Mr. Justice Lawson has unseated the Member for Galway, Mr.
F. H. O'Donnell, on evidence of the strength of which, from the reports of the trial we have hitherto seen, we cannot form any just estimate. But if the Times report of Thursday be, so far as. it goes, accurate, Mr. Justice Lawson has not allowed that dis- trust of his impartiality in a quarrel between Catholics and Pro- testants, which the Irish Memberadisplayed in Parliament, to make him cautious of using wounding and contemptuous expressions towards Irish Catholics. A witness, apparently the Rev. Mr. Comyns, deposed that he took to the printer's the MS. of a placard which treated Mr. Joyce, the defeated candidate, hs the apologist of Judge Keogh's famous Galway Judgment, and the witness added that whilst he could not dispute the legality of that judgment, "he, in common with many other Catholics, was deeply pained at the language in which it was. delivered," whereupon Mr. Justice Lawson is reported to have remarked that "he was sure the learned judge would be gratified to hear it." If this were really said, Mr. Justice Lawson flung, not only in his own name, but in that of Mr. Justice Keogh, a. very weak, as well as imprudent taunt at the Catholics of-Ireland. Why should any judge be gratified to hear that Catholics had been deeply pained at the language of his judgment, unless it were on the assumption that they deserved pain for their sympathy with intimidation ? And is that a decent imputation to cast on the Church of three-fourths of the Irish people? When Mr. Justice Lawson was in the House of Commons, he was not accus- tomed to use words idly, or worse than idly, after-this fashion.
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