sence from sickness or any other cause. The case is laid before them, and they decide upon the measures to be taken, and name the person or persons by whom they are to be carried out. Those named for the service have no option, being bound by their oath to obey without remonstrance. Should the verdict be one of death against any landlord or other person, the "jurymen" may name a parish in any part of Ireland where the system is known to exist, to supply a person or persons to execute the sentence; and the "juryinen" of that parish, under the orders of their county delegate "in meeting," are bound to select them. This provision has for its object to render identification in the highest degree improbable. The travelling expenses of the executioners are paid out of the general fund of the parish for whose benefit the deed is done.

These jurymen also regulate all disputes within their parish, which may at any time arise among members of the society, and the disputants are bound to submit without a murmur to their decision.

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Perhaps it would be unjust to put the extreme construction, which so fearfully suggests itself, upon that portion of the oath where the novice swears to allow neither father or mother, sister or brother, to come between him and the carrying out of the system." There are, nevertheless, cases in which that construction has been enforced and accepted, be its intention what it may. The rude solemnity with which that awful oath is administered to the ignorant young men undertaking its obligations, under the stimulus of an almost frenzied fanaticism, has sufficed in many cases to fix upon their minds the idea that no circumstance on earth could excuse them from fulfilling it to the letter. A melancholy instance of this occurred, some years since, in a north-western county, where the "jurymen" of a parish selected a young man as the executioner of the father of a young and beautiful girl, to whom he was devotedly but secretly attached, and, as they say in the North of Ireland, "promised in marriage." The miserable young man was torn between his oath and his love. He remonstrated with the "jurymen" in vain. They not only

reminded him of his oath, but taunted him with having already broken it by his remonstrance, as he had sworn silently to abide by their decision; that they, on their part, were also sworn to make their selection according to turn, without favour or affection, or reference to persons, circumstances, or things, and that their decree was final. He then brought the matter privately under the consideration of the county delegate, whose calm and inhuman reply was, that the whole system would be upset, and might be given up altogether, if such ridiculous remonstrances were listened to; that they were all sworn to their own parts, as well as he to his; that the business would, of course, be so arranged that perfect secrecy and impunity would follow; and that the girl herself need never know or suspect who did it.

These facts were divulged, and substantiated upon the sworn testimony of the wretched young man in question, who ultimately lost his reason under the protracted and frightful agitation of his mind.

It may be plainly understood, from the oath which it imposes, that the Ribbon institution was not, at least in its infancy, unconnected with a hope of one day seeing the Protestants wholly exterminated, and the entire island in the hands of the Roman Catholics. But, as time wore on, and a reliance upon foreign sympathy and aid became more palpably chimerical, the members of the society seem to have concentrated their attention and their action upon questions affecting the tenure of land, the conduct of landlords and their agents, of land-stewards, bailiffs, &c., occasionally descending to the hiring of servants, or rather the prohibiting of it in certain cases. Upon all these minor matters, it is but justice to say, that their code of regulations is strictly impartial. No consideration, per se, of a religious character is ever permitted, in the slightest degree, to influence the administration of their sanguinary laws.

It so happens, however, that Protestants more frequently become the objects of their vengeance than others; not because they are Protestants, but because Protestant landlords are more numerous than Roman Catholic; and, as has already been intimated,

some question connected with land almost invariably forms the ground of Ribbon outrage.

Recent deplorable events, to which it is not necessary here to advert in detail, demonstrate the impartiality with which Ribbonism selects and strikes down its victims. Of the four persons assassinated within the last two years in Tipperary and Limerick, three were Roman Catholics. These four murders have all been traced to Ribbonism.

