The Sun.
London, England, 1867-12-23 00:00:00

13PIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

Although no outrage on a similar scale has succeeded
the blowing down of the prison wall at Clerkenwell, it
cannot be said that the apprehensions of the public have
abated. The Fenians are supposed to,be numerous in the
great towns of England. There is every reason to believe
that they have a sort of organisation, and are directed by
a feW unscrupulous men, who will shrink from no wicked-
ness to attain their ends, and people suspect that the
leaders will at any time be able to find blind and reckless
instruments to execute what they may propose. At such
times there is necessarily much vague suspicion, and an
undefined fear of coming evil unsettles men's minds and
makes them ready to believe any and every report which
may be abroad. Although there are, perhaps, half a mil-
lion of. Irish in England and Scotland, the opl-- 'on
of the Times is that the Fenians, though übi-
quitous, are comparatively few. Active complicity
in Fenian operations is probably confined to a small
numl,er, who might gradually be tracked out by the
police, and dealt with as they deserve, without prejudice
to the mass of Irishmen. This discrimination, however,
cannot easily be made by English employers and the Eng-
lish public ; and it is for this reason that Irishmen them-
selves should assist us in making it. Before any further
atrocity frightens one part of the public and enrages
another, it would be wise for the Irish of Great Britain
generally to come forward and repudiate the Fenian con-
spiracy. Without distinction of political opinions or of
creed, they might declare their abhorrence of the deeds
which have been committed or attempted, and their resolve
to stand firm by the Crown. Mr. Digby Seymour's
letter, which was published a day or two ago, suggests such
a course, and gives the same practical reasons which we
have endeavoured to present. " A panic," he says, "is
spreading, which, unless checked in its earliest stage, must
tend to produce calamitous results among the industrial
orders of Irishmen resident in the various centres
of trade and commerce in England." Though the higher
classes of Irish need fear no proscription for themselves,
they may, by setting an example of loyalty, preserve
others from the danger of unfounded distrust on the part
of English society. They will certainly render a great
service to their humbler countrymen if they can induce
them to assert, and their employers to believe, their com-
plete alienation from the Fenian enterprise. The well-
disposed Irish, who are the great majority, would receive
a moral support from such a movement by the educated
class, and under such leadership readily give a pledge
which might reassure the English public. In this matter
the labouring Irish have had as yet no good advice,
except from the clergy ; and yet in many instances they
have, when appealed to, repudiated the notion of any
treacherous dealing. Similar effects may be produced
wherever similar means are used, but the work may be
more easily done if loyal Irishmen of a higher class will
take the lead.

When the Post turns to the evidence of the circum-
stances attending the explosion, it is painfully struck with
the conviction that at the expenditure of very little care
indeed the design of the conspkators would have been
frustrated. From the time when the barrel was wheeled
on a truck to the foot of the prison wall an interval of
from five to ten minutes elapsed. It dissects the evidence
of the detectives, and from their testimony is therefore
forced to reflect how very different the results would have
been if a solitary constable had witnessed what any of
these men, women, and children had seen on that eventful
afternoon. Of the conduct of the detectives it has nothing
to say in the way of censure. They watched the move-
ments of persons whom they doubtless rightly suspected,
though not, as it seems, with sufficient care, and they
allowed their attention to he diverted from the principal
source of danger. It was only by a blundering kind of
luck that the conspirators succeeded in firing the barrel
of gunpowder ; it is, however, of the success of such
blundering luck that the public has most right to
.omplain.

