The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-05-21 00:00:00

CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY.

Last evening, the first of the annual meetings of the
Liverpool Auxiliary to the Church Missionary Society
was held at the Lecture-hall of the Collegiate Institution.
The spacious hall was densely crowded on the occasion
by perhaps one of the most respectable and influential au-
diences ever assembled within its walls. The platform
was occupied by a very considerable number of the local
clergy, amongst whom his Worship the Mayor occupied
a prominent place in the front. At half-past six o'clock,
the chair was taken by the Rev. Chancellor RAIRES. A
prayer for the divine blessing having been offered up by
the Rev. Mr. CARPENTER, one of the secretaries,
The CHAIRMAN addressed the meeting. He com-
menced by congratulating the town on the attendance of
so numerous and respectable an audience, and by express-
ing his gratification that the general as well as the private
reports exhibited a uniform and steady increase. He
especially rejoiced at the increase, because the circum-
stances of the times might have given rise to an expecta-
tion of the kind; for it had pleased God to relieve the
commerce of the country from the cloud which had been
hanging over its prospects, to open a market for our
manufactured produce, and to give an impulse to the in-
dustrial powers of the country. Those were encourage-
ments to go forward ; calls which we dare not venture to
refuse obeying; and calls which only required to be met
with a liberal and willing spirit of Christian faith, to make
our country the means of communicating gospel light
to all the dark corners of the earth. Through the
instrumentality of the church at large, the gospel
was preached ; wherever Christianity was planted,
means of grace were open ; and he trusted the truths
of Christianity would ever be maintained in the laud;
but how was the gospel to be extended to the na-
tions who had never yet heard the joyful sound, unless
the zeal of the Christian world were embodied in societies
like the present, and some means and channels were
opened by which the streams that had flowed to us might
be directed to others ? It seemed as if the enlargement
of the kingdom of Christ was left to societies like the
present to be carried out ; and therefore well might they
rejoice at the good tidings they were hearing from labour-
ers at home and abroad, seeing that God was making use
of this and kindred institutions to accomplish his will,
in extending the kingdom of his Son, so far as the
limits of the world went. Let such societies be cur-
tailed or hindered, and be (the chairman) knew not by
what means or agency the will of God was to be accom-
plished. Therefore the increase of the missionary spirit
among the rising generation—the interest taken by chil-
dren in the cause, and the young men who were rising as
labourers in the vineyard, were all tokens that God had
not forsaken the land, but that higher and better desti-
nicar-wrrr scut reserve-a- Mr England, when she should be-
come a missionary for the whole world, and all should
come and drink at the source from which she had drawn
so largely at the first. (Applause.)
The Rev. Mr. CARPENTER read the report, from which
it appeared that the Liverpool Committee had to record
many and great mercies bestowed by God's gracious
hand on the society, inasmuch as his blessing had de-
scended on every department of its labours. Additional
ministers had gone forth to the missionary harvest abroad ;
and whilst they had received many tokens of the divine
favour, an increased interest in the success of the society
had been awakened at home. Its financial affairs were in
an unincumbered position; and though the amount re-
ceived last year was not equal to that received the year
before, yet the subscriptions from ordinary and regular
sources were larger. For instance, the income from or-
dinary sources the year before was £103,100, while, last
year, it was £104,323, making an increase of £1.223. The
Liverpool auxiliary had enlarged its contribution and ex-
tended its influence; for the amount received last year
was £2,811 4s. 10d., being £7O 9s. 3d. more than in the
year preceding. In New Zealand, Tinnevelly, and Wes-
tern Africa, the society had been most successful. Native
teachers were employed at the former ; while schools filled
with native scholars, and churches crowded with native
worshippers were to be seen. The Romish missionaries
were labouring there to make converts, but in vain. " I
don't know one of our converts," wrote the missionary,
" who left us to join them, though many have left them
to join us." At Tinnevelly, the number of communicants
had been increased by one-third during the past year, and
there were 1220 new converts : 20,000 souls were receiv-
ing Christian instruction in this mission alone. In the
oldest mission at Sierra Leone, many of the liberated
slaves had been called out of darkness into light; open-
ings had appeared in several quarters; three missionaries
had been set apart for a new field of labour there ; and a
Mr. Crowther, who had himself been a slave, was one of
the most active missionaries. The report concluded by
paying a marked tribute of respect to the late Mr. Chas.
Boutflawer. It said big loss would be deeply felt by the
religious societies of the town ; that his tine and sub-
stance were freely given to promote the cause of his Re-
deemer; and that in him zeal, urbanity, and kindness of
disposition were always observable.
The Rev. J. J. WEITBRECHT, missionary from Nor-
thern India, moved the adoption of the report, and
the committee and officers fur the ensuing year. In
doing so, he said that all who bestowed attention
to the reports must be convinced that the Lord had
greatly blessed the labours of the missionaries. He
had himself been engaged for upwards of eleven years
among the Hindoos ; and he could assure the meeting
that the Lord was with them, and that he had singu-
larly blessed the labours of His servants. There were
hundreds and thousands of Hindoos who rejoiced in the
salvation of the Gospel through Christ ; but additional
labourers were wanted—men of apostolical hearts and
minds. There were 135 millions of Hindoos who were
bowing down at the present day to stocks or stones. They
had a religion indeed, but it was a religion which con-
founded the creature with the Creator. They acknow-
ledged that there was one God, but that he was dispersed
throughout all creation, and that He was to be seen
in animal and vegetable matter. At their idol festivals,
idols were consecrated and thousands fell down and wor-
shipped them, crying out at the same time " these are the
Gods which can give us salvation." He had seen them
worshipping Gods of straw; he was present when a rod
of iron was put through a man's tongue, and the un-
fortunate creature dragged through the streets of Calcutta,
as though he were a maniac, vainly imagining all the time
that he was working out his salvation ; and he had seen
three men crushed under the far-famed car of Juggernaut.
The Hindoos knew nothing of another world. He had
heard their cries and supplications in sorrow, and they
had no hope with regard to eternity ; all they knew was,
that their souls, after they departed from the body, went
either into the souls of their brethren, or into those of
horses, or, it might be, of insects. They were dying in
a state of abject superstition and idolatry, from which it
was our duty and highest privilege to rescue them. He
admitted that it was a most difficult task to bring the
truths of the Gospel home to their minds ; but be
contended that they could and would be converted
through its simple preaching. During the last five
years, no fewer than 4000 Mahomedans had been
converted, while in Kishnagow' in one week, not less
than 600 Mahomedans were brought into the fold of
Christ. The three following questions were asked those
who offered themselves for baptism, and if they answered
satisfactorily they were received into the Christian faith ;
the first was, are you willing and prepared to renounce
idolatry and caste? Do you really and sincerely believe
in Jesus Christ, the Saviour of sinners? Are you pre-
pared and willing to get your livelihood in a sincere ind
honest way ? He then related instances of the severe per-
secutions to which the converts were, in many instances,
subjected, and said that if the Indian government were to
secure the property of those who embraced Christianity,
thousands of Hindoos would become converts ; but, as at

