National Republican. (Washington City (D.C.)) 1872-1888, 1874-12-10
atatiunaI gepnblifau
DIR. EFYF4LY Oy.JrDGEg.

A London correspondent of the New York
Times says that very paltry and contemplate
things sometimes occasion an amount of an
noyance altogether out of proportion to their
intrinsic importance. This is the case with the
TichbOrne agitation, which is now assuming q
very troublesome and embarrassing form. It
was to be expected, of course, that a great
many people would continue to believe, in de-
fiance of the evidence and the verdict. that the
claimant is not an imPostor, but the real Sir
Roger and there is no reason why everybody
should not enjoy the satisfaction of freeIy
maintaining his opinion on that question. If
the claimants friends had confined themselves
to demonstrations of his supposed innocence
nobody would have objected. But they have
gone beyond this, and here the difficulty be-
gins.
The EnglisIman, DR.. Kenealy's paper, which
has now been going on for six months, comes
out every week with the most foul and SANDER
Gus attacks on Chief Justice COckburn and the
other two judges who took part in the trial,
SIS well as on all who were in any way con-
neCted with the prosecution. DIR. kenealy
has also been going round the country on q
lecturing tour and repeating similar aspersiOns.
At these meetings resolutions are passed de-
nOuncing the unfairness of the trial and the
mentary inquiry, with view to their removal
from the Bench. The petitions assert that
the Chief Justices summing up was dishonest
and corrupt; that he palliated falsehOOd, equiv
Ocation, adultery, and embezZlement, to the
great injury of the public morals of the
country; that he cOeTced the jury, and other
wise showed bad faith; and that he and the
other judges cOrruptly combined to insult AMI
intimidate the counsel for the prisoner.
These accusations are worked out in a more
violent and personal manner in the speeches
and in articles in the EHgliSbmd1. The Judges
are likened to Scroggs and Jeffreys, and 4 pOr-
trait of the Chief Justice has been published,
with a memoirs of Jeffreys attached to it, in
which it is remarked that, bad as Jeffrey's was,
his yillainy has since been surpassed. And
then follows a string of charges of the grOssest
kind, of which it is said Jeffreys was innocent,
and the application of which is left to the
reader. At a recent meeting at Leicester Dr.
Kenealy gleefully anticipated the day when
the Chief Justice would be taken from West
minister Hall in the prison van and lodged by
the side of TichbOrne, in Millbank. These as
saults on the bench are mixed up with eXtraV-
agant pictures of vast Jesuit conspiracy, in
which Mr.. Gladstone and Mr.. Disraeh are
both engaged, and which has DR.. Kenealy's
destruction for its object. 1t is alleged that
an attempt was made to poison him during the
trial, and that intrigues are now being carried
on in order to kill him by depriving him of the
means OF earning living. All this sort OF stuH
is, no doubt, very foolish and contemplate in
itself, and carries its own condemnation on the
face oft. Most people would be glad to take
no notice of it, in the hope that in time it would
cease from natural exhaustion.
On the other hanG, however, it is felt that
the judges occupy a different position from
ordinary public men, and that it is necessary
that respect for their functions should be care
fully enforced. The authorities at Gray's Inn,
to which DR.. Kenealy belongs have already
expelled him from the bench, with an intima-
ton that they would have to consider the ne
cessity of disbaTring him if he continued the
publication of the E1gliSImda. As the Eng
iSliHlaR has since become, if possible, more
outrageous in its language than before, DR..
Kenealy has now been summoned to appear on
the oath, to answer the charges against him,
but he pleads ill-health, and will probably not
attend. A criminal information against him
for libel, at the instance of the Crown, has
been talked of; but this would be Just what
the claimant and his friends would like, as it
would give them an opportunity of indirectly
reoPening the question of his identity, and the
manner in which his trial was conducted.