The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1903-09-12
JUDGE Who Sentenced Emmett.

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One of the most loathed OF all
names in modern Irish history, is that
of John Toler, or, as he is better
known, Lord Norbury, the judge who
condemned Robert Emmett, as he had
done scores Of others to the gallows.
He was a descendant of one of the
Cromwellian planters, and was born
in 174O. He studied at Trinity Col
lege, took his degree in 1851, was
elected to the Irish bar in 1910, and
entered Parliament as member for
Tralee in 177G. In 1888 he obtained
a silk gown, in 1850 became solicitor
general, and nine years later attorney
general.
For vote in favor of the Infamous
Act of Union, he was made chief JUS
tice of the common pleas, and raised
to the peerage as Baron Norbury.
Norbury at this period was a fitting
instrument to carry out the severe
policy of the English government to-
w oAuS llCltlAu, anu liz uSS1ACS Ut
which he was present We're invariably
followed by wholesale executions. In
July, 1903, when Robert Emmett was
arrested, he was placed OH trial for
life before special commission Of
three, and Of whom was Lord Nor.
bury. Mooney in his History of Ire
land,' thus says of him in this con-
nection:
Gle rose to distinction at the bar as
government prosecutor during the
dreadful reign of Lord Castlereagh
He was solicitor-generalw while Wolfe
Iord Kilwarden) had been attorney
general. When that just lawyer
shranl1 from over-straining the consti-
tuition and law against the United
Irishmen he was promoted to the
bench to make way for Toler, who be-
came thenceforward the fitting prose-
cutor of the Castlereagh government.
This transition took place on the eve
of the state trials in 1898. Toler car
ried with him to the bench Common
pleas the expanded ferocity of his NJ
ture, with all that he had acquired
from long and familiar contact with
Major Sir Armstrong, Reynolds, Clare
and Castlereagh.
''He had swung off the United Irish
men by scores. The black cap con-
tanned for him no monition of awe.
He wore it almost daily, and INDUCED
in ribald jests while he babe men pre-
pare for eternity. 1t is related that in
one trial, being in hurry to join some
boon companions with whom he was
accustomed to play the buffoon, he
cut the trial short and pronounced sen-
tence of death upon the accused men
without waiting to have the evidence
against them put on record. When he
pronounced the sentence, which wound
up as usual with the words, 'and may
God have mercy upon your SOULS one
of the unfortunate victims interrupted
the sentence by suggesting, You
needn't mind the prayer
"Norbury, with whom it was a COM
mon thing to mix a vulgar joke with
a sentence of death, asked the prison
err why he objected to this prayer for
his soul. Because I never knew any
one to thrive after it, was the ready
answer. Norbury slapped his hand OH
his knee, saying, That's good one,'
and at once committed the sentence to
Imprisonment. During the trial of
Emmett, Norbury more than once in
terrupted the former in the course of
his speech before sentence.
''After Norbury became untitled by
age for the due performance of the
duties of his office, several Intellectual
attempts We're made to induce him to
resign. He was the scourge of Ire
land for more than 80 years, and was
at length removed from the bench OH
the petition of Daniel O'Connell to
Parliament, who charged him with in
capacity and brutal manners in the
judgment seat, where he frequently
fell asleep during the progress of Il
trial in which he was to give judg-
ment. He died July Goth, 1881"