Lord Clarendon, called forth by a whining address on the
cm- position of juries in Ireland, has delivered another of his admi-
rable lectures to the Irish ; who seem utterly incapable of using the institutions that they possess. His rebuke is in a tone of greater Sternness than usual. He intimates to the complainers the course which they ought to have pursued if they had any accusation against the conduct of the Sheriff—an appeal to the Court under which the Sheriff acts. He denies that Government had issued any instructions to exclude Roman Catholics ; and to their face he convicted the deputation of disingenuously ignoring the fact that more Protestants than Roman Catholics had been struck off. The answer to the Irish deputation was complete ; but much of Lord Clarendon's rebuke recoiled on his colleagues, who in times past, when they were in Opposition, mouthed about in- justice in O'Connell's case, and about trial by a jury of Dublin composition being "a mockery, a delusion, and a snare." It is ,,fit as much a " mockery,' etcetera, now that Lord Denman's friends are in office. And a wise statesman, not awaiting the suggestions of Irish whining, which give to the justest com- plaints the odium of a tortuous and weak expression, will see that the actual state of things indicated by these perverse composi- tions of juries in political trials is too bad to be tolerated. If the jury-lists show a proportion of three-fourths Catholics, and the Sheriff's panel shows an inverse proportion, something must be very much amiss : the administration of the jury-law must be very irregular, or the country must be very unfit to receive that law.
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