was recalled and relieved by another. The Russians not only plundered, but flogged the citizens indiscriminately. The latter plundering regiments tore the boots from the feet of the inhabitants, and stripped them of their clothes, leaving them scarcely a shirt. The last band, furious at finding no more valuables, committed the most atrocious cruelties; they demanded money, and, as the inhabitants had no money to give them, they were tortured. The officers plundered with the privates. The last regiment came armed with bars and perches and destroyed everything which could not be carried away. Not a chair, not a table, not a door remained unbroken; they cut the feather-beds and flung away the feathers; they carried away in waggons the contents of the premises; they bounced open the cellars, drank as much as they could, and when they could drink no more they broke the barrels that the wine might run out. In their intoxication they committed such beastly excesses that even the Russian officers, unable to restrain them, lamented the misfortunes of the citizens. There is no pen to describe the dreadful fate of the women; no age was spared by the intoxicated ruffians. The plundering lasted the whole day; the town was during this time, always surrounded by the Russian army, nor issue granted to any one.'d Or why go so far from home, when two millions of our Irish neighbours have been massacred by Governmental Famine in the last ten years? No kennel running with blood, but bloodless corpses, famished and fever-stricken, scarcely less horrible; and the massacre lasted, not only four days, with 250 in a day, but with an average of 500 a day for four thousand days. Truly also, the difference is not only in the figures. That September Massacre,' was at least an endeavour at justice, however mad the few endeavourers; our Ten Years Massacre was the result of an atheistical indifference and neglect and absence of endeavour on the part of a whole society. We have scarcely altered Mr. Carlyle's words. A word indeed here and there, but not the sense. His expletives, some few of them at least, we now subjoin. 'Bottomless Guilt'—'murky simmering'-'Madness, Horror and Murder''frantic Patriots'-'horny paws'-'unkempt heads'-'tiger yells'-' Night and Orcus'—' Phantasmagory of the Pit'-'howling seas'-' sabres-sharpening'-'sons of darkness'-' nether fire,' etc., etc., etc. All which had not much helped the story; but may now be applied by the judicious reader, wherever may seem most suitable. We conclude however by commending the historian's own reflections to all men, Carlyle himself included. To shriek when certain things are acted is (perhaps) proper and unavoidable. Nevertheless . . O shrieking beloved brother blockhead, close thy wide mouth; cease shrieking, and begin considering. d Quoted in the Athenæum of November 16, 1850. As a sample of the exaggerative style:-They open the folding gate; he is announced to the multitude. He stands a moment motionless, then plunges forth among the pikes, and dies of a thousand wounds. Man after man is cut down; the sabres need sharpening, the killers refresh themselves from wine-jugs. Onward and onward goes the butchery, the loud yells wearying down into bass growls. A sombre-faced shifting multitude looks on.' The number slain was 1089-not quite 160 at each of the seven prisons. There were 'shifting multitudes' at each prison,-pikes and sabres,-three men to be killed in every two of the hundred hours. Doubtless much need of sabre sharpening,' 'wine-jugs,' and loud yells wearying down into bass growls.' How much sabre-sharpening was at Waterloo? or in that same Paris, in one hundred hours of June, 1848? Truly, Mr.Carlyle! 'the head of man is a strange vacant sounding-shell, and studies Cocker to small purpose.' WHO IS THE MURDERER? WE spoke last month of the murder of a poor boy upon Lord Lansdowne's ground; but since then the worthy and indefatigable Mr. Osborne has exposed the atrocious circumstances of the case, and we are compelled to recur to it. Here is Mr. Osborne's account: 'On the estate of the Marquis of Lansdowne, in Kerry, there lived a few months ago a man and his wife, Michael and Judith Donoghue; they lived in the house of one Casey; an order has gone forth on this estate (a common order in Ireland), that no tenant is to admit any lodger into his house; this was a general order: it appears, however, that sometimes special orders are given, having regard to particular individuals. The Donoghues had a nephew, one Denis Shea; this boy had no father living; he had lived with a grandmother, who had been turned out of her holding on account of harbouring him. Denis Shea was twelve years of age, a child of decidedly dishonest habits. Orders were given by the driver of the estate that this child should not be harboured upon it. This young Cain, thus branded and prosecuted, being a thief-he had stolen a shilling, a hen, and done many other such crimes as a neglected twelve-year old famishing child will dowandered about; one night he came to his aunt Donoghue's, who lodged with Casey; he had the hen with him. 