Sir Watkin Williams made a serious mistake on Christmas Day,
in his speech to a literary gathering held at Ebenezer, near Carnarvon. He spoke of two classes of law-breakers,—the Ritualist clergymen and the Irish peasants, who had many points in common, though he intimated pretty clearly that he regarded the latter as much the more excusable of the two. Judges who may by possibility have to deal with the offences of which they speak, are very unwise when they indicate so clearly beforehand what their proposeession is in regard to them. Indeed, the Judges have usually felt that it is very desirable to be as reticent as possible in relation to their political opinions,—and that they should be not merely reticent, but even, so far as may be, averse to concerning themselves closely with political passions at all. We are far from denying the advantage of the plea of ignor- ance to the Irish peasants who are now engaged in persecuting their landlords. We would, indeed, strenuously urge that plea in extenuation of their offences. But it does seem extrava- gantly unjust to imply that acts of bad-faith, violence, and. brutality are intrinsically less culpable than acts of a perverse scrupulosity, which injure nobody except those who persist in them, and which, however irrationally, are sincerely believed by the agents to be required by the letter of their ecclesiastical obligations. Sir Watkin Williams will hardly improve his judicial reputation, by this superfluous sally into a rather heated region of political passion.
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