le--crawled from it--like a crippled murderer from
the scene of his crime.

This closed the case for the crown, and Mr. Crean, counsel for Mr.
Lalor, rose to address the jury on behalf of his client. His speech was
argumentative, terse, forcible, and eloquent; and seemed to please and
astonish not only the auditors but the judges themselves, who evidently
had not looked for so much ability and vigour in the young advocate
before them. Although the speeches of professional advocates do not come
within the scope of this publication, Mr. Crean's vindication of the
national colour of Ireland--probably the most telling passage in his
address--has an importance which warrants its quotation here:--

Gentlemen, it is attempted in this case to make the traversers
amenable under the Party Processions' Act, because those in the
procession wore green ribbons. Gentlemen, this is the first time, in
the history of Irish State Prosecutions which mark the periods of
gloom and peril in this country, that the wearing of a green ribbon
has been formally indicted; and I may say it is no good sign of the
times that an offence which has been hitherto unknown to the law
should now crop up for the first time in this year of grace, one
thousand eight hundred and sixty-eight. Not even in the worst days of
Lord Castlereagh's ill-omened regime was such an attempt as this made
to degrade the green of Ireland into a party colour, and to make that
which has long been regarded as a national emblem the symbol of a
faction. Gentlemen, there is no right-minded or right-hearted
man--looking back upon the ruinous dissensions and bitter conflicts
which have been the curse and bane of this country--who will not
reprobate any effort to revive and perpetuate them. There is no
well-disposed man in the community who will not condemn and crush
those persons--no matter on what side they may stand--who make
religion, which should be the fountain and mother of all peace and
blessings, the cause of rancour and animosity. We have had,
unhappily, gentlemen, too much of this in Ireland. We have been too
long the victims of that wayward fate of which the poet wrote, when
he said:--

"Whilst our tyrants join in hate,
We never joined in love."

But, gentlemen, I will ask of you if you ever before heard, until
this time, that the green of Ireland was the peculiar colour of any
particular sect,