The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser. — 1847-10-12 (Liverpool, Merseyside, England)

STATE OF IRELAND.  On Thursday last a great meeting of Tipperary magistrates was held at Cashel, to consider what should be done in consequence of the dreadful mid-day murder of the late Mr. William Roe, noticed elsewhere. Viscount Suirdale took the chair, and among those present were Lord Hawarden, Sir John Fitzgerald, Lord Glengall, vice Lieutenant of the county, &c. It appeared from the statement of the noble chairman, that during the late period of scarcity Mr. Roe established a soup kitchen, which was conducted by his own sisters, who caught the fever from the recipients .of the bounty, but fortunately recovered. In endeavouring to make his land productive, Mr. Roe wished to obtain some from a tenant who did not till it, and owed two years rent. This rent Mr. Roe promised to forgive and offered him £lO in addition, and to let him have the crops grown on one acre which he had tilled if he would leave ; but as he refused Mr. Roe was then forced to"eject him, and.this man, the noble chairman said, it was almost certain was the miscreant who committed the foul murder. The chairman then called on the magistrates present to do all in their power to perform their duties as landlords. The Earl of Glengall made a most alarming statement as to the origin of this diabolical deed. He said that "it appeared that a combination had been formed by several of his tenants—that a determination existed among them not to pay him large arrears of rent which they owed. Some of the parties met to consider what steps they should adopt to carry out their infernal schemes. It was understood that it absolutely became the subject of consideration among those persons who met, whether Mr. Roe, or the gentleman who officiated as his agent, should be shot ! They admitted in their hellish committee that Mr. Roe was an excellent, extremely liberal, and generous gentleman, and that it would be a pity to shoot him, and that it would be better to shoot the agent ! But, when the fellows had fully discussed their machinations, they came to the determination to shoot the landlord, whom, alas ! they did. The reason why they had selected the landlord was this :—Mr. Roe's children were very young ; if Mr. Roe was dead, the property would be probably placed under the Court of Chancery, and the consequence of that would be that a receiver from the Court would be appointed over it ; that the receiver, as was the general custom in those cases, would pay little or no attention to the interests of the minors ; that those scheming tenants would be enabled to get a reduction in the rents, and that, as it had often been the case when properties were placed under the courts, the minors and widow would be plundered of their only existence ! That they (the magistrates) believed to have been the infernal scheme concocted near Boytonrath, which led to the melancholy event." A memorial to the Lord Lieutenant, setting forth these facts was agreed to, and calling on his Excellency to make every effort to bring to justice the perpetrators of the murder, and to render life and property more secure. A subscription was then entered into as a reward for the conviction of the murderer.  We really never heard revealed a more dreadful state of things than this meeting discloses. Much has been said against the Irish landlords, but it seems that, let them be as generous as they may, they cannot escape being the assassin's mark; in such a fearful state of degradation is the Irish peasantry.