We do not understand the importance given to the case
of Mr. Wilfrid Blunt. That gentleman, a poet, a scholar, and a wealthy man, but altogether wrongheaded in politics, con- sidered the conduct of the Government in proclaiming a meeting at Woodford oppressive, and to test its legality resisted and defied the police. He was very properly arrested, taken before a Magistrate, and sentenced, like any ordinary disturber, to two months' imprisonment, being at the same time released on bail until his appeal could be heard. What is there marvellous in that, either on Mr. Blunt's side, or that of the Government ? No great legal question ever arises without something of the kind being done, usually by somebody of Mr. Bluut's kind, with plenty of courage, a love of conspicuousness, fanatic political feeling, and unbalanced judgment. It is nonsense to argue that Mr. Blunt has any privilege above the commonest of the community ; but it should be remembered that he did not, as most Nationalists try to do, at once defy the law and evade it. He insisted on being arrested. We are all beginning to make mountains of molehills, and to discuss the pettier inci- dents of the Irish Secession like old women round a tea-table.
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