The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser. — 1840-05-29 (Liverpool, Merseyside, England)

LORD NORMANBY AND FEARGUS O'CONNOR.  Poor Fcargus O'Connor ! verily thou art an ill-used patriot. The " pecuniary speculations" of other men are carried on with both success and safety. The mendicant of Ireland feeds and fattens upon leis; the ministerial " speculators" are sound and safe at each returning quarter day ; thy com. patriot Sheil, of Peneden Heath notoriety, has been gorged with a sinecure ; Wakley has got a coronership, and Harvey a place; but thy unlucky bones are doomed to imbibe the rheumy vapours of a damp dungeon, and thy brilliant talents to rest in the companionship of turnkeys and convicted felons ! Verily, thou art the most unfortunate Irishman that ever conceived the idea of making political agitation the basis of a  " pecuniary speculation ;" and thy persecutor, the O'Connellite Home Secretary, the most impudent charlatan that ever displayed his antics within a show booth at Bartholomew or Donnybrook.  We quote from the pen of poor Feargus himself the following description of the kind of treatment which a Whig government deals out to political offenders. " I was shut up," says Fergus, " in a dark stone cell, with a very narrow iron door and a small iron-grated window. In the dark I knelt down, and prayed to God that I might sleep soundly for ever. I then stripped and laid me down, but my prayers were not granted, as I never closed an eye. When I placed my rheumatic shoulder against the wall, the cold stone repulsed me ; and when I moved I was almost out of bed, for its width is not as broad as my shoulders." Comfortable sleeping apartment this for an Irish gentleman ! But let us proceed : " Before seven o'clock a bell rung, when 1 dressed myself, and shortly after my door was unlocked, previously to which I had, according to the rules, folded my thin bed into a triple roll, and my bed clothes, neatly folded, I placed over it. I then followed the turnkey, carrying in my hand a black chamber pot, which I was to empty in the sink in the yard, and then wash the utensil at the pump." We should like to see O'Connell, and the various joints of his tail, following so dignified an employment. Let us, however, give, in his own words, the poor fellow's pitiable condition. " Now for my health," he proceeds. " I never was so much debilitated. I have rheumatism in both logs and in my back ; I have a pain in my chest and loins, and a cough. And, now, what say you to a good man struggling against adversity ? Perhaps you are not aware that very strong affidavits were made by Dr. Thomson, one of the ablest of the London faculty, and another by Surgeon Jaque, who has attended me for five years, in which they both deposed that confinement in York Castle would lay the foundation of disease, which would certainly shorten my life ; to which Lord Normanby replied, that he saw nothing in them to cause any alteration in my place of imprisonment. lam five years older thaU when you saw me on Monday week ; but am still the same man. I thought it wholly out of the nature of things that such punishment ever could be intended for, or inflicted upon, persons fora political misdemeanour ; eighteen months is now more than ten years under the usual treatment for similar offences. The man from Huddersfield (for the murder of Duke) and myself are precisely under the same rules. Need I say more—or have you not yet heard enough ? Faithfully yours, "