turbary on 100 acres of a bog, consisting of 1,200 acres, for the whole of which he paid but £16 per year. Arbitration was tried in vain. Hunter "would have his bond. Dr. Gibbings should pay £10 per year, or the poor tenants, who were altogether blameless in the matter, should have no fires." Arbitration was again resorted to, but Hunter had raised his demand to £15 per year. At last an umpire was called in, who, for the sake of peace, decided that the sum should be £10 per year, and Dr. Gibbings paid £30 for three years then due; but, considering the demand unjust and extortionate, he refused to pay any more. The tenants, who had nothing to do with the quarrel between the landlord and middle man, continued to cut their turf as usual, as they were in fact in extreme necessity, and had no alternative but to procure their winter fuel or to die. Mr. Hunter determined to force the latter alternative on the tenants, and in order to effect his purpose took an action against one of them, called O'Neill," who is by universal consent a respectable, hard-working man. The case came on at the spring assizes of the present year. There was some break-down in the legal preparation for O'Neill's defence, I believe from the man's poverty The result was that O'Neill was fined five shillings, and saddled with £48 costs! O'Neill possessed nothing which could be taken in execution for so large an amount, so Mr. Hunter determined to wait until the man's crop had grown; meantime letting Dr. Gibbings know that he intended to levy. When Dr. Gibbings heard that Mr. Hunter was really about to seize O'Neill's crop, he so far departed from his previously declared determination to have nothing more to do with him, that he sent a gentleman to Mr. Hunter, asking him to open negotiations again, and offered £6 a year so as to meet him about half way.' Hunter peremptorily refused he seized, and as nobody could be got to act as sheriff's man, he stayed away from his kirk on Sunday to do the bailiff's duty, and in the evening he was murdered. Perhaps Mr. Hunter had a legal right to his pound of flesh, but in his mode of asserting it he undoubtedly outraged every feeling, not only of kindness but of humanity, which are as necessary to the peace and happiness of society as justice itself. Of course ; But much as the Commissioner is shocked by the cruelty with which the poor tenants were treated, he has not noticed one of the most harassing and oppressive consequences of an agrarian murder. It is this that the very barbarity with which a tenant has been treated by the murdered man is of itself sufficient evidence to have him arrested and cast into prison on the accusation of murder. We illustrate this by Hunter's case. The murder occurred on the 29th of August last, and as if O'Neill had not suffered enough already, he was of course arrested on suspicion and hand has mastered and appropriated large portions, from the field of philosophy, history, and literature; but (3) who has not in any way learnt the habit, of viewing the various parts of this latter field under the light of Catholic doctrine and principle. Such a youth is a Catholic, and is a highly educated gentleman: what he utterly fails to be, is a decently educated Catholic. It is only in proportion as the Church's doctrines have been actively energizing implicit premisses throughout his course of secular study, that he has been receiving a Catholic education at all. And whether any one is likely to learn such a habit, while living among Protestant companions and learning from Protestant teachers, we may safely leave it for men of common sense to determine. It is precisely these uncatholicly-educated Catholics, who are the Church's most dangerous enemies. If they apostatized-it would be an immeasurably greater calamity to themselves,-but in many respects it would lessen or even destroy their power of injuring the Church. Instead of this, as we observed on a former occasion, they will grow up a noxious school of disloyal, minimising anti-Roman Catholics; Catholic in profession, but anti-Catholic in spirit; Catholics, who combine the Church's naked dogmata with the principles of her bitterest enemies, and place the priceless gem of the Faith in a setting of the very basest metal; a constant cause of anxiety to ecclesiastical authorities; a canker eating into the Catholic body; a standing nuisance and obstruction. Here we conclude. There is a relevant inquiry of extreme moment, on which we have said little or nothing. Philosophers who admit (what seems to us undeniably sound) the general theory laid down by FF. Kleutgen and Newman, have to explain what criterion is open to individuals, that they may assure themselves on the legitimacy of their implicit reasoning; how they are to distinguish, between their wellgrounded conclusions on the one hand, and the dictates of prejudice, passion, caprice, on the other. This inquiry must occupy a very prominent place, in any complete and methodical treatment of our theme: but nothing can have been further from our intention than to give that theme such a treatment. In fact, our purpose will have been answered, if we succeed in drawing the attention of speculative Catholics to a line of thought, which hardly any other throughout the whole range of philosophy exceeds in importance. ART. IX. THE LANDLORD AND TENANT QUESTION IN IRELAND. Two Reports for the Irish Government on the History of the Landlord and Tenant Question in Ireland, with Suggestions for Legislation.. By W. NEILSON HANCOCK, LL.D. Dublin: Thom. 1869. The Land Difficulty in Ireland, with an Effort to solve it. By GERALD FITZGIBBON, Master in Chancery. London: Longmans. Dublin: M'Glashan & Gill, 1869. The Irish People and the Irish Land: a Letter to Lord Lifford, with Comments on the Publications of Lord Dufferin and Lord Rosse. By Isaac BUTT. Dublin: Falconer. London: Ridgway. 