IRELAND.

Colonist, Volume II, Issue 167, 27 May 1859, Page 4

IRELAND.

(From the Home News, March 18.) THE PHCENIX PROSECUTIONS.

We learn from Cork that Baron Greene, in his charge to the grand jury on the 16th March, said :—lndictments were to be sent; up to them charging certain individuals with compassing, imagining, devising and intending to depose the Queen of her royal '. honor and name, and of the imperial crown of the United Kingdom. The offence was - provided for by an act of Parliament passed in the year 1848. The offences to ' which this act related were, previously to the passing it, high treason, but this act altered the previous law as far as related to that crime, reduced it from high treason to felony, and likewise reduced the punishment from that of death to transportation, ■or fine, or imprisonment, according to the ! nature of the case. The conspiracy, of I which it was alleged the persons named in the indictment were members, was dcs- - cribed, he said, in different parts of the indictment, in various ways. They were charged in the combination of a certain number of persons, who had entered into an association called the Phoenix Society. The main circumstances in the case were, that the prisoners were alleged to be members of the confederacy and combination, and" had thereby become guilty of the several conspiracies charged in the indictment. It would be perceived that the persons became members of an illegal association bound by an oath, the object of which was to renounce all allegiance to the Queen, to make this country a democratic republic, to take up arms when called upon, and to obey the commands of the superiors of that body. His lordship pointed out the peculiarities of the law with respect <to conspiracies, and requested the grand jury to take the case into their immediate consideration. In answer to Mr. O'Hagan, his lordship .said he intended taking up thePhcenix .-cases next morning. . ? The grand jury returned two true bills against Monaghan, William O'Shee, Denis O'Sullivan, Mortimer Downing, Daniel • M'Cartie, Jeremiah Donovan, Rossa and Patrick Downey, for treason and felony, ■that being the charge laying against them dn the indictment. The peasantry of the wretched district of .Gweedore are positively infatuated. Undeterred by the burden of an oppressive taxation, and quite regardless of the terrors •of the law, the slaughtering: of sheep goes •on as relentlessly as it did 12 months ago. a?lVi/'~ ll'v "''ncr is'from the Berry Sentinel: — We regret to learn ~._ ~h ad estructlon j •or sheep has be"en resumed at (j-weectu.^-A hundred and sixty-five sheep, the property of Mr. Hunter, were lately taken off Tor mountains. The police made particular search on all the adjoining mountains for several days, and a large quantity of the •skins, entrails, wool, &c, was discovered - on the mountains of Crolly and Cronaquiggy. The first discovery was made in a deep hole on the mountain at least a mile and a half from any house. The skins, &c, were covered •> over with sods .and stones. A systematic mode of;; sheep-killing appears to be pursued. The sheep vvera driven into swamps, surrounded, and struck with sticks thrown at; «them. Footprints were discovered on one , -of the swamps, and marks of the sticks were •visible on the ground. The townland where - those discoveries were made is the same as that in which the Greens, who are to be tried at next Lifford assizes, were detected some time ago with the mutton in their possession.! The remains of the sheep discovered will be sufficient evidence to insure their owner compensation. The Gweedore people appear to be obstinate and incorrigible. They require sterner lessons than they have yet received to teach them to ackowledge the rights of property. The payment of compensation for malicious injuries, and the punishment of ' those who can be convicted of destroying * sheep, may, .in course of time, instruct them in the difference between meum and tuum more effectively than their religious guides seem to have done. If men will spurn kindness, take bad advice, and violate the law, ' they must be treated as they deserve. Recent proceedings in Parliament have f furnished the means of refuting a scandal ' set on foot by the Nation. That journal insinuated that the Government were •shielding the real assailant of the Reverend ■ Mr. Nixon., It turns out that a witnesss deposed that one of the assailants was ', Mr. Nixon's son, who would appear to have ; been serving in the army. On inquiry by the police it was not only fouud that 1 the witness was pear-sighted, but that ' Mr. Nixon's son was actually dining near Dublin at the time the murderous assault was made. - Thus the calumny of the Nation is made manifest. ■Mr. Martiey, one of the judges of the \ Landed Estates Court, died a few days ago. He was eminent when at the bar. The Earl of Carlisle selected him for the office of judge. Dr Longfield is now senior judge. ; ' The rector of Kilkenny West, Mr. Bryan, is so beloved by the Roman Catholic population, that they recently united as . one man to implore him not to quit the , parish according to his intent, They speak of him most affectionately, and say they should most deeply regret to seethe rectory .of Kilkenny West, and the " decent church that tops the neighbouring hill," without a member of that family whom they so much love and respect; that his own exceeding charity to the poor, and kindness ;to all since he came among them, have, if possible, raised still higher their esteem, respect, and love for his family ; and they ■therefore most humbly pray that he will f remain with them, and not take a step \ which would be • heartrending to them. Of course Mr. Bryan yielded.

