A meeting was held in the Phcenix Park on Saturday
last to protest against the continued imprisonment of Thomas Moroney, the farmer who was sent to gaol more than a year ago by the Judge of the Bankruptcy Court, Judge Boyd, for refusing to be examined as to how he had made away with property under the "Plan of Campaign." Moroney might, of course, purge his contempt at any moment by stating that he would answer the questions of the Judge, and be thereupon immediately released ; but this he steadily refuses to do. If it were a matter of conscience, there might be some sympathy for the man in his determination ; but since he is simply resolved to openly defy the jurisdiction of the Bank- ruptcy Court, it is a little too much to expect the British public to accept him as a burning patriot. For all that, however, Mr. Sexton, M.P., Mr. O'Brien, M.P., and Mr. T. D. Sullivan, M.P., in their speeches at the meeting, exhausted all the adjectives at their command to denounce the oppressors, and to proclaim Moroney as a high-souled defender of the oppressed. It is needless to say that the Courts will not be coerced by such stuff as this. Judges, even in the case of the semi-lunatics who have to be imprisoned for disobeying the orders of the Court, find it difficult to grant a release unless there is some show of submission. In a case like Moroney's, although no one wishes for his further imprisonment, it would be nearly impossible to let him out unless he acknowledged the authority of the Court. His original defiance was peculiarly flagrant. He would not even allow himself to be sworn.
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