The Express.
London, England, 1853-01-14 00:00:00

THE CASE OF THE COMIC'. KIRWAN.

(From*, Deity New&)
TO TIZ NOITOI.

is a consideration full of deep regret that
therecan be any doubt in our country whether a fellow-
citizen, put on the defensive, can obtain justice in a
case of life and death. It is a fact full of solemnity
that in our country the life of a man can, in
the name of justice, be made a shuttlecock in
tho game of theological and political parties.
But so it is, at this moment and it is a
duty to tell the whole public that it is so,
while yet public opinion may have power to re-
strain the shameless, baffle the malignant, and com-
pel the controversialists to carry their feuds into a
less sacred field. We cannot spare our courts of
justice for such purposes; and we cannot afford the
combatants such a prize for their fighting as the life
of a man.

About the question of KIRWAN'S guilt or innocence,
I need say nothing. That question is in other hands,
where it will be well sifted. 1 know nothing
about the man—never having heard of him but in
connexion with his wife's death. And I choose
the present moment for saying what I have to say,
precisely because it is the moment of greatest uncer-
tainty about his character and deeds—when the world
seems agreed that there is no clear evidence of his
Paving murdered his wife, and when a new charge of
murder is in preparation against him. While in this
utter uncertainty about the man's deeds, let me call
attention to his position in regard to law and
justice.

He had his trial, and was condemned. As soon
as discontent with the conviction began to be ex-
pressed, and there seemed to be doubt whether
the sentence would take effect, slander went to work.
Horrible and indecent charges were set afloat in
Dublin—some in relation to the act of murder itself,
which have been since shown to be groundless ; and
the whole floating malignity was gathered up into
an article which appeared in a Dublin newspaper
on Christmas day. We have all of us seen plenty
of Irish violence in the shape of newspaper articles
in our day; bat anything to equal the mocking
cruelty of this has, I hope, seldom been seen. My
business is with one sentence only. "We would be
loth," says the paper in question, in dreprecating all
action on Emmett's behalf, "to suggest as the
motive cause, that KIRWAN is said to have been a
person of violent Orange principles, and that Mrs.
litawmi became a convert to Catholicity some
months before her death ; but we believe the facts so
to be." This, be assured, affords the key. to the
whole case. I believe that the agitation against the
accused has been, since the sentence, if not before,
one of ecclesiastical quarrel—as every question of
a few weeks' duration is pretty sure to become in Ire-
land.

However that may be—whether KIRWAN be an
Orangeman or not—whether his wife was a Catholic
or not—whether these things had or had not any in-
fluence
in moving citizens in Dublin and Loudon to
procure the rescinding of what appeared to them,
and what appears to all the world now, to have been
an incorrect sentence, the popular view of justice
comes out more strangely from day to day. The I
paper just quoted is right in one thing. It
says that KIRWAN ought either to be hanged
or to go free. He murdered his wife, or
he did not. There can be no gradation of
guilt in such a case. Full reinstatement ought to
be demanded on his behalf (as far as the original
charge is concerned), if he is excused the gallows on
the ground of being innocent, or not proved guilty,
of his wife's death. Oae would think there could
be no doubt about that. Yet it is a fact that, up to
this hour, numbers of Dublin citizens—not the rab-
ble, but men of education and morality—who would
resent any imputation of ignorance, injustice, or
cruelty—are arguing from day to day that if KIR-
WAN did not murder his wife, he " deserves trans-
sportation" for his prior immoralities. They know him
to have been immoral in a way that the law does not
take cognisance of; they accept as truth rumours of fur-
ther sins; they see him tried fora crime which it now
appears probable he did not commit ; and they take
advantage of bit being in jail, and the object of
.po-
pular hatred, to plead for his being transported with-
out his having committed any transportable offence.
They think he "deserves transportation." What
matters it what they think? Unhappily it seems to
signify only too much to the accused man. But they
have no business to think till they have gone and
learned something about what law means ;—what it
is, and what it is for; and why they and he are liv-
ing under a constitution ; and what social rights are.
Till citizens have learned something about citizen-
ship, they have no right to speak, injuriously to
others, about liability to the laws, and penalties
under them. They had better hold their tongues; or,
be their position in life what it may, they will re-
mind all men of JACK CADE, who, according to
' Skaksperean history, when he wanted to get rid of
a man, ordered him to the gallows on the evidence
j of inkhorn and pen.
This behaviour makes men turn to look at the con-

duct and temper of the jury. As the capital sentence
is remitted, it is not necessary to go back to the trial at
all. It is not the present business. But it is the present
business to notice the present behaviour of that jury.
Having given their verdict conscientiously, according
to their oath, as every jury is supposed to do, they
have nothing to do but to be quiet afterwards, unless
their conduct is legally impugned. This jury,
however, is now seen and heard in the thick of
the fight over litawsis's fate. The foreman and
others have published a statement in the
mesairimeso in which they. show that they
knew no more about the meaning of law and justice
than the 'Mune who want to transport KIRWAN
for private immorality. They ought not to come
forward to defend their verdict; bat they do much
worse—they declare their disbelief of all the evidence
which has been collected since the trial, and from the
idea that Mrs. Bremen could possibly have died
from natural causes, and make fierce attacks, on all
who think otherwise upon the question.
It is unhappily nothing new to anybody that an
Irish trial is something very different from the
ordinary British notion of what a trial is meant to
be. It is nothing new (however it might be on the
late trial) that witnesses sometimes perjure them-
selves, that counsel should be partisans, that
should be packed, and, perhaps, that even a iltruilgies
here and there should be infected by the atmosphere
of passion within the court. When, such spectacles
aro seen in oases where property only is concerned,
or where minor offences are charged, we are grieved,
we wonder what can be done, and probably conclude
that the evil of an occasional wrong decision is less
than that of depriving the Irish of trial by juryi—
there being every reason to hope that in a generation
or two, as education improves, they will learn to
value, and guard, and cherish that precious institu-
tion. But, when it comes to a case like the present,
a case of life and death, a ease in which the true
murderous spirit certainly possesses, if not the
accused, a good many other people, it is time for a
pelmet—a solemn pause—to consider what is to be
done.
The power of life and death should never be con-
fided to any society which proves itself ignorant of
the very intent and character of law and justice. If
the one thing or the other must be taken away from
such a community—if they cannot be allowed both
trial by jury and capital punishment, there can be no
doubt which we should withdraw. The agitators
against capital punishment are busy now—and never
more righteously, never in a better time, never in a
better temper (their's seems to be the only good tem-
per in the KIRWAN case), and certainly never in a
more striking cause. If Kumar should be properly
convicted of a dozen murders, and be hanged, not the
less will iiia enemies have the guilt of his murder
on their souls ; for they sought his life
before such a conviction. If he should be
ever so justly sentenced, they will remain markedly
unfit for the highest rights of citizenship, having
proved themselves so hostile to its first duties. Per-
haps the beet lesson for them would be—and such
may not improbably be the event—that KIRWAN
should be acquitted of the new charges, and released
from the consequences of the old—reinstated under
! the law, while stained in reputation, and avoided in
society, on account of his undisputed and most serious
immoralities. Such an issue would teach his fellow-
citizens something of the function and domain of law
and justice—something of the difference between
legal punishment and social retribution. Till they
have learned this lesson, it is a subornation of murder
to leave the power of capital punishment in such
hands. M.