From the facts .adduced at the inquest on Friday, the
Daily News comes to the conclusion that the guard placed
outside the prison on the 13th instant was altogether
insufficient, and by no means corresponding to that which
Sir _Richard Mayne's warning led Captain Codd to esta-
blish. Inside the prison the story of an attempt to blow
the walls down appears to have been believed, and hence
a complete change in the arrangements, a constant watch,
s distribution of firearms, and the additional security of
double bolts. Outside, the oonttables wore not only in
number unequal to their duty, but apparently ignorant of
the nature of the danger against which they were to guard.
Only on this assumption can we understand the conduct of
the police in letting the persons they had been watching
all the day at length deposit a barrel against the prison
wall. If they, or anyone set over them, had heard
as much as Inspector Thomson had told Captain Codd the
day before, their negligence is inexplicable. The com-
pleteness and the efficiency of our police arrangements is
a matter of the first importance at the present time. The
Government have called upon the busy public to come in
aid of the police, and are also most wisely making a sub-
stantial addition to the force. But we shall in vain re-
cruit the material and enlarge the organisation of the
police, unless we provide for its efficient direction and
command. Acknowledging most fully the value of the
service which the force is now performing in difficult cir-
cumstances, and with every disposition to support it in
doing its duty, we are compelled to come to the conclu-
sion that on the day of the Clerkenwell explosion it did
net render that assistance and protection which the pub-
lic was entitled to expect at its hands.
The ~;tar objects to the presence at the Irish Priv,
Council of the judges, the Archbishop of Dublin, and the
Commander of the Forms. A proclamation was latel)
issued, declaring that the funeral p rocessions were illegal.
This very question, as the Star points out, is to come be-
fore a common law tribunal, at which one of the judges
who signed the proclamation may preside. Our contem-
porary thinks the proclamation would have been just as
respectable—certainly more constitutional—if the signa-
tures had been confined to those of the three recognised
and responsible advisers of the Lord Lieutenant, and if
the Archbishop and the judges, and even the Commander
of the Forces, had stayed at home. Nor is this a matter
of slight importance. We may crush rebellion by force---
we shall certainly never eradicate disaffection by any
other instruments than those of law and justice.
On referring to the case of Wason v. Walter, the Herald
says that the press and the public, the bench and the bar,
have every reason to be satisfied with the result of the re-
markable trial which occupied the Lord Chief Justice of
England and a special jury of the City of London for a
great part of last week. The issues raised, and the points
involved, were of grave importance, and they have been
determined in a way at which every one must rejoice who
desires to see the press free and the bench pure. If Mr. Wason's
position was correct, every time a paper goes to press its
proprietors are in peril, if by any chance any noble or
honourable member of the Legislature had said anything
which " some one might torture into an accusation of
libel." Truly did Sir Alexander Cockburn say that this
would be utterly unreasonable, and most accurately did
h. indicate the bounds of the journalist's privilege, by
telling the jury that reports, summaries, and comments
alike must be fair and faithful, " not garbled or mutilated
in any sense." No respectable journalist would desire
more, no friend of his country would wish to grant less.
So much, indeed, the press had practically won for itself
by the tacit consent of almost everybody, aml the ruling
of the Lord Chief Justice comes as an authoritative recog--
nition,which "ought to be affirmatively enunciated," if the
bench is to be in harmony, " with the larger and more
enlightened views with regard to libel which have
gradually developed themselves in our day ;" mainly, we
may add, because the press itself has furnished the best
evidence that by these " larger and more enlightened
views" the public weal may be most effectually promoted,
while the interests and reputations of individuals are in no
degree jeopardised.

An enterprise has been set on foot in the suffering
=stern district of the metropolis which, as the Telegraph
says, deserves especial notice and support. At the sug-
gestion of Miss Burdett Coutts, an association has been
formed, based on the wholesome idea that wages paid for
-work done are more welcome and really useful to the poor
than gifts in charity. Men of various persuasions have
met on a common ground, to perform a public service, and,
with the unanimous vote of the dissenters, the chosen
president is the Bishop of London. The work is exactly
that most needed in the Bethnal-green parishes—the
cleansing of the streets, alleys, and courts, and the making
or repairing of roads. Not that the association will super-
sede the bodieis specially entrusted with the execution of
these duties. The labour performed willbe supplementary,
and in excess of the ordinary proceedings under the local
boards. In order to carry out the project, money will be
needed, and the appeal to the public is certain to be
answered. Miss Burdett Coutts, with her accustomed
largeness of mind,. has undertaken to pay the wages of
two hundred and fifty persons for six months at
Pr eighteen-
oc" day ; dshe has guaranteed the rent of ground re-
qu;red for stone-breaking—employment suited to clock
labourers—and has contributed £3OO towards the road-
making fund. So munificent an example must be imitated.
When Miss Coutts says, ". I will be your leader, " fol-
lowers are secured by battal:oas.