As another case illustrative of the insufficiency of Catholicity to protect its profession from the sanctions of Ribbonism, I may mention that some years since a Roman Catholic gentleman, who was the tenant of very extensive mills in an Irish county, which it is unnecessary to name, became embarrassed in his circumstances. He, therefore, determined, ere the apprehended crash came, to sell the concern, and, with the remnant which might be secured, to seek his fortune elsewhere. He advertised the mills for sale accordingly, and, as they were well situated in a populous neighbourhood, and as his embarrassments could be easily traced to other causes than the want of a fair opportunity of carrying on a successful trade, there were soon two or three bidders in the field.

Perhaps the very causes of this man's embarrassment helped to make him a favourite amongst the lower orders, who are a people emphatically fond of field sports. He kept a winning race-mare at the county races, rode well to the fox-hounds, kept greyhounds, it might be said, "for the million," and was liberal to a fault of his ready cash. No wonder, then, that his advertisement was followed by a Ribbon meeting, specially summoned, and that notices were issued through the "proper officer," denouncing and threatening with death any one who should dare to purchase Tubberbreenahan mills. The object of this procedure was palpably to retain the popular tenant in possession upon his own terms. One or two Protestants who were "about them" withdrew, ostentatiously declaring they never had the slightest idea of purchasing. A Roman Catholic, however, more bold than the rest-perhaps presuming upon his religion--became the pur

chaser, and took possession. But he reckoned without his host; forthwith he was made aware of the extreme peril in which he stood, and nothing but the strong walls of his house, and extraordinary caution on his part in out-door hours, saved him from death. Notices were now posted up on every conspicuous gate and gable-end, not only in the parish, but throughout the county, prohibiting all persons, on pain of death, from selling corn to the new tenant of Tubberbreenahan mills. For a length of time outrage after outrage was committed upon all who ventured to act in opposition to those mandates; and it was evident that the parish “jurymen" had given in their verdict. Men were severely beaten as they returned from having sold their corn, either at the mills, or at the owner's stores, in the provincial town hard by; carts were smashed to pieces, and the empty sacks were cut up into shreds.

Some successful prosecutions took place; but, in the meantime, the former proprietor had left the country; the conspiracy may be said to have expired, rather than to have been put down.

There can be no doubt that the religious element, under modified eircumstances, would have appeared in such a case, and that, had the former proprietor of the mills been a Protestant, the Roman Catholic successor would not have been denounced by the Ribbon confederacy; but, had the former proprietor, who was a Roman Catholic, been succeeded by a Protestant, he as certainly would have been proscribed; and scarcely any power of which the executive government is possessed would have availed to carry him safely through the ordeal.

That the system is fraught with the most deplorable results to the landlord class, and with profound demoralization to the peasantry almost universally, a retrospective view of the last thirty or forty years cannot fail to demonstrate. But, sad as these considerations are, there can be no doubt that those who are actively engaged in working the terrible mechanism of the society, suffer fully as much as they inflict. Not to dwell upon the harrowing spectacles presented, first, at the death-scene of

the unoffending victim, and subsequently, beneath the gallows, where his murderer is suspended, there can be little doubt, that the miserable dupes of the Ribbon crimpsergeant seldom pass a quiet or a happy moment from the hour of their admission into the society. One almost immediate consequence is a falling off, or total neglect of "going to their duty" (confession), and a constant dread of the scrutinising eyes of their parish priests, who have generally denounced the system, both in private, and from their altars. The fearful possibility, too, of an informer turning up amongst them, notwithstanding the tremendous oath which is administered, haunts them day and night. See that handsome, stalwarth young fellow of not yet twenty years of age, who has hitherto been all confidence and ease. How he starts now at every step that comes to the door; and how he stoops his head, and probably skulks behind some stack of corn as he sees the sergeant of police coming up the road. But he is as yet young at the work, and has not brought himself to rely implicitly upon the secret perfection of his order. By-and-by he will not only meet the sergeant boldly, but discourse him" with a careless smile-perhaps upon the very subject. Look, too, at the doubts and fears exhibited in the handsome, melancholy eyes of that amiable and struggling wife, the mother of five or six helpless children. Can the prospect of a cruel and tyrannical ejectment, such as even that depicted by the fancy of the village demagogue, snap her heart-strings with so keen a pang as wrings them when the periodical nightly absence of her husband brings home to her the fact that he belongs to the society whose very name is terror, and she sees the hangman, instead of the bailiff, in her nightly dreams? Often now the muttered curses of inebriated vengeance disturb her sleep; and he who was so fond and devoted before, has become mysterious, sullen, and

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morose.

