wife and five children, and, on the whole, passed for one of the most prosperous and well-conducted boys in his barony. All this, however, did not prevent his being "given to understand. by the Clerk of the Crown," at the summer assizes for his native county, that he stood indicted in No. 15, for that he, on a certain night, and at a certain place, feloniously and burglariously entered a certain dwelling-house, and then and there committed the usual misdeeds against his majesty's peace and the statute; and in No. 16, that he stood capitally indicted under the Ellenborough act;* and in No. 18, for a common assault. I was present at his trial, and still retain a vivid recollection of the fortitude and address with which he made his stand against the law; and yet there were objects around him quite sufficient to unnerve the boldest heart- a wife, a sister, and an aged mother, for such I found to be the three females that clung to the side bars of the dock, and awaited in silent agony the issue of his fate. But the prisoner, unsoftened and undismayed, appeared unconscious of their presence. Every faculty of his soul was on the alert to prove to his friends and the county at large, that he was not a man to be hanged without a struggle. He had used the precaution to come down to the dock that morning in his best attire, for he knew that with an Irish jury, the next best thing to a general good character is a respectable suit of clothes. It struck me that his new silk neckkerchief, so bright and glossy, almost betokened innocence; for who would have gone to the unnecessary expense, if he apprehended that its place was so soon to be supplied by the rope? His countenance bore no marks of his previous imprisonment. He was as fresh and healthy, and his eye as bright, as if he had all the time been out on bail.

When his case was called on, instead of shrinking under the general buzz that his appearance excited, or turning pale at the plurality of crimes of which he was arraigned, he manfully looked the danger in the face, and put in action every resource within his reach to avert it. Having despatched a

* A law passed by the British parliament, at the instance of the late Lord Ellenborough, chief-justice of England. It provided punishment for such offences against the person as "cutting and maiming, or mayhem.”—M.

LARRY CRONAN'S TRIAL.

35

messenger to bring in O'Connell from the other court,* and beckoned to his attorney to approach the dock-side, and keep within whispering distance while the jury were swearing, he "looked steadily to his challengers," and manifested no ordinary powers of physiognomy, in putting by every juror that had anything of "a dead, dull, hang look." He had even the sagacity, though against the opinion of the attorney, to strike off one country-gentleman from his own barony, a friend of his in other respects, but who owed him a balance of three pounds for illicit whiskey. Two or three sets of alibi witnesses, to watch the evidence for the crown, and lay the venue of his absence from the felony according to circumstances, were in waiting, and, what was equally material, all tolerably sober. The most formidable witness for the prosecution had been that morning bought off. The consideration was, a first cousin of Larry's in marriage, a forty-shilling freehold upon Larry's farm, with a pig and a plough to set the young couple going. Thus prepared, and his counsel now arrived, and the bustle of his final instructions to his attorney and circumstanding friends being over, the prisoner calmly committed the rest to fortune; resembling in this particular the intrepid mariner, who, perceiving a storm at hand, is all energy and alertness to provide against its fury, until, having done all that skill and forethought can effect, and made his vessel as "snug and tight" as the occasion will permit, he looks tranquilly on as she drifts before the gale, assured that her final safety is now in other hands than his.

* Mr. O'Connell's success with juries, whether in criminal or nisi prius cases, was very great. He went the Munster circuit (which included the southern counties of Ireland-Clare, Limerick, Kerry, Cork, and Waterford), and almost invariably held a brief for the defence in all criminal prosecutions. His business on circuit was so great that, except in very important cases, he could not read the prisoners' briefs. But the attorney for the defence used to condense the leading facts and set them down on a single sheet of foolscap, and O'Connell usually found time to peruse and master them, during the speech of the crown counsel for the prosecution, relying on his own skill in the cross-examination of witnesses and his power with the jury. Like Belial, he "could make the worse appear the better reason,' as many an acquitted culprit had cause to know and be grateful for.-M.

The trial went on after the usual fashion of trials of the kind. Abundance of hard swearing on the direct; retractions and contradictions on the cross-examinations. The defence was a masterpiece. Three several times the rope seemed irrevocably entwined round poor Larry's neck-as many times the dexterity of his counsel untied the Gordian knot. From some of the witnesses he extracted that they were unworthy of all credit, being notorious knaves or processservers. Others he inveigled into a metaphysical puzzle touching the prisoner's identity; others he stunned by repeated blows with the butt-end of an Irish joke. For minutes together, the court, and jury, and galleries, and dock, were in a roar. However the law or the facts of the case might turn out, it was clear that the laugh, at least, was all on Larry's side. In this perilous conjuncture, amid all the rapid alternations of his case-now the prospect of a triumphant return to his home and friends, now the sweet vision abruptly dispelled, and the gibbet and executioner staring him in the face