If, remarks the Standard, we make clue allowance tot
the irritation caused by yet recent events, and for the pro-
vocation which no one can deny has been given by come of
the more impetuous of French politicians, we are bound
to confess that the general moderation of language held by
the Italian Parliament is as commendable as it is perhaps
amazing. It does not at all follow, because people are
largely if not wholly in the wrong, that they will be
temperate in justifying their conduct. The reverse is
more usually the case. Though we have never concealed
our opinion that Italy has not increased Ler reputation
during the last two months for any of those qualities
which make kingdoms either feared or respected, we have
no wish to deny that her position, even before her late
deplorable mistakes, was one that it would have taxed the
soundest sense and the most undeviating patience to fill
with dignity. But if such was the case before Garibaldi's
last appeal' to force, how much harder is her condition
now. She has the consciousness not only of having failed
miserably for the time in what she attempted, but also of
having failed in what she ought not to have attempted. To
have, by the voices of her own representatives, to debate
her consequent misery in the face of the whole world, is a
_ _
trying t.A.14.4w.1, .

THE LATV OP ARP. M 1 FOR TREASON

FELONY.

necent acts of violence to ponstables engaged in the
arrest of persons charged with treason-felony, seem so
ikely to be repeated for want of a clear understanding of
the law, that a statement of the conditions under which
sn accused or suspected person can lawfully be taken into
sustody and detained for trial may be useful. Such a
statement by " an eminent legal authority" has been pub-
ished. It lays down that the want or invalidity of a
warrant does not justify a prisoner in resistance, or reduce
us the least the offence of killing a constable ; nor does it
entitle him to a discharge upon habeas corpus. A private
individual is not justified in arresting for misdemeanour
without a warrant, nor, indeed, is an officer, unless the
)ffence be committed in his presence. For felony, bow-
ever,
and treason, the law gives extensive powers of arrest
without warrant, both to the police and private persons.
A. private individual may justify an arrest for felony with-
out warrant if he can show either that a felony was in fact
committed by the party arrested, or that a felony was
committed by some one, and that he had probable cause
from his own observation, or the credible information of
another, to suspect the person arrested of being the felon.
A. constable, has, of course, a larger authority than a
private individual, as he must act on the charge and
information of others. He is not merely justified in
arresting, but is bound, under pain of indictment, to
arrest any person whom he has probable cause to suspect,
even from the information of another, of having committed
a felony. The constable is protected in the discharge of
his duty, even though in the end the person arrested is
found not guilty, and even if it turn out that no felony
was, in fact, committed by anybody. An absurd
assumption has lately obtained that there was no
common law power of arrest in one part of the king-
dom for an offence committed and to be tried in
another, and that warrants must be backed in England
for Irish officers to act here. This has raised other ques-
tions. Suppose a murderer were arrested in Ireland for
an offence committed in Liverpool, the officer arresting
having no warrant. Would he be justified in killing the
officer? Might his friends lawfully storm the gaol? The
law is not so absurd. The constable would assuredly be
justified in arresting the accused and detaining him until
a warrant, either under the statutes, or of the Lord-
Lieutenant, or Secretary of State, as conservator of the
peace, was obtained. The assumption to the contrary is
without authority 3 applied to felonies, and inapplicable
to arrest for treason or treason-felony, common to
different parts of the kingdom. Even before the Union
fugitives from justice might be and were arrested in
England and sent to Ireland for trial, and rice versa. As to
Scotland, Lord Sanchar, or Sanquire, in James L's time,
having procured one Carlish to murder, in London,
Turner, a fencing master, who had accidentally put out
the said lord's eye, Carlish was, upon proclamation and
reward offered by the King, taken in Scotland and
sent to England for trial, and he and his noble em-
ployer were convicted and executed. Hence the supposi-
tion that there can be no legal arrest unless by some
one who holds a backed warrant is erroneous.
In cases of treason the law clearly lays down that every
subject of the Crown is justified in arresting and detain-
ing for trial, without warrant, a person against whom
there is a probable charge of treason, wheresoever com-
mitted. No distinction can be drawn between treason
and treason-felony in any form which the latter offence
may have assumed. The Treason-Felony Act was passed
mainly to relieve the Crown from the necessity of cum-
bersome State trials, and it must not be forgotten that
until the trial the charge against a treason felon is really
treason (if arms have been resorted to), if the Crown
chooses to treat it as such. Applying these rules of law
to the case of Sergeant Brett, he was bound at his peril to
retain the prisoners though their warrants were not backed
in England. The law may be thus summed up : A per-
son charged with treason-felony, wheresoever found within
the kingdom, may be taken and detained for trial upon
probable cause of suspicion, without warrant ; and that if
he resists to the death of a known officer of the law he
will be guilty of murder.