WHAT HAS THE LAW DONE FOR IRELAND?
TO THE EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR.
Dublin, 2d December 1847. Sin—I lately observed in one of your leading articles the enunciation of a doc- trine which I should much like to see adopted as the ruling principle of those into whose hands the management ofpublic affairs has, at this most important crisis, fallen; and in the humble hope of being able to keep your attention awake to the subject, I now take the liberty of addressing you. The passage to which I allude was a very brief one—it was comprised in a single sentence; and yet, in my opin- ion, it contained an exposition of the origin of all the evils of Ireland and an in- dication of their proper cure. The sentence was to this effect--" What Ireland wants, is a thorough enforcement of every law." By " thorough," you mean, as I take it, an equable and just as well as complete enforcement of the law: and in that sense, I have little doubt of the possibility of showing that from the days of Stronghow to those of Lord Clarendon, the law never was thoroughly enforced in Ireland. I am not, however, one of those who see any use in ripping up old sores; it seems to me to be much better leechcraft to endeavour to heal such as are at the present time open and galling; and I will therefore draw the few illustra- tions of what the law has done for Ireland, to which I wish just now to attract your notice, from occurrences that have taken place under my own observation within the last decade. These occurrences—a very few, 1 fear, out of a vast mul- titude—unfortunately go a long way towards justifying the affirmative answer which the mass of the people would give to Chancellor Redesdale's question—" Is there one law for the rich and another for the poor in Ireland ?" For my own part, I have no hesitation in confessing that I believe the answer of the people would be the true one; and I am convinced that few Irishmen have any doubt in their secret thoughts that the utter disregard into which the law has fallen in this country can be traced to the vicious mode of its administration in the high- est quarters. I will now state three or four instances as examples of the data upon which the popular conclusions are based.
A few years since, I happened to seize a miserable boy, of fourteen or fifteen
years old, in the act of picking my pocket: he was taken charge of by the police, tried at the chief municipal court by the Recorder of the borough, and sentenced to a year's imprisonment with hard labour. A few months afterwards, a well- dressed young man, some four or five years older than the former culprit, got ad.: mission into my diniugroom tinder pretence of being the bearer of a message, and was there detected in the act of stealing silver spoons: the articles, with some others which he had stolen from a neighbour, were found upon his person by a police- man; and he also was brought to trial before the same learned judge who had condemned the pickpocket. The burglar, however, was the son of a respectable tradesman; a student, and not a street-wanderer: he employed counsel, who pleaded guilty for him, and was vanished by—a free pardon and a recom- mendation to his father to send him out of the country.
The circumstances of the ease I will next allude to are too well known to
require much particularisation. The late Mr. O'Connell and his fellow State prisoners, as they were called, were convicted, upon a Governmentprosecution, of an offence of which, it is true, (as it was named in the indictment,) they were not legally guilty, and in a manner which was subsequently condemned by the highest tribunal. But the assumption being that they were legally convicted, those gentlemen were condemned, and imprisoned with an appearance of formality. I visited them in their prison, and found them occupants of the Governor's house, enjoying every luxury and respect, and holding an unrestricted intercourse with their friends. I happened on that occasion to walk with Mr. O'Connell to the top of a mound in the prison-garden, overlooking the walls, and which he jestingly named Tara Hill: a policeman, on his beat without, saw, recognized, and with an air of respect and devotion touched his hat to the State prisoner. It is no subject of regret with me that the inconveniences of Mr. O'Connell's incarceration were thus alleviated; but I cannot avoid contrasting his position with that of another State prisoner whom I had an opportunity of seeing in his prison. When the present honourable Member for Nottingham was confined in York Castle, I happened to wait upon him, in company with some friends: we found him in a small room, without a fireplace; and we enjoyed the society of a turnkey during the whole period of our visit. We learned then, that the prisoner's letters were opened by the gaoler; and we saw the corridor standing in which he was at first torced to eat the prison allowance in company with felons. I attempt not to decide which of these modes of treatment was the right one; but this I know, that had a half- dozen poor tailors or coal-porters been convicted of a conspiracy and sentenced to two years' imprisonment in Richmond Penitentiary, their fate would have much more closely resembled that of Mr. Feargus O'Connor than that of Mr. O'Connell.
To pass to another instance. Within the last year, a gentleman, a barrister and a member of a family of considerable political influence, was charged with bigamy, under circumstances of considerable aggravation: he was convicted, and sentenced to transportation. A charge of bigamy was then got up against his first wife, an ignorant servant-woman; and she was induced to plead guilty, thereby convicting herself of perjury in her evidence upon the trial of the first culprit. The cause fell into the hands of the ecclesiastical lawyers; and it was clearly proved that the alleged marriage of the first wife had never taken place; that the person said to have been her husband had never even had an existence; that, in short, the whole case was manufactured by the male convict and his advisers, who were consequently suborners of perjury of the worst kind. The father of the lady who was the victim was in the course of these proceedings put to an expense of 2,0001. or 8,0001., for the law officers of the Government would not prosecute: they did, however, procure a pardon for the gentleman convict, on the ground of ill health; and they let him out of gaol on a Sunday, in order to secure hint from the grasp of a creditor. In Ireland every peasant reads a news- paper, and there was not one who read the history of these trials who did not feel a stronger conviction then ever that " there is one law for the rich and another for the poor in Ireland." The Irish peasantry received another, and perhaps a plainer lesson, within the last few weeks. A stockbroker was convicted, some five or six months since, of having embezzled 9,0001. worth of Government stock, the property of a person who employed him as his stockbroker. The Judges, according to their manner in such cases, postponed their sentence upon this man to the ensuing term. He is possessed of means, and well connected; and the respite allowed him was em- ployed with so much industry by his lawyers, that they obtained, a few weeks since, an order in arrest of judgment, from, I believe, the same learned persons who presided at his conviction. The Judges, in expounding the law which formed the escape of this rich criminal, stated that he was obviously guilty of a gross fraud; but as he had not stolen anything "capable of manual prehension," he mast be let go: he had stolen something which he sold for 9,0001.; but that some- thing was not " a valuable security " according to the jargon of the Queen's Bench.
liavingLtrespassed somewhat too far upon your !space, I will for the present oomlude by asking, " What has the law, as set forth in such cases as those I have referred to, done for Ireland?" Has it not taught the Irishman that Laws were made for every degree—"
and a different law for each? IL M.
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