Papistical sider how far your own minds go with it; that if a man desires

judicial

argument against

truth. Judge

Willes dis

likes plainspoken truth.

Pius IX. and his English accomplices,

&c.

to be free himself, the proper way to establish freedom is not by insisting that his opinions shall be absolutely taken for gospel and for truth; he must be free himself, and allow freedom to others; and there can be no true freedom in any country in which any person, whatever position he may happen to hold, and certainly no true freedom, in which any person who chooses to set up as editor of a newspaper is allowed to impute, without foundation, the offence of treason or of rebellion, or such terms as villain,' and the others mentioned in this document, to people, merely because they happen to be members of a religion, and because they, being sincere members of that faith, also have a desire that others should think as they do, and should go to heaven the same way."

Passing over, for the present, the numerous instances in this passage of assuming the whole question, which should have been left to the jury, we may remark that the learned Judge places Mr. Ousely in the position of as absolute an assailant, without just cause and without provocation, as were Pius IX. and his English accomplices in that famous aggression, in the first authenticated missile of which the nation was declared to be heathen, its religion heathenism, and its religious laws and constitutions of non-effect, and, in truth, non-existent. It may not be known to Mr. Justice Willes, but certainly it is not known to Protestants in general, because they very little trouble themselves about what is or can be said about them and their religion in the Roman Catholic press of England and Ireland, that for a long time that press has teemed with the coarsest abuse of the The Roman religion and people of this country. The Roman Catholic press press teems has no room to complain of want of freedom; neither have Roman Catholic priests in the addresses which they deliver to their congregations. What Mr. Ousely found himself warranted Protestant in saying by the evident objects of this secret association, formed religion. by some of the numerous foreign jesuits of this country, and by the plain meaning of the certificate of Darbey's admission into the unlawful confederacy, are honeyed words in comparison with what is weekly, if not daily and hourly, issued from those pure sources, in coarse abuse of all that Englishmen deem sacred and reverential. This has been observed by a most intelligent designs and foreigner, who is well acquainted with the secret designs, tactics, the Catholic and government of the Roman Catholic press, both here and newspapers. abroad. "Whilst, taking as a whole," says M. Gavazzi, "the

Catholic

with the coarsest

abuse of the

Secret

tacties of

the press

Protestant newspaper press of the metropolis, there are probably Mr. A. Ga not four columns weekly devoted to Catholic matters, and these vazzi and written with moderation, and almost entirely free from personal attack, there are scarcely, among all the Catholic journals put together, four columns weekly consisting of anything but the most virulent abuse of Protestants and Protestantism." And on this account alone, he exhorts Protestants to dismiss their contempt of their deadly enemies, and to take in their doses of ineffectual venom; adding as an inducement, that "the Catholic newspaper press is under the immediate surveillance, control, and dependence of the Catholic hierarchy. Woe to the editor who should dare to oppose the bishop or his church! He would Deadly soon be denounced from the pulpit and his journal interdicted." enemies of What is done regularly by the press, we are informed, is also newspapers. done in the pulpit. One prompts the other. It may be so, or it may not; the matter is not worth a thought; but it is worth while to observe, that as soon as a writer appears, like Mr. Ousely, who can give a score of Rolands for a single Oliver, a furious outcry of intolerance is raised, and he is harassed with Intoleranca the trouble and cost of defending an action for libel, which is cry of P. brought in the vain hope of extinguishing the freedom of all the st press but that which is commanded by Popish bishops. In the present instance, this worthy object is promoted by the judicial lecture on Mr. Ousely's mistaken notions of freedom.

Protestant

the usual

The jury are told, what nowhere appears in the evidence adduced on the trial, that the defendant insists that his opinions shall be taken for gospel and for truth. He states his opinion, and it will puzzle a wiser judge to discover where or when he insists upon its being received without doubt or exception. It does not appear to a plain Englishman that this is the way in which a jury should be charged. It is not within the province of a Judge to create prejudices in the jury against any party in a civil cause. He also tells the jury that the defendant used the A jury words alleged to impute certain offences, "without foundation;" forced to comply whereas it appears, not only from the alleged libel, but from with the other parts of the Judge's speech, that there were two founda- advocacy tions-the society, and the certificate of admission. Ilis Lord- Willes. ship also treats as wholly unproved the fact that Darbey was a member. It is proved by the certificate and Darbey's admissions in his evidence.

We shall be very much astonished if the verdict of a halfPopish jury can be allowed to stand, after another court shall

2

of Judge

have reviewed this eccentric trial, and heard the evidence which his Lordship rejected, without condescending to inform himself how far it bore upon the case. Whatever can throw light upon the object of a secret society of foreign Jesuits is of the first importance to the country, as well as to the defendant; and the intention to acquire information on that subject would, most assuredly, at any time have fully justified a wide departure from the jog-trot practice of the courts.-Morning Advertiser, 10th April, 1856.

Lord

opinion

upon judicial proceed. ings.

PAPISTICAL MORAL EDUCATION.

IRELAND AND IRISH JUSTICE.

To the Editor of the Morning Advertiser.

"The children of Irish people aro educated in the art of falsehood. They are rewarded by their parents when prevaricating successfully, and scolded for equivocation only when it is awkwardly performed." - Miss Edgeworth on Education.

"It is a privilege to comment stringently, and, if necessary, severely, on the proceedings of courts of justice; freely to canvass their decisions, and, if need be, to hold them up as erroneous."-Lord Campbell, House of Lords, July 6, 1855.

