The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1835-01-23 00:00:00

THE IRISH ELECTIONS.

Extract from a letter from au Englishman in Dublin to his
brother in Liverpool:—
" Now, you will expect some notice of the elections here.
My engagements will not allow me to converse much with
politics; but I am most happy to be able to inform you that
the cause prospers gloriously. Already is the vaunted tail re-
duced to a miserable stump; and from the returns already
made, and from Cie state of polls hitherto ascertained, there is
a certainty that the whigs (I mean the bad whigs) and the
radicals combined will not compose half of the Irish members.
Daniel O'Connell himself is overthrown! Though he and his
creature, Ruthven, may take their seats in the house on the
strength of their small nominal majority, it is well known here
that they will not long retain them. Not only are the conser-
vatives confident of the success of their petition, but the ad-
herents of the agitator admit that it will not and cannot be
opposed by their master. The majority of the destructives
over their two manly, talented, and right worthy conservative
opponents, is about 200; now, to my knowledge, already have
more than twice that number of bad votes been detected on the
scrutiny now going forward. The perjury committed by the
Wretched papist devotees, instigated by their leaders, aye, and
by their spiritual fathers, is truly appalling. The absent and
even the dead were personated, and miserable half naked crea-
tures pressed forwards, and eagerly took any oaths which might
be required, in confirmation of their fictitious claims to the
franchise. Here I will commemorate one fact connected with
the voting, which, of itself, speaks more than volumes to the
debasing character of the superstition under which this un_
happy country groans. A friend of mine, rector of one of the
parishes to the west of Dublin, told me himself that, on going
up to the booth to give his vote, be saw a man swearing away
to anything and everything. The officer in attendance having
a suspicion of the man, took the bible which he had kissed and
offered him the other side. Now, on the other side was a cross
imprinted in gilt, which no sooner did the man see than he
shrunk back and descended from the booth without voting.
This popish straining at the gnat and swallowing the camel
will appear incredible to an English protestant; but the cir- 1
cumstance is strictly true. It is a pity that this taking of an
oath on polling were not superseded by the English method.
Had the plan of exhibiting the tax books been obtained, instead
of exacting an oath as to payment of rates, much dreadful
perjury would have been avoided, and Messrs. Hamilton and
West would have been now M.P.'s without the heavy expense of
Petition,. This would have been the case, also, had not the
respectable householders in Dublin shown the most unpardon-
able apathy in registering and in coming to the poll. ijad the
conservatives who were qualified all voted, they would have had
a glorious majority, and bad all who were able registered and
voted, they would have been to the O'Connellites as three to
one. I believe that such negligence will not again disgrace
the good cause in this city. O'Connell will, of course, get a
scat somewhere; but the moral effect of his defeat here will be
great in both countries, but especially Ireland. It will be an
important feature in the Irish part of the new parliament, that
the members for the two greatest cities (for Cork has done her
(Any) will be honest conservatives. I must call your attention
to one remarkable circumstance in the Dublin election, which
exhibits forcibly the difference between whiggery and libera-
lity, between the Plunketts and John David Latouche. The
former from some vain hope, I suppose, of creeping again by
his means into that place from which he had strongly contri-
buted to eject them, voted for O'Connell; for the man whom
they had reprobated most loudly as a traitor and an incendiary
—for the man who had assisted to fix on them their well earned
soubriquet of "the Hannibals." 0, more than christian for-
giveness! Latouche, a Roman catholic and a reformer, voted
for the conservatives, to save, as he said, his country from the
abominable tyranny of unprincipled agitators. In Carlow one
of Dan's sons is already disposed of; and in the Queen's
county, another strong hold, the contest is drawing to a close
the right way. For Bandon, Mr. Devonsher Jackson, an elo-
quent and talented advocate of bible education, has been re-
turned.

"Now, my dear Tom, my time is exhausted—not my sub-
ject—so I will conclude by congratulating you on the bright
prospects for religion, good government, and real reform now
dawning both on our own dear country and, thank God! on
this her lovely and much-injured sister."