The Sun.
London, England, 1858-12-16 00:00:00

plies later particulars. The writer says :—" The
:amber of persons now in prison charged with
being members of an illegal society is 17, one hav-
ing been arrested late on Sunday night in his own
tiouse. I understand that the inform lion which
applied to the lodge meeting in Widow M'Kay's
public-house included the names of t..N o other per-
sons who have not yet been taken into custody, and
the police are supposed not to be unaware of mem-
bers of other lodges meeting in the neighbourhood
of Smithfield and the Pound. The greatest excite-
ment prevailed in these districts when it became
known that arrests had been made, and the more
so, as the precision with which the police acted in
making the arrest leads almost irresistibly to the
conclusion that the informer must have been an
active member, when he •could take not only the
names of those who would be present, but also
their residences. The prisoners all lived within a
few minutes' walk of the public-house in which they
held 'their Sunday evenings' assembly, and it is
therefore presumed that the lodge, whose delibera-
tions were so unceremoniously interrupted, is but
one of several with which we are favoured in the
Northern Athens'.' The most absurd rumours are
in circulation regarding the affair, but most of them
are utterly unworthy of notice. It is a remarkable
fact, however, that both here and in Skibbereen
lawyers' clerks were found to be most deeply impli-
cated. I am informed that one of the Roman
Catholic priests warned the people in St. Malachi's
Chapel on Sunday evening, after the arrests were
made, against having anything to do with such
illegal societies. It is almost impossible to believe
that a society with ramifications so extensive as
the Phcenix could exist unknown to the priests,
but, in this town at least, they never hinted at it
until it was no longer a mystery. If they be in
earnest such combinations cannot exist contrary
to their permission. At the police court this
morning Mr. Tracy, resident magistrate, who
made out the committals, mentioned that a great
deal of the crime of Belfast was to be attributed to
drink, and that this was the cause of the trouble
into which so many people had got on the previous
night, and out of which they were not likely to get
in haste. No further examination has yet taken
place that I am aware of."
The Whig has some sensible reflections upon the
proceedings of the week just closed, and which
have thus rudely interrupted the long immunity the
country has enjoyed from the evils which had for a
long and dreary period retarded its material pro-
sperity :
" While we in the peaceful and prosperous North
were remarking, with a not ungratified commisera-
tion, on the state of society in the South of Ireland
indicated by the arrests at Skibbereen, a body of
constabulary march quietly down to a publichouse
in Cromac-street, arrest a conclave of 15 men there
assembled, and, with the most dexterous celerity,
lodge them securely in the county gaol. This pro-
ceeding awakens us to the fact that Belfast is really
part of Ireland. On Saturday we were critics of
strange performances done in Skibbereen and Ban-
try; to-day we are actors in the drama. We find
that the proclamation has come home to our next
door ;we perceive that we, too, are of the disaf-
fected parts of Ireland.' This personal contact ma 7
make us think more deeply of this matter, but it
cannot alter our general opinion. Our opinion as
regards the arrests in Belfast is the same as of the
arrests in the South. If there be illegal societies
among us of any kind, and if the Government
have got reliable information and justifiable cause
for action, let the blow fall, and the harder the
better. If the Government can and will root out

all secret and illegal societies, in the name of Hea.

yen and justice lei it be done ; and the deed will be
one of the best that Ireland has ever seen. But,

just in proportion to the good which the Govern-
ment will accomplish, if it acts wisely and impar-
tially, will be the amount of deplorable mischief
that will have been wrought if the Executive have
proceeded rashly or on insufficient or unreliable
information. Our candid opinion of last night's
work is that, if it prove to have been justly done, it
is one of the best things that could have happened;
if wrongly done, it will be more disastrous to the
future political peace and religious amity of our
town than anything that could have occurred. The
persons arrested are all Roman Catholics—the Pro-
testant corollary inevitably being that they are all
Ribandmen. We confess that our private view of
the conspirators in the police court last night was
not very terrifying, and that the aspect of the secret
band was decidedly foolish rather than formidable.
It is not easy to conceive the existence of a treason-
able or seditious confederacy in the town of Belfast
with any tangible object other than that of playing
at conspirators, as children play at soldiers. The
perfect hopelessness of any such mad vision as
planning a French invasion, or projecting a filibus-
tering irruption into the North of Ireland, is ludi-
crously apparent ; but, if people will be fools, they
must suffer for their folly ; and, if they will be
-wicked, they must be punished for their crimes."