The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1854-03-21 00:00:00

IRELAND.

A COALITION MINISTER.—At the Carlow assizes, Mr.
John Sadleir, M.P., the late Lord of the Treasury, was
amerced in damages to the amount of £l,lOO, with 6d.
costs, at the suit of the voter Dowling, who was arrested
upon a fictitious demand and thrown into gaol, to prevent
him from voting at the Carlow election—it has been
proved—at the instance of the honourable legislator.
MINISTERS' MONEY (IRELAND) BILL.—The govern-
ment bill Proposes that only so much of the tax shall
continue as is now levied upon houses rated at above £lO,
and that no house shall pay a greater amount than at pre-
sent. The produce of so much of the tax as is thus con-
tinued is to be paid through the Paymaster of Civil Ser-
vices to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, who are to pay
the incumbents 75 per cent. of the present amount (the
marginal note says 80), except where the revenue of a
benefice is charged with the payment of curates, and such
other charges as are allowed to be deducted in fixing the
nett income of benefices taxable to the Ecclesiastical Com-
missioners, in which case the portion of the revenue so
employed is to be paid in full. Taxpayers may redeem at
14 years' purchase.
SLIGO ELECTION.—The report of the select committee
appointed to inquire into the allegations of Mr. Somers's
petition, complaining of irregular proceedings in the mat-
ter of the petition against Mr. Sadleir's return for Sligo
has been presented to the House of Commons and printed.
The committee report that the main allegations of Mr.
Somers's petition are proved; that Mr. Gethin, solicitor,
of Sligo, being instructed by Mr. Sadleir's agent to make
inquiries as to the solvency of the sureties to the petition
against Mr. Sadleir's return, employed for this purpose
James Simpson, a farmer, and Henry Simpson, relieving
officer of the Sligo Unian ; and that at a meeting at Ge-
thin's office, at which the three were present, Gethin and
James Simpson offered the father of one of the sureties
£5O to induce him to procure his son's signature to an affi-
davit giving a false statement as to his property ; and that
the Simpson's 'made a similar offer in the case of the other
surety, with a view to showing that he was not worth the
requisite amount. The committee report " that the con-
duct of these three persons is deserving of the serious
attention and animadversion of the house ;" but they state
" that Mr. Sadleir does not appear from the evidence to
have been personally implicated in or cognisant of these
proceedings!'

THE DUBLIN TRACT DISTRIBUTING CASE.—The Lord
Lieutenant has given his opinion in this matter in a letter
addressed to Mr. O'Callaghan, the magistrate :—" Smith
had not, in fact, assaulted, nor threatened to assault,
O'Brennan, nor was there the slightest ground for sup-
posing he ever contemplated committing a breach of the
peace ; he was pursuing a common avocation, and though
his Excellency cannot but strongly deprecate the practice
of employing persons for the purpose of indiscriminately
disseminating papers, containing matter offensive to any
class of Her Majesty's subjects, yet he cannot recognise
any right in those who may themselves be annoyed by
that practice to arrest or imprison persons so employed.
His Excellency collects from the proceedings before the
Court of Queen's Bench, that no corrupt or improper
motive was attributed to you, which relieves his Excel-
lency from thenecessity of taking any further step than
thus to convey, to you his strong disapproval, not only of
the manner in which the proceedings in
conducted,, ,
but of the decision pronounced by
similar
your office
and
d-etore
express a hope-that you will not again fall into a
trror,".