The Sun.
London, England, 1827-04-17 00:00:00

THE HUMBLE PETITION OF THE ROMAN CATHO-

LICS OF THE COUNTY OF TIPPERARY.
We, the undersigned Roman Catholics of the County of
Tipperary, undeterred by the inconsiderable majority of the
Members of your Honourable House, by whom the consi-
deration of our claims has been rejected, again presume to
press upon the attention of your Honourable House the
urgent necessity of adopting measures for the removal of
those evils whose existence is not disputed however their
origin may be matter of doubt.
Your Petitioners are the more solicitous to draw the
consideration of your Honourable House, to the effects of
the Penal Coda, because the County in which your Peti-
tioners reside, presents in a strong light what your Peti-
tioners regard as a baneful system of disqualification and
division of which your Petitioners humbly complain. The
late Assizes held in this County exhibited a deplorable
spectacle of misery, fierceness,
insubordination, turbulence,
and guilt. The able and humane Judge who presided in
the Criminal Court, pronounced the catalogue of crime to
be unexampled.
Your petitioners do not deny that this alarming state of
things may be connected, to a certain extent, with local
causes ; but at the same time eshmit to your Honourable
House that these calamities, in a great degree, result from
the moral and political condition of the people, and may be
traced to the operation of laws which cannot have failed to
produce an influence which could scarcely be of a salutary
the character, and disposition of
nature upon the fceliugi,
the community.
Your petitioners conceive that the Penal Code affords an
adequate cause for all the mischief that prevails. The dis-
trust and alienation created between the higher and lower
classes by laws which foster religious acrimony,
om hick
to
your petitioners to be the main source
public evils flow. In Great differentßritainthe
idcilepatrhte-
menu of the community are not divided by any immediate
and palpable line of separation. The boundary between the
several degrees of society is scarcely perceptible. The
Wealthier and more powerful classes are connected by '
ue-
tessive gradations with their inferiors, and the whole body
of the people have a common interest in maintaining the.
law by which they are equally protected. But, in Ireland
the Population is divided into two distinct parts by a strong
barrier which keep them at a distance from each other—the
Catholic is separated from the Protestant, not by his religion
(because Catholics and Protestants live in other countries in
perfect harmony) but by the law which renders religion
the standard of superiority.. An interruption of sympa-
thy is produced by this artificial separation, and the two
classes having no participation of feeling, have become ac-
cluitonled to consider their essential interests as distinct.
The Gentry who are
P rofessor. of tlis u!..a great measure composed of the
'veer the ma.. of ti'lleeed have no influence
e Population from which they are kept

&launder by the law. Thus a sentiment amounting to 1
hostility, (which is rendered more or less active by local
circumstances) is generated between the proprietors of the
soil and their dependants, and the great body of the pelt
finding themselves degraded by the law, instead of resorti7
to it for protection, are throvrn into confederacies and as-
sociations, founded on a mistaken principle of self-defence.
The people look upon the proprietors as inimical to them.
and the latter regard the people as in league against them,
Thus an universal tendency to organization is produced.
and as the lower orders are uncontrouled by the influence
of education, when once combined together, their violent
passions lead thorn to perpel ration of crimes of which they
are themselves the victims.

If a better understanding existed between the peop', and
their superiors, and if they were not thus injuriously kept
apart, your petitioners humbly conceive, that a useful
moral intercourse would he estal;liiihed—that the legitimite
influence which the gentry ought to posses, would be re-
stored—that the confederacies of guilt, which justice has
not been able to break up, would he insensibly declared,
and habits of peace kind of suboi dilution would gra.duail:,.
;row up.

In submitting these considerations to your Honourable
House, your petitioners speak with the greater confidence
in the justice of these views, because experience has proved
the inefficacy of the measures to which Government has
successively resorted. Special Commissions, Insurrection
Acts, and the other expedients of severity, by which Mi-
nisters conceived the population could be subdued into ci-
vilization, have failed Such measures may have had the ef.
feet of checking, or rather, of throwing hack the symptoms
of moral disorder for a time ; but the result has proved
that the causes of the disease were so deeply seated as to he
b •vend the permanent operation of merely temporary ex.
padients.
Your Petitioners are convinced, that in order to apply
an effectual cure to evils which are daily augmenting, the
whole system by which this country has been governed
must undergo an essential change, and they humbly submit,
that after the failure of every other experiment, for the pa-
cification of Ireland, it is at least worth while to try the
only means to which the Legislature has not yet resorted,
and which many wise and good men have pronounced to
he the only means by which the progress of disaster can be
checked, and peace and good will can be established.

Your Petitioners believe, that if Catholic Emancipation
were substituted for the harsh and inefficacious measures
which its opponents recommend, a general reconciliation
between all classes would be produced, mutual confidence
would be created, an interchange of cordial feeling would
take place, education would be diffused, the habits of the
higher orders would be insensibly communicated to their
inferiors, a reliance in the law would be spread through
the whole mass of the population, and the people would he
taught to love and respect their superiors, who would gra-
dually grow anxious to cherish and protect them.
Your Petitioners, therefore, humbly implore your Ho-
nourable Hou:.e to abolish disqualifications which affect the
body to which your Petitioners belong, and contribute to
the production of the bad results to which your Petitioners
have referred.