-Larry's countenance exhibited a picture of heroical immobility. Once, and once only, when the evidence was rushing in a full tide against him, some signs of mortal trepidation overcast his visage. The blood in his cheeks took fright and fled a cold perspiration burst from his brow. His lips became glued together. His sister, whose eyes were riveted upon him, as she hung from the dock-side, extended her arm, and applied a piece of orange to his mouth. He accepted the relief, but, like an exhausted patient, without turning aside to see by whose hand it was administered. At this crisis of his courage, a home-thrust from O'Connell floored the witness who had so discomposed his client; the public buzzed their admiration, and Larry was himself again. The case for the crown having closed, the prisoner's counsel announced that he would call no witnesses. Larry's friends pressed hard to have one, at least, of the alibis proved. The counsel was inflexible, and they reluctantly submitted.

The case went to the jury loaded with hanging matter, but still not without a saving doubt. After long deliberation, the doubt prevailed. The jury came out, and the glorious sound

of" not guilty," announced to Larry Cronan that, for this time, he had miraculously escaped the gallows. He bowed with undissembled gratitude to the verdict. He thanked the jury. He thanked "his lordship's honor." He thanked his counsel -shook hands with the jailer- -sprung at a bound over the dock, was caught as he descended in the arms of his friends, and hurried away in triumph to the precincts of the court. I saw him a few minutes after, as he was paraded through the main street of the town on his return to his barony. The sight was enough to make one almost long to have been on the point of being hanged. The principal figure was Larry himself, advancing with a firm and buoyant step, and occasionally giving a responsive flourish of his cudgel, which he had already resumed, to the cheerings and congratulations amid which he moved along. At his sides were his wife and sister, each of whom held the collar of his coat firmly grasped, and, dragging him to and fro, interrupted his progress every moment, as they threw themselves upon him, and gave vent to their joy in another and another convulsive hug. A few yards in front, his old mother bustled along in a strange sort of a pace, between a trot and a canter, and every now and then, discovering that she had shot too far ahead, pirouetted round, and stood in the centre of the street, clapping her withered hands and shouting out her ecstasy in native Irish, until the group came up, and again propelled her forward. A cavalcade of neighbors, and among them the intended alibi witnesses, talking as loud and looking as important as if their perjury had been put to the test, brought up the rear. And such was the manner and form in which Larry Cronan was reconducted to his household gods, who saw him that night celebrating, in the best of whiskey and bacon, the splendid issue of his morning's pitched battle with the law.*

* Phillips relates that at the assizes of Enniskillen, Plunket once defended a horse-stealer with such consummate tact, that one of the fraternity, in a paroxysm of delight, burst into an exclamation, "Long life to you, Plunket! The first horse I steal, boys, by Jekurs, I'll have Plunket!" John O'Connell tells an anecdote of his father, which is worth repeating. He defended a man charged with highway robbery, and by an able cross-examination procured his acquittal. Next year, at the assizes of the same town, he had to defend the

The profusion of crime periodically appearing upon the Irish calendars, wears, it must be admitted, a very tremendous aspect; quite sufficient to deter the British capitalist from trusting his wealth within its reach. Yet, from the observations I have had an opportunity of making, I am greatly inclined to think that instances of pure, unmitigated, unprovoked invasion of life and property would be found (every requisite comparison being made) to be, upon the whole, less frequent than in England. The hardened, adroit, and desperate English felon, embracing and persevering in crime as a means of bettering his condition, is a character that, with the exception of two or three of the capital towns, has few counterparts in Ireland. The Irish peasantry have unquestionably increased in fierceness within the last twenty or thirty years; yet, as far as outrages upon property for the sake of gain are concerned, it is never the genius of a people so poor and contented with so little, and that little so easily procured, to become gratuitous thieves and highwaymen. They have too little taste for even the necessaries of life to risk their necks for its luxuries. At seasons of unusual pressure, and under circumstances of ресиliar excitement, they are less abstinent; but even then they violate the laws in numbers and as partisans, and their murders and depredations have more the character of a political revolt than of a merely felonious confederacy. In truth, it may be almost said that, in the southern districts of Ireland, the only constituted authentic organ of popular discontent is midnight insurrection. If rents are too high, if the tithe-proctor is insatiable, if agents are inexorable and distrain with undue severity, the never-failing Captain Rock instanter takes

same man, under charge of having committed a burglary, with violence nearly amounting to murder. The jury discredited the Government witnesses, could not agree on a verdict, and the prisoner was discharged. Again, O'Connell had to defend him- -this time on a charge of piracy-by demurring to the jurisdiction of the Court, the offence, committed "on the high seas," being cognizable only before an Admiralty Court. When the man saw his successful counsel turn round to the dock, in which he stood, he stretched over to him, and, raising eyes and hands most piously and fervently to heaven, cried out, "Oh, Mr. O'Connell, may the Lord spare you to me!"-M.