The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1868-11-28 00:00:00

Crle totirlyib.gc Of!scrber.

SXTLTRDAY, NOVEMIER 18GS.

THE ATTEMPTED REVIVAL OF
FENIANISIVI.

We have just been la:tidally reminded of a
lamentable event which occurred at Manchester
on the 23rd of November, last year. 0:1 that
day three men were executed for the mnraer of
Police-sergeant Brett, who was hut doing his
duty in connection with the then approaching
trial of some Fenians. The ,e three men had
had a most fair trial, and their guilt was so sat-
isfactorily proved, that their conloienatiou mu;
acquiesced in as just by the whole esuntry, the
Fenian faction excepted. It was fit th:it, SO
long as we havecapital punishment at these
men deserved death at the hands of the com-
mon hangman. But by the Fenians, these Melt
—Allen, Larkin, and O'Brien--have been re-
garded as victims of a tyrannous and one-sided
law—as martyrs, indeed, to the cause of Ireland;
and last Solidly was set apart by Feniana in
several Irish towns, in London, and in some
Scotch towns, for the commemoration of the
martyrdom of these so-called victims of Eng-
lish revenge.
If Fenianism is to be judged by the proceed-
ings that have now taken plies—leaving out of
question altogether the theories and wild crot-
chets of this species of rebellion—it will he ut-
terly condemned by every sensilde man. Look-
ing onlY is the demonstration in London. it wss
utterly diseraceful. and it woill.l be beneath
contempt, lint that molt organistitiona of rong,hs
become dangerous. That any genuine political
principles of any kind whatever were represen-
ted by the mob who gathered on Clerkenwell
Green, and "marched " with more than the dis-
order of Falstaff's ragged regiment, to the
" Reformers' tree " in HO° Park, is more than
we can believe. The people were either peer ile•
hided victims of such wonlil-be demagagnea as
Fiuilen or they were wild, lawless numbs,
whom theory of envernment consists in a hatred
of their natural enemies—the police or they
wore mere idler; drawn into the crowd by curb
ositv or love of raritemant. So far sq the
" atienehes " have been reported amld the din
and uproar of the crowd they directly condemn
the speakers. for were the Home Office especi-
ally. and the Government generally what these
Ppe‘lors said they were, these very aperkers
would now he in prison. To select any of the
rabid ntterances of these persona, and serionsly
comment on them, wmill be totinsalt the under-
standing of our readers. Taking them as a
whole, we nifty fairly set them down as rhodo-
montinie, or to use a shorter word, bosh ! They
were pitiable and lamentable. Altogether, the
proceedings of last Sunday have done the strug-
gling and dying cause of Fenianism, consider-
able harm, and in this respect we may, perhaps,
congratulate ourselves on the anniversary dein.
onstrationa. But it may yet became a question,
in Lim interest of public order, whether any
more such demonstrations as that in London last
Sunday shill be allowed. The right of public
meeting is one thing, the right of a disorderly
mob to assemble in the streets and parks, to the
danger of property, and the peace of our fellow
subjects, is another.