been committed previous to their arrival; and in such instances, the culprits will have had full time to escape, and the witnesses of the deed, ample opportunities of arranging their plans for his protection. We assure Sir George he will find that this clause, all-powerful as he hopes its operation to prove for the repression of crime, will remain a dead-letter on the statute-book; for no magistrate, who is acquainted with the feelings of the people, would be so silly as to expect efficient support or correct information from them; and no officer who understood his duty, would hamper himself with a mob of assistants, whose undoubted object it would be to deceive and thwart him in its discharge. A story is told, that, during Lord Anglesey's administration, when Whiteboy offences were prevalent in the South of Ireland, a Cabinet Council was summoned, at which the then Chancellor, (Sir Anthony Hart,) having been called upon to give his opinion as to the best remedy to be adopted for their repression, at once, with the feelings of an Englishman, declared,--"that he would order the sheriff to call out the 'posse comitatûs.'" "By my sowl," interposed Chief Baron O'Grady, in his broad Munster brogue, "my Lord Chancellor, that's just what we want to avoid!--'the posse's' out already: may be you could give us some method of getting them to stay at home." And so it will be with "the posse" of Sir George Grey, if ever called out; they will prove an encumbrance instead of an assistance to the officers of justice. But what a lamentable state of ignorance as to the state of Ireland does the proposal of those most absurd remedies indicate, on the part of our present rulers! Every one at all acquainted with the country, knows that the assassin is _never_ selected from the inhabitants of the immediate neighbourhood where the crime is to be committed; and yet, by this enactment, only the persons resident in such districts are to be disarmed, or deprived of the right of openly carrying arms. And thus, by residing beyond or by stepping over the ditch which bounds the proscribed locality, the murderer may assert his right of bearing arms, and defy the police to deprive him of his gun; or, by altering his position so as to avoid the forbidden ground, he may coolly wait the advent of his victim without the slightest danger of molestation. "On the very day that Major Mahon was murdered," continues Sir George Grey, "two persons were seen lurking about, who it was strongly suspected were the murderers. There was, indeed, no moral doubt that they were the persons by whom the fatal act was committed. Now, if the police had been armed with the powers which were sought for by this bill, those persons might have been arrested; the fatal weapons would have been taken from them, and they would have been amenable to the law for a misdemeanour, in carrying arms contrary to the provisions of this act, or for having arms concealed for the purpose of carrying