THE STABBING CASE IN DUBLIN.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 6496, 7 December 1882, Page 3

THE STABBING CASE IN DUBLIN.

TO THE KDITOR.

SlB,-^1- notice in the recent attempt at murder in Dublin a feature which affords some hope that tho mystery of the Phtenix Park tragedy may be now cleared up. In both instances the assassin descended from a car to commit the crime, and drove oft when he had accomplished his purpose. Fortunately, this time he was severely wounded. This may lead to his [detection, and possibly to the discovery that the same men were engaged in both transactions. ■ Coming now to your editorial comments of Friday, 1 assure you that I deplore quite as profoundly as you this awful crime; but 1 also deplore—and hero yon stop short—that the guilt of some individuals should be made the excuse for perpetuating against an entire nation the wrongs of centuries, and that the English Gqvprnment, which has so often approved of murder—(if anyone denies it I'll give chapter and verse)—should hold guilty of sympathy with it a nation which uttered a loud cry of horror when poor Cavendish and Burk wero slain. It is the British Government that is accountable for the agrarian outrages. It sanctions the thousands upon thousands of evictions. " It sends British soldiers (the descendants of those who bled at Assaye, and Badajos,' and Waterloo!) to drive out weeping women and children to the roadside or the ditch, and then level, nut a frowning fortress, but a poor mud hovel. Is this the " leniency " of which you speak ? Tho Irish'papers showed that crime in Ireland docreased in proportion as the Land League spread. When the Land League was threatened they declared that the' hope of redress bejng cut off, and the men who had most influence over! the people being imprisoned, crimes would become more numerous; and, later on, they pointed out how their words had come true. . But what Englishman ever reads an Irish paper, or wants to know Irish views on Irish affairs? Where is the Briton who "never, never, never, &c." that doea not know that suspension of the Constitution (it is always suspended in Ireland!) and coercion (that's the only constitution the Irish are acquainted with) is the sole rational method of dealing with Ireland? That the Irish should venture to interfere in the slightest way in English matters would, of course, be an insufferable impertinence; but that Englishmen should regulate all Irish affairs, and ignore the Irish completely, is evidently the only proper course conceivable. The Government which evicts and coerces, you call " lenient," and the men who checked crime you call " cowardly and unscrupulous leaders, selfish demagogues,. who hound" on their wretched dupes!'' Everything is upside down. One must stand upon his head to read his dictionary. You say " the Irish peasant is illiterate. Who hanged the 'Irish priests and schoolmoßters that ventured to teach the poor peasants? ■ ' ' You say " England will only too gladly grant self-government" when the Irish show themselves fitted for it. Pardon me. Sir, but I. assure you you are mistaken. England will never cjo so till she can't help it. The Times sayß, "Were the union gall, it must be main-, tamed." When Mr Butt first hinted at "Home rule," Mr Bright replied that however immoral were the means whereby liish nationality had been destroyed, it could never be restored. The Spectator declared that if Home rule were granted, England would find herself closoly united with a Catholic country, and be unable in future to carry out abroad a Protestant policy. The trifling inconvenience of the Catholic country being under the Protestant one, and of not being able to carry out a Catholic policy either at Home or abroad, wa3 apparently too microscopic to be perceived by the Spectator. I have to ask a favour and a question. You publish " Wayside Notes" and numbers of light, amusing extracts. They are very pleasant reading, but their interest is purely ephemeral. Will you publish the four last chapters of A. M. Sullivan's "Newlreland "? Woare very fond of boasting about our "British love of fairplay." Parnell, Sexton, and tho others have been more than once pilloried hi your columns as "unscrupulous leaders, selfish de- | magogues; &c." Well, let us hear a plain dispassionate statement of what they actually did, and why. . ~ ... Let me observe, in passing, that in a local paragraph you say, in connection with this recent stabbing case, that " it was believed the charge of drunkenness against the jury was got up for a purpose." It was said, I know, but I wonder who believed it. The Pall Mall Gazette says the jury was packed, the jury was drunk ; Mr Gray was right in calling public attention to facts so important; and now the London Universe declares its belief that the man whom the drunken jury hanged was innocent. My question I shall reserve for some future occasion.—l am, &c, ; Edward Wise, December 2nd.