Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVI, Issue 50, 5 April 1889, Page 1

Current Topics

AT HOME AND ABROAD.

On Feb. 2od, the following cablegram was THB HONKB ' received here :—": — " The solicitors of tbe,Land League OF THE CAB deposed before tbc Times-Parnell Commission that the league defrayed the cost of tbe deftneof the mnrderers of 1 1 Mountmorris and others. Constables swore that they seized the ms and documents in possession of Walsh and Tobin, Land League o/ t nisers, the documents showing that Fenians were organising men and providing arms and ammunition in the North of England. f?ir C. Russell quarrelled with Sir James Hannen for admitting this evidence." With regard to tbe first paragraph of this cablegram, for " the solicitors of the Land League" we must read, aocording to the full report published by the Tiinet, Mr. Patrick J. B. Daly, a solicitor who practised in Bal Unrobe, County Mayo, up to last summer. The examination of this witness, who was not as implied in the cablegram tbe regular solicitor employed by the League was chit. fly this : — " Did you defend a number of cases during your practice in Ballinrobe ? — Yep, I defended Daly and other persons charged with firing at Smith, the agent of the Marquis of Sligo, near Ballycovy ; also the persons charged with tbe murder of Lord Mountmorres ; also persons charged with the murder of Wullin. I also defended in the case of tbe Ferrick murder, the Huddy murder, the Gibbons murdar, the Freely murder, and the murder of Bourke, the herd, at Balla. in Mayo. I also defended from 15 to 20 or 30 persons charged with offences under the Whiteboy Acts. I defended in the case of the Aughamore outrages on process servers, and in the case of the B tllinlough outrages. I defended rioters in Mayo between the years 1879 and 1882. I also defended in several cases of malicious burnings. 1 defended in the case of the Kil vine riots when the pToceas servtrand police were driven back, and io the Ballinlough case in Roscommon. That was the case in which a process officer

named Abraham had his eye knocked out. Duiiag what years did these events take place?— Between 1879 and 1883. Who instructed you ? — I generally received my instructions trom the parties themselves or from some local person". Did you communicate directly in any way with the Land League ? — No, not in regard to murder cases. What did you do about yoar costs I—l1 — I got paid by the Land League miscellaneous costs amounting to between £300 and £400. DiJ you get instructions from anybody connee'ed with the Land League? — Ytß, from several local members of the League and from Mr. Walsh, of Ballft, who was acting as a kind of local agent in the West at the beginning of the agitation. Hia name is John Walsh. He is in Australia, I believe, now. He was a commercial traveller. Hive you had instructions from anybody else directly connected with the central offices of the Land League 1— None, except that Mr. Walsh informed me that he had instructions from Mr. Davitt and Mr. Egan to get me to defend cases, and that I would be paid Mr. Biggar. — The greater number of these people whom you defended were acquitted, were they not .' — I do not thitik they were convicted except in the Huddy case, fit-examined by the Attorney-General. — You defended all the persons charged iv that district ? — Yes. The President.— You said 'just now, "I did not communicate wi'h the Land League in murder cases"? — Yts, my Lord. What did you mean ? I received no direct instructions from any persons connected with the Land League in murder cases. I do not believe the Land League knew anything about these murder cases, but that they were •imply the outbursts of local agitation." — What was suggested by the cablegram to which we rtfer was that the •olicitors of the League had been engaged in defending on the part of the League men who were the actual murderers of Lord Mountmorres arid others. What was swon b fore the Commission was that a local solicitor, having no connection with the League, had been engage \ to defend men who in every case except one had been acquitted — the witness at the same time testifying to his conviction that the League had had nothing ta say to the murdeTs But to defend innocent men from a charge of murder can hardly be regarded as a participation in crime. The second paragraph of tbe cablegram although not so complete and miFcbie\ous a misrepresentation is stil unfair and exaggerated. It was true, as eta'ed, that constables gave

evidence to implicate a man named Walsh who had been an organiser of the Land League in the North of England in Fenianism and the importation of arms, and to show that he bad been associated with a man named Tobin in whose house arms had been found. But to say that Sir Charles Russell " quirreUed " with Sir James Hannen for admitting this evidence was unfair. Sir Charles Russell, did no* piotest in any way against the evidence concerning Walsh. His first protest was against the evidence touching Tobin, whose name he said did not appear in the proceedings at all. He protested further agains the production of a letter which he said from itß intrinsic fact* most refer to the year 1866 on 1867, — and, finally against tbe reading of a letter which bore neither date nor signature. As to other documents produced, Sir James Hannen himself said be did not see their bearing as they dated from 1875. The suggestion of the cablegram, meantime , was palpably that Sir Charles Russell had been alarmed at the whole evidence against Walsh and Tobin, whereas, taking it at its worst, it seems to h»vo bad but little bearing on the case at issue. We see again, that the cable agency has been systematically dishonest in the reports of the Commission it has forwarded to the colonies.

