The State Trial in Dublin ended, on Tuesday, in a
failure.. The evidence as to some of the traversers strikes Englishmen as irresistible, and as to two of them was scarcely denied, and the Judge, though carefully impartial, charged strongly for convic- tion, instructing the Jury, however, not to distinguish between the defendants. " If," he said, " you acquit the other twelve- defendants, you should acquit Nally and Gordon." The Jury, however, acquitted nobody, and found no one guilty. Availing themselves of the preposterous system of English law, under which one obstinate juryman can defeat the whole machinery of justice, they reported that they were " Not agreed, nor likely to agree ;" and the Judge refusing to lock them up, they were discharged, and the trial ended. Its only result has been to show that in Ireland political prosecutions are useless, and to raise the question whether the first necessity of the country is not the reform of the Jury system. The best defence for coercion is that, practically, there are no tribunals in the island which in times of political excitement can be relied on to do their duty.
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