A curious instance of the perversion of moral feeling tem-
porarily prevalent in Ireland was afforded on Tuesday. A Miss Dawson, walking near Dublin, was attacked by a garotter, thrown down, throttled, and robbed of her trinkets. She was taken up insensible, and the man pursued, and caught with the young lady's watch upon him. The garotter was sent to prison, and it was with the utmost difficulty that the mob was restrained from lynching him. Yet this same people would, if Miss Dawson were the wife of a landlord, or had given evidence against her father's murderers, have been delighted to hear of her sufferings. They do applaud the women who at Bodyke throw lime in the faces of the bailiffs and constables who are distraining for rent, and who are palpably innocent persons carrying out a duty they are bound by oath to fulfil. Nobody in Ireland is now held to deserve suffering except landlords, or agents of the law,—except, indeed, witnesses who tell the truth and jurymen who do their duty. One wonders what the next generation. bred up under teaching of this kind, will be like. The French people passed through scenes of the kind in 1789-92; but then, they also passed through twenty years of war and discipline, amidst which the few who survived had the passion of disorder thoroughly burnt out of them.
Previous page
