The Irish standard., 1901-04-27
! AN. IRISH EDITOR IMPRISONED.

q AN. IRISH EDITOR IMPRISONED.
1t is nothing new for the British
government to send Irish editors to
prison. One of the greatest forensic
addresses Of John Philpot Curran in
the eighteenth century was on the free
dom of the press in Ireland. His
speech in defense of Hamilton Rowan
is read with delight to the present day,
but his client was found guilty by n
packed jury selected for the conviction
of his client. The case of Peter Fin
nerty is made memorable because of
Curran's connection with it. He was
also found guilty by n partisan jury
and was fined and imprisoned by cor
rupt judges.
Charles Gavan Duffy, John Mitchell
and John Martin We're prosecuted in
1S4S for uttering treason" in their
newspapers. The first was fortunate
enough to escape by a disagreement of
the jury and a change of ministry, but
Mitchell and Martin were transported
to the Antipodes. In 1865 O'Donovan
Rosa, DIR. John O'Leary. Thomas
Clarke Luby and Charles J. Kickham
were sentenced to British bastiles for
exposing the rascality of England in
the Irish People newspaper. In later
times T. d. Sullivan, William O'Brien
and other fearless Irish editors were
prosecuted and cast into prison for
criticising British law as administered
in Ireland. During the stormy days
of the Land League agitation every
Irish editor worth his salt slept on
plank bed in the prisons of Ireland
and came forth as Il popular hero.
Some months ago Patrick A. Nc
Hugh, Nationalist member of parlia-
ment for North Leitrim, thrice mayor
of Sligo, and editor of a paper in that
town, was indicted for criticising the
action of the judges in selecting juries
for the conviction of members Of the
United Irish League who were charged
with intimidating landgrabbers, or
men who had taken farms from which
the former tenants had been evicted
The intimidation consisted in boycott
ting the landgrabbers, that is in with
holding from them all social and
business relations. There is no law to
compel one man to speak to another
or do business with him, but yet the
British government in ireland makes
the ostracism of it's agents crime
and impanels n packed jury to convict
the leading men in the community for
keeping aloof from the miscreants who
take the land from which tenants have
been elected by alien landlords.
The United Irish League has been
organized to fight felonious landlord
ism and to put an end to landgrabbing.
and hence 1t is that the government
finds it necessary to select jury with
great care to find Irish Nationalist
guilty. The usual way is to exclude
Catholics from the jury, and make it
entirely Protestant. Sometimes, the
Protestant jury fails to agree and the
prisoner is discharged. Sometimes
prisoners are tried at long distances
from their homes to make it difficult
for them to escape the meshes of the
law.
A dispatch from Dublin, dated last
Monday, conveys the information that
Mr.. McHugh was sent to prison for
six months. At former trial the Jury
disagreed to the great annoyance of
the government, but the second time a
better jury was packed and he was
found guilty of "seditious libel" cal
culated to Interfere with the admins
tration of injustice. He was not tried
in his own county, where he is we'll
and favorably known. He was
brought to Dublin, where n i,lry So
lected by the Castle did the work ex-
pected of it.
The town of Sligo is without a
mayor and North Leitrim is without a
representative in parliament during
McHugh's term Of Imprisonment. But
that is exactly what the government
intended to accomplish. Other editors
Will take up the case Of McHugh and
they, too, will be prosecuted. The
more arrests are made the better for
the United Irish League. Such perse-
cution of Irish patriots will solidify
the Nationalist throughout the coun.
try. A conviction obtained through
the fundamentally Of partisan judges
and packed juries is an honor to an
Irish leader. When Mr.. McHugh