One of the greatest practical evils which the Catholics suffer in
Ireland is their exclusion from the offices of Sheriff and Deputy
Sheriff. Nobody who is unacquainted with Ireland can conceive the
obstacles which this opposes to the fair administration of justice.
The formation of juries is now entirely in the hands of the
Protestants; the lives, liberties, and properties of the Catholics in
the hands of the juries; and this is the arrangement for the
administration of justice in a country where religious prejudices are
inflamed to the greatest degree of animosity! In this country, if a
man be a foreigner, if he sell slippers, and sealing wax, and
artificial flowers, we are so tender of human life that we take care
half the number of persons who are to decide upon his fate should be
men of similar prejudices and feelings with himself: but a poor
Catholic in Ireland may be tried by twelve Percevals, and destroyed
according to the manner of that gentleman in the name of the Lord, and
with all the insulting forms of justice. I do not go the length of
saying that deliberate and wilful injustice is done. I have no doubt
that the Orange Deputy Sheriff thinks it would be a most unpardonable
breach of his duty if he did not summon a Protestant panel. I can
easily believe that the Protestant panel may conduct themselves very
conscientiously in hanging the gentlemen of the crucifix; but I blame
the law which does not guard the Catholic against the probable tenor
of those feelings which must unconsciously influence the judgments of
mankind. I detest that state of society which extends unequal degrees
of protection to different creeds and persuasions; and I cannot
describe to you the contempt I feel for a man who, calling himself a
statesman, defends a system which fills the heart of every Irishman
with treason, and makes his allegiance prudence, not choice.
I request to know if the vestry taxes in Ireland are a mere matter of
romantic feeling which can affect only the Earl of Fingal? In a parish
where there are four thousand Catholics and fifty Protestants, the
Protestants may meet together in a vestry meeting at which no Catholic
has the right to vote, and tax all the lands in the parish 1s. 6d. per
acre, or in the pound, I forget which, for the repairs of the
church--and how has the necessity of these repairs been ascertained? A
Protestant plumber has discovered that it wants new leading; a
Protestant carpenter is convinced the timbers are not sound; and the
glazier who hates holy water (as an accoucheur hates celibacy, because
he gets nothing by it) is employed to put in new sashes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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