BY THE WAY.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 258, 9 February 1889, Page 4

BY THE WAY.

In the “ Correspondence of Mr O’Connell,” recently published, the following amusing anecdote is related with reference to a case in which O’Connell was engaged as counsel: —An unfortunate man was charged with the murder of a neighbor. The circumstantial evidence appeared so extremely strong that the prisoner was given up by his friends for lost. The man was asked by the judge if he had anything to say on his own behalf. The case looked nearly desperate and the humane judge addressed a few words to the prisoner in the discharge of a formal duty, but without the least idea of their having any practical effect. The man did have something to say, and the step he took was to produce a very important witness in his favor. This witness was no other than the neighbor who was supposed to have been murdered! This was of course incontrovertible evidence.

Thereupon the tables were turned Of course it would not do to convict the man of murdering a person still alive. It appeared to be clearly the duty of the judge to inform the jury that they must bring in a verdict of “ not guilty.” This they could do at once, but the jury preferred to retire. They therefore retired and remained absent for a few hours. At the end of that time they returned into court, and the foreman handed in a verdict of guilty. The judge, as sometimes judges are when they have stupid juries to deal with, was betrayed into an unseemly exclamation. He asked, “Of what is he guilty ?—not of murder, surelyP” “No, my lord, 11 said the foreman, “ but if he did not murder that man, shure, he stole my gray mare I” I have read of a story where the jury persisted in bringing in a man not guilty, although he pleaded guilty. “ Why, gentlemen," said the judge, “ did you not hear him declare himself guilty?” "yes, my lord; that’s why we' acquitted him, for the fellow is such a notorious liar he never told a word of truth in his life."

I see that the plan of oo*operation has been adopted by the working tailors of London, as a remedy for the sweating system, and no doubt if it is successful it will likewise be extended to other branches of trades. The plan proposed is to raise a fund of some 8000 £1 shares, payable in small weekly instalments. With this shops would be established. The tailors would be virtually their own employers, and as, after expenses had been paid, the profits if any would be divided among the shareholders, they would reap the benefit of their own labor. This society has already been in existence since April last and has 800 members. . The scheme appears to be a modification of that suggested by Mr Bees in his pamphlet on Land, Labor, and Capital, but of course has jo connection with it. Anything which will overcome the terrible evils of the sweating system will be extremely welcome, and no doubt the present experiment is being keenly watched.

By the way Mr Bees does not seem to be progressing so favorably with his present emigration scheme as augured. No man at any rate had better opportunities than Mr Bees of succeeding, and it is safe to be said that if Bees does not succeed it will, not be for want of trying. I never did admire Bees’ style of going to work. He always started big and came down. Possibly this course is due to his legal training, for lawyers, I believe, always fly at high game in the chance of getting at least something. What men like to see is a fellow who starts modestly and by dint of perseverance gradually gets higher and higher. However, I wish Mr Bees every success. He means well I have no doubt, and if he fails—well, I suppose he has judged the consequences. Mr Bees seems at least to have got on the right side of the press correspondents if we are to judge by the frequent reference to himself and his mission.

A story reaches me which is too good to be lost. It is a tale of political prejudice against the Irish, and tells now a certain party was inspecting a picture illustrative of the Times-Par-nell Commission in session. Ab each face came under his notice he volunteered remarks upon it, favorable or disparaging as the case might be, afterwards referring to the key-block to I see whom the face represented. So long as he kept to the judges and prominent persons in court whose identity could not be mistaken he was very successful from his own point of view. It was, however, when he reached the less prominent personages that he found his task becoming difficult and his character readings not»so successful as he could wish. The climax was reached when he selected one figure to vent his prejudice upon. “ Bloodthirsty Fenian,” “ unhung villain,” and other more or less opprobrious terma were applied to him. “ You can see the murderer in his face.” On referring to the key-block the abused person was found to be no other than Mr Buckle, of the Times!

By the way, what a curious phase Irish affairs are assuming. Here we have the Irish Chief Secretary speechifying at Dublin, maintaining that crime was diminishing; m other words that respect for the law was increasing, while almost at the same instant we have the spectacle of O’Brien escaping from court and being encouraged by an enormous crowd of sympathisers. He passes through a country swarming with police and eventually emerges upon an English platform—and all this in a country which is learning to respect the law ! Immediately following this incident we have the arrest of an Irish priest effected under great difficulties and culminating in an Inspector of Police losing his life. Surely these events portend something P In another country they would be looked upon as the inception of a rebellion. AV hen a simple arrest occasions a riot there cannot be much respect for the law.

One step nearer a water supply for Gisborne. For several years past we Lave been accustomed to have this question resuscilated every summer

regularly, only to be cast on one side, directly the first shower of rain came. We are very much like the negro who objected to repair the thatch on his cottage because when it was dry he didn’t need it and when it rained it was too wet to do it. We shall not at any rate be overcome with joy at the news that we are likely to have water, for we have been so long and gradually prepared for it that even a •500,000 gal supply in twenty-four hours would not move us. Were the time employed in discussing water supply as well as in calculating its probable cost and the various other details necessary to a water supply scheme, to be. reckoned up, I think it would run . into the good part of a man’s lifetime, to say nothing of that life being shortened by the various trips in search of water and the junketings and what not connected with them.

A very curious defence was put forward by a man charged before the Stratford Magistrates with obtaining food and lodging by false pretences. It appears that he had gone to a coffee-house and represented that he had been sent by Miss Cordeaux, a philanthropic lady living in the neighborhood. Miss Cordeaux stated that she knew the prisoner and had assisted him on several occasions, but at length refused to help him any longer because he would do nothing to help himself. The prisoner said that he was at a mission service on the previous Sunday at Walthamstow and that Miss Cordeaux, who was speaking there, used the expression “ Whatever ye ask in my name it shall be given unto you.” He thought this remark applied to him personally, so he went to the coffeehouse and asked for food. The Magistrates thought the tale was “ too thin,” and showed their opinion of his pretended simplicity by sentencing him to six weeks' hard labor. Mark,’