The Sun.
London, England, 1858-08-21 00:00:00

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N.k.,WSPAP.ER

THE REGENERATION

" 'Tis thirty yams ago" will now
not only in scientific discoveries le.
ments, which have wholly altered
island, but in the mere intractable
ment of customs and institutions.
change so utter as in Ireland. Her,
science are surpassed by what we n
generation of the country. Had an.
years ago such events as those wider sn (on grate-
fully claims for his Vicereyal•y—the union of the two worlds
by the electric cable, or the establishment of a packet line
between Galway and New York with steamers of 4,000
or
5,000 tons burden, be would speedily have bad his pr per
place assigned him in the long list of Irish projectors. Nov,
if anybody had gone so far as to predict several thousand
miles of railway, he would have been set down as fit com-
pany fur the explorers of Wexford gold mines, or the con-
vertors of Irish ly,g-earth into spermaceti candles. But
Atlantic telegraphs, Leviathan stcatners, and Irish railways
have been surpassed by the change in the habits and condi-
tion of the people. The greater part of this change, ton,
has occurted, not within thirty years, but within ten—nny,
even five. The contrast which slaws Loth Eglinton is
that between his last Vice-royalty and this. Wherever he
goes he sees the face of the country and the aspect of the
people equally changed. He sees employment, wealth,
enterprise, order, peace, and comfort. He sees a ccmunt-
nity steadily enenteed in those works- of industry which
placed England at the head of civilised nations. He sees
modes of cultivation and agricultural machinery which a
few years ego would have been certain death to those
who had the temerity to employ them. He saes
labour receiving its reward, and no longer engaged
I tht,tliep, and allroperty. lie
ninewanhouesields,lesnsewwabrrfaereeds csttre, but a new
s
race of men. There is only one vestige of Old Ireland still
to be deplored,—it is the fierce jealousy of the rival creeds
which divide the numbers against the wealth of Ireland.
The smothered fires of this ancient volcano still ever and
anon break out, and threaten to bring Ireland hack to i•et
former miseries. Lr.i Eglinton does his best to coax and
cajole the good people of Derry into Christianity and good
sense on tins tvuiter point. lie refers in the customary
terms to the famous Defence ,• and gratefully recalls bow,
in the last century, even the Roman Catholics, headed by
their Bishop, put a goad face on it, and joined in the annual
celebration. But times are changed. The Papists don't
like now to be reminded of the event which banished their
sovereign, proscribed their religion, ant confiscated their
property. They feel other ties stronger than the local or the
municipal, and resent, rather than welcome, the festivities,
the processions, the services, and tire sermons, that now
recall the liberation of Derry and the scattering of Papisi-
cal foes. If they see so urrsr.sonable, so ill-natured, end
so silly ;—if they take amiss so simple and natural as ex-
pression of feeling, then Lord Eglin•cn suggests, or just
hints, that it might be as well to give woe . Chi re is no
fear of the Siege of Derry being forgotten ; so what is the
use of always recalling it, when the annirersary gives every-
body offence?
Thirty years ago tire condition of Ireland was a disgrace,
ret only to England, hut to Europe itself. Nowhere was
there a people so ill-fed, Si ill-clothed, so ill-housed. For
those misfortunes and infirmities which bring upon the poor-
books a twentieth of the people ofprosperotts England, and as
much as a twelfth, or even a tenth, of some thriving agricul-
tural districts, the Irish people had no legal resource except
that liberty to beg which an English statesman once alluded to
as a tolerable equivalent. For those who were ashamed to beg
and strong enough to dig there remained the lowest de-
scription of husbandry known in the world, small
without proper buildings, implements, or stock, yet so ue-
cessary to the existence of the cultimor, that he allowed
himself to be rack-rented out of all proportion or power.
To defend his position when he could pay no rent, when
another bid more, or when the landlord attempted a better
system, he had no legal resource except combination to
murder—a practice which has not yet received the sanction
of any British statesman. Besides his rent to his landlord,
generally an absentee, he had to pay tithes to a clergy
whom he believed to be the agents of, a Satanic heresy, and
who had precisely the same opinion of him and his creed.
The more he paid the more was 'he denounced, and when
he discharged his legal obligations, it was only to feed the
flames of an odious persecution. Of course, he did combine
against landord and clergy; he devised methods suitable to
his condition and cla=s, and found chiefs equally ready anti
fit. So, thirty years ago there rated a social war, which
the greatest captain of the day pronounced to be not only
