The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-01-13 00:00:00

IRELAND.

Baron Pennefather has retired from the Chief Justice-
ship of the Irish Queen's Bench.
The Dub Freeman and the Cork Reporter have set
up commissioners with a view of replying to the state-
ments of the gentleman employed by the Times.
On Friday last, Mr. Nott, of the firm of Nott and Son,
tea-merchants, Dublin, committed suicide at the house
of his brother-in law, by hanging himself from a stair-
case.

ROMAN CATHOLIC SCHOLARSHIPS IN TRINITY COL-
LEGE, DUBLIN.-Mr. Heron's claim has, as was sur-
mised, failed of success. The Archbishop of Armagh and
the Bishop of Dublin have finally " dismissed the com-
plaint."
The use of diseased potatoes in Ireland by the destitute
poor is becoming, as was expected, a. fruitful source of
fever and disease. A. fearful increase in the number of
fever patients patients has taken place in the hospital
of Fermoy. _

The Limerick journals contain a list of outrages, vary-
ing little in character from those committed in that county
and duly recorded every week, since the long nights set
in. There is, however, nothing worse in this last list than
firing at a gamekeeper without effect. Threatening notices
are too common to command serious attention. .

-.--
CROWN PROSECUTIONS. Informations have been
sworn against Mr. Duffey, the proprietor of the Nation
newspaper, for the publication, in that journal, of a sedi-
tious libel, tending to incite the people of Ireland to at-
tack her Majesty's soldiers when conveyed by railway, or
to obstruct the railways, and render them unfit for the
conveyance of troops.
REPEAL YEAR.—On Monday last, at Conciliation-hall
Dublin, Mr. O'Connell said, they now began the new
year; that was hansel Monday, and hurrah for repeal.
He trusted in Providence that it would be the last year of
the struggle—the first year of complete success ; and he
hoped that bountiful Providence, which had so long
afflicted Ireland, would give them cheering hopes that the
year would not close till they saw the Parliament rein-
stated in College-green.
MOLLY MAGUIRE IN DUBLIN.—Mis atrocious sys-
tem appears to be gradually making its way to the neigh-
bourhood of Dublin. The case of Mr. Alley, of Artone,
has been followed up by an attempt to murder the over-
seer to Mr. George Woods, of Milverton, a magistrate of
the county of Dublin. The name of the intended victim
was Samuel King ; and while sitting at his own table, on
Saturday evening week, a shot was fired in through the
window, which fortunately did not take effect. The
Lord-Lieutenant has offered a reward of £lOO for the
discovery of the perpetrator of the outrage.
DRUNKENNESS,—During the past month 872 persons
were committed to the city bridewell by the police, of
which number 751 were drunkards. For the correspond-
ing month in the previous (1844), the number committed
was 562, of which 433 were drunkards, showing an in-
crease in the crime of drunkenness of 318 ! During the
year 1844, 5,001 persons were committed to bridewell,
while for the past year no fewer than 8,246 were com-
mitted to the same prison, showing a fearful amount in
the increase of crime of 3,245 committals. So arduous
was the duty on the Bridewell turnkeys, by reason of
these committals, that the Board of Superintendence
deemed it advisable to appoint an additional turnkey to
the prison.—Cork Constitution.
A NEW ERA FOR TUE ROMAN CATHOLIC LAITY.—
We copy from the Newry Telegraph the second day's
proceedings of an investigation of charges between a
Roman Catholic Bishop and one of his parochial clergy,
(first referred to Rome, and thence back again to Ireland),
held in open court, before Dr. Crolly, the Roman Catholic
Archbishop of Armagh, and Primate of all Ireland, as-
sisted by some of his Suffragan Bishops. The first day's
proceedings have already appeared in our last; and as the
case is still going on, by adjournment from day to day,
we shall lay its course before our readers to the termina-
tion. The chief interest attached to this case is its
novelty. We believe that this is the first instance in
which an inquiry of this kind was ever held in open
court, or at which a newspaper reporter was present.—
Dublin Mail.
At the usual Meeting of the Repeal Association on the
sth instant, Mr. O'Connell made the following remarks :
—" The King of France," he said, "was an older man
than him. His days were numbered, and the moment he
fell, his sons could maintain the throne of France only
by calling out its military spirit. They must distinguish
themselves in the field of battle. or their dynasty is gone.
(Cheers.) England would want them then, and she
should have them on their own terms, the repeal of the
Union." Mr. O'Connell then touched upon the project
of raising the English militia. Why did they not speak
of raising the Irish militia? That was a question Mi-
nisters asked each other. ( Hear.) The Hon. Gentleman
concluded by moving a series of resolutions, at the con-
clusion of which they " solemnly pledged themselves, in
the name of the brave, the moral, the virtuous, and reli-
gious people of Ireland, and in the presence of the Bri-
tish nation, of all the people of Europe and the Ame-
ricans, that they would consent to 'no surrender,' no
compromise, and no postponement of their undoubted
rights ; but that they would unremittingly persevere in all
legal, constitutional, and above all, all peaceable means,
and none other, until they attained the restoration of the
legislative and judicial independence of Ireland, and re-
established their nationality, subject in dutiful and invio-
lable allegiance to the monarch of Great Britain and Ire-
land, but protected by a resident Irish Parliament." His
allusion to the age of the French King was very much in
the character of Esau—" The days of mourning for
my father Isaac are at hand, when I shall kill my brother
Jacob."

