The trial of Sir Roger Casement on a charge of
high treason began In the High Court on Monday before the Lord Chief Justice, Mr. Justice Avery, and Mr. Justice Horridge, with a jury. Much of the evidence was the same that was heard in the Police Court proceedings. We have referred to the evidence as to the attempt to seduce Irish prisoners of war in our leading columns. An inter- esting side-point was the statement of Mr. John McCarthy—the man who discovered Casement's boat—that he left his house on Good Friday morning about two o'clock in the dark in order to "say a few prayers at the welL" He had heard "the old people" say that the well was holy. One wonders what relic of ancient, perhaps pre-Christian, worship is embodied in this practice. It is said that in Italy the "old worship" continues—the worship of the old Roman gods attached to Christian forms, and perhaps transfigured by them, but still deriving directly from antiquity— and it is conceivable that in Ireland old rites linger in a new setting.
Previous page
