Mr. Carson, M.P., points out, in a striking letter to
Monday's, Times, that we must not infer from the outcry of the Irish Home-rulers against the recent dynamite outrage in Dublin, that if the criminals were detected, and were found to belong to the Fenian party, we should not have just as much indig- nation against those who advocate stringent justice, as we had after the Phcenix Park murders, when all Ireland rang (at first) with denunciations of the crime. Mr. Curran then con- ducted the private inquiry which led to the conviction of the assassins ; and yet, when later, Mr. Curran was appointed County Court Judge of Kerry, he was denounced by a parish priest of the county, Father Quilter, as "a cool, Star-Chamber County Court Judge who put his pen to the death-sentence of seventy families;" and United Ireland talked of Mr. Curran as "the wretched man," and exulted over him, because "his days are lived out in the cold shadow of constant and deadly fear." Mr. Carson suggests, not unreasonably, that if the Dublin magistrate (Mr. O'Donel), now entrusted with the inquiry into the dynamite outrage should succeed in finding the true culprit, he may yet be pointed at by the Nationalist Press with the same finger of scorn. It would be rather astonishing, indeed, if he were not.
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