, I
could see any reason to conclude that an improvement had taken place in
the state of things that has now so long existed in the County of Kerry,
and other counties in the south of Ireland, to try if I could discern
whether lapse of time itself, the weariness of that state of things, if
the law and influences that lead persons to avoid violations of the law,
or to follow the pursuits of industry, had led in the end to any
favourable change in the state of things; but I grieve to say that it is
not in my power, unfortunately, to announce that any change has taken
place. On the contrary, all the means of information that I possess lead
to the unhappy conclusion that there is no improvement, but that, on the
contrary, there exists, even at this moment, a most extraordinary state
of things--a state of things of an unprecedented description--nothing
short, in fact, of a state of open war with all forms of authority, and
even, I may say without exaggeration, with the necessary institutions of
civilised life.

'These returns present a picture of the County Kerry such as can hardly
be found in any country that has passed the confines of natural society
and entered upon the duties and relations, and acknowledged the
obligations, of civilised life. The law is defeated--perhaps I should
rather say, has ceased to exist! Houses are attacked by night and day,
even the midnight terror yielding to the noonday anxiety of crime!
Person and life are assailed! The terrified inmates are wholly unable to
do anything to protect themselves, and a state of terror and lawlessness
prevails everywhere. Even some persons who possess means of information
that are not open to me, profess to discern in the signs of public
feeling, in the views of some hope and some fear, the expectation of
something about to happen, something reaching far beyond partial, or
local, or even agrarian, disturbance, and calculated to create a greater
degree of alarm than anything we have witnessed, or anything that has
happened.

'When I come to compare the official returns of crime with those of the
preceding period, I find that the total number of offences in this
county since the last Assizes is somewhat less in number, even
considerably less in number, than in the corresponding or the preceding
period of the former years. But the diminution of number affords no
assurance or ground of improvement at all, because I find that the
diminution is accounted for entirely