POPERY IN IRELAND.-IMPURITY OF THE

CONFESSIONAL,

The Dublin Statesman publishes a bold letter from a
recently-converted Irish priest (the Rev. Roderick Ryder)
who abjured the errors of Romanism in St. Audoen's
Church, on the 30th day of last month, and was received
into communion with our national church, having pro-
duced the most satisfactory testimonials as to unble-
mished character and superior ability from four bishops
of the Romish church, of which he had been a zealous
priest for upwards of eleven years.
Mr. Ryder glances at some of the impurities of Ro-
manism, but the Statesman observes :—" Those hints
we have been further compelled to prune of their too rich
luxuriance. Bad as those impurities are, we thought
they were really more execrable in theory than in practice.
But we find that the priests do not shrink from working
out the lucubrations of Dens, Delahogues, and Sanchez.
Revolting as were the thoughts of these learned worthies,
the practice of the confessional is more indelicate and re-
fined in vice." .

The following is a portion of Mr. Ryder's letter. After
the " pruning" of our contemporary, we have thought it
well to prune yet a little more. Popery frequently escapes
a withering exposure of its immoralities before the public
eye, because its abominations are too gross to be more
than hinted at in journals designed for general perusal.
" Now, regarding your practice of auricular confession,
I shall merely state facts, which I know by eleven years'
experience. All your theologians admit that it is not of
divine institution, or in other words, that it was invented
by man. That is one fact. The second is, that I know
it to be conducive to the most debasing system of de-
bauchery and licentiousness. I know that questions are
asked and answered in the confessional of a character re-
volting to a pure and virtuous female."

" 1 do not blame either the priests or the penitents—
but I blame the system ; it is unscriptural in theory, and
immoral in its tendency.
" Hence the general outcry against the immorality of
priests. I could not sit for one half hour in the house of
any intelligent Roman Catholic, that the conduct of Fa-
Father Tim, Father Tom, Father Mick, would not be
brought on the tapis. Some late exposure, some new
tour du lit gauchement arrangee would be the subject.
While, on the other hand, if you enter into conversation
with these holy fathers, their conversation will be about
their bishop and his private concerns ;—but every good
Catholic knows that to be. calumny. He knows that St.
Paul tells every bishop to be the husband of one wife, and
that wife is the church, a very respectable old lady of un-
blemished character, whom the bishop calls his holy mo-
ther. So that she is his wife and mother at the same
time ;—but the pope gives a dispensation. Now these
maligners would wish to insinuate that this pious lady is
somehow too immaterial ;—but that is calumny.
" Be this as it may, one thing is certain, that the outcry
against the clergy is universal :—and I believe that three-
fourths of their complaints have their origin in the con-
fessional. The priest has a species of access to females
which no other man can have ; he is held in a certain de-
gree of respect in which no other man is held ; he is be-
lieved to have the power of forgiving whatever sins he may
commit, which no other man has. All these privileges
are dangerous in the hands of a man who may be inclined
to avail himself of them. The scandal that would follow,
the disgrace of a whole family, the respect entertained for
the priest, and sometimes the attachment of the victim to
the culprit, are powerful preventatives against exposure.
If the victim move in humble life she is generally shipped
off to America, or married to some servant or needy rela-
tive who is always ready at hand. I know three poor girls,
who were shipped off last season by one man under such
circumstances. The people are beginning to open their
eyes, yet they do not know the one-tenth of what passes,
but they see enough. They see the description of servants
that some of their priests keep ; the intimacies which they
form with pious old maids of equivocal character ;—the
dissipated manners which they betray ;—and the rakish
tours they take occasionally ;—and they would be as blind
as bats not to see these. I admit there are a few of them
who have escaped the general contagion, but they are few
indeed ; they form the exception and not the rule—' rari
nantes in gurgite vasto.' "

THE COIIRT 4 FASHIONABLE WORLD.

The Queen will leave Windsor Castle on Tuesday for
Buckingham Palace.
Sir Frederick Thesiger and Sir Thomas Wylde have
given an opinion upon a case submitted to them on be-
half of Prince Albert, to the effect that Windsor Farm
was not liable to be rated, inasmuch as the property in
question belonged to the crown.