The Express. — 1866-09-15 (London, England)

DEFENDER OF AM EYRE.  Mr. Thomas Carlyle has forwarded to the committee of the Byre Defence and Aid Fried for publicslion a letter received by him from a Mr. J. H. Elliott, of which the following in the chief part "This persecution of Governor Eyre is an example of a morbid affection too prevalent alas I in our county. It was well known in ancient Greece, and the symptom was named ponerophilos. By estrange perverwion those who are thus afflicted—moral ghouls—love and relish bad people—burglars, incendiaries, ruffians, rebels, kidnappers of children and young women. Innocent, undeserved mime/ is insipid, but the hunted negro, red with blood, latch and high in flavour as long-hung venieon. The severe sufferings, present and contingent, of the criminal are alone heeded. Let a man commit a rourdee,and the pity of these diseased persons seems solely concerned with him end his puniahment ; the fate of his victim or victims is entirely unworthy of pity ; their pains clean washed out from men's imagination. So with the rebel, the wholesale murderer. Earl Russell boasted (at that time in the Commons) that the Irish conspiracy of 1548 had been suppressed without the sacrifice of one Mee life' —he meant rebel life. But he did not tell the world, nor was it in hie little business to know, how many innocent end useful lives were lost—officers of justice and others who were engaged in the terrible duty of searching for the rebels and securing them, but without scratch or wound. Many men must have been at that time sacrificed, or their health broken up and destroyed, while in all weathers they were tracking the inhospitable wilds of Ireland night and day. Catch 'em alive ; hurt not a hair of their heads ; incise not an inch of their skin, no matter at what risk or loss of your own (useful and honourable) lives. Public policy demands this.' Our drivelling government in the very last session, boasted also that the Fenian conspiracy bad been so far sac without the ascrifiee of a single life--Fenlan life. =1 They quite left out of the account as, of course, unworthy of notice, the number of good men whose lives have been lost by the hand of the Irish assassin, let alone those who must have otherwise suffered in the unavoidable perils of their hazardous duty. In the Jamaica rebellion the same inept government, no doubt, would have made the like triumphant boast if governor Byre had put that down without the loss of a single life—rebel life, something so inestimably precious ! Doubtless it might have dons if Governor Eyre bad been silly or crud enough to put the same high value on bad men as do our luxurious humanitarians, and had determined that not one rebel life should be taken, no matter how many good men were sacrificed. Oh yes, all the rebels might have been secured alive and placed in comfortable quarters, like our ruffians at home, if only a sufficiently large number of soldiers, sailors, and civilians had been destroyed without grudge or compensation. So in a tiger hunt, if the order should be, ' Catch 'em alive,' it can, no doubt, be neatly done, if only a sufficient number of persons be destroyed in overpowering him. But neither solitary murderers, Irish rebels, negro rebels, nor tigers, are anywhere worth such a price in the opinion of mine men. Honest valuation would mark their value the other way, and would say, Save honest men's lives, the meals, are of small value—of none at all, indeed, they are less than of no value ; but the lives of the honest people, who are their victims, are comparatively of pricelees- value.' This treatment of Governor Eyre will show its bitter fruits in future times of trouble. Public officers will shrink from needful and proper coercion. Surely this is what is intended, on the eve, as we are, of physical resistance at home, and especially in Ireland. It will serve the purpose well of the conspirators, and they are legion, to hold up the fate of Governor Eyre, in ter orders, before any officer who may be called upon to suppress, by sword or gun, • Fenian, a Romish, a trades-union, or a manhood suffrage rebellion, in any part of the Queen's dominions. The day of conflict is cowing, and what with philanthropists and missionaries, priests, and demagogues, poor England will have a sharp struggle for it."  MR.