'Casey told his lodgers not "to allow him in the house," as the agent's driver had given orders about it. The woman, the child's aunt, took up a pike, or pitchfork, and struck him down with it; the child was crying at the time. The man Donoghue, his uncle, with a cord tied the child's hands behind his back. The poor child, after a while, crawls or staggers to the door of one Sullivan, and tried to get in there; the maid of Sullivan called Donoghue to take him away; this he did, but he afterwards returned, his hands still tied behind his back. Donoghue had already beaten him severely. The child seeks refuge in other cabins, but is pursued by his character-he was so bad a boy, the fear of the agent and driver-all were forbidden to shelter him. He is brought back by some neighbours in the night to Casey's, where his uncle and aunt lived; the said neighbours try to force the sinking child upon his relatives; there is a struggle at the door; the child was heard asking some one to put him upright. A few hours after an eye that had never been off him saw him reel from the flagstone of his mother's sister's door; she, her husband, and his landlord were "retired to rest!" He tries to get his hands round from their cords, to press the forehead, to press the eye, as children do who die of famine; no, his uncle had bound him. In the morning there is blood on the threshold--the child is stiff, dead; a corpse with its arms tied; around it every mark of a last fierce struggle for shelter-food-the common rites of humanity. "The Donoghues were tried at the late Kerry assizes-it was morally a clear case of murder; but, as it was said, or believed, that these Donoghues acted not in malice to the child, but under a sort of sense of self-preservation, that they felt to admit him was to become wanderers themselves, they were indicted for manslaughter, and found guilty.' They were indicted for manslaughter! They? Who? The landlord, the T agent, the driver? No! the driven slaves who dared not for their lives to disobey their lord's ukase. Yet the verdict of manslaughter was right, though slaves are not responsible beings. But when the slave-master employs his slave as assassin, drives the assassin to his work, shall we content ourselves with a verdict of manslaughter recorded against the unwilling tool? Be your indictment, or your verdict, what it may, be the judge never so feeling and so careful, it is a murder which has been committed; and men will-must ask, WHO IS THE MURDERER? The lesser culprits have been condemned, but the principal remains at large, and unaccused. Was there an inquest on the murdered, and yet no warrant issued against the real murderer, the well-known master of those who only 'slew' the victim? Before God and man we arraign Lord Lansdowne of this murder. He owns the land; he claims and exercises his legal right to reduce his tenants to the condition of the Donoghues; he by his order directly instigates and virtually commands the murder of this child. Was there equal law in Britain, was there justice between man and man, between the serf and his peer, this most noble President of a Queen's Privy Council had stood in Tralee dock, beside his fellow-culprits, tools, agents, and drivers; and as principal, had borne the heaviest penalty. For as surely as if his dagger had struck the blow, his hand signed the death-warrant of Denis Shea. The malignant Times can find fault with the Literature of the Poor, picking out in some unhappy corner a seeming provocation to murder. Will the Times inform us what kind of literature has educated this Privy-Councillor? Will the Times but tell us what provocation the Poor can need worse than this bloody scripture of Lord Lansdowne ? This is your boasted 'Order,' most respectable Loyalist! that a landowner may doom God's children to any horrible death, and judge, jury, and society conspire together to hold the offender guiltless. We say nothing of his degrading men and women to the level of the Donoghues: he has a legal right to the lives of his tenants; but is not bound to care for their morality. This is your religion, most zealous Priest! to be mouthing in the Rotunda while through the heart of the land Coroneted Murder walks unreproved. And this is your patriotism, most able Leader of the Irish People! to set Irish and English at savage variance, and so secure the impunity of the Murderer: you who should be urging the people of both countries to make common cause against their oppressors. Who are the Murderers of the Poor we know. But what are ye whose selfish apathy, or craft, or blundering intemperance, leaves Murder still unchallenged? RHYMES AND REASONS AGAINST LANDLORDISM SAINT PATRICK. Ho, good Saint Patrick! at our need And rid us of the vermin breed That still devour our grain. For vainly clear'dst thou deepest bogs If it be true that types of life Repeat themselves on earth, O Hero! modernize thee then, The People's Chief to be; And drive these swarms of Middlemen' So shall they read their word of fear, Must move with all the greater speed THE SOLDIER. Halt! who asketh passage here ?- Lo, our blazonries are clear; Soldier! we must hasten by.- Are not less clear, to my mind: At the invasion of Ireland by the French conquerors of England-the Normans. What had Saxon England to do with it? The very fact of the frogs (doubtless imported as an old-country delicacy) shows how thoroughly French was the occupation. The frogs indeed, as the Rev. W. P. Moore tells us, would not thrive; but the landlords are a living proof to this day, Landlord and Company: all Middlemen. Back there! we are loyal warders,— Halt! again, who passes there?— Starving in thy peasant home. Still the passage he denieth: Back! return to whence ye come! Halt! again, who passes here? Freedom's host-the loud reply, Like God's voice, so full and clear,Brethren sworn to pass or die.-— Soldiers' oaths are -To the Nation: 'Tis her will that speaks through us; Answer you our acclamation With your shout unanimous. Ring the muskets on the ground; Pile your arms,-no need of them; Shall its crested waves be frozen THE PARKS. The noble Parks of England,- And dips of knee-deep grassy land The graceful slopes between, So stately to be seen, Built high in oaken screen: The grand old Parks of England,- And their pleasant leaf-strown terraces Whence the level sun is seen |