present, it was a great sacrifice to oblige them to leave
Fathers, mothers, lands, property and all for their adhe-
sion to the Christian faith. Nevertheless, it was the deep
conviction of thousands and tens of thousands of the
most burdened of the race, that Christianity must and
would at last prevail in the country, and that their own
idolatrous worships must go down ; and it was his
own firm belief that when the church at home should do
her duty in the matter, India would be Christianised, and
her overwhelming population would rejoice in the bles-
sings of Christ's salvation. (Applause.)
The Rev. FIELDING OuLD, in seconding the motion,
begged to hand in a donation. It came from a member
ofhis own congregation, and its amount was £5O. (Cheers.)
It came from a gentleman, who was setting a bright and
glorious example to the merchants and tradesmen of the
town, in consecrating the first fruits of his substance to
the honour and glory of his Lord. The donation was
from Mr. Edward Tuton, of Lord-street. (Loud cheers.)
The Rev. BAPTIST W. Now. supported the first reso-
lution. He commenced by alluding to the importance of
circulating the printed report, and to the rapid manner
in which England had been extending her resources in
every quarter of the globe. We should never forget that
responsibility of power must always be co-extensive,--
and that if God granted us a great empire of great re-
sources, those were not afforded us for the purpose of
self-congratulation alone, and that the morals of an indi-
vidual ought to be the morals of a nation too. Those who
felt that they bad been bought by the blood of
Christ, and rescued from eternal death themselves ;
those in whom the profession of faith was not an
empty name, but who felt that by unparalleled, infinite
love they had been rescued from misery; every such man
must feel that he was not his own, but that he had been
bought with a price, and that the smallest return expected
from him was, that he should live no longer for himself,
but endeavour to promote the happiness of his fellow-men
and communicate glory to the Saviour by whom he had
been redeemed. He called upon the meeting to apply this
maxim to a nation professing a Chaistian name. What
did England with her 18 millions profess to be ? She
professed to follow Christ ; and if the empire of
this country was . found ioerpeeroypieqduarbtye
rnuomferothues
globe—if this vast territory was
millions, what ought to be the influence which
Christian England should exercise among the nations of
the earth ? 'Recollecting that India possessing 100 millions
of our fellow-subjects, what ought to have been the influ-
ence which. England should exercise, supposing all her
inhabitants to be the disciples of Christ Jesus? If the
blessed gospel bad been preached by thousands of mis-
sionaries, and if the influence of that gospel were proved
by the lives of Englishmen, was it too much to believe
that .at this day India would be nominally Christian ?
And if India were nominally Christian, the miseries which
the Hindoo superstitions entailed on the population would
be swept away—the children now murdered by hundreds
would be saved by the tender affections of their parents, and
that extraordinary confederation of Thuggism would exist
no more. No more would children be exposed on the banks
of the Ganges to death under pretence of filial duty, hun-
dreds would not be travelling to Juggernaut, women would
no longer be degraded and miserable, and husbands would
not refuse to sit down at the same table with the wife,
neither would he pass her by in the street, the children
would not be trained up to despise their mothers, fifty
millions of our sisters in India would be raised to the
privileges and rights enjoyed by our women at home ; and
these would be no small blessings evenif the people them-
selves were not spiritually converted to God. (Applause.)

