The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-12-15 00:00:00

IRELAND.

Lord Shrewsbury has whitewashed Mr. O'Connell—
publishing an eulogy of the Liberator's purity of motive
in the now vulgar shape of a letter.
The play of " Jack Shepherd," which was announced
at the theatre at Clonmel, was very properly interdicted
by the mayor, as unfit for the audience.
The Irish Government has issued a proclamation.
against the possession and use of contraband fire=arms,
grounded on the 15th and 16th of George III:, c. 21—
the Whiteboy Act. . .

The Tipperary Constitution says that a priest, on
Sunday, in one of the rural parishes, told his fleck " that
he would not blame them if they robbed every one they
met." _ _ _

. Mr. O'Connell hawing stated last week that the Repeal
Association owed him b.£97 l9s. 61, the Dubin Moil
nays : " Throw in the odd thruppence
Who fears to speak of Ninelli-eioht
An attempt was on Saturday made to murder Mr.
Ilennessy, overseer under the Board of Works, near
Clare Castle; nine swan shots entered his body. Hopes
are, however, entertained of his recovery. The perpe-
tratorslhave not been discovered.
MELANCHOLY ACCIDENT, WITH Loss OF THREE
LIVES.—On Wednesday morning week, at the kitchen-
garden house of James levers, Esci, Glenfield, county
Limerick. John O'Donnell, wife, and son (the latter a
very fine young man) were found dead; the wife and son
lying on the floor, and the father, an old man, dead in
bed. An inquest wad held on Thursday, and a pot

mortem examination made ; and it being deposed by the
medical evidence that death was caused by the respiration
and poisonous effects of carbonic acid gas, produced by
combustion in a very small and confined bed-room, a
verdict was recorded accordingly.
GUN PRACTICE BY THE PEASANTRY.—A gentleman
residing in the vicinity of this town, a few days back,
espied a hat placed on a spade in the centre of a green
field, and being somewhat surprised at its location in
ground of this description, he watched attentively for a
while. His surprise, however, was soon banished, for in
a few moments, he perceived no less than seven men
kneeling and taking aim at the ill-fated bat. They fired
with great precision, and, it is roedless to say, made a
riddle of the target !! I The field days are incessant,
and " the young idea" is shooting in all directions. The
bad work goes bravely on. May it soon have an end,
say we.—Tipperary Constitution.
DEATHS BY STARVATION.—The Mayo Constitution
publishes the reptirts of no less than eight inquests on the
bodies of poor people, all of whom, according to the evi-
dence and verdicts, had perished for want of the common
necess,.ries of life. The state of that county is repre-
sented by trustworthy witnesses to be really appalling ;
and, like ether districts similarly circumstanced, the
greater the extent of poverty the greater the amount of
agrarian outrage. In the same paper which tells the
melancholy tale of eight human beings perishing by star-
vation, there appears a catalogue of crimes perpetrated by
miscreants who make the sufferings of their fellow-crea-
tures a pretext for plunder arid bloodshed. . . .

PLUNDER or CORN.—Between one and two o'clock
on the morning of Wednesday lest, a band of twenty
men, several of them armed with guns, &c., entered the
farm-yard of Mr. R. Roberts, of Corbally, near Cork,
and plundered the barn of six barrels of wheat and eight
of oats. This is in a county in which there is plenty of
food, and the people know where to find it. Whether
the depredators belonged to the parish or came from a
distance is not known. They were heard by a man and
a boy, who were deterred from giving the alarm, which
would hare been useless, as Mr. Roberts is old, and only
his daughters and female servants in the house. The
fellows had ❑o appearance of want, and had three horses
and butts with them. They intended to take also a fat
cow, but on the remonstrance of the boy they left her.

A BURGLAR'S ACCOUNT OF HIMSELF.—At the Belfat
quarter sessions, last week, John Sloan was sentenced to
a year's imprisonment, and Frederick M'Cann and Patrick
Magee were transported for fitteen years, for a burglary
in Belfast. Magee made an extraordinary confession.
Sloan and be (he said) had robbed together fifty or sixty
houses this year or two. He was a Liverpool man, " I
know," be continued, " that I am a thief and a notorious
rubber; I acknowledge till toy robberies; but Sloan was
with me forty or fifty times in offices in Liverpool, and
carried a double.barrelled pistol in Liverpool to shoot any
one ,who would hinder him. Ay, and Sloan is wanted
now for a robbery in North John-street. There was
another robbery in Belfast, but it is not worth talking
about. It was Sloan did that. And there was another,
too, that has rt,,t come to light."

DEATHS FROM STARVATION IN GALWAY.—An in-
quest was held on the 30th ult., at ltosshill, in this
county, on view of the bodies of Martin Joyce and
Michael Joyce, his S.M. It appeared in evidence, that
the former was father of six children, and that for the
last month they had scarcely any means of support. They
were frequently obliged to live on one quart of meal a
day between seven in family, and the day previous to their
decease, th-v had but four herrings to subsist upon.
Having obtained employment upon the public worts, they
returned in the evening to their wretched home, retired
to rest, without having eaten anything, and before morn-
ing, exhausted nature sought repose in t e arms of death.
A poor man, named Hession, who lately left the Galway
workhouse, was found dead in a hut near the bridge of
furloughmoor, on the morning of Thurschy
Herald.

