Protestants of this great empire, and ask them will they suffer priests and the fanatic rabbles that they command, to abolish civil and religious liberty in Ireland ? We appeal to the gov ernment in behalf of men who have violated no law, and ask are these persecuted men to receive no protection and redress?

INSOLENT CONDUCT OF FATHER HEALY.

CASTLETOWN (Berehaven) petTY SESSIONS.

On the Bench P. A. Armstrong, Jeremiah O'Connell, and J. Drummond R.M., Esqrs.

James Hazlett, Esq., S.I. v. Rev. Daniel Healy, P.P.

Mr. Hazlett examined-On the 25th ult. was proceeding to Ires to visit one of the police-stations; when passing the Rev. Mr. Healy's house was attacked by a vicious dog, which followed him a considerable distance along the road; directed one of the police to call on Mr. Healy to caution him, and to say, that he would be obliged to summon him for keeping such a vicious dog on the public road.

Mr. Hazlett then requested to have the policeman who went to Mr. Healy examined, as he had some evidence to give in the case. He also produced a letter which he had received from the Rev. Mr. Waller, complaining that an attack had been made on him by the same dog.

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Father Healy exclaimed, O! the furious animal, shall I produce him? This is a case of bigotry and religious persecution. Policeman examined-Went by direction of his officer to Mr. Healy told him that he would be summoned for keeping his dog on the public road; that he had followed Mr. Hazlett when going to Ires on the 25th; Mr. Healy replied, " your officer is a blackguard and a ruffian to send such a message to a priest; that he would make mince meat of him when he would be summoned."

Father Healy-You have sworn what is false, and I will prove it on my oath; what I said was, that he was "impident" to send such a message to a priest.

Mr. Drummond-To say the least of it, Mr. Healy, such language was very unbecoming.

Father Healy-Oh, this gallant captain, this general officer; he was indeed like Alexander the Great, riding his Bucephalus going to fight, carrying a large sword, which his arm could not wield, and riding at such a furious rate that it is a wonder all the cats and dogs of the country don't run after him.

Court-This language is quite uncalled for; we really must put a stop to it.

Father Healy This is a case of bigotry and persecution,

which I will report to the Lord Chancellor, and send through the public press. You (addressing the bench), want to make a Tory country of it, which you can't do, nor will you while I am in the country. If it was a Protestant clergyman (trembling with rage), allowed his dog to go as mine did, he would not be summoned. I have two cats, why don't you summon me for them? Will you allow me to show you this furious spaniel, this wicked animal, who frightened this gallant captain.

Bench-There is no necessity; but notwithstanding, his reverence produced a small terrier.

Mr. Hazlett-That is not the dog. After a while another (a furious looking cur dog) was produced, which Mr. Hazlett identified.

The Bench (interrupting)-The case is now before us, and let us decide on it.

Mr. O'Connell said, that he thought a nominal fine would be sufficient.

Dr. Armstrong said that he for one wonld not agree to a nominal fine, for if a poor person had acted a similar part the Bench would feel themselves called on to inflict the highest penalty.

The result was that Mr. Drummond agreed with him in imposing a fine of five shillings and costs.

Father Healy-The verdict is unjust and unfair; it is all bigotry.

Mr. Drummond-Your conduct, sir, is very improper, and I will feel it my duty to take steps against you if there is a single word more of disrespect used to the Bench.

Father Healy-I defy you. I stand here in defiance. Is it because you are a magistrate you consider yourselves better than me? I am as good a man as any of you. I will not log my dog or keep him off the road.

A PRIEST HELD TO BAIL IN THE SUM OF £10 FOR HIS good

BEHAVIOUR.

CASTLEBAR PETTY SESSION.

Mary Gleeson, Margaret Brett, Daniel Gleeson, aud Margaret Burke v. the Rev. Joseph Magennis.

For using threatening language to the complainants, at Ballyheane, on Saturday, the 2nd October, 1852.

Mr. Buchanan said-He appeared as counsel for the complainants in this case, and as such, had to complain of the rev. gentleman who appeared before them as defendant, inasmuch as he, the defendant, made use of violent and threatening language to the complainants. Daniel Gleeson, is a man of unimpeachable character, who has not made himself objectionable to any

one, who did not give the slightest offence or cause of offence to any one living; and yet what has been the course pursued toward this unoffending man and his wife? The rev. gentleman goes to where this man and his wife are living, and commences a tirade of abuse. He said to a person living in the neighbourhood, "Pretty neighbours you have got indeed, but I will soon clear them out of this; I promise you they will not remain long here." When the woman of the house heard the rev. gentleman abusing herself and her husband in this manner she came out of her house, and he accosted her thus" Pray, madam, where have you come from; from Achill, I suppose; but I promise you that you will not make another Achill colony of this place; I will let you know Ballyheane is strong enough for you. I like a decent Protestant, but I will make such prowling vagabonds as you leave the place." That was not sufficient. He ordered the woman who let the house to those parties to go back to her house, and said, "I will make you feel the smart of it;" and further, "I pity you for what you have to undergo before the archdeacon on to-morrow."

