THE CROSSMAGLEN PRISONERS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XII, Issue 13, 18 July 1884, Page 9

THE CROSSMAGLEN PRISONERS.

(Dublin Freeman, May 24.) The effort of Mr. Lynch and Mr. Healy to induce the House of Commons to appoint a Select Committee to inquire into the facts connected with the conviction of the Crossmaglen prisoners has been a failure. Michael Waters was one of these prisoners, and is now dead. He was some eighteen years of age when convicted, and was about the last person, from appearance, that one would accuse of conniving at assa c siration. A short experience of convict life settled the youth. He pined and died~died in prison, his jailers failing, though hia ea*e was hopeless a month before he expired, to extend to him the melancholy indulgence of breathing his last among hia relatives at home. Tbe motion of last week had reference to the possible innocence of the convicts. The informer Duffy, upon whose evidence they were found guilty, was a man of bad character notoriously, and the genuineness of the books containing the names of members of the Patriotic Brotherhood was certainly not unassailable. Mr. Healy went over all the facts, and said that, if granted a Select Committee, he wnutd bring forward two hundred witnesses to prove his statements and disprove the Crown case. It fell to the lot of the Solicitor-General to reply to Mr. Healy. Mr. Parnell, speaking subsequently, said the dei'ence of the Solicitor-General made the conduct of the Irish Executive more callous than it had previously appeared. The English Home Secretary. Sir William Harcourt, brought a virgin mind to the consideration of the case as presented to the House on both sides. He said he had not known anything of it before, and had listened to the statements with great attention. He was net of op'nion that a Select Committee should be granted, but undertook that jus ice should be done if afterwards it should appear that at the trial some vital evidence had not been forthcoming, or that there had been an improper appreciation of the facts. Mr. Healy was apparently in no humour to quarrel with the Home Secretary. On the contrary he thanked him for hia speech ; and as the ri<ht hon. gentleman had referred to Earl Spencer as the mo3t fitting person to deal with the case, Mr. Healy promised that all the facts should " be submitted to his Excellency, though several memorials had previously been forwarded to him, and had not been replied to. Mr. Lynch, at the suggestion of Mr. Healy withdrew his motion, and the matter dropped. We quite agree with Sir William Harcourt and Mr. Parnell as to ths advisability of having a Criminal Court of Appeal. One of th.3 Crossmag en convicts, Bernard Smith, has been released on the ground of ill-health, but the public impression is that he was liberated because he was considered innocent. If a Court of Appeal existed, this case would be a most proper one to bring before it. Most fairminded people who read the evidence given at the trial, and took the character of Duffy into account, and the finding of the incriminating books where he was able to say they were concealed, were satisfied that there was at least a doubt in the case. In the circumstances, " and seeing that Sir William Harcourt was not quite convinced that the case made by the Solicitor-General was irresistible, but tbat he was disposed, on the contrary, to facilitate his Excellency, if he could in examining the facts, it might have been well if the Select Committee had been granted,