REPEAL ASSOCIATION —The usual weekly meeting
was held on Mon ay, Mr. A. R. Sihtch, barrister, in the
chair. The attendance was more numerous than it had
been for souse time past, for reasans which will afterwards
explain themse.ves. It was fully expected that the "Li-
berator," writhing under the castigation int-Feted upo❑
him by the several spea,ers at the Young Ireland demon-
straiion, would return the compliment with interest from
his own forum. Judge, therefore, the surprise of the un-
initiated, when, instead of hurling thunderbolts at his
youthful antagonists, he actually struck his colours, and
laid the basis of a reconciliation, by proposing a con-
ference between the heads of the two parties, with a view
of arranging the preliminaries of a treaty for the suspen-
sion of hostilities. Mr. O'Connell's supremacy, as the
leader of the agitation, is, therefore, virtually at an end,
and Young Ireland's victory has been completed. Mr.
O'Connell handed in £55, the subscription of himself
and family, and the rent amounted to £ll6.
PROPOSAL OF THERE'. R.J. WGIIEE FOR THE CON-
VERSION OF ROMAN CATHOLICS TO PROTESTANTISM.
—The reverend gentleman has promulgated a plan to
effect this object, of which the following are the heads :
To open in Dublin a regular weekly lecture, accessible to
the priests of all Ireland ; a reserved platform to be pro-
vided for them, to which they should regularly be invited,
in the kindest spirit, and where the people shall have the
advantage of seeing that they always can come. The pro-
pounder states, that as regards the antiquity of their
Church, the tables are turned on them, the Protestant
Reformation having been a casting off of novelties, and
returning to the ancient Christian creed. He proposes
to join the Church of Rome, if the priests can show him
that their creed was ever received or heard of as a pro-
fession of faith in the Christian church before the false
reform of the Council of Trent, in 1564. The propo-
sition of an individual, he says, will produce no effect;
but if a large body of the Church clergy and laity would
join him in the offer, the Roman Catholic laity would be
awakened. and would find. that tl-toy
lives deceived, and that the claim of antiquity must be
given to the Protestant Church. His second proposal is,
that several clergymen should address the priests weekly,
giving them instruction in the Gospel, showing the doc-
trine of justification by the Lord Jesus in contradis-
tinction to Romish errors, &c., &c.) Here the writer
points out the parts of Scripture that show the grand
errors of the Romanists.) He concludes as follows
I believe in my soul there is no way so likely to lift up
the rod from oar land as a diligent discharge of the most
important duties of our sphere. And I firmly believe the
way to discharge them best, is to have such a faith in the
Gospel for our own souls as to lead us to pray that we
may be enabled to deliver ourselves from the guilt of
neglecting our poor Roman Catholic countrymen."
RETRIBUTION.—The measure of 1845 (the Maynooth
endowment) passed amid cheers and congratulations ; and
its opponents were greeted, on all bands, with gibes and
taunts for their stupid bigotry. But they could not know
that while statesmen were smiling and exulting, and they
were trembling, the destroyer had already gone forth,
and a plague had begun which was speedily to shake all
the national reliances. Still less could they foresee that
the first and most singular result of this visitation would
be; not so much to plague or punish the people, as to
confound and break up the strong but presuming govern-
ment. The mere alarm of famine threw the Minister on
a course which, whether wise or unwise, ended in break-
ing up the strongest government which England had seen
for fourteen years. Such was the first result of the ,
Divine judgment. Meanwhile, however, the peculiar
infliction went on its course. A disease affecting espe-
cially " the Irish root" spread and increased. The men
of science have now had it under t :eir consideration for
more than fifteen months ; and after all their study, they
can neither enlighten us as to its cause, its nature, nor its
remedy! Our statesmen, however, saw nothing of the
hand of God, nor did they " repent, to give God the
glory." They would speedily set all things to rights by
altering the customs' duties ! They have fully tried this
course, and what is the result ? The ports were to l e
thrown open, and then food was to be made so cheap,
that we might laugh at the idea of famine. The ports
have been thrown open, but food is not cheaper, and
famine is actually devouring its hundreds and thousands.
By the relaxation of our commercial code, trade and
manufactures were to receive such a❑ impetus as to create
a high tide of wealth and prosperity. The commercial
code has been relaxed ; but instead of art increase of trade,
we find all our manufacturing towns suffering an unusual
depression and stagnation. By our " boon to Ireland "
we were to have attached the people of that country per-
manently to the empire. Instead of which we now see
them generally arming ; the ho-tile tenor of which pro-
ceeding it is impossible to doubt. Meanwhile, all is
trouble and uncertainty at home. We have a weak
government where, in 1811, 1812, and 1843, we had a
strong one. Of its endurance, even through a single
session, no one entertains any confident expectation ; yet
no one can surmise in what way a stronger cabinet can
be formed in its room. Thus famine, fear of civil war,
commercial gloom, and weakness at the seat of govern-
ment, combine to make our prospects unusually gloomy ;
and yet men—even religious men—are found to express a
doubt as to whether God has a controversy with us.—
, Record.