The Herald of Wales and Monmouthshire Recorder. — 1883-05-19 (Swansea, West Glamorgan, Wales)

SATURDAY, MAX 19, 1883.  Priestly Comfort and Popular Sympathy.  The most daring and resolute of the Dublin Invincibles, though not their nominal chief, paid the penalty of his crimes on Whit-Monday morning, at eight o'clock, within the walls of Klmainham Prison. So perished a double dyed murderer by the hangman's rope, a full year and eight days after the commission of his first known crime. Justice was lagging in his case, and seemed for a long time to be thoroughly balked and thwarted; but in the end she surmounted all obstacles, and executed righteous vengeance upon a ruthless homicide. Thus a solemn satisfaction has been given to the majolty of the British public, who desire the maiatenauco of orderly liberty and equal justice. Of Br..dy himself, as an individual, we would say little. His guilty career and miserable end may serve to point a moral, but not to adorn a tale. It is hardly worth while to investigate the life and analyse the motives of such a man. But there SIC two matters incidental to his execution upon which we think it may be useful to make a few remarks. Like various other Nationalist assassins who have preceded him to the 4atiows, Brady died and left no sign— that is, he made no public confession ef his guilt. Of course, this raises no doubt of his culpability in the public mind, for the evidence in his case was tb.roughly conclusive. But it does raise a misgis.gas to the manner in which religious ethics are dealt with by the Irish Roman Catholic clergy. It is not the Ronutn Catholic religion itself or its ethical system to which we here take exception, but the manner in which these appear to be administered by Irish priests. In Continental Catholic count•ies, we believe, as in Protestant England, it is the usual practice for the spiritual advisers of criminals condemned to death, to urge upon these the duty of public confes,ion as the due and only possible reparation to outraged society. This seems to us to be the enjoyment, not only of an evident moral, but of MI enjtined Christian duty. We mad in the Gospel "If thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother bath aught against thee; leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy_ brother, and then come and offer thy gift." Now, a murderer has not only injured the human brotherhood in the aggregate, which we usually call society, but he has gtevously injured in particular the relatives and friends of his victim; and it SMOLA to us that there can be no true penitence, in the Gospel sense, without the poor ri paration of confession and apology to the injured. We feel the more wrongly in this matter, became we think that the withholding, with the sanction or acquiescence of religious advi ers, of any atonement to seciety in general, and the injured members of it in particular, helps to sustain the sympathy for crime which is unhappily evinced in Irelard. So far as the masa of the Roman Catholic people are allowed t o perceive, the Church has no strong condemnation to express for the crime of murder. She may, indeed, appear to her ignorant members to regard political and agrarian murders as merely venial offences, if inde ed offences at all agtinst licrefole it is ins great pleasure to the ministms of the Chunk that the incongruity is due of thousands of Dublin people spending an ecclesiastical holiday in doing homage to a inuiderer. If the spirit of reverent* Is so prostituted by a Dublin crowd as in the general doffing of hats at a criminahs merited death, the priests cannot be held bltmeleas for this abuse. If Brady had been instructtd and enjoined, as a necessa: y concomitant of penitence, to Karnes., ledge and deplore publicly the hideous and irreparable wrong that he had inflicted on Lord Frederick Cavendish's widow, and Mr. Burke's bereaved sister, it is net likely that there would have been such misguided and mischievous aympatny expressed for hint in his last moments. Commiscration may properly be felt for a penitent criminal; but respectful sympathy for the apinruntly impenitent is quite out of place.  The woundrd mm James Walsh has liken removed to the Tielee hospital. The revolver bullet Melia lodged in the windpipe. The arteries hove not been injured, but the wound is of a critical nature. Niue persons have been arrested, and seven of them have been identified by Walsh.  • II;