19 MARCH 1870, Page 12

The Home Secretary has put out a statement contradicting in

very many important particulars O'Donovan Rossa's account of his prison sufferings, and showing them to be apparently wilfully coloured in many other particulars. He has been very violent at times with his warders, and on such occasions he has been ironed, —" a form of restraint found necessary in the case of very few prisoners." His diet is asserted to have been sufficient and good, and in proof of it, it is alleged that he has even improved in health. He has been allowed to write a great number of letters, but letters filled with false statements as to his treatment are not sent. He was "thoroughly searched" (? stripped) three or four times be- cause detected in attempts to pass out surreptitious correspond- ence,—which is the only foundation of fact for his statement that "he was stripped naked to be searched every day in February and until May, 1867." On the whole, it would seem certain that O'Donovan Rossa's letter in the Alarseillaise is not only untrust- worthy, but full of wilful misstatements. Still, if our Law as to the punishment of political offenders had been the same with that which is now proposed for North Germany, there would have been no room for misstatements of the sort. A political prisoner openly resisting lawful authority should be shot, but he should not be put to penal servitude.