The resolution of Irishmen to pardon criminals and not suffer
the law to be executed is becoming universal. Even civil orders in bankruptcy are resisted by force where the subject-matter is agrarian, and at Limerick it has been found necessary to "adjourn all remaining cases for trial to the next assizes," only two con- victions having been obtained in a whole list of criminal cases, and these for minor offences. The juries even acquitted in cases where no witnesses were called for the defence. On Thursday, Judge O'Brien, addressing the Grand Jury of Kerry, declared "the law has been defeated, or perhaps I should rather say has ceased to exist." " When I come to compare the official returns of crime with the preceding period, I find the total number of offences committed in this country since last assizes is less than in the corresponding period of last year. But the diminution of number affords no assurance or ground of improvement, for I find the diminution accounted for entirely in the class of offences that acknowledge to some extent the power and influence of the law—namely, in threatening letters and notices—while the amount of open and actual crime is greater than it was in the former period, showing that there is an increased confidence in impunity, and that menace has given place to the deed." The Judge is wrong upon one point. The law has not ceased to exist. It still fetters the wronged classes, who, but for it, would organise armed parties, hire followers, and in six months probably liberate the country from its anarchy. Ireland is suffering the evils of savage life, plus the evils of high civilisation.
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