The Sun.
London, England, 1865-12-06 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TlMES.—l'Vhether the Head Centre of the
Fenians be now in Paris, or on board a westward-

. .
bound American packet-ship, or, as is more likely,
is still lying hidden in some out-of-the-way nook of
Dublin City, the Government seem determined, at
all events, that none of his companions shall join

him. The Lord-Lieutenant ha; ordered all the

Fenian prisoners who are now awaiting trial to be
removed from Richmond Bridewell to Kilmainham

Gaol, which is the county of Dublin prison, and is
presumed to have a better management and a more
trustworthy set of warders. This operation was
effected in the night of Saturday last, when the pri-
soners were escorted by a strong military guard to
their new place of detention. The Government,
resolved that no more steeds shall be stolen, is

shutting doors with praiseworthy energy. Kilmain-
ham is described as presenting more the aspect of a
fortress than a gaol. There are soldiers every-
where, inside and out. The prison has just been
again inspected to see that all is right, and that
proper arrangements have been made for guarding
the conspirators. In the central-ball and in the
passages soldiers are under arms ; the warders are
kept close to their respective stations, and sentries
patrol without the walls. It was, indeed, time that
the prisoners should be removed front Richmond
Bridewell. How far the disaffection among the
warders and other attendants may have gone it is
impossible to say ; but it is at least believed that
the prison is a nest of Fenians. When such a thing
is even suspected, the Government could not leave
the prisoners in the place a day longer than was
necessary. The prison appears to be managed with
very insufficient strictness. The correspondence
with the Board of Superintendence with regard to
the man Denis Byrne shows how little attention
has been given to providing the place with trust-
worthy servants. Byrne was a soldier of the
Pope's Brigade, and, though that circumstance by
no means explains his Fenianism, yet we think
that politicians so ardent that they leave
their own land to fight foreign battles are
not the fittest men for situations of such trust as
the wardership of a prison, and that Byrne's charac-
ter might well have induced his patrons to provide
for him in some other way. It is also evident that
independently of his political principles he was an
inefficient person. Yet he was forced on the gover-
nor of the prison in spite of repeated remonstrances.
If this is the way in which one of the chief gaols in
Ireland is administered, the office of inspector can
be no sinecure. The Government will now, no
doubt, take the matter in hand, and insist that only
men of tried services and character shall be ap-
pointed. It is quite natural that the efforts of the
Fenians, when they found they were likely to come
within the grasp of the law, should be to tamper
with the warders of the metropolitan prison. The
Fenian organisation has served Mr. Stephens very
well. It would have been just as easy to let out
Luby or O'Leary, or any of the other prominent
members of the Association, but the call of duty
prevailed, and Stephens, in his character of Head
Centre, received the preference. The thing that
will most affect the public mind in the matter is,
not the escape of this man or that, for, provided a
Fenian is got rid of, it does not much matter how,
but the apprehension that in other departments of
administration there may be public servants affiliated
to this dangerous conspiracy. This, we must ad-
mit, is a matter for consideration and watchfulness.
There is not, indeed, reason for alarm, and we should
be the last to wish to excite any undue disquiet.
But there can be precaution without panic. It is
improbable that the corruption of public servants
can have gone very far ; but it is quite possible that
it has begun ; indeed, there is strong evidence of it.
There will always be vain and restless spirits for
whom the romance and self -importance of conspiracy
will have a vague charm. There is much of this feel-
ing among the Irish, who also are attracted by all
sorts of vague expectations of worldly advancement
and by their own gregarious instincts. These things
reign for a while like an epidemic, but it is just as
well to take care that the malady does not spread.
A strict supervision of the people in the lower ranks
of the public service, the summary dismissal of any
who mix themselves up with known conspirators or
consort with them secretly, and a solemn warning
that any one who may be detected in improper prac-
tices will be dealt with in the severest manner, will

