report was given out that obtained universal circulation, if not belief, that one of the men was not quite dead, and that when the quicklime was thrown on the body it exhibited signs of actual life. Such were the circumstances in which the murder of a very humane and good man took place. The credulity of the people who believed evil of him, however, had no bounds. It is strange, that in most of the frightful murders that have taken place, some more than common atrocity is imputed to the murdered man. Is the falsehood a part of the crime, or is it one of the devices by which the conscience seeks to impose on itself? We know not; but we could relate facts, which, whether true or false, mingle with popular belief, and which seem to be put forth for the purpose of proving, that nothing but good was done in ridding the world of a monster.

Degrading punishments for crimes, which are not regarded as such by the persons who commit them, have little effect either on the criminals or the community-for the state of opinion is such as to make the sufferer be regarded as a martyr. Transportation, we are told, inflicted in the ordinary way, is dreaded as much as death; but transportation carried into instant effect, they consider so final and irreparable, that they dread it more than death. In Cork, at the Spring Assizes 1847, persons accused of sheep-stealing, &c., when they thought there was not danger of transportation, pleaded guilty. They had some support in the gaol, and were afraid of being acquitted and discharged.

Transportation is Barrington's recipe. It cures all diseases of the social system. In 1831, Clare was considered to be in rebellion-fences were broken down-cattle were taken and eaten by very hungry people-down went the Crown-solicitor and the Crown-counsel. Sir Matthew Barrington tells a committee sitting this year, of the humanity of not trying any of the prisoners for capital offences. We give him credit for humanity, but he ought to have told them, also, that by such course he was more sure of juries, as the persons tried could not, in cases not capital, challenge jurors without cause; and the privilege of challenge in capital cases is so extensive, as very materially to lessen the chance of verdicts. The Judges and the CrownCounsel, however, dwelt on their doubtful virtue of humanity. Even without reference to the prudential consideration we have mentioned, if transportation was regarded by those who were to suffer it as a severer punishment than death, the speeches taking credit for mercy as an influencing motive, might have been spared. In 1821, Barrington tells us, that criminals were taken round the county of Cork in a machine like an omnibus, and executed, two in one place and two in another, in different parts of

Execution of Criminals-Wake over the body.

533

the country. "And I do not think," says Sir Matthew," that had more effect in tranquillizing the country than the iinmediate transportations from the dock had ten years afterwards in Clare.

We are weary of this mode of tranquillizing the country. Why endeavour to work on the imaginations of the people by theatrical exhibitions of the kind? The miserable show failed in Cork in 1821. The executions took place; the people resented the effort to work upon their minds by carrying the sentence of the law into effect in an unusual form; and the performances had but few spectators.

The effect of the instant removal of the criminals from the dock at Ennis is described as most terrific. The instant the sentence of transportation was pronounced, they were removed to a cart and driven away amidst the heart-rending shrieks of an immense number of persons of their own station in life. Whatever might be the real or seeming effect of this, we cannot but think, with Judge Perrin, that this precipitate haste was unbecoming the solemnity of justice.

Sir Matthew Barrington's instructive testimony informs us that some alterations made in 1831 in the Whiteboy code, mitigating its severity, and punishing several offences with transportation instead of death, were of great importance. When death was the punishment, it had of late years ceased to be inflicted.

Till the year 1828, the punishment of man-slaughter was only fine and imprisonment. In that year it was increased to transportation. From that year faction-fights at fairs ceased. A man-slaughter now scarce ever occurs at a fair. Before that period "there were dozens or hundreds at almost every fair." Must not this, Sir Matthew, be somewhat more than the number?

When a criminal is executed, the possession of his dead body by his family is regarded as of the utmost importance. The bodies of murderers are still buried in the gaol-a measure, we think, of doubtful prudence. In those cases where the body is given back to the relatives, the wake, and the ceremony of the funeral are, we are told, a kind of triumph to the parties, and a mode of attaching them to the commission of crime. The body is brought to the house of the deceased, or of one of his friends, and there, without the coffin being nailed down, the body is exposed with a great number of candles round it. Whisky there used to be; there is now coffee and other refreshments. Through the whole night parties go in and out, and there are hundreds of persons attending. Every friend in the district will attend. At the wakes of criminals new offences are concocted.

It is now unnecessary to discuss the prudence of permitting these meetings, or the fitness of returning to his relatives the body

of the deceased, as the punishment of death but seldom takes place. Our strong impression is, however, that it would in most cases, perhaps in all, be more fitting to restore the body. In spite of our belief that Sir Matthew Barrington is right in thinking that the perpetration of new crimes is arranged at these places of meeting, yet this we think is a hazard that may be more safely incurred than that of legislating in such a spirit as to outrage and insult every feeling of humanity. The danger, too, is less than Sir Matthew seems to think. The habits of the people are themselves changing in respect to wakes and funerals. The excitement of whisky being removed, it is not possible that the scene should not rather tend to calm than to excite violent feeling. Some ten years ago, or later, the funeral cry was heard at every burial in the county of Limerick; it has now wholly passed away, and burials are conducted in silence. It still prevails, or did a year or two ago, in Kerry.

The murder of Mr. Prim in the county of Kilkenny, a few months ago, was the occasion of a curious proof of the feelings of the people on the subject of interment.

