d delivering postprandial
orations, savouring more of the braggart boastings of a drunken drumboy,
than of the deliberate opinions of a dignified ecclesiastic. In their
zeal as politicians, the Roman Catholic clergy have forgotten their
duties as priests; and they are now beginning to get a foretaste of the
consequences: they became mob leaders at elections and popular
meetings--they rode the whirlwind, "can they direct the storm?" The
ruffian tasting blood in beating the electors, soon undertook business
on his own account. The step from savage assault to actual murder, is
but ideal. The man who encouraged, or connived at, the lesser crime,
could scarcely expect to prevent the perpetration of the greater and the
"boy" who commenced by applying "gentle force" to a reluctant voter,
became in the fulness of his crimes the avowed assassin. The priest used
him as "the bully"--he may repudiate, but he dare not denounce, him as
"the murderer."

In the late debate, two publications on the state of Ireland were
recommended to special attention; the one, "A Cry from Ireland," by Lord
John Russell--the other, Mr Wiggins's book, by the Marquis of Normanby.
The first we should scarcely have noticed, (the noble lord mentioned it
with so much diffidence,) but for the impression it seems subsequently
to have made on the mind of Sir R. Peel; but when we found a noble
ex-lord-lieutenant recommending, as trustworthy and instructive, a book
written on a subject which engrosses much of the public attention, we
felt it our duty at once to apply to his "fountain of knowledge."

We cannot say that we have "read with attention" the whole of this
whimsical production: few there are, we believe, who could command
patience enough to wade through such a mass of contradictory absurdity;
but we have selected such parts as we could find at all bearing on the
subject Mr Wiggins professes to write upon; and we shall transcribe some
few passages, if not for the benefit, at least for the amusement, of our
readers; merely premising, that this gentleman gives us no data on which
to found our opinions, and no guarantee for the truth of his statements
but his own assertion. First, as regards the amount of rent charged in
the north and south, Mr Wiggins says--

"In accordance with this view of the case, we find, in practice,
that the rents are far higher in proportion to the produce of the
land in those parts of Ireland where Romanism prevail