The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-02-20 00:00:00

KING OF THE JURY•

The alleged grievance, which the civil and religious
liberty people have made so much of—viz. the challeng-
ing of the Roman Catholics on the panel—is thus
clearly done away with by Sir James Graham. " The
house would observe that by the act of parliament
the parties should strike alternately, and here he might
remark that, if there were any
thing remarkable in
the Crown solicitor striking the names of Catholics, and
the strike being alternate, it was also worthy of observa-
tion that the traversers struck out the name of no Roman
Catholic. (Cheers.) The case
puVic, was this, that the ten ' as represented to the
Roman Catholics were
struck by the Crown, not because these individuals were
repealers but because they were Roman Catholics. A
challenge was thrown out very early in the Court of

Queen's Bench on this subject, that it was desirable that
the traverser., who were known to have access to the
books of the repeal association, should verify the fact that
the ten individuals alluded to were not members of the
association. One of the counsel for the traversers early
undertook that an affidavit to that effect should be filed.
It was not, he believed, till near the close of the trials
that the affidavit was really filed, and a most important
affidavit it was, because it disposed at once of eight out
of the ten names. (Hear, hear.) He could not believe
that a deliberate assembly, to whom the cause of justice
was dear, would contend that the Crown would be justi-
fied in keeping names on the jury because their owners
were Roman Catholics, even though they should be repeal-
ers. The question in striking the jury was to ascertain
whether any names on the panel were those of persons
having a strong prepossession or bias, and he would in-
deed be astonished if any gentlemen in that house had the
boldness to contend that the names of Roman Catholics
should not be touched—that because they were Roman
Catholics they should not be touched by the Crown, even
though they were repealer,. (Renewed cheers.) He now
came to the case of the two who, though catholics, were,
according to the solicitor for the traversers, not members
of the Repeal association. Their names were Dunn and
Hendrie. And, first, with respect to Michael Dunn. He
wished not to go into too lengthy details ; but they were
discussing a great principle—whether it was the wish of
her Majesty a Government to administer justice in Ire-
land with equality and without distinction of classes or
religion. The Michael Dunn in question resided in St.
Patrick's Ward, in Dublin. He (Sir J. Graham) was in-
formed that in that ward resided four persons bearing the
same name of Michael Dunn, and that three of them had
signed the requisition for the Repeal meeting at Tara.
And the Crown then and still believed that Michael Dunn,
the brazier, the person he was now speaking of, was the
one that bad signed a requisition for a repeal meeting in
St. Patrick's Ward, where he resided. That individual
had now made an affidavit, and negatived the fact of his
being a member of the Repeal association, but he
(Michael Dunn) had not negatived the fact that he signed
requirilionfor a repeal meeting. (Prolonged Ministe-
rial cheering.)

As a proof that Government are now released by the
respectable portion of the Roman Catholic body, in Eng-
land at all events, we gladly quote the following remarks
upon the subject, which fell from Lord Beaumont in the
House of Lords on Tuesday night, after receiving a similar
explanation from a member of the Government in that
house :

" He would here take the opportunity, therefore, of
stating, that he did not blame the Attorney-General for
challenging the Roman Catholic jurors, on the ground
that they were Repealers : he thought he was justified in
doing so ; and that being the case, he was bound to admit
that the traverser: had nothing whatever to complain of—
(hear)—and he was perfectly satisfied, from the explana-
tion which had been given by a minister of the crown that
night, that the ATTORNEY-GENERAL HAD DONE HIS
DUTY CONSCIENTIOUSLY!" (Hear.)