The Express. — 1867-11-25 (London, England)

TIM FENIAN EXECUTIONS.  The Times devotes two articles to the above executions and the exhibition of feeling which they have in some quarters occasioned. To one of the writers it is • comfort to think that these poor creatures were honestly under the delusion that murder ceases to be murder when it can be invested with • political colour, and that they did but carry, as they thought, to • higher tribunal the rights of a nation and the wrongs of seven centuries. One would rather they died heroes, though only under the falsest estimate and the most foolish pleas. The author of the second article observes that resistance to the course of justice is the most heinous offence of which anyone can be guilty. It is not like the wilful murder of one man, primarily •wrong done to a single person, and consequentially a crime against society ; the murder of Brett was in its very fount and essence a crime against society, and the punishment et it, however unwelcome to us, could not be omitted. With regard to the demonstration yesterday in Hyde•park, the meaning  appearing with more or lees distinctness throughout it was that of sympathy with an armed attack on the order of our national life, and if ibis once becomes well apparent It cannot be surprising if those who prefer to maintain our institutions es they are should take some measures for the repression of incentives to violence against them. The Daily Nees draws a distinction between political crimes and crimes committed in a political cause, and from a political motive. It is this difference which, in spite of the repugnance of natural sentiment and sympathy, made the execution of Allen, at least, not just only, but cape. dient. The previous conduct of the English government and people has shown that they were not afraid to be merciful. The executions of Saturday prove that, when the occasion demands it, they do not her to exact the extreme penalty of the law. The people of Manchester appear to have acted with great wisdom and good feeling, and the deme►nour of the men themselves was free from bravado, and, though not free in one ease from natural shrinking from the impending death, religious. If there is no reason to think that they repented, or saw the guilt of the crime for which they died, this insensibility seems to have sprung, not from general hardness, but from perverted social and political feeling. The Post thanks the government for the determine= they have shown to uphold the law. Nothing can be more monstrous than the proposition that the three men who were banged were political offenders. Still, it is clearly held by a number of our working men. Such talk as was heard yesterday in London shows, as the Sheffield trades• union revelations showed, that at least a certain proportion of them, when once they have formed a view, either political or economical, consider it justifiable to use any means, however atrocious, in order to overcome opposition to it. Such a disposition cannot bat be fraught with the greatest danger to society at large, and the most significant and alarming feature of the matter is that it appears to be gaining fresh ground every day. In the opinion of the Standard it would have been the merest weakness and the shallowest sentimentality to have shrunk from executing justice on the ordinary principles of our jurisprudence, because the phantom had been raised of a " political scaffold."  If the Fenian leaders, the Herald says, will but learn and utilise this lesson, it may fail to convert them into peaceful citizens, but at least it will spare the Ministers of the crown one of the most painful and revolting tasks which their duty imposes upon them. The execution at Manchester, the Telegraph declares, wee not political. Allen, Larkin, and Gould were not political offenders ; they were murderers ; and they have perished because the law says that murderers shall die. The Star, on the other band, is of opinion that Fenianism won a great point last Saturday when it provoked us into baptising it in blood. We must be prompt, earnest, and generous if we would not be driven by Fenianism to the choice of reconquering Ireland or renouncing her.