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Leader (1850-1860), 1st January 1853, Edition Country of 3, Page 13

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      Struggles Of Protestantism In Piedmont. ...

      _tatesmen have interpreted the doctrine of nonntervention ; interpreting it to mean that despots , emporal and spiritual , shall conspire to do all h ey like against body and soul , and that , all lliances and sympathies notwithstanding , free Pr otestant England will let them . But Lord John -Russell accedes to the Foreign _Office , and people are watching for a better egime . ' '

      January 1, 1853.] The Leader. 13

      January 1 , 1853 . ] THE LEADER . 13

      Mr. Kirwan's Reprieve. [ Ve Ventured A F...

      MR . KIRWAN ' S REPRIEVE . [ Ve ventured a fortnight since—when it was ather a bold thing to do so—to consider the _lirwan case , though it apparently involved only he life of one rather dissolute member of society , sa public affair , and to protest against any Irish ury ' s introducing into our courts of justice the nghly p arliamentary , but very improper , practice ftrying merely nominal issues , and , in fact , irecting their attention to a review of the acused ' s whole life , while professedly addressing _hemselves entirely to a particular accusation . Ne suggested that it was decidedly a dangerous recedent to establish , this of catching up a man n the vaguest suspicion , and , after ticketing urn as an immoral and dangerous character , _rev esting that he will provide counsel to show ause to a necessarily prejudiced jury why he hould not be immediately hanged . We pointed o the fact that a jury had found a man guilty of urder when doctors even could not say that his leged victim was murdered at all ; and where , ven supposing—which we have no right to supose—that she had met a violent death , there was _0 proof , and no argument , save his presumed otive , that it was at his hands she died . With ais part of the question we have done . The prieve of the wrongly convicted man is an adissionby the Crown lawyers that an act of insticewas about to have been committed ; his pardon , " which must follow as soon as the new inistry have fairly settled down to their duties , ill , to the satisfaction of the public and the smay of Mr . Justice Crampton , confirm and tablish on a surer basis than ever , the doctrine r which we have contended . But though , in the onset , we deemed it desirle to divest the case as far as possible of the mantle of mystery , " to use Judge Crampton ' s elodramatic expression , with which the particuiticsof the evidence had surrounded it , we nnot resist offering a word or two now b y way remark upon the character of the testimony nchwas so fully believed at this remarkable ai , and upon the quantity of vulgar malice and Irish imagination which was infused into it . the first p lace , it may be noticed , as illustrating e strong faith both of the bench and of the y in every utterance of the prosecution , that o statements , calculated to prejudice the case the prisoner , were mado by Mr . Smyly as ho mmenced—were credited throughout _^ though ver proved , and though no witness was ever leu

      to prove them—and finally wero admitted _0 the scale , which they then turned against . Kirwan . These facts , taken on the word of _* . Smyly , were , that Mr . Kirwan had lived olve years with a mistress , which turns out to true ; and that M rs . Kirwan hael only recently _ctrateel this secret , which proves to bo false _, nt such assertions , unsupported by any testiny , should have gone feirth unchallenged by bench , anel been allowed to weigh with the y , strikes us as remarkable ; perhaps it is only di . fowever , wo will leave this question , anel _seo d _. new light has been thrown upon the subject e last we addressed ourselves to its eonsider-> n . Ve begin with a declaration , dated 22 nd l ) eiber , and made b y Mrs . _Robert Bentley , wife _solicitor in Dublin , who was from her infancy he most intimate terms with Mrs . Kirwan , who _aflirms that that lady invariably stated ertliat " a more quiet , gentle , good-natured , enerouN-heartod man than her husband never d- ' Mrs . Bentley says further , " solemnly sincerel y , " that to her knowledge , as well as of several members of her family , the late Kirwan was fully acquainted beforo the extton 0 f onc m ( mtft after her marriage , with Kirwan ' s connexion with the woman Kenny : she exhibited very littlo excitement or ' ion on the subject , and not even any except n instigated by a busybody called Mrs . ne . What becomes , after this , of the theory lho discovery only took place six months

