mourn--what a victory
for the crown! Oh, sir, they have been for years winning such
victories, and thereby manufacturing conspiracies--driving people
from the open and legitimate expression of their sentiments into
corners to conspire and to hide. I stand here as a man against whom
some clamour has been raised for my efforts to save my countrymen
from the courses into which the government conduct has been driving
them, and I say that there is no more revolutionary agent in the land
than that persecution of authority which says to the people, "When we
strike you, we forbid you to weep." We meet the crown, foot to foot,
on its case here. We say we have committed no offence, but that the
prosecution against us has been instituted to subserve their party
exigencies, and that the government is straining and violating the
law. We challenge them to the issue, and even should they succeed in
obtaining from a crown jury a verdict against us, we have a wider
tribunal to appeal to--the decision of our own consciences and the
judgment of humanity (applause).

Mr. Murphy, Q.C., briefly replied. He asked his worship not to decide
that the procession was illegal, but that this case was one for a
court of law and a jury.

On this occasion it was unnecessary for Mr. Dix to take any "time to
consider his decision." All the accused were bound over in their own
recognizances to stand their trials at the forthcoming Commission in
Green-street court, on the 10th of February, 1868.

The plunge which the crown officials had shivered so long before
attempting had now been taken, and they determined to go through with
the work, _a l'outrance_. In the interval between the last police-court
scene described above, and the opening of the Green-street Commission,
in February, 1868, prosecutions were directly commenced against the
_Irishman_ and the _Weekly News_ for seditious writing. In the case of
the former journal the proprietor tried some skilfully-devised
preparatory legal moves and manoeuvers, not one of which of course
succeeded, though their justice and legality were apparent enough. In
the case of the latter journal--the _Weekly News_--the proprietor raised
no legal point whatsoever. The fact was that when he found the crown not
content with _one_ state prosecution against him (that for the funeral
procession), coming upon him with _a second_, he knew his doom was
sealed. He very c