The hon. and rev. gentleman pointed out the many faults
and omissions of the officers of the British government in
India, in their not by their example and influence promo-
ting the cause of Christianity in that country ; though he
admitted that that government had given to the natives a
degree of personal liberty which they did not before pos-
sess, as well as a protection from the horrid and otherwise
interminable feud: and internal warfare to which they had
previously, for ages, been exposed. He stated that in
Hindostan the society had now 39 stations, with 36 mis-
sionaries ; and also 539 native teachers, who declared that
they would dismiss any man amongst them whom they
did not believe to be a converted man. He also said that
the Scriptures were preached in all the native languages,
and tracts distributed. No fewer than 1250 converts were
added last year by their missionaries alone. He concluded
by an eloquent appeal in behalf of the females and children
of India, who would be raised from their social degrada-
tion by the promulgation of Christianity in that country.
He sat down amidst loud cheers.

The CHAIRMAN put the motion, and it was carried
unanimously.

The Rev: H. CARPENTER announced that the collec-
tions made in the several churches amounted to £771.
This was independent of the collection at five churches,
which was not yet known ; and there were also two
sermons yet to be preached in behalf of the society.
The Rev. G. Fist, Vicar of Walsall, next rose, and
moved a resolution, in effect, of thanks to God for his
guardianship of the parent society, and whose missionaries
had, through his pace, been enabled to maintain its
principle and practice. The rev. gentleman, in strong
and impressive terms, explained the distinctive character
of the society, which, differing from the opinions of those
who conceived that civilisation and instruction in science
and philosophy should precede the gospel, conceived, and
had found from blessed experience, that the gospel was
the grand pioneer of all civilisation,—after receiving
which, the beautiful system of philosophy, useful to
mankind, might be safely and advantageously imparted.
The society was also distinctive in not taking " natural
religion " as a basis—for that was totally inefficient.
They took the only true ground, the pure, unmingled,
and plain gospel truth as developed in the Bible. In con-
conclusion he related an affecting anecdote of
a poor negro, who had first been relieved from
slavery of the body, and afterward, through the
missions, from that of the mind, being made a Christian;
and who, though a labouring man and a cripple, came to
the missionaries when they were raising subscriptions for
the building of a church,;and gave a sum first for himself,
another for his wife, and the third for a child—in all up-
wards of £3, in gratitude for the blessings they bad de-
rived from gospel instruction. Let others who heard go,
and, according to their means, " do likewise."