Prim was a pay-clerk, travelling in a gig with money to the place appointed for paying it to the men employed on the Public Works. He was accompanied by a policeman. Five men, without having demanded the money or given any notion of their intention, shot Prim and the policeman dead. Prim had time to fire, and wounded one of the men, who was able to crawl to a house in the neighbourhood, where he was found by the police. A few days afterwards he died of his wounds. An inquest was held, and the relations of the deceased demanded the body, saying that he should have as fine a coffin and funeral as Mr. Prim. The wife of the man brought with her an ornamented hearse. The police refused to give the body without the orders of their inspector, who was absent for the day. Early on the following morning two persons, saying they were next of kin, demanded and obtained the body. No suspicion was excited, and it was given. They proceeded with it to the scene of the murder; about two hundred of the neighbouring peasantry joined them; dug a pit at the road-side fifteen or sixteen feet deep, flung in the coffin, hurling on it immense stones which must have dashed the body to pieces. They then filled up the grave, and began firing shots over it in triumph. On their return, they met the wife and father of the deceased, with their ornamented hearse, coming for the body. An encounter between the friends of the deceased and the excited multitude was with difficulty prevented. On the following Sunday considerable apprehension was excited by a report that his friends would come in great force to remove the body, and the police assembled on the ground and prevented

Murder of Mr. Watson.

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any collision. The Irish are a strange people, and it is not improbable that this incident arose from their feelings of regard for Prim and his family, and from indignation at a base murder committed for the sake of plunder-plunder, too, of money intended for the relief of the destitute. There was time, too, for other feelings than those of mere impulse to operate; and they might have reasonably feared that the effect of Prim's murder would be the ceasing of the Public Works in the district.

In one

The murder of Mr. Watson in the county of Limerick, a month or two ago, was attended with circumstances that might almost make a stranger despair of a cure for such evils. Mr. Watson was a man of some independent property, and had been appointed agent to a gentleman of the name of Arthur, who had but recently succeeded to his father's property. During the father's life, large arrears of rent had been allowed to accrue. case four years' and a-half rent was due. Watson showed a disposition to a more active superintendence of the property than was consistent with the continuance of this state of things, and sought to manage the property on some intelligible principle. He demanded a half-year's rent, and offered, on this being paid, to give receipts for the whole; in other words, to forgive the whole arrear. For this half-year's rent he distrained some cattle. The actual enforcement of a just debt by legal process was inconsistent with the feelings and habits of the people. Watson was a very benevolent man, and there were some circumstances in the case which had led the people to think that his former language about enforcing the rent was but a threat unlikely to be carried into effect. Actual murder may not have been intended, as fire-arms were not used, and as severe beatings with cudgels-which appear to have been the weapons employed on the occasion-are not unfrequent in the brutal chastisements with which offences such as Watson's are punished. However this be, on the morning of the day on which Watson left his house for the last time, till his body was borne from it to his early grave, he twice dismounted from his horse, the first time for the purpose of giving a loaf of bread and a shilling to a poor woman who came to him with some narrative of distress,-the second time, in order to write a note intended to serve some object of another claimant on his bounty. There was strong reason to believe that both these persons were spies sent to learn his movements. He had not rode far from his avenue when he was assaulted, thrown from his horse, beaten about the head with cudgels, and with some sharp instrument, and left, still breath+ ing, but having received blows and wounds which proved mortal. At the road-side was a miserable cabin. Its door was closed while this frightful scene was being enacted, in order, as its inhabitants afterwards confessed, that they might not be spectators

of a crime which it is fair to them to believe they might not have the means of preventing. In that cabin, a few nights before, Watson and his wife-herself the mother of seven children-sat up for a whole night watching and attending a labourer's child sick of the croup,-for never were there people of more active benevolence, or more anxious to do good within their sphere, and we know that they were greatly loved. Such details as this we shrink from recording. They would seem to suggest that all remedy is hopeless; and yet, not to continue to hope against hope, at the best would be almost greater criminality than that of the desperate men who took away Watson's life. The circumstances in the case on which the imagination is most likely to dwell, are the most unimportant. If the murderers wanted to learn Watson's movements, messengers must have been sent to the house on one pretence or other, and the poor creatures sent may either not have known the object of the inquiry, or been acting under intimidation, which deprived them of all power of choice. A fact of more moment is, that the rent for which Watson distrained was not that of a pauper-tenant, but of a man whose holding under Mr. Arthur was of a very considerable number of

acres.

Our limits render it impossible that we should say more, and we are not sorry to escape the office of prediction as to the effects of the Poor-Law now coming into operation. Whatever our fears may be, we trust that in Ireland all men will see the fitness of endeavouring to carry out the law in its true spirit and meaning. Resistance of any kind, whether active or passive, can be but mischievous. It would be untrue to say that outrage has ceased in Ireland. It would be untrue to infer even from the quiet of part of the country, that things were altogether in a better state, as we believe outrage to have diminished in some parts of the country by intimidation having produced its intended effect, and that whole districts have ceased to pay any rent-with what certain ruin ultimately to themselves, the readers of what we have already written are in a position to judge. But whether the outrages be more or less in number, they are certainly at present less a part of any deliberate system. They are unconnected with political feeling. They are desultory-driftless-capricious, and must soon cease. We ourselves have no doubt that their chief cause is in the state of the law, which enables any holder of land to continue in the possession of it, while he violates every condition on which it was given to him. This state of the law we have fully exhibited in a former Number.* Among other facts that have perplexed inquirers into the condition of Ireland, it may suggest the cause why so many witnesses before the De

* Number XII., Article" State of Ireland."