A WABNING

Profkssoe Huxley has written in the Nineteenth Century a history cf his religious opinions, which shows us in a very striking manner the darkness in which the enlightenment of the period involves those who entrust themselves to its guidance. Tne writer tells as he set ontin life from the strictest school of Evangelical orthodoxy, and with little donbt as to the truth of what he had been taught. His speculations by the way, nevertheless, iocluriing a melancholy reverie as to the rise of mankind— if me it can be called —from the condition of the brute, landed him at last in what he calls the " dark depths of a wild and tangled forest." where, for aught be kaowe, he mu9t abide for ever. He found the numan race proceeding from ra scry to misery, marking every step of progression made by them with the blond of ihose who haa first attempted to make them move on. '-The best men of the best epochs, 11 he say 0 . " are those who make tha fewest blunders and commit the fdwest sins." Rut what are blunders and what ard sinß in a world where all h dark, and why ah)ult nit th • brut : legiti - tituately turn on them who dis'urb him m his path, if all they can do after all is to lead or urga him to plunge further into the depths of a wild and tangled forest — albeit such are the proper habitations of the brute / Professor Huxley, however, is no i ilusionist. Ho dot s not point out to us a world lying b yond the realms of our experience and to be gained over tbj ruins of all we venerate to- Jay. He gives the benefit of the doubt even to the rjligiou* systems that exist, and finds in Christianity for those who believe and practise it, much that is encouraging, consoling an \of great practical advantage. The Piofe^ssor's example, meantime, is one that ahoul I serve as a useful warning, For him personally, bearing sill about him, in spite of himself, some remnants of a Christian past, occupied with high intellectual pursui's and djvoted to science, the darkness of the wild and tangled forest may be comparatively harmless, gloomy and terrible as must its contemplation be. But for weaker minds, for less elevated tastes, for men of diff reut antecedent?, knowing nothing of Christianity from their childhood, as, for example, the Secularist ß would bave them, those murky depths, the proper habitation of the brute, might well become brutish indeed, and the last state of the race would probibly prove to be worae than the first, admitting the first to have b ci what Professor Huxley believes it was. From this perplexity, therefore, of a sincere and candid man, a useful lesson is to be deiived.

A CUBIOUS CASE.

The case in which the Bishop of Lincoln has been tried before an episcopal court for ritualistic practices ia excess of what his Church is alleged to permit is ote of some interest. The B shops appointed as judges, we ree, have concluded their investigation, but have not as yet delivered judgment. It is a case, indeed, in which their Lordships may well feel it incumbent on them to be careful. Although, ac i: is certam that in one quarter or another they mufet give dire offence, no degree of care on their part will prove effective. We may, for example, take as suggestive o£ what must be the result a meeting held in Londou previous 10 the trial, and at which representatives of ti e great paries in tLe Church— Evangelical, High Church, ami Broad

Cburcb, not to speik of the varions modifications— attended for the purpose of coming to a compromise. Tho result was that scarcely two persons in the room, as we learn from the Becord, being agreed on the right course of action to be pursued, the meeting dispersed ■without arriving at any decision, or appointing a time for re-assem-bling. It is, however, consoling to learn that a courteous and becoming lone was maintained throughout by all the speakers. All tbe utterances, nevertheless, made on the subject have not been becoming nor courteous. One high authority, that is Lord Grimthorpe, for example, speaks more than once in a tone of levity in letters to tho Times, as, for instance, when he refeis to the Bishop's " paper mitre," and, in alluding to the probability of its occasionally tunr ling off, hopes that some pious lady has introduced his Lordship to the use of hair-pins, " which," as the writer elyly remarks, " impart more stability to still more perilous-looking structures now-a-iays." Lord Grimthorpe, nevertheless, speaks of himself as belonging to a party once known as the " highest except Papists.' — The Bishops, then, may well be afraid to deliver their judgment. Whatever their decision may be wars and rumours of wars must be the consequence. The divisions that tear the Church of England will certainly be made the more apparent, and if tbe Bishop of Lincoln is to play the part of a martyr — as some people predict — his martyrdom can but mark the nearer approach to its fall of a housa divided against itself.