fatal to our credit, but dangerous to our weal, and pregnant
with the worst consequences, if not met with timely conces-
sions. A most able and unscrupulous man, who found his
own line of greatness in ripening and organising the social
disorders of his c tte.tey, and wino set at naught every con-
sithlatiou that came in tine way, held the heart of Ireland
in his band, and could do what he pleased with that excite-
able race. Titus at the same time there raged three fierce
wars in the island, the political, the religious, and the pre-
dial. The first brought its chief to beard-the Legislature in
its own halls ; the second actually suspended fur years the
legal prevision for the Established clergy; and the third
threatened every day to send every landlord to the grave,
where already lay, in most instances, his most active agents,
his most improving tenants, and several of his relations and
friends.
The result of this was asocial misery, an uncertainty of
life, and a precariousness of condition, utterly incompatible
with happy and healthy existence. Tne landlord would not
reside where he hated and was hated in return; where he
dispensed wretchedness, and where his life was sought. If
he did reside, it was to trueckle to a priesthood who could
and did hand him over to the assassin. His wife could liot
bear a country where she lived half the year with the lower
windows boarded with three-inch planks, wbere an obnoxi-
ous colour provoked angry missiles, where her husband Ind
given a site for a Popish Mass-honss, and where every ser-
vant about the house was in secret league with the foe. So
their visits were few and far between, and they generally
resided where provisions were not so cheap, or life either, as
in tide peaceful country. Every week, sometimes every
morning, the landlord had letters fit:flu persons playing a
, double game between him and a band of assassins. lie was
duly informed of the proceediugn of clubs that met every
night for the (10 reorient of rude justice at the expense of
landlords and their agents. He had to check tine leit.rs one
against another, and no secure, if possitie, by calling in fresh
aid, that they were not all in cor,usion :o.rainst When
thus up to the arrangements of the shooting season he would
find his information verified by a murder or A/1 a! :env:. It
v. as, of course, gratifying to R rd himself on the right scent,
ant that his life certainly was sought. ue, the assassins
often failed, and the victims, or ireentled victim., had their
consolations. The es-rt.:sins sehtom failed to kill soincbolvs
though ofzev 11:e wrung man. When one man was shot for
another tine one had the comfort of feeling tha• he was the
victim of the mistake, and the ocher nag at least cpidly
pleased to have the benefit of is. This was Irish society
thirty pars ago. 'Fine natural consequence absenteeism
and mutual hatred was something worse than barbarism.
Yet there were also that and extravagance. There were.
ideal income, overwhelming debt, consutning mortgages,
millstones of settlenoel.t, huge castles never lived in or paid
for, and every evil of public or private life, enough to have
brought on a hraudred bloody revolutions, but for the im-
mensely-preponderating power of wealthy and Protestant
England.
Could it have been imagined thirty years ago, that in the
year 1858 two men of different parties, an Irish Viceroy atd
ex-Premier, would be found drawing such a picture of
Irish peace and prosperity as that given in the speeches of
Lord Eglinton and Lord Palmerston ? Would a predic-
tion of the Atlantic Telegraph have been more disbelieved ?
How has this change come to sass? It is the result, we
freely admit, rather of events than of any human wisdom.
It is the work mainly of Heaven, and not of man. Among'
the causes which have contributed we must reckon the very
extravagance of Irish demands, and that shrill scream of
nfogled threat and insult which cracked the voice and
finally broke the heart of Irish agitation. O'Connell dug
his own grave. He just Hied to see his country dfsen-
thrailed, not only from some odious restrictions on her
liberty, but. still more from himself. Then came unit
failure and final blow of the potato s) stem, which destroyed
or drove into banishment the starving peasantry and ousted
the t ncutubcred landlords. Theo f, Dewed the geld dis-
coveries, and that great prosperity which has raised the con-
dition of labour and given a man his due all over the
world,w
nowhere so much as in Ireland. Such is the part.
hich
events rave had in the matter. Legislation, too has eerie
something, but it has, wisely perhaps, acted only a secondary
parr. It has followed in the train e. events, tnenetog, es it
rebuilding after the conila-
were, the ravages of tornado,
rte: ter th au its own. We •
gration, but fleeting even that work
have to thank Providence for Ireland as it is, and it 1, no
twill encouragement to those who 'despair of the Improve-
'Meats th,y have set their hearts upon, that they little know
the vast openings an-1 cppori tit:totes that any day may
bring.— 7'imes.

