CRIME IN IRELAND.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2261, 1 July 1881, Page 3

CRIME IN IRELAND.

The excited state of Ireland, the "Times" observes, is again a subject of much anxiety to the Government as well as to the owners and managers of property. To whatever cause it is to be attributed, whether to radical defects in the law itself or to lax and tardy administration of it, the fact is indisputable that the Act for the protection of persons and property has not produced the good effects whioh were expected from it. The fear whioh it inspired at first is passing away, and its success in restoring peaoe and order has been only partial and temporary. There are disquieting signs in different quarters of the revival of crime and outrages, and the feeling of security whioh had begun to spring up has reoeived a oheok. It is true that the general prospect is far better than in the commencement of the year, and offioial returns will probably show a great falling off in the number of agrarian offences ; but the continuance of disorderin even a mitigated form is more formidable now than when the country was only under the protection of the ordinary law. Two recent brutal murders and attempts to assassinate show that the lawless and lavage spirit whioh the Protection Act was intended to repress is as dangerous as ever. It was lulled by momentary fear, but is aroused again. The excuses which are made for such crimes do not as a rule bear the test of comparison with the facts. Neither of the men who have been so foully murdered was a landlord, an agent, or an active instrument in carrying out harsh and oppressive proceedings. The offence of one of them was that he was herd on a farm whioh the owner had taken into his own hand?, and the other was a small farmer who was lately appointed bailiff on the property of Lord Dunsandle in place of a man who had been dismissed. The only crime imputed to him is that he did his duty to his employer by reporting circumstances which affected his interests. For this he was " Boyootted "in the distriot. The penalty enjoined by the Land League was inflicted upon him,, and notwithstanding this fact, which clearly shows the connection of his fate with the Land League system and teaching, the local branch, with hypocritical horror, denounced the orime and repudiated all responsibility for it, but they accompanied their disavowal with the denunciation of a landlord in the locality, to whoso influence they ascribed the arrest of one of their members on suspicion. If this denunciation be not followed by the "Boycotting " of the gentleman referred to, with all the contingent conquences whioh attach to that social condition, the omission can only be satisfactorily explained by the supposition that the thing has been already done. Connors, one of the men who was murdered, it is stated, became unpopular because he acted as an " informer," an offence of whioh it would appear that his predecessor was not guilty, or his employer would have retained his services. One morning he proceeded, in oompany with, his wife, to Sonnagh, where his father-in-law was lying dead. He would probably not have ventured on the high road at night without an escort of police if he had been aware that he was so obnoxious to the people. After the funeral ho Was returning home, and stayed with his wife for a_ time in the house of a friend a few miles distant from their home. Bather late at night they left on a oar, and on reaching Forgehill, about a mile from their home, two shots were fired in quick succession over a wall to which they were olose. One bullet lodged between the man's shoulders, and the other entered his right arm and touched the spine. He fell prostrate on the road, exclaiming, " I am wounded." His wife saw three men, one of whom had a gun, running away, while she ran screaming along the road until she came to the house of the parish priest, who went, and kneeling as he had to do in the life-blood whioh streamed from the dying man, administered the last rites to him and had him carried to his own house, where he expired in a few hours. The polioe having been sent for, searched tho ground, and found an old hatband and some tracks in a field near the spot. In a farmhouse near it they found a hat. to whioh the band seemed to have belonged, and they arrested three farmers on suspicion. Since the occurrence the house of the murdered man has been guarded by the police. An illustration of the feeling of tho people, however, is afforded in the fact that after the murder they refused to go for a doctor, though asked to do so by the priest. During the inquest they oontinued their work as if nothing had happened, and not one of the neighbours came to visit the family of tho murdered man. He held a farm of fourteen acres, and was in miserable circumstances, with a wife aad four children. An inquest has been held, and the widow, who wept bitterly during her examination, stated the few facts above-mentioned. The Coroner adjourned the inquiry until the doctor could attend. There can be no hesitation in holding the Land League accountable for such crimes as these. They are only the fulfilment in a more summary and cruel way of the advice deliberately given to pursue with the vengeance ef tho people every one who takes ary part in enforcing the rights of property. The people to whom the advioe is given in more guarded language put their own interpretation. Bailiffs appear to be at present special objects of hatred and revenge, and it is dreadful to think of tho consequencos of all this bittor feeling among the people, in which they aro urged on to commit such dreadful crimes with impunity.