The Central Glamorgan Gazette, and General, Commercial, and Agricultural Advertiser. — 1883-02-09 (Bridgend, Mid Glamorgan, Wales)

MURDER CONSPIRACIES.  /ME ATTACK ON ME. FIELD.  The proceedings at Kilmainham on Merman although they do not perhaps at first sight seem to advance the case very much farther than it was at the rising of the Court on Saturday evening, were yet of considerable interest. There are now the distinct charges against the prisoners, or some of them—namely, the general charge of conspiracy to murder, the charge of attempting to murder M. Field, and the charge of murdering Lord Frederick Cavendish and Mr. Burke in the Phoenix Park. The first charge, it will be rememberd, was gone into on the first day on which evidence was given. The charge in connection with the attempt on Mr. Field's life oceupied the second day, and Saturday last (the third day) was devoted to evidenceregardingPhcenix Park assassinations. The evidence on Monday related to all three branches of the investigation. At twelve o'clock Michael Kavanagh, the carman, was placed in the dock, and 801110 time later Joseph Brady and Timothy Kelly were put beside him. Crown counsel were ready by twelve o'clock, and the magistrates were in the room adjoining the bench; but there was a delay of ha f an hour, for which there seemed no apparent cause. At length Mr. Keys and Mr. Woodlock took their seats on the bench, and a witness, a young girl of fifteen, but seemingly from her size only about twelve years old, was placed in the witness chair. Mr. Murphy immediately had her sworn, and was asking her questions before Dr. Webb could get iti a word to the effect that he wanted to know whether the witness know thenature of an oath. Mr. Murphy said that was idle talk, and the intelligent and clear manner in which the witness subsequently gave her evidence, her reply to Dr. Webb, on cross-examination, that she was 15 years of age, and the feet that she put her signature—not her mark—to the deposition, showed that Mr. Murphy's confidence was not misplaced. Her evidence, if it was accepted as true—and there was practically no attempt to impeach it—shows that she saw Kavanagh on three occasions standing beside the car in Hardwick Street, in front of her mistress's house, about the time that the attack was made on Mr. Field a few yards off. On one of these occasions she spoke to him, and it was not five minutes after she had entered the house the last time of seeing him that she heard cries of murder, and came out and ,aw the car with three men and the driver driving off, and followed it for some distance. At the close of this witness's evidence, five additional prisoners were put into the dock :—James Carey, feter Carey, Joseph Mullett, James Mullett, and Patrick Whelan. James Mullett and James Carey shook hands, and conversed until the charge was read over. That charge was in form a new one --namely, that they did unlawfully conspire to murder certain public officers, and that in pursuance thereof they did on the 6th May, 1882, kill and 'murder Lord Frederick Cavendish and Mr. Thomas 11. Burke. The prisoners, as on all former oweeions, laughed, or rather smiled, when the charge nas read. The evidence which followed was largely independent, and in one case at least obviously unwilling testimony, in support of the statements made on the first day by the approver Farrell with regard to the meeting and drillings at No. 10, Peter Street, and at Cuffe Lane. The landlord of the Peter Street house deposed to having let a large room there to James Carey for the purposes of a reading room; and a resident of the house, which is let in tenements, deposed to seeing as many as 50 or GO men come there at times, and to statements by some of them that were waiting for Mr. James Carey, and to the fact that when the meetings were held there was always a guard on the door, and that when anyone entered the yard who was a stranger a signal was given by the man on guard. The remaining evidence was as to the letting of the hall in Cutfe Lane to Patrick Whelan and the finding of the arms in Brabazon Street, where Whelan lived, his observation that the detectives should first search Bailey's rooms, the placing of Bailey under police protection, his subsequent withdrawal from that protection, and the finding ten days afterwards of his dead body in Skipper's Alley. The further investigation was adjourned to Saturday.