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[From the Irishman, June 6.] BY THE GRAVE OF MICHAEL BARRETT. APTBR THE BATTLE. This is ft bright day, a bright May dfty over all England. The evening light falls fair in many a lane out amidst the fields of this favored country, where the hedge rows are white already with the hawthorn blossoms, and the airs are heavy laden with the breath of the wild flower and the blooms of the trees. The rustic is waiting just about this moment to hear the strokes of the great bell at the Manor houses of the land, until he turns home ward from his labor in mead or plough land ; and within the huge hives of manu facture the artisans, far in the labyrinth of the cities and towns of wealthy Britain, hold their ears attentive for the first note from the brazen throat, that ever warns them to rest, for the day’s wage is won. IN TUB OLD BAILEY YARD the light falls as beauteous and as subdued as where it flecks the forest shadows with its chastened gleaming. It glints like a smile upon the hard and grimy coping of the walls, and pours itself across them and down here where I stand, as if there were no hindrance to joy and glory living and abiding in this place ot pain. The dull semi-diaphanous panes that are set in the buildings around—set into casements whose metallic sternness seems designed to keep out even the day, if possible, from the prisoners within the cells, which they mock with feeble light—appear to have refused the gleams ot the sun any passage further than the bars. They flash redly all the radiance back, and glow as though they were aflame. I gaze at them across a grave whose occupant not yet lies within its nar row precincts. The clay, dank, and min gled with the old city debris, is thrown up in heaps upon each side. It is some five feet deep as I look down into it, and seems sodden with moisture. A heap of quick lime has just been brought in, and lies near the wall, which I see hears upon its sur face many letters inscribed at different places. I decipher them but too easily. I stand in the path where many a murderer has walked to the gallows. It is the place of shameful graves, and within this one at my feet, though I see no shade of shame upon it, in an hour or less all that was mortal of MICHAEL BARRETT will repose. But, now, I cannot stay here to muse, for not a hundred paces from me lies, in his coffin, the strangled Irishman ; and I wish to look on the clay of which a proud and gallant man was made, ere it is returned to the dust from whence alone the trumpet of the Angel can recall it. I pass onward, with whom it is not for me to tell, hut, in a brief space, I stand in the apartment where the dead shell holds the inanimate corpse of a human being, this morning instinct with life, haughty with mind, fearless with faith. OYER TIIE SLAIN. I stand above the dead, and move the lid of the frail coffin down a little, that I may see all to be seen of him that the Government would not spare in life, and who has suffered, at its command, * the short shrift of the hangman’s halter. There is a shadow here, but the face is dis tinct before my gaze, and never will I for get it. 1 was prepared to look upon a dis torted visage, where the ensanguined eyes glared horribly in death, where the veins stood swollen out in knotted prominence, and the blood was to be marked as it start ed from bursting lips and turgid tissues. My imagination is mocked by the peace and calm of this unaltered face. If this man but slept, no more tranquil expression could reign above his brow, than that which places the seal of repose upon it now. The eyes are closed as if in languor, the mouth is partially opened, and the teeth, white and even, show some little through the moustache that covers the mo tionless lips. There is no distortion of a single lineament, no expression of agony upon any feature. They are still as if carved out of marble, and they are livid with the hues of death. The head turns limply as it is moved, and leans rather to the left side. There is a depression be neath the ear, where the fatal noose rested, anti a dark wale encircles the throat where the rope tightened with deadly gripe until jile went out with its pulses of brief agony. There is no horror in this sight. There is no testimony of a struggle, of torture pro longed until death was a mercy. No dis tortion appals the gazer with its evidence of more than mortal pangs. This victim of the vengeance of the law died in the lirst shock ot his tall. His neck was dislo cated by its force, and the vital play of the fine nervous organism with which he was endued ceased ere the sullen thud which announced his precipitation from nte, fell upon the ear of the congregated v i o\\ ds that gathered to witness his immo iation. I replace the lid upon the shell, and cover up his face. No decent winding sheet is to enclose the body from which c.ie soul was so lately riven. There are no cerements of death to give it the appear ance of human care; the hangman alone 18 to do the last offices to this fine human day ; and lie has done it, so far, with a ' angman’s tenderness-no less and no more. TEACE TO THE DEAD. So l>e it. Little it matters to the noblest must ot the dead, now, what indignity