Would that all husbands were to

yield on this dread question to the influence of a fond and faithful wife. There can, perhaps, be no more touching instance of the happy consequences of so doing, than is found in the touching tale of "M'Cormack's Grudge," by an Irish Police Officer, published in the DUBLIN UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE, and in which the writer of this paper recognises the literal outlines of a case well known to the police of a certain district in Ireland. There, a handsome, manly, young husband, the father of a dying child, and under "notice to quit," was about to join the Ribbon confederacy, and seek vengeance, through its secret machinery, upon the agent of the estate. The place of rendezvous had been fixed upon, and the time of night appointed. Two Ribbonmen of superior rank-a county delegate and a parish master-were to meet Myles M'Cormack to "swear him in." Myles's manner at home, as the appointed night drew near, was watchful and uneasy. As he looked in his wife's placid and unconscious features, he began to doubt the prudence of the step he was about to take. Nervous mutterings in his disturbed sleep revealed his premeditated purpose; and she boldly and fearlessly charged him with it in the morning. Conscience-stricken with the energy of her pleading, as she reminded him of their first love, and pointed to their dying child, and pictured the worse than misery his wicked purpose would bring upon them, he abandoned his intention, and pledged himself to abide by her advice.

But to the rendezvous he must gomust-there was no getting out of that, under pain of being suspected to be an informer, and incurring the consequent risk of death. He did go; but he returned to his trembling wife true to his promise, and a better and a happier man.

Notwithstanding all that has been crushed into the lengthened oath, and the operative machinery founded thereon, there still appears to be a want of defined and comprehensive purpose, as well as a want of a central and supreme government of the whole

conspiracy, which increase our wonder that so iniquitous a confederacy, so environed with peril, has for so long held together. At the same time, it is quite possible that both the one and the other may and do exist. An autocrat, a duumvirate, a triumvirate, elected by the county delegates, and known to no inferior order in the conspiracy, may be the depository alike of a larger and more defined policy, and of an absolute general control over the action of the system. All that can be positively affirmed on the subject is that as yet the existence of no such supreme directory has been discovered by the police.

To what purpose, then, it may be asked, are all the countless evils inseparable from Ribbonism generated and put in practice? Nothing, now at least, distinctively religious, patriotic, political, or revolutionary, except, perhaps, in the dim mist of futurity, characterizes the system. No; all those objects, which were undoubtedly primary incentives to its formation, have gradually dropt out of its policy, which appears now to contemplate little more than the mean injustice of endeavouring to overhold forcible possession of a bit of land," for which in many cases the tenants are totally unable to pay the rent, upon no plea of equity or common sense, but simply because their fathers and their forefathers held it before them. This, and the punishment (as the oath says), of transgressors against their peculiar regulations, appear to be now the only business they have upon their hands.

A short time since a poor man was barbarously murdered in a midland county, within a few hundred yards of his own home, under their merciless decree ;-and for what? Not even for a proved breach of their own regulations, but upon the mere suspicion that he was likely to give in

formation of their proceedings to a neighbouring magistrate. There is no doubt that this poor man was himself a Ribbonman; but his visits to the magistrate in question, and his casual conversations with him when they met, were upon a totally different subject. No matter. There were those who kept "a close eye" (as the oath says), upon them, and reported (according to the terms of the oath), to the county delegate. The "jurymen" were called in, and the unalterable decree went forth. The cold grave and the widowed heart soon attested with what melancholy certainty of purpose.