The Rev. iruGu M`NurLErseconded the resolution in
a most able address. throughout which he was most en-
thusiastically received. We regret that.we have neither
time nor space to give even an outline. He read a quo-
tation of an address of a medical friend at a scientific
society —a gentleman who united the abilities of his pro-
fession n a high degree with the still higher feelings and
aspirations of the true Christian. The passage showed
that Great Britain had obtained "dominion not only over
numerous parts of the globe, hut over not fewer than
six distinct classes of the human race ; while no
other state had power even more than two or three
races; that Providence had placed in her hands the
banner of Protestantism, aad that it was doubtless in-
tended as our duty, as it ought to be our happiness to
carry that banner to every locality to which we could pen-
etrate. He strongly eulogized the zeal and labours of the
reverend the secretary who had proposed the resolution,
and stated that it was intended that, with a view to admit
their poorer brethren to a participation in the good work
in which they were engaged, a meeting should be held at
the Royal Amphitheatre on Thursday evening, at which
meeting their reverend chairman had kindly consented to
preside. The Hon. and Rev. B. Noel would also be pre-
sent. (Great cheers.)
The resolution was put and unanimously carried, and
after singing a hymn the immense assemblage dispersed.

CORRESPONDENCE.

Eittraturt,

POETRY.

PARALLEL OF TEE SEXES.

Man is daring, strong, presuming,
Woman weak, mild, unassuming ;
•Min in actions great and shining,
Woman suffers unrepining ;
Man is doomed abroad to roam,
Woman's 'vantage ground is home ;
In man's speech convic:ion
From woman's tongue persuasion flows;
To feeling heart man's claims arc few,
Whilst woman's melts like solving dew;
Man would misery ,vert,
Woman sorrow cheer, divert ;
Men po•sess a judgment chaste,
Women modesty and taste ;
Of juticc man's th' adopted child,
As woman is of mercy mild.

SELECTIONS

A RIBBON DEED OF BLOOD.

(From Carleton's Traits and Stories of the Irish
Peasantry.)

The night was still stormy, hitt without rain ; it was
rather dark, too, though not so as to prevent us from see-
ing the clouds careering swiftly through the air. The
dense curtain which had overhung and obscured the hori-
zon was now broken, and large sections of the sky were
clear, and thinly studded with stars that looked thin and
watery, as did indeed the whole firmament ; for in some
places black clouds were still visible, threatening a conti-
nuance of tempestuous weather. The road appeared
washed and gravelly ; every dike was full of yellow wa-
ter ; and every little rivulet and larger stream dashed its
hoarse murmur in our ears ; every blast, too, was cold,
fierce, and wintry, sometimes driving us back to a stand
still, and again, when a turn in the road would bring it in
our hacks, whirling us along fcr a few steps with involun-
tary rapidity. At length the fated dwelling became visi-
ble, and a short consultation was held in a sheltered place,
between the captain and the two parties who seemed so
eager for its destruction. Their fire-arms were now
loaded, and their bayonets and short pikes, the latter shod
and pointed with iron, were also got ready. The live coal
which was brought in the small pot had become extin-
guished ; but to remedy this, two or three persons from
a remote part of the county entered a cabin on the way-
side, and, under pretence cf lighting their own and their
comrades' pipes, procured a coal of fire, for so they called
a lighted turf. From the time we left the chapel until
this moment a profound silence had been maintained, a
circumstance which, when I considered the number of
persons present, and the mysterious and dreaded object
of their journey, had a most appalling effect upon my
spirits.
At length we arrived within fifty perches of the house,
walking in a compact body, and with as little noise as
possible; but it seemed as if the very elements had con-
spired to frustrate our design, for on advancing within
the shade of the farm-hedge, two or three persons found
themselves up to the middle in water, and on stooping to
ascertain more accurately the state of the place, we could
see nothing but one immense sheet of it—spread like a
lake over the meadows which surrounded the spot we
wished to reach.

