The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1840-06-19 00:00:00

CONTEMPOR-Alil7"-PRIS.

RIBBONISM IN IRELAND, ENGLAND, AND
SCOTLAND.
(From the Standard.)
We have copied from the Dublin Evening Mail a
startling, but to us -not surprising, account of the ar-
rest of fourteen ribbon delegates in the town of Balh-
namore, in the county of Leitrim. These include de-
legates from nine different counties in Ireland, 07? C
from Scotland, and one from England.
This, we should suppose, is tolerable evidence of
the existence of the conspiracy which has been so
stoutly denied by the allies of the ribbonmen at the
press. Perhaps we shall now be told that these four-
teen delegates are mere creations of the Standard's
imagination, or hear some one of the thousand civil
sneers with which our incredulous contemporaries hare
been in the habit of complimenting us.
It will not, however, be so easy to sneer away the
evidence furnished by these arrests, although we have
little doubt that much of that evidence will be sup-
pressed. Were the Irish government now to act ho-
nestly and vigorously, we are satisfied that they have the
means of laying bare to the public the entire of the
murderous and treasonable conspiracy which for years
has stained Ireland with blood, and endangers at this
moment the peace, if not the existence. of the empire.
We cannot, of course, pretend to say that the papers
actually found, with the arrested delegates disclose the
entire plot; on the contrary, judging from the usual
tactics on which the affairs of the conspiracy are ma-
naged, we are almost sure that they do not. The great
secret of the policy of ribbonism is to keep each grade
of the conspiracy in total ignorance of the .superwr
machinery of the confederation. But at the same time
we are satisfied that if Lord Ebrington's government
chose to follow up with sincerity and vigour the clue
which the present discover), must have afforded them,
they have it in their power to arrive at last at the know-
ledge of the mysterious head of this formidable orga-
nisation, and crush it for ever.

That they will do so we do not expect. The dis-
closures which would necessarily follow such an in-
quiry would be of all others the most inconvenient to
ministers. Not only would they pronounce the se-
verest condemnation on their past Irish policy, and
rouse the honest indignation of the British people
against its authors, but they might perhaps compro-
mise the personal safety of some whom ministers could
not well spare. Our readers have not yet perhaps for-
gotten the affidavits which we published some years
since in the Standard. We confess we look for a re-

petition of the policy of suppression which has been
always pursued by the Whigs in relation to this ribbon
conspiracy—a policy never perhaps more acted in than
the trial of Keenan by the present Lord Plunkett in
1825.

Justice obliges us to add that this policy could not
have been persevered in if the conservatives had done
their duty. We have the best reason to speak of the
strange disinclination among men of all parties to in-
quire into this conspiracy. The disinclinationis not
new. There is the natural reluctance in the human
mind to believe in the existence of such monstrous and
wide-spread wickedness as the supposition of a general
murderous confederacy involves; it requires, too, the
effort of a strong mind to realise to itself the secret
existence of a mysterious society of which no clear in-
dications appear on the external surface of society—no
indications, at least, which it does not require close and
cautious investigation to connect with the agency which
produces them. The human mind is ever satisfied
with the easiest and shortest account of any phenome-
non, and we need not say how much easier it is to re-
fer a murder, such as that of Lord Norbury, to the
faithlessness of a servant than to the agency of a so-
ciety of murderers pervading the country. Whatever
may be the cause, certain it is that in all countries and
ages the greatest chance of the success of conspiracies
has been found in this very indisposition of the gene-
rality of mankind to yield assent to even the strongest
circumstantial evidence of their existence.

The incredulity as to the Catiline conspiracy at
Rome was the chief difficulty that Cicero had to en-
counter in crushing it. But for the sagacity and
firmness of Cicero, but for his indifference to the sneers
of the wise conservatives of his day, that incredulity
would have left Rome, at the mercy of the conspirators.