is none it. Here I shall wait to see it con sJgned in the murderer’s path, to this clay, u ;th which it is not kindred, and in the ,! '- I;m! fine, there will he those far and near w.io will think over THE CAREER that is here closed. Those who knew him best prized Michael Barrett most. Gifted with an acute mind, clear and logical, the hours he could spare for its culture were employed in it. No one ever expected the melancholy evidence of that care and that culture which he afforded upon the occasion of his reply to the question “why sentence of death should not be passed upon him ?” but there could be no more forcible testimony to it than that given when, in his own language, “he stood looking into his grave,” and separated from living men by the inexorable guar dians of the dock. HE DIED IN TUB FLUBII OB YOUTH, Twenty-seven years had hardly sped across his brow since, amid the mountains of what was once the territory of the Ma guire, his eyes first saw the light. In the little town of Kesh, close by the bright waters of the Erne Lakes, Michael Bar rett was born, in the year 1841, of humble parentage. The great heart of the coun try was beginning to throb high with the inspirations of nationalty, and, as yet, it was unshadowed by famine or fear, for there were nine millions of people in the land. The child grew into a fair and comely hoy, with the keen wit and cool calculation of that Northern province, amongst whom he lived, tempering the warm impulses of his generous and im petuous Celtic nature. Gentle and re served, the characteristics of these quali ties could be read in his open brow, fine sparkling eyes, and pleasing symmetrical features—features that, in the mournful gloom of the day when he was sentenced to die by the hanging’s gripe, extorted from one who looked upon him with no sympathy, the exclamation that he never beheld “a more prepossessing face.” Poor though his parents were, they had that appreciation for learning, which is a trait of Irish character, and the hoy, Michael Barrett, evinced his own desire for mental progress by the assiduity with which he sought such teaching as the village school could afford. So long as he could remain at the task of acquiring knowledge the boy gladly availed himself of it* opportunities; but the time, at last, came, when the little household needed his strong arm and his hearty will, to aid in keeping the wolf from the door. His school days were over, and the stern work of the world, wherein his life was to be so brief, began. Little re cord is to he had of the days of one so lowly, beyond that which tells the world that none impeached his fair fame amidst all the exigencies of his humble lot; hut his struggles must have been hard, for the next incident of note in his memory is, that he enlisted in the County Donegal Artillery Militia, and gained the same respect and regard amongst his comrades in the ranks, which appear to have followed him even to his unconsecrated grave in the Acelda ma, behind the gallows. Like many an other Irishman he found that he too should quit the shores he loved and to live should emigrate. ' FIVE OR SIX YEARS SINCE the young Irishman arrived in Glasgow, and was occupied in various employments from time to time, always with credit to himself. His appearance and his manner were eminently favorable to himself. Al ways dressed with scrupulous care and neatness, his figure, although rather below the middle height, always appeared to great advantage. Powerful in chest and limb, although stongly, lie was not coarsely formed, and lithe and supple, his move ments were as graceful as those of an ath lete. As lie walk to or from his work, with the frank smile he always bore for his friends, there were few whose presence was so manly and striking. Beyond his duties he was not much known in public, and in politics, except upon some occasion when he considered he w’as hound to speak the ‘faith that was in him,” his voice was heard less often than his presence might he noted. now HE SPOKE. When, upon those occasions, he felt himself compelled to utter his creed, his language grew warm, his eyes lit up, and his whole appearance became enthusiastic with his thought. Always professing the utmost devotion to his country, always moved to pathos when he spoke of her sufferings and her wrongs, loving Ireland as his motherland, an unutterable firmness of demeanor joined itself always to his spoken sentiments. He ever field that there were occasions when the name and cause of country would render necessary, not only the most ultimate, hut even the most hopeless sacrifices for their sake, and that however men might reck of them, it was upon such au occasion a glory and a joy to die. Such a man could not be fully appreciated. His sincerity was as deep as heroism and the great promptings of self sacrifice could make it. Those who beheld the clear and quiet surface of his life could not imagine the intensity of his pat riotism. The spring was too deep to brawl like shallower streams. Only a hero could com prehend the Irish patriot, poor and proud as that Roman of old who followed his plough and refused the gold and honors of the stranger to win his heart from father land. Whilst in Glasgow, one of his favor