corpus_ act". But the barbarities and terrorism which it
was designed to put down were beyond precedent and almost beyond belief.
The attempt to collect the arrears of tithe, even with the aid of
military force, had usually failed, and less than an eighth of the sum
due was actually levied. The organised defiance of law was not, however,
confined to refusal of tithes; it embraced the refusal of rent and
extended over the whole field of agrarian relations. The Whiteboys of
the eighteenth century reappeared as "Whitefeet," and other secret
associations, under grotesque names, enforced their decrees by wholesale
murder, burglary, arson, savage assaults, destruction of property, and
mutilation of cattle. In two counties, Kilkenny and Queen's County,
nearly a hundred murders or attempted murders were reported within
twelve months, and the murderous intimidation of witnesses and jurors
secured impunity to perpetrators of crimes. No civilised government
could have tolerated an orgy of lawlessness on so vast a scale, and
nothing but the exigencies of the reform bill can excuse Grey and his
colleagues for not having grappled with it earlier. Nor does it appear
that any remedy less stern would have been effectual. Where unarmed
citizens have not the courage either to protect themselves or to aid the
constabulary employed for their protection, soldiers, accustomed to face
death and inflict it upon others under lawful command, must be called in
to maintain order. Where civil tribunals have become a mockery, summary
justice must be dealt out by military tribunals. Force may be no remedy
for grievances, but it is the one sovereign remedy for organised crime,
and this was soon to be proved in Ireland.

The viceroy, Anglesey, true to his liberal instincts, would have
postponed coercion to measures of relief, such as a settlement of the
church question. Stanley, on the other hand, insisted on the prompt
introduction of a stringent peace preservation bill, and his energetic
will prevailed. The bill contained provisions enabling the
lord-lieutenant to suppress any meeting, establishing a curfew law in
disturbed districts, and placing offenders in such districts under the
jurisdiction of courts martial with legal assessors. It passed the house
of lords with little discussion on the 22nd, and was laid before the
house of commons a few days later by Althorp, who had already brought in
an Irish Church temporalities bill. The debate on the addr