The Sun. — 1867-11-09 (London, England)

THE CONDEMNED MANCHESTER  FENIANS.  None can suspect good Catholics, who repudiate the principles of the Revolution everywhere, in Ireland as well as in Italy, of any sympathy with Fenianism ; but all must feel pity for the unhappy men now under sentence of death, misled by revolutionary principles to engage in lawless designs which have resulted in the shedding of blood. Fenianism in Manchester is guilty of the death of a man who was simply doing his duty in obedience to the law of the land and to his own conscience. It is the bounden duty of Government to uphold the law and to punish crime. It is the will of God plainly expressed in the constitution of society. Blood has been shed in the streets of Manchester ; a crime has been committed conjointly by the unhappy Fenians, now under sentence of death, iu their lawless attempt to set two political prisoners free from the hands of justice. They are all of them legally guilty of murder, as having been engaged in an illegal enterprise from which death resulted. None can dispute the fairness of their trial nor the strict justtice of their sentence. We only hope that justice may be tempered with mercy. To those who urge that it is necessary to strike terror into the hearts of the Fenians in our English cities, may we not say that mercy is often a remedy more efficacious than terror ?  nationalities to rise and achieve their deliverance by the bullet and the dagger, have been without effect upon the excitable and disaffected section of the Irish people, in whose minds the memory of past wrongs still rankles? That England's conduct towards foreign revolutionists was present to the minds and had its influence on the Fenian prisoners in Manchester was evident from the declaration of one of them, who said, after his condemnation to death for the rescue of the Fenian chiefs, that had such an act been done on Italian soil for the rescue of Garibaldi, not.a city in England but would have rung with applause of the  daring deed. The force of this reproof is but too just. England, who erected triumphal arches to a far greater political criminal than these Fenians, who kissed the hand of Garibaldi, dyed redder than his shirt in innocent blood, cannot without a qualm of conscience and deep self reproach lead the Fenians of Manchester to the scaffold, or adjust the halter round their necks. Of course,  the crimes of Garibaldi are no justification for the Fenians ; revolution and bloodshed are crimes in Ireland or Manchester, as well as in Italy, but the public approval which the English nation, the Government as well as the people, have bestowed on such crimes when committed in Italy is a strong reason why England, in the case of the Manchester Fenians, should temper justice with mercy.— Westminster Gazette.  was done in self-defence. lie need not detain them with reading over the whole of the evidence; the case was a very simple one, and he prayed them not to allow anything that had occurred in another place to prejudice their verdict. The jury, after a short deliberation, returned a verdict of Guilty. The Assistant-Judge and the other magistrates on the bench then retired to consider their sentence. On the return of the learned Judge, Mr. W. Sleigh hoped the Court would take into consideration the long imprisonment Groves had already undergone as some mitigation of sentence. The Assistant-Judge said the learned counsel knew very well he could not do that, as the magistrate was quite justified in detaining Groves in custody. The prisoner had now been found guilty of a charge of inflicting actual bodily pain, for which he could not be sentenced to penal servitude. However, they had considered his case very anxiously, and without being influenced by the practices he had in contemplation or the persons with whom he associated, the sentence of the Court was that he be imprisoned and kept to hard labour for six months, and at the expiration of the sentence he should find good sureties that he would keep the peace for six months  Longer. The prisoner was then removed from the dock.