The Queen has been pleased to appoint Major-General Robert Henry Wynyarcl, C.B-, to be Lieutenant-Governor of the Cape of Good Hope.

SCOTLAND. On the 25th February the new Masonichall, George- street, Edinburgh, was consecrated and inaugurated as the Freemasons'-, hall of Scotland, with imposing solemnities. The Edinburgh section of Bright Liberals, headed by their chief's connection, Mr. Duncan M'Laren, have held a meeting. They denounced the Ministerial Bill as " most objectionable, most.unconstitutional, and incomparably more revolutionary than Mr. Bright's bill."' The meeting resolved to petition against the Government measure. At Glasgow a meeting of the Parliamentary Reform Committee has denounced the bill as altogether inadequate. It affirmed that it could not support any proposal that does not include manhood suffrage with a residential qualification, equitable electoral, districts, vote by ballot, and triennial Parliaments. The Dundee Advertiser says—" We have good authority for stating that, in the event of the present Government surviving to introduce a Reform Bill for Scotland, that bill will propose the giving of a second member for Dundee. It is also contemplated to give the city of Aberdeen and county of Lanark each one additional member." Lord Murray, a distinguished _ Scotch ' lawyer, died on the 7th March, at his house in Edinburgh. He was in his 81st year. " In the case of one so well beloved," says the Scotsman, " we had rather a few days should pass before speaking; we make the mournful announcement, therefore, only in the simplest words. Not in Edinburgh only, of whose society he was the brilliant and acknowledged head, but throughout the wide circle of the illustrious in rank and intellect in every part of Europe to which his friendships extended will the loss be deplored. . . . His death will be felt not only as the departure of a man universally beloved and esteemed as a munificent public benefactor, as the honored head of many schemes of usefulness, as the patron of every worthy charity, and the warm supporter of all improvement, but as the last of that highly distinguished band who throughout the first 30 or 40 years of the century reflected more lustre on Edinburgh than did even the great intellectual lights of an elder day. . • • Our generation can have no such loss again to deplore—no such man is left among us. 5' The Scottish Press has "no doubt that the Lord-Advocate (Mr. 0. Baillie) will claim the gown vacant by Judge Murray's death, and that Solicitor-General Mure will succeed to the office of the former." Sir James Matheson is about to erect extensive chemical works for the manufacture of paraffine, &c, from peat moss—the cost of wv.ui-, w j]| be several thousand pounds—at Garrabost, nt^* f. ne town of Stornovvay. " Experiments have "toetn made by two gentlemen of high reputation, and with a satisfactory result. These works will be a source of employment to a large number of the laboring classes." A sad calamity has occurred at Shetland to a fishing boat The crew were engaged in their avocation. If. appears that they had taken* too great a weight of fish., on .boar d. and Hat their skiff had filled with water and gone down. Three men perished, two of them leaving widows arid families. EXTRAORDINARY CASE 01? DIVORCE. A somewhat remarkable action .for di-' vorce came before the First Division of the Court of Session at Edinburgh, a few days ago, for judgment. Mr. M'lver, banker ■ in Dingwall, Rosshire, and provost of the burgh, is the pursuer (plaintiff) in , the -case, and seeks to obtain divorce ■ from his wife on the ground of adultery. .Suspicion against his wife was first presented to his mind by a letter written and placed in his hand by his wife's sister, Ellen -G'Doherty, on the 25th of j February, 1857* which while professing deep sorrow and repentance -for having aided her sister in corresponding and meeting with her alleged paramour, discloses circumstances of a painful nature, and leading to the assumption that, in a pre-ar-ranged interview between Mrs. M'lver and-Dr. Gordon, of Port Stewart, Ireland, in the Royal Hotel, Belfast, on the 12th of July, 1856, an act of adultery had. been committed; It would appear that in early life Mrs. M'lver, then Miss Eliza O'Doherty, became acquainted with Dr. Gordon, and that- a ■ strong and evidently pure attachment had arisen between them—an attachment which seemed on both sides to survive the separation of their fortunes caused by circumstances, and even the marriage of both the lovers to different partners. Dr. Gordon, who first met Miss O'Doherty in 1837, addressed her under the romantic name ;of " Una," in songs and sonnets (one of which appeared at the time in the ' Dublin University Magazine'), and also in highly romantic love letters. But the course of their true love did not run smooth. Dr. Gordon married another lady, whom he describes in his—correspondence with the defender as his "loving, true, and faithful wife; and by her he had three children. Mrs. M'lver married the pursuer in 1843, and is the mother of five children. Twice during her married life she met Dr. Gordon, once a few months after marriage, and the second time on the occasion above referred to. Dr. Gordon, who had for some years been in declining health, died in 1857, about a year after the alleged adultery. The statement of Ellen O'Doherty is that, on ; her sister's account and at her instigation, she kept up an occasional correspondence with Dr. Gordon, and was the medium of conveying loving messages between him and her sister; that in May, 1856, Dr. Gordon, who, then proposed to go abroad to recruit his failing health, expressed a wish to see Mrs. M'lver before doing so ; that on pretence of Ellen's illness, the two sisters went south to Edinburgh, professedly to consult Dr. Simpson, and that, while there, they found that Dr. Gordon was unable to come so far, and that he appointed Belfast