ite amusements was to attend the sittings fit the Democratic Hall, which is a sort of institute used by a debating club composed of the public who go there. Questions of all descriptions, mostly political, some times polemical, are discussed by that class of persons who are anxious to hear them seWes speaking. Sometimes a great deal or ability is displayed by the debaters in the Hall. Sometimes a great deal of platitude l MMIBB 11l MM3L ii and tongued absurdity is uttered therein to the great satisfaction of the utterers. In these debates the forms of the Irish Ques tion “turned up” now and then, and Michael Barrett sate, with all his keen, logical perception, and ready grasp of reasoning, to hear it mangled. Yet with all his love of Ireland nestling so deep at his heart, and with all his power of ex pression resting on his tongue, he spoke not above twice amongst the pretentious debaters, and then with crushing effect and pre-eminent talent. His was, in most things, a life of silent loyalty to his native land, a loyalty exalted by exhaustless love for Ireland. There are no public memories of the man to he chronicled by me beyond those, and the prominent part he took in the torchlight demonstration for the Man chester victims. Others have told the rest. They have told the mournful story of hi 9 accusation and of his trial. They have told of that marvellous firmness with which he confronted the sentence of his doom. They have told how not a limb quivered, not a nerve wa9 false to the gallant man hood which was Michael Barrett. IN THE CONDEMNED HOLD. After the episode which forms that record of his days, there came the hours which he was to pass in prison, and of which the tale is brief and pithy; from the moment in which he entered the condemn ed cell, to those on that last supreme morning when he left it, his time, his thoughts, his being, seemed devoted but to the one purpose, of preparing himself for the solemn advent of Eternity. He had cast mortality, its pangs, its hopes, and fears from him, and rose beyond the thought of agony and death. “I long to be free once more,” he said to one who spoke with him. He continued—“ What is life, at best, but a prison, and if it has been spent in duty, a man can face the opening of its gates with immortal freedom to bid him welcome it.” ALONE. The lingering days, intervening between his condemnation, were rarely interrupted by any other visitors save Dr. Hussey, who let not one day pass over his head without bearing the blessings of his ministry of peace to the doomed Irishman. Hours passed in their converses of the world to which he was hastening so rapidly. No relatives pressed at the prison gate for the poor favor of grasping his hand or bidding him farewell for ever. Barrett has hut one near relative living, who is now’ in India, and who is not yet aw r ar© of the doom of the friend who shared his youthful sports, and who lay dow r n to rest in the innocence and joy of youth beside him. This was almost as well. The bravest feel a pang in parting w ith those whose names are entwined w’ith the tender memories of childhood. The stoutest hearts are often the most tender, and it w r as better that this should he spared the slightest touch of sorrow or yearning be yond its own brave bearing. He desired to face his doom unshrinking, and looked at death as though it had no fear for him. * NO QUAILING. So he seemed to feel all through this ordeal. The days went by, growing shorter and shorter in the number of those allotted to him ; and he sometimes reckoned them as though he had nothing to care for that they should he longer. Some of those with wiiom he was in relation during liis trial came to see him. His legal advisers did not forget him, but visited him in his cell. The same quiet, self-possessed man ner welcomed them upon those occasions that was his characteristic when hope of life w r as not shut out by the iron bars and iron doors of the dungeon of the doomed. Upon one of those instances his speech w r as spoken of tor its force, power, and patriot fervor. Barrett smiled calmly. “lie only said that which he felt,” he answered. “He had hut one life, and that was too little FOR HIS COUNTRY.” He showed that on the morning of his doom. During the previous night he slept soundly and undisturbed by the presence of the Warders. A child at the bosom of its mother could not rest more tranquil. But at length his last sleep w r as over, and Michael Barrett rose to make his toilet for the scaffold. This is soon over, and he asks the w’arders if the Rev. Dr. Hussey has come. He is told that he has not yet arrived, hut is expected immediately. He is then asked w’ill he take breakfast? “No! he must w r ait for Dr. Hussey !” NEAR TIIB HOUR. He has not long to w r ait, for the hours are few, and hut a little time passes ere his Confessor is with him. Barrett smiles as welcomes his assiduous Chaplain, and after a warm and kindly greeting he enters upon prayer with the zealous Priest. A brief period of privacy is given the dying man and his spiritual father, and the warders re tire. When they comeback preparations are made for the administration of the Blessed Sacrament to this child of Catholic Ireland, and from his Pastor he receives