An examination of the crime returns of the {240} period shows that the compact between O'Connell and Lord Melbourne caused no appreciative diminution of violence in the country. Protestants declared that Lord Mulgrave was encouraging political criminals by his leniency, the culmination of which was his decision in the case of the brutal murder of the second Earl of Norbury. The earl was the younger son of the notorious Chief Justice Toler, who had received honours from a grateful government because of his anti-Irish and anti-Catholic policy. On his deathbed Toler, hearing that his neighbour, Lord Erne, was also dying, sent a servant to assure his lordship that it would be a _dead heat_ between them! The anecdote is characteristic of the man and his times, but his children were of a different calibre. The elder son died a lunatic, and the second was murdered because he evicted one of his tenants, a rogue who objected to paying rent. The country cried out for the severe punishment of the murderers, but the viceroy more than tempered justice with mercy, and every landowner instantly became alarmed. If murderers were permitted to escape the hangman because a Whig viceroy was at Dublin Castle, then assuredly no Tory landlord was safe. Private and public appeals were made to the king and Lord Melbourne. The premier was compelled to 'promote' him, and in 1839, shortly after he had been created Marquis of Normanby, the viceroy resigned in order to take up the post of Secretary for the Colonies. [Illustration: Lord Mulgrave]