SIR,-I beg to say, that I fully concur in your remarks of Campbell's the 3rd inst., having long entertained the same views respecting the "depravity of morals and vice of perjury" belonging to Ireland. My Lord Campbell is so obliging as to say he would have no objection to go the Tipperary circuit. That, we may all admit, would benefit Tipperary. But, while the Irish have said "Ireland for the Irish," I say, "England for the English." Let us not have in return any Tipperary justice here, until Irish repute for truth stands a little higher than it does at present.

Tipperary justice, truth, and law.

Sir John
Shelley's

late motion

on the state

of the Irish

bench.

Sir John Shelley's late motion on the state of the Irish Bench, taken with the case of Talbot v. Talbot, as more recently discussed in the House of Commons, are a fresh evidence of what Ireland is, and of the notions of justice in the minds of Irish lawyers. The general ability and integrity of the English lawcourts is such, that there are few cases in which the public call for any Parliamentary inquiry touching the decisions of our judges or juries. Their character is commonly so far relied on, that it is generally a shock to public belief to call it in question. ing remarks When, some time back, the Times presumed to make disparaging learned remarks on a learned judge, now recently retired on account of

Purity of English courts of law. Disparag

on a

judge.

law.

his suffering from partial deafness, we recollect the proper disgust with which those remarks were received, and that the writer felt immediately called on to explain away his flippant impertinence. That writer now becomes brother advocate with The Times and a legis Mr. Whiteside, in the Talbot v. Talbot case. He thinks it lative scorwrong for a House of Commons to interfere in matters where pion of the the tribunals of the country have to do. Nevertheless, he has several times of late pandered to the foolish opinion that our common juries are unfit to try a criminal case; and the other day he pleased his readers by anticipating the law, and had Paul and Company all executed and gibbeted in his own print, before the "tribunal" had begun to try them. This is so much reason why we should resist any interchanges of justice with "Tipperary." The Times itself, in these cases, always savours of the potato.

Irish law

compared.

We know how much the good or bad of law depends on the mode of dealing it out, independently of what it commands: and it is an old fact, too well known, that English law and Irish law are, in this respect, not one thing. There is something English in the whole air of an Irish court to make justice cry out- law and "Mercy on us! is this a place subject to the control of decent English government?" If such be the case in public trials, how much greater the danger where individuals are exposed to it from perjury, slovenliness, or error in judgment, there being, with them, an absence of that national interest which all have in a proceeding where the Government is the moving party, or a person is accused of some offence against society at large.

tion.

The case of the Queen o. O'Connell, afterwards turned into O'Connell v. the Queen, appeared to the world, spite of all the volumes of Hibernian speech, never to have been understood by anybody till it got to be discussed in England. That case, as treated in Ireland, will remain a perfect monument of Irish Irish legal legal botheration. The Irish part of the business seemed to bothera have consisted in bench, bar, attorneys, and all tying one great hard knot, the undoing of which was impossible until it came into English fingers. Mr. Whiteside was one of the most fluent and long-winded confounders on that noted occasion. And, as that gentleman has thought proper to speak with so much con- thaw. fidence in the House, he, like a great many of his class from An honour"Tipperary," is open to that criticism which Lord Campbell Tipperary says may be permitted even with an English judge.

One of the judges, of whose advanced age Sir John Shelley

A longcon

winded

founder of

able

lawyer.

who pro nounced

the

dastardly judgment

against

Mrs. Talbot.

Suborned

and perjured witnesses

of the Irish

The judge complained, was the judge who pronounced the judgment, or sentence, against Mrs. Talbot. Her case, as put on her behalf, and in the most condensed form, is, that her husband, wanting to be rid of her, got up against her an infamous and false charge, and preferred and sustained it by the means of perjured evidence, together with alleged admissions of her guilt, those being obtained from her while in a state of insanity produced by the charge itself. To this is added the fact, not questioned, that there was perjury-some of the witnesses acting in the inquisition. bribery of others to swear falsely; and further, that some of the witnesses, said by the judges themselves to be perjured, are referred to as giving a part of the evidence on which the judgment against the lady was professedly delivered.* On whichever side the right in this case be, it is a case peculiarly belonging to the "Tipperary" region of proceedings at law; one which, however faulty English justice may have become, makes the English mind shrink with horror. It is a case, in practical result, sadly happily fitting in with that moral training of the little Irish described in the words of the Irish lady quoted above. Mr. Whiteside's speech is too full of error and pernicious tendency to be allowed to escape Englishmen unnoticed. He Whiteside, starts with half jocularly treating the offence of adultery as "nothing extraordinary in many fine ladies." At this, the Enniskillen. House could not help exclaiming, "Oh, oh!" It was too much like Mr. Daniel O'Connell's sweeping imputation against English women for their want of purity. Mr. Whiteside assured us that his judge in question was a "most learned, most able, and most upright judge." It may be so. But, Sir, such is the Mr. White- power of compliment in Irish conscience, that if the worst man side's high that ever practised in an Irish court were elevated to the bench to-morrow, and sitting before the Irish bar, I believe it able Justice would require no long hunt to find one of the latter body Such, in professional morals,

Base insinuations of James

Q.C., and

M.P. for

opinion of

Torrens's

professional capable of saying the same of him. morals. is the force of "Tipperary!"

An insolent barrister resists an inquiry

Mr. Whiteside, stoutly resisting any irregular appeal for the English lady, is nevertheless, in the same speech, a stout advocate for the Irish gentleman; and therefore in the House, wherein into Irish judicial he would have nothing stated for her, he reads evidence, states corruption. and urges facts, and draws conclusions for him. If, however,

*Letter to the Honourable Justice Torrens, on the case of Talbot . Talbot, by John Paget, Esq., Barrister-at-Law, with a Report of the Judgment of the High Court of Delegates, delivered on June 14 1855