The outward signs of Ireland justify the gloomy forebodings which
we know to be gaining on its most intelligent men. Not that the signs are new or unfamiliar This week they axe—the impracticable working of the Poor-law; the crazy survival of the Repeal humbug ; the murders ; and the perverse practice of the highest law courts, in which the substance of political justice is postponed to the contest upon bewildering technicalities. The counsel for Mr. Duffy, resting on incidents in the decision on Mr. O'Connell's case, demurred upon objections to the indictment against their client : the objections are overruled, and the counsel for the Crown, insisting that to demur upon the law is to admit the facts, demandjudgment on the prisoner. If the prisoner's counsel had succeeded, he would have got off on a turn in sharp practice ; if the Crown succeed, the prisoner will be condemned, not upon proof of his guilt, but upon a miscalculation of his counsel,—a result which must deprive the sentence of every claim to moral effect.
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