The oath by which this illegal fraternity are bound together, and the machinery by which they work, have been set forth and described in this paper; and it is only too manifest how profoundly calculated are both to work out the awful mischiefs we behold. It must also be acknowledged how difficult it is for the common law, or even for extraordinary powers of the Executive, to grapple with the evil. It has been seen what precautions are provided to prevent identification, and those of the lower orders who are fortunate enough to be unconnected with the system, either believe too blindly in its objects of regeneration, or fear too profoundly the decrees of its personal vengeance, to hazard the slightest assistance to the officers of the law. Hence the too general impunity with which Ribbon outrages are perpetrated in the open day.

Our object has been to present something like a definite idea of the mechanism and sanctions of the Ribbon society, so far as they have been discovered by the police. We have stated nothing that may not be relied upon as authentic. And the facts will help our English readers to an estimate of the terrorism under which landlords live and property is administered in Ireland.

RACHEL beheld the things which were coming to pass like an awful dream. She had begun to think, and not without evidence, that Dorcas, for some cause or caprice, had ceased to think of Stanley as she once did. And the announcement, without preparation or apparent courtship, that her brother had actually won this great and beautiful heiress, and that, just emerged from the shades of death, he, a half-ruined scapegrace, was about to take his place among the magnates of the county, and, no doubt, to enter himself for the bold and splendid game of ambition, the stakes of which were now in his hand, towered before her like an incredible and disastrous illusion of magic. Stanley's uneasiness lest Rachel's conduct should compromise them, increased. He grew more nervous about the relations between him and Mark Wylder, in proportion as the world grew more splendid and prosperous for him.

Where is the woman who will patiently acquiesce in her husband's secret, reserved from her and shared with another? How often had Stanley Lake sworn to her there was no secret; that he knew nothing of Mark Wylder beyond the charge of his money, and making a small payment to an old Mrs. Dutton, in London, by his direction, and that beyond this, he was as absolutely in the dark as she or Chelford?

What, then, did Rachel mean by all that escaped her, when he was in danger?

"How the could he tell? He really believed she was a little-ever so little-crazed. He supposed she, like Dorcas, fancied he knew everything about Wylder. She was constantly hinting something of the kind; and begging of him to make a disclosure-disclosure of what? It was enough to drive one mad, and would make a capital farce. Rachel has a ridiculous way of talking like an ora

cle, and treating as settled fact every absurdity she fancies. She is very charming and clever, of course, so long as she speaks of the kind of thing she understands. But when she tries to talk of serious business-poor Radie!-she certainly does talk such nonsense! She can't reason; she runs away with things. It is the most tiresome thing you can conceive."

I

"But you have not said, Stanley, that she does not suspect the truth." "Of course I say it; I have said it. swear it, if you like. I've said plainly, and I'm ready to swear it. Upon my honour and soul, I know no more of his movements, plans, or motives, than you do. If you reflect you must see it. We were never good friends, Mark and I. It was no fault of mine, but I never liked him ; and he, consequently, I suppose, never liked me. There was no intimacy or confidence between us. I was the last man on earth he would have consulted with. Even Larkin, his own lawyer, is in the dark. Rachel knows all this; I have told her fifty times over, and she seems to give way at the moment. Indeed the thing is too plain to be resisted. But as I said, poor Radie, she can't reason; and by the time I see her next, her old fancy possesses her. I can't help it; because with more reluctance than I can tell, I at length consent, at Larkin's entreaty, I may say, to bank and fund his money.'

But Dorcas' mind retained its first impression. Sometimes his plausibilities, his vehemence, and his vows disturbed it for a time; but there it remained like the picture of a camera obscura, into which a momentary light has been admitted, unseen for a second, but the images return with the darkness, and group themselves in their old colours and places again. Whatever it was Rachel probably knew it. There was a painful confidence between them: and there was growing in Dorcas' mind a feeling