Fatal night ! The very recollection of it, when asso-
ciated with the fearful tempests of the elements, grows, if
that were possible, more wild and revolting. Had we
been engaged in any innocent or benevolent enterprise,
there was something in our situation just then that had a
touch of interest in it to a mind imbued with a relish for
the savage beauties of nature. There we stood, about
a hundred and thirty in number, our dark forms bent for-
ward, peering into the dusky expanse of water, with its
dim gleams of reflected light, broken by the weltering of
the mimic waves into ten thousand fragments, whilst the
few stars that overhung it to the firmament appeared to
shoot through it in broken lines, and to be multiplied
fifty-fold in the gloomy mirror on which we gazed.
Over us was a stormy sky, and around us a darkness
through which we could only distinguish, in outline, the
nearest objects, whilst the wild wind swept strongly and
dismally upon us. When it was discovered that the com-
mon pathway to the house was inundated, we were about
to abandon our project and return home. The Captain,
however, stooped down low for a moment, and, almost
closing his eyes, looked along the surface of the waters ;
and then, raising himself very calmly, said, in his usual
quiet tone, " Ye needn't go back, boys, I've found a way;
jist follow me."
He immediately took a more circuitous direction, by
which we reached a causeway that had beers raised for the
purpose of giving a free passage to and from the house,
during such inundations as the present. Along this we
had advanced more than half way, when we discovered a
breach in it, which, as afterwards appeared, had that night
been made by the strength of the flood. This, by means
of our sticks and pikes, we found to be about three feet
deep, and eight yards broad. Again we were at a loss how
to proceed, when the fe: tile brain of the Captain devised
a method of crossing it.
" Boys," said he, " of course you've all played at leap-
frog ; very well, strip and go in, a dozen of you, lean one
upon the back of another from this to the opposite bank,
where one must stand facing the outside man, both their
shoulders agin one another, that the outside man may be
supported. Then we can creep over you, an' a decent
bridge you'll be, any way."
This was the work of a few minutes, and in less than ten
we were all safely over.
Merciful Heaven! how I sicken at the recollection of
what is to follow! On reaching the dry hank, we pro-
ceeded instantly, and in profound silence, to the house;
the Captain divided us into companies, and then assigned
to each division its proper station. The two parties who
had been so vindictive all the night, he kept about him-
self; for of those who were present, they were only in his
confidence, and knew his nefaricus purpose; their num-
ber was about fifteen. Having made these dispositions,
he, at the head of about five of them, approached the
house on the windy side, for the fiend possessed a cool-
ness which enabled him to seize upon every possible ad-
vantage. That he had combustibles about him was evi-
dent, for in less than fifteen minutes nearly one-half of
the house was enveloped in flames. On seeing this, the
others rushed over to the spot where he and his gang were
standing, and remonstrated earnestly, but in vain ; the
flames now burst forth with renewed violence, and as they
flung their strong light upon the faces of the foremost
group, I think hell itself could hardly present anything
more satanic than their countenances, now worked up
into a paroxysm of infernal triumph at their own revenge.
The Captain's look had lost all its calmness, every feature
started out into distinct malignity, the curve in his brow
was deep, and ran up to the root of the hair, dividing his
face into two segments, that did not seem to have been
designed for each other. His lips were half open, and the
corners of his mouth a little brought back on each side,
like those of a man expressing intense hatred and triumph
over an enemy who is in the death-struggle under his
grasp. His eye blazed from beneath his knit eye-brows
with a fire that seemed to he lighted up in the infernal
pit itself. It is unnecessary, and only painful, to describe
the rest of his gang ; demons might have been proud of
such horrible visages as they exhibited; for they worked
under all the power of hatred, revenge, and joy ; and
these passions blended into one terrible scowl, enough
almost to blast any human eye that would venture to look
upon it.
When the others attempted to intercede for the lives of
the inmates, there were at least fifteen guns and pistols
levelled at them.
" Another word," said the Captain, " an' you're a
corpse where you stand, or the first man who will dare to
spoke for them ; no, no, it wasn't to spare them we came
here. No mercy' is the pass-word for the night, an' by
the sacred oath I swore beyant in the chapel, any one
among yez that will attempt to show it, will find none at
my hand. Surround the house, boys, I tell ye, I her them
stirring. ' No quarther—no mercy,' is the ordher of the
night.
Such was his command over these misguided creatures,
that in an instant there was a ring round the house to pre-
vent the escape of the unhappy inmates, should the raving
elements give them time to attempt it ; for none present
durst withdraw themselves from the scene, not only from
an apprehension of the Captain's present vengeance, or
that of his gang, but because they knew that even had
they then escaped, an early and certain death awaited
them from a quarter against which they had no means of
defence. The hour now was about half-past two o'clock.
Scarcely had the words escaped from the Captain's lips,
when one of the windows of the house was broken, and
a human head, having the hair in a blaze, was descried,
apparently a woman's, if one might judge from the pro-
fusion of burning tress s, and the softness of the tones,
notwithstanding that it called, or rather shrieked, aloud,
for help and mercy. The only reply to this was the
whoop from the Captain and his gang, of " No mercy—
no mercy !" and that instant the former, and one of the
latter, rushed to the spot, and ere the action could be per-
ceived, the head was transfixed with a bayonet and a pike,
both having entered it together. The word" mercy' was
divided in her mouth ; a short silence ensued, the head
hung down on the window, but was instantly tossed back
into the flames !
This action occasioned a cry of horror from all present,
except the gang and their leader, which startled and
enraged the latter so much, that be ran towards one of
them, and had his bayonet, now reeking with the blood of
its innocent victim, raised to plunge it in his body, when,
dropping the point, he said in a piercing whisper, that
hissed in the ears of all : " It's no use now, you know ;
if one's to hang, all will hang ; so our safest way, you
persave, is to lave none of them to tell the story. You
may go now, if you wish ; but it won't save a hair of
your heads. You cowardly set ! I knew if I had tould
yez the sport, that none of you, except my own boys,
would come, so I jist played a thrick upon you ; but re-
mimber what you are sworn to, and stand to the oath ye
tuck."
Unhappily, notwithstanding the wetness of the preced-
ing weather, the materials of the house were extremely
combustible ; the whole building was now body of
glowing flame, yet the shouts and shrieks within rose
awfully above its crackling and the voice of the storm,
for the winds once more blew in gusts, and with great
violence. The doors and windows were all torn open,
and such of those within as had escaped the flames rushed
towards them, for the purpose of further escape, and of
claiming mercy at the hands of their destroyers; but
whenever they appeared, the unearthly cry of " NO
MERCY" rung upon their ears for a moment, and for a
moment only, for they were flung back at the points of
the weapons which the demons had brought with them to
make the work of vengeance more certain.
As yet there were many persons in the house whose cry
for life was strong as despair, and who clung to it with all
the awakened powers of reason and instinct. The ear
of man could hear nothing so strongly calculated to stifle
the demon of cruelty and revenge within him, as the long