AN UNIOBTUNATE EVENT.

The murder of Inspector Martin at Gwesdoie has been one of the most lamentable events that mark the course of the liish agitation. Nor does it take away from the sad circumstances of the case that it •eems to have been due to the malevolence as well aB the mismanagement of the authorities. It could have been malevolence only and a desire to provoke a riot (hat led to the decision to have a priest arrested as he came out of his church on Sunday, and in the middle of hiß congregation— at the very time, moreover, when the mind of the people was seething because of the treatment given (o Mr. O'Rrien at Clonmc 1 . The day was that, in fact, on which ihe great indignation meeting wa9 held in the Phoenix Park. The mismanagement consisted in the presence close by the scene of the catastrophe of a police officer with eighty men, who had been ordered to assist Inspector Martin and hts body-guard of four constables, but who, by some bungling or another, was detained at a little distance until 11. c lamentable deed had been done. The question, however, arises as to whether the butchery of the ] eople which in all probability, aud iv ail probability aecoi ling to intention, would have taken pace bad this .stiong body ot men been on thu spot, might not rnve been still wor^e than the muidcr of otic man that uctu.il ly (ci'umi 1 . 'Jim details of tin event, which we cull from two new-pap. 19 iquilly hostile to the lush people, that is, the Lyndon 'Ju/h^ and thu Ljihloii 'fabht, we c briefly us follows : — Father McFaddi n, on coming out of hisehuich after saying Mass on Sunday, Februny .'}, and still wearing his soutane and buetta, was acosted by Inspector Mm tin. The priest a^ked for the warrait, which was Hho*vn him. and he tl.cn surrendered himsjlf an 1 piocie. lod up a walk which le 1 to lv-> house, the Inept ctor holding his suut-n< . Toe people, meantime, thronged around and began a lire of slicks an I stones, thur excitement appealing in the tact tbat the pncst himself was struck. Inspector JMartin, at the same time kept slashing about him with hi° swoid. On the partj'a ati-ivni^ hurriedly an I m contusion at the do-T of the house, Mm McF.id.Jen, a sister ot the priest, caught hoKl of her brother and pushed him inside, Ins soutane being torn by the Inspec. toi's grip of it, and the door was shut. Inspector Maitin was then altaekeJ, and the p>iicemea picsent not boin^ able to obey his command to tire, in addition to being btiuck down by stones, wa9 be>ten savagely mUi sticks. Miss McKaiden who had remained out«de, and who found it difficult to avoid the missiles thrown, seung this cried out that a man was being killed , ani the priest came immediately to a window and called to the people to des st — which they did — and ran .away. Man in, every ooie io whose skull (xcept one was broken, survived oily an hour or twoKuca are in subbtance the facts of the case as we find them in ihe hostile 'Junes end 'lnbht. It is, we may rtmark in passing, somewhat curious tbat about the same time a constable was murilered in a some wbat fciiniL.r wny in lLnglan ', The cr;rue,ns wd learn from the Tunes of January 28, wis committed at Wieckenton, a village neai G »techeid in Dvirnnm, by a man n<uned Wilkinson. Wilkinson it Bjerß H had been hnci at the instance ot the constable lor Inwlmg and indecent language, and r-setiting this, lay wait for his unfortuna tC victim in the village street, and, in ihe (ro&cnce of seveial peop'c, Btabbed him there to the heait with a carving knif. 1 . s nking Lim al o when he had fallen with his own baton three or four blows across the back cf the head. It is hard, meantime, to see how Father M'Fadden can be justly implicated in the murder at (i weidore — which was committed enly wht 11 his b.ick was turned, and that evidently without his voluntary action. When he heard from his Bister of wba t was takiog pl«ce he came at once to the assistance of the Inspector, Bljd reecuci him from his abaailants, but unfoituuately too late to save

his life. Coercion, however, is now the rule in Ireland, and it iioot easy to answer for the course to be taken by jastice under its control.