The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1838-04-13 00:00:00

A PLOUGHING MATCH IN •JAMAICA

Extract of a letter from St. Thomas in the East.—l was yes-
terday very much gratified by a ploughing match which took
place at Suffolk-park, near Bath. We have long heard here of
a society for promoting agriculture, and the pursuits connected
with it; but like most thibgs in this parish, and the island ge-
nerally, it has slumbered quietly under a mere name.
To the Resident Attorney of 'Winchester estate we are in-
debted for the fillip which seems to have roused the society; and
it is to be hoped we shall now see great good arise from its ex-
ertions. With a public spirit worthy of all imitation, Mr.
Crockett obtained the co-operation of all the managers interested
in the Yale of Plantain Garden River; and yesterday the rival"
ploughs of the contiguous estates were pitted against each other,
in a piece of tough pasture. Seven ploughs started; and for
the sable hand so recently initiated in the mysteties of a plough,
still the work was good.
The Golden-grove ploughman, from having much the longest
experience, was decidedly the best (as an apprentice) in the
field, and he received the prize. The ploughs of Winchester,
Rhine, P. G. River, Pleasant-hill, and Duckenfield, were placed
next. The most beautiful work, however, was performed by
the Hordley plough. In this case the European ploughman of
the estate directed it, and the holes were so deeply, widely, and
perfectly finished at once, that nothing more seemed requisite
to be done, hefore planting the cane.
In such a Vale as Plantain Garden River, where, in twelve
estates, not an acre cannot be cultivated by the plough alone,
the advantages of the introduction of ploughing must be incal-
culable.

One estate irpntting;-'by this-'means, GO acres of plants; of
these, 16 acres have been ploughed in 11 days. Thus, one acre
and a half of magnificent holes are ploughed in a day ; the ex-
pense being merely the salary of the ploughman for one day,
the labour of two boys and an adult, and the day's cost for a
poll of oxen.
Taking the cost of the oxen to be £2. 13s. 4d. (the hire of
two carts); the labour of two boys, Is. Bd. each; the work of an.
adult, 2s. 11d.; and the day's salary of the'ploughman' at £5O.
per ann. (say 2s. 3d.), the whole cost of the acre and half of
land would be £3. 2s. 34. 3-4; while, if dug by jobbers, at £3.
per acre, the cost would be £l2.
In this manner, the estate•l have mentioned, as putting in 60
acres of plants, can do so at small cost of £122. 12s. 6d.;
whilst another estate, jobbing the same number of acres, would
have to pay £4BO.
I was much pleased in seeing ten European ploughmen on
the ground. To the gentlemen who have introduced such in-
structors to the few and better disposed of your peasantry, as
hereafter wit'. work, the Company cannot be too grateful.
That in a short time we shall be compelled LI avail ourselves of
all the advantages of European agricultureand machinery, can-
not be denied. The sooner therefore, we embrace these ad-
vantages, the better : our labourers will be accustomed to the
change, but a vety short time remains for the experiment
1 repeat, the district is infinitely obliged to Mr. Crockett for
his public spirit, in rousing our slumbering Agriculturalists;
and 1 am sure the spectators were as equally obliged for the
splendid entertainment his hospitality afforded on the ground,
and to which about 44 gentlemen sat down.—Despatch.

Ma. Pop LTER'S CASE.—A loss of self respect gene-
rally indicates a loss of character. When a man ceases
to be jealous of his honour, it may be taken for granted
that he has very little of that commodity in his posses-
sion. This, we presume, must be the case with the " ty-
rant majority" in the House of Commons ; for on Mon-
day last, when certain resolutions were submitted to the
house, declaring the letter of Mr. Poulter to be a false
and scandalous libel, they were negatived, upon a divi-
sion, by a majority of four. Henceforth, then, it must
be lawful for any man to speak of the majority in that
house in the most disparaging term that can be irna-
.gined. We consider ourselves at liberty to call that ma-
jority a servile and corrupt faction-7-to denounce their
actions as mean and tyrannical—to impute to them a
want of hondurable principle—to stigmatize their cha-
racters, ridicule their proceedings, and desoise their au-

