Mr Kohl[11] tells us, that "the main root of Irish misery is to be sought in the indolence, levity, extravagance, and want of energy of the national character." And again, in passing from that portion of the country where the majority of the inhabitants profess the Roman Catholic religion, to that in which the great bulk of the population are Protestants, or Presbyterians, the same writer says--"On the other side of these miserable hills, whose inhabitants are years before they can afford to get the holes mended in their potato-kettles--the most indispensable and important article of furniture in an Irish cabin--the territory of Leinster ends, and that of Ulster begins. The coach rattled over the boundary line, and all at once we seemed to have entered a new world. I am not in the slightest degree exaggerating when I say, that every thing was as suddenly changed as if by an enchanter's wand. The dirty cabins by the road-side were succeeded by neat, pretty, cheerful-looking cottages; regular plantations, well cultivated fields, pleasant little cottage-gardens, and shady lines of trees, met the eye on every side. At first I could scarcely believe my own eyes, and thought that at all events the change must be merely local and temporary, caused by the better management of that particular estate. No counter change, however, appeared; the improvement lasted the whole way to Newry; and, from Newry to Belfast, every thing continued to show me that I had entered the country of a totally different people--namely, the district of the Scottish settlers, the active and industrious Presbyterians." Nor can we be surprised at the condition of this unhappy country when we see the Executive looking quietly on, when the public press has become the apologist of crime, and public sympathy is enlisted on the side of the evil-doers. _Four murders_ have, within the last month, been perpetrated in Tipperary, which were all but justified by the local papers, _because_ they were supposed to have been the acts of tenants dispossessed _for non-payment of rent_. _They_ excited no horror. A _fifth_ was added to the bloody catalogue, which roused the indignation of the virtuous _Vindicator_;[12] and why? _Solely because_ it was the result of a private quarrel. _"We own,"_ says this respectable guardian of public morality, "_that such a system of murderous aggression_ AS THIS, _remote from any of those agrarian causes which may account for crime, is calculated to fill every mind with indignation._"[13] Are we not justified in demanding of the government how long this state of things is to be permitted to continue? how long the lives and properties of the respectable and loyal inhabitants of Ireland are to be left at the mercy and the disposal of a ferocious and bloodstained populace? how much further open and undisguised treason is to be allowed to proceed?