The inquiries into the riots at Ennis last week prove
many things,—that the people are maddened with hunger to violent out- breaks; that the authorities, perhaps from familiarity with the scene, suffer the disorders to go on unchecked until they obtrude themselves on official attention by some disastrous issue; and that the force upon which dependence is placed to restore order is un- able to preserve its own discipline. The present case is the more deplorable, because the yielding of the hungering crowd showed that they were animated by no ferocious feelings : they were des- perate for food, but even without food they listened to reason ; and the dispensing of bullets among them appears to have been a gra- tuitous cruelty. Yet those who fired were probably as little ani- mated by ferocity or cruelty as the sufferers. The evil was, the pant of an efficient controlling power. That it should be the ob- ject and the result of the inquiry to supply, and without delay. The invention of some general plan of police, to keep in order the well-disposed but passionate and undisciplined Irish, would enable the Conservatives to win laurels in the field of their old oppro- brium.
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