The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1892-09-16
OPEN THE DOOR.

Washington dispatches state: 1t seems
altogether probable that double change
of government in England and the
United States may secure tardy justice
" Unree ITSn-AInerlcan citizens, who
have been for nine years confined in an
English prison, unjustly as it is firmly
believed by those who have investigated
the facts. Some milk and water repre-
sensations of the case were made to the
British Government during Mr.. Cleye-
lands administration by Secretary
Bayard, but the matter was neither
pressed with energy nor was it received
with favor by Lord Salisbury's Govern
ment. One of the first acts of the new
Home Secretary under the Gladstone
Government has been to intimate to
Minister Lincoln, in response to re-
quest from our State Department, a
willingness to take up the papers and re-
open the cases of these men. The adj
Dlinistration of Mr.. Harrison can be re-
lied upon to follow up the advantage
thus gained with vigor. The facts are
briefly these
In June, 1888, Dr.. Thomas Gallagher,
Bernard Gallagher, his brother; John
Curtin Kent, Whitehead Aunsburg and
Charles Wilson, all Irish-Americans
residing in Brooklyn, n. Y, were tried
in London on a charge of conspiracy to
murder by means of dynamite, persons
unknown. Bernard Gallagher and
Aunsburg were acquitted, Thomas
Gallagher, Curtin Kent and Wilson were
committed and sentenced to penal servi-
tude for life, and are now undergoing
their sentences in Milbank Prison. The
trial was had at time when the public
mind was greatly excited on the subject
of dynamite outrages. There had been
one or two attempts made by supposed
emissaries of O'Donovan ROssa's dyna-
mite party to blow up bridges and public
buildings in London, and suspected at
tempts on warships in Chatham dock
yards.
The evidence in the case was wholly
supplied by detectives of the British
Government, and was of such character
as to be quite consistent with the theory
that it had been manufactured for the
purpose of securing the large rewards
offered for the conviction of the dyna-
miters. When Gallagher was arrested
package of dynamite was said to have
been pulled out of bag which he was
carrying, but no one but the detectives
were present when it was done, and the
old English proverb. HE who hides
can find,'' was strongly suggested. The
prisoners were Irishmen from America;
that was enough. They were in known
sympathy with the Irish movement then
in progress, and in the panicky state of
the public mind at that time those facts
alone were sufficient to secure con-
viction.
But in the case of Curtin Kent there
was such palpable miscarriage of
justice that even the Judge who tried
the case and the prosecuting attorney of
the Government are said to have been
betrayed into some slight informal ex-
preston of surprise. Gov. Waller of
Connecticut, then our Consul General
in London, officially reported that Curtin
Kent's conviction, Considering the
weakness of the case against him, was n
singular success for the prosecution"
The circumstances of his conviction
were investigated by the Committee of
Foreign Affairs of the Fiftieth Congress,
in accordance with resolution adopted
May oath, 1888, and strong report was
made in his favor.
Still nothing was done by Mr.. Bayard.
He had contented himself with making
a jubilee appeal on behalf of one of the
prisoners only. March 18th, 1887, he
wrote to Minister Edward J. Phelps in
London, "The President informs me