observation was, at least, inopportune, and for me unfortunate.

"I will not speak my feeling on the fact that in the arguments in the
case in the Court for Reserved Cases, the Right Hon. the
Attorney-General appealed to the passions--if such can exist in
judges--and not to the judgment of the court, for I gather from the
judgment of Mr. Justice O'Hagan, that the right hon. gentleman made
an earnest appeal 'that such crimes' as mine 'should not be allowed
to go unpunished'.--forgetful, I will not say designedly forgetful,
that he was addressing the judges of the land, in the highest court
of the land, on matters of law, and not speaking to a pliant Dublin
jury on a treason trial in the court-house of Green-street.

"Before I proceed further, my lords, there is a matter which, as
simply personal to myself I should not mind, but which as involving
high interests to the community, and serious consequences to
individuals, demand a special notice. I allude to the system of
manufacturing informers. I want to know, if the court can inform me,
by what right a responsible officer of the crown entered my solitary
cell at Kilmainham prison on Monday last--unbidden and
unexpected--uninvited and undesired. I want to know what
justification there was for his coming to insult me in my solitude
and in my sorrow--ostensibly informing me that I was to be brought up
for sentence on Thursday, but in the same breath adroitly putting to
me the question if I knew any of the men recently arrested near
Dungarvan, and now in the prison of Kilmainham. Coming thus, with a
detective dexterity, carrying in one hand a threat of sentence and
punishment--in the other as a counterpoise and, I suppose an
alternative, a temptation to treachery. Did he suppose that seven
months of imprisonment had so broken my spirit, as well as my health,
that I would be an easy prey to his blandishments? Did he dream that
the prospect of liberty which newspaper rumour and semi-official
information held out to me was too dear to be forfeited for a
trilling forfeiture of honour? Did he believe that by an act of
secret turpitude I would open my prison doors only to close them the
faster on others who may or may not have been my friends--or did he
imagine he had found in me a Massey to be moulded and manipulated
into the service of the crown, or a Corridon to have cowardi