The Sun. — 1863-07-16 (London, England)

POST. whiehhavejust --TheLimerick Assizes, terminate_, May, we hope, trove to mark an era in the history of Irish crime. It is little more than a twelvemonth since our readers were startled by the details of what it is the fashion to term an " agra - rian outrage," more base, more brutal, and more bloody in its attendant incidents ordinary run of such sanguinary ev the butcheries. than Mr. Francis Fitzgerald, the victim upon this.. occasion of the bloodthiesty resentthent, le justice of revenge," and so oftenisexil the e wild was the owneritl'd by small farmers of Ireland,a modthees rate property upon the borders of the two counties of Cork and Limerick, and within sightof es rnallech station of the Great Soffit e. th the Kiln and Western Railway. Among his tenants were two b o ,els of tern e rt the name of Dille.ue, "comfortable" men i in the Irish sense of the word, fairly educated for their station, intelligent, and "respectable." Sums paltry quarrel with respect to the terms ()Ca lease I-1 I.e place between themselves and their landlord.' tak" Unable to bring him over to their own view of the question, they quietly determined to kill him. At the same time .from motives of fear either of the man himself,or of the possible consequences of their intended crime, they resolved to carry out their bloody intentions by proxy. It speaks volumes for the state of public opinion in the district that they had no difficulty in securing the services, for a few pounds, of a couple of ruffians who, so far from having any cause of complaint against the man whom they undertook so readily to murder, had never seen him in their lives. Armed and primed with instructions by their employers, they met Mr. Fitzgerald walkar his own house in company with eras w neimarred wife, accosted him, so as to make sure that he was the right main and then and there butchered him upon the Queen's highway. There was literally no pretence even of concealment. The deed was done in open day, and the assassins leisurely walked off, leaving their victim writhing on the ground, with his young wife hanging over him, secure that no hand would be raised, no tongue would move, to intercept their retreat. For once they were happily misteken. One of the actual murderers, Beckham, was captured red-handed, and underwent the penalty of his crimes, after having been tried by a special commission within a month of its perpetration. The other, Walsh, wandered for some weeks a fugitive in the mountains which divide the counties of Litrerick and Cork, was finally hunted down by the police, tried at the ensuing assizes, found guilty, and executed. The terrors of the law were brought to bear even upon those who bad harboured him, and another " respectable" farmer, named Cooke, paid a heavy penalty for concealing a murderer from the Police. It remained to discover and render amenable to justice those who, in a moral point of view, were even more guilty than the wretched instruments of their vengeance. At the spring assizes of the present year Denis Dillane, the elder of thee two brothers, was arraigned as an accessory befor the fact. Of all other convictions there is none which hne it is so difficult to obtain from an Irish jury as o of this particular character. It is, therefore, greatly to the credit of the Government, and especially of the Attorney-General, by whom the prosecution was conducted, that, without the semblance of any attempt to strain the law, Denis Dillane was found guilty by a mixed jury of his countrymen, and hanged. The last scene of the tragedy has now just closed. Michael Dillane, the second brother, had been in custody for upwards of a year awaiting his trial for the same offence. On technical grounds it was considered inexpedient to proceed upon the capital charge. To the indictment upon the minor counts a stout defence was made, without effect. He also was found guilty, and sentenced, after an impressive warning, by Mr. Justice Keogh to ten years' penal servitude, the heaviest penalty which could be inflicted by law, and which was aggravated by the refusal, under the previous circumstances of his crime, of leave to the culprit even to bid adieu to his friends.