Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1883-05-31
9a9isteManeuns &eaaiug.
THE PHOENIX PARK TRAGEDY.

THE PHOENIX PARK TRAGEDY.
The terrible sequel to the Phoenix Park
tragedy, in the trial and sentence of its per-
petrators and the execution of two of the
chief criminals has been published. A
brief review of the history of the crime,
which caused such a shock to the well wish
ers of Ireland everywhere, and Of its mel
ancholy outcome, will not now be amiss.
On the 9Th of May, 1882, Lord Frederick
ly appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland,
and Thomas Haviland Burke, who had for
several years served as under secretary,
were assassinated few minutes before
seven o'clock in the evening while walking
in Phoenix Park, Dublin. The deed was
perpetrated within view of the windows of
the vice-regal lodge, and many persons
witnessed the struggle between the assas-
sins and their victims, but took no special
notice, believing it to be an ordinary fight.
The principal assassins, it was subsequently
discovered, came to the park in car, and
when they had completed their crime,
escaped by the same means. The boldness
of the deed intensified the horror OF it, not
only in England but in Ireland also, and,
occurring as it did after the passage of the
land acts, giving "fXity to tenure, fair rents
and free sales" of their interest in their
holding to the Irish tenant farmers, aroused
an intense feeling of bitterness in England
against the Land League, which led to the
adoption of coercive measures stronger
than any that had been applied to Ireland
before Who the perpetrators of the bloody
crime were was involved in q profound myS-
terry. Rewards amounting to ten thousand
pounds sterling were offered by the govern
ment for information that would lead to
the arrest and conviction of one or more OF
IL. th0l1S9n6
pounds were offered to any one giving
secretly such hints or clues as might put the
police on track of those whom they had
yainly sought, and accomplices in the deed
who were not active participants were as
sured of free pardon and protection II
they would inform against their gulltler
associates. For nine months the mystery
appeared to be as profound as ever, and 1t
began to seem as if these murders, eXecu-
ted with such hardihood and address would
remain in mystery to the end. A new chief
of police, trained in the way of detecting
crime in India, was put at the head of the
Irish force. What men he employed, what
methods he pursued and through what
agencies he gathered up the threads of the
conspiracy may never perhaps be accurately
known. His researches were made quietly.
Suddenly arrest was made of person ac-
cused of being connected directly or indi-
rectly with the, tragedy. 1t was discovered
that there existed in Dublin secret oath
bound organization known as the Irish
| Inyincibles, all of whose members were
leagued together to put to death any per-
son who might be regarded as obnoxious to
the association either as an official under
the British government, or in any way
concerned in acts that the Invincibles might
deem detrimental to- the Irish cause. Of
those who were doomed to death by the
"inner circle" of the association, Mr.. For
ster. the Secretary Of State for Ireland, was
one, and three separate occasions on which
his footsteps were dogged by the men ap-
pointed to kill him, he narrowly escaped
the death to which the association had
condemned him. A second person singled
out for assassination was Judge Lawson,
but Patrick Delaney, who was ordered to
do the killing, went about his work so
bunglingly Intentionally so, he afterwards
declared) that he was arrested before ne
could strike the blow. A third person who
was attacked and grievously, almost NOR
tally, wounded was juror Denis Field, whose
firmness in the jury box caused him to be
so that his fate might inspire other jurors
with terror if they brought in verdicts
against Irishmen arraigned for crime. Sec
retary Burke had long been singled out for
assassination, and it was against him and
not Lord Frederick Cavendish that an at
tack was arranged in Phoenix Park, the
killing of Lord Cavendish being regarded
as a necessity when it was found that he
was walking with Mr.. Burke at the time
appointed for the murder of the latter. The
Dublin leader of this band of assassins was
James Carey, a member of the City Coun-
Gil, and a man in fairly good circumstan-
ces. 1t was he who was present in Phoenix
Park at the time of the murder, and who
gave with his handkerchief the signal for
the assassins to strike. TO save his own
neck he turned informer, and it is from his
testimony that the whole of the secrets of
the society of the Invincibles has been eX-
posed and the names of the men who ac-
tually committed the Phoenix Park MUIR
ders, as well as those who were present
on the occasion directly or indirectly assist
ing. But back even Of the inner circle of
the Invincibles, if Carey and other witness
es are to be believed, there was another
leader to whom all yielded obedience, who
seems by some accounts, to have held the
purse strings, and who, except to few of
the initiated, was simply known as Num-
ber One. This person, it is alleged, was
Peter lyman, who is now supposed to be
in the United States, and against whom, as
we'll as p. H. Sheridan and John Walsh,
who are also refugees, the Dublin grand
Jury have brought in true bills. With the
result of the trials of the conspirators our
readers are already familiar.