MR. SULLIVAN'S SPEECH.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VIII, Issue 416, 1 April 1881, Page 19

MR. SULLIVAN'S SPEECH.

(From the Freeman.') By general consent the events of the State 1 rials have been the speeches of A. M. Sullivan yesterday, and of Mr. Adams the previous evening. Mr. Adams discovered a- vein of rich, manly, genial eloquence — bold in ideas, brilliant in diction, and frauk in delivery, which carried his audience with him headlong, and gave him a distinct rank among " the coming men" of his profession. Mr. Sullivan rose early yesterday, after an excellent and businesslike little speech from Mr. Luke Dillon. The Court was at the time more thronged with friends and foes than at any moment of the trial. Ladies brightened every spot where there was room, and a giod many spots wfcese there was not. In brilliant battalions they stormed not alone 51 r. Goodman's domain under the bench, but the traversers 1 seats, the barristers' seats, and the press gallery itself — that "gloomy shore" where the reporters were no safer than St. Kevin from the enterprise of bright blue eyes. Mr. Sullivan surprised, captivated, fired, melt* <1. put passion in the hearts and drew tears from the eyes of this varied assemblage in a manner which those who heard him will never forget.

To say that a man "electrifies" a mixed audience is a trite and, generally speaking, a ridiculous compliment; but the word alone conveys any idea of the current of sympathy, the involuntary thrill, the almost giddy sense of painful delight that ran through the court — now in triumph, now in tears— at the will of the orator. It was a speech the impulse of which one obeyed as naturally and irresistibly as he would weep for a dead friend or rage against a wrong done under his own eyes. Even they who were mail-clad against his arguments were perfectly carried off their legs with admiration and emotion. Celtic oratory has had no such triumph in our day. and will not soon again. Some of the jurors themselves could not refrain from applause. The roar of cheers from the gallery and in the hall, the hand-sliakings of the bar, the bouquet which conveyed on behalf of the ladies the tribute which their tears had still more eloquently paid, expressed but feebly the effect of an oration which thrilled the very officers of the Court, and brought a mammoth policeman after Mr. Sullivan as he left Court to hug him.