The very same incredulity in 1803 left the Castle of
Dublin, in spite of repeated and disregarded warnings
to the government, almost at the mercy of Emmet and
his associates. While government were laughing at
the men who Warn e d them of the danger, while they
were actually replying to these warnings by boasts of
the tranquility of the country, the conspirators were
butchering the Chief Justice of Ireland within a few
hundred yards of the spot where the incredulous
Chief Secretary was denying the possibility of insur-
rection. The delay which was occasioned by their
stopping to commit this murder gave time for the
loyalists to rally and save the castle and the country.
Of the existence of a formidable treasonable con-
spiracy, with ramifications in both countries, we should
suppose no rational man can really doubt. We can
only pity those whose wretched avocation obliges them
to affect a doubt which they can scarcely feel. The
ribbon conspiracy can no longer be disregarded. We
believe the time is not far distant when it will snake its
presence fearfully known—it is not improbable that
the delegates of the different counties which met at
Ballinamore, were actually discussing the propriety, or
forming the -plan of a general insurrection, an insur•
rection of which certainly the loyalty of the Protestant
people of Ireland would snake short work—but at
what expense of valuable life we dread to think. If
Lord Ebrington now does not exterminate this mur-
derous conspiracy, and if a sanguinary massacre break
out, he will he in the sight of God and man responsible
for the blood that will be shed—a responsibility the
most fearful of all those that whig policy entails upon
him. The spoliation of the Protestant church is bad
enough ; so is the encouragement of traitors ; a con-
nivance at plans for the murder of loyalists is a step
beyond them both, although a step in the same direc-
tion. " Sint sane quoniam ita se mores habent
liberales ex sociorum fortunis ; sint misericordes in
furibus rerarii ; sanguinem nostrum illis largiantur."

The Sheridan brought the following passengers :—Mrs.,
Miss, and Mr. H. W. Moncure, Richmond, Virginia ; Mr.,
Miss, Miss C., Mr. A., and Mr. W. Van Rensselaer, Mrs.
De Peyster and two children, Mr. W. B. and Mr. A. C.
Binniger, Mr. S. J. Spence, Mr. S. L. Schrage, Mr. L. C.
Motz, Mr. J. H. Hensler, and Mr. A. Graham, New York ;
Mr. H., Mrs. Mary, Miss, and Master J. H. Messchert, and
Miss M. Griffith, Philadelphia ; Mr. and Miss Shirreil,
London; Mr. Gidnev and two children, Manchester; Mr.
Richard Dickson, Norfolk, Virginia ; Mr. J. M'Cance•
Belfast; Mr. B. Blandy, Granville, Ohio ; Mr. J. D Dutton
and Mr. P. Wilson, Maryland.
PROVINCIAL MEDICAL SOCIETY.—The annual meeting of
the members of this Society was held at the Legh Arms
Hotel, Newton, yesterday. A reporter from the LIVERPOOL
STANDARD applied for admission, with the view of serving
the objects of the Association by publishing such parts of the
proceedings as might he interesting to the public generally.
In reply, the Secretaries addressed a note to him, stating that
a reporter had been specially engaged, who was responsible
to the Society, and that, therefore, the services of any other
reporter ware declined.
ABOLITION OF TORTURE.—The surest sign of the progress
of civilization is the abandonment of the rbarous practice
of subjecting accused persons to " the torture," in order to
compel them either to plead or confess ; and yet, in this age
of refinement and intellect, how many, either by their igno-
rance or prejudices, impose on themselves prolonged and
excruciating tortures of the worst kind. How many victims
of Gout and Rheumatism endure sleepless nights, and days
of agony, when by a timely recourse to Blair's Pills they can
insure relief from the most painful of maladies to which
mortality is subject.—See Advt.
A RUSSIAN TABLE D'HOTE.—Every dish at table was
served in the Russian style—not less, dare say, than one
hundred, and all peculiar to the country. To make the mat-
ter complete, la maitresse d'hotel, dressed in gold embroi-
dery and diamonds, sat at the head of the table, with her
face, neck, and arms painted like a doll. This sort of paint-
ing is a national usage, and has been so ever since Russia
was in existence. Our attendants, to the number of forty,
were bearded men, dressed in yellow, purple, and parti-co-
loured shirts, tucked up at the wrists, so as to leave half of
their arms naked, and without coats or waistcoats. There
was a boy who played on the organ, and who, for the per-
mission to do so, paid the master of the tavern several hun-
dred rubles a-year, which shows how much the tavern was
frequented, and how music here is considered a necessary -
life. After coffee, a group of gipsies was brought.
efozoor
amusement, dressed in gold brocaded shawls, tied
shoulder, and with earrings formed of various
beautifully they danced the Iloheniian and_ EgYPIr
of ,ieireni4,
calling to one's recollection the dancing figures.
cowns..ankiGee,,,
neum !---difemoirs et & Pi-Incas Dashkow.
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