For a considerable period the persons attending the meetings of the Rev. Mr M’Menamy have received the most cruel opposition from the inhabitants of the Cowgate. They have seized every opportunity of waylaying and beating them most unmercifully, and the only assignable reason for such base conduct is, that the victims of it are searching the Word of God, inquiring the way of salvation, and abandoning the errors of Popery. Several cases of this kind, from time to time, were brought before the Police Court, but either from the prevarication of the witnesses, or the leniency of the Magistrates, they escaped punishment. They boasted of this, and determined to pursue the same course.

Two cases of assault of this nature were brought before the Police Court yesterday (Tuesday.) We cannot give a full report of all the facts connected with these outrages, but the following are the principal:—Jeremiah Clark, a respectable young man, a schoolmaster, who had been for some time attending the meetings of the Irish Mission, and inquiring after the truth, was standing at his own door, in Horse Wynd, on Sabbath evening. A man passing exclaimed, “There is one of M’Menamy’s men,” when, immediately, he was rushed upon by two others in the most savage manner, and knocked down. He then made his escape, and went into his own house. M’Levy, the criminal officer, passing by at the time, induced him to come down to identify the persons who had attacked him. Thinking himself safe under the protection of a policeman, he obeyed. The criminal officer conversed with him till a mob collected. Clark then, to his astonishment, found himself surrounded by a crowd, who knocked him down, kicked, beat, and bruised him to such an extent, that, had not a number of women, more merciful than the infuriated mob, cast themselves upon him, he would, doubtless, have been left on the spot a lifeless corpse!

These facts having been fully proved, Bailie Fyfe, the presiding judge, very ably summed up the evidence which had been given, found the parties placed at the bar guilty, and after very appropriately referring to the disgraceful nature of such actions, expressed his determination to punish as severely as the law would warrant him all those guilty of such shameful outrages on the peaceable and quiet inhabitants of this city. He then sentenced them to sixty days’ imprisonment.

Two persons were also charged with having attacked a person named Hopkins, in the Cowgate, on Monday, and having inflicted serious injury upon him. The only cause of this was, that this Hopkins is son-in-law to Thomas M’Lean, a convert from Popery, and connected with the Edinburgh Irish Mission. One of the persons pleaded guilty, and was sent for twenty days to prison; and the trial of the other is deferred till Wednesday (this day), to afford Hopkins an opportunity of being present, who was absent from Court, either from intimidation or an unwillingness to prosecute his assailants.

It is but justice to Mr Moxey to state, that, notwithstanding the prevarication of the witnesses and other difficulties, he succeeded in eliciting most satisfactorily all the facts, and throughout the entire case he manifested the utmost skill and judgment.

The Witness Wednesday, June 19th 1850