No more offensive epithet can be applied in this country, in the warmest spirit of invective, than that of an "informer." I have repeatedly heard it asserted as a popular maxim, that all informers should be shot. I can truly and deliberately declare it to be my firm conviction, that if all the informers of 1848 were so disposed of, the Confederate clubs and revolutionary associations of Dublin would have been decimated. There were in one great commercial establishment _forty_ Confederates, of whom _ten_ were in communication with the police. I resided at Roundtown, and I would often have preferred walking into town or strolling homeward, when I had to take a seat on a hackney car or in an omnibus to avoid a request to step into Blackberry Lane or turn up the Barrack Avenue, and listen to details of proceedings of which it is highly probable I had been already fully apprised. A smith, in a town between thirty and forty miles from Dublin, was engaged to manufacture pikes. He made two hundred and eighty pike-heads, and brought them, according to directions which he had received, to a place, the designation of which was peculiarly appropriate for the reception of such articles, for it was the _slaughter-house of a butcher_. They were of the best quality, in respect of materials and workmanship. The industrious tradesman delivered the "goods" to his customer, and was paid fully and promptly. He then made me acquainted with the transaction, and I referred him to the Commissioners of Police. They entrusted its management, or perhaps I might more correctly say its mismanagement, to a superintendent who, instead of having the premises closely watched, proceeded precipitately to seize the weapons. They were packed in strong deal cases, of the contents of which the butcher and his assistants declared that they had no knowledge. Before the Executive came to any conclusion as to what course was to be adopted, the hopes of the revolutionists had been extinguished at Ballingarry. No prosecution was instituted, and the pike-heads were sent to England where, I believe, they were transferred to the naval department. THE CLOSE OF 1848.