The comments of the Freeman' s rual on the packing
of
juries in Mr. Justice Lawson's Court, and a letter published in that paper by Mr. William O'Brien, charging the jury iv Hynes's case with drunken and disorderly conduct when locked up for the night,— a charge indignantly repelled by the foreman, —together with comments on this letter confessedly written by the editor and proprietor of the Free mail' .1-Gamut?, —Mr. E. D. Gray, M.P. for Carlow County, and High Sheriff of D
have brought down on Mr. Gray a sharp sentence from Mr. Justice Lawson for contempt of Court. He has been committed to prison for three months, fined £500, and ordered to give sureties, himself to the amount of C),000, and two others to the amount of 22,500 each, for his subsequent good behaviour for six months more, on his release. This sentence has caused a tumult of excitement in Dublin, and was the subject of the last serious debate in the Commons on Thursday. Mr. Justice Lawson declared that such attacks on the jury made the duties c a juror positively perilous to his life, and that Mr. Gray's position as High Sheriff,—which makes him personally re- sponsible for the custody of the jurors,—had greatly aggravated his offence. Mr. Justice Lawson paid a warm tribute to the ability and acuteness of the jury in the Hynes trial, and declared his absolute confidence that they had been perfectly guiltless of the misconduct imputed to them in Mr. W. O'Brien's letter, conduct assumed by Mr. Gray's own article to be imputed on trustworthy evidence. It was on behalf of the independence and safety of jurors, that the Judge imposed on Mr. Gray the severe penalty inflicted.
