perated by the taunts of his adversary who has escaped, and his village friends and connexions. Can it be a subject of wonder, if the institutions, which to him are not merely useless, but partial and humiliating in their operation, should share, in common with the individuals who wield them, his disgust and indignation? or that the other party, exulting in his escape and victory, should proceed to a repetition of those acts, which the law, as he sees it administered, not only does not punish, but supports? Who can be surprised, if a people so treated take the law into their own hands, acquire habits of violence and insubordination; commit, when acting as their own avengers, deeds of unmeasured and merciless ferocity; and become at length familiarised with atrocious crimes, at which the heart of a citizen living under the influence of law and civilization recoils with horror? I state an opinion, very generally prevalent in the South of Ireland, and more especially in the districts now and lately disturbed, when I say, that contested elections, in the mode in which they have been conducted, have been the bane of that part of the island. The chief parties in these contests are, in one light, not wholly to blame; for they do not always see the mischief in operation. It grows up gradually, and, like all gradual abuses, is not believed or understood, till it flourishes in frightful vigor. If instances of partiality arise, they censure perhaps the particular instance, but are slow to believe that such conduct is common, and do not trace it to its real cause. The actions of individuals, and still more those of a number of individuals, may be accounted for in various ways; and the true springs will not be noticed, if unpleasing. At present, however, few there are indeed, who are not aware of the extent and of the chief causes of the evil to which I allude.

It must be observed, however, that, independent of this species of abuse, and perhaps in a great measure auxiliary to its introduction, there is and has long been a system of favoritism among the magistracy and gentry of Ireland, to which much of the evil spirit of the lower ranks is to be ascribed. What party spirit effects in the cases just noticed, this system performs from private and personal motives. With respect to its prevalence, it is enough to remark, that a magistrate is considered a very harsh character, who refuses to show marked favor to his own tenantry, to those in his employment, or with whom he is in any friendly way connected. When one thus related is prosecuted for an outrage, he seldom thinks of defence, unless the crime be of a very glaring description. The first step is to apply to a friendly magistrate, or other gentleman who is likely to possess influence with the quarter-sessions grand jury, and may exert it to throw out the bill of indictment; and the case must be very aggravated indeed, in which this

influence will not, at least, be tried. The same process is used by the opposite party, who thinks he dares not trust to justice, and seeks influence also, to support his allegation, receive the indictment, and bring the matter to trial. Which of these practices is occasioned by the other, or whether they do not derive, each from the other, a mutual support, is a point not worth inquiry. But certain it is, the result of this course is fatal to law and order. The effect is the same with what I have already described: exasperation and disappointment on one side; insolent triumph on the other; contempt of the laws on both. The parties and their friends leave the court full of these feelings; meet and quarrel under their influence; and, as if to show that justice cannot be violated without certain mischief to the society which suffers her pollution, they break the peace within sight of the very temple of the law.

The occupations of the magistracy, composed as they are of the middle orders of the gentry, form often a cause, and often an excuse, for a neglect of their duties as guardians of the peace. Whether middlemen or proprietors, the high rates at which their lands are usually let require a constant and personal vigilance, and frequently actual inspection of their tenants' affairs. A great part of their time is spent in visiting these tenants, collecting rents, and guarding against the clandestine sale or removal of corn or cattle. In many cases they are agriculturists on an extensive scale, and are themselves the overseers of their farming concerns. The business

of justice is therefore often dispatched in the field, amidst numberless interruptions, at the fair or the market, or on the road when they are hurrying to these places. What degree of patience or discrimination can be exercised on such occasions, may be well conceived. Their concern for the public merges, and not unnaturally, in the superior importance of their own private affairs. When an outrage is committed, if it does not happen under the eye of the magistrate, when public disgrace would be the punishment of negligence, he pleads urgent business, and leaves the necessary duties to be performed by some other justice, who perhaps has the same plea to advance to his neighbor. Prompt and decisive measures, which are almost always successful when they follow up at once the transaction which requires them, are here not exerted. The magistrates act, but they act late, and they act with languor proportionate to the delay, and to the diminished chances of success. The happy moment is lost, when all around are alive on the occurrence of the outrage, and ready to co-operate, when the hope and the probability of reaching the end impart and sustain activity in prosecuting the means to attain it; before that tremulous confusion of guilt after the commission of the deed, which so

commonly is the cause of detection, has been dispelled, and the culprit has had time to escape. Here I must guard against being misunderstood. I by no means intend to assert, that such is the universal, or even the general conduct of the magistracy. But the administration of justice may be compared to those porous substances, on which the dropping of a few spots pollutes in some sort the purity of the whole. The discoloring tint spreads far beyond the point on which it falls, and reduces the parts surrounding to a hue resembling its own. If the conduct I have described happen in a considerable number of instances, on ordinary occasions, it will be sufficient to produce the effect-a contemptuous confidence of security from the laws in those who break them. True it is, when a public call is made on the Irish magistrates and gentry, no men can act with more spirit and effect. In truth, a quick sense of shame, and a great spirit of emulation, are some of the distinguishing characteristics of them and of their whole nation. When, therefore, occurrences of novelty and of public alarm take place, in which many are likely to engage in the public service, not a man will loiter behind. When the immediate and exciting cause is removed or becomes familiar, and ceases to create the same public interest as before, the relapse to languor, if not as sudden, is almost as certain. But magistrates, to be efficient, must not wait for extraordinary danger. It is by a number of petty acts that a people become prone to disorder, and it is by a vigilant attention to these that great tumults are prevented. The sheepstealer, the rioter, the disorderly vagrant, the petty pilferer, the rescuer of goods taken by process of law, must be coerced and punished; because these form, in due course of time, the recruits of the night banditti and every lawless association. This reluctance to continued and sustained exertion in the maintenance of the laws, is one reason why the magistrates are, on every occasion of difficulty, so prone to plague government with complaints and calls for assistance. Another cause is, that it has long been usual. In times of more general and alarming troubles, when government hardly knew where to rest confidence, the discovery and the representation of danger were a suremark of loyalty, and often followed by reward. This produced, in a little time, a swarm of alarmists in all quarters of the country; and the eager thirst of reward, or desire of the reputation of distinguished loyalty, created a restless system of applications and warnings to government, which exists to this day. As government have, of course, generally attended to these calls, the magistrates have become fond of a system, which relieves them from exertion and secures the peace; while it gives them all the credit of loyalty, but exempts them from those laborious services, without which it could not otherwise be