And your Petitioners will for ever pray.

DESTRUCTIVE FIRE.

(From the Dublin Morning Post.)

Last night, about eleven o'clock, the premises,
38, Lower Ormond Quay, occupied by Hill and
Kelly, cabinet-makers, were discovered to be on fire.
On the alarm being given, those persons who first
arrived on the spot immediately applied themselves
to force in the windows and doo'rs of the burning
premises, which being effected, the interior presented
a most awful spectacle, the entire from top to bot-
tom, appearing enveloped in one volume of flame,
bursting through every aperture; while almost at
the same instant three houses in Liffey-street, Nos.
.56, 55, and 34, the first occupied by a cork-cutter,
the second by a paillasse-maker in the employ of
Hill and Kelly, and the third used as the office of
the Clerk of Weights and Measures, were discover-
ed, by means of a communication in the rear with
the house No. 38, to have also caught the flames.
The destructive element continued to rage for a con-
siderable time, upwards of half an hour elapsing be-
fore any of the engines arrived. On their coming up,
the supply of water was, as usual, lacking, the turn-
keys of the water-cocks being in the pockets of those
vigilant corporation officers, whom no one knew where
to find. This deficiency was fortunately remedied to
a certain extent, by the supply afforded from the river .
by the prompt arrival of the water-carts belonging
to the Paving Board. The dames had, however, at
this period attained an uncontrollable height, and
every effort to check their future progress proved
vain. The floors of the house, No. 38, in which the
fire had commenced, now fell in, with an appalling
crash, and the entire, with the mere exception of
the walls, was quickly reduced to a perfect ruin.
The houses above alluded to in Liffey-street shared
the same fate, as also the house of Robins and Co.,
situate between No. 38 and the corner house, oc-
cupied by Mr. Delaney, bookseller. The latter, as
far as regards the building, though surrounded by
the burning premises, escaped with comparatively
little injury. 'With respect to the furniture, how-
ever, and valuable stock of printing materials, we re-
gret to state, considerable loss has been sustained by
throwing them out of the windows into the streets,
in the efforts used to saye them during the confusion
excited by the first alarm of danger. Very little pro-
perty, we fear, has been rescued from the general
wreck by the owners of the other premises. The
flames were not completely got under before half
past two o'clock. We have, not heard that any ac-
cident occurred.

FURTHER rARTICA:LARS.
(From the Dublin Patriot.)

The origin of this awful occurrence, it appears,
commenced in a workshop belonging to Hill and
Kelly, situate in the rear of their concern on Lower
Ormond-quay, and being connected with the houses
in Liffey-street, quickly communicated the flames
to those premises, as well as to the houses adjoining,
belonging to Messrs. Robins. They altogether pre-
sented a ruinous spectacle, the whole, five in num-
ber, being reduced to mere shells ; a sixth, No. 36,
occupied isy Mr. Delaney, a printer and bookseller,
who had, by dint of the most persevering industry,
realised some competency, though at first supposed
to have been but partially injured, is little better off
than the others. We understand that none of the
premises have been insured, and the loss is consider-
able—considerable, as it affects, we are informed,
almost the entire property of persons little more than
beginning the world. The loss incurred by the
Messrs. Robins, we have heard estimated at nearly
9001.; that of Mr. Delaney at upwards of SM.,
nearly the entire of his elegant printing materials,
together with his stock of books, a large quantity of
paper, and the principal part of his furniture, having
been destroyed. The amount of Messrs. Hill and
Kelly's loss must be serious, as it appears very little
has been preserved.
The unfortunate inmates, (who had some time
previously retired to rest), from the almost instan-
taneous burst of the flames into their apartments,
narrowly escaped with their lives, by forcing their
way out on the leads through the roof of their burn-'
ing habitation, whence, destitute of every covering
save their night clothes, they were taken into an ad-
joining house, occupied as an eye infirmary. Three
of them, much scorched, and otherwise seriously in-
jured, were shortly afterwards conveyed to Jervis-
street hospital.
We are sorry to be informed that, in the midst of
this calamitous scene, depredations to a considerable
extentthata
tin b
were committedcontaining
bby some2si. ‘ i
n B heartlessailk n
owtreest,c
ahne
ds
on the property of the sufferers, particularly on that
of Mr. Delaney, and on the Messrs. Robins' con-
cerns. From the latter, we have been informed,
bills to a considerable amount, was plundered in this
way. A little girl was detected on the following
1 morning at a bookseller's, offering some books for
1 sale, identified to be part of the goods plundered on
. I this occasion.

ha. Dbl NA R
FISHING EXTRAOR y.__The follow-
ingcommunicated to us by
singular circumstance
rely :—A gentleman
water.wee k baited a trimmer
a friend, on whose authority ,„„e"'
of Islip, in this neighbourhood, IX
going to the
wholet. length
with a roach, and left it in deep
place the next morning he observed tat On
of the line was run out, not in the river, butt
surprise, on the land ; and at the end of thelinfoi his
infinite
elic,all)lted
ught
a fine heron ! The bird was taken alive, and wu
In our market on Saturday last.-- Oxford Journal.