We will not say that the Irish Americans exceeded themselves
in the composition of Mr. Fitzgerald's address, published on Thursday, asking for a subscription to defend Mr. Parnell,— for, if we may be permitted a thoroughgoing Irish " bull," they always exceed themselves, and therefore cannot be charged with doing so in any especial sense on this occasion,—but still, Mr. Fitzgerald must be pronounced to have done very credit- ably,—very creditably indeed. This gentleman knows all about the course of the Scotch trial before it takes place, if ever, indeed, it does take place :—" Armed with unanswerable evidence, Mr. Parnell asks a jury of honest Scotchmen to convict the proprietors of the Times of uttering forged letters, and of attempting by such criminal means to destroy the reputations of honest men. Great issues hang upon this trial. A verdict against the Times will cover with deserved infamy the cowardly and murderous Cabinet of Lord Salisbury, and disgust every man not altogether blind to decency with a Government capable of descending to measures so unutterably vile." " Measures so unutterably vile " mean, we presume, the appointment of a Judicial Commission over which the Government will have no more power than they have over the Supreme Court of the United States, to investigate the matter. That is pretty good, but this is better :—" The coffers of the London Times will be supplemented by secret-service money at the disposal of the Government, and no means that can safely help to defeat the ends of justice will be left untried by this Cabinet so experienced in all darksome ways abhorrent to all honest men." The horror of secrecy felt by the friends of the Clan-na-Gael is like "honest Iago's " frank and straightforward reprobation of anything like base in- sinuations.