be probably sufficient to put an end to the fashion of
disaffection. We have no fear for the more steady
and responsible class of officials. There are few
Irishmen with a good income and a respectable cha-
racter to lose who will enrol themselves among the
citizens of President O'Mahony's Republic. It is for
the good of the poorer and more ignorant men that
they should be guarded against the machinations of
the conspirators, and not by their own folly bring,
down severe punishment on themselves. The kind
of man who is caught by Fenianism is described in
our Irish intelligence of yesterday. Mr. Alfred
Aylward is a patriotic young lawyer's clerk, who,
in spite of his master'" warnings, has taken upon
himself to join the association for regenerating Ire-
land by invasion and rebellion. Conspirators ought
not to get drunk, but Mr. Aylward not only drinks
himself into a state in which he commits breaches
of the peace, but actually goes about with the
whole scheme of revolution in his coat pocket. In
transpontine melodramas murderers carry about
manuscript confessions of their crime, which are
seized and read in the last act, but we have never
known anything like it in real life except the case
of Mr. Aylward, As for the document itself which
fell into the hands of the police, it may be presumed
that the writer had not abstained wholly from
whisky when he penned it. It opens with the sen-
tence that " powder and lead are the only remedies
for the country." If the Fenians were quietly "to
usurp authority," they would be supported by the
constabulary, the majority of the military, and the
people. The millennium which would then be esta-
blished may be judged by the circumstance that the
Fenian Government " will bang all who say Boo!' "
It is interesting to know that the Republic will
send an account of its proceedings to the five great
Powers, and that all English prisoners will be mer-
cifully sent home. Perhaps Mr. Aylward's scheme,
being drawn up in a moment of convivial excite-
ment, may not express the real purposes of the
Fenian leaders ; but it is at least not more absurd
than others which have been made known, or than
that which is being carried into practice at the
Fenian Capitol in New York. The Fenians all
seem men of pretty much the same stamp. They
are O'Mahonys, Lubys, and Aylwards multiplied
indefinitely. Each is very paltry in himself, but,
unfortunately, Ireland possesses so many thousand
specimens of the race that their combination may
be exceedingly troublesome to the cause of peace
and order.
POST.—Much has been said against Governor
Eyre, of Jamaica, in regard to the treatment which
the inhabitants of that colony have received at his
hands in suppressing the recent outbreak. He has
been accused of illegality in the execution of Gor-
don, as well as in other cases, and a popular crusade
seems on the eve of being made against him and his
coadjutors, who are now accused of murder. De-
mands are made that the Government shall order
him home, and put him upon trial, and these de-
mands are backed by prominent and influential
members of Parliament. But in all this excitement
and commotion we should not lose sight of that
great characteristic of the English nation—fair play.
There are always two sides to a question, and when
the other side of the case may be presented it may
be ascertained that all the charges made against the
Jamaica officials are unfounded. We hope so for
the good fame of England ; for if there has been
illegality in the trial and execution of the rebels,
we could not and would not offer a defence of any
official therein engaged, even though the guilt of
the persons executed should be rendered more
patent than the glaring facts now prove. The
question in Jamaica is one which may come home
to any English family hereafter. It may involve
the life of one most dear to any of us, and destroy
that precious fabric, which it is easy for mortals to
dissolve, but never to re-establish. There may be
commotions and tumults in England ; and mili-
tary officials having the temporary power may
order the trial of offenders by court-martial, and
execute them upon conviction. This power must
be defined, and the present is as good an oppor-
tunity as any which could be presented. Un-
doubtedly, it is the duty of her Majesty's
Government to uphold any subordinate who has
performed his difficult task with credit. Lord
Palmerston always supported an official against
charges until they were distinctly proven, and
the will of the nation shown. His motto was
that of English law, always to deem the defendant
innocent until his guilt was proven. So in the
present case we have not evidence to show what
were the eauses of action or the motives which
prompted an apparently illegal action. It is as-

