The Sun.
London, England, 1868-09-11 00:00:00

IRELAND.

DUBLIN, Sept. 10.

The revising barristers for the city of Dublin sat
again yesterday. Of course the work of greatest
difficulty in connexion with the revision will be that
of deciding on the validity of the claims under the
lodger franchise. There will not only be several
knotty points raised, but the case of a very large
number of the claimants will require diligent in-
quiry and careful discrimination in coming to a de-
cision. Two " vexed questions" were raised yester-
day before the barristers who are inquiring into the
claims under the lodger franchise. The first was
whether to constitute a person a lodger it is neces-
sary that the landlord should reside on the pre-
mises; and the second, whether the genuineness of
the signature purporting to have been written on
the original claim should be proved, or whether the
mere proof by the Town Clerk that a claim had
been lodged should be held as sufficient. Mr. Pur-
cell, Q.C., before whom the first question was
raised, said that if a case came before him in which
a person occupied apartments of the required annual
value, under circumstances in which he could not
be rated as a separate occupier, he considered that
he was entitled to be registered whether the land-
lord resided on the premises or not ; " otherwise
there would be a large portion of the constituency
who would be neither fish nor flesh--neither
rated occupiers nor lodgers, and who would be
disfranchised." Eventually the decision was post-
poned. The question as to the necessity for proof
of the signature of the claim was decided in the
affirmative.

Dean O'Brien, of Newcastle, county Limerick, is
anxious to have it understood that when he spoke
at the recent entertainment to Mr. Butt he did so
only on " the call of the meeting." He writes to
this effect to the Limerick Reporter, adding that in
fact he had refused emphatically to speak at either
the entertainment or the lecture. "He felt he had
no right whatever, and taking his views 'as a waiter
upon Providence' that he bad no place." Bu
" Mr. Carroll S frank declaration that national legis-
lation Dean) without impropriety to answer the call' of
was Ireland's great hope enabled him (the
the meeting, whose natural proclivities were not
doubtful ; and when asked at the banquet to answer
to the ' Prosperity of Ireland' he said his say for
precisely the same reasons."
The lodger franchise,
which is giving so much
trouble to the revising
barristers in Dublin, is not
likely to make a heavy call upon the time of the
provincial revision courts. Downpatrick, it appears,
can only boast of one £lO lodger who is ambitious
of the right to vote. His claim was admitted. At
Carrickfergus also there was only one claimant,
who, moreover, was unable to establish his claim,
and was consequently struck off.
Mr. Matthews' candidature at Dungarvan pro-
mises to be more persevering than Mr. Barry's
friends were disposed to anticipate. Mr. Matthews
has issued a supplementary address, in which he
deals with the criticisms and alleged misrepresenta-
tions of his views and position put forward by the
Cork Examiner. He says that the electors know
well " that the political demonstration iu his favour
was made by men perfectly well informed of what
they were doing, and with a deliberate purpose."
He adds :—" The second charge of the Cork Exa-
miner is still more groundless. It is utterly and
put forward as a
faebesloelru,teblyy thataunnytpruaerty.l have come to Dungarvan I am
by the desire and at the invitation of a large and
influential body of the most patriotic and liberal
of the electors. I shall also, I trust, have the sup-
port of many of the Conservative electors, who
have the manliness and liberality to respect my
honest opinions, even though different from their
own. lam proud of this support from men who
do not always act together. It places me exactly
iu the position of a man whose name has weight
throughout Ireland—l mean Mr. J. F. Maguire,
who was returned for Dungarvan by a similar com-
bination of independent supporters against the
Whig candidate, Mr. O'Flaherty."
The O'Donoghue, M.P., has addressed the follow-
ing letter to Mr. R. C. Barry, the present member
for D ungarvan :—" Toomies, Killarney. Dear
Barry,—l now see by the Freeman that there is
some reality in the rumour about an opposition at
Dungarvan. Surely no one who has watched your
career in the house and communicated with you, as
I have done, upon Irish politics, can fail to be con-
vinced that there is not in Parliament a more ad-
vanced and genuine Irish Liberal than youreelf.