and wailing shrieks which rose above the elements, in
tones that were carried off rapidly in the blast, until they
died away in the darkness that lay behind the surrounding
hills. Had not the house been in a solitary situation, and
the hour the dead of night, any person sleeping within a
moderate distance must have heard them, for such a cry
of sorrow rising into a yell of despair was almost sufficient
to have awakened the dead. It was lost, however, upon
the hearts and ears that heard it : to them, though in
i jus-
tice be it said, to only comparatively a few of them, t ap-
peared as delightful as the tones of soft and entrancing
music.

The claims of the surviving sufferers were now modi-
fied ; they supplicated merely to suffer death by the wea-
pons of their enemies; they were willing to bear that,
provided they should be allowed to escape from the
flames ;- but no—the horrors of the conflagration were
calmly and malignantly gloried in by their merciless as-
sassins, who deliberately flung them back into all their
tortures. In the course of a few minutes a man appeared

upon the side-wall of the house, nearly naked •, his figure,
as he stood against the sky in horrible relief, was so
finished a picture of woebegone agcy- nd supplication,
that it is yet as distinct in my me I a if I were again
present at the scene. Every zu r I now in motion by
the powerful agitation of his su Z ngs, stood out upon
his limbs and neck, giving him an appearance of desperate
strength, to which by this time he must have been wrought
up ; the perspiration poured from his frame, and the veins
and arteries of his neck were inflated to a surprising thick-
ness. Every moment he looked down into the flames
which were rising to where he stood ; and as he looked,
the indescribable horror which flitted over his features
might have worked upon the devil himself to relent. His
words were few : _

