The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1887-09-17 00:00:00

OPENING OF AN INQUEST.

The inquest on the body of the man Michael
Lonergan, who was killed in the affray with the police,
commenced at four o'clock on Saturday afternoon,
before Mr. Richard Rice, coroner for the East Riding
of Cork. About 500 people were present, and among
those in attendance were Mr. T. H. Gill, M.P., and
several English gentle paen. The jury having been
empannelled, the coroner addressed the jury at
length, and said it was clearly within the right of
every person affected, no matter whom it might be,
to give evidence. They should go into the matter to
the fullest extent, and whatever the verdict, he would
be bound to accept it.
Mr. Walsh, a gentleman present, commented on the
Youghal verdict, and said they would get similar
satisfaction from the Government. The inquest was
adjourned.
MR. O'BRIEN ARRESTED.

Mr. W. O'Brien, M.P., was arrested at seven
o'clock on Sunday evening while bidding good-bye on
the mail steamer to Mr. Labouchere and Mr. Brunner,
M.P., on their departure for England to take part in
the debate on the Mitchelstown affair. The arrest
was effected on board the steamer by Superintendent
Reddy, the chief of the detective department of the
Dublin Metropolitan Police. Mr. Reddy told Mr.
O'Brien that he would not arrest him until Monday
if he assured him that it was not his intention to go
to England. Mr. O'Brien, however, declined to give
any undertaking on the subject. Mr. Reddy, on
the way to Dublin, informed Mr. O'Brien that he
was instructed to take him to his hotel until the
morning if he would undertake not to make a speech.
Mr. O'Brien said he should give no such undertaking.
Ultimately Mr. Reddy consented to allow Mr. O'Brien
to go to his hotel to get his luggage without
requiring from him any pledge. The party then
got into a cab at Westland-row Station, but their
being many idlers about that place, the news of
Mr. O'Brien having been arrested soon spread, and
the nucleus of a crowd was quickly formed, and fol-
lowed the cab, the numbers of the mob increasing as
the conveyance approached Sackville-street. Cheers
were given for Mr. O'Brien all along the route, and
the cheering continued right up to the doors of
the Imperial Hotel, where Mr. O'Brien alighted, in
company with his escort, and proceeded upstairs to
his room. The crowd outside rapidly increased, and
soon reached halfway across the street. Cheers were
repeated, and calls were made for a speech from the
windows of the hotel. It was some time before Mr.
O'Brien appeared, however, and in the meantime he
was engaged in conversation with Mr. Harrington in
his room, and in packing up his belongings to take
with him. Mr. Leamy and other sympathisers also
arrived at the hotel to see him before he left. Ulti-
mately about nine o'clock Mr. O'Brien walked down-
stairs to the coffee-room of the hotel, and the window
having been opened, 'no stepped out on the balcony
in the presence of a now very large crowd of people,
who received him with loud and protracted cheering.
When partial silence had been secured he said,—
Fellow countrymen, I am under arrest here to-night,
and I have been told that I must not open my lips.
(Loud laughter.) They are welcome to gag my mouth
as soon as they please—("No, no," and cries of " Not
yet,")—but until they do so, and so long as I have
breath in my body my voice shall not be silent—
(cheers)—and as long as I have thousands of you
here to greet me, I shall tell you of the sympathy I
feel, and the sympathy of the men who will follow in
my footsteps. (Cheers.) There is no action of my
life of which I am more proud than of the fight
which I humbly made for the hearths and
homes of the people of Mitchelstown—(cheers)—and
every night that I sleep upon the prison plank
bed I shall sleep more soundly than Mr. Balfour
—(load groans)—for I well know that while I sleep
on the plank bed the people of Mitchelstown, thank
God, can sleep under their own roofs, and that they
are safe from the clutches of the Crowbar Brigade.
I will not trust myself to speak of what took place
at Mitchelstown—(a Voice: ',Hurrah for Tipperary ')
—and of the cold-blooded and cowardly murders.
(Groans.) I will only say that I am proud of the men
who held the square at Mitcheletown—loud cheer-
ing)—and I shall be proud to suffer for such men and
for such a cause to-night. When I went down to
Kiegetown to see our Englisb friends off to London—
(cheers)—with not tho smallest intention of leaving
Ireland, for I have not the least notion in the
world of disembarrassing the Government of my
presence, I w ss told to-night that I would be arrested
if I went on the boat to England, but that I would
not be arrested if I did not. They are beginning to
be half afraid of us in England—(cheers)—and I
promise you—these men of course only carry out
their instructions—l promise you that if the Irish
people can only act with the heart and with the spirit
of the men who held the square in Michelstown—
(cheers)—the day is coming, and is coming fast, when
the bayonets will fall out of the hands of our enemies
in Ireland, and that as I am going to-night to Dublin
Castle a prisoner—(a Voice: No," and groans)—the
night will come soon when we will go to Dublin Caitle
as visitors in the Irish cause. (Cheers).
. _

The crowd had grown to such dimensions during
the delivery of Mr. O'Brien's speech that a special
detachment of police had to be told off to keep the
people from crowding on the footpath. The crowd,
in expectation of the departure of Mr. O'Brien from
the hotel for the Castle, remained about cheering and
shouting, and the commotion was increased by the
arrival of several fife and drum bands, which played
"God save Ireland" and "Auld Lang Syne." No
occasion, however, arose for the interference of the
police.
Mr. O'Brien was allowed to remain at his hotel
during the night.
GOVERNMENT AND THE RIOT.

The fatal attack by the police on the people at
Mitchelstown was the subject of an informal debate in
the House of Commons on Saturday. In the early
part of the sitting Mr. Sexton asked for information,
and the Attorney-General for Ireland (the Chief
Secretary being absent) replied that the Government
had not received any official account. At a later
period Mr. Sexton again asked for information, and
Mr. Balfour said the Government had received a
report which differed in every vital and substantial
particular from the statement which the hon. member
had made (derived from the newspapers.) The right hon.
gentleman went on to defend the conduct of the police,
and to declare that they fired on the people in self-
defence. In the course of his speech he referred to
what had happened to the people as "retribution," a
word afterwards noted by Sir E. J. Reed, who made
an emphatic protest against what he deduced to be
the doctrine of the Lief Secretary, that if the people
of Ireland assembled in public meeting did not sub-
mit to be pushed about arbitrarily by the police, and
to be batoned, if they were not quiet under that
treatment, then they were to be shot down. The
information of the Government, he said, came from
the incriminated parties, and was tainted at its
source. Among the subsequent speakers were the
Attorney-General for Ireland and Mr. Halley
Stewart.