesting an election at Stafford was, that
he had never forgotten it, and in consequence he gave the
strictest injunctions on this occasion. that no expenses
should be incurred that were not only not legitimate but in
any way at all doubtful. He was promised that they
should not.