Irish News.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVIII, Issue 6, 8 February 1900, Page 9

Irish News.

ANTRIM— A Sad Case— At the Ulster assizes the late postmaster of Belfast pleaded guilty to falsifying the books of the Post Office, and with embezzling the sum of £330 of public money. The accused had been 37 years in tlie faervice of the Government, and had risen to the important postion of postmaster of Belfast from the lowest grade in the faervice. In Heven years he would be entitled to retire on a pension of £300 a year. Several prominent citizens spoke highly of the accused, whose downfall was due to borrowing money at a ruinous rate of interest from money-lenders, the cause being continuous illness in his family. Taking into account the length of honourable service of the accused, and the fact that the would sacrifice his pension, the presiding judge passed the comparatively light sentence of 1 2 months' imprisonment.

A Generous Belfast Citizen— Mr. w. J. Pirrie has given a munificent donation for the benefit of the poor of Belfast. In connection with the project for honouring the memory of the late Professor Cuming, he has presented £7000 to the Royal Victoria Hospital, on condition that one of the wards of the hospital shall be named after the much-lamented professor. The committee of the hospital has now £76,000 in hand towards its endowment.

CORK.— A Brave Lamplighter —James Keatinge, a lamplighter, of Cork, has received a testimonial on vellum from the Royal Humane Society of London, for plunging into the Lee River and rescuing a boy. This makes the twelfth life Keatinge has Bayed.

DERRY— Launch of a new Vessel —The launch of the first vessel built in Derry shipyard for many years was signalled on December 1) by a public holiday in the city. The Duchess of Abercorn performed the christening ceremony. The vessel was a 6000 ton boat for Messrs. M'Vicker, Marshall, and Co., Liverpool, and named the Parkside. Since re-opening, the Foyle shipyard has been very fortunate, the latest order being for two vessels for Elder Dempster's African trade.

The alleged Citadel of Civil and Religious Liberty — Derry, the citadel of ' civil and religious liberty,' adopted a peculiar course at a recent meeting of the Corporation. A resolution from the Sligo Corporation was placed before the Derry worthies asking for their concurrence in the opinion that the clause in the Catholic Emancipation Act branding Jesuits, friars, and monks generally as outlaws, should be repealed. The clause is a mockery. For 70 years it has been allowed to remain a dead-letter. But there it is in ugly black type upon the statute book, an insult to every Catholic in Ireland. From that point of view (says the Irish Weekly) the majority of the Derry Corporation would be not vexed greatly at its ignoble existence on the roll of Parliament or even at its active promulgation by a brand-new Cromwell. B*t these Derry heroes proclaim themselves, once a year at least, the chosen champions of ' civil and religious liberty,' and if their professions of Orange toleration are not mere figments of the imagination we should expect them to join heartily in the good cause of striking from the religious orders one of the disabilities bequeathed from the penal times. It seems, however, that, whatever the Orange partisans mean by 'civil and religiouß liberty,' they do not intend it to apply to Catholics, and least of all to Jesuits. The majority of the Corporation were invited and reasoned with by Councillor William O'Doherty to be consistent, and to put their Twelfth of July platitudes into practice. They refused. What was the voting ? Twelve Protestant Unionists against the removal of the statutory disabilities, eight Catholic Nationalists for. For the past two years it has been ever so in the Guildhall. In all matters and appointments partaking, however remotely, of a religious or political tinge, the minority has been steadily voted down.

DONEGAL.— A Record in Police Promotion.— About ten years ago Mr. Robert Kilpatrick, of Ballybofey, joined the Lancashire police force. A few years later he was promoted to the rank of inspector. Recently he was chosen out of forty-five candidates Chief Constable for the ancient borough of Neath, Swansea, and thus attained the highest rank of the English police force at the earliest age on record.

