§ MR. WILLIAM JOHNSTON () Belfast, S.I beg to ask Mr. Attorney General for Ireland if he can give any particulars of the murder of Mr. William Bird, J. P., on Saturday last, at Pantry; whether any recent occurrences in the neighbourhood had been of a disturbing character; and whether any arrests have been made of persons suspected of being concerned with the murder.
§ MR. ATKINSONA police report of this occurrence has now reached me, and the facts, I very much regret to say, point to the conclusion that Mr. Pird was brutally murdered. The deceased gentleman was found lying dead on the floor of his rent-office in Pantry, where he had been collecting rents, shortly after two o'clock in the afternoon of Saturday last.
1223 There were three bullet wounds in his, body—one in the heart, another in the back of the head, and the third in the upper part of his right arm. One arrest has been made by the police, but I could not answer the second paragraph without disclosing matters which might furnish clues to the police as to the perpetrators of the crime.