The Sun. — 1870-01-26 (London, England)

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, JAN. 26, 1870.  UNDER the title of " The Irish Cauldron," the Quarterly Review publishes an article on the present state of Ireland. The purport of the article may be judged from its name. It is written by one of those gentlemen who are never happy except when they are miserable. They are artists who never use any colour brighter than Indian ink. The lights are merely less intense shades of black. They gloat over every gloomy incident. They rejoice in outrage, they glory in murders. Hint to them that there has been some slight exaggeration, that in the list of agrarian crimes there are some which have no more to do with the land than the Pantin or the Finsbury murder, and they will 13'3 seriously angry. " Agrarianism " shall stalk through that unhappy land ; the whole tenant class shall be at war with the landlord class ; and the life of the kindest hearted nobleman who ever had the misfortune to possess Irish property shall not be worth a year's purchase. For instance, the reviewer gives a list of all the agrarian murders and attempts at murder which have been committed during the past two years. This list gives just twenty-four, or one a month. They are twenty-four too many we admit; but whether they are all agrarian may fairly be questioned, when we find a note suggesting that the murder of Mr. ANKETELL, the station-master at Mullingar, by the porter whom he had dismissed, " must be added to the list" because of its "analogous" character. At this rate it would be easy to show that nearly every murder in England is agrarian, notably the Norton Folgate murder, in which a London pprentice killed his master's wile for dismissing him. the Dallycohey affair is, of course, included in the list ; yet though murder can under no circumstances, except that of self-defence, be justified, it may fairly be asked if the forcible resistance to Mr. SCULLY'S tyranny was not a less heinous crime than the attack of the Chapeltown colliers, and the murder of one poor woman. The reviewer, and those who think with him, take for granted that "agrarian" murders are the most atrocious of all muriers, whereas they are not seldom the least atrocious, because committed, as at Ballycohey, under the influence of strong provocation, under the prospect 3f being turned out into the world homeless and Starving. Of course we find Mr. O'CoNNoit's case duly recorded, with the statement that he was " brutally mutilated." Yet it turns out that he was not mutilated at all, and the Dublin papers which published the sensation story about his nose being cut off, have been compelled to confess that he is suffering /lily from a slight scar received in a fight, waged on le part of the assailants without the smallest intention of murder, but simply to obtain possession of arms. Within the last day or two another "agrarian outrage" of the most formidable ;liaracter turns out to be nothing. more than one pane of glass broken by a stone. Far be it from us to extenuate the offences which have been committel But there is no reason why they should be exaggerated. And when we remember that the total of crimes of violence of all kinds is infinitely below that of such crimes in England, we see no reason to take the gloomy view of the former country wherein the Quarterly Reviewer revels. la_ triAll_tho euaaiterations _a_attaiis-StaleApAtgof