      _Bince , and that the murder was committed in consequence of the quarrels to which that recent discovery gave rise P Mrs . Bentley also tells us that the deceased lady was subject to fits . Mr . Arthur Kelly similarly declares that he , who was an assistant to Kirwan , and had therefore constant access to his house , remembered Mrs . Kirwan ' s having two fits , lasting each half an hour ; and Anne Maher , a servant girl , remembers her

      _naving one . Jb or tne very best reason possible , these witnesses were not called at the trial . That part of the defence attributing the death to this cause was only decided on at the last moment . When the prosecution , with State funds at its command , has been three months preparing itself , while the poor accused is asked all in a hurry to collect his ideas and his money , post-haste , for the defence , it is scarcely to be wondered at if all that could be said in his favour is not ready by the day when it is required . Of the value of Mrs . Campbell ' s testimony we spoke very early . A lady who repudiates her own statement on the ground that it was not made in form , may save herself the legal consequences of perjury if she can establish her excuse ; but to p lace reliance on her afterthoughts , even when she does "kiss the book , " is to offer a premium to falsehood , and to make a farce of the administration of justice . We have read of an attorney , ( Murphy , in Fielding ' s Amelia , ) who argued with some plausibility that the man must he hard-hearted who woulel . not put his lips to calfskin to save the life of a fellow-christian ; but , we suspect , even that respectable practitioner would have been cast if he had endeavoured to show that the same operation might be virtuously gone through to take it away . Pat Nangle is the next person of consequence , and he swore to a great many things , and adhered very doggedly to them all . But if Kirwan had his motives , Pat also had his . Pat , it will be remembered , was the man who first found the body , and then the clothes , and who had some statements , which he considered very damning , to make , as to both those discoveries . It struck us , from the first , as a curious coincidence , to say the least of it , that this man ' s recollection of events should be so much better at the trial , three months after the occurrence to which it referred , than at the coroner ' s inquest , which took place at once ; and we also observed , not without " taking a note" of it , that , according to the counsel for the prosecution , he had had the extreme delicacy to alter Mrs . Kirwan ' s position before his companion , Mick , or Mr . Kirwan came up ; in other words , that he was , by his own act , the only person who saw her with the sheet , of which we have heard so much , underneath her , and in the attitude which he described . Here , again , the " mantle of mystery " is removed ; for Mr . Jackson , in a declaration , made an the 22 nd of December , says ho had frequent conversations with tho Nangles , who told him that Kirwan " appeared ashamed on seeing

      his wife so exposed , and ran for a sheet to cover her , and did cover her with it . " They never altered this statement , though he often spoke to them , nor ever made mention of a sheet being found under Mrs . Kirwan . Another gentleman , Mr . Robert Jackson , lets us quite into thc secret of Pat ' s opinions . He tells us that when the hearse came to the door , the Nangles offeree 1 obstruction , and demanded payment before the corpse could be permitted to pass . Tim payment in question was demanded after the inquest , but before the trial ; meanwhile was taking place the change in Mr . Nangle ' s recollection ol * the facta —a coincidence , at any rate , and a notable one , when placed in conjunction with the statement of Catherine Brow , who declares that " the said Patrick Nangle expressed himself to her thus' If I am called upon again , I will pinch him , 'meaning Kirwan . " Mr . Nangle ' s metaphor is not difficult of _ comprehension : he has pinched the man who did not pay him enough , rather forcibly ; anel lie has used the moral , but mistaken , jury as his nippers . Hut there is no use in going further into details . Thero has been a terrible miscarriage of justice , anel it will , we doubt not , be remedied , so far as it can . Tho question is , how far can it ? Of course ? , tho reprieve is merely the hurried act of an outgoing Minister ; the absolute pardon comes from the new Government . And this is one of the absurdities of our criminal law . ' . If Kirwan had been concerned in a suit involving one-tenth part of what his defence has cost him , ho might havo had an appeal . If ho could havo

