uke to the government officials. It was, he
said, no doubt the strict legal _right_ of the crown to act as it had
done; yet, considering that this was a case in which the accused was
accorded no corresponding privilege, the exercise of that right in such
a manner by the crown certainly was, in his, Mr. Justice Fitzgerald's
estimation, _a subject for grave objection_.

Here there was what the newspaper reporters call "sensation in court."
What! Had it come to this, that one of the chief institutions of the
land--a very pillar of the crown and government--namely, _jury-packing_,
was to be reflected upon from the bench itself. Monstrous!

The charge, though mild in language, was pretty sharp on the
"criminality" of such conduct as was _imputed_ to the accused, yet
certainly left some margin to the jury for the exercise of their opinion
upon "the law and the facts."

At two o'clock in the afternoon the jury retired to consider their
verdict, and as the judges at the same moment withdrew to their chamber,
the pent-up feelings of the crowded audience instantly found vent in
loud Babel-like expressions and interchange of comments on the charge,
and conjectures as to the result. "Waiting for the verdict" is a scene
that has often been described and painted. Everyone of course concluded
that half-an-hour would in any case elapse before the anxiously watched
jury-room door would open; but when the clock hands neared three,
suspense intense and painful became more and more visible in every
countenance. It seemed to be only now that men fully realized all that
was at stake, all that was in peril, on this trial! _A conviction in
this case rendered the national colour of Ireland for ever more an
illegal and forbidden emblem_! A conviction in this case would degrade
the symbol of nationality into a badge of faction! To every fevered
anxious mind at this moment rose the troubled memories of gloomy
times--the "dark and evil days" chronicled in that popular ballad, the
music and words of which now seemed to haunt the watchers in the
court:--

"Oh, Patrick, dear, and did you hear
The news that's going round?
The shamrock is by law forbid.
To grow on Irish ground.
No more St. Patrick's day we'll keep--
His colour can't be seen,
For there's a bloody law again
The Wearing of the Green."

But hark! There is a noise at the jury-room door! It opens--the jury
enter the box. A murmur, swelling to almost a roar, fr