The Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland is applying the District Coer- cion
Bill as if he meant to prove to the Irish that it does not need a wider statute to enforce order. If he can instil that lesson into their minds, he will save many a future coercion act. It was in- deed high time to begin such practical instruction: notices threat- ening murder are distributed with a lavish and wanton lawless- ness; in some places the gentry are flying, leaving those who cannot fly to the vengeance of a criminal spirit pampered by the flight; and in other parts we see that Protestants are threatening a retaliation by shooting a priest for every murdered man. The people of Ireland are acting as if there were no law for the re- straint of murder. It will need a firm and energetic exercise of f euwee to assert the bare presence of the . it shonld be made ;Manifest to all alike—to the murderous Protestants as well as to the Roman Catholics ; and it would he well if the gentry belong- ing to the proclaimed districts would return to their posts, to aid Lord Clarendon by their local knowledge and their example in maintaining order.
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