Muffle. Eudoxie Laurent, a pretty actress of the
Ti eArre des Vari&et, appeared en Wednesday before the
Tribunal of Correctiowl Polce to take her trial on the
charge of apprepeir eing some objects, which had been seized.
It appeared that some time ago she, purchased on credit a cask
of 1F: acne (Burgundy) wine of the best quality for 570 fr.,
and that she did not pay for it. Tee sellers, MM.
Audiffret, accordingly brought an action against her,
and obtained authorisation to seize her furniture ; but evt:en
they had effected the seizure they learned to their vexation
that it was not hers, hut an upholsterer's, she being merely
the occupant of a furnished apartment. They then seized
various sr ides of dress belonging to her, but after this
was done she took away a morning gown in silk
richly decorated, a tilk dress, two good bonnets,
and three chemises decked with English etnereidery, worth
401 r. each. In her defence the fair actress said that she
had thought herself entitled to take the things, and that
they were of such tittle value that she had given them away
to some girls. She had so little intention, she declined, of
doing anething wrong that she had effered to restore the
things. She also hal, she added, offered to pay for the
wine in instalments. "Yes!" cried the advocate for the
plaintiffs, " you offered to replace the articles of . dress
taken by others purchased at the Temple! And as to pay-
ing for the wine, you offered We.. month—as if people
who drink Beaune could not pay more !" The tribunal dis-
missed the complaint.— Galtgnani.
TIIE PRISONERS VAN.—When the hour of de-
parture arrives, you see the pavement and carriage way of
Bow-street studded with a choice assemblage of the raggedry,
ruflienry, felonry, misery, drunkanry, and erahbery, whom
the infamous hundred of lie try, and the scarcely less infamous
tithiug of Covent, have cast into a thoroughfare which, twa
flows hence, will he re-echoing to listen to the wheele of
earriaecs bearing noble lords and ladies to the delicious
Bosio in t he " Traviat a," or the enchanting notes ef Tamber-
lik in " Otello." London is full of violent contrasts ; but this
is the grimmest in the whole strange catalogue. See,
the warder in the watehbox Ls descended from _hie percb:
and with a patent key opened the portal of the van, re:.ea_ld
ing a second janitor inside. And now the passengers destined
lln
of
fur the lugubrious journey come tumbling out
the court doer, and down the steps towards the
van. Some handcuffed, some with their
arras folded,
sullen de-
or their hands thrust in their packets
9 in sullen
palms for
fiance ; some hiding their faces in their
o men, starved
grimytrs
i
very shame. There are women s
w
serupstreescs and brazen ecurtesat!s _
are wicked greyb t
earde, andchildren
tae finery. There
on whose angel faces
the devil had already set big indelible brand. There are
gaol as to a place whrrt t'ley
shall at least have bread to eat. d a bed to lie on. Th !re
ranged losels rejoicing to CO to a
are dashing pickpoekets , 'in shirty hats and pegtops. There
fur the first, and some for the fi!tieth
are some Acing to prisonly are thrust rather than handed into
time. One by
conaretor escapees himself in
the van. The wou'reetctljteed g,i,lv-easnadrfaivinest,odffe.lsirvie cheer,wi
the door bangs, the policeman
e
his watch box, and the prisoners
proprietors of most of the rnagzsins
caine Gu4st*
advantage of the little respite afforded
dead season of the year, are daily diminishing
m
Magasins du Louvre, ou the coatrary,
ot
theirhf e ' Whilstabrs
yit so,tchtkaet:hdi
teenh a
appear to be renewing and increasing their variety of
novelties. It is indeed impossible to behold anything more
enticing than the choice they exhibit of all that contributes
to embellish the toilette of a lady du leant ton. The
Lyons silks, the patterns of which. belong exclusively to
them—the lace, fancy tissues of all sorts, meatier, visit's
in the most exquisite taste, and of the latest fashion, render
this establishment invaluable to the English, especially
from its proximity to the Hotel du Louvre, the general
rendezvous of the elite of foreign twelfth -

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