'I

thoritv. IF we called them liars and vagabond;--nag,
if we desiunated them, as (.)'Connell did, as so many
" scoundrels"—if, we accused them of corrtiption and
injustice, we shonlil still consider ourselves entitled to
escape with impunity. They have themselves decided
that such charges are not " scandalous libels.'"Cney
are only instances of allowable freedom of speech.
There certainly was a time when the Honse of Com-
mons would have visited any one who ventured to libel
the character of its members with condign punishment.
But, then, at that period, the house had something to he
jealous of: it had a high sense of honour, and was al-
ways ready to vindicate its proceedings. Npw, matters
are somewhat different. The majority in the house are
so accustomed to set at defiance the maxims of honesty
and truth, and to decide every question upon considera-
tions of party ascendancy, that they have ceased to no-
tice those who libel them.
,Whilst these men show such
little regard to their own characters, it is not to he won-
dered at that the people of England should despise
!hem.

THE STATE OF IRELAND.—It is one of the first duties
of every government to repress vice and to punish
crime. The next to this is, to protect the innocent, and
thus to prevent the commission of crime. Our present
administration, however, in their government of Ireland,
seem to have inverted these wholesome maxims. It ap-
pears to be their object, as it is also frequently their
boast, to encourage vice and demoralization—to offer a
bonus upon the perpetration of the most horrible crimes
—and to remove all those restraints upon the ungovern-
able passions of wicked men, by which alone the inno•
cent are enabled to live in peace and security. Against
such a government it is the imperative duty of every
man to declaim unceasingly, until a sense of shame shall
drive them to relinquish the reins of power into the
hands of those who will endeavour to remedy the existing
evils—evils which have sprung from a direct connivance
at all that is bad and execrable, and from the palpable
discountenance of all that is good and praiseworthy.
It is an undeniable axiom in morals that the fora of
example operates more powerfully than any other extrin-
sic cause in controlling the actions and modifying the
habits of any community : and the impulse to popular
feeling derived from this source is always stronger in
proportion to the elevated position of the exemplars.
This may account for much of the existing disorder and
contempt of justice which unhappily prevails in Ireland.
What can be expected from the deluded population of
that priest•i idden country, when they see their rulers
ready to stretch out the spoilers hand upon the property
of the clergy ? What can be expected to take place
under a government notoriously acting upon the principle
of dealing "heavy blows" upon Protestantism ? Is it
not a natural consequence that the people, operated upon
by the example of their rulers—infuriated by the exhort-
ations of an unprincipled priesthood—and impelled by
their own feelings of inveterate animosity, should like-
wise emulate the example of their betters, and give the
greatest " discouragement" to Protestants. We dis-
tinctly repeat it, that the religious feuds and the midnight
assassinations, which are now so prevalent in the sister
island, are, in a very great measure, attributable to the
example of the Whig-Radical ministers.
We have been led to these remarks by the frightful
details which are almost daily presented to us in the
Irish journals. We well know that the liberal press of
this country ridicules the idea that there is anything in
the state of Ireland which affords ground for serious
alarm. Let the editors of these papers take a sojourn
of a few months in that country, and we will venture to
say that their sentiments will speedily undergo a change.
It is very easy to deal in wholesale denials. It is easy to
laugh to scorn all the atrocities reported in the Irish
papers. It is easy to call them " tory inventions" and
" tory exaggerations." But it is not so easy to invali-
date the testimony of the Official Gazette.
We could fill our paper with well-authenticated details
of recent murders and other acts of violence in several
parts of Ireland ; but we shall, for the present, confine
ourselves to the following extracts from the Dublin
Evening Mail of this week :