as the place of meeting.. The following is Miss O'Doherty's description (given in the letter referred" to) of the scene that took place in Belfast: — We got there at 4 next morning (Satnr- ' day). Dr. Gordon arrived the night before, and slept at the Royal Hotel, where we went by appointment; he came to the room we occupied, and there they met. Eliza was not in the room when he came in, but she came in a few minutes, and immediately on entering they were locked in each other's arms; soon after this I went to a bedroom, and remained there nearly two hours.. I was horrified at what I had done, and the conduct of both. Eliza came in, looking flushed, and she said, "Poor Bob has gone out for a little; it was very kind of you to leave us for such a length of time alone—we had much to say to each other; poor darling Robert, how thin and ill he is." I said to her, " Where is your brooch ? Your chemisette is quite open." She replied, "Bob does not like it, so he took it out." . . • Well, to continue, the day was wearing on, I saw-her with him as I would be ashamed to be or see any one, even on the eve of marriage. She was crying when she came out, and when I said, "What is wrong?" she said "Oh, poor Bob is in such a state about parting with me. Oh, if I had not been married. Oh, dear, what will I do,, my darling Robert? 1 have a husband and five children, but I could desert them all for you in your loneliness, and his love for me now is proved." This and much more she said, and I was thankful when we got into the steamer that night for Glasgow again. „ . . She cried the whole day, and talked of her darling Robert and her broken heart. She said to me there, what she afterwards repeated at Fortrose, that she left me every opportunity of making up to you, John, for the love she could not give you—a pretty speech to a young girl of her husband—and that she had never embraced you, or slept in your arms, but with the thought for ever in her heart that you were Gordon. A miniature of Dr. Gordon belonging to Mrs. M'lver was conveyed by Miss O'Doherty in the same packet with the above letter, and various other inferential ] proofs of her sister's guilt were pointed out. The above letter was the ground-; work of the present action, and evidence was taken by commission in the 3ase, and was laid before the court in a voluminous record. The Judge-Ordinary in the case (Lord Benholme) found Mrs. M'lver guilty of adultery, and granted divorce, but the case being brought under review of the. judges I of the First division, they decided by three to one that not only was there no legal proof of the wife's-guilt, but tliat the evidence did not even amount to moral proof. Lord Ivory stated his opinion at. some length, pointing out that several of the witnesses, including Ellen, appeared 'to be animated by a strong feeling of hostility to the defender, and that a very unusual intimacy appeared to subsist between the pursuer and Ellen, and that Ellen had actually abstracted from the custody of others some of tko pi-oofo oh-o-«otv- -o£fcr'ed uf'HeT sister's guilt. He thought there was no evidence upon which to grant a divorce. Lord Ourriehill took the opposite view. Lord Deas expressed the same opinion as Lord Ivory. The Lord President also gave his opinion at some length in favor of the defender; and i the court, by a majority, recalled the interlocutor of the Lord-Ordinary, and refused the divorce.