the Holy Eucharist. He remains kneeling in prayer for a short time, and then the great hell of St. Sepulchre booms out the first strokes of his death-knell. The sullen warning enters with unholy omen into the crypts of the jail, and clings in resonance to its walls. Barrett knows what it means, hut his eye is as bright, ljis cheek as instinct with life as though it were a day of festival for him, and not of death. “ I must get ready,” he says, and as if to echo his words the Sheriffs enter with the Warders. There is a brief conversation, hut it means much. They are about to hand him over to the executioner, can they co anything for him l No! they cannot He is grateful to the officers of the prison* they were kind to him each and all. The Sheriffs retire, and Michael Barrett 18 WAITING FOR THE HANGMAN. The Rev. Dr. llus9ey comes in, for lie had left the cell, and Calcraft follows him with the Warders in charge and some of the other officials. Barrett’s quick eye lights up as he sees him. With fawning manner, the hoary-headed man of blood, after a few words, proceeds to pinion his arms, and all eyes are turned to the man who Las to endure the hangman as he comes to the preliminary of his office of slaughter. As if fearing those around him are discomposed at such a scene, Barrett smiles quietly and almost radiantly. The first act in the tragedy is done. He is hade walk forth out of his cell. A procession is formed, Dr. Hussey side by side with the doomed but dauntless man, who treads as lightly on the prison pathway as he did in the meadows by Erne’s shores. With Crucifix held before him, the Priest begins the Litany for the Soul Departing. Quietly, firmly, with heart full of courage and soul full of faith, the responses rise from Michael Barrett’s lips. His voice is clear as a bell, and his bearing steady as that of a martyr. “ THE MIDDLE PASSAGE.” He passes along the dolorous way to exe cution, and those that follow him wonder with a great wonder that, with their own hearts shaken, Michael Barrett quails not, quivers not, shakes not. They wonder that no muscle is moved, no nerve jarred in this living being given up to death. They do not comprehend the secret of his courage. It is the spirit of his sacrifice. It is not in Death to he of horror for him so that it may serve Ireland. The grave has no sting, the gallows no victory. Where could these learn such a lesson ? TWELVE HOURS HAVE PASSED sine© that scene, and the last now is closing on the lifeless body that then breathed, moved and thought. A few officials enter this temporary channel. They look at the placid face, and one points out that the beard of Barrett has changed since his exe cution from its chesnut shade to deepest black. It is hut an incident of prison memory. The rough battens nail down the coffin lid. In the hands of a few of the officers it is borne forth to its last rest ing place and plunged roughly into the black gulf that yawns for its reception. IN THE CHARNEL. The quick-lime against the wall is flung over thickly until it covers the coffin with its burning mass. The heaps of clay are shovelled in soon. The grave is rapidly filled up, and the slabs of flag in the prison yard laid over it. The deed is done, the dust is returned to the dust, and the spirit alone lives with an immortality that no cruelty could conquer, no law render futile. A Warder walks across the spot where this political victim lies amidst the felon crew of the Old Bailey yard. No prayer is said above the dead—no emblem of faith will mark the spot where the strangled body lies. Days will come and days will go, hut no pilgrim filled with admiration for the courage of this man, filled with admi ration for his talents and devotion, will he attracted from afar to kneel by the spot where all that was mortal of the Irishman awaits the summons to the awful tribunal in Jehosaphat. IRISH EMIGRANTS WANTED SOUTH We are indebted to our friend, John Dowling, Esq., of Washington city, for the following extracts of a letter from a member of the Dowling family, of Barnwell District. S. C., earnestly invit ing immigration of Irish settlers to that neighborhood. We are assured that the writer is highly educated and perfectly reliable; and that the family, although long-settled in the South, are strongly at tached to the people of their ancestral land, and would afford every possible fa cility and aid to such of them as desired to make that portion of the “Sunny South” their future homes :— Pilot. Graham’s Turn-out, S. C„ May—. “When I had nothing to do but com mand, and indeed very little of that, and knew nothing about my keys, or what was coming on my table, iny indisposi tions were legion. When I heard the Negroes were free, I determined to live as independently as possible. Now, every hour has some useful occupation, and I have been sick but three days iu as many years. 