The Central Glamorgan Gazette, and General, Commercial, and Agricultural Advertiser. — 1867-11-08 (Bridgend, Mid Glamorgan, Wales)

THE CWVICTED FENIANS.  'Aft question...lv/hat is to be done with the :Perian prisoners who have been convicted of )&rticil*toß the murder of SERGEANT BRETT has been repeatedly asked during the last few t days, mai tko reply has shown au unanimity • of public fei,ling which is but rarely exhibited. It is felt eg.. all hands that a stern example must be made of those whose guilt is clear, if we would not witness the inauguration of a new reigr of terror, and practically abolish all  the estaLished safeguards of society. The day of leniesiq towards the Fenian conspirators is passed,,cs they have pros-ed themselves simply impelled by it to crimes more daring than before. Hardly a newspaper is now published with' t some fresh story of violence and outrage perpetrated by persons concerned in the movement The police force as the immediate representatives of authority and guar bans of the public order, are the subject of a peculiar antipathy, and the recent murder of two of its members in Dublin by a person who escaped soot free, is not the only • event of the kind which shows that the law must put forth all its powers for the protection of its agents. In every case, therefore, where an attack is proved, whether upon an officer in the execution of his duty, or on an ordinary citizen, there must be for the future • no sparing of the punishment due to the - offence; and certainly, where such an attack has led to the highest crime known to the law, the highest punishment should be meted out unfalteringly.  It must be borne in mind, in the case now before the publie,that the connection of ALLEN and his comrades with the Fenian conspiracy has had nothing to do with the conviction under which they are now lying, except so far as it was the primary cause of their engaging in the criminal enterprise which led to Barn's murder_ They have been sentenced to death for what would have rendered any body of men participating in a similar outrage, whether Fenians or anything else, liable to the same ptuaishment. It is a thoroughly well known principal of the law, that all persons engaged is a common act of crime or the attempt to commit one, are equally guilty with the one who may consumate the deed. ALLmc may have actually taken the life of Barer, but the others who had set out on a desperate enterprise in which it was well known that life would be endangered, and who were present on the spot at the time of the murder, are Loth morally and legally guilty in an equal degree. The fact, too, that they were armed with revolvers, and that in some cases they were proved to have fired them upon the officers, though without effect is quite sufficient evidence of their own individual intent, apart from the circumstance of their mere presence with ALLEN on the scene of the outrage. On all such persons as these, the sentence et the law is that they must die for the offence; and the public opinion of the country maintains and demands that this sentence shall he carried into effect.  But, while we enforce the necessity that justice shall new be unsparing in dealing with criminals of this class, whose guilt is beyond question or dispute, we muSt not be understood as deprecating the exercise of the prerogative of mercy in cams which appear, on calm review of the facts to be removed in however slight a degree from the highest class of crime. It is possible that on such a review and upon consulting the judge who tried the case, the HOME SECRETARY may see reasons to recommend the exercise of the