The Birkenhead News and Wirral General Advertiser. — 1883-05-05 (Birkenhead, Merseyside, England)

VENTS OF TILE WEEK.  THE DUBLIN HORRORS.  On Wednesday the sensational trials in Dublin took a new turn. The wretched men Delany and Caffrey .ded guilty to the murder of Mr. Burke, notwithstanding !hat the clerk to ike Crown and the judge solemnly warned them of the gravity of their proceeding and that counsel for the prosecution held out to th-m no hope of reprieves. There was much that was really pitiful about the parts played by the miserable culprits. Delany, the author of the attempt on the life of Judge Lawson, was clad in the same wretched habiliments that he wore when be received his sentence of ten years' penal servitude for that offence at the name bar, but his confinement in prison had evidently told on him, for his features were as pallid as those of a corpse, and his white hands, almost transparent in their attenuation, nervously clutched the dock rail for support. The short beard he wore cloth& his cheeks and hid to some extent the drawn and wasted expression which characterised them, but it was easy to see at a glance almost that MD if he escaped the gallows he would not long remain in this world. He admitted that he was in the park on the day of the murder, but doclared that he did not know why he was taken there. He was freed, he said, to go into the park on the day of the murder, and when be got there he could not get out of it. It was true that he vv.,s on Kavanagh's car, but it was Brady and Kelly who did the murders. With regard to Judge Lawson's case, he continued, " I only drew the attention of the marines iu order to have myself arrested, and I had rather go to prison than have shot the judge." Caffrey's appearance was scarcely less wretched than that of Delany, he, too, being pale and emaciated. On being asked by the Clerk to the Crown if he had anything to say why sentence of death should not be passed on him he said, "I've nothing to say except that I stand on the brink of the grave, and that I didn't know anything about it until twenty minutes before, and I was compelled to go or else my life would have been taken." Now, if these two hapless criminals have been the dupes of master spirits of devilry—and the judge seemed to think that their statements were in the main correct— will any good end be served by their execution ? Morally they at least stand on a higher level than the murderer who is animated by the spirit of revenge for personal wrongs or mere greed. What they have done they have done as they have considered in the interests of their country. They have acted mistakenly. That is obvious. But it is possible that if they and those with whom they have been associated had been successful, and Ireland had, through their efforts, been made an independent republic, they would have been counted among the heroes of the world. The question, therefore, is will the State be served by their being consigned to the gallows. We think not. We consider that the tendency will, probably, be in the other direction. The Government which shows that it thinks little of the sacredness of human life ought not to be surprised if a section of its subjects come to tie conclusion that the shedding of blood is, under certain cir, uinstances, not only permissible but laudable. The legal butcheries of which Ireland seems destined to be the scene may deter a number of timid souls from becoming members of those deadly secret societies which have worked so much mischief, but they are calculated to make adventurous souls thirst for vengence in a way which may lead to more hot rible tragedies.