AWFUL STATE OF THE COUNTRY.—Lord Mulgrave, in
recent article written by him, and published in his demi-official
Gazette, says—
" The country is perfectly tranquil from one end to the other.
Lord Mulgraye holds the magician's wand which has wrought
this social revolution in Ireland—the talisman of the Viceroy
is simple justice and fair play to all."
We are strongly tempted to contrast the viceregal vaunt of
his demi-official authority with his own official statements in the
Dublin Gazette; and we are the rather determined on doing so
because we have been taunted of late with not quoting as usual
the proclamations of the Gazette, with a view, it is said, of ac-
cumulating the matter of many publications into one at the
close of the assizes. Now it so happened that, during the pro-
gress of the assizes, we did not quote the Gazette, simply be-
cause, as containing little or nothing of interest, it was not
worth the quotation ; and we accounted for this unusual stillness
by the pressure of the immediate administration of justice on
the lively and volatile spirit of our "excellent population." We
augured also, at the same time, what the events have com-
pletely realised, that the circuits would not he well over before
the abated spirit of our countrymen would rebound, and the
columns of the Gazette testify to the removal of the restraint.
Well, the assizes are over, and the Gazette of Friday, the
6th instant (its latest publication,) is now before us. \Ve draw
not in the bottled stores of the past; we reject them as stale,
and uncork the freshest. We have here ten proclamations,
ranging in date from the 27th ult. to the 6th instant. In these
are recorded three murders; one murderous assault; three cases
of burning- down of dwelling-houses, with the destruction of cat-
tle and other property; two of house-breaking; and one of the
burning of hay. These cases range through Wexford, the King's
County, the Counties of Dublin, Limerick, Galway, and Tip-
perary—the latter of which reminds us of the awful charge de-
livered by Mr. Justice Moore at the late assizes, and the still
more awful comment delivered upon it by the "excellent popu-
lation" of that "calumniated county."
We cannot, perhaps, exhibit this mischievous charge in ful-
ler light than by contrastiag it with the -official, though brief
and cold record, of what must be called its sequence—since lo-
gical, not moral, truth, willnot allow us to call it the consequence.
For this purpose we array extracts from the Judge's charge,
and a proclamation from the Dublin Gazette, and entreat our
readers to compare the convenient text with its practical com-
mentary :
" EXTRACTS FROM THE CHARGE OF MR. JUSTICE MOORE, AT THE

SPRING ASSIZES OF TIPPERARY, 1838.
"I have been furnished with the calendar, and I find in the
number charged with the crime of murder, or aiding or
abetting in murder, which is the same, the names of persons
making to the number of eighty. Does any person believe
there are 80 persons to be tried for murder? We never see
a case that amounts but to homicide reported—all indiscri-
minately are represented as charged with murder. Things
are misrepresented. They are not shown up in their true
colours—and, gentlemen, look to the injurious effect which this
misrepresentation is calculated to achieve, both at home and
abroad, when it is publicly said that there are 80 persons charged
with murder in Clonmel gaol. Why is it never stated as homi-
cide, and in some cases, excusable or justifiable homicide ? No,
gentlemen, such is not the case, and misrepresentations are
sent abroad which bring disgrace, not alone on this country, but
on the natio❑ at large, and terra') Mg: those who would otherwise
bring capital into the country, and improve its general condition.
Gentlemen, this is a peculiar county—it is looked upon as an
alarmed world—but I assert that it has an excellent population,
that it has a noble gentry, who holds fine places, and can live
comfortably and happily in those places—it is not the 'Refu-
yium peccatorum'—no, it is not the nucleus of crime which it is
represented."
(From the Dublin Gazette.)
"APRIL 6, 1838.—Whereas it has been represented to the
Lord Lieutenant, that on the morning of the sth instant, about
the 'loin' of seven o'clock, as Mr. Austin Cooper, of Kilmore, iu
the county of Tipperary, accompanied by his brother, Mr. S.
Cooper, and by Mr. F. Wayland, were proceeding to the fair
of the tow❑ of Tipperary, they were attacked and fired at by
four armed men, lying in ambush, by which Mr. Austin Coo-
per was instantly killed, and Mr. Wayland was severely
wounded :

"His Excellency, for the better apprehending and bringing
to justice the perpetrators of this murder, is pleased hereby to
offer a reward of