THE STANLEY LAW AGAINST HARBOURING MURDERERS.
WITH a decision not unnatural in the representative of what was once, although in a small territory, a sovereign family, Lord Derby has taken upon himself to enforce a new law on his Irish estate of Doon in Clonmel. A tenant on the estate who had been introduced in disregard of certain exclusive regulations similar to those of Ribandism, has been murdered ; and_the people on the estate so openly manifest,- sympathy with the assassins, that while every other tenant has been aided in getting in his crops, the widow alone stands without help. Occasions can be imagined on which even the humblest classes may be morally justified in manfully resisting authority, where it is unjust, or even—we will not deny it—where the authoritative action is counter to generous instinct. But although we English can find justification for rebelling, and for war carried even unto death, we cannot tolerate secret conspiracy and private assassination; nor can we have any respect for the feelings of that community which encourages these two social demons. In the exercise of his rights as landlord, Lord Derby has declared that he will not suffer any man to remain on his estates who refuses to give such information as he may have towards the detection of the mur- derer. This is precisely in harmony with our old English law, by which the inhabitants of the district—of the hundred, the tything, or the county—are made answerable for the misdeeds of each other, and are bound to aid in detecting crime and in cap- turing the criminal.
" Liberals" in Ireland have attacked Lord Derby, as being ty- rannical and hostile to the inhabitants. It has happened un- luckily, in Ireland, that in times past wrong and oppression
• were undoubtedly on the side of the Saxon, suffering and right on the side of the oppressed Irish; insomuch that the native Celt has almost contracted a habit of looking upon himself as born to be in the right, the Saxon born to be in the wrong. But in this case, no sympathy with Liberal associations can blind us to the fact, that Lord Derby is only introducing into Ireland a Saxon law which protects the community against the misdeeds of the in- dividual, and that he is chivalrously standing up for the -right against wrong.
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