" My child," said he, " is still safe, she is an infant, a
young crathur that never harmed you nor any one—she is
still safe. Your mothers, your wives, have young innocent
childhre like it. Oh, spare her, think for a moment that
it's one of your own : spare it, as you hope to meet a just
God, or if you don't, in mercy shoot me first—put an end
to me, before I see her burned !"
The Captain approached him coolly and deliberately.
" You'll prosecute no one now, you bloody informer,"
said he : " you'll convict no more boys for takin' an ould
gun an' pistol from you, or for givin' you a neighbourly
knock or two into the bargain."
Just then, from a window opposite him, proceeded the
shrieks of a woman, who appeared at it, with the infant
in her arms. She herself was almost scorched to death ;
but, with the presence of mind and humanity of her sex,
she was about to put the little babe out of the window.
The Captain noticed this, and with characteristic atrocity,
thrust, with a sharp bayonet, the little innocent, along
with the person who endeavoured to rescue it, into the
red flames, where they both perished. This was the work
of an instant. Again he approached the man : " Your
child is a coal now," said he, with deliberate mockery ; " I
pitched it in myself, on the point of this,"—showing the
bayonet—" an' now is your turn,"—saying which, he
clambered up, by the assistance of his gang, who stood with
a front of pikes and bayonets bristling to receive the
wretched man, should he attempt, in his despair, to throw
himself from the wall. The Captain got up, and placing
the point of his bayonet against his shoulder, flung hint
into the fiery element that raged behind him. He ut-
tered one wild and terrific cry, as he fell back, and no
more. After this nothing was heard but the crackling
of the fire, and the rushing of the blast : all that had pos-
sessed life within were consumed, amounting either to
eight or eleven persons.
When this was accomplished, those who took an active
part in the murder, stood for some time about the confla-
gration; and as it threw its red light upon their fierce
faces and rough persons, soiled as they now were with
smoke and black streaks of ashes, the scene seemed to be
changed to hell, the murderers to spirits of the damned,
rejoicing over the arrival and the torture of some guilty
soul. The faces of those who kept aloof from the slaugh-
ter were blanched to the whiteness of death : some of them
fainted, and others were in such agitation that they were
compelled to lean on their comrades. They became ac-
tually powerless with horror : yet to such a scene were
they brought by the pernicious influence of Ribbonism.
It was only when the last victim went down, that the
conflagration shot up into the air with most unbounded
fury. The house was large, deeply thatched, and well
furnished ; and the broad red pyramid rose up with fear-
ful magnificence towards the sky. Abstractedly it had
sublimity, but now it was associated with nothing in my
mind but blood and terror. It was not, however, without a
purpose that the Captain stood to contemplate its effect.
" Boys," said he, " we had better be sartin that all's safe ;
who knows but there might he some of the sarpents
crouchin' under a hape o' rubbish, to come out and gibbet
us to-morrow or next day : we had better wait awhile,
anyhow, if it was only to see the blaze."
Just then the flames rose majestically to a surprising
height. Our eyes followed their direction ; and we per-
ceived, for the first time, that the dark clouds above, to-
gether with the intermediate air, appeared to reflect back,
or rather to have caught the red hue of the fire. The
hills and coun'ry about us appeared with an alarming dis-
tinctness : but the most picturesque part of it was the ef-
fect of reflection of the blaze on the floods that spread
over the surrounding plains. These, in fact, appeared to
be one broad mass of liquid copper, for the motion of the
breaking waters caught from the blaze of the high waving
column, as reflected in them, a glaring light, which eddied,
and rose, and fluctuated, as if the flood itself had been a
lake of molten fire.
_

Fire, however, destroys rapidly. In a short time the
flames sank—became weak and flickering—bye and bye,
they shot out only in fits—the crackling of the timbers
died away—the surrounding darkness deepened—and ere
long, the faint light was overpowered by the thick volumes
of smoke that rose from the ruins of the house, and its
murdered inhabitants.

"how, boys," said the Captain, "all is safe—we may
go. Remember, every man of you, what you've sworn
this night, on the book and altar of God—not on a heretic,'
Bible. If you perjure yourselves, you may hang us; but
let me tell you, for your comfort, that if you do, there is
them livin' that will take care the lase of your own lives
will be hut short.
After this we dispersed every man to his own home.
Reader,—not many months elapsed are I saw the bo-
dies of this Captain, whose name was Patrick Devann,
and all those who were actively concerned in the perpetra-
tion of this deed of horror, withering in the wind, where
they hung gibbetted, near the scene of their nefarious vil-
lainy ; and while I inwardly thanked Heaven for my own
narrow and alinost undeserved escape, I thought in my
heart how seldom, even in this world, justice fails to over-
take the murderer, and to enforce the righteous judgment
of God—that " whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man
shall Lis blood he shed."

