The Irish correspondent of yesterday's Times refers to an obser-
vation of ours some weeks ago on the extreme untrustworthiness of the statements made in this and other Irish correspondences of English papers, in order to indicate the truth of one of the facts on which we threw doubt,—the brutal mutilation of Mr. O'Connor, of King's County, by ruffians who intentionally and deliberately cut off part of his nose. That this did happen,—it has been proved in court, and the principal offender has been sentenced to fourteen years' penal servitude, and his companion to seven years,—not at all too heavy a sentence,—is now only too certain, and we must admit, therefore, that Irish contradictions of Irish news are some- times as fallible as the original statements. But in the other two cases noticed by us we were, we believe, right,—in one of them cer- tainly so, as the murder of the egg-dealer was proved on the inquest to have absolutely no connection at all with trade jealousies ; and our remark, as it happens, brought us a whole heap of letters from Ireland admitting the general truth of our remark, and deploring the mischievous prepossessions and eager prejudices which colour the letters of almost all the Irish correspondents of English news- papers. The truth is that these correspondents almost always belong to the Anglo-Irish party,—a party far more prejudiced against Ireland than Englishmen themselves.
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