JOHN DALY'S PRISON TORTURES.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVIII, Issue 4, 23 May 1890, Page 31

JOHN DALY'S PRISON TORTURES.

The people of Limerick on Sunday (says the Cork Herald, March 22) held a large public demonstration to protest against the prison treatment of John Daly. The case of John Daly and other political prisoners demands immediate inquiry. The agitation should not rest until the prison horrors are dragged into the light of day and the great wrongs of the unfortunate prisoner redressed. The question of the prisoner's guilt or innocence has nothing whatever to do with the propriety of this agitation. If guilty, Daly, no doubt, woild have a terrible crime on his head. Whatever might have been the feelings of the Irish people on the subject of pure physical force, certainly no appreciable section of them ever sanctioned the use of dynamite or looked upon it with any otber feelings save those of horror. Grave charges are made against the fairness of Daly's trial, and it is declared by many that he was " trapped," and what that means those who know bow many agents provocateurs have been in the employ of the British Government can well understand. But, if he were guilty a hundred times over, it is the right and the duty of the public to demand that he shall not be treated worse than a dog would be treated. There is, indeed, no comparison— in a British gaol. It ia admitted that he has had poison administered to him. "In mistake," adds Home Secretary Matthews, the man who climbed into Parliament on the shoulders of the Fenians. Bat is human life held so cheap in a British gaol that a prisoner can be poisoned even in mistake without someone being made to suffer for it ? If a prison doctor has given poison to John Daly in mistake we think the public, in the interest of aU poor prisoners, are entitled to demand the retirement of that officer from bis position as the best guarantee that such a thing will not happen again. If " friend " Delaney, the would-be murderer, was nearly poisoned in mistake, he would probably be amnestied immediately as some compensation to a man who underwent such an ordeal. The only compensation to Daly seems to be fresh rigour and renewed brutality. We know how carefully chut out from the life of the world a poor convict prisoner is. The gate of the prison closes over his life with a security less only than tbat of the tomb. Yet from out the prison walls have come from time to time ecchoeaof what baa been happening. And fortunately for John Daly it has been bo. The charge which is now made on the best of evidence is, that Daly, because he was convicted of a crime with a political motive, is treated on that account worse than the vilest criminal in penal servitude. The Government admit that this prieoner has got poison "in mistake." Any GovernmeHt which had justice on itß side would not in such a case for a moment resist the demand for a thoroughly independent inquiry.