serted that Governor Eyre transcended his powers
in trying Gordon at Morant Bay instead of in
Kingston. And, without waiting to impartially
examine into the case, a sweeping verdict is given
by a large portion of our population that the Gover-
nor acted from improper motives, and preferred to
send his victim before a court-martial, where he
knew a conviction would be prompt and execution
speedy; and that in sending Gordon out of a dis-
trict where he could have been tried before a civil
tribunal, to one where martial law prevailed, the
Governor has judicially murdered the prisoner,
and is himself accountable to the law for man-
slaughter, if not for murder. But this is not at all
a necessary sequence. One print seems to have been
entirely overlooked in this matter. It may be that
Governor Eyre has acted in perfect and strict ac-
cordance with law. When a criminal is to be tried
for any offence committed against English law, it is
imperative that his trial should take place in the
district or locality where the imputed crime has been
committed. This is always done in England unless
a change of venue is granted for some good and
sufficient reason, either to the Crown or to the pri-
soner. If any rebel from Jamaica should surrender
in London we should not try him here, but certainly
would send him back to the jurisdiction of Jamaica
authorities. If he should be executed there in ac-
cordance with law, no charge could be preferred
against the Colonial Secretary here for judicially
slaying him. In the ex parte evidence presented
against the Governor, the fact seems to have been
entirely overlooked that Morant Bay was the scene
of massacre and crime, for the incitement of which,
though not actual participation therein, Gordon was
tried and executed. The question then will be,
could the Governor do otherwise than remit the pri-
soner to the jurisdiction prevailing in that district,
where the slaughter had been committed ? If this
be the case, the whole charge of illegality falls to the
ground. The district being proclaimed, civil law
was ignored, and the court martial was the only tri-
bunal which could have jurisdiction, and the prisoner
would have had no more right to a trial in King-
ston than in London. We do not absolutely assert
the correctness of this hypothesis, but it is one
which strikes the mind as the probable solution and
explanaticn of the case. There is at the present
moment a parallel case in the United States, which
gives rise to great perplexity on the part of
the United States authorities. There, as in Eng-
land, the law compels the trial of a prisoner in the
district where a crime has been committed. Mr.
Jefferson Davis must therefore be tried in a Southern
State. But as no jury can be found to pronounce him
guilty, his trial and acquittal would be a virtual
endorsement of the theories of secession. And the
difficulty of getting around this imperative clause
of constitutional law, so as to carry out the theory
of the successful party, is and has been so great that
the prisoner has remained for months in close con-
finement. The great misfortune in this Jamaica
business has been that in the outcry raised by a
number of persons whose zeal in favour of the negroes
perhaps induces a prejudice against the whites, who
have had to contend for their lives, the main facts
of the great atrocities committed and in contempla-
tion may be lost sight of in the smoke and dust
about the so-charged illegal transfer of Gordon to
Morant Bay. In all outbreaks, especially where
savages or semi-savages have to be dealt with, stern
and prompt measures must be executed. Rebellion
must always be nipped in the bud, if its consequences
and wide-spread outrages are to be checked. The
speediest and most approved method is to execute
the ringleaders. And this seems to have been done
by the military authorities. Of the guilt of Gordon,
so far as we have seen, there can scarcely be a doubt.
He seems to have been the chief conspirator, and to
have been constantly consulted by those who actu-
ally participated in the massacre at Morant Bay.
And there is not a doubt that he was aware of or
counselled the intended massacre of the white popu-
lation on the 26th December next. We trust that
the horrid scenes perpetrated by the savage and in-
furiated negroes will not be lost sight of, and that a
false sympathy will not be engendered for them
under the agitation of the legality or non-legality of
the trial and execution of any individual. " Fiat
justitia, ruat ceelum," is the motto for our guidance.
Let us neither commit grave injustice against the
unfortunate white victims of negro barbarity, nor
consent to brand Governor Eyre with perversion of
law, until the whole facts can be presented and all
sides be heard calmly and impartially.