Mr. Buchanan-I ask is it to be tolerated in a Christian country that these unoffending men, who merely go through the country for the purpose of reading the word of God to those, who, as I said before, express a desire to hear it, are to be hounded down, and reviled and abused in all possible shapes and forms? It is because a man shall dare to read the word of God in the native language of an Irishman-in that language which is so expressive, and through the medium of which the knowledge of the love and goodness of God can be best conveyed to the people of this country--is it, I ask again, because a man dares to do this in a Christian land, that he is not alone to be made the subject of the most virulent abuse, but that he is also to be held up as a fit and proper object upon which to let loose the unbridled and unlicensed passions of the excitable and sometimes ungovernable feelings of the vulgar and uneducated peasantry of this country. And, gentlemen, not only is this Scripture-reader the victim of all this vituperation and calumny, but his poor innocent wife is wantonly and ungraciously attacked; and I must add that if the rev. gentleman who now appears before you were possessed of any charitable or manly feeling, he would have waited for another and a better period to have wreaked his passion and his threats upon this helpless woman. Regardless of what might have been the effects of fulminating the thunders of the church and other violent threats upon that poor woman in her then weak and helpless condition, the rev. gentleman in a most violent and ungentlemanly manner, poured forth upon her and her family all the thunders and threats of the church, which were very near sending this poor woman before her time to eternity. In consequence of the violent language used to this poor woman,

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she was obliged to take to her bed, and, I will show you, she was seized with a most dangerous illness; so much did these threats dwell upon her mind, that from that hour up to the present moment at the least noise her heart jumps from its place, and in her now alas ! sleepless nights, she is constantly leaping up in her bed and frightened from her slumbers, fancying that the house is beset and torn from about her.

The charges being fully proved, the decision of the court was, that the Rev. Mr. Magennis should enter into bail, himself in £20 and two sureties for £10 each, for his good behaviour for one year.

PERSECUTING PRINCIPLES OF POPERY.
From the Times.

We are not disposed to bewilder either ourselves or our readers with the exposure of those interminable contradictions on the subject of religious persecution into which Irish Papists have recently plunged; but it would be unwise in the extreme to neglect the opportunities which the present conjuncture affords of ascertaining and recording the true spirit of Popery, from its own avowals and proceedings. We are no longer left to deductions, however incontrovertible, from historical monuments or doctrinal codes. We can now behold the actual working of Popery at home and abroad, and observe its operations both in countries where it is dominant and in countries where it is only striving for dominion. It had been pretended that the genius of this religion had been grievously maligned, that persecution for opinion's sake formed no true part of its tenets, and that all examples to the contrary discoverable in past times were symptoms, not of the creed, but of the age, and common in such barbarous periods to all religions alike. The utter falsity of this extenuating plea is now manifest from the measure of dominant Popery at Florence. To the particular instances of persecution in those parts which have attracted the public notice and formal protest of Englishmen may now be added an undisguised avowal of the principles on which genuine persecution is based. In the dominions of the Grand Duke of Tuscany the punishment of death has been just revived for "offences against religion," under which phrase is comprehended every species of dissent from Popish authorities. A mere suspicion of such offences is punishable with imprisonment for three years. As far as control can be established over thoughts, it is committed unreservedly to the hands of the priesthood. All schools not under the immediate management of priests will at the expiration of twelve months from the present time be absolutely suppressed, and the amount,

degree, and nature of the instruction obtainable by the Tuscan people will be determined exclusively by that class of authorities who in Ireland have fanatically striven to obstruct all education whatever. To complete this picture of a state under Popish rule we may add what we have learnt from trustworthy sources, that the minds so rigorously debarred from knowledge are unhesitatingly surrendered to vice, and that the moral corruptions of gambling and debauchery are tolerated as service. able diversions, preferable in the eyes of a priestly Government to habits of inquiry and independence.

Meanwhile, these very proceedings furnish the most incontcstible refutation of the only argument which even the bigotry of a Lucas could discover in favour of such outrageous persecution. This gentleman, it will be recollected, maintained that the measures of the Tuscan government were justifiable by the laws of moral quarantine, and that the defence of the authorities was to be found in the exclusively Popish character of the population thus wisely protected against a new element of disorder! It is now perfectly clear that this alleged unanimity of belief has no existence. The population of Tuscany does number its Protestants as well as its Papists, and Mr. Lucas's argument tumbles to the ground. If the Madiais were arrested and warrantably so, on the sole ground of their being the only "heretics" in Tuscany, in what way are we to explain the arrests and committals which have followed on the self-same charges, the obvious apprehensions of the priesthood, and the increased rigour of operations suggested by so well-grounded a fear.

In point of fact, however, we are under no necessity of relying on such deductions, however evident or direct. The Attorney General of the Tuscan government did himself, in conducting the prosecution of the Madiais, demolish the single plea on which Popish rulers in Tuscany are defended by Popish pretenders in Ireland. "The work," said this officer," most hidden, though extensive, is that of the sect called the Evangelical Confession, or the sect of the Pure Gospel, which is well known to be much extended in Fiorence and in other towns, as well as in the country." What better testimony could Mr. Lucas desire of a fact which he denies? Or at what particular stage of "extension" does he think a creed not only escapes the liability to punishment, but acquires the privilege of unbridled license?

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We have already taken occasion to observe, that it is upon the true definition of "persecution," so artfully mystified by Popish writers, that this whole question hinges. The Church of Rome, unlike any other Christian community, has a double character. In one of these it has a right to all the freedom it can claim; in the other it is entitled to no rights whatever. In so far as it is an aggregate of Christians professing certain ritual