Stretford and Urmston Examiner. — 1879-12-20 (Stretford, Greater Manchester, England)

STATE OF IRELAND.  Mr. Parnell, M.P., was present on Tuesday at a meeting at which it was resolved to merge the Central Tenants' Defence Association with the Irish National Land League, the latter adding to his present programme of a peasant proprietary that of the Tenants' Defence Association, namely, fixity of tenure. Mr. Parnell, in moving a resolution to that effect, said he had never wished to set the two plans of a peasant proprietary and fixity of tenare in opposition to each other. He thought everyone would agree with him that the land question had been enormously advanced by the agitation of the summer and autumn. What he desired was that the new association should take up and carry on that which the country had been carrying on during the summer and autumn. He thought the landlord system was an unnatural and artificial system, and although they might patch up the system by fixity of tenure, yet they would always find the country ..-logged and impeded by an unnatural system.—Mr. John Dillon, in secondin., the resolution, said since the agitation on the land question price of property in the west of Ireland had fallen to such an extent that no landlord in Connaught could get more than 16 years' purchase fcr his land. The landords of Connaught were in a state of terror, and it was his conviction that before the distress in the winter and apring was over they would be in a greater state of terror. The mortgagees were pressing them. There were landlords in the west who could not sell, and who if forced to sell would be beggars. He suggested that a commission should be appointed by the Government to conduct the negotiations between landlord and tenant for the sale of the land. He believed they would have a number of landlords willing to sell at twenty-two years' purchase. An extraordinary murder trial was opened at the Connaught Assizes, on Tuesday. The prisoner, named Martin McHugo, has been twice tried already, but the jury disagreed on both occasions. The murder, which was of a very brutar character, took place late last Christmas Eve. The evidence against the prisoner, although entirely circumstantial, is of a very powerful and remarkable charac. ter. There had been some proceedings at petty sessions, at which the deceased was the chief witness, against the prisoner, who was fined £2, and in consequence of words spoken by the prisoner at the petty sessions, Breheny bad taken an action against him for slander. The case was to be heard ten days after the murder. The parties were neighbours, and on the date of Christmas Eve Brehen was at a courth, or gossiping party, at an adjoining house. He was round murdered next morning on the road near his residence. His body presented a horrible spectacle. There were marks of a desperate struggle. Several stones weighing about half a hundred weight each were beside the body. They were covered with blood, flesh, and hair. In the right hand of the dead man, which was withered and almost powerless,was found, firmly grasped, a piece of the prisoner's coat. Marks of blood were found in the snow leading to the prisoner's house. The murder was committed at about eleven o'clock at night, and when the prisoner returned home soon after that hour, there was blood on his hands and clothes. He said he had been at a neighbour's house, which was not true. Accompanied by a number of police officers, a processserver named Madden proceeded on Monday to a place called Kilmena, the property of Mr. J. C. Macdonnell, for the purpose of serving civil-bills for rent and-ejectment, when he was assaulted setiously by a number of girls,,who attic!' ed him with stones, one of which struck him on the heal and inflicted a serious wound. He bad to return to Westport in