diately detected; and in the mean time the object may be
achieved. Accordingly we find that a landlord can thus summarily dispose
of an obnoxious tenant. This Mr Shee was fired at: our author has his
doubts--although it appears, by his own account of the trial, that slugs
were lodged in his hand, and that his hat was perforated--and he adds--

"But, if really fired at, and therefore much frightened, as he
doubtless would be, _it was not a loss to him_. With the facility
which the law in Ireland gives him as a landlord, he at once threw
those tenants into jail with whom he had been involved in
litigation. Consequently, before they could prosecute him for
damages, or before they could be witnesses in another case, they
had themselves to be tried for attempted murder!

"Patrick Ring was one of those arrested; and though several
hundreds of people, some of them gentlemen of rank and property,
knew that he had been in the Catholic chapel for an hour before and
an hour after the time the shot was alleged to have been fired, and
that at the distance of two miles, yet he was kept in prison, in
solitary confinement, not allowed to see any friend, nor even a
lawyer, for several weeks. He was not even examined before a
magistrate. This last fact in the administration of the law is, I
believe, peculiar to Ireland only. Whether it is consistent with,
or contrary to law, I cannot say. In England we consider it but
justice to the accused and the accuser, to bring them face to face
before a magistrate at the earliest opportunity. But in this case,
the landlord (_and I am told such a thing is quite common in all
such cases_) put Pat Ring in prison, kept him there three weeks in
close confinement, apart even from a legal adviser, and then
allowed him to go out without even taking him before a magistrate,
or offering any evidence against him.

"We may easily conceive circumstances which would warrant the
landlord to suspect this man, so as to have him taken up, and which
might ultimately turn out to be so weak as to prevent the
production of any evidence whatever. Had the landlord merely put
Pat Ring in prison, and let him out again after finding, through a
period of three weeks, that he could get no evidence against him,
there would be little to complain of, save that the law should n