CHRISTIANITY AND CRIME IN IRELAND. [To the Editor of the
SPECTATOR.] SIR,—The following letter, evoked by the previous letters on this subject, is of interest as furnishing confirmatory evidence of my, general statement. The writer is a lawyer in Aberdeen of position and reputation, personally known to myself. The letter was sent to a friend of mine, and I have the writer's permission to publish it :— " Dear — —Thanks for the reprint of Sir Harry Reichel's letter about Christianity and Crime in Ireland. I think I saw the letter in the Spectator over a month ago and was struck with how it confirmed an opinion of mine formed during a holiday in Connaught in 1893. One Sunday forenoon a friend and myself got into conversation with an Irish farmer who had been rather late for the service and preferred to sit and talk with us outside the Catholic church. It was a bright Sunday forenoon and we got the man to talk about the killing time in the early 'eighties during the land agitation. I was much struck with the offhand way in which he admitted that he had had a shot or two at a landlord or factor himself, but was not prepared to say that he had brought anybody down with his gun. Some little time ago I had a talk with an old Highlander in Aberdeen who was employed sixty years ago irr constructing the Highland Railway from Perth to Kingussie. While so engaged the Highlander shared a room with a young Irishman for the summer months and until they had to stop work owing to the winter cold. The night before the two men were to part the
Irishman confessed to the Highlander that he had been taught by a priest when a boy that to kill a Protestant was no murder.
But I don't believe that now, John,' said the Irishman, ' after seeing you every night go down on your knees and say your prayers before you went to bed.'—Yours sincerely, H. F. CAMPBELL."
—I am, Sir, &c., HArtnv R. REICI1EL.
Gartherwen, Bangor, N. Wales.
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