The Sun.
London, England, 1869-10-07 00:00:00

THE FENIAN PRISONERS.

The agitation to obtain a release of the Fenian
prisoners is far from declining. The amnesty meetings
increase alike in number and liveliness. In fact, so
popular has this movement become that the leaders of
the tenant-right agitation have found that it "pays" to
combine the two. Some of the latest demonstrations
have been really imposinc, displays. At Ennis a proces-
sion, numbering from 15,600 to 20,000 men, was headed
by 2,000 well-mounted members of trade and other
societies, every man wearing a green riband.
The whole is termed " a magnificent spec-s
tacle." At Devil's Out, in Tipperary, the display was
still more imposing. Forty thousand men were
present. Multitudes of people trooped in from all parts.
The procession was headed by the clergy of the town,
well mounted, and wearing green favours. " Behind
them trooped thousands of the flower of Tipperary's
manhood, fine, broad-shouldered, bright-eyed fellows,
marshalled in regular array, and bristling with all
manner of national emblems. After them came a
host of well-mounted farmers, forming a very credi-
table cavalry force. Then came immense lines of
vehicles of all kinds, headed by one bearing a gor-
geous banner of green silk,' with the inscription, in
gold letters, Our Own Again.' "
The speeches made on these occasions were in some
cases of a very remarkable character. One of the
chief speakers at a meeting held in Belfast plaintively
bewailed that the English nation had been guilty of
the foulest crime in modern times in making political
offences a felony, and in reducing the political
culprit to the low level of the "commonest
burglar." It appears, then, that if we are to
imprison the Fenians at all we must refit and re-
furnish the Tower of London, and afford these
political victims a captivity at least as honourable as
that of Sir Walter Raleigh. The ordinary gaol may
be good enough for a " common burglar," but it is
disgraceful to so incarcerate the uncommon burglars
who blew up the House of Correction, and broke
open gunsmiths' shops. The three Manchester
Fenians, if executed at all. omrht to have been
beheaded on Tower Hill. At the Cork meeting
there was a frightful uproar.

VIRTUOUS INDIGNATION.

Mr. G. H. Moore, M.P., has written to
the Times a letter of considerable length, in
answer to the attacks made upon him by the daily
press in general, and by the Times in particu-
lar—attacks which have been pointed out to him
by "a good-natured friend" in Ireland. If this amiable
office was prompted by good nature of the quality
indicated by Sheridan, the Irishman in question
must be disappointed to find that Mr. Moore
cannot discover in the attacks " a single spark
of wit, a single sentence bright enough to rive plea-
sure to the reader, or sharp enough to inflict pain on
the most sensitive moral cuticle." Having thus
happily disposed of the capacities of the Fourth
Estate, Mr. Moore proceeds to vindicate
himself from the charges brought against
him by the Times. He believes it to be the
duty of Governments to punish all resistance to their
authority, but denounces the theory of punishment
being used as an example to non-offenders, as that on
which all tyrants have justified their reigns of
terror. If the English Government continues to hold
his countrymen in chains he warns it that he
intends to pass next winter in delivering a series of
discourses on the English Government, and its mode of
repressing resistance to its misrule these discourses
being delivered in Paris and New York. It remains
to be seen what effect this threat—possibly more
alarming to Paris and New York than to London--
will produce upon the tyrannical and relentless Eng-
lish Government. The Times hopes that this worth
member of Parliament will return from abroad with
some revised views as to the exceptional illiberality of
the British Administration.