'Turkish' and 'Persian' Carpets.— a year ago some manufacturers of artistic textiles touring in Donegal resolved to establish a place for the making of hand-tufted carpets of the description known as ' Turkish ' or ' Persian ' The peculiarity of this fabric is that from its nature it must be a hand production. The making of these carpets is just such an industry as is suited to the rural districts of Ireland. No steam power is required, and there is therefore no handicap on the commercial side by the absence of coal. The first year's experiment with the Irish girls has proved that they are admirably adapted for the work. So convinced are the promoters of the industry of its ultimate success that they have planned out a broad scheme that will spread the work all over the West of Ireland, and give employment to many hundreds of boys and girls.

DOWN. — A New Magistrate. — On the recommendation of the Marquis of Dufferin and Ava, Mr. Thomas R. Lavery, Lakeview, Newtownards, has been appointed a magistrate. Mr. Lavery is a very large employer of labour ; he is a leading member of nil the public boards of the town, and his appointment is popular with all classes.

DUBLIN- — The Parnell Fund- — Among the passengers for Queenstown by the Cunard liner on December 8 were the Lord Mayor of Dublin and Mr. John Redmond, M.P. The former landed at Queenstown, but Mr Redmond proceeded in the steamer to Liverpool, en route to Paris. The Lord Mayor, in the course of an

interview, said their mission to America to collect funds for the purchase of the Parnell homestead at Avondale and for the erection of a memorial to Parnell in Dublin was a great suocess. They had collected £6000, which would enable them to purchase the Parnell house and demesne and to start the Parnell monument. The Parnell property would be vested in trustees for Mr. J. H. Parnell and his sister, Mrs. Dickson, and would on their decease revert to the Irish people. Mr. Redmond and he would have oolleoted considerably more but for the circumstance that the Lord Mayor of Dublin was obliged, under an old Statute of the Irish Parliament, not to be absent from the city more than two months without forfeiture of office.

A House with Historic Associations— The Dublin County Council has purchased, a? a place for the holding of its meetings and for its officers, a palatial mansion, 11 Rutland Square, Dublin, which has political, social, and historic memories. This house was in the early decades of the present century the Dublin residence of the Marquis of Conyngham.

Revival of the Paper-Making Industry.— The papermakers of Dublin and the North once famous, seem likely to revive in the spieudid new mill at Clondalkin, County Dublin (says New Ireland.) On the equipment up to the present time of the mill for manufacturing all qualities of paper, which the Leinster Paper Co. has erected at Clondalkin, the sum of £180,000 has been spent, and something like £17,000 has gone to the laborers of the district in wages within a comparatively short space. The mill itself is worthy of note, because it is the largest paper mill in the world, because it contains the largest machinery ever used in places of the kind, and because it has begun where the best of English or American mills have left off. It is the only paper mill in the world which is worked by the latest description of triple expansion engines, and it is the only mill in which devices have been successful to make the complete manufacture of paper one single operation. From the time the raw material is put into the ' devil cutters' in the shape of old rope, rags, and the like, till the paper reaches the burnishing machinery, where it is cut into rolls of proper width, no human hand touches it, and instead of the usual complement of sixteen men to attend the work, only one is needed. At other portions of the process the reduction of human labour is even greater, but this is the result of various patented machines and contrivances which are peculiar to the mill, and the secret of which is carefully guarded. Yet with all this reduction of labour the mill will employ more hands, on account of its capacity and output, than any other mill in Europe.

KERRY.— To join the Dominican Nuns.— Miss H. Nolan, a Tralee lady, has left that town to join the Order of the Dominican nuns in South Africa, with the purpose of helping that brave com* munity in bringing relief and help to the wounded in the war in South Africa.

KING'S COUNTY-Tenants Purchasing Their Holdings. — An agreement has been come to for the sale to the tenants by the Earl of Huntingdon, of a large portion of his estate in the townlands of Brackna, Clonlee, and Derrykeel, in the parish of Kinnetty. There are fifty holdings, mostly large, disposed of, and the land is of a good average quality. The ancient demesne of Derrykeel, a residence and hunting centre of the Weatenras in the last century, has been reserved by the Huntingdon family. The terms of purchase were nineteen years.

