A SHAMEFUL CONSPIRACY.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XII, Issue 43, 13 February 1885, Page 25

A SHAMEFUL CONSPIRACY.

Mr. Campbell- Bannebman (says United Ireland) baa practically confessed to Mr. Sexton a piece of police villainy unsurpassed in the pages of " Body the Rover." A patriotic blacksmith set up business in Tubbercurry, county Sligo. His forge became not only the centre of a roaring trade but the contriving of a shameful conspiracy. With the prayer-book and with the sledge hammer he was equally active in the cause. " After many an action of power and pride " the fate of all daring revolutionists overtook Bartley the blacksmith. Some black traitor gave the police the hard word. They pounced upon the forge, rooted up the floor, and victoriously bore away the little armament of guns and grim etceteras with which the blacksmith was preparing the day of Ireland's freedom. Nothing could have been more romantic. When the bold Bartly sadly but firmly made himself scarce, there were doubtless poetic youths in Tubbercurry ready to match " The Blacksmith of Limerick ", with a versical hero of their own, no less smutty of face and no less leonine of heart. But let us not prolong the agony of the tale through three volumes. Detective Director French fell, and with him fell his detective machinery to pieces. Among other interesting revelations, it turns oat that the patriotic blacksmith was simply a policeman on detective duty. His armory was an innocent " plant "of Mr. French's. The prayer-book was used to entrap green young men into conspiracies to murder and other like gentle aids to promotion in the force. The guns were lent gratis for whatever outrages the active and enterprising murder-smith could set agoing. The forge was, in plain English, a manufactory of the most diabolical murder, conspiracy, treachery, and perjury under the patronage of the Ca6tle Detective Department, if not by direct and special appointment to his Excelleufy 1 Thai is substantially the upshot of the avowal wrung by Mr. wexton from our Scotch Chief Secretary. Yet we are not told that there is to be any special inquiry with respect to a detective department of which such infamies are the monstrous birth. On the contrary, we are left to infer that the policeman lately serving in Tubbercurry in a blacksmith's apron is at present servingin Ulster under the name of Woods, and has doubtless obtained several stripes, if not an autograph letter from Earl Spencer for his services to society. M'Dermott, Noonan, Bartley, the blacksmith — these are but a few of the Detective Director's instruments for the better diffusion of crime and outrage. We are surprised that Mr. Campbell-Bannerman resolutely promises not to give French a fraction of secret service money and that the Crown will on no account admit him to bail. We would, not be a bit amazed if the Crown took effective measures next Commission to " remove " him definitely to penal servitude. They have only to produce the boy Strong, whose evidence they bare hitherto entirely suppressed. A few weeks' liberty with pen and ink and papers, might tempt French into leav-

ing the public some startling memoires a aervir to an understanding of the gulfs of hellish crimes which yawn underneath the present blood-stained regime at the Castle. Who knows but peradventure Hallissey the Blacksmith was simply one of French's chickens 1 His departure for parts unknown may have been only the cover of his translation to the glory of head -const ableship in some warm and loyal corner of Ulster. We are thinking of obtaining a correct photograph of the well-beloved Hallissey, that our northern readers may survey the features of their head-constables and sergeants, and see whether perchance Paste-pot Plunkett's joy may not have passed out of his black apron into gold stripes. United Ireland of a late date says it has fresh evidence that the notorious James M'Dermott is an emissary in the pay of th«s police. The outrages he has planned aie a part of the conspiracy directed from Dublin Castle to bring discredit on the Irish race. The paper reiterates the charge that Edenburn House, at Tralee, was blown up with an infernal machine which was one of the three sent to the county Kerry by M'Dermott. and which had been purchased with British gold, and Mr. O'Brien saye that he had evidence to justify the belief that a large number of the so-called dynamite outrages which had been charged upon the League organizations were really the outcome of plots inspired by fellows like M'Dermott, who, being in pay of the authorities, managed to retain their sinecures by devising or abetting outrages. Mr. O'Brien declares that the Irish Party are determined upon getting at the bottom of the whole business, and that they hope to expose the villainy which the English Government has inflicted apon Ireland in its pretended work of uprooting agrarian crimes. He has the original of a letter written by M'Dermott to a friend, after the latter had left Ireland and reached America, in which M'Dermott admitted that he organized the Millstreet djnamite conspiracy, for which Denis Deasy, who died last May while incarcerated in Chatham Convent Prison, was convicted. In the same letter M'Dermott refers to three infernal machines, which he declares he had despatched to Kerry.