1 have not had a Negro cook since I left, the year after the war closed, and I attend, with occasional assistance, to all mv household affairs. “The Negro has become our deadly enemy, solely through the instrumentali ty and malign influence of the Radicals. But, notwithstanding, we are compelled to employ them on our farms, because we have not the white laborers. One white man will do as much as three blacks. The negro, however, like the Indians, is doomed gradually to pass away. Few of them are honest, and a great man}’ live entirely by stealing. Our only hope is in immigration. The whites throughout the State generally favor it, since the free Negro has proved a failure and a nui sance. We want a leader —someone to get the thing fairly started—and 1 am convinced the first comers would be so well pleased that they would encourage their friends to follow. The industrious white man is everywhere sought for. If you know of industrious persons from or m Ireland, in quest of good locations among a sympathising people, let them know we have plenty of houses and lands, and would most gladly receive them. By this means, you would and might benefit them as well as us. The Negro will no longer be in their way* The whites, from their superior industry, get higher wages than the blacks. I can assure twenty families they can here find homes within five miles of each other, upon the best land in the country. The poorest lands generally belong to the al ways poor people, where the ntgro is al lowed to build his shanty, and plunder his more fortunate neighbor. The Irish immigrants will be favored and encour aged by all the respectable whites. If you know any willing to come, let me know, when (Autumn and Winter of course,)conveyances will be at the rail road depot to take them to the country. All my neighbors want them, and I want my husband’s lands occupied exclusively by whites. I can then rest in ease and happiness. When the settlers become able, by the savings of their industry, they can buy, on easy terms, the other wise vacant land. So anxious are they to have them, that some few express a willingness to donate land. “To show you the extent of the steal ing going on, I will give you an instance: my neighbors, who had anything, suffered in an equal proportion. My kitchen has been broken open four times, rye house once, and corn crib five times within one month. “This will account for our anxiety to get white settlers. “Yours, &c., E. M. D ” Address E. M. D., Graham’s Turn-out, S. C. GENERAL FORREST. The Conservatives of Memphis and Shelby county, Teun., held a mass meeting in Memphis on the Ist June. The Ledger reports Gen. Forrest’s speech as follows: Gen. Forrest also addressed the conven tion briefly, and was listened to with much interest. He hoped to pass the evening without being called before the meeting. As he had been called out, however, he would say something. He felt that the meeting had passed off most harmoniously, and he was pleased to see it. He hoped it was an earnest of the spirit which will characterize the Democracy everywhere throughout the pending Presidential con test. He saw before him the faces of many who, during the war, were on the Federal side. To such he was now pre pared to extend the hand of fellowship, and put shoulder to shoulder, in advancing the cause of conservatism. He had long sheathed the sword and buried the hatchet. He only regretted that there were those who had not done so. lie did not blame the North for the existing condition of things in the South, hut the Radical party, who were in power wdien the war closed, and might have restored peace, and har mony, and prosperity to the country. He was willing to join the Northern Democra cy in the struggle to put Radicalism under foot. He wished to see the Union and the Constitution restored. There was no time during the war when he would not have been glad to have taken the old flag in one hand and the Constitution in the other, and defended them even unto death. He was then fighting fanaticism, and he was ready to fight it still. He then briefly alluded to some remark which had been made by a previous speaker relative to the Federal dead in the National Ceme tery ; and there was not a soldier, Fede ral or Confederate, whose grave he was not ready to protect and honor. There were those on both sides during the war who shirked all responsibility and kept out of danger. There were others who, on both sides, fought the battle through to the end, and such he saw’ around him to night. He wanted such sent to the Na tional Convention. He wanted true men put forward, such us were true on both sides during the war and can he trusted yet. He wished to see all prejudices laid aside, as he hoped to see the South support the nominee of the New York Convention, whoever he may be, so that he is the standard bearer of Conservatism. Some very appropriate remarks, in re sponse to the General s remarks were made by Capt. T. B. Edgington, a Northern man by birtli and an ex-Federal soldier. Lecture by Father Ryan. —Last even ing Father A. J. Ryan delivered a lecture at the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist, the subject of which was the disputed doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church. There was a very large attendance, and the eloquent speaker was listened to with marked attention. [Sav. Eepublicaji , June 19. Nothing is more common than to talk of a Iriend ; nothing is more difficult than to find one; nothing is more rare than to im prove one as we ought. You may joke when you please, if you are careful to please when you joke. 7