LlMEßlCK.— Purchasing their Farms.— The tenants on the White estate at Drumcolloher, Feenagh, and Duckstown have purchased their holdings.

Death of a Redemptorist— The Rev. James Hartigan, C.SS.R, who died in Limerick recently, was the son of the late Mr. Hartigan, of Banogue, Croom. He was born in March, 1867. He was ordained priest on August 27, 1897, in Holland. Haviag returned to Limerick, he spent some time at the Redemptorist House. His health failing, he went to Australia, where he remained for a year and a half, and the climate not agreeing with him he returned to Limerick.

MAYO— Settling the People on the Land- -The tenants on the Hope-Scott estate, Ballyheane, have concluded the purchase of their holdings at satisfactory terms. The Congested Districts' Board is purchasing grazing farma and dividing them among the people. In Mayo the Ballymacragh and Runcomb farms have been Bold, and report has it that Aughadrinah will be similarly dealt with. Houses are also being built to relieve the congestion on a number of estates.

SLIGO.-Catholics are told to 'Stand by'— 'Stand by 1 was the insolent and offensive order addressed by the Crown soli ji tor to every Catholic juror called, while a jury was being empanelled recently in Sligo, for the trial of Mr. Muffeney, merchant, Ballina, and Mr. Maguire, County Coucillor, both of whom were charged with intimidating a man who had taken a farm from which the previous tenant had been evicted, ' Stand by' simply means ' you can't be trusted on your oath even ' ; otherwise, ' you are ready to commit perjury.' Fully five-sixthß of the people of Sligo are Catholics, yet an exclusively Protestant jury was empanelled, not to try, but to convict the defendants. There are uitlanders elsewhere than in the Transvaal.

GENERAL.

The New Judge. — There is a good deal of speculation just now (says the Irish Weekly) as to who will be appointed to the vacancy in the Irish judiciary caused by the death of Mr. Justice O'Brien. The name of The MaoDermot, who has for many yean been leader of the Bar, has been suggested, and instances are frequent of the Government appointing political opponents to the Bench in England and Scotland. Only a few weeks ago Lord Salisbury appointed Mr. John Blair Balfour, who for many yean

sat in the House as a Radical, to the highest judicial office in Scotland. Will the Government display the same magnanimity in Ireland? Before Judge O'Brien's death there were only four of the eighteen judges in this country Catholics. Now there are only three. Protestant England can boast a similar number — the Lord Chief Justice, and Justices Day and Mathew. Will the Government perpetuate the scandal of the disparity in Ireland .' In '1 he MacDermot they have a lawyer of ripe experience and of unblemished honour who would command the confidence of both the Bar and the public.

A Tribute to the Worth of Mr Horace Plunkett-in moving & vote of thanks to the president at the meeting of the Irish Co-operative Societies held in Dublin recently the Rev. Father O'Donovan paid the following tribute to the work of the Right Hon. Horace Plunkett. He (Father O'Donovan) said he had never heard or read of any such representative meeting of Irishmen coming together before. He thought this great co-operative conference showed that a signal change for the better had come over the condition of this country. Men differing in religion and politics, and in almost everything else, had come to the con"lusion that co-operation was one of the greatest remedies of the century for improving things in this country. The credit of this was due ultimately to one man, and that was the man who had presided at this conference. He (Father O'Donovan), as a Catholic priest who had every desire for the welfare of his country, would say that he considered there was no man in Ireland who could fill the important position of vice-president of the Department of Agriculture with greater advantage to the country than the man who had been appointed to it. Mr. Plunkett had always shown himself singleminded and disinterested, the one spring of his action being a keen desire to advance everything connected with the social, industrial, and agricultural life of the country.