SHOCKING BRUTALITY

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XII, Issue 23, 26 September 1884, Page 21

SHOCKING BRUTALITY

(Dublin Freeman, August 2.) Will it be believed in Dublin that since the Twelfth of July no fewer than one hundred Catholic workmen who had up to that date been employed in the shipbuilding yard of Messrs. Workman and Clarke, Belfast, have been turned out by force by their Protestant fellowlabourers ? It is perfectly true. Eight Protestant workmen were before the magistrates yesterday charged with cowardly assaults on some of the one hundred. On one occasion two Catholics were thrown bodily off a bridge into the river, as tho lgh they were dogs that could strike out instinctively for their liven. We cannot say how the men were rescued, but that they were put in grave peril is uudeniable, and that, too, in presence of a mob of two or three hundred fanatics, who looked on at the savage outrage approvingly. Nobody was made amenable for this disgraceful occurrence. The eight pri oners were accused of assaults of an altogether different character ; but in every instance the offence— the only offence— of the victim resided in his being a Catholic. The conspiracy was manifest ; the violence was palpaule ; the evidence, for the sake of the credit of the town, was only too complete. Yet imprisonment for three months was the heaviest penalty awarded. The hope was expressed in court by the solicitor for one of the prisoners ibat an end of such outbursts was at hand— that the outrages would not be repeated. Bat the prompt answer of the Sub- Inspector of Police was, that the persecution had been persevered with to the bitter end. That very morning the last two of the one hundred had been turned out, and there is not a Catholic now in Messrs. Workman and Clarke's employment. Could intolerance farther go ?