*„.. This talc of terror is, u❑fortunately, too true. The scene
of hellish murder detailed in it lies at Wildgoose Lodge, in the
county of Louth, within about four miles of Carrickmacross,
and nine of Dundalk. No such multitudinous murder has oc-
curred, under similar circumstances, except the burning of the
Sheas, in the county of Tipperary. The name of the family
burned in Wildgoose Lodge was Lynch. One of them had,
shortly before this fatal night, prosecuted and convicted some
of the neighbouring Ribbonmen, who visited him with severe
marks of their displeasure, in consequence of his having refused
to enrol himself as a member of their body. The language of
the story is partly fictitious ; but the facts are pretty closely
such as were developed during the trial of the murderers. Both
parties were Roman Catholics, and either twenty-five or twenty-
eight of those who took an active part in the burning were
hanged anti gibbeted in different parts of the county of Louth.
Devann, the ringleader, hung for some months in chains, within
about a hundred yards of his own house, and about half a mile
from Wildgoose Lodge. His mother could neither go into nor
ou,-. of her cabin, without seeing his body swinging from the
gibbet. Her usual exclamation, on looking at him, was—" God
be good to the sowl of my poor marthyr ! " The peasantry,
too, frequently exclaimed, on seeing him, " Poor Paddy ! " A
gloomy fact that speaks vclumes !

ARTESIAN WELLS.—Olympiodorus, who flourished in
the sixth century, relates that wells of two, three, and
five hundred feet deep were pierced in the Oasis, and that
the rivers of water which gushed forth, served to water
the plains. In Italy too, among the ruins of the ancient
town of Modena, lead tubes sixty or seventy feet deep
have been discovered, the only use of which appears to
have been to penetrate below the bad and unwholesome
water of the surface, into the limpid and pure bed be-
neath, by which the modern town to this present day is
supplied.
The most ancient Artesian well in France is at
LiHers, in Artois, in the convent of the Chartreux ; it
dates from 1126. Stuttgard also contains some ancient
Artesian wells. Shaw, who was in Barbary in 1727, in
speaking of the villages of Wadreag, in Sahara, says,
" The inhabitants procure water in a singular manner.
They dig wells 100 and sometimes 200 fathoms deep, and
never fail in finding a great abundance of water. For this
purpose they remove different layers of sand and gravel,
until they find a kind of stone, resembling slate, and
which they know to be exactly above what they call Mahar
fah' el Erd, or the sea under the rock, a name which
they apply to the waters in general. This stone is easily
pierced, when the water rises so suddenly, and in such
great abundance, that they who descend to effect this ope-
ration are sometimes taken by surprise and drowned, al-
though they endeavour to escape as quickly as possible."
About the end of the 17th century, Dominic Cassini con-
structed an Artesian fountain at Fort Urbain, the water of
which played fifteen feet above the earth ; or if led by a
tube, it ascended to the summit of the houses. These
facts, therefore, establish the antiquity of the art.—
London Polytechnic Magazine.
CRIME IN LANCASHIRE.—It has long been known,
that in consequence of the relaxation of the severity of
our criminal code, and the astonishingincrease of serious
crimes which cannot be passed over, a vast number of
criminals are now disposed of in the police courts, and ne-
ver appear in the criminal returns at all, who, twenty
years ago, were deemed felons of the very highest class,
and visited often with death, always with transportation.
It was stated in parliament as a subject .of complaint
against the Lancashire magistrates, that during the insur-
rection of 1842 in that county, nearly ten thousand per-
sons were imprisoned, and let go aftera short c9nfine-
ment, without ever being brought to trial.. During the
disturbances in the same year, in LanarkshiTe and many
other counties of Scotland, (especially.Ayrshire, Fife, and
Mid-Lothian,) the accumulation of prisoners was so great,
that not only were none detained for trial but those against
whom the evidence was altogether conclusive ; but that
great numbers were remitted for trial before thesumpaary
i
tribunals, and escaped with a month or two of mprison-
ment, who had committed capital crimes, and a few years
before would infallibly have been transported for fourteen
years. We are getting on so fast, that nothing is more
common now than to see hardened criminals, both in Eng-
land and Scotland, disposed of by the police
magistrates,
and for capital crimes received a few months' imprison-
ment. Their names and crimes never appear in the re-
turns at all. There is no fault attaches to any one for
this seeming laxity. The thing is unavoidable. If the
class of cases were all sent to the higher tribunals which
formerly were considered privative to them, the judges,
were they twice as numerous as they are, would sit in the
criminal courts from one year's end to another, and the
jails would still be choked up with untried criminals,
numbers of whom would linger for years in confinement.
Blackwood.