THE IRISH IN SCOTLAND.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 81, 14 November 1874, Page 9

THE IRISH IN SCOTLAND.

I may relate an incident which, many years ago, fell under my notice mmy native town in the south of Scotland. I was one day present in the Circuit Court, at a certain trial for murder. A party of poor Irishmen were quietly making their way back to Ireland, after the reaping season, with their little savings. They wore assailed, as they were, crossing the river, by some malicious Scotchman. He began to pelt them with stones, as the « Otago Times' is now pelting poor Biddy with his types and printing press. On their remonstrating, this Scotch ruffian struck one of the party to the ground, and killed him with a heavy stake. At the trial, an attempt was made by the prisoner s counsel to shake the evidence of the chief witness, the comrade or the murdered man, by some broad insinuations that Irishmen in general had little respect for truth. On this the Judge—Scotchman though he was— indignantly remarked, addressing the counsel, that he would not sit there to listen to any such unjustifiable reflections upon the character of any class of H.M. subjects. After the witness had fimslied his evidence, and before he left the court, the Judge said to him : "An attempt has been made to throw suspicion on your evidence by the counsel for the prisoner in a very unjustifiable manner, and I cannot allow you to go without saying I never m fche course of my judicial experience, heard testimony given with more fairness and evident honesty and truthfulness than you have given in this case. Notwithstanding the provocation you had received from the prisoner you have not shown the slightest animosity against him, nor any attempt to exaggerate the circumstances of the atrocious crime which he has committed, in depriving one of your comrades of his life in the cold-blooded manner he did." An attempt was made to prove the prisoner insane, but that would not avail him and- he met the doom he justly deserved, and he was hanged. The only excuse the ruffian had for his crime was, that some one had told him, as it appeared untruly, that the Irishmen had been ill-using his nephew, a young lad. It is much to be feared be was prompted to the infernal deed chiefly because his victim was Irish, one of the natives of that country against whom Scotchmen, and Englishmen too, are led almost from their cradle to cherish an ungenerous antipathy. The bigotted, the prejudiced low-bred and low-born Scotch 1 and English may indulge in such feelings against Irishmen, yet there are many among them who, like the Scotch Judge referred to, are superior to such prejudices, and judge and treat Irish men and women with, justice. The Government and those in high station, as a rule are now well-disposed to them. Not so the Press. Strange that any ill blood should exist between the Irish and Scotch. They are of the same stock— Celtic in their origin, and possessed of many fine virtues in common.

Had it not been for that foul revolt from the Church in the sixteenth century, the people of the two countries might have lived in peace and friendship at this day. Bufc good and evil, justice and injustice, truth and error, will ever remain in conflict till the end comes. What we Catholics of all nationalities have to do is to look well to our own ways ; to see that ye are faithful and loving to our Holy Mother the Church ; obedient to tne voice of her pastors. Then we may bid our bitterest enemies— the ' Otago Times ' included— do their worst. To use the words of Archbishop Manning, "We fear them not.'

Of this we may be certain, that the more faithful we are to our own creed, and the more we practise its duties, the more will Protestants of all kinds respect and trust us. No small amount of the prejudice existing against Catholicß arises from some being practically unfaithful to their Church. J

■d o t-i n i ■ ■, Scotch Ckm. ■^• !5 -~ 1 should have said that when an attempt was made to prove the murderer in the above case insane, the Judge resented it as somethmg like an affront to the majesty o£ the law, so barefaced was it The man was, no doubt, insane in a certain sense, his mind being pos-" sessed with national and religious prejudice to an insane degree The • Otago limes' shows a simUat .insanity, though in a milder form! when he attempts to destroy poor Biddy's prospects, if not her life, by a savage attack on her m its paper. * '