The Birkenhead News and Wirral General Advertiser. — 1880-12-11 (Birkenhead, Merseyside, England)

DREARY CATALOGUE.  The terrible state of Ireland Was farther indicated by Mr. Justice Fitzgerald's charge to the jury at the Munster assizes at Cork on Tuesday. His lordship prudently refrained from saying anything of a political character. He said he would confine his remarks to the district coming under his jurisdiction at the present assizes, and to offences of an extraordinary character striking at the welfare of society. In nine-tenths of the cases of reported criminality the offenders had not been made amenable, which was a blot on the administration of criminal justice. At the last assizes the tone of the observations made pointed to the general absence of crime, but the judges then confined themselves to what came before them, and did not inquire beneath the surface. Since then they found things changed. They found some organisation—he did not profess to say what it was—acting on the cupidity, the passions, and fears of the people, had brought some districts to a state differing little, if at all, from civil war. As far as he could judge from the official reports in certain districts, every farmer's son and farmer's boy and persons of that class seemed to be armed with a rifle or a revolver, and they certainly had been used freely in the commission of the outrages referred to. In County Clare he found 43 cases of letters threatening murder, three ef firing into dwelling-houses at night by parties armed and disguised, two of maiming cattle, and three of taking forcible possession. The letters \sere generally directed to agents or landlords, threatening them if they did not reduce rents, or to farmers if they p,iid more than Griffith's valuation, or sometimes if they paid rent at all, or entered on a farm from which another had been evicted. In Limerick there were sixteen cases of arson, nine of maiming cattle, seven of taking forcible possession, besides the murder of Mr. Wheeler. In Kerry there were 101 cases of threatening letters, and even magistrates and police-officers received these documents. In Cork matters were not improved. Referring to the murder of Mr. Hutchins driver, his lordship said the assassin had been larking about for four or five hmrs, yet no warning was given." It is to be feared that the passing of a Laud Act will not remove the present awful state of things. The moral tone of the Irish people will have to be raised before there can be the radical amendment desired. In many cases they think murder no crime, while they regard terrorism and repudiation of their debts as meritorious. The more sensible of them—probably, the majority—are co°rood into ooluakusamoists ilach dablittally acts. The trite Irish leader at present is the ruffian who carries a firearm and is not afraid to use it. Persons stifle their best instincts, they connive at what they know to be wrong, they allow themselves to be confounded with the advocates for lawlessness simply out of dread of him. They know not where he may be larking, or where he may attack them, and experience has taught them that it is almost hopeles: to anticipate his detection and extermination. There is, alas, no truth in the old proverb that murder will out so far as he is concerned, and that is one of the saddest features of the present deplorable state.