1867. Land Tenure in Ireland: a Plea for the Celtic Race. By ISAAC BUTT. T would be superfluous to adduce arguments to prove the table adjustment of the relations between Irish landlords and Irish tenants. Successive Governments, Whig and Tory, and both Houses of Parliament, have repeatedly asserted the necessity of legislation on this subject; and the iniquity of the state of the law has recently been registered in deeds of blood in many parts of the country. No doubt, when a man has been murdered, or when an attempt has been made to murder him, such just public indignation is excited against the assassin, that the tyranny of the landlord or agent which the deed of blood brings to the notice of the public is palliated or forgotten. There is something revolting to a generous mind to recall the heartless tyranny of a man who has been basely and wickedly murdered. We do not even mean to assert that every landlord or agent who has been made the victim of agrarian outrage was a heartless and unjust man, although we happen to know that a late judge, after long experience in the Landed Estates Court, declared on hearing of one of these murders, in very strong but not very polite language, that he never knew an agrarian crime to be committed where the victim had not provoked his own doom. Of course, he did not mean to justify assassination, but simply to declare, from his experience, that such crimes were only committed when the people were provoked almost beyond endurance. The deed of assassination, with all its attendant circumstances of horror, is borne by the magnetic wire to every portion of the empire, but the hearths which the victim and others often worse than he have desolated, the happy homesteads he in the wantonness of power has destroyed, the noble hearts he has doomed to exile, to beggary, or even to death, are never known or cared for. There can be no justification or palliation of murder, but neither can there be any excuse for perpetuating a system which leads a whole people to look for justice anywhere but from the laws of their country, and which occasionally leads the more passionate amongst them to seek redress where alone they expect to find it, in the wild justice (as it is called) of revenge. One of the most recent and lamented victims of agrarian outrage was a Scotch gentleman, Mr. James Hunter, to whom a Mr. Smith had leased some four thousand acres of land, situated near Newfield, county Mayo. We abridge the account of the circumstances from the correspondence of the special commissioner of The Echo. "On a part of Mr. Smith's estate which was not leased to Mr. Hunter were a number of small holdings in the hands of poor people, who from time immemorial had been allowed to cut turf on that part of the estate which was leased to Mr. Hunter. It was solely by an oversight of Mr. Smith's attorney in drawing up the lease, that what is called the right of turbary,' i. e., the permission spoken of above, was not in writing reserved to the tenants who had always enjoyed it. It will be necessary here to remark that for these poor peasants, living as they do in a bleak and desolate region by the side of the sea, the right to cut turf is an indispensable one, for they could not live without fires, and there is nothing which will burn in the neighbourhood but turf. At all events, the right from mere usage was regarded by them as their property." As soon as Mr. Smith discovered his mistake he mentioned the matter to Mr. Hunter, and asked him to allow the poor people to cut turf as usual. This was no unreasonable request, considering that the right was not reserved simply by the attorney's mistake, "and that cutting turf improves the soil by preparing it for culture." The extent of Mr. Hunter's leasehold on which turf can be cut is about 1,200 acres, and the rent is about £16 a year. Only 100 acres were used by the poor tenants. Mr. Hunter would not permit the poor people to cut their turf as they had done from time immemorial, unless he was paid for permitting them to do so, and in fact Mr. Smith had the humanity to pay him £3 per year to secure fuel for the poor people, until his estate was sold in the Landed Estates Court, in 1861. The estate was bought by Dr. Gibbings, of Trinity College, who was not aware of the charge on account of the turbary, but finding that Mr. Smith had paid £3 per year, he expressed his willingness to do the same. But Mr. Hunter now determined to extort £10 a year for the privilege of turbary on 100 acres of a bog, consisting of 1,200 acres, for the whole of which he paid but £16 per year. Arbitration was tried in vain. Hunter "would have his bond. Dr. Gibbings should pay £10 per year, or the poor tenants, who were altogether blameless in the matter, should have no fires." Arbitration was again resorted to, but Hunter had raised his demand to £15 per year. At last an umpire was called in, who, for the sake of peace, decided that the sum should be £10 per year, and Dr. Gibbings paid £30 for three years then due; but, considering the demand unjust and extortionate, he refused to pay any more. The tenants, who had nothing to do with the quarrel between the landlord and middle man, continued to cut their turf as usual, as they were in fact in extreme necessity, and had no alternative but to procure their winter fuel or to die. Mr. Hunter determined to force the latter alternative on the tenants, and in order to effect his purpose took an action against one of them, called O'Neill," who is by universal consent a respectable, hard-working man. The case came on at the spring assizes of the present year. There was some break-down in the legal preparation for O'Neill's defence, I believe from the man's poverty The result was that O'Neill was fined five shillings, and saddled with £48 costs! Of course O'Neill possessed nothing which could be taken in execution for so large an amount, so Mr. Hunter determined to wait until the man's crop had grown; meantime letting Dr. Gibbings know that he intended to levy. When Dr. Gibbings heard that Mr. Hunter was really about to seize O'Neill's crop, he so far departed from his previously declared determination to have nothing more to do with him, that he sent a gentleman to Mr. Hunter, asking him to open negotiations again, and offered £6 a year so as to meet him about half way." Hunter peremptorily refused; he seized, and as nobody could be got to act as sheriff's man, he stayed away from his kirk on Sunday to do the bailiff's duty, and in the evening he was murdered. Perhaps Mr. Hunter had a legal right to his pound of flesh, but in his mode of asserting it he undoubtedly outraged every feeling, not only of kindness but of humanity, which are as necessary to the peace and happiness. of society as justice itself. But much as the Commissioner is shocked by the cruelty with which the poor tenants were treated, he has not noticed one of the most harassing and oppressive consequences of an agrarian murder. It is this that the very barbarity with which a tenant has been treated by the murdered man is of itself sufficient evidence to have him arrested and cast into prison on the accusation of murder. We illustrate this by Hunter's case. The murder occurred on the 29th of August last, and as if O'Neill had not uffered enough already, he was of course arrested on suspicion and |