The Birkenhead News and Wirral General Advertiser. — 1882-11-25 (Birkenhead, Merseyside, England)

THE JOYCE MASSACRE.  On Tuesday the trial of the men in custody charged with complicity in the Joyce massacre was brought to a conclusion in a sudden and startling way. Five of the prisoners, whose counsel it was rumoured had vainly attempted to make terms with thb representatives of the Cron, withdrew their plea of "not guilty" and were condemned to be hanged with their accomplices in Galway gaol on the 15th of .D, comber. Their counsel, Mr. Malley, however, made an eloquent appeal for mercy on their behalf, and it is generally thought that of the eight assassins now lying under sentence of death only three will be required to pay the last dreadful penalty of the law. Mr. Justice Barry, in sentencing the five men who had thrown themselves on the mercy of the Crown, plainly told them that, though they themselves might not with their own hands have helped to commit the murders, as they had allowed themselves to become the instruments of a si cret society and had, at any rate, stood passively by while the crimes were perpetrated, they were legally and morally guilty of participation in the atrocious offences. At the same time, he promised that their appeal for mercy should be transmitted to the proper quarter, and he indicated that he himself would be pleased if it were responded to favourably. We hope that Lord Spencer will take a favourable view of the unhappy culprits' prayers. While it is necessary that the majesty of the law in Ireland should be vindicated, it is not requisite that all the cowering wretches who have been tried and judged by the Dublin Commission Court should be butchered. Indeed, if the trembling five are shown a mercy that they did not extend to their unfortunate victims, the effect produced on the native population can scarcely fail to be good. Already it would seem that sympathy even in the most disturbed parts of Ireland has begun to run against the terrorists. We read that on a batch of the condemned men reaching Galway User were loudly hooted by a large crowd. It would be a pity for the growth of right feeling to be checked by ill-timed severity. Enough will be done if the timid and the law-abiding are shown that the Government has the power to protect and the will and ability to punish where need be. But this fact cannot be impressed on the public mind too strongly. To what a deplorable state the iron and bloody sway of secret societies has brought a section of the Irish people was illustrated by a typical case at the Dublin Commission Court, on Tuesday. A ruffian was charged with having fired shots into the dwelling of and otherwise intimidated a farmer who had dared to buy a quantity of hay from a boycotted individual. He had a cast in his villainous countenance and was otherwise so remarkable that wife of the farmer, to whom he had spoken, bad no difficulty in speaking to his identity when before the magistrates. But in the Commission Court she denied her previous evidence point blauk and declared that she was unable to recognize the accused as the man who had come to her house and fired shots tht ough the door. The jury, however, convicted, and the wretch whom she had endeavoured to shield at the eleventh hour was sentenced to a long to' m of penal servitude, Mr. Justice Barry alluding to her as a melancholy example of how timid persons could be made to swear falsely by the unscrupulous agents of a secret society.  the town generally are wishful to previ•nt a repetition of the scenes yfil ic h have disgraced them. Under the presidency of their mayor they have held a meeting and 'resolved to obtain an Act of Parliament abolishing the vicar's rate and to raise funds sufficient to accomplish that purpose and also buy the church's interests. Between three and four thous ind pounds have been subscribed, and as only about four thousand pounds are required it appears certain that the beginning of the end of a gross evil is now becoming more and more visible. But it is unfortunate that we will owo the reform which is being effected not to those whose peculiar function it is to uphold order, but to the impetuous beings who have created disorder.