      _satisfied the court , in any civil case , that injustice had been done in the name of law , he would have been unhesitatingly granted a new trial ; but , inasmuch as it is only a life at stake , all he can do is to pray for Royal mercy , and to ask functionaries in the hottest bustle of politics to give ear to his petitions , and rectify the error of which he has been the victim . Had his trial not been an extraordinary one , it never would have

      been read ; tne press would , never nave interposed : the Crown would have referred to the judges who tried him ; they would have expressed themselves satisfied that he deserved hanging — no matter , apparently ,. by the Irish code , for what , —and he would have been ignominiously executed , ostensibly for a crime he never committed . As it is , he will be sparedruined , no doubt , but graciously pardoned , notwithstanding ; for in this instance a commutation of the sentence is a logical impossibility . Either he is guilty , or he is innocent ; if not executed , he must , as far as may be , be reinstated in his former position . But are we to congratulate ourselves upon this ? When the Royal prerogative has extended to Mr . Kirwan the boon of liberty , will the judge apologize for taunting him with his " present degraded and disgraceful situation ; " and admitting once more that those words of insult were not " mere words of course , " explain why he went beyond his " oflicial duty" to hurt the feelings and arouse the passions of the helpless wretch before him ? Of course he will not ; and of course he is very much affronted that the timely interposition of the press has postponed for Kirwan that eleventh hour at which , with ( for so pious a man ) a curious forgetfulness of his precedent , Mr . Justice Crampton informs us in his sentence , some have repented and believed . It is exacting more than is in human nature , to require any recantation from a gentleman who perfectly sympathised with , if he did not help to obtain , the verdict ; who , improving the occasion , delivered a sermon on the temporal and eternal consequences of adultery , of which the moral was , that nobody who kept a mistress ever escaped hanging , and who—there being no gaol chaplain at Dublin , we imagine—wound up by explaining in open court , for the general edification of the young , how " in the short period left to him in this world , " this reprobate and murderer was to obtain " everlasting happiness" and " a crown of eternal glory . " To ask a judge who has said such fine things as these to consider whether they would not be as well unsaid , is to ask what we are perfectly certain not to obtain . Is it not equally ridiculous to let the question of pardon lie with him ? Is not an appeal ab codem ad eundem an absurdity ? Would neit Kirwan have been hanged , but that the newspapers spoke out for the people , and that the people ' s demand for justice wa . s stronger than the Dublin jury ' s appetite for refreshments and horror of adultery P

      " Brother" No. " Iii." I Great Has Been ...

      " BROTHER" NO . " III . " I Great has been the elesiro to adopt Louis J Napoleon as Superintendent of _Polie _^ e for the I party of Order in the disturbed district of France ; but a serious practical difficulty has been encountered by his friends anel patrons the Powers of tho North ; and the conduct of England has complicated their difficulty very considerably . The potentate's of the North , champions of order , find ne ) _difliculty in recognising I lie conqueror of France , who surprised the capital e > f his native country at midnight , ; obtained it by a great expense of bloodshed ; vie > lafcd more _? than one constitution ; and now sits in defiance of legitimate inheritance . It might have been expected that the fact of his claim to sit for 8 , ( HM ) , ( K )() eif the' _peeiplo would also constitute a difliculty ; and so it _elexas . Ne > t , indeed , that the fact of universal suffrage is an insuperable objection even to the _despeits of tbe North . They eh > not _eilije-etl , to tho ii , 7 , or 8 , < XM ) , 0 ( X ) , or any number of millions Avhich ho may choose to reckon as his specific Hupporterb ; but they object fe > his saying ho . It would , no doubt , be an awkward precedent , if if were recorded solemnly , that a throne ( tan derive its right from " Ihe million . " heir te ) recognise tho will ofthe Milliem as a right , is to recognise tho want of that will as the want of that right ; and then , Where woulel the potentates bo ? As fhe coachman of Ihe old ways said , after tho modern railway crash , they would be "Nowhere . " Thero lias been a difficulty in recognising

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 1, 1853, page 13, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_01011853/page/13/