owever, availed to mitigate
the doom, and on November 23rd, Allen, Larkin, and O'Brien were hanged
outside Salford gaol. Had they striven for freedom in Italy, England
would have honored them as heroes; here she buried them as common
murderers in quicklime in the prison yard.

I have found, with a keen sense of pleasure, that Mr. Bradlaugh and
myself were in 1867 to some extent co-workers, although we knew not of
each other's existence, and although he was doing much, and I only giving
such poor sympathy as a young girl might, who was only just awakening to
the duty of political work. I read in the _National Reformer_ for
November 24, 1867, that in the preceding week, he was pleading on
Clerkenwell Green for these men's lives:

"According to the evidence at the trial, Deasy and Kelly were illegally
arrested. They had been arrested for vagrancy of which no evidence was
given, and apparently remanded for felony without a shadow of
justification. He had yet to learn that in England the same state of
things existed as in Ireland; he had yet to learn that an illegal arrest
was sufficient ground to detain any of the citizens of any country in the
prisons of this one. If he were illegally held, he was justified in using
enough force to procure his release. Wearing a policeman's coat gave no
authority when the officer exceeded his jurisdiction. He had argued this
before Lord Chief Justice Erle in the Court of Common Pleas, and that
learned judge did not venture to contradict the argument which he
submitted. There was another reason why they should spare these men,
although he hardly expected the Government to listen, because the
Government sent down one of the judges who was predetermined to convict
the prisoners; it was that the offence was purely a political one. The
death of Brett was a sad mischance, but no one who read the evidence
could regard the killing of Brett as an intentional murder. Legally, it
was murder; morally, it was homicide in the rescue of a political
captive. If it were a question of the rescue of the political captives of
Varignano, or of political captives in Bourbon, in Naples, or in Poland,
or in Paris, even earls might be found so to argue. Wherein is our sister
Ireland less than these? In executing these men, they would throw down
the gauntlet for terrible reprisals. It was a grave and solemn question.
It had been said by a previous speaker that they were prepared to go to
any lengths to save these