The Sun.
London, England, 1865-09-30 00:00:00

Theßilmingham Bank Forgeries.

At the Mansion-house yesterday Mr. Wyatt, the solicitor
who defended the prisoners Benjamin Taylor and Henry
Kelly, who are charged with cominitting a series of extensive
frauds and forgeries upon the Birmingham Bank, attended
before Sir R. W. Carden, the presiding alderman, to offer
two persons as bail for the defendant Benjamin Taylor.

Mr. G. Lewis attended to oppose the application. It will
be remembered that the prisoners were tried at the last ses-
sion of the Central Criminal Court upon several indictments
for forgery, but the Common Sergeant, who presided, was
of opinion that this particular offence had not been estab-
lished. There were several other charges of conspiracy
against the defendants, and they were postponed to the
October session, but the Common Sergeant driected that
the defendants should be admitted to bail upon finding re-
cognisances to the amount of £250. Two persons had offered
themselves as bail in the beginning of the week, but they
were rejected as not being sufficiently responsible.
One of the persons who now offered himself as surety was
the father of the defendant, an aged grey-haired man, of
most respectable appearance. He stated, in reply to ques-
tions put by Mr. Wyatt, that he resided at Birmingham,
and had retired from business and lived upon his property,
and he said that he was worth more than the amount re
quired as surety, after all his debts had been paid.
Mr. Lewis then proceeded to put some questions to him,
and, in reply, he said that his property consisted principally
of a number of the Midland Banking Company's shares,
which were worth £l6O each, and in the whole were of the
value of £5,000. He said that he had been surety to the
same bank for his son to the extent of £3,000, and he sup-
posed his shares would be liable, but they were still in his
possession, and he had not mortgaged or incumbered them
in any manner.

Mr. Lewis inquired whether he was not aware that the
total amount of his son's liabilities was something like
£40,000 ?

He replied that he was not. He had paid the bank
£l,OOO account of his liabilities to them.
In answer to further questions the applicant said that
since these transactions he had let his house and sold part
of his furniture, but he denied that his son's difficulties had
anything to do with this proceeding. The poor old gentle-
man burst into tears, and complained of the course of ex-
amination to which he was subjected.
Mr. Lewis said it was painful to him to have to put such
questions, but he had a duty to perform, and he could not
avoid doing so. The two prisoners under charge were
accused of a very serious offence, and had obtained large
sums of money by means of fraud, and nothing was more
probable than that, if they were once at large, they would
never be heard of again. Under these circumstances his
duty to the public, and as the solicitor for the prosecution,
left him no alternative but to take all the precautions
in his power to prevent any other than responsible sure-
ties from being accepted. •
Mr. Taylor said he considered he was quite responsible
for the sum of £5OO, which was the amount of the recog-
nizances required upon the two remaining indictments.
Mr Lewis said upon his own showing it was not so. It
was clear that he had been ruined by his son, and while
he commiserated his position he felt bound to submit that
his bail ought not to be accepted.
Sir R. Carden observed that the circumstances were un-
doubtedly very painful, but upon the facts before him he
felt bound to refuse the bail.
The parties then retired.

It strikes us forcibly as lookers on that this in-
crease of the British forces in Ireland gives to the
Fenian order a prestige which its most sanguine
leaders in this country never dreamed of its acquir-
ing in the present century, We may be mistaken
as to the sincerity of the more ignorant members of
the society. But that those of them who have any
intelligence soberly believe that they can take even
one practical step towards securing the independ-
ence of Ireland we utterly discredit. The leaders of
the association are perfectly well aware that a crusade
for the " liberation" of Ireland would encounter the
fiercest, the most desperate, and the most effective
opposition from the Irish people themselves.
The entire hierarchy—without a single exception—
are the avowed enemies of the order. The lower
orders of the clergy, almost to a man, denounce
its declared purposes, and have placed their ban
upon its membership. The landlords of the coun-
try, with few exceptions, are, from self-interest,
the determined foes of revolutionary uprisings.
And the great middle class—the well-to-do farmers,
the merchants, and master mechanics, content them-
selves with a steady, patient, and persevering advo-
cacy of constitutional reform. To suppose that a
few partially organised bands of ignorant peasantry,
prompted as these may be by non-resident propa-
gandists, are to rise up against the wishes and
interests of the sober, industrious, and educated
majority in Ireland, and are to rise up with even the
remotest chance of disturbing the existing Govern-
ment, is simply preposterous. The best section of
the Irish people—without distinction of faith—
might be safely left to-day to dispose of Fenianism
in Ireland, were there never a British soldier in the
island. No Irishman of ordinary intelligence or of
ordinary honesty doubts this. But every true-
hearted Irishman longs to see the day when the
British Government will find it to be its own inte-
rest to terminate that vicious system of class legis-
lation and sectarian favouritism under which the
country has groaned for centuries, and against
which the noblest and the best of Ireland's sons—
both Protestant and Catholic—have contended, at
the risk of fortune, of political advancement, of
court patronage, and of all that intelligent and
high-minded men might, under other circumstances,
honestly covet. It is the solemn protests of such
patriots as these that the British Government have
to fear to-day—much more than the bravado and
nonsense of these Phoenician madcaps. The
wrongs of Ireland are solemn realities which must
some day be atoned for ; the fanfaronade of her
liberating leagues simply furnish a subject for
sport.