Mind you look well at them and swear to them when you see them in court." The child obeyed. She looked on while her mother was murdered. She swore to the murderers in court, and they were hanged upon her evidence. The evil had reached such a height that society in Ireland was almost on the point of dissolution. Ordinary coercion acts, of which there had been a series, failed and the Liberal government of Grey was compelled to have recourse to martial law. The tide of reform, however, which began to flow in 1830, before it ebbed, brought to Ireland, besides her share in reform of the Parliamentary representation, the opening of the municipal councils, which had been universally close and corrupt, and after Catholic emancipation still excluded Catholics. It brought commutation of tithe, a measure of immense value, far too long delayed, which shifted the burden of payment from the shoulders of the cotter to those of the landlord. It brought a poor law, cruelly needed in the midst of multiplying evictions. Furthermore, it brought in 1831-1833 the momentous gift of public education, national and undenominational, in the inauguration of which the Anglican primate, Archbishop Whateley, reconciling his advanced liberalism with his anomalous position, took a leading part. Ireland thus in national education preceded England by many years. Whateley had fellow-workers in liberal Catholics, ecclesiastical as well as lay, but the weight of Roman authority and influence was, as it always has been, and still is, against free education. The State Church of the minority succeeded in repelling attack; but it underwent some internal reform, including the suppression of ten superfluous bishoprics; a sacrilegious act of the state which helped to give birth to sacerdotal reaction at Oxford. After the abolition of the tithe-proctor, the State Church had become less odious to the people. The Castle administration was growing more liberal. Lords-lieutenant tried to be fair in distribution of patronage. A Liberal secretary, a man of mark, Drummond, warned the Irish landlords that property had its duties as well as its rights. Peel, as Irish secretary, had laid the foundation of the Irish constabulary, that noble force of law and order which combines independent intelligence with the discipline of the regular soldier. Drummond rendered a most important service by completing the institution. The Irish constabulary has naturally in the main been composed of Protestants. But the Catholic policeman in Ireland has in a marked way resisted seditious influence and been true to the government and his duty. The Irishman follows his commander. Attempts to seduce Irish soldiers from fidelity to the colours seem to have generally failed.