DEATH OF A NOTORIOUS FENIAN.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 182, 11 December 1886, Page 3

DEATH OF A NOTORIOUS FENIAN.

A notorious Fenian has just died in Liverpool Workhouse, in the person of William Brophy. Brophy was well known to the police in connection with Fenian plots nearly 20 years ago, and was arrested, but acquitted, on an alibi, for rescuing the prisoners from a police van in Salford, when Sergeant Brett was assassinated, and for which Allan Larkin and OBrien suffered death. Brophy, with other Fenians, on the night of the murder were anested in a Liveipool beerhouse. The prisoners, who were armed, were so completely surprieed by the police that they offered little or no resistance, and were taken to Manchester for tiial. Although there was direct evidence of identification as to the part Brophy took in the attack on the van, Mrs Rossiter, the beerhouse-keeper, swore that he waa in her house at the time it was made, and he was set at liberty. Brophy himself, however, upon receiving his discharge, did not deny the part he took in this and other Fenian outrages, but rather, especially when in drink, boasted of the exploit. Brophy,, who occasionally went to sea as a fireman, became delirious from drink, and was taken to Brownlowhill Hospital, but his system was so completely destroyed by alcohol thafc it was impossible to eav© his life, and he. died in the presence of a priest.