The Irish event of the week has been the acquittal
of Kelly, the man tried for murdering Talbot, the police-constable and spy. The jury, seven of whom were Protestants, were unanimous, and Ireland has been deluged with moral lectures ever since. There can be no doubt that both 'political feeling and the intense Irish feeling against the informer entered into the verdict, and the glee with which the verdict was received in some Irish cities is shock- sng ; but English juries used to give verdicts quite as bad, and there is this to be said in excuse for the jurymen
is not a legal certainty that Kelly fired the shot. Ho was one of a group of three, one of whom may by conceivable- possibility have handed him the revolver after firing it. Mr. Butt's notion that Talbot would not have died but for the bungling of the surgeons is repudiated by the greatest men in the profession,. who testify that the practice was sound ; and it was obviously pressed. to give the jury an excuse for acquittal.
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