purchased. This is one of the reasons why the Irish magistrates have so seldom resisted, and so often sought, the introduction of martial law. It is needless to dilate on the consequences of such conduct as I have described. The effect must be, that the people will despise those guardians of the law, who cannot coerce them without the aid of the powerful arm of the executive; will dread nothing but a military force; and will become at length so inured even to that, as to lose much of the terror with which they ought to be impressed at its approach.

There is a subject relating to the lower orders, with which the conduct of the magistracy and gentry is closely connected, of infinite importance to the whole frame of society in its inferior classes in Ireland, but which, by some fatality, has been hitherto most unaccountably neglected :-I allude to the clannish feuds of the Irish peasantry. I solicit attention to these petty wars, because their tendency has been, and will continue to be, so long as they are tolerated, to cherish and promote that desire of the Irish peasant to take the administration of justice into his own hands, which these feuds have been mainly instrumental in producing, and which is a perennial spring of disorder. Every barony, every parish in the south of Ireland, contains clans or factions, under the command of some one or more individuals, distinguished for superior intelligence or personal prowess. When a member of one of these factions quarrels with one of another clan, it is a rare occurrence, and generally esteemed a most disgraceful one, for either to appeal to the laws. The friends of both parties meet at a neighboring fair or market, and decide the dispute in a general engagement. There is sometimes a formal challenge sent, but most frequently the meeting takes place from a general and tacit consent, or a concurrence mutually known by the preparations on both sides. In fact it is expected, as a matter of course, that the private quarrel will be followed by the public battle on the next public day. The intervening period is taken up in mustering troops and allies, who are sought among the neighboring and friendly faction, and sometimes at a very considerable distance. It is not uncommon for an army of allies to proceed a distance of 30 miles, and to enter the place of action in the early part of the day, marching in rank and file, and preceded by a bagpipe. The weapons used on these occasions are usually sticks with iron ferrules on their ends, but certain individuals sometimes carry swords, scythes, and fire-arms. Stones are sometimes thrown from a distance, sometimes used in close combat, and often supplied by the wives, daughters, and sisters of those engaged. It not unfrequently happens, that the neighboring houses, even of the gentry, are entered some nights previously, and rifled of fire-arms, to be used in the fray; VOL. XXIV. Pam. NO. XLVII.. H

and it is by no means uncommon, after it is over, to have them returned in perfect order. In many of these riots lives are lost; three, four, five, and more persons are sometimes killed on the spot, or die of their wounds a few days after. True it is, that when notice is obtained of the intention of these people, and if the military happen to be in the neighborhood, the magistrates sometimes call them in. If the force be a small one, the two factions unite to repel them, and having succeeded, divide and engage against each other. If the force be too large to be resisted, they assume an appearance of tranquillity till the soldiers depart, and then commence the conflict. But what will be thought of a magistrate, who, by a manœuvre easily practised, leaves unmolested that party which is composed of his tenantry and friends, directs the force of the military against the opposite faction, while his friends look on in triumph and exultation at the rout and dispersion of their adversaries, flying on all sides? And what must be the effect on an enraged multitude, who retire muttering vengeance against the King's justice of the peace, and execrating laws of which they know only the partial exercise. But this is not the worst part of this miserable system. The great mischief is, that the delinquents are rarely prosecuted to trial and conviction. Here comes the machinery of quarter-sessions' influence and intrigue, and the operation of private and personal favor with the magistrate. If any of the parties are apprehended, they are at once bailed, and through the intervention of some friendly gentry, the magistrate is prevailed on not to forward the informations, or, if they are returned, and come before the quarter sessions, it goes hard if they are not thrown out. Often, such is the reluctance of the Irish peasant to carry a quarrel into a court of justice, and the disgrace attached to such a course, the prosecuting party pardons the offence, and both concurring, the magistrate is induced to quash the informations. It is impossible not to perceive the effect of all this on the Irish peasantry, 'These feuds familiarise them to breaches of the law under the eyes of its guardians. The collision with the military, not unfrequently terminating in the retreat of the latter, often from a reluctance to fire on the multitude, gives them confidence in their own strength, and prepares them for future resistance. The use of fire-arms, and the mode of procuring them, become accustomed and easy. The furious spirit with which the combat is conducted, and the unrelenting and merciless ferocity with which, in the moments of rage and passion, they follow up their successes in the fight, habituate them to deeds of blood and cruelty, and to that recklessness of human life which, when once acquired, abolishes all restraint of moral and natural feeling. The wretch who is guilty of one murder, will not shudder at a repetition of the crime. But when impunity is added to this familiarity with savage outrage,